WHY NOT US?

REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS ISSUE WARNS AGAINST "PRO-AMERICANISM" (IPS, 4/30/03)

As Iranians expresses more and more their wishes to see the Americans take action against the present regime, the Revolutionary Guards issued warnings against those who call for normalising relations with the United States.

"The Revolutionary Guards would issues warnings and cautions for the society whenever it feel it is needed. This is one of its duties to enter the arena when it considers it as a necessity", said Mr. Ali Sa'idi, the acting Representative of the leader at the Army of the Guards of the Islamic Revolution, better known as Pasdaran, or Revolutionary Guards.

This was the Pasdaran's second stern warnings in as many days, coming after foreign media reported of wide spread and generalised deception of the Iranians with the present rule of hard line clerics.

In an article carried on its 25 April issue, the influential French daily "Le Monde" said the Iranian rulers are worried by a "fierce pro-Americanism" expressed by the Iranian population. "They are especially worried of the vox populi, that asks for a change of the regime with the help of the American marines", the daily wrote in an article dated from Tehran.

"If one admits that the Iraqis are delighted with Saddam Hoseyn's end, one must also think about the possibility that maybe, the Iranians would celebrate at the end of the Islamic Republic as well", the paper quoted Mr. Behzad Nabavi, an influential member of the reformist camp and a Majles Deputy-speaker. [...]

According to "Le Monde", most Iranians are openly calling for American intervention in Iran.

"We don't want the Islamic Republic anymore", an architect told the paper on condition of anonymity. "It took us a quarter of century to realise that the revolution is a failure", he added, calling like many other Iranians, for the American help for change the regime".

"The Afghans and the Iraqis have been freed from dictatorships, why not us?" a filmmaker said.

Here's why we're unfazed by the prospect of an Iraqi Islamic Republic oriented towards Iran. The Islamic revolution happened first there and has already been adjudged a failure, as all totalitarianisms must be once they're tested in the real world.

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THERE WERE GIANTS IN THE LAND

Lady Thatcher, the video star (Mark Davies, 4/30/03, BBC)

This probably wasn't what the doctors had in mind. Lurking in the shadows stage left, clutching her handbag close to her as ever, Lady Thatcher prepared to make her entrance.

The former prime minister is, of course, under orders from her physicians never to speak in public again.

Perhaps they forgot to add: "Oh yes, and no appearances before capacity crowds at one of London's most prestigious venues."

We were at the Royal Albert Hall to see the living legend in the flesh, to hear words of wisdom, to be awed by astonishing commitment and remarkable achievements.

And after Sir Steve Redgrave had finished, we were to be granted a few moments of Lady Thatcher's time. [...]

The interview was, we were told, her first for two years. And, said proud interviewer Andrew Main Wilson, the institute's chief operating officer, it might even be the last she ever grants. [...]

In essence, Lady Thatcher's message was that she'd duffed up the unions big style, saved Britain from the socialist plague, won a war and transformed the economy.

There was classic Thatcher too. The miners' strike - that "last gasp of militancy" - had been a victory, she said. Mr Blair and the Labour Party sound too much like us

And then she lowered her voice in the way she does when she really wants to stress her point: "You could say that by the end of it the extremists had lost. But I prefer to say that ... Britain ... had ...won."

As for Tony Blair, he won brickbats and bouquets. His handling of the war, for instance, was top notch.

He understands business too, she suggested.

But his wider philosophy took a drubbing. You can't have a "middle way" - Tony prefers to call it the third way, but we all knew what she was talking about - between capitalism and socialism, she said.

And as for those people who flounder around scratching their heads wondering "what works", well really....

"I have always known what works - free enterprise works, limited government works, encouraging initiative and responsibility works," she said.

It's all OK, though, because Tony Blair is pretty much following her creed.

Indeed, the transformation of the economy by her government had also transformed Labour, she said. On that, many Labour supporters will agree and you don't come across that sort of alliance very often.

"Indeed, that has been a bit of a problem for the Conservatives - Mr Blair and the Labour Party sound too much like us," she said.

But the danger within is still lurking, Lady Thatcher warned, citing "irresponsible" policies of tax and spend as showing Labour's true colours.

Public spending is growing too fast, taxes are being raised, Gordon Brown's forecasts are dubious.

Trade unions are finding their feet again, Europe is imposing red tape. As for the euro, joining would only make matters worse.

"This does not signal a wholesale return to the 1970s, but it does mean that Britain is now moving in the wrong direction towards the failed European model and high spending, high taxing and high regulation," she told Mr Main Wilson.

"So I am very concerned for the country's future if those trends continue."

That said, she didn't think the government would take the plunge and recommend euro membership.

Good to see she too thinks Tony Blair her protege.

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THANK GOODNESS FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Mysterious Decline-Where Are the Men on Campus? (Glenn Sacks on 04/30/03, American Daily)

Everybody wants to know where all the men have gone. The Washington Post calls their disappearance the "question that has grown too conspicuous to ignore," and USA Today notes "universities fret about how to attract males as women increasingly dominate campuses."

Females now outnumber males by a four to three ratio in American colleges, a difference of almost two million students. Men earn only 43% of all college degrees. Among blacks, two women earn bachelor's degrees for every man. Among Hispanics, only 40 percent of college graduates are male. Female high school graduates are 16% more likely to go to college than their male counterparts.

"This is new. We have thrown the gender switch," says Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men. "What does it mean in the long run that we have females who are significantly more literate, significantly more educated than their male counterparts? It is likely to create a lot of social problems. This does not bode well for anyone."

"As a nation, we simply can't afford to have half of our population not developing the skill sets that we are going to need to go into the future," says Susan L. Traiman, director of the Business Roundtable's education initiative.

Researchers from Harvard University, the University of Michigan and the United Negro College Fund have now agreed to study the issue.

"This is a powerful issue we need to stop talking about in generalities and really dig into," says Michael L. Lomax, president of Dillard University in New Orleans. "We just can't figure out how to get more male applicants, and we're not going to turn students down on the basis on gender," Lomax says. "I don't understand what is happening in the male community that is making education seem less attractive and less compelling."

The trend is unmistakable and some fear it is irreversible. Men made up the majority of college graduates when the first national survey was conducted in 1870. Except during World War II, when slightly more females enrolled than men, males were in the majority until men?s graduation rate began to decline in the late 1970s. By the early 1980s women began to represent the majority of graduates.

In total, the U.S. Department of Education estimates that 698,000 women received bachelor's degrees in 2002, compared to 529,000 men.

Gee, who'da thought that several decades of systematic discrimination against men would have an effect? Luckily, thanks to affirmative action, we can just let in a bunch of unqualified men until it gets back to 50/50.

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SOMETIMES I ENVY THE OMEGA MAN

: Talk of brainstorming 'may offend epileptics' (Liz Lightfoot, 26/04/2003, Daily Telegraph))

The term "brainstorming" has become the latest target of political correctness, according to a charity.

Trainee teachers are being told to avoid the word for fear of offending pupils with epilepsy. Instead they are being advised to use "word storm" or "thought shower".

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THE NEXT JOHN McCAIN

Democratic presidential candidates attempt to pick up Sen. McCain’s maverick mantle (The Hill, 4/30/2003)

As the 2004 presidential campaign heats up, Democratic hopefuls are competing in ... what some political operatives are calling the “McCain primary.”

While Democratic operatives cautioned that it may be too early to declare a winner in this category, they say former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is emerging as the frontrunner to become the Democratic avatar of Sen. John McCain....

“To be frank, almost any Democrat would like to have the ex-McCain [mantle]. There’s a tremendous benefit there,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster....

Other pollsters and operatives agree that there’s a race among Democrats to be anointed as this year’s straight-talking candidate as they attempt to re-create McCain’s success in appealing to independents and swing voters....

“Dean is the most McCain-like character because he doesn’t waver in his opinions,” said Lake....

Veteran Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said: “There’s no doubt that Howard Dean has the buzz around him like McCain did”...

It hardly strikes fear into Republican hearts that the Democrats want to model their 2004 campaign on that of a guy George Bush defeated handily in 2000.

But this McCain-philia gives me a thought. It's possible that Dean will win the nomination: Democratic senators are largely discredited, and primary voters know that the last two Dem winners were governors. But Dean would be vulnerable in the general election because of his hard-left stands, and will need a running mate who balances the ticket. What better balance could there be than John McCain as VP on the first bipartisan ticket?

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EXPECTATIONS AND REALITIES

A new Iraq: Media memo: Time to learn history lessons (James Lindgren, April 27, 2003, Chicago Tribune)

We are playing a game of expectations--some reasonable, some not. Like a New Hampshire primary in which a winner is treated as a loser because he did not win by as wide a margin as pundits expected, the war's domestic opponents keep raising the bar for success.

Predictions of enormous coalition and Iraqi civilian losses, a bloody battle for Baghdad and the ultimate quagmire melted into the Iraqi countryside along with scores of thousands of Republican Guard. With the war being easier than nearly everyone expected two weeks ago, people now are worrying about a humanitarian crisis.

A few days ago Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld referred to the continuing confusion and death in Iraq as "untidiness"--a euphemism for something far more serious. Yet community upheavals can be deadly--even in the absence of war, cruise missiles, and attack helicopters.

Just last year, more than 200 people died in riots in Nigeria over newspaper comments about the Miss World contest. In the three days of burning and looting in the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, 52 people died and 1,200 businesses were destroyed. Looting was also a big part of the 1990 Detroit Pistons riots, which killed 7 people. In the 1993 Chicago Bulls riots, our fellow Chicagoans killed 3, shot 20 more people, looted 197 businesses, and damaged more police cars than the chase scenes in "The Blues Brothers" movie--139 cruisers in all.

These numbers, of course, are mere shadows of what can happen when a people are freed from colonial rule and millions are forced to relocate, as happened in 1947 with the partition of India and Pakistan. In a recent issue of the scholarly journal Asian Ethnicity, professor Ishtiag Ahmed offers estimates that 2 million people were killed and 750,000 women raped in the violence accompanying the partition. [...]

The French were so angry after only four brutal years of Nazi occupation that more than 9,000 collaborators were summarily killed at the end of the war, according to standard academic accounts. And these vigilantes were the oh-so-civilized French.

The comparison problem goes far deeper than even Mr. Lindgren suggests here, because by any impartial measure, WWII was a disaster for U.S. interests. The worst case scenario had we not intervened is that the Nazis and the Soviets would have settled in for a generation long war of attrition, at the end of which both or the "winner" would have been completely enfeebled. Had there been a "winner" they would then have had to occupy the incredibly hostile other. Had it been a draw, they'd have been tied down by concerns that the whole thing could start over again. At any rate, it's impossible to imagine either or both nations being able to control conquered nations, like France and whonot, for very long given this self-inflicted damage. It seems likely that , within a span of no more than twenty or thirty years, most, if not all, of the nations of Central and Eastern Europe would have been able to reassert their independence and in all likelihood, even the government of Germany and Russia would have faced significant internal unrest.

What did we get instead, by intervening?--even setting aside the monetary and human costs of "winning" WWII, we then paid far higher costs for a 50 year Cold War, while half of Germany, all of Russia, and all of Europe East of Berlin suffered under communist tyranny. Because we helped the Soviets to prevail in WWII, communism was seen to be a viable system and was adopted in places like China, Vietnam, N. Korea, Cuba, etc., all with disastrous results for the people there, and here.

For purposes of comparison, in order for the Iraqi peace to turn out as badly as the end of WWII did the South, along with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Gulf States, Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, & Afghanistan would have to be subsumed by an Iran that then remained radical Islamic and became expansionist for the next five decades. During this entire period we'd have to pump an average of twice what we are now spending into the Defense Department, while intervening in inhuman civil wars in various Muslim states around the periphery of this new menace that we'd be seeking to "contain". As a result of this over-extension on our part, we would have significant dissent and resulting repression at home, be forced to buy off the Democrats with ever increasing social spending, etc., etc., etc. This was what our "victory" over Nazism and the process of defeating communism looked like. There is simply no possibility that the aftermath of the war on terror will turn out worse.

Which brings us to another essay, this one discussing Paul Berman's new book, The Orwell Temptation: Are intellectuals overthinking the Middle East? (Joshua Micah Marshall, May 2003, Washington Monthly)

May you live, as the Chinese curse has it, in interesting times. For the last 18 months, we've all been living in "interesting times"--often frightfully so. Yet for intellectuals there is always a craving that times would be ... well, just a little more interesting.

That's been especially true for the last half century because a shadow has hung over political intellectuals in the English-speaking world, and in some respects throughout the West. It is the shadow of the ideological wars (and the blood-and-iron wars) that grew out of World War I--from communism, to fascism, appeasement, vital-center liberalism, and the rest of it. Even as these struggles congeal into history, their magnitude and seriousness hardly diminish. Understanding fascism, understanding that it could be neither accommodated nor appeased, understanding that Soviet communism was really rather like fascism--these were much more than examples of getting things right or of demonstrating intellectual courage and moral seriousness. These insights, decisions, and moments of action came to define those qualities.

Since then, things have never been quite the same. Like doctors who want to treat the most challenging patients or cops who want to take down the worst criminals, it's only natural for people who think seriously about political and moral issues to seek out the most challenging and morally vexing questions to ponder and confront. Yet, since the Cold War hit its middle period in the late 1950s, nothing has really quite compared. For a time, the struggles of the 1960s came to rival those heady days from earlier in the century. But the tenor was too antic, the stakes too meager, and the legacy too mixed to ever quite match up. And while momentous, the collapse of communism in the late 1980s was bittersweet for intellectuals. In his essay "The End of History," Francis Fukuyama even posited that history had "ended" with the collapse of communism, ushering in an era in which there would be no more great debates or challenges, but rather a bourgeois millennium of endlessly growing investment funds, a brave new world of consumer appliances. Later, the Balkans provided a crisis of moral weight sufficient to rival those earlier times--especially for those writers and journalists, mostly on the center-left, who had the courage and intrepidity to go there. But Yugoslavia's collapse was essentially a local affair, with no clear connections to the world beyond the mangled and rancid history of the region.

September 11 changed all that. Al Qaeda's war on America and America's war on terrorism provided just such a vast field for thought and action. In the months after the attacks, especially on the right, writers began identifying the radical Islamist menace with fascism--Islamo-fascism, as the catch phrase had it. The idea that the war on terror should be seen as the latter-day equivalent or extension of the battles against last century's totalitarianisms has been bandied about in opinion columns and magazine articles for more than a year with varying degrees of seriousness. Paul Berman's new book Terror and Liberalism aims to give it intellectual ballast, a moral seriousness, and analytic grounding. [...]

The heart of Berman's argument is that the violence of al Qaeda is neither simply the extreme response of an oppressed group nor the alien and unknowable product of a religion and culture fundamentally different from our own. Much of the book's first half is taken up with an effort to show that Islamism is ideologically and historically tied to the extremism's that rocked Europe and most of the rest of the world through much of the 20th century. Berman's most powerful passages are those that show the deep similarities between radical, martyrdom-obsessed Islam and the nihilist, irrationalist totalitarian movements of the early and middle 20th century. (In arguing that Baathist Arab nationalism is a latter-day variant of fascism, he seems on considerably weaker ground.)

Berman forces his readers to see the irrationalism of the extremist branch of political Islam, recognizing that the movement is not just anti-American or violent or dangerous but, in fact, deeply pathological. Like every extremist movement that posits a sufficiently transcendent utopia, it is capable of rationalizing almost any degree of brutality and butchery in achieving that goal. In radical Islamism, as in the totalitarianisms of the past, one sees the same mixture of ancient, seemingly immutable, and thus reassuring beliefs coming into vexed confrontation with modernity--and producing some hideous amalgam that combines the worst of the two. One is reminded of Churchill's warning that Nazism might cast the world into "a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of a perverted science." [...]

Berman, in other words, seeks to lay the template of fascism and anti-fascist commitment onto the current reality of fanatical Islamic terrorism and Arab nationalist authoritarianism. Yet reading his book one cannot help but feel that the equation never quite works. There are similarities both meaningful and suggestive. But the analogy is not only incomplete, it is fundamentally wrong. One can recognize the grave dangers posed by radical Islamism without forcing it into a mold in which it does not fit.

One of the book's shortcomings is Berman's argument that the world of Islam and its fanaticisms are really not so exotic or distinct from the intellectual and ideological history of Europe. When one considers the long relationship between Christianity and Islam, as well as the more recent interpenetrations brought about by Western colonialism, there is much to be said for this argument. But Berman would have to be much more thoroughly grounded in Islamic theology and history to make that argument credible, and he is quite candid with readers that this is a depth of expertise he lacks. A deeper shortcoming crops up when Berman begins to chart the course we must take to do battle against the Muslim totalitarian menace. Though the battle may sometimes require bullets and bombs, it is also a battle of ideas. That battle, Berman argues, will be principally fought in London and Paris, Jersey City and Lackawanna, the Buffalo suburb where six Yemeni immigrants recently pled guilty to visiting a bin Laden training camp in Afghanistan in 2001. [...]

When comparing "Muslim totalitarianism" to fascism, communism, or other totalitarian utopianisms, the most striking thing about radical Islamism, and the Muslim world generally, is not its strength but its weakness. Indeed, the weakness of the world of Islam--an ideology and culture that sees itself not only as superior to the West and the world's other great civilizations but as properly in the vanguard of history--is the kernel of the threat it poses, the heart of violent Islamism's toxicity. At the beginning of the 21st century most of the world is, for better or worse, rushing along the current of globalization. By any measure, the world of Islam lags far behind. With the exception of a few countries with vast amounts of wealth based on natural resources, it is impoverished and trailing the rest of the world on numerous fronts. Where is the great Muslim power? There is none. Where is the world of Islam's advanced technology-driven economy? There is none. [...]

If it weren't for the fact that fanatical Islamist terrorists might get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, the sad fact is that few would even care. Of course, the fact that they could get their hands on weapons of mass destruction is a serious caveat. But it does place the issue in a certain context. It is a grave threat, but in a very specific, physical way--a threat to liberal societies but hardly the kind of ideological or political threat that great totalitarianisms posed a half a century ago. Islamist fanatics might destroy a whole city in the West, a catastrophic event. But they'll never conquer or subvert a country. And this is the heart of the difference. To paraphrase Arthur Schlesinger, Islamism is a danger to the West but hardly a danger in the West--or China, or Latin America, or anywhere else where Islam is not already the dominant religion.

For intellectuals, however, there is always a temptation to take momentous, morally serious questions and make them out to be slightly more momentous and world-historical than they really are. Call it the Orwellian temptation. George Orwell not only epitomized what an intellectual can and should be. He has also become the symbol of the role the best intellectuals played in those critical mid-century years. Along the way, however, the image he cast--or rather his ghost, or his shade--has also become part of the pornography of intellectuals. Berman has given way to this craving.

Note the series of errors here, in fact the "Orwell Temptation" that Mr. Marshall has fallen prey to himself. He's absolutely right that Islamism is not a serious threat to subvert our government, but neither, as we've seen, were Nazism and communism. The desire to puff up the latter two "ism's" until we can pretend that they were dire threats to our very way of life is perfectly understandable; after all, we beat them and would like to freight that with as much meaning as we possibly can. Who that would celebrate themself and their nation would seek to minimize past victories? No, as Ernest Renan (1823-92) said: "To forget and--I will venture to say--to get one's history wrong are essential factors in the making of a nation."

Turning our attention back to Islamism though, even if we need not be concerned here in America it is certainly a threat to all of the non-fundamentalist nations in the Middle East, including several democracies (Israel, India & Turkey) and several soon-to-be-something-like-democracies (Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan). Furthermore, given demographic trends, it is a more serious threat to continental Europe than ever were fascism and communism, because where those were by their very nature only temporary pathologies, the
combination of Europe's imploding birth rates and the rise of an empowered and hostile Islamic soon-to-be-majority, could spell the end of European culture, even of Europeans, within a couple generations. Of course, this would be the expansionist phase, and just the energy and repeated successes would be enough to keep Islamism going. But then, when it stretched from Kashmir to the English Channel to Central Africa, the reality of governing would set in and, like the other totalitarianism, it would be doomed to fall apart quite quickly. If Iran is a reliable indicator--and given the advantages it started out with thanks to the Westernizing of the Shah it probably offers the best case scenario, not an average one--totalitarian Islam has a life expectancy of about twenty years, or one generation. Still, over the period of expansion and then rule it would be a rival we'd have to worry about, so though not really a threat to us, it would inevitably become a focus of our policy. When you add to this prospect the likelihood of weapons of mass destruction proliferating--for instance, if we fail to attack North Korea, it will soon be building and selling nuclear weapons hand over fist--and the willingness of the Osama bin Ladens of the world to use them, and you have a world situation that is certainly no less threatening than the ones that led to WWII and the Cold War respectively. The three conflicts, just like the three totalitarianisms, are of a sameness.

So, why then does Mr. Marshall dismiss this threat? Because, of course, he opposes the wars on terror that we're waging now. Fifty years ago, he'd have been opposing the Cold War and writing the exact same column only telling us that George Orwell had succumbed to temptation by inflating communism into as great a menace as Nazism. And, fifty years from now, when we're squaring off against some new "ism" and Islamism is long since gone, some successor, or maybe Mr. Marshall himself (God willing), will be writing about how, though we obviously had to take on Islamism, just as we had to fight Nazism and communism, this new "ism", though yet another iteration of totalitarianism, is of an entirely different nature, because it's not really a threat and anyone who believes it is has given way to the craving.

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Abu Mazen Funded Munich Massacre (Arutz Sheva, 4/30/2003)

Abu Mazen is ... connected with one of the 20th century's most infamous terrorist crimes: the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes - including American citizen David Berger - at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany in 1972.

Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, long the treasurer of the PLO, was the man who provided financing for that attack, according to information compiled by Israeli attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center.

Darshan-Leitner told Arutz-7 that PA sources themselves told her that it is ridiculous to claim that Abu Mazen was never involved in terrorism. In addition, Abu Daoud, who masterminded the Munich attack, has said that Abu Mazen provided the funds to carry it out. He made these charges in his autobiography, "Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich" (published in French in 1999) and again in an interview last August in Sports Illustrated magazine.

Public diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the last two years has been nothing but charade -- today's "roadmap" included. All the main parties believe that their advantage lies in delaying tactics. The U.S. thinks there is little chance to end Palestinian terrorism until the terror-sponsoring regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria have been changed, and Israel is going along. Arafat doesn't want to risk his power by too aggressive attacks on Israel, nor look powerless to the Palestinian people by ending attacks.

Mahmoud Abbas's appointment as figurehead is not meant to actually change the Palestinian Authority, but only to give the illusion of progress. Despite the public pretense of conflict between Arafat and Abbas, Abbas is surely as much Arafat's henchman as ever.

Real progress toward peace, I suspect, will come only after the 2004 election. And it will begin with the destruction of the Palestinian terrorist leadership -- Arafat, and Abbas as well if he does not reform.

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ANOTHER DARK DAY

I still think of Elian (Nat Hentoff, Jewish World Review)

As soon as Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, I saw on television the firing squad execution of an array of political prisoners, which he ordered. He then began filling his brutal prisons with Cubans whose sole crime was a desire to breathe freedom after the Batista dictatorship -- only to find themselves in another totalitarian quicksand.

At one point, interviewing the already legendary Che Guevara -- an international Cuban revolutionary icon -- at the Cuban mission to the United Nations, I asked him if he could foresee, anytime in the future, free elections in Cuba. Crisply dressed in his military outfit, Guevara burst out laughing at my callow naivete.

Having interviewed Cubans who survived Castro's gulags, I have never understood or respected the parade of American entertainers, politicians and intellectuals who travel to Cuba to be entranced by this ruthless dictator who, for me, has all the charisma of a preening thug, akin to any killer on "The Sopranos."

These Castro-philes are among those who discredit liberalism because they're unable to recognize and be repelled by unbridled evil. Consider Steven Spielberg, who has developed impressive resources through his Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation to keep alive the horrifying presence of the Holocaust. Yet, as quoted in the April 11 Wall Street Journal, Spielberg described his audience with Castro last November as "the eight most important hours of my life."

Was Spielberg's life that barren until those gloriously transcendent hours with the chief warden of Cuba's prisons?

From time to time, I still think of Elian Gonzalez, so vivid a free spirit here until condemned by Janet Reno and Bill Clinton to a land where schoolteachers must keep a record of any signs of their charges' lessening fealty to the relentless light of their lives.

At least Elian will be alive in a couple years when Cuba is a democracy again, one way or another. I think of his mother, who died that he might have a better life right then. In an administration not exactly filled with high points, the day they seized him to restore him to slavery was a particularly low one.

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BIG MO

Cheeks Lends Harmony To 1st Round of Playoffs (Michael Wilbon, April 29, 2003, Washington Post)

The lasting, even impacting impression from the NBA playoffs so far is not of Kevin Garnett exhorting his teammates from the bench during overtime, nor Tracy McGrady swooping toward the basket, nor Allen Iverson dropping a double-nickel on the Hornets. It's the unforgettable sight of Maurice Cheeks leaving his team's bench Friday in Portland to put his arm around 13-year-old Natalie Gilbert as she stood at mid-court holding a microphone but having fumbled the words to our national anthem, all alone and visibly in despair.

For 20 years, Marvin Gaye's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" has been, for my money, the most compelling rendition ever. But now, I've got a new favorite, the duet of Gilbert & Cheeks, impromptu, off-key, slapped together as it was. I get goose bumps every time I see the clip of Cheeks hugging Gilbert, telling her everything is going to be okay. People forget the lyrics to the national anthem every single night at a sporting event somewhere.

But when have you ever seen someone moved to the point of walking over to comfort the embarrassed singer, in this case somebody's scared little girl singing the national anthem in public for the first time? How often, in a sports setting, do we ever see such a demonstration of human kindness?

What an extraordinarily decent thing to do.

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KERRY BY DEFAULT

Slow start for Gephardt in Iowa money primary (Sam Dealey, 4/29/03, The Hill)

Where Rep. Richard Gephardt needs the most help to advance his presidential prospects, he isn?t getting it ? at least publicly.

Early support from two chief constituencies ? Iowans and organized labor ? that are essential to the White House hopes of the Missouri Democrat has been surprisingly tepid so far.

Documents filed with the Federal Election Commission show that Gephardt reported raising a scant $1,000 in all from only three donors in Iowa in the first quarter of 2003.

His presidential campaign amassed nearly $6 million during the same period, including $3.35 million from individuals. Candidates are required to report donations from individuals of $250 or more.

Gephardt?s campaign pooh-poohed the poor fundraising results in Iowa and said the $1,000 total does not adequately reflect the candidate?s support in the state, which he won in his first presidential outing, in 1988.

With its first-in-the-nation caucus, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 19, Iowa is a pivotal state for the Gephardt 2004 campaign. It was the only state he carried in his abortive 1988 presidential campaign, and his status as the only Midwesterner among Democratic frontrunners is presumably an asset. Additionally, Democratic politics in Iowa is dominated by organized labor, a constituency Gephardt has staunchly supported.

Given that he won there last time he ran, Gephardt really has to win and win big or his candidacy ends in IA, not that it survives getting buried in NH anyway....

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NOT DYING BY THE SWORD

Iraqis to form government within four weeks (James Drummond, April 28 2003, Financial Times)

The US-led administration in Iraq?on Monday?ended a meeting held to discuss the country's future, setting out guiding principles and agreeing to meet within three to four weeks to form an interim government.

The gathering, of about 200 delegates in the Baghdad conference centre attracted fewer, and less powerful, Iraqis than had been expected. While Saddam Hussein supporters celebrated the former dictator's 66th birthday, Shia groups sent only low-level delegates. Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the opposition Iraqi National Congress did not attend, sending a junior delegation. The religious establishment based in the southern city of Najaf, which claims to speak on behalf of Iraq's majority Shia community, sent no representatives.

The agreed principles stressed general issues such as democracy and the rule of law, but did not contain details of how the country would be governed. However, delegates welcomed the chance to express themselves in a way they could not under Mr Hussein. Splits emerged between returned Iraqi exiles and those who had lived through the Saddam years.

Here we see that despite the hawks' delusion that we'd stay and govern Iraq ourselves for a period of years, we'll instead, as was always inevitable, cede control just as quickly as we can, even though we don't know what the new state that emerges will look like. Call this, The Other Road Map.

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THE PERSISTENT PRESENCE OF ABSENCE

:Geologists Raise Questions About Controversial Theory Of Species Survival (Space Daily, 4/30/03)

First proposed in 1995 by Carl Brett of the University of Cincinnati and Gordon Baird of the State University of New York at Fredonia, coordinated stasis attempts to describe the emergence and disappearance of species across geologic time by suggesting that species living together in the same environment go through long periods of stability--some six million years—and then undergo a rapid, almost complete turnover, during which old species disappear and new ones emerge.

A recent study by a team of Syracuse University geologists has punched holes in a relatively new theory of species evolution called coordinated stasis; the theories involved are based on findings from fossil-bearing rocks that underlie Central New York. The SU study was published in "Geology," the premier journal of the Geological Society of America.

First proposed in 1995 by Carl Brett of the University of Cincinnati and Gordon Baird of the State University of New York at Fredonia, coordinated stasis attempts to describe the emergence and disappearance of species across geologic time by suggesting that species living together in the same environment go through long periods of stability—some six million years—and then undergo a rapid, almost complete turnover, during which old species disappear and new ones emerge.

Until 1995, most researchers believed that species emerged and disappeared independent of each other throughout time.

"Our study suggests that there may be more variability in species composition through time than predicted by coordinated stasis," says Linda Ivany, one of the co-authors of the SU study. "It will be the blueprint study against which other researchers will present their data sets to determine whether coordinated stasis is present or not."

Darn! It would be nice to be able to explain a long period of stasis in all species at any given time, especially since we're ostensibly in one right now. Either that or it would be helpful if something would evolve, even just a little.

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THE DARKEST DAY

Communists Take Over Saigon; U.S. Rescue Fleet Is Picking Up Vietnamese Who Fled in Boats (George Esper, 4/30/03, The Associated Press)

Communist troops of North Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam poured into Saigon today as a century of Western influences came to an end.

Scores of North Vietnamese tanks, armored vehicles and camouflaged Chinese built trucks rolled to the presidential palace.

The President of the former non-Communist Government of South Vietnam, Gen. Duong Van Minh, who had gone on radio and television to announce his administration's surrender, was taken to a microphone later by North Vietnamese soldiers for another announcement. He appealed to all Saigon troops to lay down their arms and was taken by the North Vietnamese soldiers to an undisclosed destination.[...]

Between General Minh's surrender broadcast and the entry of the Communist forces into the city, South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians jammed aboard several coastal freighters tied up along the Saigon River, hoping to escape. They dejectedly left the ships as the Communist troops drove along the waterfront in jeeps and trucks, waving National Liberation Front flags and cheering.

As an American, there aren't to many days when you have to be deeply ashamed of your country, but this was one of the worst, as the allies we'd used and betrayed could no longer hold out once we broke our word and stopped helping them entirely.

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HAD WE BUT WORLD ENOUGH, AND TIME

We are not with you and we don't believe you (Patrick Wintour, April 30, 2003, The Guardian)

Tony Blair's first public attempt to heal the diplomatic wounds of the Iraq war suffered a humiliating rebuff yesterday when Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, refused to lift UN sanctions and mocked the possibility that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq.

Mr Putin also clashed with Mr Blair by demanding UN weapons inspectors be allowed back into Iraq and challenged Mr Blair's vision of a new world strategic partnership, arguing it would be unacceptable for the US to dominate the international community.

The public dressing down for Mr Blair came during a 63-minute press conference staged by the two men at Mr Putin's private residence outside Moscow. The two men had a fabled special relationship and Mr Blair had high hopes he would be able to wean Mr Putin away from his new anti-war alliance with France and Germany.

Mr Blair started with the full diplomatic niceties but became increasingly animated until he issued a dire warning of a new world order in which two different poles of power act as rivals to one another. The world faced a choice between a partnership between the US and the main countries of the world or a continued "diplomatic stand off", he said.

Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush should just back off while Mr. Putin plays coy. A couple years of alliance with the French and Germans will drive the Russians back into our arms. We only really need them if there's a wider conflagration in the Middle East anyway, and at that point they'd have no choice but to help because of their own Islamicist problems on their borders.

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ARAFAT DELENDA EST

Arafat lives (David Warren, 4/30/2003)

[P]rospects for peaceful mutual accommodation between Jew and Arab were almost irretrievably set back by the Madrid and Oslo agreements of the early 1990s. From cynical motives on all sides -- including those of Israeli Labour politicians -- the terrorist, Yasser Arafat, was put right at the black heart of the "peace process". He had left nothing but a trail of destruction behind him in Jordan, Lebanon, indeed everywhere he'd been. From the moment he arrived, the West Bank and Gaza began to be transformed into a terror network....

Arafat lives today as the principal impediment to any workable peace agreement. Keeping him sidelined, and gradually disarming his terror brigades, will distract much creative energy from a main task, which itself cannot be easy. It will be like trying to come to some agreement with an Iraq, in which, say, Tariq Aziz were nominally in power, while Saddam Hussein continued to sit glowering beside him at the cabinet table. There is necessarily an element of farce in the spectacle.

Whatever the "roadmap" says, progress will require the imposition on the West Bank and Gaza of an international, probably American force, to replace the Israeli. For there is no conceivable Palestinian civil force that can stand up to Arafat's multiple networks of goons and suicide bombers.

Orrin, as his post below shows, strongly supports the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state. While Orrin's view is reasonable, it seems to me irresponsible to create a Palestinian state in which Arafat remains in control -- whether publicly or behind the scenes. Arafat's long record shows that he is a tyrant over those in his control and a murderer of those out of his control. To establish a Palestinian state with Arafat in a position of power would be as much a betrayal of the Palestinian people as it would have been a betrayal of the Iraqi people had we, in the 1970s, collaborated in Saddam's coup establishing himself as dictator.

An Arafat-controlled state would continue to oppress the Palestinian people, and continue terrorism until its acquisition of WMD led to the destruction of Israel, or, more likely, until Israel conquered and re-occupied Palestine. Neither outcome would count as progress.

David Warren poses another alternative to Orrin's: some outside force, either Israeli or American, attempts a coercive nation-building exercise in Palestine. Again, if Arafat remains in control of his terror networks, the schools, and other civil institutions, the occupying force will be subject to terror and, with Arafat off limits, unable to reply. This would be a recipe for a failure worse than Vietnam.

This is why the road to peace needs to begin with the destruction of Arafat, and preferably his terror network as well. To make the point that terrorism is unacceptable, the United States should seize Arafat, try him publicly with a complete airing of the evidence connecting him to murders, and then punish him appropriately -- preferably by execution. Once that is accomplished, several roads to peace may succeed -- either immediate statehood as Orrin prefers, or a continuing nation-building exercise leading to statehood.

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LIVING BY THE SWORD

Suicide Bomber Hits Tel Aviv; Top Palestinian Denounces Terror: A suicide bomber killed at least two other people hours after the Palestinian parliament voted to confirm a new government. (JAMES BENNET, 4/30/03, NY Times)

The Palestinian parliament voted Tuesday night in Ramallah to confirm a new government, clearing the way for an American-backed peace plan after the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, denounced terrorism "by any party and in all its shapes" and appealed for a "lasting peace" with Israel.

Hours later, underlining the fragility of every step toward peace, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up outside a seaside pub here early this morning and killed at least two other people.

After Mr. Abbas's speech, the Palestinian parliament overwhelmingly approved his new government on Tuesday night, in a jubilant session that met President Bush's condition for proceeding with a new peace plan, known as the road map. After the suicide bombing, the White House confirmed that it would proceed with the peace plan, which calls for creation of a Palestinian state and a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace in three years.

There's an understandable but absurd bit of juvenalia going on among the hawks, who are insisting that continued terrorism proves that the Palestinians don't deserve a state or even a plan for one. It's worth considering that had the same logic been applied to the terrorists from 1945-48 there would be no Israel.

We've mentioned this letter previously, in another context, but it's worth looking at it again, The Meaning of the American Revolution: A letter to H. Niles (John Adams, 13 February 1818):

The American Revolution was not a common event. Its effects and consequences have already been awful over a great part of the globe. And when and where are they to cease?

But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. While the king, and all in authority under him, were believed to govern in justice and mercy, according to the laws and constitution derived to them from the God of nature and transmitted to them by their ancestors, they thought themselves bound to pray for the king and queen and all the royal family, and all in authority under them, as ministers ordained of God for their good; but when they saw those powers renouncing all the principles of authority, and bent upon the destruction of all the securities of their lives, liberties, and properties, they thought it their duty to pray for the continental congress and all the thirteen
State congresses, &c.

We need not think the PLO and Hamas comparable to the Founding Fathers in order to recognize that the first Palestinian Revolution is already over-- just as the first Israeli Revolution was over long before there was a state--and the Palestinians will not ever give up violence until they are governing themselves in their own state, just as Americans and Israelis continued violence until they had their own states.

MORE:
The Road Map to Nowhere: Do we really need another doomed Mideast peace process? (Joshua Muravchik, April 30, 2003, Jewish World Review)

The first thing one might say about the plan itself is that its pace is breathless. Comprehensive political reform, a new constitution, free elections--all within the first few months? Never mind that this seems unrealistic. (We are now 19 years past the deadline for Palestinian self-rule set in the Egypt-Israel peace agreement of 1979 and four years past the date for completing "final status" talks under the Oslo accords.) It is even undemocratic. Aren't the citizens of Palestine entitled to a little time to acquaint themselves with their new political system, not to mention to assent to it, to discover what the offices are for which they will vote, to form political parties, to debate the issues? From there, we press on frantically to sovereignty within a few more months and a complete laying to rest of the Arab-Israeli conflict by 2005. Inshallah. There is no disgrace in a rush to peace, provided one's hurry does not result in losing one's way. [...]

THE STILL DEEPER FLAW in the road map's premises is the presumption that with the terms of settlement fairly apparent, all that is needed is a guide for getting there. In the final analysis, however, the missing ingredient for peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not a blueprint of the destination, nor is it the route. The missing ingredient is a decision by the Palestinians and the other Arabs to accept the existence of a Jewish state in their midst and to live in permanent peace with it. Despite all the Palestinians have suffered these two and a half years, public opinion polls show that a clear majority of them support continuing the intifada and suicide bombing and that about half say that the goal should be the "total liberation of Palestine," in other words, the elimination of Israel. The other half of the Palestinians say they want a two-state solution. When that half grows and becomes dominant, then and only then, will real peace be possible.

Since the Six Day War, the critical divide in international approaches to the Arab-Israeli broil has been between a negotiated settlement and an imposed one. Israel has insisted on the former precisely because it wants a settlement to be more than pro forma. In an imposed settlement, the Arab representatives might make some empty prescribed gestures in return for concessions that could facilitate future efforts to destroy Israel.

Two problems with this analysis: (1) Palestine has more deeply planted civil institutions right now than Israel had when it was told it would become a state and the pace of that statehood was no slower; (2) there's a third option, one supported by members of Sharon's own circle, a settlement imposed by Israel instead of upon Israel. As even Mr. Muravchik concedes, the terms of the settlement are "fairly apparent"--so why not just impose them?

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DISPOSITIVE MAN

Why I nearly resigned: Mark Steyn says he is disgusted by what he sees as The Spectator's ill-judged and idle defence of the UN (Mark Steyn, The Spectator)

"The UN should be appointed overseer of the peace not because that organisation possesses planning skills which America doesnot, but because to shut it out will cause resentment in the Arab world. However irritating are many of the do-gooders among its ranks, the UN has the advantage of being seen as an antidote to alleged Western imperialism."

After reading those words in The Spectator's leading article of 12 April, I hurled the magazine across the room and typed up my letter of resignation.

Section III, Part D of the official rules of blogging states that anytime that Mark Steyn or James Lileks agree with you, you win. Mr. Steyn's disgust with the Spectator would appear to vindicate this.

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CRUSADER

Paradise regained: Once tortured by personal demons, ruining his life and career with drink and drugs, Peter Howson has let Christ into his life and art. Unveiling here the first major work since his conversion, the 14 Stations of the Cross, he talks about visions, revelations and finding God (Peter Ross, 06 April 2003, Sunday Herald)

A FEW years ago, well after the time he was putting E800 worth of cocaine up his nose each week, but slightly before he had his religious awakening and gave up alcohol, Peter Howson was asked by Wolverhampton City Council to create a large painting representing the dreams of its citizens.

'All these people in Wolverhampton sent me their dreams,' he recalls. 'Most of them were very boring. They were dreams like 'My cat suddenly started talking to me.' So I ended up using a lot of my own dreams in the painting.

'The dreams I've had in my life have been apocalyptic epics where I'm escaping from Nazis, running through woods, finding lost cities, crawling through deserts, fighting battles and dying and going up to heaven or going into hell.'

You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to realise that such dreams say a lot about Howson, Scotland's best-known and most controversial painter of the last 20 years. Part showman, part shaman, he has spent two decades jabbing a brush in the public eye.

Although it was his astonishingly vibrant figurative work which first brought him to wide attention, he has remained highly visible thanks to regular confessional interviews in which he described addictions, autism, break-ups, breakdowns, and latterly his conversion to Christianity. Little wonder his dreams should feature fear, heroism, combat, death, praise, damnation and religion. There's simply no room for a talking cat in Howson's head.

And you could barely swing one in his studio. On the top floor of a former school in Glasgow's West End, Howson sits and smokes amid the clutter. Hundreds of classical music CDs are stacked round the walls, sworls of hardened oil paint crest like frozen waves on a table, a giant portrait of a bound Jesus dominates the room, and finds a profane reflection on the opposite wall in a picture of Trevor from EastEnders ripped from a magazine.

I'm here to interview Howson because he is just finishing a major commission. He has painted the 14 Stations of the Cross for a wealthy American collector to hang in his private chapel, where they will be used as devotional objects, hung alongside major works of religious art from the medieval and Renaissance periods. The paintings, which tell the story of Christ from being condemned to death to being laid in his tomb, will first be exhibited in London.

It seems right that the public should get a chance to see them, as they are among the most significant works of Howson's career.

'I don't think too many artists today are capable of coming to grips with spiritual themes,' says the collector, who wishes to remain anonymous. 'We are in an age now which is swinging from a very materialistic 20th Century to, I think, a very spiritual 21st century. I think this war we are going through now is the turning point. And if you look at Peter Howson's work, he is very timely. You can't paint the way he paints and not have a deep spiritual underpinning. He takes the soul and turns it inside out.'

Here's a piece called: "Crusader".

He means it as a warning. I take it literally instead and quite like it.


MORE:
-www.peterhowson.co.uk | The Official Howson Site
-Home Page of Peter Howson (ARTEXPERTS.COM)
-Contemporary War Art - Peter Howson
-Peter Howson (Belloclowndes)
-Peter Howson Collection
-VoyForums: Peter Howson
-Peter Howson Photography (CafePress.com)
-Peter Howson (ArtNet)
-Peter Howson @ Britart.com
-Art Gallery Vieleers - Salon d'Art - Painters
Beautiful South: Peter Howson's Other Art

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MORE BUTTERMILK

BUTTERMILK-GARLIC CRUSHED POTATOES (Lynne Rossetto Kasper, The Splendid Table)

Serves 4 and doubles easily

2 pounds buttery waxy potatoes (such as Yellow Finn, Red Bliss, red-skinned
San Luis Valley, or Desiree), peeled and thinly sliced
2 cups buttermilk, or more as needed
2 cups water
4 large cloves garlic, sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Place the potatoes in a 4-quart saucepan with the buttermilk, water, garlic, a little salt, and pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer, cover, and
cook 25 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender but not falling apart. Check for scorching, adding equal parts buttermilk and water if necessary to
have the consistency of a thick stew.

2. Uncover and cook down the liquid, stirring and crushing the potatoes until creamy and thick, 5 to 10 minutes. Season to taste. (They can be set aside, covered, for an hour or more. Reheat in the saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly.)

3. Serve the hot potatoes mounded in a warmed bowl.

Sharing this recipe with the Iraqis would just about make up for exposing them to Christina Aguilera.

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THE LIBERTARIANS' ALGER HISS

Software Engineer Is Charged in Plot to Fight U.S. Forces (Blaine Harden, April 29, 2003, Washington Post)

An Intel Corp. software engineer, whose five-week federal detention in Oregon triggered protests from outraged colleagues, was charged today with conspiring to travel to Afghanistan to fight with al Qaeda and the Taliban against American soldiers.

Maher Hawash, who worked for Intel for more than a decade, joined six other suspects based in Portland, Ore., in a plot to wage war against the United States, according to a federal arrest warrant affidavit released in Portland today. The other six -- five men and a woman -- were charged in the same conspiracy last October.

Hawash traveled in October 2001 with five members of the Portland group to China, where they tried but failed to enter Afghanistan to fight against U.S. forces, according to the affidavit. Hotel records in China show that Hawash stayed in the same hotels on the same dates as the five others, according to the affidavit.

"No independent evidence exists to corroborate any business purpose of the travel," the document said.

Federal investigators were tipped to Hawash's alleged connection to the "Portland Six" after their arrest by a neighbor who identified him, and his wife, Lisa, as "close friends" of two of the other suspected conspirators, Ahmed Bilal and Habis Al Saoub, according to the affidavit.

Hawash, 38, was born on the West Bank and became an American citizen in 1990. Known as "Mike" to his colleagues and family, he lives in suburban Portland and is married with three young children.

The FBI arrested him in an Intel parking lot on March 20. Until today, he had been detained without charge under the federal material witness statute, which the government has used since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hold some terror suspects indefinitely. Civil liberties groups have sharply criticized that practice.

The detention of Hawash, who has worked for Intel since 1992, angered many of his colleagues at Intel. They organized a media campaign, set up a Web site and demonstrated outside a federal courthouse in Portland during a closed hearing on Hawash's detention.

The announcement of the charges today seemed to do little to change their views. "These charges only show that Mike was acquainted with some members of the Portland Six, which is what you would expect in a small Muslim community like we have in Portland," said Steven McGeady, a former Intel executive and founder of a group called "Free Mike Hawash." McGeady said the allegation that Hawash traveled in China with five of the suspects showed only that friends sometimes bump into each other abroad.

It's been instructive to watch libertarians denounce John Ashcroft over the Hawash case, seemingly for no other reason than that they assume a fellow technocrat must be a good guy.

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IDEOLOGY OVER LIVES

Bush pushes global AIDS bill (Kathy A. Gambrell, 4/29/2003, UPI)

President George W. Bush on Tuesday unveiled an initiative intended to pump another $15 billion in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, as he fielded criticism that legislation did not focus enough on abstinence as a solution to the pandemic.

"Fighting AIDS on a global scale is a massive and complicated undertaking, yet this cause is rooted in the simplest of moral duties. When we see this kind of preventable suffering, when we see a plague leaving graves and orphans across a continent, we must act, " Bush said.

The president appeared in the East Room of the White House with lawmakers and global AIDS activists to promote the bill providing $15 billion to the global fund established to fight the deadly disease that has infected 42 million people worldwide.

The World Health Organization reports of that number 38.6 million were adults, and 2.3 million were children under age 15. Some 3.1 million people worldwide died of AIDS in 2002.

In sub-Saharan Africa, some 28.5 million adults are infected and 2.6 million children under age 15. The pandemic has captured the attention of the international community as it figures out how best to stop the spread of AIDS on the continent.

The president warned "time is not on our side" and urged Congress to move forward "with speed and seriousness his crisis requires."

Bush said the administration's health experts believe the emergency plan for AIDS relief could prevent 7 million new HIV infections and treat 2 million people with life-extending drugs. [...]

Social conservatives and some congressional Republicans criticized the bill for not including more pro-family amendments that would promote programs that teach
abstinence and fidelity rather than only condom use. [...]

Michael Schwartz, vice president for government relations for Concerned Women for America, said the bill provides no conscious protections for faith-based groups. Schwartz told UPI that groups seeking to teach abstinence would have to also pass out condoms even if it were against their mission.

"We are quite sure that Congress must clearly outline the president's purpose within the bill. Without a clear mandate, future administrations will be able to use AIDS prevention dollars for ineffective condom based programs, rather than lifesaving ones based on abstinence and faithfulness," Schwartz said.

We're as pro-abstinence as anybody, but this is disturbing. They know that the Bush administration will write the regulations so as to meet their vision of the programs, but they're willing to hold up the money in order to make a likely futile attempt to tie the hands of some imaginary future Democratic administration? How many extra Africans should die so that these groups can vindicate such an impractical position?

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JUST ONE MORE REASON TO HATE TENNIS

CURTSY BOWS OUT OF WIMBLEDON, BUT MEN KEEP TRADITION OF MORE PRIZE MONEY (KRYSTYNA RUDZKI, 4/29/03, Associated Press)

One of Wimbledon's most enduring traditions is finished - players will no longer have to bow or curtsy to the Royal Box at Centre Court.

But while one custom fell Tuesday, the All England Club confirmed that another will remain: Men will be paid more than women.

Players have been required to bow or curtsy to the royal family when walking onto or leaving Centre Court. From now on they will have to do so only if Queen Elizabeth II or Prince Charles, her eldest son and heir to the throne, is in the box.

The decision to scrap the tradition was made at the request of the Duke of Kent, who has been the All England Club's president since 1969. He and his wife, the Duchess of Kent, attend frequently each year and present the winners' trophies.

"It's been part of a discussion that's been going on for some time," All England chief executive Christopher Gorringe said. "It's sad, but we have to move on. We know there is very little bowing or curtsying done in royal circles now."

Players will now only have to bow or curtsy if Queen Elizabeth II or Prince Charles, her eldest son and heir to the throne, is in the box.

The queen hasn't attended Wimbledon since 1977 when she presented the women's trophy to Virginia Wade. Prince Charles made his only appearance in 1970.

British royalty has been associated with Wimbledon since 1907 when the Prince of Wales and Princess Mary watched from a temporary Royal Box.

Before leaving the ground, the prince accepted an offer to become president of the All England Club and remained so until he became King George V in 1910. Subsequent monarchs, including the current queen, have since all held the position of Patron of the Club.

"To lose what is not a waste land is the very condition of being in a waste land."-Lyndall Gordon (on T.S. Eliot)

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YOU'RE WELCOME TO COME, BUT PLAY BY THE RULES

Legal Immigrants Can Be Held Without Bail, Court Says (DAVID STOUT, April 29, 2003, NY Times)

The Supreme Court ruled today, in a case with significant impact on the rights of noncitizens, that the federal government can detain legal immigrants without bail during their deportation proceedings.

The court upheld, 5 to 4, the strict rules of the 1996 immigration law, which mandates detention of immigrants who have committed certain crimes even as those immigrants challenge their deportation.

"Congress regularly makes rules that would be unacceptable if applied to citizens,'' the court said in a summary attached to the opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

The case decided today, Demore v. Kim, No. 01-1491, has been closely followed by immigrants' rights groups and lawyers who follow immigration issues. Today's decision made it clear that immigrants - even those in the United States legally - may have far more to lose than American citizens if they are convicted of crimes, and not necessarily heinous ones.

"We hold that Congress, justifiably concerned that deportable criminal aliens who are not detained continue to engage in crime and fail to appear for their removal hearings in large numbers, may require that persons such as respondent be detained for the brief period necessary for their removal proceedings,'' Justice Rehnquist wrote.

The "respondent'' is Hyung Joon Kim, who came to the United States in 1984 at age 6. While still a child, he became a lawful permanent resident. In 1996, when he was a teenager, he was convicted of burglary and the next year was found guilty of petty theft.

He completed his sentence in California state prison and, the day after his release, was detained by immigration officials without bail to await deportation.

The very first words of the Constitution are, of course: "We the people of the United States..." If you aren't one of "the people" yet, perhaps it would be better to abide by the laws of those who are.

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KICK OUT THE JAMS!

Consumer Confidence Rises From 61 to 81 (ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, 4/29/03, AP)

Consumer confidence, which had declined for four consecutive months,improved sharply in April, helped by a swift outcome in the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The Consumer Confidence Index rose to 81.0 from a revised 61.4 in March, the New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday. That was far better than the reading of 70 that analysts had been expecting. [...]

This post-war surge differs from the one after the Persian Gulf War in 1991 in that both components of the index - the expectations index and the present situation index - posted gains.

The Expectations Index rose to 84.8 from 61.4. The Present Situation Index improved to 75.3 from 61.4.

"The increase in the Present Situation Index, especially in labor market conditions, may very well signal a turnaround in confidence and a more favorable outlook for consumer spending," Franco said.

Mark Vitner, an economist at Wachovia Securities in Charlotte, N.C., said he was surprised by the magnitude of the increase and that consumers believed that economic conditions had already improved.

Given that the only problem with the economy is one of confidence, this pretty much ends any suspense about the 2004 election, with the possible exception of whether John Kerry will carry MA or go 0-fer (we don't count DC).

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WHAT? NO JEWS?

Sharpton Files (?Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, Steve Chaggaris and Joanna Schubert, 4/29/03, The CBS News)

After some criticism for not filing earlier, Al Sharpton's presidential campaign submitted the required financial reports to the Federal Election Committee yesterday. The reports show he's raised money from some interesting people.

Between January and March, Sharpton has raised $114,456 and has spent $54,456. According to the Daily News, he can thank radio host Tom Joyner, media tycoon Percy Sutton and Newark Mayor Sharpe James for $1,000 contributions. Abner Louima, who won an $8.75 million settlement when Sharpton represented him in a New York City Police torture case in 1997, also contributed $1,000. Louis Carr, president of ad sales for Black Entertainment Television, and Detroit "TV news anchor" Carolyn Clifford each donated $2,000.

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LIFE IMITATES ART

Man dies after drilling head (BBC, 4/28/03)

A man has died after attempting to drill a hole in his head with a power tool.

The 42-year-old was found unconscious in a locked room by police who were called on Sunday to his home in Conway Street, Torquay.

Somebody's been taking the great film Pi a tad too seriously.

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REVERSE EMPIRE BUILDING

Iraqi Lawyer Who Helped Save Jessica Lynch Granted Asylum (Fox News, April 29, 2003)

The Iraqi lawyer who led U.S. forces to missing soldier?Jessica Lynch (search)?has been granted asylum by the United States.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced Tuesday that Mohammed Odeh Al Rehaief, 33, who helped U.S. special operations teams track down Pfc. Jessica Lynch, is now living in the United States with his wife and 5-year-old child.

Al Rehaief was granted?asylum?Monday in Arlington, Virginia, which allows him to work in this country. He can stay in the U.S. indefinitely and can eventually apply for U.S. citizenship.

Prior to Tuesday, he was referred to as only as "Mohammed" in order to protect the safety of himself and his family while they were?still in Iraq.

The Al Rehaief family arrived in the United States earlier this month after the Department of Homeland Security granted them "humanitarian parole." On Monday, the family was granted asylum by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services.

With all due respect to Barry, Ali, Steve Martinovich, & the like, you have to feel almost sorry for other countries because we tend to skim off their cream. We welcome Mr. Al Rehaief and his family: there's no one we're prouder to share a nation with.

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LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN

Hillary Clinton keynote speaker at Democrat dinner (Associated Press, April 28, 2003)

In a fiery speech Monday night, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton accused the Bush administration of having the worst economic policies since Herbert Hoover, with no real plan to end the nation's fiscal troubles.

So, you pick up today's paper and see the headline: Clinton Sez, "Bush economy worst in fifty years!"--what should you conclude from this?:

(a) You've come loose in time
(b) The economy is as bad as during the Great Depression (never mind the 70s)
(c) Hillary is running for President
(d) all of the above

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AN URBAN TRUTH!

4-foot alligator found walking in Queens park (AP, April 28, 2003)

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THE DEMS GO ABLOGGIN'

The Notepad: Direct from the Candidates (ABCNews, 4/29/2003)

Dick Gephardt:

Question:

What is the one thing Jonathan Alter, Karen Tumulty and Jules Witcover can all agree on?...

Joe Lieberman:

Welcome back folks.

It's day two of Notepad LINK . Now that we've all had a chance to review what the "other guy" LINK submitted, expect to see more uniformity in today's postings as all the campaigns LINK crib best practices off of one another - namely linking LINK schedule sharing and obscure music referencing LINK

So in that spirit, let's talk shop. Lieberman was in New Jersey yesterday doing stuff.

That said, let's turn our attention to what really seems to be going on pre-debate, namely pre-debate positioning everywhere else but apparently here....

Finally, in the hopes of getting others to spill some debate aspirations, here are some Lieberland debate goals: Come Saturday, Lieberman won't pile on the make-up nor will he sigh. Much.

Howard Dean:

News Flash!!! Yesterday we were attacked by the Anointed One!

And we're not even talking about Chris Lehane.

We want to clear something up. There seems to be some confusion between the official Dean campaign blog and the unofficial blog.

Here's the official blog's response to the clubbing-from-on-high. LINK

Here's the unofficial response. LINK.

We think it's mostly a matter of tone....

John Edwards:

This genteel southern gal does not know how to react to being "truncated." How ugly.

I will be sure to keep it brief today less I raise the ire of "the editors" or Joe Trippi....

So here is a "bumper sticker anecdote" that encapsulates the strength of our Senator....

Don't misunderstimate the Breck Girl.

Dennis Kucinich:

If the 12th Commandment holds that Democrats shalt not criticize each other, than we have two candidates (I won't mention their names) who've been irreverent lately, even blasphemous in their spat over the U.S. military. Candidate Kucinich (it's my job to mention his name a lot) joined the fray by proclaiming: "They're both wrong."...

Our campaign didn't take sides in such silliness.

John Kerry:

Southern Tour, Day 2

Here is the lead from Little Rock: Painful memories of three North Vietnamese ambushes became a matter of joyous pride for Fred Short as he was reunited with the Navy patrol boat commander who he said saved the whole crew by charging into the teeth of the enemy attack....

Bob Graham:

DES MOINES — Good day!

Senator Graham arrived in Iowa today with the FL four in tow - Crowley, Adair, Bridges and Silva.... Graham talked about his life growing up on his family's dairy farm, his grandchildren, his beloved home state and his vision for a better America.

Along the way, he chatted with regular Iowans....

While waiting for his dinner companions to arrive, he saw a member of his staff dining with a staffer from another presidential campaign.

(From Jamal: Don't tell Jordan, Trippi, Nick, or Craig … shhh!)

Graham sits down. They all chat....

Only in Iowa!

Al Sharpton:

The Sharpton Campaign congratulates Congressman Dick Gephardt for presenting a bold and practical plan to insure that every American is covered with health insurance. I believe the plan is a big step in the right direction.

ABC's new candidate blog gives conclusive proof that Al Sharpton is the only serious Democratic candidate.

Go get 'em, Al!

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HOW DID BEINGS THIS STUPID END UP RUNNING THE WORLD?

Storms and lightning much deadlier for men (Mary Vallis, April 29, 2003, National Post)

Men are more than twice as likely as women to die during thunderstorms, mainly because they do not come in from the rain, new research suggests.

A new study of more than 1,400 thunderstorm-related deaths in the United States found 70% of the victims were male. The gender disparity was particularly pronounced among deaths caused by lightning strikes and flash floods.

Close to 80% of the lightning victims were men, said Dr. Thomas Songer of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Injury Research. [...]

Dr. Songer speculated men may be at greater risk of dying during thunderstorms because of their exposure to the elements and their behaviour. Men seem more likely to take risks during storms.

"I would say they make poor decisions," he said. "I've read several reports surrounding the deaths, and there's quite a few situations where people drive around barricades and go through flooded roads, and their car gets picked up and floated down, and they drown."

The gender trend for lightning deaths goes back at least a century in medical literature, said Dr. Mary Ann Cooper, director of the Lightning Injury Research Program at the University of Illinois, who was not involved in the new research.

"Men tend to be optimists. They all think that their team's going to win the pennant and they're never going to be hit by lightning."

That last reminds us of one of the more sublime moments in the history of man:

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..." -- Last words of General John Sedgwick (1813-1864)

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GOD BLESS YOU, MR. GUNTER

565 Million Acres, Riv Vu: It is useful to see the Louisiana Purchase as a real estate deal that signified a new kind of society where land could be owned by anyone. (Andro Linklater, 4/28/03, NY Times)

By 1803 Napoleon wanted to raise money for war with Britain, and Jefferson was prepared to pay for control of France's territory around the mouth of the Mississippi in order to guarantee free use of the river.

The American minister in Paris, Robert Livingston, had already approached the French about such a limited purchase. (Livingston, who owned some 130,000 acres in upstate New York, was himself very familiar with the American real estate market.) But a critical shift occurred on April 11, 1803, when he went to meet Talleyrand in his offices in the Rue du Bac.

Writing James Madison that evening, Livingston reported that Talleyrand had suddenly asked whether "we wished to have the whole of Louisiana." Surprised and playing for time, Livingston at first denied any interest, but Talleyrand persisted, "What would you give for the whole?" Livingston came back with an opening bid of about $3.75 million, which Talleyrand dismissed as too low. But both men knew the game being played.

Talleyrand told Livingston to consider the proposition and return with a better price, and as the maneuvering continued over the days ahead, Livingston recorded Talleyrand's promise to "give me a certificate that I was the most importunate [negotiator] he had yet met with."

With the participation of James Monroe, who arrived in Paris the next day as the American "envoy extraordinary," and the French treasury minister, Francois Barbi-Marbois, agreement was reached just 18 days later for the sale of France's possessions in North America--some 565 million acres--for about $15 million, or less than 3 cents an acre. [...]

Looking at the Louisiana Purchase as a property transaction rather than a work of diplomacy helps to explain another anomaly. Many Americans feared the new land would make the nation too big to govern and, given the prevailing view that government was authority exercised from above over an unruly populace, they had good reason for their fears. But Louisiana was to witness the development of a new kind of society.

Under Spain and France, the province had been a near-feudal domain, ruled by appointees from Europe, with the land sold only to those approved by the governor. In the United States, however, land could be owned by whoever could afford it. Since 1785, all federal land west of the Appalachians had, at Jefferson's urging, been measured out in one-mile-square sections for sale as real estate, and this grid of squares now extended into the Louisiana Purchase.

For the first time in history, land, the primary source of wealth production, could be owned by anyone: speculators, settlers, even squatters. "Power," said John Adams, with ice-cold accuracy, "always follows property." In the Old World property was distributed in a hierarchical manner with the powerful few owning most; but as America spread westward, more than one billion acres of public land, including most of the Louisiana Purchase, would pass into private hands. Power still followed property, but now it was spread democratically, and the nation it created possessed innate stability, because each property-owning citizen had a vested interest in a law-abiding society.

In his marvelous recent book, Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy, Mr. Linklater not only expounds upon the ideas he raises here, but two others that seem quite profound. The first, and it's really the main focus of the book, is how the seemingly simple act of measuring American territory into regular-sized lots created an impetus for ownership and an ease of transaction that dramatically affected the development and character of the nation. (continued here)

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WHO?

The Trials of Pinochet: a review of Pinochet: La Biografia (Pinochet: The Biography) By Gonzalo Vial Correa (Patricio Navia , Foreign Policy)

Nearly 30 years after Gen. Augusto Pinochet deposed the democratically elected President Salvador Allende in a bloody military coup, Chile continues to live with the dictator's controversial dual legacy-a strong, vibrant economy and painful memories of horrific human rights abuses.

Gonzalo Vial Correa's recent two-volume biography of the dictator exemplifies the dilemma of many Chileans who seek to make peace with thepast. Indeed, the book's appearance in late 2002 followed four years of public debate (in Chile and abroad) over the proper fate of the dictator. In March 2000, after 16 months of house arrest in London on charges of human rights violations, Pinochet was released by the British government and allowed to return to his homeland. And following a prolonged legal, political, and public relations battle between those seeking to prosecute Pinochet and those attempting to protect him, Chileans were ready to move on. So was Ricardo Lagos, the new president-the first socialist elected since Allende-who took office just nine days after Pinochet returned to Chile. Facing human rights charges in domestic courts, the aging Pinochet was excused from trial for medical reasons but had to renounce his lifetime senate seat. Neither side felt victorious when he finally retired from public life, and many Chileans began acting as if the dictator had ceased to exist. Even Vial's Pinochet: The Biography treats the general almost as a late leader-all that can change now is history's judgment of his legacy. [...]

[T]he final chapter of the second volume includes a superb essay describing Pinochet's ambiguous legacy in unambiguous terms. Tacitly acknowledging that Pinochet's dismal human rights record inevitably taints his record of audacious neoliberal economic reforms, Vial reproaches the dictator for not curtailing the power of his notorious secret police. But the author is less forthright when speculating on whether Pinochet's advisors could have persuaded the general to take human rights more seriously. "It is also true that those who surrounded him, for a short or a long period of time-ministers, generals, close advisors-did not have the pertinacity that we should have had to press him to overcome that character trait," writes Vial,
with predictable understatement.

It's all well and good to be honest about the failings of the men who ceded us our freedoms, as Americans have learned to be honest about the way in which the slaveholdings of men like Washington and Jefferson make their legacy more complicated than we would prefer. But to obssess so completely over the shortcomings that you can't recognize the good they did, or even to try to forget them completely, is a sign of immaturity. Chile is of course an immature democracy though, so presumably the next generation and the ones after will be able to think about Pinochet more clearly.

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THE BAD WITH THE GOOD

Iraqis Take Sinful Delight in Newfound Freedoms (Niko Price, April 29, 2003, The Associated Press)

When the Atlas Cinema last showed "Blue Chill," people screamed: "Yes! Yes!" every time the actors began kissing, only to see the scratched reel jump to the next scene. On Monday, they sat in awed silence as naked couples writhed on screen.

"The movie is much more beautiful now, because there's sex," said a beaming Mohammed Taher, 18. Since Saturday, when the theater reopened with a freshly uncensored version of the low-budget Italian flick, he has seen "Blue Chill" three times.

Baghdad has gone through a revolution in the past three weeks, casting off decades of censorship and state control. Banned books, satellite dishes and videos are now sold on the street -- as are alcohol and women.

Horrified by the changes, some Iraqis blame America for what they call a cultural degradation. If it continues for long, they promise to rise up in a holy war against the U.S. forces occupying their country.

"Everything against Islam, everything we hate, has been imported by the Americans like a disease," said Abbas Hamid, a 60-year-old merchant. "We'll fight them. We're tired now, but we'll rest up and use our guns to drive the Americans out."

For now, Hamid appears to be in the minority as Iraqis excitedly discover worlds of vice -- and virtue too -- long forbidden by the repressive regime of Saddam Hussein:

* Teenagers gape at Christina Aguilera's navel via formerly illegal satellite dishes.

* Prostitutes walk the streets in some neighborhoods, beckoning passing motorists.

This kind of garbage will do far more damage to their culture than the theft of a few antiquities did.

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A SLIPPERY SLOPE WE SHOULD BE ON

Crack Down on Spam (NY Times, April 29, 2003)

No one with an e-mail account needs to be told that unwanted commercial messages, better known as spam, are a bad problem that is getting worse. America Online reports that 70 percent of the e-mail its users receive is now junk, and that the quantity has doubled just since the beginning of this year. Much of the increase is being fueled by Internet marketing companies, which charge as little as $500 to send out a million e-mail messages. Internet service providers have taken steps to clamp down on spam, but the tools at their disposal are limited. Congress needs to help. [...]

A bill introduced by Senators Conrad Burns, a Montana Republican, and Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, would require that unsolicited marketing e-mail have valid return e-mail addresses, making it easier for recipients to remove themselves from mass e-mail lists or for Internet service providers and states to sue spammers. Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, is introducing a bill that would require the Federal Trade Commission to maintain a no-spam list, like the no-call lists for telemarketing phone calls, and impose stiff penalties on marketers who repeatedly sent spam to people who had opted out.

If these bills were put up for a popular vote, they would be passed handily. But the direct marketing industry has been lobbying hard for its right to keep sending spam. People should tell their Congressional representatives how strongly they feel about fighting spam--one e-mail note per person, please.

There's an interesting question implicated here, though the Timesmen predictably dodge it: if it's okay to disregard the Free Speech claims of spammers because it is merely commercial and we find their speech annoying and possibly destructive of an important social institution (the Internet), then why not disregard similarly absolutist claims by other merely commercial speakers, whose speech serves none of the purposes for which the Constitution was framed, for instance, pornographers?

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THE ORPHANHOOD OF DEFEAT

No takers as 'old Europe' goes ahead with summit (Philip Delves Broughton, 29/04/2003, Daily Telegraph)

The four European countries most hostile to the war in Iraq meet in Brussels today to rekindle plans for a European defence force to rival Nato and show America that "old Europe" is down but not out.

France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, dubbed old Europe by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, invited other European Union countries to attend, but found no takers.

Critics say the summit bears no relation to the realities of an expanding Europe in which several new members put far more trust in Nato, which helped free them from the Soviet Union, than a still undefined Franco-German scheme.

If power is an aphrodisiac, this meeting gives off the scent of saltpeter.

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LEGGO MY EGO

We went to war just to boost the white male ego: With their dominance in sport, at work and at home eroded, Bush thought white American men needed to know they were still good at something. That's where Iraq came in... (Norman Mailer, April 29, 2003, Times of London)

The key question remains - why did we go to war? It is not yet answered. In the end, it is likely that a host of responses will produce a cognitive stew, which does, at least, open the way to offering one's own notion. We went to war, I could say, because we very much needed a war. The US economy was sinking, the market was gloomy and down, and some classic bastions of the erstwhile American faith (corporate integrity, the FBI, and the Catholic Church, to cite but three) had each suffered a separate and grievous loss of face. Since our Administration was probably not ready to solve any one of the serious problems before it, it was natural to feel the impulse to move into larger ventures, thrusts into the empyrean-war!

Be it said that the Administration knew something a good many of us did not - it knew that we had a very good, perhaps even an extraordinarily good, if essentially untested, group of Armed Forces, a skilled, disciplined, well-motivated military, career-focused and run by a field-rank and general staff who were intelligent, articulate, and considerably less corrupt than any other power group in America.

In such a pass, how could the White House not use them? They could prove quintessential as morale-builders to one group in US life, perhaps the key group: the white American male. If once this aggregate came near to 50 per cent of the population, it was down to . . . was it now 30 per cent? Still, it remained key to the President's political footing. And it had taken a real beating. As a matter of collective ego, the good white American male had had very little to nourish his morale since the job market had gone bad, unless he happened to be in the Armed Forces.

As one who agrees that America is both the pinnacle of Western Civilization, which is itself the pinnacle of human culture, and the product of white, Christian, racist, sexist, homophobic males, I have trouble getting too worked up about the notion that the war was meant to demonstrate to us and our foes that we remain the dominant cadre of the species. One is chastened though by the multiracial, bi-gendered, religiously diverse and, let's assume, variously-sexually-oriented, make up of the armed forces, administration, and citizenry that prosecuted the war. Why, it's enough to make one think that it's what you think, not who you are, that makes you an American...and even a hawk. Of course, the patriarchal crackers thought up the ideas...

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GONE NATIVE

Banfield Lashes Out at Own Network (Andrew Grossman, Apr 28, 2003, Hollywood Reporter)

NBC News correspondent Ashleigh Banfield has ripped television news networks, including her own, for their "glorious" coverage of the Iraqi war and a lack of focus on international news overall.

In a speech Thursday at Kansas State University, she also attacked NBC News for hiring right-wing radio talk-show host Michael Savage to do a show on MSNBC. Savage recently called Banfield a "slut" after her reports portraying the radical Arab point of view. [...]

Banfield, who hosted an unsuccessful talk show on MSNBC last year and is now reporting for both MSNBC and NBC News, criticized the networks for showing a bloodless war that gave a skewed picture which glossed over the horrors of battle. She did not report from Iraq during the war, but has been stationed overseas in the past.

"It was a glorious and wonderful picture that had a lot of people watching and a lot of advertisers excited about cable news," she said at the college's annual Landon Lecture in Manhattan. "But it wasn't journalism because I'm not so sure we in America are hesitant to do this again, to fight another war ... because it looked like a glorious and courageous and so successfully terrific endeavor."

What was wrong with the coverage?

"You did not see where those bullets landed. You didn't see what happened when the mortars landed. A puff of smoke is not what a mortar looks like when it explodes, believe me," Banfield said.

She ripped NBC for putting Savage on the air saying, "He was so taken aback by my daring to speak to martyrs ... for being prepared to sacrifice themselves, he chose to label me a slut on the air, and that's not all, as a porn star and an accessory to the murder of Jewish children. These are the ramifications for simply bringing the message in the Arab world."

Martyrs?

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WHAT A REVOLTIN' DEVELOPMENT

Ranking the Rich: In a groundbreaking new ranking, FOREIGN POLICY teamed up with Center for Global Development to create the first annual CGD/FP Commitment to Development Index, which grades 21 rich nations on whether their aid, trade, migration, investment, peacekeeping, and environmental policies help or hurt poor nations. Find out why the Netherlands ranks first and why the world's two largest aid givers-the United States and Japan-finish last. (FOREIGN POLICY Magazine and the Center for Global Development , May/June 2003)

The first annual CGD/FP Commitment to Development Index (CDI), created by the Center for Global Development and FOREIGN POLICY magazine, ranks some of the world's richest nations according to how much their policies help or hinder the economic and social development of poor countries. The CDI looks beyond mere foreign aid flows to encompass trade, environmental, investment, migration, and peacekeeping policies. In this inaugural edition of the index, the CDI ranks 21 nations: Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United States, and most of Western Europe.

In ranking these countries' commitment to development, the CDI rewards generous aid giving, hospitable immigration policies, sizable contributions to peacekeeping operations, and hefty foreign direct investment in developing countries. The index penalizes financial assistance to corrupt regime, obstruction of imports from developing countries, and policies that harm shared environmental resources. Although the governments and leaders of poor nations are themselves ultimately responsible for responding to the many challenges of development, rich countries can and should change their policies to spur economic growth and social development in poorer nations. The CDI highlights and ranks the rich countries' policies themselves, not their final impact. This approach emphasizes what each rich country-regardless of size and reach-can do to improve opportunities for development throughout the world.

The results of the first annual CDI cast traditional assumptions about the most development-friendly countries in a new, unexpected light. For example, the two countries providing the highest absolute amounts of foreign aid to the developing world-Japan and the United States-bring up the rear in the index. Japan ranks last overall, with low marks in migration and aid. The United States ranks high in trade policy but finishes second to last overall due to particularly poor performances in environmental policy and contributions to peacekeeping. By contrast, the Netherlands emerges as the top-ranked nation in the index, thanks to its strong performance in aid, trade, investment, and environmental policies. Two other small countries, Denmark and Portugal, follow in second and third place, respectively. Norway, which is usually regarded as a model global citizen and a force for peace worldwide, comes in a disappointing 10th, mainly due to its poor trade performance. And though New Zealand is not noted for its particularly generous aid giving, that country finishes fourth overall thanks to a strong showing in migration and peacekeeping policies.

The ridicularities here are too numerous to mention them all, so, how about just the most obvious one: peacekeeping. This one's hilarious--the U.S. and Britain will receive no credit here for actually liberating Afghanistan and Iraq, but once peacekeeping forces go in whoever sends them is considered to be better at aiding development there than those of us who made it possible at all?

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THAT HORSE IS LONG SINCE DEAD

Deciphering the Democrats' Debacle: Why the Republican majority (probably) won't last. (Ruy Teixeira, May 2003, Washington Monthly)

Last year, John Judis and I published a book entitled The Emerging Democratic Majority, which argued that a series of economic, demographic, and ideological changes was laying the basis for a new Democratic majority that would materialize by decade's end--not certainly, we argued, but very probably as long as the Democratic Party put forth decent political leadership to challenge the dominant, but dwindling, current Republican majority.

Our book arrived in stores last September. Two months later, in the midterm elections, the Republicans surprised nearly everyone by winning control of the Senate and further solidifying their majority in the House, unifying Republican control of the federal government for only the second time in half a century. Needless to say, this wasn't my ideal outcome. In the annals of publishing, this wasn't quite so unfortunate as, say, James Glassman's prediction of a 36,000 point Dow just before the 2000 stock market crash, but it still evoked a fair amount of understandable ribbing and forced me to think hard about our thesis. So after the election, I pored over survey data, county-by-county voting returns, and a great deal of underlying demographic data and thought long and hard about what the data showed. And as a result, I've decided that ... we're still right!

We, on the other hand, have decided they're still wrong!

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OUR FATHERS' CHILDREN

Once upon a time in America: In 1815, a group of Boston singers, sick of dreary hymns, formed the Handel & Haydn Society - and classical music was born in the United States. But it would not have an easy ride. (Jan Swafford, April 25, 2003, The Guardian)

Western Massachusetts, 1800: much of this territory across the state from Boston is isolated homesteads, and the daily symphony is hooting owls and barking foxes. There is music, of course, here and there; wherever you find humanity, you find music.

But in the newly minted US, music is mainly a matter of a jig or a reel from a fiddler at a dance - and, above all, of hymns in church. By 1900, those same areas of Massachusetts will be dotted with farms and villages, and not far away will reside a symphony orchestra.

The saga of American music in the 19th century is a tale of outsized personalities, showdowns and rampant can-doism. The American myth has much to do with raising yourself by your own bootstraps, and that is what American music did in the 19th century: beginning with mostly amateur fiddlers, fifers and bawling congregations, ending with some of the best orchestras and opera houses anywhere.

It was founding father John Adams who put the matter with his usual farsightedness: "My duty is to study the science of government that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and science... to give their children a right to study philosophy, painting, poetry, music, architecture, sculpture." That is, on the whole, what happened - and on Adams's timetable, too.

Which makes this downright poetic.

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RICK SANTORUM--A WELLSTONE REPUBLICAN

Sex and Civility (Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, and Joanna Schubert, April, 28, 2003, The CBS News)

Last week's calls for the ouster of Republican Sen. Rick Santorum from the GOP leadership after his remarks linking homosexual acts to polygamy, bigamy and incest seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist defended Santorum, and, on Friday, Ari Fleischer said President Bush thought Santorum was an "inclusive man." Conservatives have started alleging a political motive behind the story. Late last week, Robert Novak reported that the AP reporter who interviewed Santorum, Laura Jakes Jordan, is married to Jim Jordan, campaign manager for Sen. John Kerry's Democratic presidential campaign.

"Jordan herself is pretty suspect," said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. Howie Kurtz in the Washington Post reports that "Jim Jordan says he didn't know 'with any specificity' what Santorum had told his wife and (said) that Kerry was one of several Democrats who issued statements at the request of the Hotline political digest. "Even by the usual standards of the right-wing attack machine," Jim Jordan said, "this is just stupid, vicious and sexist."

Democratic candidates, meanwhile, were generally hitting home runs on the gay-rights groups scorecards. Howard Dean, who signed legislation legalizing civil unions for same sex couples in Vermont, has been working the gay and lesbian activist network heavily during the early phases of the campaign. Six of the nine Democratic presidential candidates - Gephardt, Kerry, Braun, Kucinich, Sharpton and Dean - support civil unions.

While the other three Democratic candidates - Lieberman, Edwards and Graham - "stopped short of endorsing them," none has opposed them. Lieberman and Edwards say this should be left up to individual states, and Graham said that the issue "needs more study."

All nine Democrats support benefits for domestic partners, while President Bush opposes them. Civil unions are controversial among the public, with Democrats generally supportive and Republicans opposed. Republican pollster Whit Ayres told the Boston Globe that favoring civil unions could hurt a Democratic candidate in the general election. "The dividing line between the blue states and the red states was primarily a cultural dividing line rather than an economic one. The whole issue of civil unions reinforces the differences between the parties. It seals the deal in the South" for the Republicans, Ayres said

It's a simple truth of American politics that there is no price to be paid for opposing gay "rights". To the contrary, as the vote on the Defense of M