The XX Factor: What women really think.

Get Out Those Xmas Lists

For those of you still suffering from post-holiday doldrums, or recovering from sticker shock over post-holiday credit card bills, or already thinking about Christmas 2009—even if in a post-economic meltdown mindset—here's a gift idea to file away for your Xmas shopping list under "practical" or "unique" or even "exclusive yet affordable." A simple yet elegantly titled book called Selected Speeches by Michael Chertoff, our former homeland security chief, is now available for only a select few in Washington.  

In it, Chertoff, who was not known for possessing soaring Obama-style oratory skills or for being a dynamic speaker who engages his audiences, regales readers with various speeches he made during his tenure. It includes such stunningly beautiful prose as:

If we are going to arrive at a day when terrorism no longer casts a dark cloud over the civilized world, we have to be prepared to advance international cooperation to hitherto unseen heights. And that's because ... terrorism is also spreading its ideology of hatred and intolerance around the world, and we have to match it in geographic location point by point.

A Washington Post writer suggests the book would be a perfect gift for the sleep-challenged, and as a shameless and unreformed Ambien user, I agree. I imagine keeping SS by my bedside at the ready for when the countless sheep keep sleep at bay, picking it up and turning a page or two and falling into a deep slumber in a matter of minutes—without having to worry about dangerous side effects like sleepwalking, sleep-driving, or horror of horrors, sleep-eating.

I can get my ZZZs in, minus the calories, and wake up refreshed and more enlightened about the security of our homeland. Fat brain without the fat ass. Sweet! Thanks Mike, you've done a heck of a job.