Before certain papers report a cardboard trend story of the following fact, allow me to state it first: Debate parties are the latest ticket du jour. The Box, the oft decadent lounge more apt to stage strippers, fire eaters, midgets, Madonna, and Jude Law, hosted one last night. I won't add a lot of stale quotes to support this trend. You can get that in Sunday's paper.

So moving on, as pundits on PBS call for more debate poetry rather than prose and prescribed politics, I call attention to one Canadian poet moving around Europe right now: Leonard Cohen. The man who wrote, "So Long Marianne, Suzanne, and Hallelujah" still looking sharp in a fedora and jacket, still brings us together in a deep husk via words and stories and feelings that tie humanity across the globe.

L- R: Charley and Hattie Webb: My pick for style "it girls"When Tom Ford threw a party for the launch of his fragrance two years ago, one of his PR reps asked me who would be an A list musical act to feature in a sophisticated salon. "Hands down, Leonard Cohen." I answered. Ford's original choice was Justin Timberlake. He went with Jennifer Hudson. Cohen didn't even strike a cord. I probably spent too many afternoons on a porch swing in Tours France hearing my foreign host, a hippie graphic designer named Daniel sing Suzanne too many times. Still, I hope that Cohen opens an American leg of his tour, especially since he's employed two gals called the Webb sisters to sing along with him. I submit that these twentysomething ladies-- both British musicians, a harpist and a pianist among myriad other instruments -- replace the Olsen twins as style icons.

Not only are they gorgeous, they sound like angels or Kate Bush, whichever comes to mind first. (Any of you boys remember the ethereal Ms. Bush? How many wet dreams happened under her guise? So many of you kept her posters over the bed in the late Eighties and early Nineties! Puts lip synching Britney Spears to shame!)

I know Vogue will rip me off on this one. I'll be winking when that March issue features these two lovely Webbs. But I'll also be smiling that talent reigns out, as will hopefully happen in this presidential election. Remember, you heard it here first! Talent, not image or mainstream might should prevail. The only Bush we should recall fondly is Kate.

[Cross-posted from It's That Time Again!, a blog by Susan Miriam Kirschbaum, the art and fashion world's Jewciest commentator.]

Anyone who has traveled to Israel and picked up a phone is familiar with Bezeq, the wireless telephone service provider, which up until recently had a monopoly on cell phone service in the country. With the advent of HOT's cable package, which includes wireless and internet service, Bezeq is now experiencing a flood of customers making exodus. One of these recent converts shares his feelings regarding the transition:

Things have improved greatly in the last decade or so, but with Bezeq's monopoly cracked and the market opening up, the options have become too numerous and attractive to pass up.

So, for the first time in 21 years, we're no longer paying a Bezeq bill! We've gotten rid of our Bezeq home phone number and moved over to HOT – a cable TV provider that also provides internet service, and recently began offering HOT phone numbers in an economical overall package.

It must be similar to the feeling when Americans no longer had to rely on the life support teat provided by Ma Bell, but the sense of liberation is evident – no more convoluted bills that are impossible to decipher.

When I sent around an email with our new number, one friend, who just founded his own company, responded that he too wanted to get rid of his Bezeq number, but was afraid to deal with it.

'Are you nuts? You started your own company! You can't do a little thing like switch your phone company?' I responded.

His answer -

'You tell me - what's easier to deal with:

a) making a living, income tax authority, value added tax authority, national insurance, accountants, printers, etc or

b) Bezeq'

So, I'm here to tell my friend, and all others who feel like him that the years of fear and intimidation are over - you can take the destiny of your own phone number into your own hands!

Ain't democracy grand?