He could no more control the Arab street than he could the behind-the-scenes machinations of a tin-pot thug like Vladimir Putin.

CNN: Obama on world stage: More hope than change?

If situations such as Syria make us look too timid about needed intervention, it can be as dangerous and provocative internationally as when tin-pot troublemakers such as Kim Jong Un bang the table and cry for attention.

CNN: Does North Korea think U.S. going soft?

But there had been no true words for the act then: rape was what occurred when some maniac jumped on you out of a bush, not when your formal-dance date drove you to a side road in the mangy twice-cut forest surrounding a tin-pot mining town and told you to drink up like a good girl and then took you apart, layer by torn layer.

NEWYORKER: Stone Mattress

He holds a silver tin of emerald-green spinach that could also be a pot of money.

ECONOMIST: Goddesses, hulks and cartoons inspire Jeff Koons