RECALL FREEFALL:

Recall, Schwarzenegger ahead in new LA Times poll (ERICA WERNER, September 30, 2003, Associated Press)

Voters favored recalling Gov. Gray Davis by a large margin in a Los Angeles Times poll released Tuesday and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was ahead of Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, a Democrat.

It was the second recent statewide survey to show Davis badly behind and Schwarzenegger in the lead. There is a week to go until the Oct. 7 election.

Likely voters interviewed by the Times supported the recall by a 56 percent to 42 percent margin. That was a dramatic shift from the last Times poll, released Sept. 12, that showed support for the recall apparently stalling, with 50 percent of voters supporting it and 47 percent in opposition.

Schwarzenegger had support from 40 percent of likely voters in Tuesday's poll, Bustamante had 32 percent and Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock had 15 percent.

In the Sept. 12 survey Schwarzenegger was slightly behind Bustamante -- Bustamante had 30 percent, Schwarzenegger had 25 percent and McClintock had 18 percent.

Uglier and uglier...

MORE:
"They are against food" (California Insider: A Weblog by Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub, September 30, 2003)

Cruz has played the race card -- in an interview in Spanish on the Univision Television Network. The network has translated the interview and sent a transcript to reporters covering the campaign:

"No one is asking me how much money I get from the Latino community, or from African-Americans, or from people in the Jewish community, or any other group," said Bustamante. "No one else, just the indigenous tribal governments. Why is that?" When asked if he saw this as racial discrimination, Bustamante responded: "Well, that's how it is, I think, sometimes. And I believe we need leaders who can unite, not divide, people."

The lieutenant governor had strong words for his Republican opponents in the recall race. "People who are on the ballot - people like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom McClintock - want Proposition 187 once again. They don't want driver's licenses for immigrants. They are against food. They are against access to colleges and access to schools. They are against the opportunity to organize labor unions. They are against so many of the values we have in our community. I think it's important to see who the enemy is... It's the Republican legislators, candidates, and officials who say that they don't want to solve our community's problems. That they don't want children to go to school. That they don't want driver's licenses. All of those are Republicans, they're not Democrats."

We get the secret-coded VRWC newsletter and, as God is my witness, I've never seen anything in there about opposing food.

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JOE WILSON, THE MAN WHO TOOK DOWN A PRESIDENT...:

Man Behind the Furor: Wilson: Envoy With an Independent Streak (Richard Leiby, October 1, 2003, Washington Post)

Former diplomat Joseph Wilson used to tell reporters he felt certain how his obituary would read. It went: "Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was the last American diplomat to meet with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, died . . . "

But "it seems to change," Wilson said yesterday, smiling across his desk in his Washington office. He has kept mentally revising the obituary to keep up with the political maelstrom over Iraq policy and White House leaks that is swirling around him.

A recent version began: "Joseph C. Wilson IV, the Bush I administration political appointee who did the most damage to the Bush II administration . . . "

The current version goes: "Joseph C. Wilson IV, the husband of the spy the White House outed, . . . "

Wilson, 53, is also now known as the man the CIA sent to Niger in February 2002 to investigate rumors that Hussein was trying to buy uranium there -- and who came back with denials from Niger officials. As President Bush repeated the allegation -- most prominently in the so-called 16 words in the State of the Union address Jan. 28 -- Wilson said, he grew increasingly perplexed. And by July, he was annoyed enough to say publicly that U.S. officials had exaggerated the public case for invading Iraq.

At the time, he said he feared that the White House would retaliate. It allegedly did when administration officials called reporters to identify Wilson's wife as a clandestine CIA operative.

As the world now knows, Wilson is married to Valerie Wilson, nee Plame. She is his third wife. She is 40, slim, blonde and the mother of their 3-year-old twins. In the photos in his office, she has the looks of a film star.

"She is really quite amazing," Wilson said. "We were just discussing today who would play her in the movie," he cracked.

Wilson himself seems to have a theatrical streak. [...]

Even though the White House has said Rove wasn't involved, Wilson made clear yesterday that he has no intention of backing off from his assertion that Rove at least condoned someone's making telephone calls to reporters about his wife. He said he took a call from a reporter who quoted Rove as saying: "Joe Wilson's wife is fair game."

Wilson said he and his wife have attended the same Episcopal church as Rove. Wilson quoted Valerie as saying, "Perhaps the next time we are taking communion I should introduce myself so he can see that I have a face and a name other than 'fair game.' "

He seems to alternate between delusions of grandeur and self-pity.

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THE CONCRETE QUAGMIRE:

U.S. mission remains on track in Iraq (MICHAEL O'HANLON, 10/01/03, The Japan Times)

[M]ost indicators are now favorable in Iraq. Consider first the security environment. We face three main challenges -- from criminals, Ba'athists and jihadists. On the first matter, while crime rates are too high, they have generally stabilized at levels statistically no higher than in many Western cities. As Iraqi police are increasingly recruited and trained, rates should decline -- though Iraq clearly also needs a judicial system as soon as possible to deal with those detained.

As for Ba'athist remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime, they are diminishing with time as coalition forces detain and arrest them. For example, in the region north of Baghdad now run by Gen. Ray Odierno's 4th infantry division, some 600 fighters have been killed and 2,500 arrested over recent months. Not all of these are Ba'athists, to be sure, but with those kinds of attrition rates, a group of fighters that probably numbered 10,000 to 20,000 at peak strength will decline over time, especially because it has no appealing ideology with which to attract more members.

Terrorist "jihadists" are a greater worry because it cannot yet be confidently asserted that their numbers in Iraq have begun to decline or even plateau. In an overdue move, coalition forces have been strengthening border patrols to check the influx of foreign terrorists. They can hardly be expected to seal off all entry points into Iraq (though a few thousand more coalition troops might help, at least until more Iraqi border police can be trained, but even that would not solve it). But they can probably contain the problem. But their numbers do not appear enormous, and local intelligence networks that enable us to find and attack them are improving with time. [...]

Of course, economic issues are critical in any counterinsurgency as well. [...]

The problems are well known -- high unemployment, low electricity levels, worries about availability of gas supplies for the coming winter, even insufficient food in some places. But there is room for hope. Oil production is up. Coalition authorities are refurbishing power plants and building redundant electricity lines so that when main lines are sabotaged occasionally in the future, as they surely will be, power still flows. They are hiring Iraqis to man security forces, repair public infrastructure, beautify parks and buildings, and fix factories. If Congress does the right thing and approves President George W. Bush's full $87 billion supplemental request for next year, positive trends should accelerate.

Now what do the Democrats have left to talk about?

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YEN DUMP:

Japan dumps another 4.5 trillion yen (Japan Times, 10/01/03)

Japan spent 4.46 trillion yen between Aug. 28 and Sept. 26 intervening in the currency market to weaken the yen, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.

The government has now tossed a record 13.48 trillion yen into yen-weakening operations since the beginning of the year.

The ministry has been conducting the effort to fight the yen's ascent, which makes exporting less profitable.

Currency interventions prove to be both fruitless and costly (CHRISTOPHER LINGLE, 10/01/03, The Japan Times)

The weakening of the U.S. dollar accelerated after finance ministers from the Group of Seven issued a communique calling for market-oriented international exchange rates. Soon afterward, the Japanese yen set a two-year high against the American currency.

Of course, Japanese exporters complain that the rising value of the yen will erode their profits. This has brought considerable political pressure to support government intervention in forex markets to avoid further advances in the value of the yen. [...]

While a stronger currency may adversely affect some exports, this impact is mitigated through diversification of domestic production. Intervening in currency markets discourages producers from making decisions that will be in their long-term interest.

It turns out that these interventions cannot alter the inevitable gains in the yen against the dollar because of the inherent weakness in the U.S. currency. Most market analysts and dealers expect the dollar to continue its downward path.

This is perhaps the most ruinous outcome of the irresponsible monetary policy pursued by the Federal Reserve under Chairman Alan Greenspan. By forcing interest rates down artificially, it has caused such a massive flood of dollars into the system that no amount of intervention will be able to stem its decline on global currency markets.

While forex intervention is likely to be fruitless, it involves high costs and is a distraction from implementing other policies that could promote long-term growth. Indeed, currency intervention goes against the most basic notion of financial prudence. Basically, buying dollars that are certain to be less valuable with yen that are becoming more valuable is equivalent to a "buy high, sell low" activity.

While the net impact of market-induced changes in currency valuations is uncertain, there is also no way to know what the proper market rate of exchange is. And so, forex intervention is a highly speculative and Quixotic adventure that should be avoided.

Except that American interest rates are artificially high and with Iraq winding down, a strengthening economy and Europe headed into recession the dollar will inevitably rise.

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THE WHITE SHADOW:

The White Man: Can David Jennings please inner-city minorities and neo-con legislators? (Britt Robson, 10/01/03, City Pages)

Before becoming the [Minneapolis] school system's chief operating officer two years ago, [David] Jennings, who lives in Burnsville, had been a corporate executive at Schwan's, president of the Greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, and a Republican Speaker of the House in the Minnesota Legislature. In short, he doesn't exactly fit the traditional mold of an MPS superintendent.

Despite this conservative track record, school board members were unanimously enthusiastic about their decision, and former board members Catherine Shreves and Albert Gallmon (the latter the head of the local NAACP), along with the Star Tribune editorial board, all heartily endorsed the appointment.

So what gives?

Those aboard the Jennings bandwagon believe his corporate and legislative experience make him a formidable opponent of so-called "reformers" who are laying siege to public education at the state and federal levels. It's not far-fetched to regard the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind" as an agenda for discrediting and ultimately dismantling public school systems nationwide. Because of this, board members like Audrey Johnson and Dennis Schapiro happily explain the political motives behind their support for the new superintendent. "I think David Jennings has the guts enough to stand up and say this is not right," Johnson says, expressing dismay with new state education standards.

Hey, wait a second, didn't Ted Kennedy take George W. Bush to the cleaners on No Child Left Behind? Wasn't it one of W's key failures?

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HARD TO PICK THE BIGGEST LOSER:

Dan Walters: With one week left: Schwarzenegger rising, Davis falling (Dan Walters, September 30, 2003, Sacramento Bee)

This is the situation, as best one can determine:

* Arnold Schwarzenegger's competent, if not inspiring, performance at last week's debate has solidified Republican voters' support and enthusiasm to turn out and vote both for the recall of Davis and Schwarzenegger as his successor. He has now become the prohibitive favorite to win the successor race, should Davis be recalled, as now looks likely.

* Schwarzenegger's rise has contributed to a reversal of fortunes for Davis, who had appeared to be closing the gap on the recall, at least somewhat, prior to the debate. Pundits who thought Davis was the real winner of the debate were dead wrong. Fence-sitting moderates, both Democrats and independents, who disliked Davis but worried about having an acceptable successor, have moved toward voting for the recall, reopening a strong double-digit gap, and for Schwarzenegger. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll, published over the weekend, shows the pro-recall side and Schwarzenegger winning, although the poll's methodology may overstate both. Davis' campaign has indirectly acknowledged that its own polls show the recall and Schwarzenegger gaining, and is now going on the attack on several fronts. Davis knows now that his best chance of surviving is to denigrate Schwarzenegger -- a lesser-of-two-evils strategy that has been a Davis hallmark in the past.

* Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante has faded badly in the last 14 days because of his almost inexplicable entanglement in an ongoing political and legal flap over his acceptance of millions of dollars in campaign funds from casino-owning Indian tribes. What had seemed to be a Bustamante-Schwarzenegger duel, when the two were tied and Davis appeared doomed, now has morphed into a Davis-Schwarzenegger contest. The sheer size of the tribal involvement, coupled with the Indians' obvious interest in having a governor of their choosing, has become a negative with voters, and it's hurting not only Bustamante but the other major Republican candidate, conservative Sen. Tom McClintock, who also embraced tribal money.

* McClintock had been under great pressure from GOP leaders to drop out, but the latest round of polling indicates that with Schwarzenegger's surge, McClintock is becoming almost a non-factor in this race. And his stubborn insistence on remaining in the race even though it's evident that he cannot win, and his involvement with the casino tribes, may have damaged his political future. His Senate district has been expanded into Santa Barbara County, which is not friendly territory for a conservative Republican, and there is serious local speculation that he may face a moderate GOP challenger in the primary next March.

Why didn't McClintock agree to bail out a week ago in exchange for Schwarzenegger's help in the Senate primary to face the entirely beatable Barbara Boxer? In fact, he could have done it right after the debate: "Tonight proved to me that Arnold has what it takes..."

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REFRESHING PERSONAL HONESTY

Huffington Quits California Recall Race (Beth Fouhy, AP, 9/30/03)

Independent candidate Arianna Huffington dropped out of the California recall race on Tuesday, saying it was her best hope of preventing Arnold Schwarzenegger from becoming governor.

"I'm puling out and I'm going to concentrate all my time and energy in the next week working to defeat the recall becasue I realize that's the only way to defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger," Huffington said as she made the announcement on CNN's "Larry King Live."

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"HORROR AND DISGUST":

Publius vs. Demos (Christopher Hull, 09/30/2003, Tech Central Station)

As any political science 101 student can tell you, the United States is not in fact a "democracy," at least not as the term is understood technically. In a democracy, power to govern is lodged with the demos, that is, the mass of individual citizens. In America's federal republic, the power is allocated to local, state and national representatives by the vote, delegating decision-making authority to them.

This is not an accident. Our Nation's Founding Fathers were sharply opposed to too much democracy -- too much decision-making ability placed at the disposal of individual citizens. They deliberately turned instead to a system in which those citizens selected statesmen according to their merit and judgment.

The greatest voice of our Constitutional constructors is the tri-partite character "Publius," the pseudonym of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, writing around 1787 in defense of the soon-to-be-approved Federal Constitution. These thinkers, though later to be divided by politics, were united in thinking that the Constitutional Convention had gotten it right, and that rejecting the framework for the United States would prove disastrous.

In these "Federalist Papers," as the collected writings are generally called, Publius argues consistently against direct democracy, and for a representative republic. Hamilton and Madison especially were rebutting the Anti-Federalists who had an eye for California-style distribution of power to the states and the masses. They felt "sensations of horror and disgust" over early stabs at self-government in Greece and Italy, for instance, because of their "perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy." That said, they felt that a republic vitiated these concerns. Unless the country adopted a strong, central representative republic, Publius held,

we shall be driven in the alternative either of taking refuge at once in the arms of monarchy, or of splitting ourselves into an infinity of little, jealous, clashing, tumultuous commonwealths, the wretched nurseries of unceasing discord and the miserable objects of universal pity and contempt. (Federalist 9)

More than just calling for a central authority with representatives from the people, Publius directly assaulted direct democracy itself, charging that where citizens had too much direct power, special interests -- or "factions" -- would rule the day entirely. "A pure democracy," he wrote, "by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction."

And Publius warns that direct democracies themselves

have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. (Federalist 10)

Welcome to the Hotel California.

The most remarkable thing about the Founding is that the opposition was even more opposed to centralized power.

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PAGING MR. SMOOT?:

Who Killed Free Trade? (Irwin Stelzer, September 21, 2003, London’s Sunday Times)

Supachai Panitchpadki, director-general of the WTO, claims that “the losers will be the poor and weaker nations,” and that renewed efforts to hammer out an agreement are crucial to world economic prosperity. No surprise: the head of a large bureaucracy that is in the process of being marginalized cannot be expected to think that such a development is a good idea. Indeed, with this defeat the WTO joins the United Nations and, after Sweden’s robust rejection, the euro, among the international concoctions that just ain’t what they used to be.

Then there are the economists who believe that free trade, by permitting the international specialization of labor, increases efficiency and the material well-being of all the participants in trade. Economists at the World Bank estimate that a global deal would raise worldwide incomes by $520 billion by 2015 and lift 144 million people out of poverty. They may be right, but George Bush can hardly be expected to follow the lead of Senator Henry Clay, who in 1839 grandly announced, “I would rather be right than be president.”

The dirty little secret is that the collapse of the Cancun meeting is rather good news for the White House. Of course, the U.S. delegation could hardly join the developing countries in popping the champagne corks when the conference collapsed. Those countries made no secret of their pleasure at the fact that they had finally united to make it clear that there would be no more worldwide agreements until their legitimate demands for freer trade in agricultural products are met.

But the White House is hardly mourning the death at Cancun. With a presidential election now right around the corner, as politicians reckon these things, free trade is hardly the rallying cry that Bush’s advisers will select as his campaign theme. America has lost millions of manufacturing jobs since the Bushes moved into the White House, most of them in states the president must win if he is to avoid his father’s fate. Voters tend to forget the cheap sneakers, cars, T-shirts, and other products that are made for them in Asia, and remember the factories, call centers, and other job-giving enterprises that have pulled stakes and moved to China, India, Mexico, and other low-wage countries. The last thing the administration needs is some agreement that can be made to seem to increase pressure on the U.S. manufacturing sector.

And farmers, who voted for Bush in overwhelming numbers in 2000, would hardly have rewarded the president a second time with their votes had he opened them to competition from African, Caribbean, South American, and other growers, even if the concession had been made in return for an agreement by the poorer countries to open their markets to American manufacturers and providers of financial and other services.

So any tears shed by the White House at the Cancun funeral are of the crocodile variety. Zoellick, although probably more annoyed at the conference’s failure than the White House politicos, can take solace from the fact that he can still pursue his alternative strategy of negotiating bilateral trade agreements with countries who find it to their advantage to do so.

Trade is a near perfect example of the kind of sensible reform that democracy makes almost impossible.

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GO, SPEED RACER! (via brian boys):

Clark Campaigns at Light Speed (Brian McWilliams, Sep. 30, 2003, Wired)

Wesley Clark: Rhodes scholar, four-star general, NATO commander, futurist?

During a whirlwind campaign swing Saturday through New Hampshire, Clark, the newest Democratic presidential candidate, gave supporters one of the first glimpses into his views on technology.

"We need a vision of how we're going to move humanity ahead, and then we need to harness science to do it," Clark told a group of about 50 people in Newcastle attending a house party -- a tradition in New Hampshire presidential politics that enables well-connected voters to get an up-close look at candidates.

Then, the 58-year-old Arkansas native, who retired from the military three years ago, dropped something of a bombshell on the gathering.

"I still believe in e=mc², but I can't believe that in all of human history, we'll never ever be able to go beyond the speed of light to reach where we want to go," said Clark. "I happen to believe that mankind can do it."

"I've argued with physicists about it, I've argued with best friends about it. I just have to believe it. It's my only faith-based initiative." Clark's comment prompted laughter and applause from the gathering.

Gary Melnick, a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said Clark's faith in the possibility of faster-than-light (FTL) travel was "probably based more on his imagination than on physics."

While Clark's belief may stem from his knowledge of sophisticated military projects, there's no evidence to suggest that humans can exceed the speed of light, said Melnick. In fact, considerable evidence posits that FTL travel is impossible, he said.

"Even if Clark becomes president, I doubt it would be within his powers to repeal the powers of physics," said Melnick, whose research has focused on interstellar clouds and the formation of stars and planets.

Geez, and the Left has coniptions because Reagan based his idea of an anti-missile shield on a movie.

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IF YOU'RE EVER STUCK THERE...:

Air Force One Lands At The Reagan Library (Edward B. Driscoll, Jr., 09/30/2003, Tech Central Station)

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in Simi Valley California hosts a 3.5 by ten foot segment of the Berlin Wall. If all goes according to schedule, in mid-2004 it will open a pavilion that houses the Air Force One that flew President Reagan into Berlin, where he gave his legendary "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" speech. The aircraft, sporting tail number 27000, was Reagan's primary Air Force One, in which he logged 631,640 miles and 1,288 hours of flying time. It also flew Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter to Cairo in 1981, to represent the US at the funeral of Anwar Sadat. In 1986, #27000 was used to take Reagan to Reykjavik for his summit meeting with Gorbachev, in which Reagan refused to bargain away SDI, and in so doing, began the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Friend Driscoll somehow managed to hornswoggle a trip to the Reagan Library and get a paying gig out of it.

N.B. The last Time Zone Rule violation by the Brothers was structured around a visit to the Simi Valley shrine, but, sadly, the plane wasn't there and we ain't ever goin' back.

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AGENT 99:

Novak: Wilson's Wife Not a Covert CIA Agent (NewsMax, Sept. 29, 2003)

The wife of Bush-bashing former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Joe Wilson is apparently not a covert CIA operative or an undercover agent, though she's been described that way repeatedly since the CIA asked for an investigation on how her identity was made public.

According to columnist Robert Novak, who revealed Mrs. Wilson's name in his July 14 column, sources at the CIA expressly told him she was not a spy.

"According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative, and not in charge of undercover operatives," Novak told his audience on CNN's "Crossfire."

It could be a different Joseph Wilson, but someone of that name in DC is a Kerry contributor

Yup, it's him..

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IT'S ALL ABOUT GRAY:

Recall race turns into head-to-head brawl (Martin Kasindorf, 9/30/2003 , USA TODAY)

Gov. Gray Davis and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger are slamming away at each other as if no other candidates exist in the final seven days of California's recall election.

Schwarzenegger, 56, the front-running Republican to replace the Democratic incumbent if voters recall him next Tuesday, fires up crowds with calls to "terminate" Davis. The Hollywood star no longer mentions state Sen. Tom McClintock, his Republican rival.

For Davis, 60, it's also mano a mano combat. He had strongly hinted that he would endorse Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, 50, by this past Saturday as a fallback choice for Democrats if he is ousted. But now, Davis is ignoring the fading Bustamante and saying the only options for Democrats are himself or a Republican takeover.

In targeting each other, Davis and Schwarzenegger are ending the offbeat campaign with yet one more oddity. Technically, they aren't opponents on the ballot next Tuesday. Davis is alone on the ballot's first question, which is whether he should stay or go. He needs 50%, plus one vote, to stay in office. Schwarzenegger is one of 135 candidates listed on the second question. If Davis loses, the replacement candidate with the most votes becomes governor.

This is too clever by half on the part of the Governor. The key to the race for him was to disappear from view and hope voters forgot why they hated him, then turn out the party base with organization and money. Turning into Gray Davis vs. Arnold is a disaster.

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THE 1ST ANNUAL BROTHERS JUDD CALIFORNIA RECALL PROGNOSTATHON:

Only one week left; here's the deal:

You pick the %'s of the "Yes" and "No" votes; the % of the vote that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cruz Bustamante will each get; and, as a tie breaker, the % of eligible voters who will turn out on October 7th.

We'll award whoever comes closest a copy of the magnificent new Illustrated version of James M. McPherson's Pulitzer-winning Battle Cry of Freedom and the runner-up a hot--off-the-presses paperback copy of Rick Atkinson's Pulitzer-winning Army at Dawn (both courtesy of our friends at FSB Associates).

Please go to this page to enter your picks.

MORE:
-Here are he results so far
-Here's the latest poll in pdf form.

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ARE ARAB-AMERICANS PART OF THE SOLUTION OR PART OF THE PROBLEM?:

Powell Tells Arab-Americans of Hopes to Develop Mideast (JOSEPH B. TREASTER, 9/30/03, NY Times)

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell came here tonight, to the American city with the biggest concentration of Arab-Americans, and said the United States was dedicated to building a prosperous and peaceful Middle East.

Mr. Powell, speaking at an economic conference of leaders from the Middle East and hundreds of American and Arab-American executives, said millions of people in the Middle East were frustrated by joblessness and poverty. "With so much frustration," he said, "no wonder so many people are angry."

"I come to help you build a new Middle East," Mr. Powell said.

Echoing the Administration's call for help from other nations in Iraq, Mr. Powell said the United States "was committed to supporting Arab efforts at reform and development." But he added: "We cannot do it alone. We need partners in the region and in the international community."

He spoke of the administration's effort to develop a huge free trade zone in an area that is now hobbled with more trade barriers than any other part of the world, and he spoke of United States programs like those that finance small-business start-ups for women and send Arab students to intern at American companies.

Summarizing developments in the region, Mr. Powell said the United States was making "remarkable progress" in Iraq, but he said the Middle East peace plan for the Israelis and the Palestinians was stalled because of continuing violence.

To move forward in Israel, he said, the Palestinians must be fully committed to fighting violence. He drew his first ripple of applause when he said that "Israel, too, has obligations," and that "settlement activity" in the West Bank "must end."

That "first ripple of applause" bit is ominous, because if these guys aren't enthused about reforming the Middle East, only about focusing on Israel, then they're useless.

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SOMEONE PASS KRUGMAN HIS SMELLING SALTS:

Economy growth beats expectations: A hot housing market and spending for the war in Iraq gave a boost. (Martin Crutsinger, Associated Press)

The U.S. economy, powered by a red-hot housing market and a huge dose of spending for the war in Iraq, grew at a surprisingly strong 3.3 percent clip last quarter and raised hopes for an even better performance the rest of the year.

The increase announced yesterday in the gross domestic product for the April-June period represented an upward revision from a 3.1 percent estimate a month ago.

Analysts said growth in the July-September quarter would be at a significantly higher rate, fueled by President Bush's newest round of tax cuts, which took effect in July, and continued low interest rates from the Federal Reserve, a combination that has helped to push auto and home sales to record levels.

"The economy is firing on all cylinders," said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo in Minneapolis. "The strong economic growth we are predicting in the future should create some new jobs."

So continues 20+ years of uninterrupted economic growth.

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IT'S ALWAYS THE GAI-JIN:

Japan's streets grow meaner (The Japan Times, Sept. 30, 2003)

Japanese criminal organizations are increasingly penetrating a variety of economic fields and strengthening their links with foreign organized-crime groups, posing a threat to the nation's public order. The National Police Agency's 2003 white paper highlights "The Fight Against Organized Crime," focusing on how a growing behind-the-scenes presence of Japanese gangs in crime, an increase in foreign involvement in crime and juvenile crime are contributing to the worsening state of public order.

Criminal investigations are not solely a police matter; nonetheless, there can be no more dillydallying on the implementation of measures to restore public order. Stronger steps must be taken to eliminate the gangs that are worming their way into the daily lives of citizens.

Crimes committed by foreigners are often lumped together in reports. In actuality, however, the offenses are diverse, ranging from house burglaries and car theft to armed robbery and the illegal trafficking of guns and drugs. Last year foreigners in Japan accounted for about 35,000 criminal cases and about 16,000 arrests. These figures are the highest on record, exceeding last year's statistics by about 4,000 cases and roughly 1,600 arrests. [...]

Last year there were more than 2.85 million recognized criminal cases, setting a postwar record for the seventh consecutive year. The arrest rate, meanwhile, plunged to a new low. Clearly, the state of public security is declining.

Focusing on the 35,000 out of the 2.85 million seems the mark of a society that can't face its own pathologies, no?

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JUST SAY "NO":

The secret lives of middle schoolers (Seth Stern, 9/30/03, The Christian Science Monitor)

Writing a book about Maryland middle schoolers forced journalist Linda Perlstein to live like an adolscent again.

She attended swim practices and bat mitzvahs. She watched her subjects instant-message each other from their bedrooms, and even sat through their classes - though she could walk through the halls without a pass.

The result, "not much just chillin','' is a preteenager's view of the world, drawn from what Perlstein likens to a three-year-long game of dodge ball. [...]

[Q:] You suggest sixth-graders quickly change from innocents to snobby and catty?

It's not particularly gradual. It happens every year. The kids who have been pretty sweet all year - it tends to be when they come back from spring break - tend to come back as full-on middle schoolers. Teachers dread it if they remember it. Some forget but come March, they remember. [...]

[Q:] Why do you emphasize how sexualized middle schoolers have become?

I was overwhelmed by it and pretty saddened too. You shouldn't have to be thinking about this kind of stuff at 12. It's not that the kids were going to go off and have sex in the alley, but I wonder what their relationships and sexual relationships would be like later in life. The patterns were so unintimate and objectified. [...]

What should parents do?

The main thing is to be involved and ignore the "get out." These kids still want you around; they just may want you around in a slightly different way.

It's important not to underestimate the amount of power you still have over your child. A lot of parents throw up their hands and think they can't make a difference and throw their children to the peer gods, and that's wrong. Say 'no' and mean it - so the child hits middle school and is used to hearing it.

When our daughter is 12 we're sending her to the Magdalenes.

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5% GIANT:

Would a weaker dollar create new US jobs?: American factory workers compete against China, where labor costs are only 5 percent of those in US. (Ron Scherer, 9/30/03, The Christian Science Monitor)

"This administration never said it was for a weak dollar, but they are clearly concerned about the lack of employment growth," says Paul Kasriel, an economist at Northern Trust Company in Chicago. "There is a lot of pressure from the manufacturing sector and labor."

That pressure is particularly strong with the Chinese currency, the yuan, which is pegged to the US dollar.

Many American companies are moving their manufacturing to China where the labor costs are only about 5 percent of the cost of labor in the US. As a result of this stampede, the US trade deficit with China is now running at $130 billion a year - a record for any country. [...]

Another reason the Chinese are reluctant to revalue, says Mr. Kasriel, is that their overall trade surplus with the rest of the world is narrowing. China has now become a major importer of raw materials and parts to assemble for goods shipped to the largest consuming nation - the US.

"This means countries like Chile - which are exporting copper to China - are starting to benefit from the Asian economies," says Kasriel. "And, the Chileans may want to buy something from the US which will help our exports." [...]

In fact, many economists don't see the dollar as having long-term problems. The European economy is in worse shape than the US. And, it's still not clear if the Japanese recovery will last. "Fundamentally, dollar investments are not as good as they used to be, but they are still better than most others" says Wyss. Adds Mr. Vitner, "I think people are too bearish on the US economy."

Three tidbits:

(1) If their labor costs are 5% of ours why is there any reason to believe we'll have any manufacturing jobs in a few years?

(2) They buy raw materials elsewhere, follow plans we think up, and put pieces together. All they are is assemblers and they'll only be that until their own labor force starts pushing wages up. Then the jobs go elsewhere and they're nothing.

(3) [Q:] If you were going to invest your life savings in one economy until you retire, whose is safest?

[A:] Ours.

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MORE HEAT THAN LIGHT:

Poor nations keep heat on trade: After WTO talks, the 'G-22' group of developing nations focuses on more-open agricultural markets (Patrick Smith, 9/30/03, The Christian Science Monitor)

Global trade negotiations may well proceed more slowly in the aftermath of the World Trade Organization's collapsed talks in Cancún, Mexico, earlier this month. But they are also likely to proceed more equitably.

As the WTO's 148 members brace for their next session, now scheduled for December, it is already clear that the sudden emergence of a coalition of 22 developing nations has turned the negotiating landscape between rich and poor countries into one that more closely resembles a level playing field.

For now, the Group of 22 intends to remain focused on the opening of global markets for farm products - the issue that divided rich and poor at Cancún and prompted the group to walk out on Sept. 14. Viewed more broadly, however, the "G-22" reflects the increasing assertiveness of developing nations - not only in the WTO but in other multilateral organizations, including the UN.

"It's too early to tell what the G-22's larger agenda will be, or even if we will have one," says Rubens Barbosa, Brazil's ambassador to Washington and a prime mover behind the group's formation. "But the political, economic, and trade circumstances are different now. There's a new balance of power, and the US and the European Union are finally going to have to face us."

Why? Or what?

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WANNA TAKE THE LEAK STORY OFF THE FRONT PAGE?:

As reform falters, Syrian elite tighten grip: Confidence in President Bashar al-Assad has dropped as familiar players amass more power (Nicholas Blanford, 9/30/03, The Christian Science Monitor)

When Mohammed Naji al-Otari was sentenced to several months in prison for corruption in the mid-1980s, most residents of this city in northern Syria assumed that his political career was over.

They were wrong. Last week, Mr. Otari was appointed prime minister of a new government in Damascus, pledging to stamp out the rampant corruption that continues to stifle economic growth and hamper much sought-after political reforms.

Otari's appointment and the composition of his 31-member cabinet - which proportionately contains more members of the ruling Baath Party than the previous government - has come as a blow to reformers and Syrian human rights activists as well as ordinary Syrians. There is a palpable sense of disillusionment here as hopes of tangible political and economic reform fail to materialize. Faith in Bashar al-Assad, Syria's youthful president, is being replaced by a sullen resentment at his apparent inability to curb the excesses of the powerful and super-rich clique of regime leaders.

Although there is little prospect of significant domestic instability in the near future, cracks in the 40-year-old Baathist edifice are beginning to appear. And analysts, economists, and diplomats believe that unless a concerted effort is made to usher in a genuine and effective reform program, the country could be heading for serious trouble in the long run.

Now would be an excellent time to challenge Baby Assad so forcefully over Syria's role in Lebanon and supporting terror that he either has to back down and be so humiliated as to be quite possibly fatally weakened or else respond and provide us with a pretext for regime change.

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DEMOCRATS CHOOSE A TARGET:

Bush '04 Readying for One Democrat, Not 10 (RICHARD W. STEVENSON and ADAM NAGOURNEY, 9/29/03)

President Bush's political advisers have set in motion an aggressive re-election machine, building a national network of get-out-the-vote workers and amassing a pile of cash for a blanket advertising campaign expected to begin around the time Democrats settle on their candidate early next year, party officials said.

Mr. Bush's senior advisers, in interviews last week, repeatedly described the Democratic field as unusually weak and divided, providing an important if temporary cushion for Mr. Bush. [...]

The decision to delay the start of advertising until about the time the Democrats settle on a nominee is a rejection of what had been a central element of President Bill Clinton's re-election campaign. Mr. Clinton began advertising 16 months before Election Day, in an effort to define the election before the Republicans chose an opponent.

Republicans said that would be a waste of money, given the battle taking place among the Democrats. Instead, aides to Mr. Bush said, their campaign would begin spending when a Democratic nominee starts to emerge from the primary battle, probably battered and very likely almost broke.

The biggest difference between the positions of Mr. Bush now and Mr. Clinton then is that, especially in light of the 1994 midterm, the latter could barely be certain of holding together as much of his Democratic coalition as had voted for him in '96, whereas no one who voted for George W. Bush in '00 is going anywhere. He can fight the re-election out on the Democrats' turf.

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NOW THIS SHOULD BE PAY-PER-VIEW (THE BIG BANG IN PYONGYANG?):

NORTH KOREA: ON THE BORDERLINE: Part 1: Soldiers head for the frontier (Alan Fung. 9/30/03, Asia Times)

Recently, reports have been surfacing about extraordinary movements along the border between China and North Korea. On September 14, Hong Kong's Sing Tao Daily carried a report that up to 150,000 People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops had been deployed on the border, replacing local armed police. On September 15 Kong Quan, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, released a statement that the PLA troops were taking on responsibility for defense of the border as a normal adjustment that was part of China's efforts to unify border control. At the same time, Ta Kung Pao newspaper, the mainland's mouthpiece in Hong Kong, carried a series of reports that there was no large-scale deployment along the border. Its journalists had paid visits to various towns along border and found no illicit crossings of the border. Everything, it reported, seemed to be normal along the border. What is really happening along the Sino-North Korean border? Asia Times Online has dispatched correspondents to the scene to dig out the truth, and this is the first of a series of their reports.

Remember that old saying: when totalitarian dictatorships have a fall out we all win.

Funny, isn't it, how W's stupid approch to N. Korea has now been adopted by all the other players, No more pandering to Pyongyang (Stephen Blank, 9/30/03, Asia Times)

Japan's decision to bring North Korea's nuclear proliferation to the United Nations for debate and resolution marks another significant development in the saga of Pyongyang's nuclearization. Not only does it signify Japan's final loss of patience with North Korea's brinkmanship and nuclear threats, it also represents in more prosaic terms a Japanese effort, no doubt supported by at least some of the other states involved, to call North Korea's bluff.

This, frankly, is unprecedented in the record of crises stemming from North Korean nuclearization. Normally it is North Korea that has pushed its interlocutors to the brink, not the other way around.

One can only wish that the Clnton admiitration had stood up to N. Korea ten years ago.

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WHY SHOULD THE BRITS HAVE ALL THE FUN?:

U.S. probes leak of CIA agent's identity (Barbara Slavin, 9/28/2003, USA TODAY)

The Justice Department is investigating a CIA complaint that White House officials leaked the name of a CIA officer in an apparent effort to punish her husband and stifle criticism of the U.S. case for war in Iraq.

Joseph Wilson, the husband of the officer, is a former ambassador to Iraq who angered the Bush administration in July by asserting that the White House knew when Bush made statements about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium in Africa that the evidence was dubious.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice confirmed that the Justice Department was looking into a complaint from CIA Director George Tenet that White House officials had leaked the name and occupation of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame. [...]

The Washington Post quoted an administration official Sunday as saying two White House officials phoned at least six journalists and disclosed the name and occupation of Wilson's wife. Novak printed the name July 14 and said Wilson, a critic of Bush policy on Iraq, had been sent by the CIA to Africa after his wife suggested it.

Eight days earlier, Wilson, writing in The New York Times, revealed that he had traveled to Niger in February 2002 to investigate reports that Saddam's regime had sought to purchase yellowcake, a form of uranium that can be enriched to produce nuclear weapons. Wilson, who was the top Africa expert on President Clinton's National Security Council, concluded that the reports were based on false information.

Whoever leaked the name is going to have to resign, but given the recent history of administrations leaking about their enemies, no prosecution seems likely. Meanwhile, revenge would appear to be a dubious motive here; more likely is that Ambassador Wilson was seen as a tool of CIA, which was opposed to the war, and folks in the White House thought his at least marital ties to the Agency were the key to understanding his report. He tried to play hardball and had it played back, it would appear inappropriately.

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THE DEMOCRATS' SEASON OF DREAD BEGINS:

Poll: Calif. set to oust Davis (John Ritter, 9/29/03, USA TODAY)

California voters are ready to fire Gov. Gray Davis and replace him with actor and political novice Arnold Schwarzenegger, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds.

A week before the vote on recalling the two-term Democrat, 63% of probable voters say they will vote to remove him from office. Three-quarters are unhappy with his job performan

Schwarzenegger, a Republican who is making his first run for elective office, captures 40% of the vote in the poll. His closest pursuer, Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, receives 25%.

In a normal election you'd expect the supporters of the subsidiary candidates to come home to the two main parties on election day--in the same way Ralph Nader's support collapsed on Election Day 2000--but this is California and a Recall election, so it's anything but normal. Still, it does not seem possible that in such a heavily Democratic state the annointed candidate could possibly poll under about 40-45% in the actual election.

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- - - :

Cultural movement kindles interest of secular Jews (Cathy Lynn Grossman, 9/29/03, USA TODAY)

Nearly 200 secular humanistic Jews here will gather this week to honor the culture and values of their people.

Minus God.

Like Jews worldwide, they are marking the High Holy Days. Saturday was Rosh Hashana, and Oct. 6 is Yom Kippur.

But they will not pray.

"We don't talk about God. Judaism is more than a religion," says Judi Gladstone, founder of the Secular Jewish Circle of Puget Sound.

The group is part of the national Society for Secular Humanistic Judaism, founded by Rabbi Sherwin Wine in 1963 with the creation of its first synagogue, the Birmingham (Mich.) Temple near Detroit.

Wine, now retired, cites research showing nearly half of all U.S. Jews call themselves secular. About 40,000 are affiliated with congregations linked to Wine's group or the parallel Congress for Secular Jewish Organizations.

Wine believes they are the future of the Jewish people. "Our focus is on how we, as Jewish human beings, can live an ethical life of courage with greater strength and compassion."

Like Caffeine-Free Diet Coke, it raises the question: why bother? If you're trying to reconnect with Jewish culture and live more ethical lives you won't achieve either end without God.

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HE BROUGHT THE LIGHT OF SCRUTINY:

Elia Kazan, Influential Director, Dies at 94 (MERVYN ROTHSTEIN, 9/28/03, NY Times)

Elia Kazan, the immigrant child of a Greek rug merchant who became one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history, died yesterday at his home in Manhattan. He was 94.

Mr. Kazan's achievements in theater and cinema helped define the American experience for more than a generation. For Broadway, his legendary productions included "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Death of a Salesman." His movie classics included "On the Waterfront" and "East of Eden."

To many critics, he was the best director of American actors in stage and screen history, discovering Marlon Brando, James Dean and Warren Beatty and redefining the craft of film acting. In 1953 the critic Eric Bentley wrote that "the work of Elia Kazan means more to the American theater than that of any current writer."

Mr. Kazan was a founder and longtime co-director of the Actors Studio; a founder with Robert Whitehead of the first repertory theater at Lincoln Center; a member of the fabled Group Theater in the 1930's; the favorite director of a generation of new American playwrights, including the two most important, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller; and in his later years a best-selling novelist.

He received best-director Tony Awards for his work on two of Mr. Miller's plays, "All My Sons" (1947) and "Death of a Salesman" (1949), as well as for Archibald MacLeish's "J. B." (1959).

In Hollywood, seven of Mr. Kazan's films won a total of 20 Academy Awards. He won best-director Oscars for "Gentleman's Agreement," a 1947 indictment of anti-Semitism, and "On the Waterfront" in 1954. "On the Waterfront," a searing depiction of venality and corruption on the New Jersey docks, won eight Oscars.

Mr. Kazan also received an Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1999. The lifetime achievement award was controversial because in 1952 Mr. Kazan angered many of his friends and colleagues when he acknowledged before the House Un-American Activities Committee that he had been a member of the Communist Party from 1934 to 1936 and gave the committee the names of eight other party members. He had previously refused to do so, and his naming of names prompted many people in the arts, including those who had never been Communists, to excoriate him for decades.

Asked why he had identified others, he cited a "specious reasoning which has silenced many liberals" that ran like this: "You may hate the Communists, but you must not attack them or expose them, because if you do you are attacking the right to hold unpopular opinions."

"I'd had every good reason to believe the party should be driven out of its many hiding places and into the light of scrutiny, but I'd never said anything because it would be called `red-baiting,' " he wrote years later. "The `horrible, immoral thing' that I did I did out of my own true self."

Completely fitting for a great artist, Mr. Kazan had the last word in the naming names dustup with his magnificent film, On the Waterfront, an artwork so powerful that even those who were on the side of the murderers and goons in real life had to acknowledge its core truth: that the exposure of evil is more important than "loyalty" to one's fellows in a ciminal enterprise. Long after the names of all the blacklisted and those who testified and those named in things like the Venona transcripts are forgotten, two testaments to the time will endure: Whittaker Chambers's Witness and Mr. Kazan's Waterfront.

MORE:
-Elia Kazan (kirjasto)
-Elia Kazan (Wikipedia)
-Elia Kazan (PBS: American Masters)
-Elia Kazan (Spartacus School)

-Elia Kazan: Postage Paid (Modern Times)
-ARTICLE: Hollywood protest at Kazan's Oscar (Tom Brook, February 22, 1999, BBC)
-Washington Post: Academy Awards 1999
-ESSAY: The Legacy of the Anti-Communist Liberal Intellectuals (Ronald Radosh, Partisan Review)
-ESSAY: Elia Kazan's Towering Presence (Larry P. Arnn, Claremont Precepts)
-ESSAY: Elia Kazan: Moral Hero: Kazan should be applauded for defending individual rights by testifying against Hollywood’s communists. (Robert W. Tracinski, Ad Hoc Committee for Naming Names)
-ESSAY: Justice for Elia Kazan (Glenn Woiceshyn, March 1, 1999, Capitalism Magazine)
-ESSAY: Naming Names (Thomas Sowell, 3/19/99, Jewish World Review)
-ESSAY: A Different Waterfront (Paul Greenburg, 3/9/99, Jewish World Review)
-ESSAY: Kazan's Oscar: Not Too Late (L. Brent Bozell III, January 25, 1999)
-ESSAY: Kazan and Miller: Long, Bitter Debate From the '50's: Views of Kazan and His Critics (Richard Bernstein, May 3, 1988, NY Times)
-ESSAY: Why Elia should get his Oscar: moral and political judgments of Elia Kazan should not overshadow his art at this month's Academy Awards (Arthur Miller, March 6, 1999, The Guardian)
-ESSAY: The Forgotten Oscar (Victor Navasky, March 18, 1999, The Nation)
-ESSAY: Blacklist and Backstory: Hollywood's unexpected embrace of Elia Kazan (Jacob Weisberg, January 31, 1999, Slate)
-ESSAY: Why Elia Kazan should not receive an Oscar: By bestowing a special honor on the director, who already has won two Oscars, the academy is glossing over history. (Steve Erickson, March 1999, Salon)
-ESSAY: Hollywood honors Elia Kazan. Filmmaker and informer. (David Walsh, 20 February 1999, World Socialist Web Site)
-ESSAY: And the Winner Is -- HUAC: Elia Kazan will have the statue, but the victory belongs to the blacklist (Christopher Trumbo , 3/19/99, LA Weekly)
-ARCHIVES: READINGS IN THE AMERICAN 1950S
-REVIEW ESSAY: Seeing Red: Reviews of Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left, and the Leftover Left by Ronald Radosh, A Very Dangerous Citizen: Abraham Lincoln Polonsky and the Hollywood Left, by Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner, and Red Scared!: The Commie Menace in Propaganda and Popular Culture by Michael Barson and Steven Heller.(Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley, Claremont Review of Books)

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THE GENERAL DEBATES HIMSELF:

Looks like Clark should go back to basic training (Clarence Page, September 28, 2003, Chicago Tribune)

Will the real Wesley Clark please stand up and throw his helmet in the ring?

Such is the question I hear welling up from the masses as the retired general and fledgling Democratic presidential candidate politically evolves right in front of our eyes. As he figures out what he believes in, Gen. Clark sounds at times like Gen. Chameleon, recoloring himself to suit his surroundings.

In his first debate last week in New York with the nine other Democratic candidates, for example, Clark was asked to explain why he had been a speaker at the May 11, 2001, Lincoln Day fundraising dinner of the Arkansas Republican Party, where Clark gave glowing praise to Ronald Reagan and President Bush.

Clark acknowledged his politics had changed, then he backed that up by criticizing Bush as a man who had "recklessly cut taxes ... recklessly took us into Iraq" and practices "neither conservatism nor compassion."

Then with the warm and confident smile of a man who had just come home, he declared to the audience, "I am pro-choice, I am pro-affirmative action, I'm pro-environment, pro-health [care]. That's why I'm proud to be a Democrat."

Clark handled the question far more smoothly than his flip-flop a week earlier. The New York Times reported that he called out "Mary, help!" for his press aide Mary Jacoby when reporters peppered him with questions about how he would have voted on the congressional resolution to authorize invading Iraq.

Clark's reply, "On balance, I probably would have voted for it," startled and angered anti-war Democrats, forcing Clark to do a U-turn the next day: "I would never have voted for war." Ah, well, even a Rhodes Scholar who graduated first in his class at West Point can find himself sent right back to basic training when he runs for president.

Looks like the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party may not roll over for the General, which will afford us the great pleasure of watching the Democrats destroy a military man (even if a lousy one), while trying to convince the American people that they can be trusted with our military defense.

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SAME AS IT EVER WAS:

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT: BROADCAST FROM THE OVAL ROOM OF THE WHITE HOUSE,
NATIONALLY, AND OVER A WORLD-WIDE HOOKUP (DECEMBER 9, 1941 -- 10:00 P.M.)

MY FELLOW AMERICANS:

The sudden criminal attacks perpetrated by the Japanese in the Pacific provide the climax of a decade of international immorality.

Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together to make war upon the whole human race. Their challenge has now been flung at the United States of America. [...]

The course that Japan has followed for the past ten years in Asia has paralleled the course of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe and in Africa. Today, it has become far more than a parallel. It is actual collaboration so well calculated that all the continents of the world, and all the oceans, are now considered by the Axis strategists as one gigantic battlefield. [...]

I repeat that the United States can accept no result save victory, final and complete. Not only must the shame of Japanese treachery be wiped out, but the sources of international brutality, wherever they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken.

In my Message to the Congress yesterday I said that we "will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again." In order to achieve that certainty, we must begin the great task that is before us by abandoning once and for all the illusion that we can ever again isolate ourselves from the rest of humanity.

In these past few years -- and, most violently, in the past three days -- we have learned a terrible lesson.

It is our obligation to our dead -- it is our sacred obligation to their children and to our children -- that we must never forget what we have learned.

And what we have learned is this:

There is no such thing as security for any nation -- or any individual -- in a world ruled by the principles of gangsterism. There is no such thing as impregnable defense against powerful aggressors who sneak up in the dark and strike without warning.

We have learned that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from severe attack -- that we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles on any map any more.

We may acknowledge that our enemies have performed a brilliant feat of deception, perfectly timed and executed with great skill. It was a thoroughly dishonorable deed, but we must face the fact that modern warfare as conducted in the Nazi manner is a dirty business. We don't like it -- we didn't want to get in it -- but we are in it and we're going to fight it with everything we've got.

I do not think any American has any doubt of our ability to administer proper punishment to the perpetrators of these crimes. Your Government knows that for weeks Germany has been telling Japan that if Japan did not attack the United States, Japan would not share in dividing the spoils with Germany when peace came. She was promised by Germany that if she came in she would receive the complete and perpetual control of the whole of the Pacific area -- and that means not only the Ear East, but also all of the Islands in the Pacific, and also a stranglehold on the west coast of North, Central and South America. We know also that Germany and Japan are conducting their military and naval operations in accordance with a joint plan. That plan considers all peoples and nations which are not helping the Axis powers as common enemies of each and every one of the Axis powers.

That is their simple and obvious grand strategy. And that is why the American people must realize that it can be matched only with similar grand strategy. We must realize for example that Japanese successes against the United States in the Pacific are helpful to German operations in Libya; that any German success against the Caucasus is inevitably an assistance to Japan in her operations against the Dutch East Indies; that a German attack against Algiers or Morocco opens the way to a German attack against South America and the Canal.

On the other side of the picture, we must learn also to know that guerilla warfare against the Germans in, let us say Serbia or Norway, helps us; that a successful Russian offensive against the Germans helps us; and that British successes on land or sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands.

Remember always that Germany and Italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the United States at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with Britain or Russia. And Germany puts all the other Republics of the Americas into the same category of enemies. The people of our sister Republics of this Hemisphere can be honored by that fact.

The true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. When we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers -- we are builders.

We are now in the midst of a war, not for conquest, not for vengeance, but for a world in which this nation, and all that this nation represents, will be safe for our children. We expect to eliminate the danger from Japan, but it would serve us ill if we accomplished that and found that the rest of the world was dominated by Hitler and Mussolini.

So we are going to win the war and we are going to win the peace that follows.

And in the difficult hours of this day -- through dark days that may be yet to come -- we will know that the vast majority of the members of the human race are on our side. Many of them are fighting with us. All of them are praying for us. But, in representing our cause, we represent theirs as well -- our hope and their hope for liberty under God.

Three things leap out about this speech:

(1) If you're education was anything like mine--at utterly conventional public schools and a liberal arts college--you'll have heard innumerable times that Hitler's declaration of war on the United States was a totally unnecessary, almost deranged, blunder, that came out of the blue. In fact, it followed this address by FDR, which all but officially declared war on Germany.

(2) Given that there was practically no coordination between Japan and Germany and that we well knew that to be the case, we might consider this FDR's own Iraq speech, overstating the case against an obvious enemy of freedom in order to drag a reluctant, even dubious, into war with his chosen target, rather than theirs.

(3) We can probably go out on a limb and say that no one ran editorials the next day complaining about his references to evil or about his closing line being too religious.

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THE FINAL BATTLE WITH THE TALIBAN AND AL QAEDA WILL OCCUR IN PAKISTAN:

Inside the Islamic Mafia: Bernard-Henri Lévy exposes Daniel Pearl's killers. (Christopher Hitchens, September 25, 2003, Slate)

I remember laughing out loud, in what was admittedly a mirthless fashion, when Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, one of Osama Bin Laden's most heavy-duty deputies, was arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Straining to think of an apt comparison, I fail badly. But what if, say, the Unabomber had been found hiding out in the environs of West Point or Fort Bragg? Rawalpindi is to the Pakistani military elite what Sandhurst is to the British, or St Cyr used to be to the French. It's not some boiling slum: It's the manicured and well-patrolled suburb of the officer class, very handy for the capital city of Islamabad if you want to mount a coup, and the site of Flashman's Hotel if you are one of those who enjoys the incomparable imperial adventure-stories of George MacDonald Fraser. Who, seeking to evade capture, would find a safe house in such a citadel?

Yet, in the general relief at the arrest of this outstanding thug, that aspect of the matter drew insufficient attention. Many words of praise were uttered, in official American circles, for the exemplary cooperation displayed by our gallant Pakistani allies. But what else do these allies have to trade, except al-Qaida and Taliban suspects, in return for the enormous stipend they receive from the U.S. treasury? Could it be that, every now and then, a small trade is made in order to keep the larger trade going?

One hesitates to utter thoughts like these, but they recur continually as one reads Bernard-Henri Lévy's latest book: Who Killed Daniel Pearl? Everybody remembers—don't they?—the ghastly video put out on the Web by Pearl's kidnappers and torturers. It's the only live-action footage we possess of the ritual slaughter of a Jew, preceded for effect by his coerced confession of his Jewishness. Pearl was lured into a trap by the promise of a meeting with a senior religious demagogue, who might or might not have shed light on the life of the notorious "shoe-bomber," because of whom millions of us must take off our footwear at American airports every day, as if performing the pieties required for entering a mosque.

What a sick joke all this is, if you study Lévy's book with care. If you ever suspected that the Pakistani ISI (or Interservices Intelligence) was in a shady relationship with the Taliban and al-Qaida forces, this book materializes the suspicion and makes the very strong suggestion that Pearl was murdered because he was doing his job too well, not because he was a naive idealist who got into the wrong car at the wrong time. His inquiries had at least the potential for exposing the Pakistani collusion and double-dealing with jihad forces, in much the same pattern the Saudi Arabian authorities have been shown to follow—by keeping two sets of books, in other words, and by exhibiting only one set to Americans.

In case you've ever wondered why the India-Israel-America axis is the most important and under-reported story in the world today.

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COST/BENEFIT, NO ANALYSIS:

Review of Environment Rules Finds Benefits Outweigh Costs (JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr., 9/28/03, NY Times)

The White House office in charge of reviewing federal regulations has reported that the benefits of some major environmental rules appear to exceed the costs by several times and that the net benefits may be even larger than previously acknowledged. [...]

The report included only a handful of the 4,135 final rules published in the Federal Register during the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, 2002. Its principal focus was on three rules issued by the Energy Department, the Transportation Department and the E.P.A. They imposed estimated annual costs of $1.6 billion to $2 billion, but produced estimated annual benefits of $2.4 billion to $6.5 billion.

If they save that much money we might be inclined to keep them, but this story is a tad cryptic, no?

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THE 1ST ANNUAL BROTHERS JUDD CALIFORNIA RECALL PROGNOSTATHON:

Here's the deal:

You pick the %'s of the "Yes" and "No" votes; the % of the vote that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cruz Bustamante will each get; and, as a tie breaker, the % of eligible voters who will turn out on October 7th.

We'll award whoever comes closest a copy of the magnificent new Illustrated version of James M. McPherson's Pulitzer-winning Battle Cry of Freedom and the runner-up a hot--off-the-presses paperback copy of Rick Atkinson's Pulitzer-winning Army at Dawn (both courtesy of our friends at FSB Associates).

Please go to this page to enter your picks.

MORE:
-Here are he results so far
-Here's the latest poll in pdf form.

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LESS PEOPLE THAN YOU'D FIND AT A PEACE MARCH:

Few catch glimpse of Bustamante (VICTORIA MANLEY, 9/28/03, Monterey Sun)

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante didn't have time for small talk when he dropped into Salinas on his campaign trail Saturday. Not that there were many who seemed to care.

Bustamante, who has mostly run on a "no on recall, yes on Bustamante" campaign for California governor, visited with a small group at a private fund-raiser in a home south of Salinas.

Apparently, anyone not willing to pay to speak with Bustamante was out of luck. The politician arrived in a private jet at Salinas Municipal Airport at 4 p.m., and within minutes of landing was whisked into a black sedan.

He arrived around 4:40 p.m. at the Alisal Road home of Jose L. Alcala, owner of Shorty's Portable Toilets. The chauffeured car was driven to the rear of a roped-off driveway, where Bustamante was escorted to the back door of the house and greeted by paid guests.

The visit to Salinas was the first, and likely the last, for Bustamante while on the recall campaign trail.

Despite assurances that he would address the public and talk to the press, Bustamante was swiftly escorted to rear entrances. Not once did he greet onlookers to answer their questions.

Then again, onlookers were few. Aside from mostly local reporters and a half-dozen Arnold Schwarzenegger supporters, no one seemed to notice or care that Bustamante was in town.

If he weren't a Democrat in CA, you'd have to stick a fork in him.

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OBLIGATORY FASCIST REFERENCE OF THE DAY:

No wonder America has so many enemies (ERIC MARGOLIS, 9/28/03, Toronto Sun)

President Bill Clinton was impeached by a Republican-controlled Congress for lying about sex. President George W. Bush and aides lied the United States into a stupid, unnecessary colonial war that has so far killed more than 305 Americans and seriously wounded more than 1,400. It has also cost many thousands of Iraqi dead, and $1 billion US weekly.

Lying about sex is an impeachable offence; lying the nation into war apparently is not.

I was no Clinton fan, but give me his iffy morals any day over Bush's Mussolini-like strutting.

Harold Meyerson calls it a Jefferson Davis strut.

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BOOKNOTES:

Mexifornia: A State of Becoming by Victor Davis Hanson (C-SPAN, September 28, 2003 , 8 & 11 pm)

Two themes dominate most of what has been written about Mexicans in California, and I have tried to avoid both. On the one extreme, we hear scary statistics that "prove" California will become part of Mexico by the sheer fact of immigration. On the other, we are told that either nothing much is changing, or that what alterations are occurring in the fabric of our social life are all positive. The truth, as always, is in between: California is passing through tumultuous times, but there is no reason to anticipate that it must become a de facto colony of Mexico. More importantly, I do not believe all that much in historical determinism—the idea that broad social, cultural and economic factors make the future course of events inevitable and render what individuals do in the here and now more or less irrelevant.

My main argument instead is that the future of the state—and the nation too, as regards the matter of immigration—is entirely in the hands of its current residents. California will become exactly what its people in the present generation choose to make it. So it is high time for honest discussion, without fear of recrimination and intimidation. How else are we ever going to sort out the various choices that will decide our collective fate—especially at a perilous time when we find ourselves at war with those who kill us as Americans regardless of accent, skin color or origin? That many in the business community will consider what follows naïve or dub me a protectionist/isolationist worries me as little as the critical voices I am sure to hear from an academic elite whose capital remains largely separatist identities and self-interest. Both parties, after all, did their part to get us into this predicament and have so far escaped accountability for the harm they have done.

We have extensive links to more by and about Mr. Hanson and his writings following our review of his earlier title, The Soul of Battle.

MORE:
-BOOK SITE: Mexifornia: A State of Becoming by Victor Davis Hanson (Encounter Books)
-ESSAY: Do We Want Mexifornia? (Victor Davis Hanson, Spring 2002, City Journal)
-INTERVIEW: Such a Lovely Place: Talking with Victor Davis Hanson about the future of California — and the United States. (A Q&A by Kathryn Jean Lopez, 6/11/03, National Review)
-ESSAY:Hanson on “Mexifornia”: Good – But Not Good Enough (Sam Francis, June 19, 2003, V-Dare)
-REVIEW: of Mexifornia: A State of Becoming by Victor Davis Hanson (Ken Masugi, Claremont Review of Books)
-REVIEW: of Mexifornia: A State of Becoming by Victor Davis Hanson (Emily Cochran, Townhall.com)
-REVIEW: of Mexifornia: A State of Becoming by Victor Davis Hanson (Paul A. Garcia, Fresno Bee)
-REVIEW: of Mexifornia: A State of Becoming by Victor Davis Hanson (John Fonte, Hudson Institute)

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WHY WE FIGHT?:

Now Is the Time to Teach Democracy: How can we defend our democratic way of life if we don't even understand it? (Diane Ravitch, Winter 2002, Hoover Digest)

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was sitting at my kitchen table, enjoying a second cup of coffee and reading the morning paper. A friend called to tell me that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. I live about three blocks from the waterfront in Brooklyn, directly across the river from Lower Manhattan, so I ran to the harbor. Just as I arrived, the second plane crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Along with about six others, I stood there wordless as we watched huge balls of flame and smoke erupting from the two buildings. On that bright blue, cloudless morning, the air in the harbor was filled as far as the eye could see with tiny bits of paper, like confetti in a ticker-tape parade, the paper blown off the
desks of people who worked in the upper floors of the burning buildings. All that day, ashes and soot rained down on my neighborhood. Cars were coated with the airborne ash, and a distinctive sickening smell, something akin to burning plastic, permeated the air. Thousands were killed in the conflagration. They were people of all races, religions, ethnicities, and social origins. Most were Americans, some were not. The hundreds of rescuers who died when the buildings collapsed were trying to save human lives, without distinction to anyone's color, beliefs, or national origin. By day's end, New Yorkers were lining up at emergency centers to give blood or to offer supplies or to volunteer in any way that seemed useful. The outpouring of volunteers was so large that many were turned away. So much for those who have decried the decline of civic participation in the United States. Since the mass murders, educators have been opining about how we must change what we teach our children. We must teach tolerance, they say, as if our children were somehow responsible for what happened because their teachers had failed to teach them tolerance. Of course, we must teach tolerance and we do teach tolerance, but we must not teach children to tolerate those who hijack commercial jetliners and kill innocent victims. We must not teach children to tolerate fanaticism, be it political or religious. Perhaps we could engage in civic dialogues with educators in the countries that the terrorists came from, to share what we know about teaching tolerance. Other educators have said that the events of September 11 demonstrate the necessity for a multicultural curriculum. Again, the implication is that this unprecedented atrocity was caused by a failure in the schools' curriculum, rather than by heartless, inhumane terrorists. [...]

I suggest that what our schools must do is to teach young people the virtues and blessings of our democratic system of government. Our ability to defend what we hold dear depends on our knowledge and understanding of it. If we value a free society, we must know about its
origins and its evolution. If we value our rights and freedoms, we must understand how we got them and what it would mean to live in a society that did not have them. To be sure, our democratic practices are not universal, even though almost all of them were clearly articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was endorsed by the United Nations in 1948. It is true that there are many societies that treat women as beasts of burden, many societies that do not choose their leaders, and many societies where the government and religious authorities decide who is allowed to speak and write. There are societies where free public education does not exist, where homosexuals are rounded up and imprisoned, and where our Western legal concepts of due process are unknown.

Some of these societies hate us because they hate our way of life. They think it is decadent. They think we are decadent because we protect freedom of speech, allowing people to read, say, and write whatever they want; because we protect freedom of religion, allowing "truth" and
"untruth" to be taught without any regulation; because we grant equal rights to men and women, allowing women to be educated to the same extent as men and to advance in the same professions. Certainly other generations of Americans understood that these rights and freedoms were part of the American way of life. The members of the "greatest generation," which saved the world from fascism and Nazism, knew that they were defending these rights and freedoms. The Cold War generation that helped to bring down Soviet totalitarianism understood the importance of these rights and freedoms. We do not know what sacrifices will be required of us in the months and years ahead. What we should know is the importance of teaching our children about democracy, freedom, human rights, the principle that every person is equal before the law, and the value of the individual. These are ideas with a long history. Our children need to know them.

It's inherently important for citizens to comprehend the Founding and the ideas that undergird America, but it's also important not to turn history into fantasy. Americans generally had no idea why we were fighting the Germans in WWII and wanted no part of it. Killing the Japanese was popular at home, but really only for racial reasons. When Ike toured Buchenwald, the first concentration camp to be liberated, he snarled at a G.I.: "Still having trouble hating them?" Tolerance and freedom and the like are lovely ideals, but folks aren't big on going to war for them.

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AT NPR, IT'S ALWAYS 1984:

Advertising Freedom (NPR: On the Media, 9/28/03)

According to a recent poll by the AdCouncil, an overwhelming majority of Americans think that fellow citizens take their freedoms for granted. And so the people who brought you Smokey Bear and the crash test dummies have taken up the cause with their latest series of TV, radio, and print PSAs. The latest installment in the "Campaign for Freedom" features immigrants who have fled from repressive regimes. AdCouncil President & CEO Peggy Conlon speaks with Bob about the campaign.

So host Bob Garfield asks about one ad in particular where in a dystopic America a man tries checking a book out of a library but is carried off by federal agents, "which is ironic because under the Patriot Act the same exact thing is happening right now in the real America." Mind you, this is a program devoted to keeping track of the uses and abuses of the media.

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WORD TO YOUR MOTHER:

Mother Angelica’s Empire of the Airwaves: Kathryn Jean Lopez tracks the 20-year growth of Catholic broadcast giant (Crisis, July/Aug 2001)

Hanceville, Alabama, is in the heart of the Bible Belt, in a state with a population that is less than 3 percent Catholic. Turn onto Old Country Road in this northern Alabama town, and you'll likely see more than a few Southern Baptist churches as you drive along. But
soon the religious landscape changes: For a mile or so, just about every house displays a statue of the Virgin Mary in the front yard. Or a sign indicating that the dwelling is named after a saint and is a guest house for visiting pilgrims. Or a "For Sale" placard naming an astronomical price for the privilege of residing in an area that lives and breathes Catholicism.

Finally, you drive along a seemingly endless white picket fence framing fertile, farmable land, and you see what looks incongruously like a 13th-century abbey, surmounted by an enormous Italian Romanesque church with a red-brick campanile. Its name: the Our Lady of the Angels
Monastery, housing the Poor Clare Nuns of Perpetual Adoration, members of a 147-year-old order of cloistered Franciscan sisters in traditional black-and-white garb. The church has its own name: the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, where the nuns spend their days in the presence of the Eucharist, displayed in an eight-foot monstrance.

You're in the land of Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, P.C.P.A., the 78-year-old nun who brought the Poor Clares to Alabama as their abbess (in 1962), built the Hanceville monastery (it opened in 1999; see "Mother's Magnificent Temple" in the September 2000 issue of Crisis), and helped turn this pocket of Alabama into a veritable Catholic theme park. Mother Angelica is best known as the founder of the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN)--with just under 300 employees, an annual budget of about $29 million, and an audience of about 66 million households in 43 countries, the largest Catholic cable network in the nation.

On August 15, EWTN will celebrate its 20th birthday--two decades of skyrocketing growth since Mother Angelica started it in 1981 with just $200 as a single television station operating out of the garage of her previous monastery in Irondale, Alabama, a Birmingham suburb some 50 miles from Hanceville. Irondale is still the home of EWTN's headquarters, and although Mother Angelica retired as chairman of its board last year, she still makes the drive there twice a week to tape her popular Mother Angelica Live television show in front of a studio audience.

Many Catholics idolize Mother Angelica as a media mogul of faith, an up-to-date version of the video-savvy Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen of the 1950s who did Sheen one better by building her own broadcasting empire. They refer to her reverently as "Mother," and some have moved to Hanceville just to be near her, as the front-yard statues around the monastery indicate.

Perhaps just as many other Catholics can't stand her, finding her needlessly truculent and all too ready to pick quarrels with those who strike her as less than orthodox in their beliefs. Whatever the reactions, Mother Angelica may well be, as Time magazine once described her, "the most influential Roman Catholic woman in America."

The tv remote control offers no more jarring experience than to stumble upon Mother Angelica in the midst of music videos, cartoons, and sports shows. They do a nice program on G.K. Chesterton.

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DOES ANYONE EDIT SLATE?:

Republicans for Hillary, Part 2: Why conservatives want her to run. (Timothy Noah, September 23, 2003, Slate)

Yesterday, Chatterbox demonstrated that the "Draft Hillary" movement consists almost entirely of conservative Republicans. Liberals are largely indifferent to the idea of Hillary running, and a few oppose it.

Never Say Never: Why the Hillary buzz won’t go away (Eleanor Clift, Sept. 26, 2003, Newsweek)

However many times Hillary Clinton denies she is running in 2004, the buzz continues about her possible candidacy. We always love the candidate who is outside the process. The entry last week of Gen. Wesley Clark into the race only fed the rumors that the Clintons are orchestrating the primaries behind the scenes with an eye to reserving a place for Hillary and extending Bill’s legacy.

The confluence of circumstances is almost too delicious. Clark is the vice president Clinton never had. He’s from Arkansas, a Rhodes scholar and he performed heroic service in Vietnam and won a war in Kosovo. With Clark in the White House, the Clinton era returns. If Clark doesn’t live up to his potential on the campaign trail, then Hillary jumps in to save the party.

It’s a tantalizing scenario, and former president Clinton drops enough hints to keep it alive.

We'd like to be the first to welcome Eleanor Clift and Bill Clinton to the ranks of the VRWC, the exclusive domain of the Hillary for President meme according to Mr. Noah.

MORE:
Time for Hillary to fish or cut bait (Bill Press, September 26, 2003)
Hillary Faces Test - Is She a Clinton Who Keeps Pledges? (Mort Kondracke, September 23, 2003)

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DO WE REALLY WANT THEM TO IMITATE CALIFORNIA?:

Candidate Plans 'Democracy Tour' of Afghanistan (LA Times, September 27, 2003)

Badi Badiozamani, one of the 135 people running for governor, has invited four of his fellow candidates to accompany him on a mission to Afghanistan, where they hope to share the lessons from the campaign trail with a country struggling to create democratic institutions.

"I would like to tell them about the democracy we have, that ordinary people can run for any position," said Badiozamani, a nonpartisan candidate from San Diego who moved to America from Iran in the early 1980s.

He said the trip was being planned under the auspices of the Center for East-West Understanding, which he runs.

Dick Lane, a Democrat from Sunnyvale; Frank Macaluso, a Democrat from Visalia; Lawrence Strauss, a Democrat from Sherman Oaks; and Jon Zellhoefer, a Republican from San Jose, have volunteered for the trip.

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FIGHTING THE ENEMY WITH ONE WING TIED BEHIND OUR BACK (via Mike Daley):

The Terror War Needs Liberal Democrats, Too (Richard Brookhiser, NY Observer)

Why should liberal Democrats interest themselves in the Terror War? One reason I would think is national liberation. Over two decades of political gladiatorship, I have often found liberals taking that side of controversial issues. They wanted the black majority of South Africa to have equal rights. They lost no love on pro-American strong men like Pinochet, Marcos or the Shah. And whatever they felt about the Cold War, they didn’t seem sad when Communism lost. Leonard Bernstein conducted a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth in Berlin to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Terror War has already burst open jails, real and metaphorical, in two countries. Men in Afghanistan can shave their beards, women who wish to can show their faces. Iraqi soccer players are no longer tortured for missing goals, Kurdish children are no longer stuffed into mass graves.

Indifference to the fate of dusky peoples used to be the property of the right, especially its satirists. The classic expressions of such sentiments are the African farces of Evelyn Waugh, Scoop and Black Mischief, filled with comic savages and their jabbering intelligentsia. (Waugh’s white people don’t come off any better, but it his depiction of the Other that stings.) The Tory view of the world acknowledged that people and cultures are different, and that they cannot be homogenized by mere decrees. But in its extreme form it treated different races as different species, and consigned some to eternal darkness. Liberals should not want to be in that role.

Liberal Democrats’ chief interest in the Terror War, however, should be what it means for us. Ordinary Americans, including ordinary liberal Americans, are precisely what the terrorists and their patrons hate most in the world. The Islamist utopia has no room for minorities, deviants, independent women, religious freedom or intellectual expression. Islamists enforce their tastes with murder on their ascent to power, and with capital punishment once they have achieved it. Secular terrorists in the Muslim world may drop a few clauses of this agenda. Iraqi women could wear skirts; they just couldn’t speak, vote or read.

Paint John Ashcroft as black as you please, and stick demon horns on his head. He will not murder his enemies. If his party loses, he will go home. That is why the proper arena for liberal Democrats who quarrel with him is the ballot box.

Imagine for a moment that Scoop Jackson had to listen to a Democratic Presidential debate. He'd be physically ill.

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QUAGWHAT?:

US army turns over border control to Iraqis (Ireland On Line, 27/09/2003)

The US Army turned over a large stretch of the border separating Iraq from Iran to an American-trained border police force today, for the first time relinquishing control of a sensitive frontier area to the provisional government.

The 210-mile length of frontier running from the edges of Kurdish-controlled territory in the north to a point just southeast of Baghdad is part of a broader effort to give Iraqis more control over their affairs and relieve the US military of the burden of guarding the border.

“They are now controlling the border, we are in oversight mode,” said Lt Col Reggie Allen, commanding officer of the 4th Infantry Division’s 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry.

Anybody got a dictionary? Quagmire appears not to mean what the Left says it does.

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DAMNED IF THEY DO...:

DEMOCRATIC CONFUSION ON VOUCHERS (Matthew Miller, 9/24/03, Tribune Media Services)

Democrats are prepared to filibuster a Republican plan to spend $13 million to give up to 2000 children in Washington, D.C., a $7,500 school voucher. But Democrats are not planning to filibuster President Bush's plan to spend a fresh $87 biillion in Iraq without rescinding some tax cuts for the wealthy to pay for it.

There is something wrong with this picture.

To say that Democrats have a voucher problem is to understate matters. But because passions run so high on this issue, let me throw in the obligatory caveats. Even though the Democratic mayor of Washington, Anthony Williams, rightly wants this plan passed, it is not a serious test of the voucher concept. A serious test would offer more generous vouchers to most of Washington's 70,000 children, not only a tiny fraction.

Let me also stipulate that Republicans are often evil, and their claim to champion poor children is largely a hoax.

Thank goodness for the qualifiers: "often" and "largely".

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THAT'LL SHOW HIM:

Man guilty of damaging churches (DAN ROZEK, 9/27/03, Chicago Sun-Times)

A Joliet man who authorities said targeted churches because of his hostility to religion pleaded guilty Friday to robbing and vandalizing nine DuPage County churches and religious schools.

During one break-in, 41-year-old Jamie Pytell beheaded and desecrated a statue of Jesus Christ, prosecutors said. He also set small fires during at least two of the burglaries, authorities said. [...]

Pytell confessed during interviews with police to committing the break-ins, telling them that several happened during fits of rage at religious institutions. A law enforcement source said after Pytell was arrested last year that the attacks took place because Pytell "hates religion." [...]

While Jacobs had raised concerns about Pytell's mental state, Pytell was found mentally fit to stand trial in August, although he remains on psychotropic medication while being held in the DuPage County Jail.

Pytell vandalized and burglarized churches of different denominations, including Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist and Christian Fellowship.

One of the most ridiculous, yet widely accepted, stories of recent years concerned the supposedly racially-motivated epidemic of black church burnings. It turns out that there are a series of perfectly logical reasons why churches--predominantly white, predominantly black, and everything in between--are victims of fire. First, the buildings are often old and susceptible to fire of the accidental sort. Second, they're unoccupied and don't have much security so they're inviting targets for vandals. Third, as above, they tend to be the target of mentally-ill people. Many of the unbalanced seem to enjoy expressing their rage at God by lighting his buildings on fire. If such arsons are hate crimes they are not primarily fueled by racial but by religious animus.

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WHAT ABOUT ME?:

Army Chaplain's Arrest Puts Chinese Americans on Edge: : The unanswered questions and media frenzy around the arrest of Capt. James Yee remind Chinese Americans of the charges -- almost all of which were later dropped -- against Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, which they say ruined an innocent man's career. (Andrew Lam, Sep 26, 2003 , Pacific News Service)

Many Chinese Americans are feeling dread in the wake of the arrest of Capt. James Yee, a Muslim chaplain stationed at Fort Lewis Army Base, Wash. The case brings back memories of the prosecution -- some would say persecution -- of Dr. Wen Ho Lee.

Lee, the Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist, was arrested by the FBI in 1999 on espionage charges and found not guilty after months in solitary confinement. President Clinton later apologized to him, though Dr. Lee's career as a scientist was already ruined.

Yee's arrest is as troubling as Dr. Lee's, says Ling Chi Wang, a professor of East Asian Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Though not prepared to pass judgment on the case, Wang says that "based on what has been leaked to the media, I smell a rat." The public knows next to nothing about the Yee case other than what the FBI and the military have revealed to the press, he says, much of which "we can safely regard as propaganda and half-truths." [...]

The effect of the arrests of Dr. Lee and other Chinese scientists due to racial profiling, Chan adds, "is that now, few Asians want to join government institutions. How many Chinese will want to go to West Point if they see what's happening to Capt. Yee?"

Phil Ting, director of Asian Law Caucus, is also watching the case with concern. "The New York Times article about Yee insinuates certain amount of guilt already," he says. Ting adds that in some ways, Captain Yee's situation is worse than Dr. Lee's because after 9/11, government power over civilian and military personnel increased. "If it's a closed military tribunal, I wonder if Yee will be getting due process."

Asian Americans are more vulnerable after 9/11, says Zia. "At times of heightened government scrutiny, the clergy are among the first to be rounded up. Faith communities should be especially concerned. Unfortunately for Chaplain Yee, he's facing a double whammy, being Chinese and Muslim." But everyone has a right to a fair and open trial, she says, "to be treated as innocent until proven guilty."

Whether Wen Ho Lee was an actual spy or not, butv what is indisputable is that he engaged in criminal activity and endangered national security. He admits as much. Maybe these folks could find another "martyr".

Meanwhile, that they are mainly worried about themselves in the face of revelations of a potentially disastrous security problem at Guantanamo hardly speaks well of their patriotism.

Potomac Watch: Case shows U.S. vulnerability in Arabic shortage (STEWART M. POWELL, 9/27/03, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER)

The spying charge against an Air Force translator at the terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, underscores the U.S. government's shortage of Arabic language specialists at a time when the war on terrorism demands their skills.

To offset the shortage of U.S.-trained Arabic translators, U.S. intelligence officials were relying on Syria-born airman Ahmad al-Halabi to carry out sensitive assignments involving the terrorism suspects.

Al-Halabi, 24, who emigrated from Syria to Dearborn, Mich., in 1996 and joined the Air Force after high school graduation in 1999, faces 32 military charges, including some that could involve the death penalty, for alleged espionage at the Guantanamo base where he worked for nine months as a translator. The Pentagon is holding about 660 al-Qaida and Taliban terror suspects at the base, subjecting many to intensive interrogations about past and future terrorist attacks and the locations of fugitive suspects.

"We're so desperate for Arabic speakers that we may end up getting people who speak the language but may not be 100 percent reliable," says Kevin Hendzel, head of ASET International Services, a translation firm with Pentagon contracts.

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NO ONE CAN PLAN AROUND THE STUPIDITY OF CONSUMERS:

All Segways recalled (AP, 9/26/2003)

Segway scooters, touted as almost untippable when unveiled two years ago, are being recalled. It turns out they don't work so well when the batteries get low - riders have fallen off and been injured.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall Friday of all 6,000 scooters that have been sold, saying three people had been hurt. One suffered a head wound and needed stitches.

Commission spokesman Ken Giles said Segway told the agency about the problem. [...]

The single-rider, two-wheeled Segway Human Transporters can travel up to 12 mph. Costing $4,950 each, they use gyroscopes to keep upright, making them less likely to fall or be knocked over.

But scooters being operated with low battery power may not have enough juice to remain upright when the rider suddenly speeds up or tries to drive over a bump or up an incline.

In a related story, all automobiles are being recalled because of failure to accelerate in traffic when they run out of gas.

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THIS ISM JUST HAS TO WORK...:

Europe's Utopian Hangover (Paul Johnson, 10.06.03, Forbes)

One thing history teaches, over and over again, is that there are no shortcuts. Human societies advance the hard way; there is no alternative. Communism promised Utopia on Earth. After three-quarters of a century of unparalleled sufferings, the Soviet Union collapsed in privation and misery, leaving massive Russia with an economy no bigger than tiny Holland's. We are now watching the spectacle of another experiment in hedonism, the European Union, as it learns the grim facts of life.

The EU is built on a fantasy--that men and women can do less and less work, have longer and longer holidays and retire at an earlier age, while having their income, in real terms, and their standard of living increase. And this miracle is to be brought about by the enlightened bureaucratic regulation of every aspect of life.

The EU is a French concept and is still largely run according to French ideas.

Is there a more blood-curdling phrase in the English language than "French ideas"?

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THE CRUZ SHIP HITS A REEF:

Getting the Bustamante Butterflies: Democrats fear the lieutenant governor's campaign has stalled, with no spark in sight (Matea Gold, September 27, 2003, LA Times)

After a lackluster performance in this week's debate and a rash of stories that highlighted criticism of his fund-raising, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante faces a growing perception that his campaign has stalled, according to fellow Democrats and independent analysts.

With 10 days left until the Oct. 7 election, Bustamante "has to be much more public and build some momentum for his candidacy," said Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman. "He did that on the front end, but now he's been more quiet. And in order to ensure Democratic turnout, it's incumbent for him to get out and build it."

Among Democratic leaders and constituency groups, anxiety has begun to take hold that Bustamante's campaign is fumbling its opportunities, said a Democratic official with ties to both the lieutenant governor and Gov. Gray Davis who spoke on condition that he not be named.

"People are almost cringing sometimes, saying, 'He's got to be stronger,' " the official said. [...]

But since entering the race in August, Bustamante has been unable to climb above 30% in public opinion polls, putting him neck and neck with Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California indicated that many Democrats remain ambivalent about the lieutenant governor, with just 49% saying they plan to vote for him.

"The challenge is to develop a degree of momentum, and with 10 days out it's awfully difficult," said David Provost, a political science professor at Cal State Fresno and the author of a college textbook on California politics.

The problem for Mr. Bustamante, as it is for Gray Davis, is that the more people see of him the less they like of him. That's not a helpful quality in politics, or life, for that matter.

MORE:
Bustamante ordered to explain lack of refunds: Senator may seek contempt charges if he's not satisfied. (Alexa H. Bluth, September 27, 2003, The Sacramento Bee)

A Sacramento judge ordered Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante on Friday to prove that he tried in earnest to cancel television ad contracts and return money for the recall campaign that he collected in violation of the state's campaign finance laws.
If Sen. Ross Johnson, who filed the original lawsuit against Bustamante, is not satisfied that he made a good-faith effort to comply with the order, the judge wrote, Johnson may seek contempt charges.

"The Court does expect a good faith effort to cancel what may be reasonably canceled," wrote Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster.

His future isn't worth a plugged buffalo nickel.

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REVOLUTION #3:

REGIME CHANGE IN IRAN: A REASSESSMENT: A quarter-century ago, Iran underwent a regime change, which became one of the main factors shaping the Middle East's subsequent history. What does this case study show us about regime changes in general and the nature of Iran's revolution itself? (Barry Rubin, June 2003, Middle East Review of International Affairs)

The politics and ideologies dominating the region can best be seen as the product of two great regime-changing revolutions: Egypt in 1952 and Iran in 1979, respectively. Explicitly or implicitly, these major innovations were taken as exemplars of the proper ideology and methodology for seizing and holding power. They were not merely political revolutions but also represented comprehensive worldviews and paradigm shifts.

Now advocates of a third revolution have appeared, though they are still far more prevalent in the United States than in the Middle East. This third revolution would be one which advocated as its main features: democracy, moderation, human rights and civil liberties, a more free enterprise economy, friendship with the West, and peace with Israel, among other features. It is the model that has basically triumphed in most of the world, but certainly not in the Middle East. The idea is that Iraq would be a starting point and would then become a model whose success would encourage others to follow in its path.

One could argue that the failure of the two old revolutions in their own countries would encourage--indeed, make inevitable--their abandonment as a model for other places. The fact that the Arab world and Iran have suffered so many failures and defeats in the last half-century, while not attaining any of their major goals, should be very persuasive arguments. That this has not happened is due to many factors, though it can be most simply explained by the regimes' determination and clever strategy in maintaining the beliefs that justify their existence.

What is undeniable, though, is that even today, the overwhelming majority of Arabs--though, ironically, not necessarily most Iranians--still see the two frameworks represented by these past revolutions as the very foundation of their political views and even of their personal self-image. Although the product of these two revolutions--Arab nationalism and Islamism--can be seen as rival interpretations, they also have a great deal in common. They seek to answer the same question, solve the same problem, and share the same goals. Their sense of right and wrong, friends and enemies, methods and prescriptions, overlap far more than they conflict.

Both movements spawned by these two different revolutions attempted to answer the same basic question and provide the answer to it: Why were the Arabs, Iranians, and Muslims in general behind the West? How could they catch up and surpass the West? While the prescriptions were not entirely the same, both rested on revolt, mobilization, and conflict with the West.

While both could be said to embrace value-neutral technology, and Arab nationalism took the ideology of nationalism from the West (as well as other techniques from the Communist states), both also rejected the basic path taken by Western Europe and North America. A path which includes embracing such concepts as democracy combined with free enterprise, an emphasis on moderation and gradual reform, and a defense of the individual's rights against the state.

In this process of surpassing the West, democratic rule and moderation in general were largely discredited as useful tools for Arabs or Muslims in pursuit of their dreams. Cooperation with the West and with the existing political order was seen as illegitimate, though in practice often pursued. The proper goals of Arab politics were seen as being the expulsion of Western influence, the unity of all Arabs (and of all Muslims for the later Islamists), the destruction of Israel, mobilization of the masses from above, a statist and socialist-style approach to economic development, all under the aegis of a charismatic leader.

The problem with Islam is obvious enough to most sensible observers: it is too totalitarian, in the non-pejorative sense. That is to say that because of the unique circumstances of its early success and the fact that Mohammed actually took control of the State, it became not a counterbalancing authority and a social institution, but a state authority. But the answer to too much totalitarianism can hardly be, as Islamicism assumes, to become more totalitarian. If the 20th Century served any useful purpose--a dubious proposition--it demonstrated the ultimate unwokability of statism/totalitarianism and the inferiority of any and every such system--whether communist, Nazi, socialist, or Islamic--to liberal democracy. When History came to its End, that end was the conclusion that:

What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or a passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.
-"X" (Francis Fukuyama), The End of History? (The National Interest)

It must be apparent then that the first two revolutions referenced above--the national socialist and the Islamicist--are and were doomed to failure.

Now, it is the very great tragedy of the Islamic world that its period of decolonialization and the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire happened to occur at just the time when elites in the West had despaired of liberal democracy and embraced totalitarianism themselves. As Paul Berman writes in Terror and Liberalism, Islam simply adopted the very worst ideas of Western modernity, BOOKNOTES: Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman (C-SPAN, June 22, 2003):

LAMB: OK, then go to the politicized version. What are the things that would be required in a society for them to say, OK, we`ll stop the terrorism?

BERMAN: Well, I mean, the goal of the terrorism, as conceived of by the followers of this kind of thinking -- the goal of the terrorism is to advance the notion of jihad, which is the struggle for Islam, as conceived in this version, and the goal plainly -- I mean, the goal is at different levels. At one level, it`s -- it`s really to destroy the kinds of societies that are not upholding the principles of this version of Islamism.

LAMB: Those principles are?

BERMAN: Those principles -- well, the principles of this kind of Islam -- let me explain further that I`m saying -- other people would answer this question by saying that the goals of this kind of terrorism are specific political goals, that the goals are to force Israel to withdraw its settlements or to force the United States to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia or to force certain other specific kinds of political issues. But that`s not actually how I understand the movement. My understanding of the movement is really that the goals are much larger, much more revolutionary than that, that if those relatively small things were the goals, they could be approached in a rather different way.

The goal really is to -- is to make a revolution all over the world. And the reason I speak about totalitarianism and why I`m interested in Camus and the philosophers of totalitarianism, theorists about totalitarianism from 50 years ago or so, is this, that I think that the radical Islamist movement is a totalitarian movement in a 20-century style, that -- my theory is this, that after World War I, a whole series of extremely revolutionary movements arose, and they arose for the purpose of overthrowing what I think of as the essentially liberal doctrines -- not liberal in the right-wing, left-wing version, but liberal in the sense of -- the liberal doctrines of -- of Western culture.

And by the liberal doctrines, I mean the notion of the separation of church and state, the notion that there should be a difference between the private and the public, the difference between the government and the society, the difference between the government and -- and economics, the notion that in one`s own mind, we can think in different -- in different categories at the same time, that in part of your mind you could be religious, and in another part of your mind, you can be scientific or rationalist. It`s the notion that -- that a society -- the liberal idea is the notion that a society based on those ideas will -- will progress. You can offer progress for -- for all mankind everywhere. This had been a large governing idea throughout the 19th century. And it wasn`t in practice everywhere, but people subscribed to this idea and had a great faith in it. There was some reason to have a faith in it.

World War I came along, and the idea came to seem preposterous because World War I was so horrible, so industrialist -- industrially murderous that -- that people who were thinking in those old terms of the liberal optimism in the 19th century were unable to conceive it -- conceive of it, unable to explain it. And as a result, in the years after the war, a series of movements arose which were rebellions against the old liberal idea. Each of those movements had the same idea, which was to overthrow liberal civilization and replace it with a civilization of a different sort, rock-like, granite, without any separation of spheres, a single sphere, permanent, unchanging, eternal, governed by a leader with a single organization or a single party and -- and like that.

LAMB: Name the -- just for examples, the leaders and the countries you`re talking about.

BERMAN: Right. The first of these movements was Lenin`s, and the movement was Bolshevism or the Communist Party, and then Lenin to Stalin. The next of them was Mussolini, who founded the fascist movement in Italy a very few years later. Franco, with the fascist movement of Spain, Hitler with the Nazi movement in Germany, the Iron Guard in Romania, the extreme right in France, and so forth, through almost every country in -- through every country in Europe and many countries around the world. And each of these movements was different from each of the others.

At the time, if anybody had said to you there`s something in common between the Bolshevism of Lenin and the Fascism of Mussolini, they would have said that`s -- that`s preposterous. Those movements are opposite. But from our perspective now, looking back on them, we should be able to see that all of those movements had a lot in common. And what they had in common was this urge to rebel against liberal civilization, the principles of liberal separation of spheres, replace that with a rock-like, granite society, the permanent, unchanging society with the single party, the single leader, and so forth.

So each of those movements had, in this respect, the same idea. They all arose in the years -- in the immediate years after World War I. They -- those movements all arose in Europe. But at the same time, the same inspiration spread to the Muslim world, and it spread into the Muslim world in -- a kind of Muslim totalitarianism arose which had all of the main principles of totalitarianism in Europe. It arose in the 1920s and `30s. It had different strands. One of those strands is the one that was finally given a theoretical shape by Said Qutb in his commentary on the Quran. Another of those strands is the one that finally evolved into the Ba`ath Party of Saddam Hussein. But these different strands really had a lot in common.

But in any case, they had the same idea as each of the European totalitarian movements, which was to effect a revolution in the world everywhere, not just to effect a few more -- a few local reforms, not just to -- not just to make a few political demands on someone, maybe be a little rough about it, but to advance one`s cause in a reformist or small fashion, not just to get a slightly bigger slice of the pie, but instead to make a complete revolution that was going to change thoroughly the whole of mankind.

LAMB: So Lenin and Mussolini and Hitler and others all had the same goal as the Islamists do?

BERMAN: In this deepest of ways...

LAMB: In the big -- in the overall...

BERMAN: In the -- in the overall, deepest of ways, they have the same goal. In all other ways, once we leave the very deepest level, they each had different goals and -- and one opposite from the other, and they -- one fought wars with the other, and each one was different. But at the very deepest way, it was all the same.

And this deepest way was to overthrow liberal civilization, replace it with a different kind of modernity, which was -- that is to say, a different kind of modern society, benefiting from science and technological advance but which, unlike liberal society, was going to be solid, without any internal divisions, without any feelings of skepticism or doubt, a society that would be absolutely perfect, without cracks or contradictions, a society therefore that would last forever, or as the Nazis would say, a thousand years.

This is sad enough, that the horrifically dysfunctional ideologies around which Islamic politics has organized itself are a product of Western intellectuals, but what's even worse is that these selfsame folk are still wallowing in their generations long crisis of confidence and seem unable to recognize the End of History, the failure of their utopian dreams, and the need to loudly and confidently reassert the superiority of Western wisdom circa 1776. Every time some nitwit academic opens his/her mouth and natters on about the validity of other cultures and all we have to learn from them and denigrates our own, they reinforce the notion that other nations have other options. They don't.

The remaining totalitarianisms of the world--be they communist, national socialist or Islamicist--have to liberalize and become Western if they are to enjoy any kind of future worth having. They have wandered down cultural dead-ends and must change or perish. Multi-culturalists do them no favor by lying to them--wittingly or un--about the relative value of other systems. The outcome of the clash of civilizations is predetermined; all we're in the process of deciding now, as we have been for two hundred plus years, is how much damage is incurred before those who diverge from Western norms are brought into line.

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TALES OF THE ALHAMBRA:

Was the Islam of Old Spain Truly Tolerant? (EDWARD ROTHSTEIN, 9/27/03, NY Times)

The impulse to idealize runs strong. If Andalusia really had been an enlightened society that combined religious belief with humanism and artistry, then it would provide an extraordinary model, offering proof of Islamic possibilities now eclipsed, while spurring new understandings of the West. In Spain, that idealized image has even been institutionalized. In Córdoba, a Moorish fortress houses the Museum of the Three Cultures. There was once a time, the audio narration says, when "East was not separated from West, nor was Muslim from Jew or Christian"; that time offers, it continues, an "eternal message more relevant today than ever before." In one room, statues that include the 12th-century Jewish sage Maimonides; his Islamic contemporary the Aristotelian Averroës; and the 13th-century Christian King Alfonso X are illuminated as voices recite their most congenial observations.

A more scholarly paean is offered in "The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain,"(Little, Brown, 2002) by Maria Rosa Menocal, a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University. Ms. Menocal argues that Andalusia's culture was "rooted in pluralism and shaped by religious tolerance," particularly in its prime -- a period that lasted from the mid-eighth century until the fall of the Umayyad dynasty in 1031. It was undermined, she argues, by fundamentalism -- Catholic and Islamic alike.

But as many scholars have argued, this image is distorted. Even the Umayyad dynasty, begun by Abd al-Rahman in 756, was far from enlightened. Issues of succession were often settled by force. One ruler murdered two sons and two brothers. Uprisings in 805 and 818 in Córdoba were answered with mass executions and the destruction of one of the city's suburbs. Wars were accompanied by plunder, kidnappings and ransom. Córdoba itself was finally sacked by Muslim Berbers in 1013, its epochal library destroyed.

Andalusian governance was also based on a religious tribal model. Christians and Jews, who shared Islam's Abrahamic past, had the status of dhimmis -- alien minorities. They rose high but remained second-class citizens; one 11th-century legal text called them members of "the devil's party." They were subject to special taxes and, often, dress codes. Violence also erupted, including a massacre of thousands of Jews in Grenada in 1066 and the forced exile of many Christians in 1126.

In fact, throughout Andalusian history — under both Islam and Christianity — religious identity was obsessively scrutinized. There were terms for a Christian living under Arab rule (mozarab), a Muslim living under Christian rule (mudejar), a Christian who converted to Islam (muladi), a Jew who converted to Christianity (converso), a Jew who converted but remained a secret Jew (marrano) and a Muslim who converted to Christianity (morisco).

Even in the Umayyad 10th century, Islamic philosophers were persecuted and books burned. And despite the Córdoba museum's message, Maimonides and his family fled Muslim fundamentalism in Córdoba in 1148 when he was barely in his teens. Averroës was banished from Córdoba about 50 years later. Tolerance may have left less of a cultural mark than intolerance: the historian Joel L. Kraemer has suggested that in Andalusia, a sense of precariousness inspired mysticism, esoteric teachings and a "prudent dissimulation" before Islamic superiors.

And what of Andalusian cultural interchange? Ms. Menocal cites the ways Islamic styles appear in Spanish synagogues (one, in Toledo, even incorporating Koranic inscriptions) and in the 14th-century Christian palace the Real Alacazar in Seville. But far from exhibiting convivencia, these resemblances display the power of a culture as dominant as American popular culture is now: it is imitated even if otherwise opposed.

The whole tolerant Islam schtick, like the notion that Muslim culture at the time was far more advanced than that of the West, is essentially just a whip with which liberal historians and intellectuals have sought to scourge Christianity. But even if we take it at face value, is not the lesson that such an imagined epoch teaches that it is appropriate for the more tolerant civilization to conquer less tolerant societies and impose tolerance upon them? After all, the Moors were not Spaniards.

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NOT A CLOSE CALL:

No-Call List: Constitutional Doubt on Hot Political Issue (ADAM LIPTAK, 9/27/03, NY Times)

Much of the legal terrain in the telemarketing case is clear. There is no dispute that the marketing calls forbidden by the registry are commercial speech. Nor does anyone dispute that commercial speech is not entitled to as high a level of First Amendment protection as many other forms of speech, including that of charities, political parties and religious institutions.

At first blush, then, the distinction drawn by the creators of the do-not-call registry would seem to draw the line in precisely the right place.

But legal experts said that analysis was too superficial. They said that commercial speakers were entitled to insist that the government justify discrimination against them by showing that there is no other good way to overcome the problem it is trying to solve. In legal terms, as Judge Nottingham put it, "a content-based distinction cannot be made on constitutional grounds unrelated to the asserted government interest."

The government's interest here, of course, is the protection of privacy in the home and the right to be free from unwanted phone calls.

Lawyers for the telemarketers said there was no logical connection between the registry's limited scope and advancing that interest.

"A ringing phone is a ringing phone," said Robert Corn-Revere, a Washington lawyer who represents the American Teleservices Association and two Colorado telemarketers, which are the three plaintiffs in the case. "You don't regulate commercial speech differently if the problem you seek to regulate has nothing to do with the commercial nature of the speech."

It is for that reason that legal scholars said Judge Nottingham's decision was at least plausible.

"It's obviously not a popular decision, and for millions of people it is a profoundly irritating one," said Floyd Abrams, the prominent First Amendment lawyer. "But it is consistent with existing First Amendment law."

Legal experts agreed that the ultimate outcome of the Denver case will turn on the proper interpretation of a case decided by the Supreme Court in 1993 involving news racks, the sidewalk boxes that contain newspapers and advertising pamphlets. In that case, the court held that the city of Cincinnati had violated the First Amendment in banning, in the interest of aesthetics, only the advertising pamphlets.

The discrimination was unconstitutional, the court held, even though the pamphlets were commercial speech and the newspapers were entitled to full First Amendment protection. The distinction between the two, it said, was insufficiently linked to the city's interest in beautification. [...]

In a passing remark, Judge Nottingham outlined what he thought regulators might remain free to do if his ruling stands.

"Were the do-not-call registry to apply without regard to the content of the speech, or to leave autonomy in the hands of the individual," he wrote, "it might be a different matter."

Congress could, then, at substantial political cost -- and in some cases against its members own interests -- create a registry that would allow the blocking of a broader range of calls from charities, political fund-raisers and the like. It could also probably allow consumers to choose which kinds of call they would block.

No matter how popular Do-Not-Call is with voters, it will be a cold day in Paris when the Congress bans religious groups and political organizations and candidates from calling people at home.

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WE'RE FALLING BEHIND THE JAPANESE AGAIN!:

Koizumi promises to pummel postal services into submission: Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vows to privatize postal services in April 2007. (Japan Times, 9/27/03)

But luckily they remain too racist and anti-immigrant to even begin to solve their demographic crisis, Foreigners blamed for crime woes (Japan Times, 9/27/03)

Japanese police have blamed deteriorating public security in the country on foreigners, despite figures showing that 96 percent of the nation's crimes are committed by Japanese.

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CIRCLE THE CANNONS:

Political biography tells half the tale: A lopsided look at Reagan and America: a review of Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power By Lou Cannon (Rick Perlstein, September 21, 2003, Chicago Tribune)

[R]eagan was not in the final analysis simply a Teflon President, uniquely immune to damage and criticism, any more than he was simply a Teflon Governor. Cannon tends to ignore in his work on Reagan--as others do as well, including Morris--that the man was also, for many millions of Americans, a consistent object of rage. That's an unbecoming flaw for a biographer. Dazzled by how much Reagan was loved, Cannon refuses the challenge of understanding how much he was simultaneously hated--and what the simultaneity of these emotions says about America's divisions as they evolved during the 1960s, and as they endure through our very own Aughties.

Here's something you would never know from reading Cannon: In summer 1968, Reagan's approval rating in California was 30 percent, and he was the object of a serious recall campaign himself (that this was also the period in which he was being seriously pushed as a Republican presidential nominee gets to the heart of the enigma of Ronald Reagan, that creature of dreams, whose mysteries neither Morris nor Cannon, and certainly not conservative propagandists like Dinesh D'Souza, have yet come even close to figuring out). The recall was run by liberals, it was a shoestring operation--as of June 1968 they had spent $7,000 and had $52 in the bank, compared to the nearly $2 million that had been pledged to the Davis recall by June this year--and it did rather well, considering: They got about half the signatures the Davis petitions did, though they were gathered so unprofessionally that only about 30 percent of them counted.

The absence of this story (as well as the story of a later, 1971 recall attempt against Reagan by conservatives) is a symptom of a not-so-good book. It lacks richness, intensity, irony, complexity, strangeness--the strangeness of its subject, which is, ultimately, us: a nation that loves its dream weavers and excuses them; and hates its dream weavers for deceiving them; and, sometimes, hates each other over the disagreements we have about what constitutes a dream and what a nightmare. You simply don't see anyone disagreeing about Ronald Reagan in this book.

Americans disagree. Recognizing that should be a fundamental building block of any biography of any American leader who's major enough to deserve one. Let alone one of the most major of them all.

We're big Rick Perlstein fans--his book on Barry Goldwater was a model of fairness--and his point is perfectly valid, but it's not terribly realistic. For instance, the next bestselling biography of Harry Truman or FDR that isn't a slobbering hagiography will be the first. Meanwhile, the Reagan wars are being fought out by two fairly coequal camps--with the Noonans, D'Souzas, etc. on one side and the Wills's, Haynes Johnsons, etc. on the other. Neither side makes much effort at non-partisanship. What's most interesting is that Mr. Cannon started out as at best skeptical of Ronald Reagan, when he covered him as a reporter, then wrote fairly about him in Role of a Lifetime and only in recent years has become a Reagan defender. Maybe he just feels lkike the Reagan haters have had more than their say?

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THERE CAN'T BE ANYTHING IN THE FILM AS INTERESTING AS MOONLIGHT GRAHAM:

Diane Lane in 'Under the Tuscan Sun' (Steve Sailer, Sept. 25, 2003, UPI)

Here's the book's plot: Mayes, a creative writing professor at San Francisco State, and her husband Ed buy a 300-year-old house outside Cortona, a splendid hilltop village an hour from Florence, to use as a summer home. Over the next four years, they and a host of construction workers fix it up. Mayes is ecstatically happy the entire time.

That's it. The book consists of 260 pages of present-tense prose-poetry about the simple but voluptuous glories of their daily life in Tuscany and 28 pages of recipes.

It's easy to criticize Wells for distorting and vulgarizing Mayes' lyrical tribute to the Italian genius for fine living. The more interesting issue, however, is why anyone in Hollywood ever thought this book was filmable.

Indeed, producers keep buying the rights to upscale books that the clerk at your local Blockbuster could tell them wouldn't make a decent movie. (The dozens of failed Henry James adaptations are only the most obvious examples).

Although you wouldn't guess from watching the output of the studios, the simplest explanation for why film people are suckers for classy books is that they really do have refined tastes. Unfortunately, they believe, with more than a little marketing research to back them up, that the rest of us are, on the whole, boors and morons.

So, what's poor Audrey Wells to do with a beloved bestseller possessing no more dramatic momentum than "The Baseball Encyclopedia?"

A lot, it turns out, much of it vapid.

Hey, wait a second, the Baseball Encyclopedia is one of our Five Desert Island books. Then again, the Henry James shot more than makes up for it.

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BEST DEFENSE:

Bush's Rhetoric Deficit: In making the case for the war, he downplays his strongest argument: America's duty. (David Gelernter, 10/06/2003, Weekly Standard)

ON IRAQ the administration likes to talk interest, not duty. "We did ourselves and the world a favor." But interest is always arguable; duty can be absolutely clear. Torture, mass murder, and hellish tyranny make for the clearest case possible. Yet too often the administration has sounded hesitant and defensive on Iraq. It has a compelling, open-and-shut moral case but prefers to make pragmatic arguments about global terrorism and Arab politics. Of course security is important, but mass murder is even more important. In Iraq the torture is over, the gale of blood is finished; we put an end to them. What else matters next to a truth like that?

On September 23 the president gave a measured, stately speech at the U.N.--which decidedly did not begin: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have shut down the terror, the torture, and the murder in Iraq." (The speech was well underway before the Saddamite terror got a passing mention, and then one full paragraph of its own.) The president began by recalling 9/11--but don't we owe it to the world and ourselves to couple that story to an account of how we answered the deed of terror by two of liberation, thereby converting a maniac monologue into one of the more moving, astounding dialogues in human history? [...]

Yes, the question has its nuances. Have we always intervened, will we always, to overthrow a murderous dictator? No; but in this post-Cold-War era the boundary-lines are new--no nation has ever dominated the world militarily as we do today; it will take us time to get our bearings and understand our new responsibilities. Didn't we have pragmatic, selfish reasons to act in Iraq? Of course we had. Isn't self-defense itself a moral imperative? Absolutely. But these side issues fade to nothing in the sunlight of a new reality: A bloody tyrant is overthrown. That fact dominates all others.

The president is at a decision-point: temporize, or move proudly straight ahead? For now, "temporize" is fatal advice. The administration must stand on its achievements, not its anxieties. Start with the moral issue. The same holds for the U.N.: Why does the administration sound defensive when it ought to stand on the moral heights? If it were any kind of morally serious organization, the U.N. would have carried a vote of gratitude to the Coalition the day Saddam fell. How come the Security Council is so "Eurocentric," anyway? Counting Russia as 50 percent European, half of all vetoes belong to Europe. Why? And where are congressional hearings when we need them?--hearings on the deposed Saddam regime. Let Iraqis speak; let the world listen.

But after all, conservatives have a long history (going back to Vietnam) of ceding the moral high ground to their opponents without a fight--and thereby of participating in the cardinal error of modern political thought: the neglect of spiritual, moral, and religious things.

Sadly, Mr. Gelernter is right. The flipside of the WMD argument only being necessary when we were courting the UN is that it (and the UN) should be treated with contempt now and the emphasis should be placed just on ending a terrible regime and giving the Iraqi people an opportunity at freedom and a decent society.

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FRIEND OR FOE?:

Show Me the Proof and I’ll Hush (Omid Safi, 9/25/2003, beliefnet.com)

[.....] An unnamed military official reporting on “fear and suspicion” that someone “might” be acting in an “unspecified” way? Is this what the legal system of this country has come to? Show me the proof that Yee was planning to do something evil, and have that proof legally obtained and able to stand up to a court of law, and I will gladly watch Yee receive the punishment he deserves.

I want to be clear about this point: I am perfectly willing to concede that among the prisoners held at Guantanamo, there are al-Qaeda members who may have even participated in terrorist activities. However, that is a conclusion that one can arrive at only after a legal process, not before. Even Guantanamo prisoners are innocent until proven guilty. Perhaps a true test of democracy is if it is willing to say especially Guantanamo prisoners are innocent until proven guilty.

Fortunately, democracy needn't be subjected to such and ambiguous "test" to prove itself capable of doing the right, or, as in many cases today, wrong thing. Meanwhile, Mr. Safi might want to re-visit the rights afforded to Captain Yee under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, as they may differ somewhat from his interpretation of what the U.S. Constitution affords.

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KISS THE GIRLS GOOD-BYE:

Sex Selection Goes Mainstream (Marcy Darnovsky, September 25, 2003, AlterNet)

Several times over the past few months, a small but striking ad from a Virginia-based fertility clinic has appeared in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times. Alongside a smiling baby, its boldface headline asks, "Do You Want To Choose the Gender Of Your Next Baby?"

If so, the ad continues, you can join "prospective parents...from all over the world" who come to the Genetics & IVF Institute (GIVF) for an "exclusive scientifically-based sperm sorting gender selection procedure." The technique, known by the trademarked name MicroSort, is offered as a way to choose a girl or boy either for the "prevention of genetic diseases" (selecting against the sex affected by an X-linked or Y-linked condition) or for "family balancing" (selecting for a girl in a family that already has one or more boys, or vice versa).

GIVF has been promoting MicroSort on its Web site for several years, and a few other fertility clinics offer other "family balancing" methods online. But the MicroSort ads in the New York Times represent a bolder and higher-profile approach. They mark the first time that high-tech methods for sex selection, and their use for clearly social purposes, have been openly marketed in a mainstream US publication.

Two years ago, when newspapers aimed at Indian expatriates in the United States and Canada carried fertility clinic ads for sex selection, the Times covered the event as a news story. The article included hard-hitting criticism from Indian feminists in the United States, and discussed the hugely skewed sex ratios in South and East Asia (some demographers estimate as many as 100 million "missing girls") that are the result of female infanticide, neglect of girl babies, and prenatal diagnosis followed by sex-selective abortion. It noted that the sex-selection ads would be illegal in India, and reported that one of the publications dropped them after controversy erupted.

The Times has also covered other aspects of the debate about sex selection. To date, however, it has taken no note of the MicroSort ad campaign. Nor have other newspapers. [...]

High-tech sex selection poses a range of difficult policy dilemmas -- especially the problem of addressing it without in any way weakening women's rights and access to abortion. But address it we must, because of the grave concerns it raises about exacerbating sexism and gender stereotyping, undermining disability rights, putting children at risk (if the child turns out to be the "wrong" sex or the "wrong kind" of girl or boy), skewing sex ratios or the number of firstborn boys, and setting the stage for a consumer eugenics in which parents are sold techniques to select not just their child's sex, but a range of other traits as well. As the UK-based NGO Human Genetics Alert asks, if we allow sex selection, how will we be able effectively "to oppose `choice' of...appearance, height, intelligence?. The door to 'designer babies' will not have been opened a crack -- it will have been thrown wide open."

Any time someone says of any ghoulish social pathology, "It could never happen here", it's safe to assume it's already happening.

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NOT THAT TRIPE ABOUT FREEDOM AGAIN...:

-REVIEW: of 'Reagan: A Life in Letters' edited by Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Anderson and Martin Anderson (Edmund Morris, Washington Post)

The central paradox about Ronald Reagan, our most world-changing president since Harry Truman, was that a man so attractive in his public persona, so irresistible in negotiation, and so transparently decent a human being, could have been such a bone-cracking bore. I interviewed him regularly throughout his second term, read half a million words of his presidential diaries and reams of his manuscripts (including most of the letters collected in these two volumes), and can only endorse the bemused remark of his first wife, "Ronnie never shut up."

It wasn't what he said or wrote that glazed your eyes. At least through late middle age, when his hard drive filled up, Ronald Reagan was exceptionally well informed. An editor of The Washington Post met him in December 1939, and was amazed by his detailed knowledge of the situation in Finland. The silky voice, the delightful humor, the clarity of expression (his manuscripts are remarkable for their lack of erasures) never failed to impress -- at first. Only when you began to note, the sixth or 36th time he repeated himself, that his facial expressions, his phraseology, even his self-deprecating chuckles seemed to be projected from some inner, infinitely replayable DVD, did you get the creepy feeling he was not quite real, and wondered where, if anywhere, the real Reagan was.

I like Edmund Morris--whose Reagan novel is vastly underrated--but this is silly.

Do you tell stories in your family? We do. When someone starts one we can all pick it up and finish it for them, complete with pauses, gestures, etc. That's the nature of story-telling. And that's just within our family, never mind a professional politician who has to perform for strangers endlessly.

Ronald Reagan was a story-teller par excellence and the best story he told was the one about us, the American people. When that story gets to be "a bore", then God help us.

It's a curious aspect of the intellectual class that they think it a drawback when a man knows who he is and what he thinks or when our nation believes itself to be decent and good, as it always was in Ronald Reagan's telling.

MORE:
-BOOKNOTES: Reagan In His Own Hand edited by Kiron Skinner (C-SPAN, April 29, 2001)
The Real Reagan: Think you know what made him tick? His letters may surprise you (MICHAEL DUFFY AND NANCY GIBBS, 9/21/03, TIME)

Future scholars may argue with the substance of Reagan's principles but not with their pedigree, for now they will have a paper trail of the kind historians can only dream. It was his Vice President, George Herbert Walker Bush, who was famous for the thank-you notes he flecked off in every direction. But few people knew that Reagan ranks among the most prolific Presidents, author of more than 5,000 letters on everything from his love of Snoopy to his guilt about sex, his hatred of gossip and his taste for Ayn Rand. And so the private account of a public life, to be published in Reagan: A Life in Letters, is a code breaker for anyone still curious about which version most resembles the Real Reagan.

The letters are easy, intimate; but to read them is to wonder if they are an extension of his personal relationships or a substitute for them. He began his public life as a radio announcer, talking to an audience he could not see; he went on as a movie star to delight an audience he never met. But the fans would write letters, and he would write back. In the case of Lorraine Wagner, Reagan fan-club president, Philadelphia chapter, there were some 150 letters over the course of 50 years. As his political following grew, the conversation continued, and there was remarkably little difference in tone and tenderness in his letters to his fans, his children and the leaders of other superpowers.

The letters suggest a man for whom writing was less a habit than a need, like food and water, as though the very act shaped his thoughts as much as the thoughts shaped the writing. Reagan didn't type; he wrote by hand in blue or black ink on a yellow legal pad or dictated for his secretaries to transcribe, and so the drafts were often saved, stuffed into a box and then forgotten. In 1996 Kiron Skinner, now a professor at Carnegie Mellon, was researching a book on the end of the cold war when she stumbled on the first batch. As she dug a little deeper, more boxes appeared. Overwhelmed by the sheer volume, she called in Martin Anderson, who served as Reagan's first domestic-policy adviser, and his wife Annelise, a Reagan aide at the Office of Management and Budget, to help. First there were 1,000 letters, then 3,000, and in the end the trio sorted through more than 5,000, and suspect there are an additional 3,000 or 4,000 out there still unaccounted for—until they turn up on eBay.

Reagan was called the great communicator, and that was usually meant to describe the way he spoke. But it may be that one secret to his success, his ability to persuade people, was that he took his beliefs more seriously than he took himself. Spelling and grammar errors aside, the prose is literate, not literary; he does not seem to try to make an impression with shiny turns of phrase. He stays out of the way of the arguments he is making, and in his asides and self-deprecation, there is the verbal version of that little duck of the head, the modest gesture that says, "This isn't about me. This is about things that matter more than both of us."

-ESSAY: Reagan's heartfelt letters illuminate his presidency: Collection of letters provides new glimpse of the former US president. (Peter Grier, 9/03, CS Monitor)

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FAREWELL, PAPER LION:

George Plimpton, Author, Dies at 76 (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/26/03)

George Plimpton, the self-deprecating author of ``Paper Lion'' and other sporting adventures and a patron to Philip Roth, Jack Kerouac and countless other writers, has died. He was 76.

Plimpton died Thursday night at his Manhattan apartment, his longtime friend, restaurateur Elaine Kaufman, said Friday. She had no information on the cause. [...]

He boxed with Archie Moore, pitched to Willie Mays and performed as a trapeze artist for the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus. He acted in numerous films, including "Reds" and "Good Will Hunting." He even appeared in an episode of "The Simpsons," playing a professor who runs a spelling bee.

But writers appreciated Plimpton for The Paris Review, the quarterly he helped found in 1953 and ran for decades with eager passion. The magazine's high reputation rested on two traditions: publishing the work of emerging authors, including Roth and Kerouac, and an unparalleled series of interviews in which Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and others discussed their craft.

Mr. Plimpton was far too talented to be remembered just for his stunts, but inevitably will be. Perhaps his greatest though didn't involve him pretending to be an athlete, The Curious Case of Sidd Finch: He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga -- and his future in baseball (George Plimpton, April 1, 1985, Sports Illustrated):

"I never dreamed a baseball could be thrown that fast. The wrist must have a lot to do with it, and all that leverage. You can hardly see the blur of it as it goes by. As for hitting the thing, frankly, I just don't think it's humanly possible. You could send a blind man up there, and maybe he'd do better hitting at the sound of the thing."

Christensen's opinion was echoed by both Cochrane and Dykstra, who followed him into the enclosure. When each had done his stint, he emerged startled and awestruck.

Especially Dykstra. Offering a comparison for SI, he reported that out of curiosity he had once turned up the dials that control the motors of the pitching machine to maximum velocity, thus producing a pitch that went approximately 106 miles per hour. "What I looked at in there," he said, motioning toward the enclosure, "was whistling by another third as fast, I swear."

The phenomenon the three young batters faced, and about whom only Reynolds, Stottlemyre and a few members of the Mets' front office know, is a 28-year-old, somewhat eccentric mystic named Hayden (Sidd) Finch. He may well change the course of baseball history. On St. Patrick's Day, to make sure they were not all victims of a crazy hallucination, the Mets brought in a radar gun to measure the speed of Finch's fastball. The model used was a JUGS Supergun II. It looks like a black space gun with a big snout, weighs about five pounds and is usually pointed at the pitcher from behind the catcher. A glass plate in the back of the gun shows the pitch's velocity -- accurate, so the manufacturer claims, to within plus or minus 1 mph. The figure at the top of the gauge is 200 mph. The fastest projectile ever measured by the JUGS (which is named after the oldtimer's descriptive -- the "jug-handled" curveball) was a Roscoe Tanner serve that registered 153 mph. The highest number that the JUGS had ever turned for a baseball was 103 mph, which it did, curiously, twice on one day, July 11, at the 1978 All-Star game when both Goose Gossage and Nolan Ryan threw the ball at that speed. On March 17, the gun was handled by Stottlemyre. He heard the pop of the ball in Reynolds's mitt and the little squeak of pain from the catcher. Then the astonishing figure 168 appeared on the glass plate. Stottlemyre remembers whistling in amazement, and then he heard Reynolds say, "Don't tell me, Mel, I don't want to know. . . "

The Met front office is reluctant to talk about Finch. The fact is, they know very little about him. He has had no baseball career. Most of his life has been spent abroad, except for a short period at Harvard University.

The registrar's office at Harvard will release no information about Finch except that in the spring of 1976 he withdrew from the college in midterm. The alumni records in Harvard's Holyoke Center indicate slightly more. Finch spent his early childhood in an orphanage in Leicester, England and was adopted by a foster parent, the eminent archaeologist Francis Whyte-Finch, who was killed in an airplane crash while on an expedition in the Dhaulaglri mountain area of Nepal. At the time of the tragedy, Finch was in his last year at the Stowe School in Buckingham, England, from which he had been accepted into Harvard. Apparently, though, the boy decided to spend a year in the general area of the plane crash in the Himalayas (the plane was never actually found) before he returned to the West and entered Harvard in 1975, dropping for unknown reasons the "Whyte" from his name. Hayden Finch's picture is not in the freshman yearbook. Nor, of course, did he play baseball at Harvard, having departed before the start of the spring season.

His assigned roommate was Henry W. Peterson, class of 1979, now a stockbroker in New York with Dean Witter, who saw very little of Finch. "He was almost never there," Peterson told SI. "I'd wake up morning after morning and look across at his bed, which had a woven native carpet of some sort on it -- I have an idea he told me it was made of yak fur -- and never had the sense it had been slept in. Maybe he slept on the floor. Actually, my assumption was that he had a girl in Somerville or something, and stayed out there. He had almost no belongings. A knapsack. A bowl he kept in the corner on the floor. A couple of wool shirts, always very clean, and maybe a pair or so of blue jeans. One pair of hiking boots. I always had the feeling that he was very bright. He had a French horn in an old case. I don't know much about French-horn music but he played beautifully. Sometimes he'd play it in the bath. He knew any number of languages. He was so adept at them that he'd be talking in English, which he spoke in this distinctive singsong way, quite Oriental, and he'd use a phrase like "pied-a-terre" and without knowing it he'd sail along in French for a while until he'd drop in a German word like "angst" and he'd shift to that language. For any kind of sustained conversation you had to hope he wasn't going to use a foreign buzz word -- especially out of the Eastern languages he knew, like Sanskrit -- because that was the end of it as far as I was concerned."

When Peterson was asked why he felt Finch had left Harvard, he shrugged his shoulders. "I came back one afternoon, and everything was gone -- the little rug, the horn, the staff. . . Did I tell you that he had this long kind of shepherd's crook standing in the corner? Actually, there was so little stuff to begin with that it was hard to tell he wasn't there anymore. He left a curious note on the floor. It turned out to be a Zen koan, which is one of those puzzles which cannot be solved by the intellect. It's the famous one about the live goose in the bottle. How do you get the goose out of the bottle without hurting it or breaking the glass? The answer is, 'There, it's out!' I heard from him once, from Egypt. He sent pictures. He was on his way to Tibet to study."

Finch's entry into the world of baseball occurred last July in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, where the Mets' AAA farm club, the Tidewater Tides, was in town playing the Guides. After the first game of the series, Bob Schaefer, the Tides' manager, was strolling back to the hotel. He has very distinct memories of his first meeting with Finch: "I was walking by a park when suddenly this guy -- nice-looking kid, clean-shaven, blue jeans, big boots -- appears alongside. At first, I think maybe he wants an autograph or to chat about the game, but no, he scrabbles around in a kind of knapsack, gets out a scuffed-up baseball and a small, black leather fielder's mitt that looks like it came out of the back of some Little League kid's closet. This guy says to me, 'I have learned the art of the pitch. . .' Some odd phrase like that, delivered in a singsong voice, like a chant, kind of what you hear in a Chinese restaurant if there are some Chinese in there.

"I am about to hurry on to the hotel when this kid points out a soda bottle on top of a fence post about the same distance home plate is from the pitcher's rubber. He rears way back, comes around and pops the ball at it. Out there on that fence post the soda bottle explodes. It disintegrates like a rifle bullet hit it -- just little specks of vaporized glass in a puff. Beyond the post I could see the ball bouncing across the grass of the park until it stopped about as far away as I can hit a three-wood on a good day.

"I said, very calm, 'Son, would you mind showing me that again?'

"And he did. He disappeared across the park to find the ball -- it had gone so far, he was after it for what seemed 15 minutes. In the meantime I found a tin can from a trash container and set it up for him. He did it again -- just kicked that can off the fence like it was hit with a baseball bat. It wasn't the accuracy of the pitch so much that got to me but the speed. It was like the tin can got belted as soon as the ball left the guy's fingertips. Instantaneous. I thought to myself, 'My god, that kid's thrown the ball about 150 mph. Nolan Ryan's fastball is a change-up compared to what this kid just threw.'

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WHY?:

'Hero' Coach Halts School Shooting (MINNEAPOLIS-ST PAUL STAR TRIBUNE, September 26, 2003)

Mark Johnson sat on the bleachers in the Rocori High School gym Wednesday, tuning out the normal pre-lunch hubbub in order to get ready for the physical education class he was to teach.

Suddenly, he heard a sound too commanding to ignore.

"I heard a shot in front of me," Johnson said. "I looked up and saw Seth [Bartell] on the gym floor. He was right in front of me. ... Then I saw ... [the student] with the gun. He pointed it at me."

Johnson thrust out his hand and shouted, "No!"

"Fortunately for me and the other kids, he put down the gun," Johnson said. "I grabbed the gun right away. He didn't struggle."

Johnson took the 15-year-old freshman to the school office, then ran back and tried to help senior Aaron Rollins as the boy lay bleeding in a hall outside the locker room.

The shooter was in police custody yesterday. Police have not identified him, but several media outlets and students said he was the son of a sheriff's deputy. Police said that he was cooperating but that a motive had not been determined. About 30 students witnessed the shootings, officials said.
Several students described the suspect as an intensely shy, quiet boy. "He really didn't associate with people," said Scott Eisenschenk, a freshman. Others said he was self-conscious about his severe acne, which some kids teased him about.

Meanwhile, on the streets of Cold Spring, stunned students and residents described Johnson as a hero who probably saved students' lives as well as his own.

To Johnson, that seemed largely irrelevant, as he, like his neighbors, struggled to absorb the terrible realities of the shootings that took Rollins' life and critically wounded ninth-grader Bartell.

Emergency worker finds son among school shooting victims (KAMC-TV, 9/25/03)

An emergency worker responding to Wednesday's school shooting in rural Minnesota made a heartbreaking discovery when he reached one of the wounded students.

It was his son.

Tom Rollins was too emotionally distraught to care for his 17-year-old son, Aaron, who was mortally wounded in the shooting.

Other workers tended to Aaron, but he later died.

Home>Book excerpt: If God is Good, Why is the World so Bad?: In a revolutionary new book, noted author and lecturer Rabbi Benjamin Blech takes Kushner to task and (finally) answers life's most compelling question: Why do bad things happen to good people? (Rabbi Benjamin Blech, September 25, 2003, Jewsweek)

Although Job is perhaps the only imaginary hero of Biblical personalities, he is at the same time the most universal of all of them. He is the father who has inexplicably lost his job and has no means of supporting his family. He is the mother who has just been told her child has terminal cancer. He is the Holocaust survivor who still wakes up screaming in the middle of the night. He is me, and he is you.

That's why the book of Job is not really the story of a tragic figure of old. The book of Job is about twenty-first-century men and women who try to make sense out of the unfair circumstances of their lives even as they struggle to hold onto their beliefs. Most of all, the book of Job is about a dilemma which, sooner or later, every one of us must resolve in our lives. This dilemma is the apparent contradiction between three basic assumptions:

* God is just. He judges all of us with impartial fairness. He rewards the good, and He punishes the wicked.

* God is all-powerful. He can do anything. Nothing happens in the world without His willing it. Indeed, everything that happens is part of His plan.

* Job is a good man.

Now as long as everything is going well with Job -- he is healthy and wealthy -- we can believe all three of these statements at the same time with no difficulty. But when Job's suffering begins, when he loses his possessions, his family and his health, we have a problem. We can no longer make sense of all three propositions simultaneously. We can now affirm any two only by denying the third.

If God is both just and all-powerful, then it must be that the third statement is wrong -- Job is not a good man; he is a sinner, and he deserves what is happening to him. But if Job is good and God causes his suffering nonetheless, then God cannot be just. Or if Job is good and God is not responsible for his suffering, then God cannot be all-powerful.

For all three to be true appears to be impossible. So which one is wrong? Which one of these three assumptions are we going to sacrifice on the altar of reality? That is the question.

For many, the most logical conclusion is that God is not just. God is capricious, perhaps even evil. Indeed, this was the prevailing worldview in ancient times when people worshiped gods like the Mayan ChacMool or the Mesopotamian Nergal -- the precursor of our Satan. To these gods they sacrificed virgins, slaves and even their children -- whatever it took to win the gods' appeasement.

For some, questioning God's justice takes a slightly different form: Although God is good, He must have an opponent who isn't, and who often prevails. This view inevitably leads to dualism, the belief that there are two gods -- one a god of goodness and the other a god of evil. This is one of the oldest approaches to understanding the Divine and finding a rational response to the theological difficulty of evil. Zoroastrianism, the predominant religion of much of the Middle East from the time of the Persian Empire until the advent of Islam, accepted this view. We still see vestiges of it in those forms of Christianity that ascribe supernatural, godlike powers to Satan, the enemy of God. (In contrast, Judaism sees Satan as a servant of God whose function is to set up choices between good and evil so that we can exercise our free will.)

Abraham, the first monotheist, taught us that there is only one God. At the conclusion of his story in Genesis, the Bible tells us, "Abraham was now old, advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things."

And yet had God really blessed him in all things? Didn't God put him through ten difficult tests, the most staggering of which was the demand that he sacrifice his own son? Didn't Abraham have to wander the whole of the Fertile Crescent, endure famine and defend family members from attackers? Didn't he just bury his beloved wife Sarah, in the very sentences preceding this declaration that he was blessed "in all things"?

But Abraham was blessed in all things because he understood that a good God would only do things for his benefit. He saw every test, every difficulty, as an opportunity for self-improvement -- a vehicle for the building of character, for the strengthening of faith, for moving closer to God. And therefore he considered everything that happened to him a blessing.

From the time of Abraham onward, the descendants and followers of the great patriarch proclaimed the oneness of God. The fundamental credo of Judaism states: Shema Israel, Adonay Elohainu, Adonay Ehad. "Hear O Israel, the Lord [is] Our God, the Lord is One." An observant Jew is required to repeat this credo twice a day, every day of his life. And these are the very last words that he is urged, if at all possible, to utter on his deathbed.

The question is obvious: Isn't this an odd way to express the oneness of God? If God is one, why does He have two names? Why is he called "Lord" and "God" --Adonay and Elohainu (the possessive form of Elohim)?

In this most basic expression of monotheism, the very struggle of man to understand the apparent contradiction of good and evil is addressed and answered. God is one, but He has two different attributes. Just as I am one person, while known at different times as Rabbi, Ben, Daddy, depending on the role I am filling, so too God is known alternatively as Adonay (translated Lord) and Elohim (translated God), depending on His function and the nature of His relationship at that particular moment. There are times that He appears to us as a loving father, exuding goodness and mercy; His name then is Adonay, to convey His quality of kindness. In English, we often say, "Thank the good Lord," because "Lord" is the proper translation for this name that stresses God's mercy. But there are other times when He appears to us as a tough judge, meting out justice according to His law and punishing us for our infractions. Then His name is Elohim, "God," stern disciplinarian and unforgiving ruler of the universe. That's why, quite correctly, when we cry out in pain we say, "Oh my God" rather than "Oh my Lord."

But even though we describe Him by His two attributes, we know that in reality they are both aspects of one and the same loving Creator. The one who appears as strict disciplinarian is acting solely with the motivation of a kind and caring parent. In other words [to paraphrase]: "Hear O Israel, (Adonay) the Lord, and (Elohainu) our God, are actually Adonay Ehad, one Lord."

So the most basic tenet of Judaism states that of our three assumptions, we cannot reject the first. God is just and fair and good. His very essence is "Lord," even when He appears to be "God"; apparent harshness is merely camouflage for divine concern and love.

There's a very good line in Spy Kids II, when Steve Buscemi, as a mad scientist whose hybrid animals have taken over his island, asks: "Do you think God stays in Heaven because He's afraid of what He's created on Earth?"

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EVEN CRIMINALS GET A JURY OF THEIR PEERS:

The Nominations of Robert Bork and David Souter (GRISWOLD & ROE - CASES THAT SHAPED THE SUPREME COURT, Constitutional Law II, Loyola Law School, Fall 1997, Professor Karl Manheim)

Bork Attacks Griswold

Robert H. Bork, Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems, 47 Ind. L.J. 1, 2-3, 6-7, 9 (1971)

The requirement that the Court be principled arises from the resolution of the seeming anomaly of judicial supremacy in a democratic society. If the judiciary really is supreme, able to rule when and as it sees fit, the society is not democratic. The anomaly is dissipated, however, by the model of government embodied in the structure of the Constitution, a model upon which popular consent to limited government by the Supreme Court also rests. This model we may for convenience, though perhaps not with total accuracy, call "Madisonian."

A Madisonian system is not completely democratic, if by "democratic" we mean completely majoritarian. It assumes that in wide areas of life majorities are entitled to rule for no better reason that they are majorities... The model has also a counter-majoritarian premise, however, for it assumes there are some areas of life a majority should not control. There are some things a majority should not do to us no matter how democratically it decides to do them. These are areas properly left to individual freedom, and coercion by the majority in these aspects of life is tyranny.

Some see the model as containing an inherent, perhaps an insoluble, dilemma. Majority tyranny occurs if legislation invades the areas properly left to individual freedom. Minority tyranny occurs if the majority is prevented from ruling where its power is legitimate. Yet, quite obviously, neither the majority nor the minority can be trusted to define the freedom of the other. This dilemma is resolved in constitutional theory, and in popular understanding, by the Supreme Court's power to define both majority and minority freedom through the interpretation of the Constitution. Society consents to be ruled undemocratically within defined areas by certain enduring principles believed to be stated in, and placed beyond the reach of majorities by, the Constitution.

If I am correct so far, no argument that is both coherent and respectable can be made supporting a Supreme Court that "chooses fundamental values" because a Court that makes rather than implements value choices cannot be squared with the presuppositions of a democratic society. The man who understands the issues and nevertheless insists upon the rightness of the Warren Court's performance ought also, if he is candid, to admit that he is prepared to sacrifice democratic process to his own moral views. He claims for the Supreme Court an institutionalized role as perpetrator of limited coups d'etat.

. . . The problem may be illustrated by Griswold v. Connecticut, in many ways a typical decision of the Warren Court . . . .

The Griswold opinion fails every test of neutrality. The derivation of the principle was utterly specious, and so was its definition. In fact, we are left with no idea of what the principle really forbids . . . .

Griswold, then, is an unprincipled decision, both in the way in which it derives a new constitutional right and in the way it defined that right, or rather fails to define it. We are left with no idea of the sweep of the right of privacy and hence no notion of the cases to which it may or may not be applied in the future. The truth is that the Court could not reach its result in Griswold through principle. The reason is obvious. Every clash between a minority claiming freedom and a majority claiming power to regulate involves a choice between the gratifications of the two groups. When the Constitution has not spoken, the Court will be able to find no scale, other than its own value preferences, upon which to weigh the respective claims to pleasure . . . .

Senators Questions Bork About Privacy

Hearings Before the Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. (Part I) 114-17, 182-83 (1987)

CHAIRMAN [Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.)]: In your 1971 article, "Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems," you said that the right of married couples to have sexual relations without fear of unwanted children is no more worthy of constitutional protection by the courts than the right of public utilities to be free of pollution control laws.

You argued that the utility company's right or gratification, I think you referred to it, to make money and the married couple's right or gratification to have sexual relations without fear of unwanted children is no more worthy of constitutional protection by the courts than the right of public utilities to be free of pollution control laws.

It appears to me that you are saying that the government has as much right to control a married couple's decision about choosing to have a child or not, as that government has a right to control the public utility's right to pollute the air. Am I misstating your rationale here?

Judge [Robert] BORK. With due respect, Mr. Chairman, I think you are. I was making the point that where the Constitution does not speak-there is no provision in the Constitution that applies to the case-then a judge may not say, I place a higher value upon a marital relationship than I do upon an economic freedom. Only if the Constitution gives him some reasoning. Once the judge begins to say economic rights are more important than marital rights or vice versa, and if there is nothing in the Constitution, the judge is enforcing his own moral values, which I have object to. Now, on the Griswold case itself-

CHAIRMAN. So that you suggest that unless the Constitution, I believe in the past you used the phrase, textually identifies, a value that is worthy of being protected, then competing values in society, the competing value of a public utility, in the example you used, to go out and making money-that economic right has no more or less constitutional protection than the right of a married couple to use or not use birth control in their bedroom. Is that what you are saying?

Judge BORK. . . .[A]ll I am saying is that the judge has no way to prefer one to the other and the matter should be left to the legislatures who will then decide which competing gratification, or freedom, should be placed higher.

CHAIRMAN. Then I think I do understand it, that is, that the economic gratification of a utility company is as worthy of as much protection as the sexual gratification of a married couple, because neither is mentioned in the Constitution.

Judge BORK. All that means is that the judge may not choose.

CHAIRMAN. Who does?

Judge BORK. The legislature.

Senator [Orrin] HATCH [R-Utah]. I can certainly understand that there is a privacy protection in the Constitution, in the sense of guarantees against unreasonable searches of one's home, and the prohibition of laws that abridge free speech and the free exercise of religion. Those are areas where there is no question about the right of privacy, is there?

Judge BORK. None whatsoever.

Senator HATCH. What did Justice Black say about the scope of the so-called privacy right that is no where found in the Constitution?

Judge BORK. I think he said it was utterly unpredictable. I don't recall his exact words, but nobody knows what the scope is.

Senator HATCH. And that's what you were concerned about?

Judge BORK. That's what I meant when I said that, you know, privacy to do what? We don't know. Privacy to take cocaine in private; privacy to fix prices in private; privacy to engage in incest in private?

The elitist anti-democratic tendencies of the Democrats and the improbable populism of conservatives was never more clearly, and painfully, displayed.

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CAN'T ANYBODY HERE PLAY THIS GAME?:

In Baseball or in Life -- Win or Lose, You've Got a New Game Every Day (Jay Hook, September 23, 2003, LA Times)

I was the starting pitcher for the 1962 New York Mets, a team that holds the worst record in modern-day baseball.

We won only 40 games that year, lost 120 and were rained out twice on our road to ignominy. No club has ever lost that many games.

By the end of the '62 season, when I would leave the ballpark after a game, I felt that I had better focus on grad school because my baseball career was beginning to throw me a curve. [...]

Unlike Casey Stengel - who, let's face it, had nothing to lose even with a losing team - the Tigers' Alan Trammell is in his first year as a major league team manager. Trammell was a terrific player and is a guy who knows how to win.

It would be a shame to start his managerial career with a record number of losses.

As a team, the Tigers are in a rebuilding phase and have many young, inexperienced players. Yet these guys had to be winners at some point in their careers or they wouldn't be playing at this level. Many of them will go on to be winners in the major leagues. They deserve a better start.

No matter what happens, though, I hope each of them remembers what 1962 taught us: It's a new game every day. Some of us will be successful at baseball, some at engineering, some at medicine or whatever.

I've had three careers, one in professional baseball, one in business as an executive in the automobile industry and one in what I call social service, including being a professor, president of the trustees of a United Methodist seminary and a leader of a community college foundation.

Many of my teammates from 1962 also have gone on to lead successful lives. And the Mets went on to win a world championship in 1969.

Mary Pickford expressed her philosophy as follows: "Today is a new day. You will get out of it just what you put into it If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, there is always another chance for you. And suppose you have tried and failed again and again. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose. For this thing we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down."

The 1962 Mets lived through the losses, but it sure didn't end there.

We love ya', tomorrow.

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DO NOT CALL WILL NOT FLY:

Supremes OK Anonymous Free Speech  (Julia Scheeres, Jun. 18, 2002, Wired)

In a case pitting the privacy rights of homeowners against the rights of door-to-door solicitors to anonymity and free speech, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a village in eastern Ohio cannot force doorstep canvassers to obtain permits before hawking wares or beliefs.

The folks in Stratton, Ohio, a village of 297 residents nestled against the Ohio River, were sick and tired of what the mayor called "flim-flam con artists who prey on small-town populations," so town leaders passed an ordinance in 1998 requiring itinerant solicitors to disclose their name, home address, employer and purpose of planned activity, and obtain a permit before ringing doorbells. Failure to comply with the decree was considered a fourth-degree misdemeanor and included a $50-$100 fine.

On Monday, the High Court struck down the local law in a 8-1 decision, ruling that the ordinance violated the First Amendment because it forced all petitioners -- even those wanting to talk politics and religion –- to get permission from the mayor's office before approaching townspeople.
The ruling was based on a case brought against the village by the Jehovah's Witnesses, who take literally the biblical exhortation to teach "publicly, and from house to house."

The church had lost in two lower courts before appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The mere fact that the ordinance covers so much speech raises constitutional concerns," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens in the opinion of the Court. "It is offensive -- not only to the values protected by the First Amendment, but to the very notion of a free society -– that in the context of everyday public discourse a citizen must first inform the government of her desire to speak to her neighbors and then obtain a permit to do so."

Pennsylvania Town Suspends Restrictions on Door-to-Door Canvassing Under Threat of ACLU Lawsuit ACLU Press Release, August 28, 2003)

Officials in Kennedy Township in Western Pennsylvania today agreed to the American Civil Liberties Union’s request that it suspend enforcement of a new ordinance that restricts peoples’ right to go door-to-door to discuss political, religious and other issues face-to-face with community residents.

Witold Walczak, the Pittsburgh ACLU’s legal director, called the Township’s decision to suspend enforcement prudent. "The Supreme Court ruled just last year that municipalities cannot require people to register with the government before they knock on their neighbors’ door. There is no more important free speech principle in this country."

Kennedy’s Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the ordinance on August 11, 2003, over objections from a community resident who said that the ACLU had already advised her that the new law violated constitutional free speech guarantees. 

The Pittsburgh ACLU, acting on behalf of community residents Joan Sakai and Michelle Bittner, sent a letter on August 26 to town officials requesting that it immediately suspend enforcement of the law or face a federal civil rights lawsuit. Today, the Township agreed to suspend enforcement of the law while it studies the ACLU’s objections.

Bittner, a candidate for a Montour School District Board Director position in November elections, lauded the Township’s decision. "The school district is facing some very serious issues, and I want to be able to hear directly from my potential constituents about their views and I want them to hear mine. The best way to do that is to go door-to-door where you can establish rapport with a person and have a meaningful conversation."

The ACLU’s August 26 letter cited three problematic provisions in the new Kennedy Township law: 

1. some political and/or non-profit-group solicitors had to register with the police and get a permit before going door-to-door;

2. between October 1 and March 31 no soliciting could occur after 6:00 p.m.; and 

3. the Township would maintain a "no-knock" list of people who didn’t want to be solicited and a violation of that restriction carried hefty fines and a possible jail terms.

In its letter, the ACLU advised the Township of 2002 Supreme Court decision holding that a law very similar to the Pennsylvania law was an unconstitutional restriction on free speech.

Not only will the lower court judge's ruling that the Do Not Call List is unconstitutional be upheld by the Supreme Court, the case will be unanimous or nearly so. This is not really an issue that's open to dispute in our current constitutional/judicial regime.

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BLUE HELMETS, WHITE FLAGS:

UN scales down presence to bare minimum (Mark Turner and Kim Ghattas, September 25 2003, Financial Times)

The UN on Thursday said it was scaling down its presence in Iraq to a bare minimum, as news of the death of Akila al-Hashemi, a member of Iraq's Governing Council, reinforced fears the security situation there was becoming untenable.

In the wake of two direct attacks on its headquarters in Baghdad, the UN officially announced a "temporary redeployment" of its international staff.

Only 42 were left on Thursday in the capital, and 44 in the north, and those numbers could "be expected to shrink over the next few days", the UN said. The final number could be as low as 20, subject to further review.

But the UN, keen not to send a political message of defeat...

Which proves the truth of that old axiom: you can't make chicken salad out of the United Nations.

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CARRY ON, OUR WAYWARD SONS:

On this day, Iraqi leaders display united front: As US plays role of skeptical parent, Iraqi Governing Council doesn't want to look like 25 James Deans. (Howard LaFranchi, 9/26/03, CS Monitor)

It happens in every family: The kids want to strike out on their own, and the folks want to keep them under their wing a little bit longer.

Something like that breaking-away process is happening between the United States and Iraq's new leaders - some of them formerly exiled Iraqis the US nurtured and then installed in the interim Iraqi Governing Council.

The keepers of an ancient civilization may take offense at the parent-child analogy. But it nevertheless comes to mind as members of the US-appointed IGC - the learner's permit of what would be the world's newest democracy - make the rounds in New York at the United Nations and in Washington.

The group was sounding much more rebellious a few days ago, but by a press conference Wednesday at the UN, all talk of impatience or dispute with the power paying the bills was silenced - or at least on hold. [...]

Chalabi appeared at the packed press conference with two IGC colleagues: Hoshyar Zebari, who holds the council's rotating foreign-minister slot, and Adnan Pachachi, a former UN envoy and Sunni Muslim representative on the council. Mr. Pachachi said he thought completing a constitution by May is realistic, while Mr. Zebari spoke in terms of an ideal full turnover of sovereignty within a year.

Memorial Day 2004 has always seemed like the most probable goal, though earlier would likely have been better.

MORE:
-Powell Gives Iraq 6 Months to Write New Constitution (STEVEN R. WEISMAN, 9/26/03, NY Times)

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THE PROGRAMME:

Letter to Eugene Stoffels (Alexis de Tocqueville, July 24, 1839)

You seem to me to have understood the general ideas on which my programme rests. What most and always amazes me about my country, more especially these last few years, is to see ranged on the one side men who value morality, religion, and order, and upon the other those who love liberty and the equality of men before the law. This spectacle strikes me as the most extraordinary and deplorable ever offered to the eyes of man; for all the things thus separated are, I am certain, indissolubly united in the sight of God. They are holy things, if I may so express myself, because the greatness and the happiness of man in this world can only result from their simultaneous union. It seems to me, therefore, that one of the finest enterprises of our time would be to demonstrate that these things are not incompatible; that, on the contrary, they are bound up together in such a fashion that each of them is weakened by separation from the rest. Such is my basic idea.

In fact, America is premised on the assumption that the second set of ideas is dependent on the first set.

MORE:
“New Liberalism” (M.R.R. Ossewaarde, Ph.D., London School of
Economics, The 2002 Lord Acton Essay Competition)

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FOLLOW FRANK:

A rabbit following: The surreal and swirling film 'Donnie Darko' is finding its destiny as a cult favorite (Tom Russo, 9/24/2003, Boston Globe)

It's oddly fitting that so much of filmmaker Richard Kelly's 2001 debut, "Donnie Darko," is wrapped up in the mind-bending intricacies of predestination. Perhaps the movie itself was destined to fizzle at the box office -- not for lack of merit, but rather because this is almost invariably the path to cult-favorite status. "Darko," with its intelligent, tough-to-peg interweaving of achingly realistic teen drama, black humor, David Lynch-worthy mystery, and time bending, is quickly achieving just that level of under-the-radar appreciation. The movie, which screens at the Brattle Theatre this weekend, chronicles a tumultuous month in the life of suburban adolescent Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal), a borderline schizophrenic trying to make sense of the swirling, surreal world around him: his visions of a 6-foot-tall, Son of Sam-like bunny named Frank, the sheared-off jet engine that (really) comes crashing down into his bedroom early in the film, and that always treacherous high school caste system. It's a heady mix -- and one that earned the $4.5 million indie barely half a million dollars in its initial release. Not even an appearance by Drew Barrymore, whose production company served as an angel to the project behind the scenes, was enough to make a difference. Likewise for an inspired supporting turn by Patrick Swayze as a smarmy motivational speaker.

But now, not only is "Darko" enjoying a healthy extended life on DVD, video, and cable television, it's also become an art-house staple.

We're on the bandwagon for Donnie Darko/.

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THE GAMUT FROM A TO B:

A Fairy Tale:
The latest presidential candidate arrives in shining armor (David Corn, SEPT. 26 - OCT. 2, 2003, LA Weekly)

Deliver us a white knight, a true and brave soul who can rid us of scoundrels, scalawags and in-it-for-themselves special interests. That’s the cry that periodically
arises within American politics, as would-be voters disgusted (rightfully) with business-as-usual politicians call for a non-politician to rescue the system from itself. At the moment, two candidates in the national spotlight are trying to capitalize upon this save-us-from-politics sentiment.

First came Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then, last week, retired Army General Wesley Clark made a late airdrop into the Democratic presidential contest. Clark, who was supreme commander of NATO before being canned in 1999 by Defense Secretary William Cohen, can boast he is the only Democratic contender whose campaign was preceded by an authentic grassroots movement
urging him to run. The Draft Clark movement recruited 258 regional coordinators nationwide and operated a Web site that drew more visitors than the site of any of the already-running Democratic candidates, except ex–Vermont Governor Howard Dean. Clark has never sought nor held elective office. He cannot recall precisely who he voted for in years past (but assumes he voted for Ronald Reagan at least once). He only recently declared himself a Democrat. Yet plenty of Democrats — and some independents — see him as their white knight.

White-knight politics has had a bumpy time in recent years. In 1992, millions of Americans in search of political salvation looked to tycoon Ross Perot, who claimed that the country’s sputtering economy could easily be fixed if only experts — not politicians — were drawn together to fashion a solution. He turned out to be a bit too eccentric and erratic, more Don Quixote (or Don Knotts) than Lancelot. But he managed to pull 19 percent of the presidential vote. Then, in 1995, Colin Powell pondered a presidential bid, as admirers across the country pined for an above-the-fray/free-of-politics contender. Powell disappointed his fans but persuaded them to buy his memoirs and became a best-selling author instead. In 1998 in Minnesota, former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura, a crash-the-party independent, was surprisingly elected governor. But he was more of a black than a white knight.

Clark’s candidacy may be the best test of white-knightism. He’s neither nutty (like Perot) nor reluctant (like Powell). He has been hailed by anti-Bushies of various ideological inclinations. Populist filmmaker and hero-of-the-left Michael Moore wrote an open letter to Clark pressing him to
run. (He praised Clark’s support of affirmative action, gun control, abortion rights, and his opposition to Bush’s tax cuts, the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq.) The investment bankers at the Blackstone Group — not quite a populist outfit — have been squiring the general. Members of the Blue Dog caucus — conservative Democrats in the House — are expected to sign on early. A Moore–Blackstone–Blue Dog alliance? That’s wide appeal.

Here's a sure sign you've been inside the Beltway too long: you think that three Democratic groups that no one's ever heard of rep[resent a wide range of opinion. Here's another: you think there's a national constituency outside the confines of the Democratic Party that's looking for a candidate who's: pro-gun control, pro-quota, pro-abortion, pro-taxes, anti-war, and against rounding up illegal immigrant Arabs.

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THEN THERE WERE TWO:

No knock-out for Arnold, but he's still standing (Daniel Weintraub, September 25, 2003, Sacramento Bee)

Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger probably could have used this debate to establish himself as the front-runner and to put distance between himself and Bustamante. He didn't do that. But while he didn't knock any pitches out of the park, neither did he embarrass himself. He held his own in his first debate in big league politics, appearing fairly informed without forcing it, and that in itself might have been enough to position him strongly for the campaign's final 12 days.

Despite speculation that McClintock and Schwarzenegger would be at each other's throats, continuing their unofficial primary for the Republican vote, they had not a cross word for each other. Instead, they formed something of a tag team against Camejo and Huffington, and, to a lesser extent, Bustamante.

When the other candidates chastised Schwarzenegger for overstating the state's business woes, McClintock jumped in with a dissertation on the problem. A few minutes later, Schwarzenegger, when the subject came up again, said, "I agree with Tom. We have the worst business climate right now anywhere in the nation." [...]

Bustamante's tone, while more sedate, was more maddeningly condescending. While Huffington was criticizing the construction of a new prison in Delano as a $600 million waste of money, Bustamante tried to interrupt her to say that canceling the project wouldn't help pay for health or education programs because the prison was funded by special bonds. When she continued, Bustamante kept muttering, "Yes, Arianna, yes, Arianna," in a voice that a husband might use while sarcastically trying to placate his spouse. "Let me say this so you can understand it."

If I treated my wife that way I'd be sleeping on the couch. I have to think many women tuning in will put Bustamante in the same place when it's time to cast their votes.

In the end, the debate probably didn't change much in the race. Nobody did well enough to take control or poorly enough to disqualify themselves.

Schwarzenegger's adequate performance will probably increase pressure on McClintock to drop out or at least turn his fire away from his fellow Republican. Bustamante will still need to do far more to distinguish himself as a leader who can move up from his ceremonial post as lieutenant governor to the top job.

The thing is in a debate like this all Arnold has to do is show that he's of equal stature politically as his more experienced competitors. There are lawn gnomes that could pass such a test against Cruz Bustamante.

MORE:
Two leading Republicans endorse Schwarzenegger (ERICA WERNER, September 25, 2003, Associated Press)

Two leading California Republicans threw their support behind Arnold Schwarzenegger in the state's gubernatorial recall Thursday, a day after the political novice held his own in a barb-filled debate.

Former gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon announced Thursday that he was endorsing Schwarzenegger, and Rep. Darrell Issa, who bankrolled the drive to get the recall on the ballot, planned to do the same at an appearance with the actor Friday, a Republican source said.

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STRIKE TWO:

House Authorizes F.T.C. to Administer Do-Not-Call List (Reuters, 9/25/03)

A second federal judge has blocked a national ``do not call'' list that would have allowed consumers to stop unwanted sales calls.

However, Thursday's decision was based on telemarketers' free speech rights rather than questions over whether the Federal Trade Commission had the authority to implement such a list.

U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham in Denver said ``the Federal Trade Commission has chosen to entangle itself too much in the consumers' decision by manipulating consumer choice and favoring speech by charitable (organizations) over commercial speech,'' the judge wrote.

Here's the First Amendment ruling we've all been waiting for--inevitable and accurate according to precedent, but wrong as to the intent of the Constitution. Only political speech needs such high protection.

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IF ONLY THEY PASSED BUDGETS THAT FAST:

Do Not Call: Congress Speed Dials (CBS News, Sept. 25, 2003)

The House voted 412-8 after less than hour of debate. Lawmakers from both parties uniformly blasted a decision by U.S. District Judge Lee R. West, who ruled Tuesday that the Federal Trade Commission lacked authority to create and operate the registry. [...]

The Senate was to vote later in the day, reports CBS News Correspondent Howard Arenstein.

It probably still won't pass constitutional muster, but it's amusing to see how fast they act when 40 million people have signed up for something.

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GREAT, THEN IT'S UNANIMOUS:

Streisand: "My Music Bores Me" (25 September 2003, Celebrity News)

She left out her movies.

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WHAT A FALLU BELIEVES:

Fallujah: A multilayered picture emerges (Pepe Escobar, 9/26/03, Asia Times)

This is the heart of the Iraqi resistance. Fallujah, with a population of almost 500,000 people, traditionally "the city of mosques", is now called "the city of heroes" as it is at the core of the Sunni triangle (Baghdad-Ramadi-Tikrit) where most of the resistance to the US occupation is taking place. [...]

For starters, the citizens of Fallujah don't agree with the usual statistics according to which the Shi'ites make 62 percent of the Iraqi population. After a careful tabulation of the population in the main Iraqi cities, they insist more realistic figures would be 6 million Kurds, 8 million Shi'ites and 8.7 million Sunnis: this would prove their point that Sunnis are woefully under-represented in the Governing Council. [...]

The citizens of Fallujah are adamant: the resistance is composed of members of families angry with or victims of violent American behavior, as well as former army soldiers and officers. They swear that they have not seen any Arab fedayeen (fighters) - and definitely no al-Qaeda. And there are no Ba'ath Party members in this indigenous resistance: "They are bad people. They have money. If you had money, would you risk your life resisting?" They insist that "the main reason for resisting is loyalty to your own country". [...]

Convincing tools for the young and the restless are multiple: defense of tribal values, defense of the motherland, and most of all defense against the "bad behavior" of the Americans. The mujahideen can count on total popular complicity. When al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya - the nemesis of the Governing Council - show images of American casualties, not only in Fallujah but also in Baghdad, people stop talking and their faces lighten up. The running commentary is inevitable: "We thanked them for our freedom, but they should have left long ago." At least in Fallujah, as far as the American occupation is concerned, the battle for hearts and minds is irretrievably lost.

One would wish this to be true, but considering the source it likely isn't. If there were a generalized Sunni resistance throughout Fallujah then we could simply treat them all as the enemy and kill them, making the task of running the country far easier.

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YEAH, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CARS?:

Japan's promise - and problems (John Berthelsen, 9/26/03, Asia Times)

While the Japanese authorities have taken important regulatory and legal steps to strengthen the financial sector, and banks have attempted to improve their capital adequacy, raise provisioning and accelerate the disposal of non-performing loans (NPLs), "it has become clear that financial institutions have not been able to solve the problems on their own", the IMF says, noting:

# The banking system's capital cushion has been run down to minimal levels, and most new capital has been in the form of interest-bearing paper that is not the basis for stronger balance sheets.

# Life-insurance companies are under considerable stress as a result of the declines in investment income and stock prices, which have weakened their capital base.

# The corporate sector is highly leveraged and deflation has increased the real burden of debt.

# On a macroeconomic basis, land values remain weak, reflecting the sluggish economy and overhang in the real-estate market. Despite the broad run-up over the last seven months, the Nikkei index of 225 stocks is hovering near 11,000, hardly more than a third of the 38,000-plus where it closed in 1989.

# Although Japanese banks have disposed of more than 90 trillion yen worth of non-performing loans amounting to 16 percent of GDP since 1992, official NPLs still account for more than 8 percent of outstanding loans as new problem loans continue to emerge.

# Return on assets (ROA) on an operating-income basis in the corporate sector has remained flat since 1993. To compare this with other Group of Seven countries, ROA in Japan is about half to a quarter that of Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In another IMF report issued this month on selected issues facing the health and vulnerability of the Japanese economy overall beyond the financial sector, a team of five economists wrote that "we find that weak companies account for a significant portion of total debt and continue to make losses".

In 2002, despite record negative real interest rates, companies with non-performing debt accounted for 16 percent of Japan's total debt, while those with losing money on operations accounted for 10 percent of total debt. A quarter of those weak companies had reported negative operating profit for two years or more. While debt-to-equity ratios in the corporate sector have fallen from a peak of 287 percent in 1975 to 155 percent in 2002, debt leverage is still breathtaking. That 155 percent compares with an average of 80 percent in Germany, 70 percent in the US, and 45 percent in the UK.

Otrher than that, they're poised for precipitous population decline, an inability to fund their retirement system, and they're contemplating developing a serious Defense for the first time in sixty years, which will waste even more money.

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ANY 18-MONTH OLD CAN DO IT:

Proposed Rule Would Ease Stance on Feeding at Nursing Homes (ROBERT PEAR, 9/25/03, NY Times)

The Bush administration is relaxing regulation of nursing homes to allow low-paid workers with one day of training to feed patients who cannot feed themselves.

Administration officials said the new workers would improve the quality of care, providing additional assistance to patients at busy mealtimes. Nursing homes, facing a severe labor shortage, have long sought permission to hire such "feeding assistants."

But patients' advocates, including AARP and the Alzheimer's Association, objected to the change. They said it could cause "real harm to nursing home residents," in the words of David M. Certner, director of federal affairs for AARP.

Under a final rule to be issued in the next few days, nursing homes could hire part-time workers to help feed patients, a task that can now be performed only by licensed nurses, certified nurse's aides and other health care professionals.

Feeding assistants would have to complete an eight-hour training course. Nurse's aides, by contrast, are required to have 75 hours of training.

Is not the real point of this story that we have a government so intrusive that it requires you have 75 hours of training in order to shovel gruel?

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WALKING THE WALK:

President gave the UN tough talk it deserves (Zev Chafets, Sept. 25, 2003, Jewish World Review)

You could see expectation on the faces of the delegates as President Bush took the podium.

For weeks, the President's critics had been predicting that he would come to the UN General Assembly to beg for help in Iraq. And, now, here he was.

"He needs something," CNN's Aaron Brown sagely observed moments before the President's speech. "He needs something." And then up stepped Bush and it turned out he didn't need a damn thing.

The President began by redeclaring war on a global terrorist enemy that stalks the world from downtown Manhattan to Jakarta (not forgetting, as the UN would like to forget, Jerusalem). Deadpan, he told his audience, which included representatives of some of the terrorists' biggest supporters, that these killers "should have no friend in this chamber."

Last year, Bush said much the same thing in a memorably tough speech. Yesterday, buoyed by what he regards, correctly, as a great victory in Iraq, he was even tougher - and unmoved by criticism.

Lies in need of correction (David Warren, Sept. 25, 2003, Jewish World Review)

President Bush's address to the General Assembly will not make sense, entirely, if the reader has fallen for the false media account of the sequence of events. The first thing to grasp is that the U.S. appeal for United Nations help in Iraq and Afghanistan is nothing new. It is the continuation of an appeal that began more than a year ago, when Mr. Bush last addressed the General Assembly.

The fact that UN members have been remarkably uncooperative in the meantime does not make this latest speech surprising. I, personally, may disagree with the Bush strategy, in having gone to the UN at all, but the administration has been perfectly consistent, and almost inhumanly patient. The rebuilding of Iraq -- which necessarily involved the removal of the totalitarian dictatorship of Saddam Hussein -- has been U.S. policy continuously. And so has been the U.S. appeal for help. They didn't get much of it for the invasion, they are still hoping for more in the apres guerre. [...]

As he also hinted, there would be no point in muttering ungraciously if France, Germany and other powers, which got conspicuously in the way, now want to be included in the prize round. The world is the world, it needs mercy more than justice. The second big lie, in urgent need of correction, is that the United States expects much from the UN itself. The haplessness of that organization has already been demonstrated, with an abundance exceeding farce. What the United States instead needs is a resolution from that augustly fickle body. It can then use the resolution to collect on promises from not only France and Germany, but more particularly such countries as India and Turkey, which said they'd send troops and aid of various kinds, but have used the lack of a UN resolution as an excuse for dawdling.

We've really only had two conviction politicians in the presidency in modern times--Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush--and the press and the world seem to have no idea how they work. What confuses them most is that they mean what they say. Tricky devils...

---

LATE, AGAIN:

Democrats Step Up Attacks on Iraq War (CARL HULSE, 9/25/03, NY Times)

Congressional Democrats, sensing an opening against President Bush, pressed forward today with bitter criticism of the administration's handling of the aftermath of the Iraq war, directly challenging the White House after months of treading softly when it came to the conflict.

At hearings, at press conferences and in interviews, Democratic lawmakers unleashed a torrent of criticism, finding fault with everything from the administration's rationale for the war and a lack of postwar planning to its diplomatic efforts and even Mr. Bush's decision to leave the United Nations Tuesday before others finished speaking.

The assault was a marked contrast to the reluctance of many Democrats to confront a popular wartime president while that war was under way. They were constrained not only by an unwillingness to question the commander in chief during combat but by the prospect of being pummeled by Republicans who were quick to attack any Democrat who questioned administration policy.

Democratic lawmakers say the request for $87 billion ó including more than $20 billion to rebuild Iraq at a moment when the U.S. economy is struggling ó has shifted the dynamic of the political fight. They say it gives them a new opportunity to contrast their policies and priorities with the president's.

One of the wisest of Milton Friedman's axioms holds that by the time the Federal Reserve figures out what's happened in the economy recently and makes an effort to react, the economy itself will have already reacted so the Fed should do the opposite of what it decides needs to be done.

Similarly, the Democrats are going on the attack far too late. With the Shi'ites riled up enough to defend themselves, most of the senior Ba'athists captured or killed, and the Iraqis ready and eager to start assuming control of their own destiny, this is a story that's nearly run its course. By the end of next Spring we'll have drawn down significantly and Iraq will be broadly considered a success, however untidy. This is of a piece with their focus on the economy which they'll not want to touch with a ten foot pole next year because it will redound to the President's favor. They should get back on their core message which is greater government benefits--like health care--for everyone for free. In a time of relative peace and normal economic growth that will play quite well.

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LET MY PEOPLE GO:

Apples as a symbol of good?: Why Jews eat the "serpent's fruit" on Judgment Day (Rabbi Berel Wein, Sept. 25, 2003 , Jewish World Review)

All Jewish customs have Torah, historical and traditional origins, though many of them may be now somewhat obscure due to the passage of time and the circumstances of the long exile of Israel. On Rosh HaShana, Jews dip an apple into honey. Why? What is the special symbolism of the apple that makes it the fruit that most graces our Rosh HaShana table?

The sophisticated doubters amongst us have stated that the apple is used because it is the fruit that was most available in all of the areas of the world of the Jewish exile. However, such reasoning begs the question and misses the entire point of the reasons for the preservation of Jewish customs.

Jewish customs come to reinforce Jewish identity and memory. They serve to remind us of our special responsibilities and duties towards the Creator and man. They reinforce our sense of solidity with all of the previous Jewish generations and provide an effective method of transmitting our tradition and heritage to our children and grandchildren. One of the tragedies of the alienation of many Jews currently from their heritage is their ignorance and non-participation regarding Jewish customs. Thus, the custom of the eating of the apple dipped into the honey on the night of Rosh HaShana does have a special traditional significance over and above the ready availability of the fruit at this season of the year. And it is this special significance of memory that enhances the beauty and even the sweetness of the custom.

One of the fruits to which the Jewish people are compared in King Solomon's Song of Songs is the apple. "As the apple is rare and unique among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved — Israel — amongst the maidens (nations) of the world." The Midrash informs us that the apple tree puts forth the nub of its fruit even before the leaves that will surround and protect the little fruit at its beginning stage of growth are fully sprouting. The Jewish people, by accepting the Torah with the statement that "we will do and we will understand" — placing holy action and observance of Torah commandments even before understanding and rational acceptance — thereby imitated the behavior of the apple. Thus, the apple became a Jewish symbol, a memory aid, so to speak, to the moment of revelation at Sinai.

No one can truly understand the historical suffering of the Jewish people until they've shared a few of the holiday meals.

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NOT MIDTERMS AGAIN?:

Meet Bobby Jindal: The fast-talking conservative who could be the next governor of Louisiana. (Ramesh Ponnuru, September 5, 2003, National Review)

Bobby Jindal is a fast talker. He has to be, to get through all the ideas he has about what he'll do if he wins the race for governor of Louisiana. Ask him about the state's economy, or health care, or education, and you'll generally get a quick four-point response.

On education, for example, Jindal wants school choice, including private schools. He wants more charter schools: "The Fordham Foundation gave our charter-school process a D. It's too politicized." He is for paying teachers more "but also treating them as professionals" -- which means they will have to be regularly certified and paid on the basis of results. He thinks universities should be able to help schools without worrying about restrictive union rules.

Jindal's first order of business on the economic front would be to eliminate three corporate taxes: the sales tax on manufacturing equipment, the corporate franchise tax, and the property tax on offshore equipment. Few other states have such taxes, and as a result, he says, Louisiana is losing business. In the long run, Jindal would like to see income taxes brought down. He has taken Grover Norquist's no-tax-hike pledge.

I think that all took about three minutes.

But speed is only the third thing you notice about Jindal. The first is that he's of Indian descent; his parents moved to Louisiana just before he was born. The second is that he's young: He just turned 32 in June. [...]

Jindal is one of three Republican candidates for governor. The first round of the election is on October 4. A runoff will take place a month later. Earlier this year, Democrats were boasting that they would win the top two slots and that the runoff would thus be an all-Democrat affair. They had two candidates who hold statewide office, lieutenant governor Kathleen Blanco and attorney general Richard Ieyoub. Republicans, including those working for Jindal's campaign, were worried that their party would not coalesce sufficiently to prevent that scenario. Some worry still remains - Jindal would certainly like it if the other two Republicans dropped out - but the Democratic boasting has faded as the polls have changed. The latest one has Jindal within one point of Blanco, the leading candidate. (Ieyoub has now slipped to third place among the Democrats and fourth overall.)

CA may just be the start of an ugly Fall for the Democrats, with GOP gubernatorial candidates also poised to run well in LA, MS, and KY.

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JEANNE KIRKPATRICK THEY'RE NOT:

Bush's Dangerous Nuclear Double Standard: With the White House pushing for new types of warheads, other nations may not heed the call for nonproliferation. (Edward M. Kennedy and Dianne Feinstein, September 23, 2003, LA Times)

President Bush is expected to go to the United Nations today and, with Iran and North Korea obviously in mind, make a strong plea for nuclear nonproliferation.

Okay, we'll give you that much--now guess who the nation is that we aren't treating the same way we do North Korea and Iran? We'll send a book to the first person who gets it right without looking. (You're all on your sacred honour here.)

CONGRATULATIUONS: to andrew who got the--typical for Ted Kennedy but appalling from Senator Feinstein--answer first.

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FATHER KNOWS BEST:

Framing a Democratic Agenda (George Lakoff, September 24, 2003, The American Prospect)

When I teach framing in Cognitive Science 101, I start with an exercise. I give my students a directive: "Don't think of an elephant." It can't be done, of course, and that's the point. In order not to think of an elephant, you have to think of an elephant. The word elephant evokes an image and a frame. If you negate the frame, you still activate the frame. Richard Nixon never took Cognitive Science 101. When he said, "I am not a crook," he made everybody think of him as a crook.

If you have been framed, the only response is to reframe. But you can't do it in a sound bite unless an appropriate progressive language has been built up in advance. Conservatives have worked for decades and spent billions on their think tanks to establish their frames, create the right language, and get the language and the frames they evoke accepted. [...]

Reframing takes awhile, but it won't happen if we don't start. The place to begin is by understanding how progressives and conservatives think. In 1994, I dutifully read the "Contract with America" and found myself unable to comprehend how conservative views formed a coherent set of political positions. What, I asked myself, did opposition to abortion have to do with the flat tax? What did the flat tax have to do with opposition to environmental regulations? What did defense of gun ownership have to do with tort reform? Or tort reform with opposition to affirmative action? And what did all of the above have to do with family values? Moreover, why do conservatives and progressives talk past one another, not with one another?

The answer is that there are distinct conservative and progressive worldviews. The two groups simply see the world in different ways. As a cognitive scientist, I've found in my research that these political worldviews can be understood as opposing models of an ideal family -- a strict father family and a nurturant parent family. These family models come with moral systems, which in turn provide the deep framing of all political issues.

The Strict Father Family

In this view, the world is a dangerous and difficult place, there is tangible evil in the world and children have to be made good. To stand up to evil, one must be morally strong -- disciplined.

The father's job is to protect and support the family. His moral duty is to teach his children right from wrong. Physical discipline in childhood will develop the internal discipline adults need to be moral people and to succeed. The child's duty is to obey. Punishment is required to balance the moral books. If you do wrong, there must be a consequence.

The strict father, as moral authority, is responsible for controlling the women of the family, especially in matters of sexuality and reproduction.

Children are to become self-reliant through discipline and the pursuit of self-interest. Pursuit of self-interest is moral: If everybody pursues his own self-interest, the self-interest of all will be maximized.

Without competition, people would not have to develop discipline and so would not become moral beings. Worldly success is an indicator of sufficient moral strength; lack of success suggests lack of sufficient discipline. Those who are not successful should not be coddled; they should be forced to acquire self-discipline.

When this view is translated into politics, the government becomes the strict father whose job for the country is to support (maximize overall wealth) and protect (maximize military and political strength). The citizens are children of two kinds: the mature, disciplined, self-reliant ones who should not be meddled with and the whining, undisciplined, dependent ones who should never be coddled. [...]

The Nurturant Parent Family

It is assumed that the world should be a nurturant place. The job of parents is to nurture their children and raise their children to be nurturers. To be a nurturer you have to be empathic and responsible (for yourself and others). Empathy and responsibility have many implications: Responsibility implies protection, competence, education, hard work and social connectedness; empathy requires freedom, fairness and honesty, two-way communication, a fulfilled life (unhappy, unfulfilled people are less likely to want others to be happy) and restitution rather than retribution to balance the moral books. Social responsibility requires cooperation and community building over competition. In the place of specific strict rules, there is a general "ethics of care" that says, "Help, don't harm." To be of good character is to be empathic and responsible, in all of the above ways. Empathy and responsibility are the central values, implying other values: freedom, protection, fairness, cooperation, open communication, competence, happiness, mutual respect and restitution as opposed to retribution.

In this view, the job of government is to care for, serve and protect the population (especially those who are helpless), to guarantee democracy (the equal sharing of political power), to promote the well-being of all and to ensure fairness for all. The economy should be a means to these moral ends.

This is more true than not though it's old hat. Conservatives are the Daddy Party--the party of freedom and freedom requires strict morality, because if you can't be fairly certain of how those around you are going to behave you'll not be willing to have them be free. Liberals are the Mommy Party--the party of social security and imposed equality of outcomes. Morality is not required because the State takes responsibility for regulating all behavior. One glaring error is his mention of the "job of parents" in the "Nurturant Parent Family"--actual parents are unimportant, are in fact a pediment, once the State takes on the role of "nurturer".

The other problem with Mr. Lakoff's analysis is that those provisions of the Contract with America that he couldn't figure out all polled in the 60-80% range. America is generally a Daddy Party kind of place with a deep distrust of the State, or as progressive see it: Mommy.

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DOES GLOBAL SECURITY REALLY DEPEND ON THE FRENCH VETO POWER?:

Annan Trounces Bush at UN (Ian Williams, September 23, 2003, AlterNet)

While the U.S. media will most likely play up George Bush's boring speech to the UN, the day clearly belonged to Kofi Annan.

In his distinctively quiet-spoken manner, Annan trounced the Bush administration's foreign policy doctrine of unilateral preemptive strikes at the United Nations General Assembly. Saying the world had "come to a fork in the road," at what "may be a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the United Nations was founded," Annan spelt out explicitly and in the most public way possible the position he has until now reserved for quiet off-the-cuff sessions with the media. Drawing on the power of his office, he ripped apart the U.S. policy of hot preemption -- though without pointing specifically at the Bush administration:

"Until now it has been understood that when states go beyond (self-defense), and decide to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, they need the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations.

"Now, some say this understanding is no longer tenable, since an 'armed attack' with weapons of mass destruction could be launched at any time, without warning, or by a clandestine group. Rather than wait for that to happen, they argue, states have the right and obligation to use force pre-emptively, even on the territory of other states, and even while weapons systems that might be used to attack them are still being developed.

"According to this argument, states are not obliged to wait until there is agreement in the Security Council. Instead, they reserve the right to act unilaterally, or in ad hoc coalitions.

"This logic represents a fundamental challenge to the principles on which, however imperfectly, world peace and stability have rested for the last fifty-eight years ... if it were to be adopted, it could set precedents that resulted in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without justification."

By UN standards, it was an unprecedented, if justly deserved, rebuff to the United States.

So, just suppose that North Korea sold a nuclear weapon to al Qaeda--are Mr. Annan and Mr. Williams seriously arguing that we'd have to wait for UN authorization to go after them?

MORE:
The President's Thorny Olive Branch (Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, September 24, 2003, LA Times)

There has been much talk in recent weeks about President Bush's apparent determination to change course in Iraq. Exhibit One is his decision, reiterated in Tuesday's speech to the United Nations, to seek a new U.N. resolution encouraging other countries to contribute troops and money to the Iraq reconstruction effort. The White House, it appears, has finally recognized that it cannot succeed on its own in Iraq.

But a closer analysis of Bush's argument to the U.N. General Assembly suggests that there is less here than meets the eye, and that any policy changes he might be making are purely about tactics and not about strategy.

The speech was vintage Bush - clear, concise, hard-charging, with not an inch of give to his critics. Everyone has to make a choice, he said, and those that make a wrong choice (as did the regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq) must suffer the consequences. He admitted no mistakes in postwar planning and defended the U.S. decision to take the fight against terrorism "to the enemy."

"The deadly combination of outlaw regimes and terror networks and weapons of mass murder is a peril that cannot be ignored or wished away," Bush said.

The problem is, the president's worldview leaves little room for allies or international institutions that do not bend to Washington's ways.

Talk about mastering the obvious...

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DOESN'T SOVEREIGNTY HAVE CONSEQUENCES AS WELL AS BENEFITS?

Indian Givers--II: Tribes that run California casinos aim to run the whole state. (John Fund, September 24, 2003, Wall Street Journal)

The Indians are seeking all these additional advantages at a time when they are already sitting pretty. The Los Angeles Times calls them "California's principal growth industry." Because they enjoy tribal sovereignty and pay no property, sales or corporate taxes, the state's 54 Indian casinos rake in over $5 billion a year, a sum bigger than the take in Atlantic City and more than half that of neighboring Nevada. Indian slot machines can legally offer a payout of only 70 cents on the dollar, compared with 90 cents at Las Vegas casinos. They can allow gamblers under 21, and they also make a pretty penny selling tax-free cigarettes.

To protect all that loot, the tribes have become the biggest political givers in the state by spending $125 million on California politics since 1998. Untold millions that can't be traced have been contributed by individual tribal members who are flush with cash from payouts of casino profits. Indian tribes are also exempt from the contribution and issue-advocacy bans in the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law.

Shouldn't part of their tribal sovereignty be that their attempt to donate to political races can be treated the same as other foreign contributions, thus limited or even banned?

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DON'T THE PENCILS VIOLATE A WEAPONS POLICY?:

Court bans religious gifts to classmates (Julia Duin, 9/21/03, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

Kindergartners and first-graders may not distribute to their classmates gifts that bear a religious message, according to a ruling by a federal appeals court.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of a New Jersey elementary school in forbidding a boy from giving out pencils with the message "Jesus loves the little children" with a heart symbol substituted for the word love.

The classroom is not a place for student advocacy, wrote Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Anthony J. Scirica, speaking for the court in Walz v. Egg Harbor Township Board of Education. The school, he said, has a "legitimate area of control" regarding speech within school confines.

And the younger the student, "the more control a school may exercise," he added. [...]

Daniel was given the option of distributing the pencils and candy during recess or before and after school, he said.

Judge Scirica made a similar point, saying that schools can restrict speech in class or during school-sponsored events but should hold off when the speech occurs in hallways between classes or during free time.

So long as the school district applies its rules to every kind of message--for instance, they ban "Protect Widlife" pencils too--and they allow the kid to distribute the stuff before and after class it seems like a reasonable restriction.

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40 MILLION AMERICANS CAN'T BE WRONG:

Court Hangs Up On 'Do-Not-Call' (CBS News, Sept. 24, 2003)

A federal judge has ruled that the Federal Trade Commission overstepped its authority in creating a national do-not-call list against telemarketers.

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by telemarketers who challenged the list, comprised of names of people who do not want to receive business solicitation calls. The immediate impact of Tuesday's ruling was not clear.

The list was to go into effect Oct. 1. Some 41.7 million people have signed up.

U.S. District Judge Lee R. West sided in favor of the plaintiffs, U.S. Security, Chartered Benefit Services Inc., Global Contact Services Inc., InfoCision Management Corp. and Direct Marketing Association Inc.

The judge found that Congress had never given the FTC specific authority to create such a list or enforce penalties against violators.

Under a 1991 law, the FTC was allowed to create a list of people who did not wish to receive telephone solicitations. A separate 1994 law called on the FTC to prohibit abusive or deceptive telephone solicitations. The judge essentially ruled that the authority in the second law does not apply to the list in the first one.

This is probably inevitable as to court precedents but nonsense as to the intent of the First Amendment. Only political speech--that speech intrinsic to the functioning of the Constitutional scheme itself--should be protected at such a high level. If Congress, the Executive and forty million Americans are all agreed that the do-not-call list is allowed by the Constitution, then it is.

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THE NEXT GOOD WAR WILL BE THE FIRST:

In Nearly All of Our Wars We've Made Serious Mistakes (Thomas Fleming. 9/24/03, History News Network)

The current cacophony over President Bush's supposed miscalculation about the difficulty of pacifying Iraq is badly in need of some historical perspective. The commentators and candidates can't seem to recall any war before Vietnam. If we look a little farther back -- and even a lot farther back -- we will find that many American leaders, including the founding fathers, went to war on assumptions that soon proved painfully wrong. [...]

Woodrow Wilson's decision to enter World War I is perhaps the most egregious example of presidential miscalculation. Wilson, brainwashed by British and French propaganda (as were most members of Congress and the nation's leading newspapers) assumed there was no need to send any soldiers to France. He thought American participation in the war would be naval and financial. The chief of staff of the U.S. Army put a memorandum in his files to this effect, a month after Congress declared war. A few days later, British and French military missions arrived in Washington. "We want men, men, men!" one French general said. They revealed for the first time the Germans were close to winning the war. The French army had mutinied and only two divisions were reliable. The British were almost as demoralized by their massive casualties in the battle of the Somme. By the time the war ended, there were two million American soldiers in France. In five months of ferocious fighting, they won victory at the cost of 50,300 dead and 198,000 wounded.

America's entry into World War II began with a grievous miscalculation by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Desperate to get the United States into the war before Hitler's armies conquered Russia and turned on an isolated England, FDR decided a "back door" approach was his only option, since the Germans declined to give him an incident that would justify a declaration of war. He would lure Japan into an attack by cutting off their oil supplies, and use it as a pretext to declare war on both Germany and Japan, who had a treaty of alliance. The calculation was based on the racist assumption that the Japanese were inept pilots and mediocre sailors, because their eyesight was bad and they were not terribly bright. They could be contained by a modest defensive force of American ships and planes, letting us throw most of our military might into the European war. Pearl Harbor and the clockwork air and sea assault on the Philippines exploded this assumption. Tens of thousands of American soldiers and sailors died in the Japanese trans-Pacific rampage. Only hairbreadth victories in the Coral Sea and at Midway rescued Australia and Hawaii from Japanese occupation. An anecdote sums up this dolorous tale. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox visited FDR in the White House on the afternoon of Pearl Harbor. Knox later recalled, "He was white as a sheet. He expected to get hit but not hurt."

If you've not read Mr. Fleming's splendid book, The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II, you don't know as much as you think you do about WWII.

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THE 1ST ANNUAL BROTHERS JUDD CALIFORNIA RECALL PROGNOSTATHON:

Here's the deal:

You pick the %'s of the "Yes" and "No" votes; the % of the vote that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cruz Bustamante will each get; and, as a tie breaker, the % of eligible voters who will turn out on October 7th.

We'll award whoever comes closest a copy of the magnificent new Illustrated version of James M. McPherson's Pulitzer-winning Battle Cry of Freedom and the runner-up a hot--off-the-presses paperback copy of Rick Atkinson's Pulitzer-winning Army at Dawn (both courtesy of our friends at FSB Associates).

Please go to this page to enter your picks.

MORE:
-Here are he results so far
-Here's the latest poll in pdf form.

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BORN OF FAMILIARITY:

Gen. Shelton shocks Celebrity Forum, says he won't support Clark for president (Joan Garvin, 9/24/03, Los Altos Town Crier)

Retired General H. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11, shared his recollection of that day and his views of the war against terrorism with the Foothill College Celebrity Forum audience at Flint Center, Sept. 11 and 12.

His review of that historic event and his 38 years in the military kept the audience's rapt attention throughout. But it was his answer to a question from the audience at the end that shocked his listeners.

"What do you think of General Wesley Clark and would you support him as a presidential candidate," was the question put to him by moderator Dick Henning, assuming that all military men stood in support of each other. General Shelton took a drink of water and Henning said, "I noticed you took a drink on that one!"

"That question makes me wish it were vodka," said Shelton. "I've known Wes for a long time. I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart. I'm not going to say whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat. I'll just say Wes won't get my vote."

The dirty little not-so-secret of General Clark's military career is that he is universally loathed by his peers and the troops who served under him. And, of course, the Clintonites who are running his campaign all worked for the president who fired him. Mr. Clark's run for president--like that of Dick Gephardt, Carol Moseley-Braun, and John Edwards--is a case of trying to fail upwards.

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NO SWITCH IN TIME THIS GO ROUND:

New Plea Bargain Limits Could Swamp Courts, Experts Say (ADAM LIPTAK and ERIC LICHTBLAU, September 24, 2003, NY Times)

If Attorney General John Ashcroft's new directive limiting the use of plea bargains in federal prosecutions were enforced to the letter, legal experts said, the criminal justice system would soon face a crisis.

"If even just a small fraction of the 96 percent of all defendants who currently plead guilty end up going to trial, the courts will be overrun in no time," said Marc Mauer, the assistant director of the Sentencing Project, a research group in Washington that supports prisoners' rights. [...]

Whatever Mr. Ashcroft's motives and goals, the directive's practical impact could be enormous.

David Burnham, co-director of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which tracks data on federal law enforcement, said the Justice Department could not significantly reduce plea bargains "without collapsing the entire court system."

You'd think the Left, which is so properly suspicious of George W. Bush's motivations would figure these things out quicker. You're entering an era of complete Republican dominance of the White House and Senate and the President just proposed a rule change that would make it necessary to add a ton of new federal judges. It's as radical as FDR's court packing plan only it's being done by a more subtle mind.

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DISPELLING?:

Meet the Ukrainian Chassidic Jew who is a world-class chess player: Ze'ev "Velvel" Dub is dispelling stereotypes (M. Gardner, 9/24/03, Jewish World Review)

A child prodigy, in the last few years Velvel has mastered most of the Talmud through the Mifal Hashas program. As a means of support, he competes in chess tournaments.

Velvel says that his grandfather was a chess champion, and his father also excelled at the game. He began playing — and winning — at age 4. At 14, he joined the local chess club.

At the time he left to attend the Moscow yeshiva, he was about to play a decisive game that would have established him as the Ukrainian youth chess champion. He chose instead to forgo that distinction and learn about his sacred heritage. [...]

The first large monetary prize Velvel received was from the Israel Chess Union. In presenting him with the award, the Union decided to arrange a lavish ceremony. Politicians and celebrities were invited. One, as it happened, was the recently chosen head of the Union, Knesset member Tommy Lapid.

A chess aficionado, Lapid also enjoys a reputation as being a rabid anti-religious rabble rouser.

When Velvel was called up to receive the prize, Lapid's mouth fell open, as his stereotype of religious Jews was dispelled.

Velvel, who began playing piano as a child, has also continued his musical career. To date, he has released four albums of classical music that he composed and plays on.

Maybe M. Gardner grew up in a different kind of neighborhood than we did, but somehow the Jewish stereotype we knew isn't dispelled by a chess and piano playing kid.

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"GOOD" vs. "EVIL"?:

Bush's dangerous singleminded dualism (Ehsan Ahrari. 9/24/03, Asia Times)

Watching President George W Bush at the United Nations on September 20, I was reminded of the foreign policy behavior of two major personalities of the United States: John Foster Dulles and Lyndon B Johnson. Dulles, who served as secretary of state during the Eisenhower administration, viewed the Cold War as essentially a struggle between "good" and "evil".

In his worldview, the USSR epitomized the devil, while the United States symbolized everything virtuous and good. By so portraying the international struggle of the Cold War, he was scornful of the fence sitters (ie, the non-aligned nations) as essentially immoral for not joining the "good guys" in that epochal struggle.

One searches the rest of the essay in vain for a nuanced explanation of what is good about Communism and/or Islamicism and/or what is evil about confronting them, but even Mr. Ahrari hasn't the audacity to make such an argument.

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HALF FULL, MAYBE THREE QUARTERS...:

Democracy, Closer Every Day (NOAH FELDMAN, September 24, 2003, NY Times)

Essentially all of Iraq's Shiite Muslims and Kurds, who between them make up 80 percent of the population, were happy to see Saddam Hussein go and have made it clear that they want the coalition to remain long enough to prevent the Baath party from re-emerging.

Thus the main internal threat comes from Sunni Arabs, who have long held power despite being only about 15 percent of the population. Yet even if many of these Sunnis want the coalition out, only a few seem so far to be willing to take up arms -- otherwise we would be seeing thousands of incidents each week rather than a handful. Perhaps the greatest concern is the possibility that some attacks have been initiated by terrorists controlled by Iran or Al Qaeda who have infiltrated Iraq's essentially unguarded borders.

Still, the answer to this threat isn't bringing in foreign troops or putting more Americans on the ground, but creating an effective Iraqi security force -- fast. [...]

More important to the future of democracy in Muslim Iraq, the senior Shiite religious leaders, and the political parties loosely associated with them, have consistently eschewed divisive rhetoric in favor of calls for Sunni-Shiite unity. Most have repeatedly asserted their desire for democratic government respectful of Islamic values, rather than government by mullahs on the failed Iranian model. As a result, they have been largely successful in marginalizing younger radicals like the rejectionist Moktada al-Sadr. When Mr. Sadr organized an anti-coalition protest in the holy city of Najaf in July, he was forced to bus in supporters from Baghdad, three dusty hours away. (Wisely, the coalition has declined to arrest Mr. Sadr; his hopes for a living martyrdom denied, he increasingly looks more like a small-time annoyance than the catalyst of a popular movement.)

The emergence of democratic attitudes among religiously committed Shiites was underscored on Saturday in Detroit when Ibrahim Jafari, leader of the Islamist Dawa Party and the most recent Iraqi Governing Council member to hold its rotating presidency, addressed the second annual Iraqi-American Conference. The largely Christian audience of Iraqi-Americans spent the morning worrying about the dangers of a constitution declaring Islam the official religion of Iraq, but then treated Dr. Jafari to a standing ovation after he made the case for a pluralistic, tolerant Iraq in which all citizens -- Muslim and non-Muslim, men and women -- would have full rights of citizenship.

The same proud insistence on the compatibility of Islamic values and a democratic Iraq was sounded last week in Bahrain by 40 Iraqi Shiites at a program on constitutional values sponsored by the American Bar Association. Skeptical of arguments for a strong separation of religion and state, these representatives nonetheless took as a given that a country as religiously diverse as Iraq must ensure religious freedom -- mandated, they said, by the Koran -- and equality for all citizens.

The likelihood is that the Democratic candidate for president will mention neither Iraq nor the economy during the general campaign.

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AXIS OF GOOD FILES:

The Turkish Card (WILLIAM SAFIRE, September 24, 2003, NY Times)

Will nations that refused to help overthrow the dictator now join us to finish the job? Will Iraqis welcome such assistance to end the sabotage and sniping by Saddam's diehards?

A key to both answers lies in Turkey, the only democracy bordering Iraq. The new Turkish government made the mistake of appearing to put a price tag for its cooperation before the war, to our dismay; now that breach is healing.

I put it directly to Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister here for the U.N. meeting: Will his nation answer the Bush request for a substantial force to help bring stability to Iraq? Answer: "Public opinion in Turkey is changing. A peaceful, stable Iraq is in Turkey's interest. If our government decides to send this recommendation to the Parliament, which meets next week, I believe Parliament will not refuse."

Is another U.N. resolution required? "It would be helpful, as would the invitation of the Iraqi Governing Council," Mr. Gul replied. What say Turkey's generals, who were silent before the war as Parliament refused transit to U.S. troops? "This time, the army supports going down there."

As we found out in Korea, the Turks have some extremely useful soldiers.

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CAN'T TELL THE REALISTS FROM THE NEOCONS FROM THE THEOCONS:

Powell Calls U.S. 'Judeo-Christian,' Then Amends (Reuters, September 23, 2003)

Powell made the remark in an interview with the Charlie Rose Show on public television while talking about Washington's vision of what kind of government Iraq should have.

He said he expected it to be "an Islamic country by faith, just as we are a Judeo-Christian..."

"Well, it's hard to tell any more, but we are a country of many faiths now," he added quickly.

Wasn't he supposed to be the Leftish babysitter who curbed President Bush's worst tendencies?

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STAR FACTOR:

A rush to the registrar: GOP numbers surge as deadline to register passes. (JOHN GITTELSOHN and RONALD CAMPBELL, September 23, 2003, The Orange County Register)

"From what I've been told, this is the biggest last-minute numbers ever," interim Registrar of Voters Steve Rodermund said. "It wasn't bad until today. We got inundated."

Stuart Cohen, a native of South Africa who became a citizen Sept. 17, said he registered as a Republican so he could vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"It's actually funny and ironic that my first vote as an American citizen is for the 'Terminator,'" said Cohen, 51, a U.S. resident for 17 years. The last-minute influx reflects enthusiasm for the recall election and dissatisfaction with Gov. Gray Davis - at least in Orange County. Since July 1, Republicans accounted for 47 percent of the county's 74,000 newly registered or re-registered voters. More new independents registered than Democrats, who added fewer than 18,000 voters.

John Burkett delivered about 1,500 new applications to the registrar shortly before the 5 p.m. closing time, having dropped off applications to registrars in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. He headed to Los Angeles County, where the registrar stayed open until midnight. About 80 percent of his applications were Republicans, Burkett said.

"I've seen people in their 40s, 50s and 60s who are registering for the first time in their lives," said Burkett, who makes a living registering voters and gathering petition signatures.

Let's go out on a limb and assume that most people registering for the first time haven't caught Bustamante Fever.

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THE MINIMAL COST OF BEING THE BOSS:

Republicans look for ways to cut Iraq costs (Andrew Clark, 9/23/03, Reuters)

Democrats on the House Budget Committee said the United States will spend $179 billion in Iraq under even a best-case scenario and that could rise to more than $400 billion if U.S. troops have to stay in the country for years to come.

The very reasonable and capable Congressman John Spratt came up with that $400 billion worst-case-scenario price tag and it seems believable. It's also, by way of comparison, the cost of just three years worth of farm subsidies. So, in other words, we just liberated a country from one of the worst tyrannies of recent years--a concrete achievement any way you spin it--for about what it costs to have agribusiness not grow stuff--a rather ephemeral accomplishment at best. I'll gladly trade Sam Donaldson's mohair subsidy for a free Kurdistan.

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NEXT BIG THING:

Joss Stone Gives Soul New Voice, New Look (Weekend Edition, Sept. 13, 2003, NPR)

The CD The Soul Sessions is making a major impression on the music world. The singer is Joss Stone -- white, British and just 16 years old. Stone's mentor and producer is African-American soul legend Betty Wright. Hear Stone, Wright and NPR's Scott Simon.

Sister's got some serious pipes. The Wife predicts Norah Jonesdom. Best of all, the album is only $10

MORE:
-ALBUM SITE: The Soul Sessions (S-Curve)
-PROFILE: From a British teen, sounds of pure soul: Joss Stone's debut showcases a voice that evokes a bygone era (Renee Graham, 9/12/2003, Boston Globe)
-PROFILE: Joss Stone puts heart and soul into her music (Tom Moon, 9/21/03, Philadelphia Inquirer)

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WE VINDICATE YOUR IDEALS; DO YOU?:

President Bush Addresses United Nations General Assembly (The United Nations, New York, New York, 9/23/03)

Mr. Secretary General; Mr. President; distinguished delegates; ladies and gentlemen: Twenty-four months ago -- and yesterday in the memory of America -- the center of New York City became a battlefield, and a graveyard, and the symbol of an unfinished war. Since that day, terrorists have struck in Bali, Mombassa, in Casablanca, in Riyadh, in Jakarta, in Jerusalem -- measuring the advance of their cause in the chaos and innocent suffering they leave behind.

Last month, terrorists brought their war to the United Nations itself. The U.N. headquarters in Baghdad stood for order and compassion -- and for that reason, the terrorists decided it must be destroyed. Among the 22 people who were murdered was Sergio Vieira de Mello. Over the decades, this good and brave man from Brazil gave help to the afflicted in Bangladesh, Cypress, Mozambique, Lebanon, Cambodia, Central Africa, Kosovo, and East Timor, and was aiding the people of Iraq in their time of need. America joins you, his colleagues, in honoring the memory of Senor Vieira de Mello, and the memory of all who died with him in the service to the United Nations.

By the victims they choose, and by the means they use, the terrorists have clarified the struggle we are in. Those who target relief workers for death have set themselves against all humanity. Those who incite murder and celebrate suicide reveal their contempt for life, itself. They have no place in any religious faith; they have no claim on the world's sympathy; and they should have no friend in this chamber.

Events during the past two years have set before us the clearest of divides: between those who seek order, and those who spread chaos; between those who work for peaceful change, and those who adopt the methods of gangsters; between those who honor the rights of man, and those who deliberately take the lives of men and women and children without mercy or shame.

Between these alternatives there is no neutral ground. All governments that support terror are complicit in a war against civilization. No government should ignore the threat of terror, because to look the other way gives terrorists the chance to regroup and recruit and prepare. And all nations that fight terror, as if the lives of their own people depend on it, will earn the favorable judgment of history.

The former regimes of Afghanistan and Iraq knew these alternatives, and made their choices. The Taliban was a sponsor and servant of terrorism. When confronted, that regime chose defiance, and that regime is no more. Afghanistan's President, who is here today, now represents a free people who are building a decent and just society; they're building a nation fully joined in the war against terror.

The regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction. It used those weapons in acts of mass murder, and refused to account for them when confronted by the world. The Security Council was right to be alarmed. The Security Council was right to demand that Iraq destroy its illegal weapons and prove that it had done so. The Security Council was right to vow serious consequences if Iraq refused to comply. And because there were consequences, because a coalition of nations acted to defend the peace, and the credibility of the United Nations, Iraq is free, and today we are joined by representatives of a liberated country.

Saddam Hussein's monuments have been removed and not only his statues. The true monuments of his rule and his character -- the torture chambers, and the rape rooms, and the prison cells for innocent children -- are closed. And as we discover the killing fields and mass graves of Iraq, the true scale of Saddam's cruelty is being revealed.

The Iraqi people are meeting hardships and challenges, like every nation that has set out on the path of democracy. Yet their future promises lives of dignity and freedom, and that is a world away from the squalid, vicious tyranny they have known. Across Iraq, life is being improved by liberty. Across the Middle East, people are safer because an unstable aggressor has been removed from power. Across the world, nations are more secure because an ally of terror has fallen.

Our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq were supported by many governments, and America is grateful to each one. I also recognize that some of the sovereign nations of this assembly disagreed with our actions. Yet there was, and there remains, unity among us on the fundamental principles and objectives of the United Nations. We are dedicated to the defense of our collective security, and to the advance of human rights. These permanent commitments call us to great work in the world, work we must do together. So let us move forward. [...]

As an original signer of the U.N. Charter, the United States of America is committed to the United Nations. And we show that commitment by working to fulfill the U.N.'s stated purposes, and give meaning to its ideals. The founding documents of the United Nations and the founding documents of America stand in the same tradition. Both assert that human beings should never be reduced to objects of power or commerce, because their dignity is inherent. Both require -- both recognize a moral law that stands above men and nations, which must be defended and enforced by men and nations. And both point the way to peace, the peace that comes when all are free. We secure that peace with our courage, and we must show that courage together.

May God bless you all.

From the way anti-Bush columnists were writing about this speech, you got the impression they thought he'd break down sobbing like Jimmy Swaggart and beg forgiveness for violating the UN Charter. Instead, predictably, he went in and told them how we're realizing the ideals of the UN on our own and questioned the seriousness of their commitment to same. One would guess they aren't serious.

MORE:
Here's a representative instance of pundit chagrin, Bush to World: Drop Dead!: The president lays an egg at the U.N. (Fred Kaplan, September 23, 2003, Slate)

Has an American president ever delivered such a bafflingly impertinent speech before the General Assembly as the one George W. Bush gave this morning?

Here were the world's foreign ministers and heads of state, anxiously awaiting some sign of an American concession to realism—even the sketchiest outline of a plan to share not just the burden but the power of postwar occupation in Iraq. And Bush gave them nothing, in some ways less than nothing.

In the few seconds he devoted to that subject, he cited only three areas in which the role of the United Nations (or any other nations) should be expanded: writing an Iraqi constitution, training a new corps of civil servants, and supervising elections. None of these notions is new.

Otherwise, Bush's message can be summarized as follows: The U.S.-led occupation authority is doing good work in Iraq; you should come help us; if you don't, you're on the side of the terrorists.

And some symptomatic Democrat hysteria, Bush's U.N. Speech Gets Scathing Reviews on Capitol Hill (DAVID STOUT, 9/23/03, NY Times)

President Bush's speech to the United Nations received scathing reviews today from Capitol Hill Democrats, including some who would like to have Mr. Bush's job.

"I think the president lost an opportunity," Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the minority leader, told reporters. "He came before the international community and he could have made the case for more troops, for more resources. He didn't do that."

Mr. Daschle, who is not running for president, continued: "He has now asked for $87 billion more. And I wish he would have made a stronger case, a better case with more specificity about a plan. He hasn't presented a plan to the United Nations. He hasn't presented one to this country or to this Congress. It was a missed opportunity, and that's very disappointing."

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts said Mr. Bush's rhetoric was becoming "more stirring."

"But once again he has failed to tell us exactly what role he expects the United Nations to play now and what timetable he envisions for the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people," said Mr. Kerry, who is running for president.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, another White House hopeful, called the speech an "11th-hour, half-hearted appeal" delivered in an "I told you so" tone that makes it more difficult to secure international help in Iraq.

And Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, another presidential candidate, said that Mr. Bush had "missed an opportunity" to expand international support for American policy in Iraq by not offering to broaden participation in decision making.

Another Democrat with his eye on the White House, Senator Bob Graham of Florida, accused Mr. Bush of taking a "my way or the highway" approach by trying to force other nations to comply with Washington's demands.

Do these guys really know their fellow citizens so little that they think it could ever hurt the President to be seen smacking the UN around?

-Bush holds line on Iraq: President appealed for UN support for reconstruction, but faced skeptics. (Howard LaFranchi, 9/24/03, CS Monitor)
-UN loses patience with the American way (Gary Younge, September 24, 2003, The Guardian)

Old transatlantic wounds within the United Nations security council were reopened yesterday, as France condemned American unilateralism and demanded a rapid transition to democracy and the United States defended the war and insisted the move to Iraqi sovereignty would not be rushed.

On the face of it their positions seem to have hardened. "In an open world, no one can isolate themselves, no one can act alone in the name of all, and no one can accept the anarchy of a society without rules," said the French president, Jacques Chirac, in one of his most explicit attacks to date. "There is no alternative to the United Nations."

Meanwhile the US president, George Bush, insisted it had been right to fight the war, even raising the issue of weapons of mass of destruction and linking the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, to terrorism.

"The regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction. It used those weapons in acts of mass murder, and refused to account for them when confronted by the world," he said.

But behind the rhetoric the battle lines were being drawn. The French were making it clear who was to blame for the mayhem in Iraq. The Americans wanted everyone to know that while they had returned to the UN for help, this was not an admission of guilt.

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THE DEMOCRATS' CHOICE OF EVILS (via Glenn Dryfoos):

Return of Donations Ordered: Judge says Bustamante can't use millions from old campaign fund. An aide says it's been spent. (Dan Morain, September 23, 2003, LA Times)

A judge ruled Monday that Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante broke campaign laws by using about $4 million in donations to pay for an advertising blitz.

The judge ordered Bustamante to return the contributions. But, perhaps rendering the decision more political than practical, Bustamante's chief political consultant said all the money was gone.

In a 12-page order issued in response to a lawsuit by a Republican state senator, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster wrote that a fund-raising maneuver Bustamante had employed had violated the "plain and unambiguous language" of Proposition 34. That measure, passed by voters in 2000, caps political contributions at $21,200 in the recall race.

The lieutenant governor accepted donations far exceeding that sum — including a $1.5-million gift from an Indian tribe — in an old campaign fund established before Proposition 34 took effect. Then he shifted the money to a new fund, and used it for an ad campaign.

McMaster issued a preliminary injunction forbidding Bustamante to transfer any more of the disputed money to his current campaign.

But the judge also said Bustamante had probably "acted in good faith" and had not intentionally broken the law.

Bustamante initially planned to transfer millions from the old committee to his new "Bustamante for Governor" account.

But in the face of an outcry from other candidates, he changed strategy and moved the money to an even newer fund he set up to oppose Proposition 54, the measure that would restrict government's ability to gather racial and ethnic data. The measure shares the recall ballot and is the subject of the television ads paid for with the disputed cash.

Odd how everyone else understood that Mr. Bustamante was violating the law. His "good faith" would appear to depend on his being an imbecile.

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OOH, THIS IS NOT GOOD.

Air Force Airman Charged with Espionage at Guantanamo Bay Prison (AP, 9/23/03)

An Air Force airman who worked as a translator at the U.S. prison camp for suspected terrorists has been charged with espionage and aiding the enemy, a military spokesman said Tuesday.

Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi is being held at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said.

Al-Halabi worked as an Arabic language translator at the prison camp for al-Qaida and Taliban suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Shavers said. The Air Force enlisted man knew the Muslim chaplain at the prison arrested earlier this month, but it's unclear if the two arrests are linked, Shavers said. . . .

Pentagon officials said an investigation into possible security breaches at Guantanamo Bay continues.

So, should Muslims be assigned to Guantanamo?

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DEINDUSTRIALIZATION NATION:

Signs of Wisdom at UAW (Paul S. Kersey and Kent Davis, September 22, 2003, Mackinac Center for Public Policy)

Much remains to be learned about the deals the United Auto Workers (UAW) reached with Daimler/Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. But early indications are that UAW President Ron Gettelfinger has, at least for the time being, abandoned the usual procedure of negotiating with one company first, then forcing the other two to accept similar terms.

This was, no doubt, a difficult decision to make. But it was probably the right one for the long-term health of the UAW, as well as for all three of Detroit’s automakers. By simultaneously negotiating with all three companies, Gettelfinger demonstrated the sort of economic savvy the union movement desperately needs to develop if it is to regain its influence in American workplaces.

The old method of "pattern bargaining" evolved at a time when Detroit, for all intents and purposes, "owned" the domestic automobile market. Representing virtually every blue-collar worker in the entire American automobile industry, the UAW was in a position to protect those workers from competitive pressure by negotiating similar contracts with all automakers.

But new competitors have become a permanent part of the American automotive marketplace. These "foreign" competitors — BMW, Toyota, and Mazda — have in effect become domestic automakers now, producing cars in factories throughout the American South. Employees of these "transplant" facilities have declined UAW representation so far, and all signs are that this is unlikely to change. UAW officials are entitled to question the wisdom of workers who have shown little enthusiasm for union membership, but the loss of their near monopoly in automobile labor is a reality with which they must deal. As a result, workers at the Big Three have non-union competitors they did not have back in Detroit’s glory days in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

Failure to anticipate the impact of new competitors led to costly contract terms that put the Big Three at a disadvantage. On average, labor costs are $1,000 per vehicle higher for the Big Three than their transplant competitors. By abandoning the usual bargaining procedure, Ron Gettelfinger gave himself and the companies whose labor forces he represents room to address each automaker’s individual weaknesses and narrow the labor-cost gap.

This can hardly be more than a holding action. The combination of technology removing the skill from manufacturing jobs and globalization making jobs mobile means that it makes no sense for developed nations to have a manufacturing sector, where essentially unskilled employees get paid far more than competing workforces in Third World countries demand just to assemble parts.

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BUILD HIGH THE PYRE:

Oct. 7 election on schedule after judges' ruling (Sam Stanton, September 23, 2003, Sacramento Bee)

California's Oct. 7 recall election is back on, at least for now, following a decision Tuesday morning by an 11-judge panel of federal judges that said "this election has already begun" and should go forward.

The decision, which is expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, rejects ACLU claims that the vote should have been put off until March, when six California counties representing 40 percent of the state's voters would have switched from punch-card voting machines to more modern equipment. [...]

The panel released its decision Tuesday morning in San Francisco, and said there was a legitimate concern "that use of the punch-card system will deny the right to vote to some voters who must use that system."

"At this time, it is merely a speculative possibility, however, that any such denial will influence the result of the election," the panel concluded.

The judges also noted that enormous preparations for the election two weeks from Tuesday have been made in California.

"Potential voters have given their attention to the candidates' messages and prepared themselves to vote," the panel said. "Hundreds of thousands of absentee voters have already cast their ballots in similar reliance upon the election going forward on the timetable announced by the state.

"These investments of time, money, and the exercise of citizenship rights cannot be returned.".

Like control of the US senate and stopping the Texas redistricting, the third great Democratic victory of the Bush era goes up in smoke.

Meanwhile, that means you need to make your picks in, THE 1ST ANNUAL BROTHERS JUDD CALIFORNIA RECALL PROGNOSTATHON:

Here's the deal:

You pick the %'s of the "Yes" and "No" votes; the % of the vote that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cruz Bustamante will each get; and, as a tie breaker, the % of eligible voters who will turn out on October 7th.

We'll award whoever comes closest a copy of the magnificent new Illustrated version of James M. McPherson's Pulitzer-winning Battle Cry of Freedom and the runner-up a hot--off-the-presses paperback copy of Rick Atkinson's Pulitzer-winning Army at Dawn (both courtesy of our friends at FSB Associates).

Please go to this page to enter your picks.

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THE G.U.T.--GENDER COROLLARY--MARRIAGE COROLLARY:

When women marry, Democrats lose (Dennis Prager, September 23, 2003, Townhall.com)

Given women's primal desire to be protected, if a woman has no man to provide it, she will seek security elsewhere -- and elsewhere today can only mean the government. In effect, the state becomes her husband. This phenomenon has frequently been commented on with regard to the breakdown of many black families. The welfare state simply rendered many black men unnecessary and therefore undesirable as spouses: Why marry when you can get more benefits from the state while remaining single (and get even more money if you have children while remaining single)?

Once a woman does marry, however, her need for the state not only diminishes, she now begins to view the state as inimical to her interests. For the married woman, especially if she has children, two primal urges work against her having a pro-big government attitude. Her urge to be protected, which is now fulfilled by her husband, and her primal urge to protect her nest are now endangered by the government, which as it grows, takes away more and more of her family's money.

Once a woman marries and has children, therefore, her deepest desires -- to be protected and to protect her family -- work as strongly on behalf of conservative values and voting Republican as they did on behalf of liberalism and the Democratic Party when she was single.

The other reason married women are less likely to be liberal and vote Democratic relates to maturity and wisdom.

Just about everyone -- a man as much as a woman -- is rendered more mature and wiser after marrying. This is not an insult to singles. It was as true of me as of anyone else. If you're single, ask any married person -- happily or unhappily married -- whether or not marriage has matured them.

The single biggest change induced by marriage is that you can no longer think only about yourself. "I" becomes "we." Narcissism becomes far less possible in marriage than in the single state. And just as marriage decreases narcissism, it increases wisdom. Having to relate to another human being (especially of the opposite sex) to whom you have made a lifelong commitment (even if it ends in divorce) vastly increases your wisdom. And if you have children, your wisdom increases exponentially.

Which explains why the Left is trying to destroy and the Right to preserve the institution of marriage, which is in itself anti-statist.

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LET GOD SORT:

Puzzled by pluralism: Muslim visitors question the American way (Patricia M. Y. Chang, 9/22/03, Christian Century)

Since the 9-11 terrorist attacks the U.S. State Department has sponsored a number of study programs that bring Muslim scholars from around the world to the U.S. with the aim of showing off the American way of separating church and state, and demonstrating how American society is able to both nurture faith traditions and support religious diversity. The implied intent is to promote an American-style separation of mosque and state in Muslim countries.

After being an academic director for two of these programs, however, I am acutely aware of how appealing a religiously aligned state is for Muslims, especially for those who live in countries where Muslims are the majority. This may particularly be true in Iraq where Saddam Hussein's brutally repressive secular regime is viewed by some as a cautionary tale of what happens when religious influence is absent from government. [...]

A large portion of the seminar was devoted to showing off the religious diversity that flourishes in the U.S. and Americans' great tolerance of diverse faiths. Rather than appreciating the benefits that religious pluralism offers to the larger society, some of our guests were clearly puzzled. On the second day of the program, Munib Ur Rehman, a Pakistani cleric, asked me, "If you believe your religion to be true, and you believe it is your duty to share this truth with others, then why would you think that religious pluralism is a good thing?" I realized that the religious tolerance that we celebrate in the U.S. could be perceived by someone from a religiously homogeneous country as a lack of religious conviction or, worse, a shameful hypocrisy. [...]

In the days before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. officials spoke of a "democratic domino effect" by which the installation of a democratic government in Iraq would set off a wave of pro-democratic regime changes elsewhere in the Middle East. Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, argued that the transition of Iraq to the "first Arab democracy" would "cast a very large shadow, starting with Syria and Iran, across the whole Arab world."

My experience with Muslim scholars makes me skeptical that a "democratic domino effect" is about to unfold. And as I look at the current turmoil in Iraq and remember my conversations with Muslim scholars, I have a better understanding of the popular appeal of theocracy in Muslim-majority countries that have been ruled by brutal and repressive secular rulers. I can also better understand that in times of uncertainty it may be easier for people to trust a learned religious leader than a democratically elected elite put in place by dubiously motivated political constituencies.

One important point that this brings forth is how a much reviled aspect of Judaism and Christianity, their exclusivity, makes them uniquely suited to religious toleration. The faith that the many are doomed and only the few saved/Chosen makes it all the easier to put up with people whose beliefs are obviously wrong. In Islam, to the contrary, the entire community must adhere to Muslim beliefs or all are imperiled. The former lends itself to individualism, though responsibilities to one's fellow me is vital, while the latter lends itself to totalitarian structures.

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ATHENS OR SPARTA (OR BAYERN MUNICH)?

Dean, Kerry trade barbs on baseball (KEN MAGUIRE, September 22, 2003, The Associated Press)

Presidential hopefuls John Kerry and Howard Dean have been playing hardball for months over who offers Democrats the best chance at unseating President Bush.

But now things are getting serious.

Kerry’s camp, reacting to news that Dean will hold a rally today in the senator’s hometown, brushed back the former Vermont governor by claiming he’s a New York Yankees fan.

Those are fightin’ words, especially within four months of the crucial primary in New Hampshire, a key state in Red Sox Nation. Dean, who grew up in New York, says he dumped pinstripes for Red Sox three years ago.

“When you move to New England, you put your old loyalties behind you,” said Dean campaign co-chairman Steve Grossman, a Massachusetts businessman. “You’ve got to have a sense of humor about this.”

The “flap” began when Kerry’s campaign said Dean’s Red Sox switch was just the latest in his quest for the presidency.

“Of all the flip-flops, this is the most inexplicable and indefensible,” Kerry spokeswoman Kelley Benander said Monday. “It’s like switching from the Redskins to the Cowboys or from Carolina to Duke.”

In the dark places of their hearts, you just know they both prefer soccer anyway.

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ARE YOU "REGULAR" BY THIS DEFINITION?:

How a regular guy gets homeless (Les Gapay, 9/21/03, USA TODAY)

I had no income at all in 2002 and have lived off savings, premature IRA withdrawals, credit cards and then food stamps. I wasn't eligible for unemployment compensation because I was self-employed. I didn't qualify for subsidized housing because I didn't have a steady income. I fell through the cracks of California welfare programs because they are aimed at families with children at home. To save money, I dropped my health insurance two years ago and reduced my vehicle insurance last year to the state minimum. I cook out at campgrounds or eat cheap meals at fast-food places to keep my expenses down. Most of the time I have been in California, but during the winter I camped some along the Colorado River in Arizona and also near Phoenix. This summer I headed north to what I thought would be cooler climes of Montana, but have been in a heat wave. My situation is finally starting to look up. This spring and summer my corporate freelance work picked up, with several small jobs. It's not enough to rent an apartment or room, but I have hope that the work will continue to increase as the economy rebounds, and my plight will end soon.

I am certainly not the only one in this predicament. About 8.9 million people in the USA were unemployed in August, 6.1% of the workforce, according to the Labor Department. More than 3 million people were homeless over the past year, about 30% of them chronically, according to the National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty. They are not just the noticeable ones on the street but also families in shelters due to the current economic condition. And, 20% of the homeless have jobs, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. At California state campgrounds rangers told me there were many homeless families, moving up and down the coast to get around limits on stays. At one state park, I saw one woman each morning drive her son to a bus stop so he could get to school.

My biggest daily challenge: Finding a campsite, especially in the tourist season, and, when I am in towns, places to go to the bathroom. I am only at campsites at night — sleeping either in my truck or tent — and during the day spend much of the time in libraries surfing the Net for jobs and sending out résumés by e-mail. The corporate writing work that I have gotten I have done in libraries. Sometimes I relax in air-conditioned bookstores and read the papers, magazines and books. I also have used job service computers daily for months in California seeking work, to no avail. Luckily, I have always been able to stay at campgrounds, mostly county, state and federal ones, which range from $10 to $18 a night. Private ones are too expensive. I try to shower daily, and many of the campgrounds have coin-operated showers. I tried showering at friends' homes when I didn't have one at a campground, but they tired of that quickly. [...]

Many of my friends and acquaintances kept pressuring me to take any job and forget about my profession. I continued to press for jobs in my field, public relations or journalism, but postings were few. Some jobs I was told had 200 to 300 applicants, with many going to young workers. I will turn 60 this year and wondered if age was a factor.

At one point, I was down to my last $200. I borrowed some money from friends when relatives refused loans, with one saying he was out of work and another that he had been unemployed for several months and was still getting back on his feet. I was surprised which friends loaned me $200 or $300, different from the ones I had thought I could count on. My ex-wife and her husband surprised me by loaning me some money. One campground worker asked me: "Do you have any kids who can help you out?" I get little show of concern or contact from one adult daughter and haven't heard from the other at all, although I never asked them for any money. No one wants a homeless person for a father. When you are having troubles is when you need a supportive family. Even priests I know at churches I attended weren't sympathetic or helpful, with one refusing to meet with me, saying he was too busy. Most homeless are worse off than I am, not having a truck to live in and a cell phone to use, and some have mental problems. I never went to a shelter, figuring paying for campsites was more like being a snowbird.

So let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume this wasn't just an attempt to get a book contract and he's not quite as difficult a man as he seems; how then did the regular guy get homeless? Three ingredients appear to be key and make him irregular at best:

(1) No close relationships with family (including his own daughters) nor real friends.

(2) No close ties to the community and its social institutions: church (churches in his stated case), workplace, club, etc.

(3) Insistence on his right to pursue a chosen profession rather than obligation to support himself.

Yes, if you live a completely atomized life, cut off from everyone and everything that might help you and think there's no need for you to make changes, you are at risk of sneaking through the cracks. But why should we try to fill in such narrow cracks rather than you try to stand on the firm ground of a traditional kin and social network?

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GIVE THEM MEGAPHONES:

Rise of the anti-Islamist Muslims (Daniel Pipes, 9/23/03, Jewish World Review)

Anti-Islamist Muslims — who wish to live modern lives, unencumbered by burqas, fatwas, and jihad — are on the defensive and atomized. However eloquent, their individual voices cannot compete with the roar of militant Islam's determination, money, and violence. As a result, militant Islam, with its West-phobia and goal of world hegemony, dominates Islam in the West and appears to many to be the only kind of Islam.

But anti-Islamist Muslims not only exist; in the two years since 9/11, they have increasingly found their voice. They are a varied lot who share neither a single approach nor one agenda. Some are pious, some not, and others are freethinkers or atheists. Some are conservative, others liberal. They share only a hostility to the Wahhabi, Khomeini, and other forms of militant Islam. [...]

The weak standing of anti-Islamist Muslims has two major implications.

--For them to be heard over the Islamist din requires help from the outside — celebration by governments, grants from foundations, recognition by the media, and attention from the academy.

--Those same institutions must shun the now-dominant militant Islamic establishment. Moderates have a chance to be heard when Islamists are repudiated.

Promoting anti-Islamists and weakening Islamists is crucial if a moderate and modern form of Islam is to emerge in the West.

Such stories are less interesting to the media, but need to be told just as loudly as are the ones about radical Islam. And there need to be umbrella organizations--or preferably just one--to bring these voices together and amplify them. Such reform from within is far preferable to the other options available to us.

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THE HOUSE BURNED TO THE GROUND, BUT THE BABY CRAWLED OUT UNHARMED:

Flame retardant found in breast milk (Elizabeth Weise, 9/23/03, USA TODAY)

A toxic chemical used to make furniture, foam and electronics fire resistant is turning up in high amounts in the breast milk of women in the USA.

Two studies, one out Tuesday, found that all of the women tested were contaminated with polybrominated diphenyl ethers. Their PBDE levels were the highest in the world: 10 to 20 times higher than those in Europe, where the chemicals are being phased out. (Related story: Breast milk can protect baby)

The Environmental Working Group, a non-profit environmental research organization, tested the milk of 20 women. It found levels ranging from 9.5 to 1,078 parts per billion. The women were recruited via EWG's Web site.

It is not yet known how this chemical affects people; no studies have been done on what a safe level would be. But "this is another wake-up call," says Linda Birnbaum, director of the Environmental Protection Agency's experimental toxicology lab. Levels of PBDEs in humans are doubling every two to five years, she says. [...]

Though the USA has the world's toughest flame retardancy standards, 3,000 people die in fires each year. The Chemical Manufacturers Association estimates the number would be up to 960 higher without such flame retardants.

It would be ironic if the Left's insistence on putting these chemicals in everything were leading to them getting into us too, but is there any actual science in this story? A mere twenty subjects and recruited through a website? The chemical manufacturers' estimate of how many lives their chemicals save? Why not ask Similac if their formula is safer than mothers' milk?

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SENATOR SCHUMER HAS THIS ONE RIGHT:

Probe of 2 Groups That Train Muslim Chaplains Sought (John Mintz and Susan Schmidt, September 23, 2003, Washington Post)

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) yesterday renewed his request for an investigation into two institutes that train Islamic chaplains for the military in light of the Sept. 10 arrest of Army Capt. James "Yousef" Yee, an imam who ministered to detainees held at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [...]

When he was arrested, he had documents concerning some of the 660 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and their U.S. government interrogators, as well as sketches of facilities at the camp, officials said. A chaplain would not ordinarily have access to such documents, officials said. [...]

Yee is a 1990 graduate of West Point who commanded a Patriot missile unit before leaving the military, converting to Islam and studying for four years in Syria. He rejoined the military in the late 1990s and became a cleric at Fort Lewis in Washington state. Ten months ago he became the imam at Guantanamo Bay, where he counseled prisoners and kept prison officials advised of detainees' morale. [...]

Schumer previously raised questions about two institutes that train Islamic chaplains for the military: the Leesburg-based Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSISS); and the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council, which helped train Yee.

Despite Schumer's request, Pentagon and Army spokesmen said yesterday there is no review of the chaplain program being conducted.

GSISS was raided by federal agents in 2002 as part of a probe of a cluster of Northern Virginia companies and institutes that have alleged dealings with terrorists. The council is an affiliate of the Alexandria-based American Muslim Foundation, which is being investigated in the same probe.

Syria? Are we out of our minds? You can join our military fresh after four years training for anything in Syria? It's like letting guys join the U.S. Army in 1944 after training in Nazi Germany for a few years.

MORE:
Muslim fifth column? (Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., Sept. 23, 2003, Jewish World Review)

At this writing, it is not clear whether Captain Yee was one of those recruited, trained and certified by the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences. What is known about him, however, according to a profile that appeared in the New York Times shortly after the 9/11 attacks is that, at the time he was "The newest Muslim chaplain..., a Chinese-American and a West Point graduate who was born into a Lutheran family, took an interest in Islam in college and deepened his convictions while stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he was studying vehicle maintenance during the month of Ramadan alongside four visiting Egyptian army officers. In a telephone interview, Chaplain Yee said he left the military to attend a traditional Islamic school in Damascus, Syria, where he spent four years studying Arabic and religion. He is serving with the 29th Signal Battalion at Fort Lewis, Washington."

The article went on to quote Chaplain Yee as saying that, "Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, some of the 80 Muslims on his base have come to him with concerns about being deployed to fight Muslims overseas. He said he tells them, "'An act of terrorism, the taking of innocent civilian lives is prohibited by Islam, and whoever has done this needs to be brought to justice, whether he is Muslim or not.'" If true, this would be commendable and helpful to the war effort.

Unfortunately, subsequent to that interview, Capt. Yee was assigned to minister to Al Qaeda, Taliban and other enemy combatants incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. According to press accounts, he is suspected of performing while there a very different service for his co-religionists. When he was arrested, he was reportedly carrying classified documents, including diagrams of the facilities in which the prisoners are being held. He may also have been facilitating communications between the detainees and perhaps fellow terrorists still at large in ways that could undermine U.S. efforts to interrogate the former and counter the latter.

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THE ADMINISTRATION'S MVP:

Ashcroft Limiting Prosecutors' Use of Plea Bargains (ERIC LICHTBLAU, 9/23/03, NY Times)

Attorney General John Ashcroft today made it tougher for federal prosecutors to strike plea bargains with criminal defendants, requiring attorneys to seek the most serious charges possible in almost all cases.

The policy directive issued by Mr. Ashcroft is the latest in a series of steps the Justice Department has taken in recent months to combat what it sees as dangerously lenient practices by some federal prosecutors and judges.

The move also effectively expands to the entire gamut of federal crimes the attorney general's tough stance on the death penalty, which he has sought in numerous cases over the objections of federal prosecutors.

"The direction I am giving our U.S. attorneys today is direct and emphatic," Mr. Ashcroft said at a speech in Cincinnati. Except in "limited, narrow circumstances," he said, federal prosecutors must seek to bring charges for "the most serious, readily provable offense" that can be supported by the facts of the case.

But critics in the defense bar and some federal prosecutors said the new policy would serve only to further centralize authority in the hands of Washington policymakers, discourage prosecutors from seeking plea bargains and ratchet up sentences in criminal cases that may not warrant them.

"What is driving this," said Gerald D. Lefcourt, past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, "is that a tough-on-crime attorney general is pandering to the public, and he knows that this will play well."

One wonders what Mr. Lefcourt means. If Mr. Ashcroft is tough-on-crime then how''s that pandering to mere popular opinion? Wouldn't the concern be more justified if he were soft on crime and suddenly started doing what the people want just to curry favor?

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CHALOBBY:

Iraq Council Head Shifts to Position at Odds With U.S. (PATRICK E. TYLER and FELICITY BARRINGER, Sept. 22, 2003, NY Times)

Ahmad Chalabi, the president of Iraq's interim government, is in New York this week to press alternatives to the Bush administration's occupation policy in postwar Iraq, he and his aides say. In the process, he may complete a personal transformation from protégé of Pentagon conservatives to Iraqi nationalist with a loud, independent voice.

In an interview today in New York, Mr. Chalabi professed gratitude to the Bush administration for toppling Saddam Hussein's government, but his specific proposals were directly at odds with the policies Washington is pursuing in Baghdad and at the United Nations. He demanded that the Iraqi Governing Council be given at least partial control of the powerful finance and security ministries, and rejected the idea of more foreign troops coming to Iraq.

Mr. Chalabi's strategy, he says, is to get from the United Nations General Assembly sovereign status for the unelected 25-member Governing Council. This move to lobby other nations for a swift transfer of some sovereignty is going down poorly in Washington, according to the Iraqi leader's aides. [...]

Throughout the summer, Iraqi leaders said they were being admonished repeatedly by their patrons in Washington to avoid a confrontation with Mr. Bremer. But guerrilla attacks, deteriorating security and, in August, the car bombings that killed more than 140 people have taken their toll on Mr. Bremer's strategy.

When France intervened this month with a proposal to turn over sovereignty within weeks to the Governing Council, one of Mr. Chalabi's aides gave voice to the opportunity.

"We don't want to come out in the open and pick a fight with Bremer," he said, "but the sovereignty issue is coming to a head, and it is pretty clear that a breach is coming pretty soon between the Governing Council and Bremer."

Another aide was more blunt: "We are going to find a place where we can pick a fight."

It seems unlikely that the Iraqi people will tolerate being ruled by Mr. Chalabi for any appreciable period of time, but it's good to see some leaders start to assert themselves.

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HOW HIGH CAN YOU PILE THE PATHOLOGIES?:

Epidemic exploding in Europe (Ed Susman, 9/22/2003, UPI)

Dr. Scott Hammer bit his lip and thought about how to describe the what is happening with AIDS in Eastern Europe and the regions that made up the former Soviet Union.

"Explosive," said the professor of infectious diseases at Columbia University in New York City. "Explosive."

Hammer is not the only one who has characterized the epidemic in that term. Almost all researchers who are studying infections with the human immunodeficiency virus -- the organism that causes AIDS -- in places such as Belarus, the Ukraine, Russia, Uzbekistan, and use the same word.

The epidemic is roaring through populations of injecting-drug users and is evident among people with other sexually transmitted diseases. In the region, 1.2-million people already are infected. [...]

"We know from past experience," Hammer told United Press International, "that once HIV is in the injecting-drug population and among sex workers, the virus most likely is already widespread."

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RAGTAG TO MAYTAG AND BEYOND:

Gordon Jump of 'WKRP' and Maytag Ad Dies (LYNN ELBER, 9/23/03, AP)

Gordon Jump, who played a befuddled radio station manager on the sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati'' and made his mark in commercials as the lonely Maytag repairman, died Monday. He was 71. [...]

Jump played Arthur Carlson in "WKRP in Cincinnati,'' which aired on CBS from 1978-82 and featured Gary Sandy, Loni Anderson, Tim Reid, Howard Hesseman and Richard Sanders as the ragtag station's crew.

Mr. Jump was a capable and immensely likable character actor, never really a star, but he did get to deliver perhaps the best line in the funniest episode ever of a sitcom: "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

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THE CREEPING COUP CONTINUES:

U.S. Allowing Funds to Religious Groups (DEB RIECHMANN, 9/22/03, Associated Press)

Four government regulations completed Monday and a half-dozen more in the works will provide federal money for religion-oriented programs run by people President Bush has dubbed America's "neighborhood healers." [...]

"These six new regulations and the four finalized ones represent a continued march by the president in the faith-based initiative's effort to spread compassion in our country and make sure that the most effective programs are funded," said Jim Towey, the head of the White House faith-based office. [...]

The president has long pushed to let religious groups compete for government money, so long as their services are available to anybody in need. Opponents fear the government would wind up paying for religion. They also object to allowing taxpayer-funded groups to hire and fire based on religious persuasion.

When his initiative stalled in Congress amid this controversy, Bush sidestepped lawmakers with executive orders and regulations to give religious organizations equal footing with nonsectarian ones in competing for federal contracts.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which has opposed Bush's faith-based initiative, said the administration was bent on eroding the First Amendment, not on helping the nation's less fortunate.

"The only thing this administration wants to tear down is the wall separating church and state," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, director of the group. "The president has failed to convince Congress that his initiative is sound policy so he is creating policy through executive fiat."

You can't count the number of articles and essays that say Mr. Bush's FBI has failed...sort of like No Child Left Behind doesn't have vouchers...

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ACHTUNG, BABY:

Chirac ducks second UN battle with Bush over Iraq resolution (Anton La Guardia and David Rennie, 23/09/2003, Daily Telegraph)

Jacques Chirac caved in to American power yesterday when he promised not to veto a US-sponsored United Nations resolution on rebuilding Iraq, even if he disagreed with its contents.

The French president, who was instrumental in preventing America and Britain from securing UN authorisation for war, said the US should quickly cede power in Iraq.

But he made clear that he was not ready for another bruising fight with President George W Bush.

"We don't have the intention to oppose," he told The New York Times in an interview published yesterday. "If we oppose it, that would mean voting no, that is to say, using the veto. I am not in that mindset at all."

What? Did Colin Powell speak German to him?

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HARRISON SALISBURY TAKES IT BACK:

STRONGMAN: Arnold Schwarzenegger and California’s recall race. (HENDRIK HERTZBERG, 2003-09-22, The New Yorker)

In the “Pumping Iron” series, which chronicles events leading up to and including the Mr. Olympia contest of 1975, there are intimations that Schwarzenegger’s ultimate goal, absurd as it would have seemed at the time, was power. “I was always dreaming about very powerful people—dictators and things like that,” he soliloquizes at one point in the original film. “I was just always impressed by people who could be remembered for hundreds of years or even, like Jesus, being for thousands of years remembered.” In “Raw Iron,” he recounts another dream: “Me being a king and standing on top of a mountain—and there was no room left for anybody else up there, O.K.? Just for me.” Later, a fellow-bodybuilder teases, “Arnold, when are you running for President?” He shoots back, “When Nixon gets impeached.” And in “A Portrait” Butler recounts a conversation he had in a taxi with the actress Candice Bergen a few months after the Whitney show. Bergen is insisting that bodybuilding, and Arnold, has peaked. “I disagree,” Butler replies. “It’s here to stay, and Arnold is going to be the Governor of California one day.” (Bergen, hooting with laughter, retorts, “And one day Ronald Reagan will be President.”)

What comes through above all, however, is a sense of Schwarzenegger’s indomitable will. That will is manifested not only in his spooky ability to sculpt his own body and in his outlandish (at the time) vision of himself as a man of destiny but also in his total, and apparently effortless, psychological domination of his fellow-musclemen—the way he intimidates and tames them with his charm, his confidence, his humor, and his obviously superior intelligence. And this domination is not simply instinctual. It is strategic. Everything Arnold does to advance himself (which is to say, everything Arnold does) is carefully thought through by an analytical mind that always looks many steps ahead and is acute and coldly realistic about the strengths and weaknesses of everybody in the game, himself included. Megalomania usually leads to hubris, but not in Arnold’s case. Not so far.

Even the fact that, “Arnold Strong” notwithstanding, he retained his name is a marker of his powerful will. By doing it his way, he made it thinkable for others with “funny” names to do it theirs: no Arnold Schwarzenegger, no Renée Zellweger. More important, Schwarzenegger has changed the way people look—in both senses. When “Pumping Iron” first came out, Schwarzenegger and his bodybuilder friends appeared not so much strong and healthy as grotesque and misshapen. Twenty-six years later, bodies like theirs no longer seem in the least monstrous, merely exaggerated. Schwarzenegger opened up our ideal image of the male body in his direction, as surely as the Beatles and their rock-and-roll colleagues opened up our ideas about the permissible range of men’s hair styles. Today, a pre-Arnold toga-and-sandals movie star like Victor Mature looks to our Arnold-conditioned eyes like someone in need of a workout. Free weights and weight machines are now part of the exercise regimen of tens of millions of people. People have become more relaxed and less fraught about the male body. Ideas of male beauty have broadened. There is room for the Charles Atlases, and also for the ninety-eight-pound weaklings. This is a kind of liberation, and it is partly Arnold’s doing.

In the now famous 1977 Oui magazine interview—the one in which, as the Sacramento Bee put it, he “bragged about group sex”—Schwarzenegger does indeed refer to homosexuals as “fags.” But “fag” was not then the automatic term of abuse it has since become. Whether it was an expression of conscious contempt or only a bit of insensitive slang depended on context, and here is the context in which Schwarzenegger used it:

Recently I posed for a gay magazine, which caused much comment. But it doesn’t bother me. Gay people are fighting the same kind of stereotyping that bodybuilders are. People have certain misconceptions about them just as they do about us. Well, I have absolutely no hangups about the fag business; though it may bother some bodybuilders, it doesn’t bother me at all.

Schwarzenegger certainly set out to break the association in the public mind between bodybuilding and homosexuality, and in that he succeeded. But he did it without pandering to the prejudice against gays. On the contrary, the net effect of his career has probably been to weaken that prejudice. In the recall election, his relatively liberal (for a Republican) attitudes on “social issues”—gay rights, abortion, gun control—impart to him both strength and protection. Those views are shared by a majority of the California electorate; as important, they shield him from the charge of hypocrisy. If Schwarzenegger were a moralist scold of the William Bennett type, then the fact that he has boasted about participating in a gang bang, has commented on the size of his penis, has had himself photographed with a bare-breasted young woman straddling his shoulders (as well as posing nude himself), and has been filmed drawing contentedly on a marijuana cigarette might have done him some serious political damage. As it is, he’s almost unscathed. It helps, of course, that the recall process sidesteps formal party primaries, and that the main issues this time are economic and budgetary. His colorful past isn’t likely to hurt him with Democrats, who have lately been reminded how he felt about the impeachment of President Clinton. (“We spent one year wasting time because there was a human failure,” Schwarzenegger said in an interview in George, in 1999. “I was ashamed to call myself a Republican during that period.”) For Arnold, politically, Hummers are a bigger threat than hummers.

This may be the only few paragraphs in this essay that you'll not have read countless other places countless other times. It's fine for The New Yorker to try to add a contemporary political edge but is hack work like this and Jane Mayer's drivel really the best they can do?

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GENERAL ISSUE:

The Savior Complex: Can the real Wesley Clark match the fantasy version imagined by peacenik Democrats? (JOE KLEIN, 9/21/03, TIME)

Clark's precipitate tumble from his white horse was entirely predictable, as was the drumbeat from the cognoscenti and much of the media for him to enter the race and save the day. Those of us demented enough to follow electoral politics have been living with the nine Democrats for most of a year now. They've become pretty boring. They gather occasionally to debate one another and succeed only in diminishing themselves. Howard Dean's exciting candidacy was an exception for most of the summer, but he has spent much of September stepping on his epaulets, too. What's a pundit—or a despairing Democratic member of Congress—to do? I have covered eight presidential campaigns, and the answer is always the same: find a deus ex machina. In my time, these have ranged from Jerry Brown (1976) to Ralph Nader to Lee Iacocca to Mario Cuomo to Al Gore (1992, when Clinton seemed to be stumbling) to Ross Perot. Most were wise enough to stay away; those who jumped in failed.

This has been a boom season for would-be Democratic saviors. In addition to Wes Clark, there have been all sorts of inane rustling about Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. Former President Clinton—who really should go home and write his book—has been dropping Hillary hints for several weeks now; the Senator herself insisted on posting Run-Hill-Run e-mail on her website until last Friday. This is self-promotional cotton candy. The junior Senator from New York is, if nothing else, disciplined. She knows she needs to spend time bulking up her resume, especially on national security issues—it's no accident she lobbied for a place on the Senate Armed Services Committee. As for Gore, he is extremely smart, and he gave a terrific speech in August about the Bush Administration's foreign-policy fecklessness—but does anybody remember what a terrible candidate he was in 2000? [...]

Clark's entry should signal the end of the silly season. It is time for the Democrats to get down to business and choose a candidate. In an ideal world, it would be time to clear the stage. The three vanity candidates—Al Sharpton, Dennis Kucinich and Carol Moseley Braun—should repair immediately to the lecture circuit. John Edwards and Bob Graham should return to the Senate. That's not going to happen, but elections will be held soon enough, a winner will emerge and, given their antipathy toward George W. Bush, most Democrats will suddenly come to the conclusion that their new champion is Franklin Roosevelt on roller skates. But that's a delusion we'll deal with next spring.

Clark’s Charge: The Race: The general did what he always does—shot to the top of his class. But his skin is thin, and the climb is steep. What Wesley Clark’s arrival does to the Democratic field (Howard Fineman, 9/29/03, NEWSWEEK)

After Al Qaeda attacked America, retired Gen. Wes Clark thought the Bush administration would invite him to join its team. After all, he’d been NATO commander, he knew how to build military coalitions and the investment firm he now worked for had strong Bush ties. But when GOP friends inquired, they were told: forget it.

WORD WAS THAT Karl Rove, the president’s political mastermind, had blocked the idea. Clark was furious. Last January, at a conference in Switzerland, he happened to chat with two prominent Republicans, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and Marc Holtzman, now president of the University of Denver. “I would have been a Republican,” Clark told them, “if Karl Rove had returned my phone calls.” Soon thereafter, in fact, Clark quit his day job and began seriously planning to enter the presidential race--as a Democrat. Messaging NEWSWEEK by BlackBerry, Clark late last week insisted the remark was a “humorous tweak.” The two others said it was anything but. “He went into detail about his grievances,” Holtzman said. “Clark wasn’t joking. We were really shocked.”

They shouldn’t have been: when Clark wades into the battle, he expects to be taken seriously. Howard Dean knew to be careful when he and Clark held what was supposed to be a secret conference three weeks ago in L.A. Dean’s advisers had warned their boss not to even hint that Clark would be the running mate should Dean win the Democratic nomination. “That would have been both presumptuous and condescending,” said a Dean aide. Somehow, word of the meeting leaked—as did the notion (hotly denied by Dean insiders) that the VP slot indeed had been offered.

Once again Clark was furious; once again his response was to gear up. The day of the leak, Clark for the first time met his new senior PR adviser, Mark Fabiani. The general asked him to suggest a possible chief of staff. Fabiani nominated Ron Klain, who had filled that role for Al Gore. “What’s his number?” Clark asked—and called immediately. Klain said yes. Nine days later, Clark entered the race.

A Four-Star Candidate?: Wesley Clark announces for president. (Matthew Continetti, 09/29/2003, Weekly Standard)

As for Clark's real liabilities, there are three. First, he is prone to conspiracy theories. In June, he told Tim Russert that he had received a phone call on September 11, 2002, from "people around the White House" urging him to publicly link Saddam Hussein to the attacks. Only after his accusation was picked up by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman did Clark go on the record and say that no one had called him from the White House. He now says he received a call from a "man from a Middle East think tank in Canada, the man who's the brother of a very close friend of mine in Belgium." While it turns out that someone who more or less fits that bill did call Clark and discussed possible connections between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, the call took place after September 11, wasn't in any way sinister, and in any case certainly didn't come from the White House.

More recently, Clark said the White House tried to have him fired from CNN during the Iraq war. He told an anchor on Phoenix Newsradio 620 KTAR, "The White House actually back in February apparently tried to get me knocked off CNN and they wanted to do this because they were afraid that I would raise issues with their conduct of the war." Once again, Clark has no proof. He concedes, "I've only heard rumors about it."

Another potential weakness is that Clark's background--Rhodes scholar, four star general, military theorist--is so attractive to educated liberals that they're tempted to oversell his chances of winning the presidency. Just look at "Future Star," an article in the September 15 Fortune magazine. The text is overshadowed by two full pages of photos of Clark's face. There's the general smiling. There's the general laughing. There's the general confused. There's the general with a "come hither" look. "The Clark candidacy is a crazily overblown thing," says former Clinton strategist Dick Morris, "probably coming from Western Europe via elite media circles. Clark will do very well with Democrats living in Paris. But he has no base in the United States."

Finally, there's Iraq. Last week, Clark muddied his stand when he told a group of reporters that he "probably" would have voted to authorize the Iraq war if he had been a member of Congress in the fall of 2002--though he "was against the war as it emerged because there was no reason to start it when we did. We could have waited." A day later he said he "would never have voted for this war." (It's impossible not to be reminded of the classic Clintonism on the use-of-force resolution preceding the first Gulf war, in January 1991: Said presidential candidate Bill Clinton, "I guess I would have voted with the majority if it was a close vote. But I agree with the arguments the minority made.")

That presents a target rich environment, but two favorites are: General Clark, who even the Clintonistas knew had to be fired, thought the Bush team would bring him back for the War on Terror; and, that Joe Klein thinks the entry of such a vainglorious neophyte marks the end of the silly season in Democratic presidential jockeying.

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THE REVOLUTIONARY VISION OF W:

Best way to save Social Security: The Congressional Budget Office came very close to endorsing personal accounts. (Timothy J. Penny, 9/23/03, CS Monitor)

Last week two more Democrats joined the presidential race. With so many candidates in the mix, it might seem reasonable to expect a diversity of opinion on major issues. Yet when it comes to Social Security's future, there is little being said by these candidates aside from a promise to protect the status quo. Most private-sector economists and policy analysts, however, have long warned that the status quo is unsustainable.

Many of these same experts have advocated transforming America's insolvent, "pay-as-you-go" Social Security program into a fully funded system of personal accounts, where individuals could invest their payroll taxes in diversified market investments, protecting Social Security funds from political misuse and building assets to pass on to their families. In a recent analysis the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) came as close as a government entity ever has to endorsing personal accounts as the best way to increase savings and build assets for the future.

The widely overlooked June 16 CBO report, "Acquiring Financial Assets to Fund Future Entitlements" examined the options available to fund Social Security in the future. [...]

The CBO agrees with many private analysts that personal accounts - where Social Security money would be held by individuals rather than the government - offer the best chance for success: Assets set aside to fund future obligations are most likely to be insulated by a system in which ownership and control rest with individuals. In that circumstance, each participant has property rights and legal recourse to guard against the diversion of resources. If the money didn't belong to individual participants, future policymakers could find alternative uses for it - to create a new benefit, fund a new program, or perhaps cover a budget gap. [...]

Unfortunately, a little-read government report isn't going to lead this debate forward. For that, we need candidates who are willing to help the public understand that when it comes to Social Security's future, doing nothing is no longer an option.

Strange, wasn't there a candidate in 2000 who was savaged for proposing a very tiny step towards a private account system?

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TARGET OR SPRAY?:

In Iraq's northwest, an emerging model: Grassroots efforts have put this region ahead of the postwar curve. (Ann Scott Tyson, 9/23/03, CS Monitor)

Lt. Christopher Wood took charge in Mosul in May of a platoon of 30 Iraqi soldiers who he says had no concept of US military conduct. To them, detaining someone meant beating them. Weapons fire was often indiscriminate. "We'd show them how to target, and they'd say 'No, you just spray," Lieutenant Wood says.

On the other extreme, the Iraqis were "very sloppy with cleaning their weapons." On patrols, they quickly grew bored, and began talking and taking cigarette breaks.

Still, Wood learned he could not single out Iraqis for criticism as he would American soldiers. Upbraiding them provoked intense embarrassment and hurt pride. Instead, he started to make up "bedtime stories" - fictitious incidents about, say, a soldier killed while chatting during a night patrol - to drive home his points. "They caught on, and would draw the right conclusions."

Today, Wood says his platoon has gone from "a hodgepodge, rag-tag group to a fairly efficient team of soldiers." He trusts them enough to patrol with them alone. They also visit mosques incognito to gather intelligence.

Rakad, although a veteran officer, doesn't mind taking orders from a young US lieutenant. "Americans treat their soldiers well, and they respect our religious beliefs, also," he says. Despite death threats and accusations of betrayal from Iraqi citizens, he says he will continue to cooperate with Americans and defend them if necessary.

Still, doubts linger. US soldiers question to what extent Iraqis are buying into their own future. For their part, Iraqi soldiers wonder how committed the US will be in the long run to their nation's security.

"If it wasn't for the American Army, Iraq would be very bad. The strong would eat the weak," says Rakad. He hopes US forces will stay one or two years.

After that, he says, "the one to take their place should be me."

It does seem that the further you go from the Baghdad to Tikrit axis the more you can get done quicker.

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THERE GOES THEIR ONE CLAIM TO FAME:

22% of households struggling to save (The Japan Times, Sept. 23, 2003)

More than 20 percent of Japan's households have no savings, the highest level in 40 years, while those that are saving have put aside more than ever, according to the results of an annual survey released Monday by the Bank of Japan.

The percentage of such households rose 5.5 percentage points from a year earlier to 21.8 percent, the highest since 22.2 percent in 1963, the BOJ said, citing the results of the survey conducted by the Central Council for Financial Services Information.

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WE'RE THE ONES WHO REALLY NEED AN EDITOR:

The Ombudsman: Are Bee's standards for Web lower than for print? (Tony Marcano -- Bee Ombudsman, September 21, 2003, Sacramento Bee)

An obscure news item appeared on sacbee.com on Sept. 9. I doubt that more than a few people noticed it. But one reader who did notice it brought an ethical lapse to my attention.

The lead paragraph of the item read, "The Sacramento Municipal Utility District was given final approval by the California Energy Commission to build the first phase of the 500-megawatt Cosumnes Power Plant." There's nothing obviously wrong with that sentence -- until you read the press release distributed by the utility district. Its lead sentence?

"The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) was given final approval by the California Energy Commission (CEC) to build the first phase of the 500-megawatt Cosumnes Power Plant (CPP)." Much of the rest of the news item, which carried the byline "By Bee Metro Staff," was also taken verbatim from the press release.

It was only a few weeks ago that I wrote about the suspension of a Bee sportswriter for lifting directly from press releases and attempting to pass the work off as his own. In that case, The Bee's editing safeguards prevented the fraudulent work from getting into the newspaper.

So how was it that The Bee's editors didn't prevent a press release reprinted under the guise of "Bee Metro Staff" from getting on its Web site? It's because an editor in the newsroom responsible for making sure that kind of thing doesn't happen was the transgressor.

The problem here is that some editors at The Bee can unilaterally post items to the Web with no additional oversight. That's directly in conflict with standard editing practices. [...]

The Bee got a further lesson in the pitfalls of that recently when columnist Daniel Weintraub included a contentious statement in his Sept. 1 Weblog, which is posted on sacbee.com.

Weintraub wrote that Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante "certainly owed his elevation to the job of Assembly speaker to his ethnic background and to the support he received from fellow Latinos. If his name had been Charles Bustmont rather than Cruz Bustamante, he would have finished his legislative career as an anonymous back-bencher."

Further, he alleged, "it's indisputably true that the Legislature's Latino Caucus advocates policies that are destructive to their own people and to greater California, in the name of ethnic unity." The caucus protested in a letter to Bee Publisher Janis Besler Heaphy.

Make what you will of Weintraub's statement, and of the caucus' protests. No matter what I or anyone else thinks, he has every right to analyze the political scene and reach those conclusions. But no newspaper should publish an analysis without an editor's review. That doesn't necessarily mean that Weintraub's blog should have been reworded, but an editor should at least have had the opportunity to question his conclusions.

Since these incidents came to light, The Bee has instituted some reforms.

Mr. Weintraub's ability to analyze Recall items as they come along and give us all informed opinions has been invaluable, but it does seem fair to hold his blog writing to at least the level that the op-ed page has to meet. His blog is after all a Sacramento Bee branded product.

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DR. MARSALIS PRESCRIBES:

Wynton Marsalis says nation is losing its cultural identity (JOE CAREY, September 22, 2003, Associated Press)

Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis has uncovered a new enemy working against Americans, and it's not Saddam Hussein or al-Qaida terrorists.

When it comes to America's cultural identity, "apathy is the enemy," he said Tuesday.

Marsalis said it's more important than ever to invest in arts education. "I'm increasingly worried about what I see around our country. ... I've seen an entire generation of Americans who are culturally ignorant," he said during an appearance at the National Press Club.

He said arts funding amounts to only $1 per child per year, and he called on the federal government to double that.

The diagnosis is right, but the cure's dubious. School's have done enough damage.

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CIRCUS ACT:

 CALIFORNIA RECALL ELECTION: Ninth Circuit Rehears Recall Case (C-SPAN)

The Ninth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals sits en banc to rehear oral arguments regarding postponing the CA governor recall election.

C-SPAN just showed the hearing live--apparently the first televised proceeding ever in a Federal Court?--and it ended on a deliciously Freudian note: the ACLU attorney had the final words and was giving a ringing plea for the Court to rule on the clearest evidence of voting machine disparity ever to come before this "Circus"... He started to correct himself but got tongue-tied and one of the judges laughingly told him to quit while he was ahead.

Expect the three judge ruling to be overturned by 5pm Pacific time. Supposedly, it was televised because the rest of the 9th Circuit wanted to rehabiltate its tattered reputation and one of the 26 judges apparently asked for an en banc vote overturning the decision before the case was even officially appealed.

MORE:
Center Ring at the 9th Circus: Things get even weirder in the California recall litigation. (Dahlia Lithwick, September 22, 2003, Slate)

Oral argument just ended in the en banc hearing of the ACLU challenge to the California recall election. The panel of 11 judges, selected randomly, happens to consist of some of the most conservative judges on the court. They are faced with deciding whether the punch-card ballots used in certain predominantly minority districts in California violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection.

As I mentioned last week, this en banc panel is the 9th Circuit's best chance at saving face and avoiding yet another blistering rebuke by the Supreme Court. What's clear from argument this afternoon is that the judges are also extremely concerned about fairness in the upcoming recall election. As the discussion unfolds, it's plain they are not terribly worried about the applicability of Bush v. Gore to the facts of this case or the political or ideological return they might get from sticking it to the Supreme Court. They are worried about balancing the harms to voters: the harm of having some votes counts less than others as a result of outdated equipment versus the harm of postponing an election that Californians have sought and prepared for. [...]

Judge Johnnie Rawlinson asks [Charles Diamond, who represents Ted Costa, the man who initiated the recall ballot initiative] the $40,000 question when she wonders whether Bush v. Gore doesn't stand for the proposition that votes need to be counted equally. Says Diamond, scornfully: "When you read Bush v. Gore at 30,000 feet, like the plaintiffs have, you can find support for anything." Ouch. Diamond concludes that while one man/one vote is "an honorable goal," realism and practicality must also hold some sway.

In the 30 seconds given to him for rebuttal, Rosenbaum offers a heroic attempt to consolidate the thousand firing synapses in his brain into three cogent points about election law. He gets as far as point three before the technology seems to backfire: "This is the strongest case," he points out, "that has ever been in this circus."

"Um, circuit." He tries to correct himself, but the bench is in stitches, and one of the justices laughingly suggests that he "quit while you're ahead." "Guess who's the biggest clown," Rosenbaum laughs back, packing his papers back into his briefcase. That issue isn't exactly before the 9th Circuit either, but they'll probably decide it this week.

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TICK...TICK...TICK...:

Weapon of mass population (SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, September 21, 2003, St. Petersburg Times)

In the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians, Thuraya Eshbear wields a powerful weapon.

Babies.

At 35, this wisp of a woman has 13 children, from 20 years down to 10 months. Though she can't afford to school them all, though she rarely has a minute to herself, she would gladly bear more.

"I have many children so that the Palestinian people will have more than the Israelis," says Eshbear, a $37-a-week cleaner in the maternity ward of Gaza City's biggest hospital. Here, on any given day, dozens of other Palestinian women are doing their part to ensure ultimate victory over Israel.

It is a war fought not just with F-16s and suicide bombers, but with diapers and Similac.

Ever since Israel was created in 1948, starting a clash with the Arab world that has no end in sight, Jews have feared what Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat calls his "biological bomb." In Israel and the neighboring territories of Gaza and the West Bank, Arabs are reproducing at a rate double that of Jews.

Israel's 5.4-million Jews make up just more than half of the region's population, but Arabs will become a clear majority within 20 years, Haifa University professor Arnon Soffer says. By 2020, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea will be home to 8.5-million Arabs and just 6.4-million Jews.

Unless Palestinians get their own state, the soaring Arab population could mean one of two things: Israel would cease to exist as a Jewish nation or it would be forced into an apartheid-like system in which a Jewish minority ruled a Palestinian majority.

The American South in the Jim Crow era was freer than most countries and South Africa was a vital ally and in some senses a model Western nation, but at some point the apartheid contradiction overwhelms all else. You retain the physical capacity to impose the system, but the will falters. Given that Israel and Jews are almost universally despised anyway--with rare, though important, exceptions like the U.S.--how long could it realistically maintain its oppression, even if justified, in the face of global opprobrium?

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MEN ON THE MOON:

Slate's Michael Kinsley: Future of the U.N. (Day to Day, 9/22/03, NPR/Slate)

NPR's Mike Shuster talks with Slate founding editor Michael Kinsley about the future of the United Nations in the wake of the war in Iraq. Today, President Bush addresses the U.N.'s General Assembly.

We're not entirely convinced yet that this show isn't some kind of brilliant self-parody, almost an Andy Kaufman style surreptitious meta-satire. It's hard to imagine any more absurdly conventional source of wisdom than this combination of NPR and Slate and today's "interview" with Michael Kinsley did nothing to clear things up. He's discussing George W. Bush's trip to the UN tomorrow and how intransigent the President has been about yielding control in Iraq to the UN. Mr. Kinsley and Mr. Shuster seem genuinely perplexed that US policy doesn't seem to have changed despite their having thought it did in Mr. Bush's speech to the nation and Mr. Kinsley is surprised that Mr. Bush spoke "patronizingly" about the UN's role this weekend. As anyone with half a brain could have told him, Mr. Kinsley's interpretation of the purpose of Mr. Bush's speech that night was ludicrous.

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WHAT'S WRONG WITH CHINESE REGIME CHANGE?:

Dalai Lama Lite: The Dalai Lama has been appropriated by the American people
into a cuddly projection of our hopes and dreams. (PATRICK FRENCH, 9/19/03, NY Times)

The Dalai Lama has become whoever we want him to be, a cuddly projection of our hopes and dreams. This enthusiasm, though, has not translated into any tangible political benefit for Tibetans. He has been seen on advertisements for Apple computers and SalesForce.com software; significantly, he was not paid for either of these uses of his image. Some of the books that purport to be written by the Dalai Lama are scarcely by him at all, but have his face on the cover to increase sales.

In reality, Tibetan Buddhism is not a values-free system oriented around smiles and a warm heart. It is a religion with tough ethical underpinnings that sometimes get lost in translation. For example, the Dalai Lama explicitly condemns homosexuality, as well as all oral and anal sex. His stand is close to that of Pope John Paul II, something his Western followers find embarrassing and prefer to ignore. His American publisher even asked him to remove the injunctions against homosexuality from his book, "Ethics for the New Millennium," for fear they would offend American readers, and the Dalai Lama acquiesced. [...]

American enthusiasm for the Dalai Lama is not the same as genuine political support for Tibet. No United States government will place sympathy for Tibetans above America's strategic and economic interests. China is too large a power to be pushed around, and has always been vociferous in its refusal to listen to advice about Tibet. It is hard to see how the People's Liberation Army could be persuaded to leave the Tibetan plateau without regime change in Beijing, which is something that even President Bush might be nervous to contemplate.

Passion for the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism is a great thing, but Americans keen to buy into that image should take care to understand the man and what he stands for, and above all the moral complexity of life for the Tibetans inside Tibet.

We may not choose to force it militarily, but there's no reason regime change shouldn't be our official policy for China.

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THE ONE STATE POLICY:

With a Grain of Salt: The Kurds' fight for Kurdistan (Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta, September 19, 2003, Hindustan Times)

Three main factors lead to Kurdish Nationalism. First was the introduction of the concept of private property. For nomadic people, the fact that public rangeland was actually to be split up and "owned" would have been a deep shock, something akin to what the American-Indians felt after the arrival of the American settlers. Second was the rise in the concept of states. Late in the 1890s and early 1900s, states were being formed rapidly around that area, partially because of the dissolution and slow disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, and additionally because of the British/French colonial process. Since everybody was clamouring for their own state, the Kurds got into the act as well. Finally, all those years of having no land, not belonging anywhere specific, not being integrated into any society, being scattered in so many different states, being shoved around all the time and abused by the different governments made them desire their own homeland with a vengeance. [...]

The Kurds know that their single chance of a statelet is to prove that they can have a peaceful state and manage it, too. Coalition force soldiers are getting ambushed and shot at in the other regions, but nary a peep in the northern region. The de-facto Kurdish state, which has been in existence for the past 12 odd years in northern Iraq, is getting well established. If things pan out, the Kurds will have a place to call home. It has been a long time coming, after betrayal by everybody, to let them to make a state of their own. The United Nations should look at the Kurds and their desire for a state very carefully and try to help them get one, which the UN's predecessor, the League of Nations promised and miserably failed to deliver.

Unfortunately, this pious hope won't get anywhere given the opposition of the other countries. So if the Kurds want their own state, they have to work on it themselves. If they manage to carve out an autonomous statelet in northern Iraq, that would be a brilliant first step. The chances of Iraq imploding are high, and I will not be surprised if these statelets (Kurdistan, Shiastan, Sunnistan and some other bits and bobs) are all what is left of Iraq once it is left alone. See Bosnia and Serbia, for example. Anyway, good for the Iraqi Kurds, but what about the other 70 per cent of Kurds still living and being oppressed in other contiguous countries? What are their chances of having a nation-state of their own? What are the chances of further Kurdish rebellions breaking out in these countries? Now that there is an autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, still protected by the coalition troops, just what will Iran, Syria and Turkey do if their respective Kurd populations take up the sword for their rights and use Iraqi Kurdistan as a base? Hot pursuit, a la Israel? What will the world say to these people asking for their own state? Will it again forget these poor, benighted, oppressed people or make promises and not deliver or betray them again or finally allow them a land, even if only a crowded one, but one to call their own?

One of the best things to come of the Iraq War, besides getting rid of the Ba'athist regime, will be an independent Kurdistan, but one Kurdish state seems enough.

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"I WANT TO BE LIKE THAT.":

Georgian speaker breaks macho mold (Robert Parsons, 9/22/03, CS Monitor)

Her role model is Margaret Thatcher. "I think she was one of the greatest people of the 20th century," says [Nino Burjanadze, a woman and the second most powerful politician in Georgia], whose office is hung with portraits of the former British prime minister. "She knew what she wanted and what her country needed. And when she knew she was right, she always stayed true to her convictions. I want to be like that."

As November's parliamentary elections near, Burjanadze's political enemies are lining up. Leaders of the government bloc fear that if she can forge a coalition among the opposition parties - which would be an uphill battle - she could sweep them away and set herself up for the 2005 presidential contest.

Among ideas Burjanadze advocates is a constitutional change to correct the concentration of power in the presidency. She favors the formation of a powerful cabinet of ministers, which may in turn create a post of prime minister. Ivliane Khaindrava, an analyst with the Republican Research Center and former member of parliament, says "the idea could catch on. It's popular with nearly all MPs because at the moment there are too many leaders chasing too few top jobs."

Burjanadze also reveals a populist streak. She wants the return of Georgia's provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both quasi-independent after interethnic fighting with the Georgians. Her platform also includes paying the backlog of salaries and pensions, improving the investment climate, protecting business against corruption and unwarranted government interference, and updating the Army to NATO standards. But, with government coffers already strained, it's unclear how these initiatives would be financed.

Be still our beating hearts...

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WHOSE DREAM CANDIDATE?:

The General Jumps In: Wes Clark has launched a presidential bid that has a four-star luster. But is the antiwar general prepared for this kind of battle? (KAREN TUMULTY, 9/21/03, TIME)

"He can save this goddam nation from self-destruction," declares New York Congressman Charles Rangel, who is arranging a meeting for Clark with the Congressional Black Caucus, possibly as early as this week. But Rangel acknowledges that he has never met Clark in person (they have talked on the phone) and didn't know a thing about Clark until he started catching the general's criticism of the Iraq war on cnn. The same was true of Sylvia Gillis, 57, an insurance broker who was among the 50 or so people who gathered to toast Clark's candidacy last Wednesday night at Frankie Z's Clark Bar in Chicago. "My mouth dropped open—a military man taking this antiwar position," she said. "He seemed honest, trustworthy, well versed and intellectual. My dream come true."

In fact, for Gillis and others like her who joined the draft-Clark movement that sprang up over the Internet this summer, there was something of a Field of Dreams quality to it all. They had built it; he had come. In that sense, the Clark blitz has less to do with the candidate than it does with the political landscape around him. Even as Democrats are beginning to believe for the first time that President Bush may actually be vulnerable, they are increasingly worried that they have not yet seen the Democrat who can beat him. Many are intrigued by the excitement and money that Dean has generated but are concerned that Dean is too dovish, too insubstantial, too cranky to survive the first presidential contest of the post-9/11 era. As for the rest of the field, it looks like a blur to most voters. "Frankly, none of them have gotten people very excited," says Eli Broad, a billionaire Los Angeles philanthropist who is one of the party's largest and most influential donors. "Wes Clark just might do it."

Adding luster to Clark's aura with dissatisfied Democrats is the perception that he is running with the benediction of Bill and Hillary Clinton. The former President has certainly stoked this impression; he has been talking up Clark's virtues in public and private for months, and a few weeks ago, he declared that his wife and Clark were the "two stars" of the Democratic Party. And no one could fail to notice that the Clark effort is salted with operatives from the campaigns of Clinton and Al Gore, like Mickey Kantor and Mark Fabiani.

Gen. Clark: Saddam Not a Criminal (Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, 09/21/2003, NewsMax.com)

In a little noticed interview with Fortune Magazine last week, presidential frontrunner Gen. Wesley Clark defended Saddam Hussein against charges that he was engaged in crimes against his own people at the time the Iraq war started, contending instead that the Iraqi dictator should have gotten a pass because his atrocities took place ten years ago.

Asked why it was right for President Clinton to use military force to halt Slobodan Milosevic's crimes against humanity in Kosovo, but not for President Bush to do the same thing against Saddam, Clark said that in Iraq, "The imminence of stopping a guy from committing a crime in progress - it wasn't there."

"In Kosovo you had ethnic cleansing actually unfolding, and we had intervened to stop it," the ex-NATO commander insisted, without commenting on the torture chambers, rape rooms and mass graves discovered in Iraq by coalition forces.

Instead, the Democratic frontrunner suggested that the Iraqi dictator deserved a pass by outlining what Fortune described as Clark's "Statute of Limitations for Genocidal Thugs."

"It was ten years ago that Saddam brutalized the Shiite Muslims in the south," he argued. "And he used chemical weapons 15 years ago."

It's getting harder and harder to choose which candidate would be the most catastrophic: Kerry, Dean, Clark...?

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ALL THINGS BEING UNEQUAL:

What is Elitism? (Butterflies and Wheels)

[A]nti-elitism, like many of the projects of the FN [Fashionable Nonsense] or 'politically correct' crowd, is a stance and a project with a great deal of merit. Egalitarianism is an idea which has much to be said in its favour. This is especially the case when it is applied with care and attention and fine discrimination; when there is careful, open, truthful thought and discussion about which areas egalitarianism is appropriate for and which it isn't, and about the ways it needs to be balanced by and take into account other important goods like accomplishment, ambition, inspiration, respect for achievement, talent, originality, learning, creativity. If it is kept firmly and honestly in mind both that it is good for all people to receive decent treatment, and that effort and discipline and talent and intellect are qualities to admire and encourage and respect.

And of course that's exactly where things get difficult, which is why politicians spend so much time talking anxiously about equality of opportunity not equality of outcome. It's all very well to say that, it's a nice formula, but when outcomes keep getting more and more unequal all the time, it's hard not to suspect that somebody has a thumb on the scale.

The late, lamented Wlliam Henry wrote a terrific book a few years ago called In Defense of Elitism. It was the anguished cry of a liberal who recognized that egalitarianism is the enemy of talent, beauty, and accomplishment, but he was unable to get past the critique and embrace the idea of true society of opportunity, one in which equality of opportunity is a prerequisite but which allows for differences in achievement. Because people are not just unequal but wildly unequal you would expect to get drastic inequalities in outcome, no thumbs required. In fact, it is egalitarianism which wields the thumb, trying to balance scales even when a Bach is on one side and a Vanilla Ice on the other.

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THE REPUBLIC WINS IN THREE POLLS:

Diversity loses in two polls: Narrow majority supports proposed Mich. constitutional ban on affirmative action (Joel Kurth, , September 22, 2003, The Detroit News)

A Detroit News/Local4/ Mitchell poll of 600 voters found 52 percent support a state constitutional amendment to outlaw the use of race as a consideration for university admissions and government hiring and contracts; 39 oppose it and 9 percent are undecided. [...]

The findings are echoed by a poll to be released today by Inside Michigan Politics, claiming voter support for a ban on affirmative action by 55 percent to 36 percent. The survey by Marketing Resource Group of Lansing for Inside Michigan Politics, a political and government newsletter, polled 600 statewide voters. [...]

The Detroit News/Local4/ Mitchell Poll also found that a majority opposes any attempt to legalize gay marriage or civil unions in Michigan. Voters favor banning gay marriage 51 percent to 38 percent and oppose civil unions, 53 percent to 39 percent.

Love that headline on a supposed news story. what these polls point up though is the extreme unlikelihood that the Democrats can win the Catholic states of the Rust Belt, which are naturally Red, not Blue.

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JUST ANOTHER ISM:

Realism About Turkey: One in a series of excerpts adapted by Robert Locke from Dr. Serge Trifkovic’s new book The Sword of the Prophet: A Politically-Incorrect Guide to Islam. (Serge Trifkovic, February 13, 2003 , FrontPageMagazine.com)

The lack of cultural rootedness of Turkey’s political elites remains as serious a problem today as it was in Ataturk’s times, and in many minds the question about the dormant Islamic volcano is not if, but when. The narrow stratum of the Kemalist ruling class rules Turkey by the grace of the West and the will of the Army, period. The same dynamics that have swept it away in Teheran may apply in Ankara in the next decade. The parallel with Iran is alarming. Backed by the United States, both the Shah and the Turkish generals have pursued a policy of militarization as a means of solving the tension between modernization dictated from above and religiously expressed resistance from below. Repression and militarism have provided fertile ground for Islam.

Inseparable from internal repression is Ankara’s external expansionism as a means of lessening political tensions and military threats in pursuit of territorial revisionism. In January of 1996, Ankara disputed Greek sovereignty over the Greek islet of Imia. Six months later Turkey claimed the Greek Island of Gavdos near Crete - 240 miles from the Turkish shore. And this is a country that wants to be allowed to join the European Union, further flooding the already-Islamized streets of Germany and other European nations with cheap Turkish labor?

With each passing year it is becoming more urgent for the U.S. government to break away from its unthinking Turkophilia. It is using its special status in Washington to develop itself as a regional power of considerable significance, and that position will not be subject to change if the Islamists take over. Turkey’s cultural and political influence is on the rise in its old holdings in the Balkans, as well as throughout the former Soviet Central Asia. Its proximity to the Caspian oil fields has fortified its position as a key U.S. ally in the area and a major recipient of American weapons and technology, whose air base at Incirlik is regularly used by the U.S. Air Force to bomb Iraq.

The Bush administration may yet discover that "democratization" of Turkey may mean its irreversible Islamization. The latest crisis should sound alarm bells in Washington that America needs alternative scenarios to cover such eventuality. We have seen former friends turn foe before in this part of the world, and it is time to plan for realistically-conceived possibilities. Above all, let’s stop lying to ourselves on the theory that flattering foreign nations can make them conform to our wishes for what they should be.

Though Mr. Trifkovic’s concerns about the Islamicization of Turkey are certainly legitimate, his predictions about what that would mean are just as senseless as the recurring Cold War predictions about the threat and power of Communism. No totalitarian system will ever function as well as liberal democracy does. We'll have the advantage so long as we maintain the health of our own system and will have the choice of either outlasting them while they crumble as a result of internal contradictions and inefficiencies (as Bolshevism) or going to war and terminating them more quickly (as Nazism). Nothing is more reversible than totalitarianism in all its many, though essentially identical, guises.

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HAT TRICK:

The trouble with Wes (Robert Novak, September 22, 2003, Townhall.com)

The important Democrats eager to run retired Gen. Wesley Clark for president might exercise due diligence about a military career that was nearly terminated before he got his fourth star and then came to a premature end. The trouble with the general is pointed out by a bizarre incident in Bosnia nearly a decade ago.

Clark was a three-star (lieutenant general) who directed strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington. On Aug. 26, 1994, in the northern Bosnian city of Banja Luka, he met and exchanged gifts with the notorious Bosnian Serb commander and indicted war criminal, Gen. Ratko Mladic. The meeting took place against the State Department's wishes and may have contributed to Clark's failure to be promoted until political pressure intervened. The shocking photo of Mladic and Clark wearing each other's military caps was distributed throughout Europe.

Last week on CNN's "Crossfire," I asked one of Clark's new supporters -- Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois -- about that indiscretion. "Well, I don't know about the photo," he replied. He and other Clark backers, led by Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, might want to dig more deeply into the general's turbulent military career before getting too deeply committed.

This does at least show that the notoriouisly ambitious General Clark wasn't yet planning on seeking the presidency as a Democrat. All Democrats have known since the Michael Dukkakis campaign that they should never be photographed in military headgear.

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OF A TYPE:

-REVIEW: of Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism by Paul C. Vitz (Brothers Judd, 9/19/03)

There seems to be a widespread assumption throughout much of the Western intellectual community that belief in God is based on all kinds of irrational immature needs and wishes, but atheism or skepticism is derived from a rational, no-nonsense appraisal of the way things really are.

    -Professor Paul C. Vitz, The Psychology of Atheism

Hostility towards God and religion has had a few voila moments over the centuries, points where disbelievers thought they'd found an argument that was so dispositive that when they whipped it out the religious would have no rejoinder. The first came with the development of reason as a tool of analysis, which they mistook as a complete system of thought in itself. They used reason to demonstrate to their own satisfaction that faith-based beliefs, those which are not provable by reason, must be inferior in quality. But along came David
Hume to show that reason is actually capable of disproving itself and even our own existence, making it an inherently standard by which to judge other types of thought. Reason too proceeds from faith:

It seems to me, that the only objects of the abstract science or of demonstration are quantity and number, and that all attempts to extend this more perfect species of knowledge beyond these bounds are mere sophistry and illusion. As the component parts of quantity and number are entirely similar, their relations become intricate and involved; and nothing can be more curious, as well as useful, than to trace, by a variety of mediums, their equality or inequality, through their different appearances. But as all other ideas are clearly distinct and different from each other, we can never advance farther, by our utmost scrutiny, than to observe this diversity, and, by an obvious reflection, pronounce one thing not to be another. Or if there be any difficulty in these decisions, it proceeds entirely from the undeterminate meaning of words, which is corrected by juster definitions. That the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the other two sides, cannot be known, let the terms be ever so exactly defined, without a train of reasoning and enquiry. But to convince us of this proposition, that where there is no property, there can be no injustice, it is only necessary to define the terms, and explain injustice to be a violation of property. This proposition is, indeed, nothing but a more imperfect definition. It is the same case with all those pretended syllogistical reasonings, which may be found in every other branch of learning, except the sciences of quantity and number; and these may safely, I think, be pronounced the only proper objects of knowledge and demonstration.

All other enquiries of men regard only matter of fact and existence; and these are evidently incapable of demonstration. Whatever is may not be. No negation of a fact can involve a contradiction. The non-existence of any being, without exception, is as clear and distinct an idea as its existence. The proposition, which affirms it not to be, however false, is no less conceivable and intelligible, than that which affirms it to be. The case is different with the sciences, properly so called. Every proposition, which is not true, is there confused and unintelligible. That the cube root of 64 is equal to the half of 10, is a false proposition, and can never be distinctly conceived. But that Caesar, or the angel Gabriel, or any being never existed, may be a false proposition, but still is perfectly conceivable, and implies no contradiction.

The existence, therefore, of any being can only be proved by arguments from its cause or its effect; and these arguments are founded entirely on experience. If we reason a priori, anything may appear able to produce anything. The falling of a pebble may, for aught we know, extinguish the sun; or the wish of a man control the planets in their orbits. It is only experience, which teaches us the nature and bounds of cause and effect, and enables us to infer the existence of one object from that of another. Such is the foundation of moral reasoning, which forms the greater part of human knowledge, and is the source of all human action and behaviour.

So much for pure reason.

Next came Darwinism, which would at least obviate the need for God when we tried to explain how we got here. But Darwinism has not only been far harder to prove than they must have hoped, it has also been shown to be so circular in its reasoning as to href=http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/articles/stove_new_religion.htm> qualify as a religion in its own right and when pushed to its logical conclusions has proved so repellent that even its supposed champions have ended up attacking it as too grotesquely anti-human to be accepted.

The third great hope was that the argument from psychology would do the trick. This basically held that God and the belief in God merely filled a need for the scared, the superstitious, the irrational, etc.. That is to say, God is nothing more than a psychological construct. Professor Vitz
spends some time explaining why this thesis is weak, though there is certainly a psychological element to faith, but then does something truly devastating--he puts atheism on the couch too. And, unfortunately for proponents of this view, not just psychology but the king daddy of them all, Freudianism, offers fertile soil for the argument that it is really atheism that most clearly responds to a classic psychological need. We'll let Professor Vitz take over here:

The central concept in Freud's work, aside from the unconscious, is the now well-known Oedipus Complex. In the case of male personality development, the essential features of this complex are the following: Roughly in the age period of three to six the boy develops a strong sexual desire for the mother. At the same time the boy develops an intense hatred and fear of the father, and a desire to supplant him, a "craving for power." This hatred is based on the boy's knowledge that the father, with his greater size and strength, stands in the way of his desire. The child's fear of the father may explicitly be a fear of castration by the father, but more typically, it has a less specific character. The son does not really kill the father, of course, but patricide is assumed to be a common preoccupation of his fantasies and dreams. The "resolution" of the complex is supposed to occur through the boy's recognition that he cannot replace the father, and through fear of castration, which eventually leads the boy to identify with the father, to identify with the aggressor, and to repress the original frightening components of the complex.

It is important to keep in mind that, according to Freud, the Oedipus complex is never truly resolved, and is capable of activation at later periods-almost always, for example, at puberty. Thus the powerful ingredients of murderous hate and of incestuous sexual desire within a family context are never in fact removed. Instead, they are covered over and repressed. Freud expresses the neurotic potential of this situation:

The Oedipus-complex is the actual nucleus of neuroses . . . What remains of the complex in the unconscious represents the disposition to the later development of neuroses in the adult.

In short, all human neuroses derive from this complex. Obviously, in most cases, this potential is not expressed in any seriously neurotic manner. Instead it shows up in attitudes toward authority, in dreams, slips of the tongue, transient irrationalities, etc.

Now, in postulating a universal Oedipus complex as the origin of all our neuroses, Freud inadvertently developed a straightforward rationale for understanding the wish-fulfilling origin of rejecting God. After all, the Oedipus complex is unconscious, it is established in childhood and, above all, its dominant motive is hatred of the father and the desire for him not to exist, especially as represented by the desire to overthrow or kill the father. Freud regularly described God as a psychological equivalent to the father, and so a natural expression of Oedipal motivation would be powerful, unconscious desires for the nonexistence of God. Therefore, in the Freudian
framework, atheism is an illusion caused by the Oedipal desire to kill the father and replace him with oneself. To act as if God does not exist is an obvious, not so subtle disguise for a wish to kill Him, much the same way as in a dream, the image of a parent going away or disappearing can represent such a wish: "God is dead" is simply an undisguised Oedipal wish-fulfillment.

It would be an insanely brave or utterly foolish soul who ventured out again onto psychology's turf after that to argue for atheism and against God. As he says:

Since both believers and nonbelievers in God have psychological reasons for their positions, one important conclusion is that in any debate as to the truth of the existence of God, psychology should be irrelevant

So much for the anti-religionists third bite at the apple.

As if thoroughly disposing of the argument from psychology weren't enough though, Professor Vitz also marshals a series of short biographies of famous atheists, with a focus on their relationships to their fathers. It is a pitiable litany of "defective" fathers ("weak, dead, or abusive") and of the men (most are men) who rebelled against God as a way of getting back at them. After the first few, one realizes that this is really just shooting fish in a barrel, or, better yet, like one of those films that animal rights activists make with guys clubbing baby seals to death. The victims lie there inert and helpless as a superior intellect lays into them. Even Professor Vitz recognizes that this parade of woes is almost unfair--the formula by which their youthful unhappiness with their fathers leads to their future unhappiness with God is so precise as to diminish terribly our respect for their work--but, as he notes, since psychology is a weapon that atheists have chosen to wield against God, it is only fair that they be hoist on it.

Meanwhile, the corresponding profiles of renowned believers portray an almost embarrassingly blissful set of relations. In the interstices, Professor Vitz finds a couple characters who support the point further, men like Albert Camus, "more a reluctant than a militant atheist" whose letters reveal that he desired though never found faith in God, just as he early lost his father and perhaps looked for some kind of a substitute in Jean Grenier.

Where did the others look to find a father, if not to their own and not to God?:

For men, God seems to function primarily as a principle of justice and order in the world--and only secondarily as a person with whom one has a relationship. In other words, God's law and providential control seem to be the central aspects of belief for men. [...]

We would expect, therefore, that men who become atheists will find a new absolute principle with which to order the world. Thus, we expect male atheists to be quite explicitly atheistic and to have a new "divinity" that takes the intellectual place of God. As a consequence, atheistic men should be intense believers in such alternative principles as reason, science, progress, humanism, socialism, communism, or existentialism. And this is what we see in the lives of the atheists.

You don't even need to read about the famous examples to recognize that profile--no one is more evangelical for his view and more rigidly adherent to his substitute principles than an atheist.

This is a brief but brilliantly provocative book. Its main argument--that atheism is at least as much a product of personal psychology as theism--is undeniable. The extension of this argument--to correlate a particular kind of childhood relationship with the father to a subsequent and rather predictable kind of relationship with the Father--is quite compelling. Most of all, it is a great joy to see someone as skillful as Professor mount a counteroffensive in the war between faith and reason and see him carry the field so convincingly. Unless you're an atheist who had a defective father and had previously thought you were simply being driven by reason, you'll have great fun reading the book.

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NEED HELP PACKING?

Can we Democrats be your next province? (PAUL LEWIS, Sep. 22, 2003, Globe & Mail)

Having endured the outrages of the 2000 presidential "election" and the 9/11-empowered Republicans' reactionary policies, progressive Democrats, Greens and Independents across the United States are smouldering. Especially in the 20 states that went for Al Gore in the Northeast, Midwest, and West, more and more of us are appalled by the combination of dishonest rhetoric, regressive tax giveaways, international adventurism, environmental degradation and unprecedented arrogance spewing from the President and his congressional cohorts. [...]

We're fed up and need to move on -- or out. But where to go?

A map of the state-by-state voting in 2000 suggests the obvious answer. With the anomalous and proud exception of New Mexico, Gore states are contiguous either to Canada or to other Gore states. In the most peaceful and democratic way, without invoking images of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, these states need to secede from the Union, reform into provinces and join Canada. [...]

Imagine the efficiencies of scale that will result from combining several states, with their redundant and quarrelsome governments, into single provinces. Through a process of state-by-state referendums, California, Oregon and Washington could reform into Naturia; New England (minus the odious New Hampshire) could reform into Nontario; Wisconsin, Minnesota,
Iowa, Michigan, and Illinois could become Coolcentria; while the eastern states between New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., could become Atlantica.

On purely aesthetic grounds, the benefits are enormous. We new Canadians will (shortly) acquire a national leader capable of producing coherent sentences in at least two languages. We will leave behind a U.S. composed of increasingly polluted semi-tropical and desert states inhabited by citizens hell-bent on posting the Ten Commandments in public washrooms, installing a Star Wars defence system around fast-food restaurants, and generally doing what they can to bring on the Apocalypse. Meanwhile, we new Canadians will look north to vast, undeveloped lands where animals roam and cool breezes waft down from the Arctic. Henceforth, our musically challenged children will sing not the incomprehensible and operatic Star Spangled Banner but the rousing anthem O Canada.

And just imagine what it will be like not to wake up every morning to the news that your federal government has subverted another international treaty, undermined another environmental protection, given another tax refund to the wealthy or invaded another defenceless country. To be citizens once more of a nation at peace with the world and committed to social justice and environmental conservation.

Ah, America.

O, Canada!

Canada's welcome to the Democrats, but we're keeping the territory--it's our Manifest Destiny, don't you know...

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INCENTIVIZING PROLIFERATION:

The failure that is the war against terrorism: Dr. Ivan Eland is a senior fellow and director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute and an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's war on terrorism. Dr. Eland recently issued a report card for administration and gave it an F "for failing to achieve its stated goals in its 'war on terrorism.'" (Steven Martinovich, September 22, 2003, Enter Stage Right)

ESR: Some of your grades have raised eyebrows because in most cases they are quite low. For example, for "Avoiding a quagmire in Afghanistan" you grade the administration a "C-". Given the number of Afghan refugees returning to Afghanistan and the low number of military and civilian causalities, isn't that a little low?

IE: No, we still have thousands of troops there and we have recently increased aid in a redoubled effort to socially engineer a society that has been at war for more than two decades. It's not
a quagmire yet, but the U.S. military presence is a lightning rod for a resurgence of the Taliban. The U.S. should withdraw and let a Coalition of the Willing do the peacekeeping. the return of refugees and the lower casualty figures than Iraq do not mean that it is not a quagmire. I gave the administration a C- because it still has time to reverse course. It should declare victory, withdraw and put any future Afghan government that it supports al-Qaida at its own risk.

ESR: For "Making Iraq better off by eliminating Saddam Hussein" you gave an F. Why? Couldn't one make the argument that we're only a few months into a process of rebuilding Iraq
and that problems are bound to a happen. The reconstruction of Germany after the Second World War was no less difficult

IE: Iraq is not Germany (or Japan). Before the war, those nations were industrialized nations with educated work forces. They also had a sense of national unity and some prior experience with democracy. Iraq has none of those things.

The decimated Iraqi military was no threat to anyone after the first Gulf War. Yet subsequent U.S. policy has probably killed more Iraqis than the tyrant Saddam Hussein ever did. U.S.-led sanctions killed 500,000 children (this doesn't include adults or war victims) and Saddam's killing probably doesn't equal that total. [...]

ESR: Several commentators have built strong cases that the U.S.-backed embargo was not responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children yet in the press release
announcing your grades it states you have preliminary data that suggests that more children were killed by the embargo at 500 000 than the total number of Iraqis -- including Kurds and Shiites -- killed by Hussein. How did you come up with that number and how would you answer critics who would dismiss your findings?

IE: Well, I am only going by what international organizations state. If they can provide better data, then I review it. Arguments over statistics aside, the purpose of the embargo was to squeeze
the Iraqi population (these were the most comprehensive and universal sanctions in world history, not surgical sanctions aimed to target Saddam and the pillars of his regime) in order to get them to pressure Saddam's regime. When groups target civilians to get them to pressure their governments to change policy, we call that terrorism. But when we do it, we call it sanctions fighting the dictator. U.S. policymakers knew the history of sanctions. The regime will merely redirect any pain to the poorest members of the society. Madeleine Albright admitted that children would be hurt but said it was worth it to hurt Saddam. Bush continued Clinton/Albright's policy.

Regardless of the number of civilians killed, intentionally aiming to hurt civilians with sanctions for a political end is much like blowing them up with bombs. [...]

ESR: You also take the Bush administration to task for treating different rogue nations in a manner that will only encourage some of them. For example, you mention that the United States
attacked non-nuclear Iraq but has left nuclear North Korea and soon-to-be nuclear Iran alone. What would you recommend the administration do with North Korea and Iran?

IE: A grand settlement with North Korea: We give them a non-aggression pact, end sanctions and normalize relations (no aid) and they give up (not freeze) their nuclear and missile programs,
submit to intrusive verification to ensure that this happens, and end the exports of WMD materials and missiles overseas.

I would try to normalize relations with the current Iranian government and therefore cut the inducements to build nukes to keep the U.S. from invading.

The United States may have to accept that less-than-friendly nations will get nukes and other WMD. We accepted and sheltered China's nuclear program when radical Mao was in power. We have nuclear dominance with thousands of warheads and the best nuclear arsenal on the planet. Countries like Iran, North Korea or even Saddam's Iraq would, have at most, a few warheads and would be extremely unlikely to give them to terrorists (as our own CIA said about Iraq). With home addresses, these nations have no incentive to give expensive technology to sometimes erratic terrorist groups. If such rogue-state/terrorist group links were exposed, the rogue states would be in trouble. Rogue states can be deterred from attacking the United States with our massive nuclear arsenal.

One needn't quarrel with Mr. Eland's version of the facts of the War on Terror in order to find his ideas about how to should be fought (well, actually, how it should be not fought) rather silly. The problem for such analysts is that in order to discredit this war they have to delegitimize all of WWII also, which may be worth doing but will never be accepted by people in the United States.

If having troops in Afghanistan and reengineering their society is the test of whether it's a quagmire, then, as Mr. Martinovich correctly points out, Germany and Japan were quagmires.

If embargoing Japan, bombing Germany and Japan and even nuking Japan was acceptable, then how can embargoing Iraq have been wrong? Have we not long ago determined--in part as a function of our being a democracy--that civilian populations are legitimate targets?

Subsequent points are merely dubious as regards moral reasoning and responsible behavior. We do have a moral duty to remove tyrants like Saddam, especially when it can be done as easily as it was here and when, to take Mr. Eland's own assertions at face value, it can bring an end to such a deadly embargo. Our failure to act in most cases (Castro, Kim Jong-Il, Chirac) speaks ill, not well, of us.

However, he even goes so far as to say that the embargo should never have been started in the first place, even if it meant Saddam remained in power developing nuclear weapons, and that we should largely ignore the WMD programs of other tyrannical anti-Western regimes. He says we can afford to do this because of our capacity to control their behavior with the threat of our own nuclear weapons. But, if they aren't cowed into abandoning such programs when we rattle our nuclear saber, what rational belief can we have that they be afraid to use them, especially in warfare with their most ancient and viscerally hated foes. North Korea probably can't nuke us, but what about S. Korea? Pakistan isn't going to lob missiles at the U.S., but it's easy to imagine any number of scenarios where they get into an exchange with India. And if Saddam wasn't deterred from attacking Kuwait by his knowledge that we had nukes, why would he be deterred from using nukes in such a war? Not only that, but if we'd followed Mr. Eland's counsel and left him in power without even sanctions against him, then why wouldn't he be justified in seeing the Kuwait war as an excellent risk on his part? He stood to gain vast oil reserves and to lose hardly anything,--except some ourtdated Soviet weaponry which he'd then have been free to replace with newer equipment that the French and Germans would have eagerly sold him. Ditto North Korea--if the price you pay for developing nuclear weapons is that we lift sanctions and agree not to attack you, why not get your program going? In effect, he's trying to incentivize proliferation.

Mr. Eland seem to have a bizarre longing for the bad old days of the Cold War, when liberals placed their faith in the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction. It's worth remembering that no political leader ever despised that theory more than Ronald Reagan and that by refusing to accept it he ended that war, a war being fought against what was erroneously believed at the time to be a capable superpower. Rather than using the threat of nuclear retaliation as a deterrent today against these obviously rinky-dink tin-pot dictators, we should use actual nuclear strikes as the deterrent. Irradiate the North Korean nuclear facilities and let's see if Iran still goes ahead with its program.

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19/4 = ? :

Terrorist says 9/11 plot began in '96 (AP, 9/21/03)

A key event in the plot, Mohammed told his interrogators, was a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 2000, that included al-Mihdhar, al-Hazmi and other al-Qaeda operatives. The CIA learned of the meeting beforehand and had it monitored by Malaysian security, but it did not realize the significance of the two eventual hijackers until just before the attacks.

The interrogation reports state bin Laden further trimmed Mohammed's plans in spring 2000 when he canceled the idea for hijackings in East Asia, thus narrowing it to the United States. Bin Laden thought "it would be too difficult to synchronize" attacks in the United States and Asia, one
interrogation report quotes Mohammed as saying.

Mohammed said around that time he reached out to an al-Qaeda linked group in southeast Asia known as Jemaah Islamiyah. He began "recruiting JI operatives for inclusion in the hijacking plot as part of his second wave of hijacking attacks to occur after Sept. 11," one summary said.

Jemaah Islamiyah's operations chief, Riduan Isamuddin Hambali, had attended part of the January 2000 meeting in Kuala Lumpur but Mohammed said he was there at that time only because "as a rule had had to be informed" of events in his region. Later, Hambali's operative began training possible recruits for the second wave, according to the interrogation report.

One of those who received training in Malaysia before coming to the United States was Zacarias Moussaoui, the Frenchman accused of conspiring with the Sept. 11 attacks. Moussaoui has denied being part of the Sept. 11 plot, and U.S. and foreign intelligence officials have said he could have been set for hijacking a plane in a later wave of attacks.

At some point the string of "coincidences" involving Zaccarias Moussaoui has to convince even the most skeptical that, though he many not even have been aware of it, he was brought to the States to be the 20th hijacker.

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NOT CALLED REACTIONARY FOR NOTHIN':

Canada's conservatives shift right: Ontario's Tories hope to capitalize on a backlash against liberal court rulings before an Oct. 2 election. (Susan Bourette, 9/22/03, The Christian Science Monitor)

Increasingly, conservatives are trying to capitalize on a backlash by Canada's "silent majority" - those who think that the country has lurched too far to the left. If successful, it's a political calculus that could play out well beyond Ontario's borders.

"We're not a hippie nation," says Brian O'Riordan, an analyst with the independent political consulting firm, G.P. Murray Ltd. in Toronto. "Consistently, polls have shown that Canadians are deeply divided on social issues such as same-sex marriage. I think there's a recognition that there is some hay to be made on these issues on the campaign trail."

The shift to the right is a stunning departure for the Conservatives here, who have reigned over one of the most tumultuous political periods in Ontario's history - seven years of often violent protests and strikes in reaction to an agenda of deep tax cuts and smaller government. While the Conservatives, or Tories, have looked south to the Republicans in the United States for help in building their Common Sense Revolution, they have consistently governed as fiscal rather than social conservatives.

Since seizing the party leadership last year, Premier Ernie Eves portrayed himself as a centrist. However, with this election call, Mr. Eves has emerged as a born-again Anglican who can no longer countenance gay marriage.

Who'd a thunk it--a sign of intelligent life in a Tory party.

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ISN'T THE PLOT THICK ENOUGH?:

Bible Track: a review of Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700 by Diarmid MacCulloch (George Rosie, 9/21/03, Sunday Herald)

In his latest book, [Oxford historian, Diarmaid MacCulloch] argues that the Reformation of the 16th century created a split that still lies under the surface of Western life.

“It is impossible to understand modern Europe without understanding these 16th century upheavals in Latin Christianity,” he writes. “They represented the greatest fault-line to appear in Christian culture since the Latin and Greek halves of the Roman Empire went their separate ways a thousand years before: they produced a house divided. The fault-line is the business of this book.” And fault lines beget fissures. Within 100 years of the renegade monk Martin Luther pinning his 95 “theses” to the door of the church at Wittemberg in 1517 Protestantism began to fracture. In late 17th century Scotland, for instance, Anglicans were hunting down and killing Presbyterians. By the year 1700, the Protestant world had splintered into many pieces: Lutherans, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Quakers, Baptists, Anabaptists, Methodists, Congregationalists and dozens of minor denominations and sects. It’s a process that goes on. In Scotland there are five varieties of Presbyterianism.

As MacCulloch explains it, US presidents such as Ronald Reagan and George Bush owe their mind-sets to the Reformation. “In the USA, Protestantism, stemming from England and Scotland, set the original patterns of identity,” he writes. “American life is fired by a continuing energy of Protestant religious practice derived from the 16th century. So the Reformation … has created the ideology dominant in the world’s remaining superpower …”

And that ideology runs deep. Only one Roman Catholic has ever made it to the White House, and he was assassinated 40 years ago.

It is not clear from the context or the phrasing that Mr. Rosie realizes that JFK was not killed for his religious beliefs.

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WHO'D WANT TO GO ON LIVING?:

Chirac says ‘non’ to Blair’s plea to bury Iraq hatchet: French block Bush plan to send UN troops to restore peace (James Cusick, 9/21/03, Sunday Herald)

GEORGE W BUSH’S hopes of Tony Blair delivering a last-minute deal for a new United Nations resolution on Iraq were dashed by France yesterday.

The US president had hoped that Blair could persuade French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to back a new US-backed UN Security Council resolution on Iraq to “internationalise” the occupation of Iraq before he addresses the UN general assembly on Tuesday.

However, Blair failed to heal the gulf, with Chirac insisting that “we still do not agree on Iraq” and that he would only give his support if there was a swift return “within a few months” of sovereignty to the Iraqi people under UN auspices and not that of the US.

The White House is said to be furious with Chirac since France, as one of the five permanent members of the UN’s 15-strong Security Council, can veto any bid by the US to pass a new resolution on Iraq.

Maybe those ten thousand old folks this Summer didn't just die of neglect but of embarrassment at being French.

MORE:
-Healing the wounds of war: Without UN help Blair and Bush face a long, expensive conflict. If the French have anything to do with it, that help will never arrive (James Cusick, 9/21/03, Sunday Herald)

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NOW THAT'S A TRIO:

Sweet and Sour: The world’s best junior middleweights put on a remarkable exhibition of boxing, but not without controversy. Oscar De La Hoya cried foul, but for Sugar Shane Mosley there was vindication (Budd Schulberg, 9/21/03, Sunday Herald)

[T]hose watching on television had their vision of the fight coloured by the HBO ringside team, Larry Merchant, Jim Lampley and big George Foreman, who sounded more like a De La Hoya rooting section than objective commentators as they described a fight so different from what the official judges, and these eyes, seemed to be watching.

After four careful and technically interesting rounds, the action began to heat up in the fifth, which built to a furious exchange at the bell. The De La Hoya rooters were so loud it was hard to hear oneself think, but I gave the round to Mosley. De La Hoya might have been winning the Compustat totals but I felt the power in Mosley, and De La Hoya must have been feeling it too. Body punching is something of a lost art in modern boxing. It’s not as flashy as punches to the head, but it can prove more deadly. Body punches wear a fighter down and slow him up in the later rounds.

It was still intangible and De La Hoya seemed to be winning the fight. After six rounds, I had him leading four rounds to two, but his questionable stamina was about to be tested again. Slowly the tide was turning. Two of the three judges gave Mosley the last five rounds, and I had him winning five of the last six, hurting De La Hoya with so many fiercely-thrown left hooks that the partisan crowd grew eerily quiet and the underdog rooters began chanting MOS-LEY! MOS-LEY!

De La Hoya was able and willing but soooo tired. The unanimous decision, 115-113, in favour of the new, and now redeemed, champion put the Sugar back in Shane and struck this corner as exactly right. The pained silence of the disappointed throng seemed a reluctant agreement with the judges. But the HBO trio were outraged. They denounced the verdict as highway robbery. Foreman even went so far as to charge that it was a fix or conspiracy against promoter Bob Arum. By coincidence, I happened to come out from the arena with George, who is an old friend all the way back to Ali/Zaire days. He was surprised I had seen the fight so differently from him, and when boxing historian Bert Randolph Sugar chimed in on my behalf, he made a face and said: “Wow, if you two think Mosley won, maybe I went too far!”

If there was a more interesting spot on the planet at the moment Budd Schulberg, Bert Sugar, and George Foreman were occupying that one, we'd like to know where it was.

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DO THE YECHI:

Waiting for the Messiah of Eastern Parkway (JONATHAN MAHLER, September 21, 2003, NY Times Magazine)

In the center of the room, a group of about 25 men are dancing hypnotically in a circle. A few bounce little boys on their shoulders as they chant a single phrase over and over: Yechi adonenu morenu verabbenu melech hamoshiach leolam voed.

A middle-aged man standing near me catches my eye. Like everyone else here, he's wearing the Lubavitch uniform -- black wool suit, white shirt and black fedora. When he opens his mouth to speak, I expect his words to come out coated in Yiddish. Instead, they're pure Brooklyn.

''That's the No. 1 hit in Crown Heights,'' he says, stroking his big red beard and grinning.

It looks almost like a rain dance, only instead of precipitation, these Lubavitchers are trying to hasten the arrival of the messiah. There's just one problem. The words of the accompanying song -- ''May our master, teacher and rabbi, the king messiah, live forever'' -- refer specifically to a man who died nine years ago: Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the grand rabbi and spiritual leader of the Lubavitch movement from 1951 until 1994. The Yechi, as it is known, is sung as a demonstration of faith that their beloved rebbe will be back soon -- rising from the great beyond in a manner more befitting Jesus Christ than the savior of the Jewish people.

So if Yechi -- ''May he live'' -- is a demonstration of faith to some, it borders on a profane outburst to others. A swath of Lubavitchers are not only unwilling to utter the Yechi; they also refuse to be present in synagogues or at gatherings where it is chanted. To understand the concern of these so-called anti-messianists, consider that only a few men in Jewish history have been revered as the messiah after their deaths. One was Jesus. Another was Sabbatai Zevi, who won hundreds of thousands of followers across Palestine and Eastern Europe after publicly declaring himself the messiah in 1665. (Zevi's death was, relatively speaking, a small challenge to his adherents, who had already chosen to stick by him after his conversion to Islam.)

For the anti-messianists, their messianic brethren present a public-relations disaster of epic proportions. They worry that their Hasidic movement, which is 300 years old and has survived pogroms, Communism and the Holocaust, will become confused with a cult. What's more, they can hardly ignore the obvious Christian overtones of messianism: what kind of Jews believe in a second coming?

Why's it any more cult-like to be a Lubavitcher waiting for the second coming than to be a standard issue Jew waiting for the first?

---

A STAR IN THE MAKING (via Mike Daley)

AUDIO: Major Issues Lecture Series: Topic: Religious Liberty: The Most Precious of our Liberties (J. Kenneth Blackwell: Ohio Secretary of State, Ashbrook.org)

Terrific speech by a man whose name you'll be hearing a lot in the not too distant future.

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A FIGHT WITH A FOREGONE CONCLUSION:

The Fight for the Democratic Party (ROBIN TONER, September 21, 2003, NY Times)

It is an old struggle in the Democratic Party, resurfacing with each new generation of activists and strategists since the old New Deal coalition came unstuck in the 1960's. Does the party need to move to the center, muting its liberal edge on cultural issues, economics and foreign policy in order to win? Promise to roll back just part of the tax cut, for example, not the whole thing?

Or does that lead to a watery "me-tooism," too careful, too calibrated, too uncertain of what it believes to rouse voters or to make a difference if its proponents actually win office?

Let Democrats be Democrats, is the thrust of one argument. Speak to the great American middle, not to each other, is the counter. Hearts and heads at war. [...]

In the end, many liberals cling to an old dream, of finding a candidate who appeals to both the base and the majority, and rebuilding the old coalition that seemed to shatter 35 years ago, argued Michael Kazin, a political historian at Georgetown University.

"They think that Americans, in their heart of hearts, really agree with them on education, on the environment, on some kind of national health insurance," Professor Kazin said. "And they feel they're completely right about the war in Iraq."

Those liberals are quite wrong. In fact, since the aberrational, Goldwater loss (he might well have beaten JFK), it is conservatives who win on the national level when they run explicitly on ideology. Republicans lose when they run on me-tooism, because it allows the Democrats to run to the center. Meanwhile, the Democrats haven't won a presidential election with a non-incumbent candidate running as a liberal since FDR in 1932 (and even he at least pretended to some considerable conservatism).

---

ARE WE ALL ZAKARIANS NOW?:

As California Goes, So Goes the Country? (TODD S. PURDUM, September 21, 2003, NY Times)

MORE than 60 years ago, the columnist Westbrook Pegler, noting California's penchant for political experimentation and social turmoil, proposed that a guardian should be appointed and the state declared incompetent to manage its own affairs. Last week, California's recall election drama led the columnist George F. Will to call it "the sick man of the Republic."

It has always been easy for the rest of the country to bash California, and to dismiss its self-conscious Left Coast exceptionalism as just that. In fact, California has a state constitution and a long cultural tradition that allow for an unusual degree of political volatility, through citizen referendums, ballot initiatives and, yes, electoral recall. [...]

But with its particularly broad powers of referendum, California provides the rest of the country with examples of what can happen when voters get their way, unfiltered by politicians or legislators.

If Gray Davis did nothing else worthwhile in his political career--a strong possibility--he's at least gotten even the Left to admitting that too much democracy is a singularly bad idea.

---

AS BIG AS THE RITZ:

The Perils of Bling-Bling (LOLA OGUNNAIKE, September 21, 2003, NY Times Magazine)

DRESSED in army green cargo pants and a flouncy white poet's shirt, Derek Khan stood in the study of his modest one-bedroom apartment in West Harlem, showing off a wall of framed photographs, a celebrity-studded monument to the fabled life that was once his.

"Oh, look at me and Pink," he exclaimed, pointing to a picture of himself with the fuchsia-haired rock star. The two were dressed in matching denim Dolce & Gabbana outfits. "That's me with Carlos Santana," he said, "and me with Chelsea Clinton." Pictures of Mr. Khan posed cheek to cheek with Bill and Hillary Clinton rested on two end tables in the living room. "I adore them," he gushed.

And so it went until Mr. Khan was asked about a photo of him presenting a diamond necklace to Aretha Franklin. It was then that his wide grin faded. After a long, heavy pause he said, "It kills me to look at this picture."

That visit took place just days before Sept. 3, when Mr. Khan, a fashion stylist, was sentenced to one and a half to three years in prison on charges of defrauding eight of New York's most prestigious jewelers, including Harry Winston, Graff and Piaget. He had borrowed more than $1.5 million worth of diamond earrings, necklaces and watches on behalf of hip-hop stars and other celebrities to wear to photo shoots and awards shows. Instead, he pawned the gems for cash, he admitted, which he used to support an extravagant lifestyle that included dinners at Jean-Georges Vongerichten's restaurant 66 and $1,000 jars of Creme de la Mer skin moisturizer.

Reports of his arrest in March and his guilty plea in June ricocheted through the urban fashion world, where Mr. Khan was one of the chief architects of the look known as ghetto fabulous -- the marriage of street-savvy stars with luxury European fashion labels and diamonds big as gumballs. [...]

Beginning in the mid-90's, he convinced rappers to shed their Timberlands and baggy jeans for Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Harry Winston. "He was instrumental in introducing high fashion to the hip-hop community," said Anne Fahey, director of public relations for Chanel.

"Everybody's talking about bling-bling now," Mr. Khan said, riffling through a Prada shoe box filled with mementos. "Darling, please, I had Salt-N-Pepa in Van Cleef & Arpels in 1996."

So, the Miss America Pageant now has a multiple-choice quiz, kind of like Who Wants to be a Beauty Queen? The questions were so painfully obvious as to border on self-parody, though the Wife was stumped by the bling-bling one. We don't get much bling-blingage in New Hampshire.

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ENEMY SYMPATHIZER?:

Army Cleric Who Ministered to Detainees Is Arrested (ERIC LICHTBLAU, September 21, 2003, NY Times)

An Islamic chaplain in the United States Army who ministered to detainees at the camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the military holds captured militants and suspected terrorists is now himself under arrest while the Army investigates his activities, military and law enforcement officials said today. [...]

Investigators are looking into the possibility that he was sympathetic to prisoners there and was preparing to aid them in some undetermined way.

"That's the fear and the suspicion that the Army is pursuing," the second law enforcement official said.

Add that to the American Muslim soldier who rolled a grenade into a tent and you've gotta have some tense G.I.'s.

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THE GENDER COROLLARY OF THE G.U.T.:

Monkeys strike for justice: Capuchin umbrage suggests sense of fairness extends beyond humans. (JOHN WHITFIELD, 18 September 2003, Nature)

Monkeys strike for equal pay. They down tools if they see another monkey get a bigger reward for doing the same job, US researchers have found.

The experiments show that notions of justice extend beyond humans, says Sarah Brosnan of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. This is probably an innate ability that evolved in our primate ancestor, she believes: "You need a sense of fairness to live in large, complex groups."

Brosnan and her colleague Frans de Waal taught brown capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) to swap plastic tokens for food. Normally, monkeys were happy to exchange a token for some cucumber.

But the monkeys took offence if they saw a neighbour getting a grape for a token. In about half of such trials, the short-changed capuchin either refused to hand over its token, or rejected the reward. Some threw the token or cucumber clean out of their cage.

The animals' umbrage was even greater if another monkey got a grape for nothing. About 80% rebelled in some way in this situation. [...]

Only female monkeys show this pique, the researchers found. Males were much less sensitive to inequality. Their minds may have been on other things, says Janson: "Males care about sex, and females care about food. The males might not consider the food differences worth worrying about."

Thanks to Bob Hawkins, for pointing out that the story quoted below had left out the vital fact of gender differences in behavior. We particularly like that twist because it tends to confirm our Grand Unified Theory, that everything just comes down to the eternal war between security and freedom, with females being generally (though not exclusively) more inclined towards security, for obvious reasons.

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BOOKNOTES:

Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America by Eric Rauchway (C-SPAN, September 21, 2003, 8 & 11 pm)

How an assassin, a dead President, and Theodore Roosevelt defined the Progressive Era.

When President McKinley was murdered at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York on September 6, 1901, Americans were bereaved and frightened. Rumor ran rampant: A wild-eyed foreign anarchist with an unpronounceable name had killed the Commander-in-Chief. Eric Rauchway's brilliant Murdering McKinley re-creates Leon Czolgosz's hastily conducted trial and then traverses America as Dr. Vernon Briggs, a Boston alienist, sets out to discover why Czolgosz rose up to kill his President. While uncovering the answer that eluded Briggs and setting the historical record straight about Czolgosz, Rauchway also provides the finest portrait yet of Theodore Roosevelt at the moment of his sudden ascension to the White House.

For Czolgosz was neither a foreigner nor much of an anarchist. Born in Detroit, he was an American-made assassin of such inchoate political beliefs that Emma Goldman dismissed him as a police informant. Indeed, Brigg's search for answers---in the records of the Auburn New York State penitentiary where Czolgosz was electrocuted, in Cleveland where Leon's remaining family lived---only increased the mystery. Roosevelt, however, cared most for the meanings he could fix to this "crime against free government all over the world." For Roosevelt was every inch the calculating politician, his supposed boyish impulsiveness more feint than fact. At one moment encouraging the belief that Czolgosz's was a political crime, at the next that it was a deranged one, Roosevelt used the specter of McKinley's death to usher in Progressive Era America.

So why did Czolgosz do it? Only Rauchway's careful sifting of long-ignored evidence provides an answer: heart-broken, recently radicalized, and thinking he had only months to live, Leon decided to take the most powerful man in America with him.

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LIFE TRANSCENDS LITERATURE ...

In His Final Days, Forgiveness (Newsday, 9/17/2003)

... in the life and death of a good man. Via Eve Tushnet.

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DO THE MATH:

America's rich get richer thanks to tax-cutting Bush (Andrew Gumbel, 9/20/2003, Independent News UK)

Forbes ascribed the fattening portfolios of the super-rich to the recovery of internet and other tech stocks after the dot-com meltdown of 2000-2001.

[...]The improving fortunes of those on the list also reflected the largesse being shown to the richest Americans by the Bush administration.

They are the main beneficiaries of tax cuts that will pump $100bn into the economy - most of it into the pockets of the top 1 per cent - this year alone. They have also benefited from measures such as the repeal of estate taxes and the lifting of various government regulations on industry and large businesses.

Such economic benefits are being enjoyed on a highly unequal basis, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank.

So, despite what the authors of the study conclude, Mr. Gumbel chants the liberal mantra of class envy and inequality. Then he buttresses his argument with nonsensical conclusions: the estate tax? Um...everybody on the list was ALIVE last year and had already received whatever inheritance under prior tax law. Of course, according to liberal tax guidelines, it's only "fair" when we're taxing the money away from the richest 1% on a "highly unequal basis" - the reverse could never be true. But, for those whose fortunes are almost entirely pegged to the market value of their equity holdings, it might stand to reason that when the price of MSFT goes up 10% year over year, Mr. Gates' net worth would be likely to increase accordingly.

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9 DAY WONDER:

Experts Say Court Panel Is Less Likely to Delay California Vote (ADAM LIPTAK, September 20, 2003, NY Times)

The 11-judge panel that will reconsider the California recall case includes eight appointed by Democratic presidents and just three appointed by Republicans, which at first blush might hearten the civil rights groups that had persuaded three judges, all appointed by Democrats, to delay the election in a decision issued Monday.

But the consensus among legal experts yesterday was that most of the judges on the larger panel of the court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, are either aligned with the circuit's more conservative wing or are moderate in the sense of avoiding drastic actions like calling off elections.

"As favorable as the original panel was for the A.C.L.U.," said Vikram Amar, a professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, "this is as favorable a panel as you can get for the other side." The A.C.L.U. Foundation of Southern California represents the civil rights groups in their challenge over punch-card voting.

Howard J. Bashman, a specialist in appellate law in Philadelphia, agreed, calling the panel about as conservative as one is likely to find on the Ninth Circuit.

"The panel seems to be much better than the recall proponents could have hoped for," Mr. Bashman said.

So, you know what it's time to to do:

THE 1ST ANNUAL BROTHERS JUDD CALIFORNIA RECALL PROGNOSTATHON:

It seems only fitting to top off the electoral festivities in the Golden State with a contest, to see who can best predict the outcome.

Here's the deal:

You pick the %'s of the "Yes" and "No" votes; the % of the vote that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cruz Bustamante will each get; and, as a tie breaker, the % of eligible voters who will turn out on October 7th.

We'll award whoever comes closest a copy of the magnificent new Illustrated version of James M. McPherson's Pulitzer-winning Battle Cry of Freedom and the runner-up a hot--off-the-presses paperback copy of Rick Atkinson's Pulitzer-winning Army at Dawn (both courtesy of our friends at FSB Associates).

Please go to this page to enter your picks.

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NO, I'LL RAISE THEM HIGHER!:

Another Day, Another Fight (Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, Steve Chaggaris and Clothilde Ewing, Sept. 18, 2003, CBS News)

John Kerry and Howard Dean were at it again on Wednesday over whether to repeal all of Bush’s tax cuts. The latest row came after Howard Dean told a New Hampshire college student that he favored rolling back all of Bush’s tax cuts, saying the cuts left little money for grants and loans to pay tuition costs, according to the AP.

Enter the Kerry camp. “The problem with this economy is not that the middle class is making out like bandits,” the Kerry camp responded. “What George Bush has done to the middle class is wrong. And, unfortunately, what Howard Dean wants to do is wrong for our middle class families as well.”

Kerry has called for repealing tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 a year while maintaining the child tax credit and marriage tax penalty. Howard Dean on the other hand has called for repealing all of the Bush tax cuts to pay for health care, homeland security and jobs. (Dean said earlier this month that his campaign is taking a look at re-vamping their approach
on the middle class tax cut issue, but no new plan has to date been released.)

Apparently if you say something often enough you make yourself believe it. So, Democrats, after twenty-five years criticizing the Reagan tax cuts and three years criticizing George Bush's, have convinced themselves that being pro-taxes is good turf on which to fight out an election. That's certainly true in their primaries, but it's going to be deadly in the general.

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MO' CASH (via Mike Daley):

Alone with the Man in Black: I went to do an interview with Johnny Cash - he so moved me that I gave up my job and became a novelist (Louisa Young, September 17, 2003, The Guardian)

So there I was, sitting in Johnny Cash's front room in Hendersonville, Tennessee, about 10 or 12 years ago. He'd been with journalists most of the day and I was the last. A couple, I knew from chatting to them, were hacks with less than no interest in country music. I was worse - I was a fan.

He's looking a little tired, and a little fed up, in a polite way. The room is dim, lots of furniture, glass-fronted cabinets full of June's crystal and cut-glass collection. [...]

We get to talking about the evils of the world. I mention a song he recorded: Here Comes That Rainbow Again, by Kris Kristofferson. It's a small drama. A pair of Okie kids, a waitress and some truckers are in a roadside cafe. The kids ask: how much are the candies? "How much have you got?" the waitress replies. "We've only a penny between us". "Them's two for a penny," she lies.

A trucker notices. "Them candies ain't two for a penny," he says, and "So what's it to you?' she replied. Then when the truckers leave "She called 'Hey, you left too much money!' 'So what's it to you?' they replied."

It sounds hokey - but it's not, not the way Cash sang it, and certainly not in its first incarnation - the song is based on an intensely touching scene from Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

I mention this.

"You know that book?" he says, his face lighting up.

"I love that book," I say. "And you know that book!" Why am I surprised that Johnny Cash has read Steinbeck?

"Know that book?" he says. "I was that book." He smiles at me. It's kind of like being smiled at by Monument Valley, or the Hoover Dam. He pronounces it "Grapesawrath", like Rose of Sharon is pronounced Rosasharn.

It's remarkable how many people, professional journalists in particular, are claiming a bot of Johnny Cash's life for their own. He's become Zelig-like in death.

MORE:
-Hello. I'm Johnny Cash: The grand old man of country music died last week after a long illness. Before his death, Sylvie Simmons spent five extraordinary days with him at his home near Nashville. She is the last journalist to have talked to him (Sylvie Simmons, September 19, 2003, The Guardian)

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WHAT ARE YOU LOOKIN' AT?:

Craving God's Attention (Graham Plaster, Relevant)

In the beginning, God created everything, and He saw that it was good. As the centerpiece to His creation, Adam and Eve enjoyed God’s intimate company, walking and talking with Him in the Garden of Eden. They were naked and unashamed. But in a moment they thought God wasn’t looking, they sinned against Him.

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord

God called to the man, *Where are you?’ He answered, *I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.’ And he said, *Who told you that you were naked?’” (Genesis 3:8-11).

Suddenly God’s gaze was more painful than pleasurable. On one hand, they were created to be with Him. On the other hand, they suddenly felt naked and inadequate. His attention became a double-edged sword.

After Cain killed his brother, God asked him, “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain replied that he didn’t know. God asked, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse *” (Genesis 4:9-11).

Despite the fact that God seems far away at times, I can always feel the heat of His eyes on me when I sin intentionally. Like Cain, I am often tempted to cover my faults when His attention is on me. The light He shines in my darkness is penetrating and painful, but perhaps even harder to accept than His discipline is the great mercy He showers.

In the end, mightn't we see atheism as nothing more than the attempt to cover our faults by denying His gaze?

MORE:
Belief in the Divine when being surrounded by evil (Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., Sept. 19, 2003, Jewish World Review)

A mother had brought her infant to the doctor for the second or third of a series of injections to immunize him against whooping cough, lockjaw, and diphtheria. When the baby saw the doctor clad in white, he began screaming, remembering only too well what had transpired on his last encounter. The baby clung to the mother, and when the mother tried to restrain the infant so the doctor could administer the injection, the baby began clawing, kicking, and biting the mother. She was now the enemy, collaborating with the vicious assailant who was about to stab him with the needle. Once the injection was over and the doctor left, the baby once again clung to the mother for dear life.

This scene was very revealing to me.

The infant, totally incapable of understanding anything about being protected from devastating diseases, perceived the process as an assault against him. The mother's collaboration with the assailant left no question but that she had turned against him, and he therefore attacked her. Once the painful episode was over and the mother released her restraint, the baby recognized her as his protector, as his life's source, and he turned to her for relief.

This is how we may sometimes relate to the Divine. When we are in distress, our anger at the Divine may be aroused, and we may express ourselves harshly toward the Divine we may rest assured that the Divine understands this very well, and does not love us any less for our attitude than the mother who is the recipient of the infant's hostility when she restrains him for the doctor. But after the particular incident is over, we turn back to the Divine for support and protection,

Being angry at the Divine is not at all blasphemous. Reflect for a moment. You cannot be angry at something that does not exist. Anger at the Divine is a very positive statement of one's conviction that the Divine exists, and is merely an expression of sharp disagreement brought on by distress. As one wise man said, "You can be for G-d or you can be against G-d. You just cannot be without G-d."

The acid test of faith is primarily the weathering of adversity without losing trust in The Divine, and the ability to accomplish this is a major step in spiritual progress.

And no one expresses more anger at God than atheists.

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NIGHTMARE ON STRAWBERRY TRAIL:

Out of the Ashes: Investigators find a suspect in a vicious arson fire that killed five dallas kids 15 years ago (JULIE LYONS, Sep 18, 2003, Dallas Observer)

He stood on lush grass that was soft as fleece and storybook green. The sun shone a brilliant white, sending waves of gentle warmth through his body, penetrating all the way to his bones. Someone was talking to him, reciting the names of his brothers and sisters and little niece: Demetra, Bernard, Ericka, Jamaal, Jasmas.

Ketrick Jordan knew he'd gone to see Jesus.

He rested there a moment, soaking up the light.

Then he woke up in hell.

He felt a jab of pain. Someone had stepped on his little finger, snapping a bone. He let out a holler.

The boot that broke his pinkie belonged to a fireman. "We have one alive," the man said.

The boy felt pain so excruciating that it saturated his nerve endings from head to toe. He was lying on his back in the grass; it was dark. He saw his aunt's legs walking by. He passed out.

He drifted back to consciousness in the ambulance and fixed his eyes on his underwear. They were pitch-black, like charred newspaper. Then he saw his legs. They were hideously burned, right down to the bone; he could actually see the bone poking out.

One of the paramedics started smearing some kind of ointment on Ketrick's raw limbs and torso. "This cream is gonna ease the pain," he said.

He saw his little brother Jamaal lying on his side on a stretcher, back turned, dressed in Ketrick's pajamas. He didn't stir, not a twitch. He seemed almost peaceful there.

"Is he alive?" Ketrick asked in a croaking voice.

The paramedics didn't say a word. They didn't even look at him.

The sirens hurt his ears, he remembered. He was extremely thirsty. At the hospital he saw his mother, Beverly Jordan, and begged her for water. She scrambled around until she found some. A doctor smacked the cup out of her hand.

"You'll kill him if you give him that water," Ketrick heard.

Later, he vaguely remembered someone saying they had to amputate his legs. Ketrick was barely hanging onto life; his heart had stopped more than once during those critical first hours. He'd suffered severe burns on more than half of his body, including his back, buttocks, arms and legs; if he were to survive, some of him would have to go.

When he woke up days later--after the first of some 30 surgeries over the years--he couldn't have cared less about his legs. He just wanted to know what happened to his family. He was in the burn unit at Parkland Memorial Hospital, and every now and then he'd hear someone shrieking in the room next door. He thought it was one of his brothers or sisters, though he'd later realize, through an abundance of firsthand experience, that it was just another patient going through the horribly painful process of getting his burns scrubbed.

"I was calling out their names," Ketrick recalls. "I'd ask the nurse, 'Is that my brother that I hear hollering? Is he all right?' She would never say nothing."

He figured it out pretty soon afterward--suspicions confirmed one day by the television in his hospital room, where he saw the grainy pictures of his two brothers, two sisters and niece, who ranged in age from 2 to 18. They were all dead, victims of one of the most heinous crimes in Dallas history.

It would come to be known as the Strawberry Trail fire, for the street in South Oak Cliff's Highland Hills neighborhood where it took place on September 28, 1988. It remains the city's deadliest arson/murder case on record and went unsolved for 13 years, even though police and fire investigators quickly assembled a list of street names for suspects.

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PHIL AND THE BIG IDEA: A LESSON IN ECONOMICS:

David vs. Cash Flow: Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber are in a pickle. (JONATHAN EIG, September 19, 2003 , Wall Street Journal)

Last November, Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber were big Hollywood stars. Now they're in a pickle.

"Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie" was one of the season's surprise hits, grossing more than $24 million at the box office, though its success was no surprise to longtime fans of Bob, Larry and the rest of the cartoon evangelical vegetables.

VeggieTales have dominated the Christian video market for the better part of a decade. The stories are silly and cute, with pop-culture references sprinkled throughout. Their messages are decidedly uncomplicated. If a child is unsure what to make of "Josh and the Big Wall," in which salad greens fight the battle of Jericho, the answer is right there on the front of the box. "A Lesson in Obedience," it says.

After its triumphant transition to the big screen, the company responsible for the VeggieTales franchise, Big Idea Productions, seemed a step closer to one of the goals stated on its Web site: "To become one of the top five family media brands in the country [rivaling Disney, Time Warner and other giants], and the most trusted of the family media brands."

Anybody seen The Ballad of Little Joe yet?

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ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO BE THERAPUETIC?:

Breast Implants Linked to Suicides (Sid  Kirchheimer, Sept. 12, 2003, WebMD Medical News)

A second study in only seven months shows that women who get breast implants commit suicide three times more often than women who don't - but at least one expert cautions that the findings could be misleading.

Both of these studies, done in Europe and together involving nearly 6,000 women who had the popular cosmetic surgery, follow a 2001 report on American women suggesting that those who get breast implants for augmentation face a nine-fold increased risk of suicide compared to women who don't get the procedure, and that they commit suicide four times more often than those who have other types of plastic surgery.

"All three studies suggest the need for surgeons who are doing these procedures to conduct thorough pre-operative psychological screening of patients," says David B. Sarwer, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology in psychiatry and surgery at the Center for Human Appearances at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "But very few are doing that."

Gosh, it seems like they'd be so well-adjusted and have such terrific self-images...

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THE KILLER INSIDE:

Eric Rudolph Slept Here: The most wanted man in America survived five years in the North Carolina woods, eating salamanders, sleeping on the cold ground, and stalking deer. Or so he says. Spend a night in his secret mountain hideaway and you get the feeling there's more to this story. (Bruce Barcott, September 2003, Outside Magazine)

"MAN COULD LIVE A LONG TIME IN THESE WOODS." Richard Farner says, pausing to lean against a red oak and light a cigarette. "If he knew what he was doing."

Deep in the foggy mountains of western North Carolina, Farner and I are picking our way up a steep, wooded slope marked off with police tape. "It's no big deal, surviving out here," Farner tells me. "There's plenty to eat. Bear, boar, deer, coon, possum, turkey, squirrel. Look there," he says, pointing to a spot where some critter has dug up the leafy forest floor. "There's some old hog roots."

Farner is a wire-thin hunting guide who's stalked game in these woods since he was seven. He's 52 now, but doesn't look a day over 90. He keeps his salt-and-pepper hair bunched in a ponytail, chain-smokes GT One Lights, and views the world through ghostly blue eyes. A tattoo on his right forearm reads tennessee. On his left: HILL BILLY.

It's early June, a little over a week since the capture of Eric Robert Rudolph, the 36-year-old accused serial bomber who, from January 1998 to May 2003, eluded one of the most intense manhunts in United States history by disappearing into the southern Appalachian wilderness. Farner and I are clawing up this muddy hollow to find Rudolph's last known hideout and explore the question of the moment: How did he do it?

After his capture, Rudolph told the authorities about two of his forest sanctuaries. His so-called summer camp sat in a beech stand on a hill a couple of hundred yards off Interstate 74, on the edge of the small mountain town of Murphy, in Cherokee County. His more remote winter camp was secreted in the steep, laurel-covered mountains nine miles east of Murphy, in the 530,000-acre Nantahala National Forest. After his arrest, Rudolph reportedly told his jailers that he'd survived on his own, eating salamanders and acorns, and that life on the lam was like a rugged five-year camping trip. The FBI isn't so sure. Following Rudolph's capture, federal agents continued combing the hills and grilling the locals, looking for more camps and evidence that might implicate an accomplice-or accomplices-who aided and abetted the fugitive's flight from justice.

Farner and I didn't even try to get to the off-limits summer camp, where evidence is still being processed. But the feds have finished their search of Rudolph's winter camp-on Tarkiln Ridge, a little-used cut of national forest in the Fire's Creek recreation area-which is where we've headed.

With a little snow, Tarkiln Ridge would qualify as a black-diamond run: It's relentlessly steep. After locating the FBI's trail and hiking about a half-mile and 700 vertical feet up the ridge, we reach a slight break in the slope. Here lie the remains of Rudolph's winter camp, a collection of small living stations scattered over an acre of terrain, camouflaged by patches of hemlock and laurel. At the camp's lowest point, a small rock outcropping serves as a storm shelter and sentry post. (An assault rifle was recovered here-a Belgian .223 FN/FAL, according to one report.) Two pits, which apparently served as food caches, are dug into the hillside; one is two feet deep, the other goes more than five feet down. Federal investigators emptied both but left behind an enormous spill of the grain that Rudolph allegedly stole from a farming operation near the Andrews-Murphy airfield.

Farner scoops some up. "Feed corn," he says. "Rye. Clay peas."

A boulder the size of a tractor-trailer marks the upper limit of the camp. Just below it sits Rudolph's fireplace. The fugitive had dug a bench into the hillside and inlaid it with 20 pieces of flat, blue-gray slate. The bench was constructed with painstaking care. I've seen sloppier inlay work done at $75 an hour.

I sit on the fireplace and sketch the camp. Farner lights a smoke and joins me. He nudges a pebble of coal out of Rudolph's small fire pit and looks puzzled.

"Five years," he says, "and that's all the ashes they is?"

The scene around us throws doubt on Rudolph's contention that he spent half a decade alone in the woods-or at least that he spent most of it here. There's no latrine, no animal bones. I've read that Rudolph's pit caches held 50 to 100 pounds of grain, which itself raises a question.

"That feed comes in 50-pound sacks," says Farner. "Can you figure him carrying a 50-pound sack up that ridge?"

Well, maybe. It's only a six-mile hike from the airfield to here, and nothing says Rudolph couldn't have dumped half the sack before making the trip. Other things don't add up, though. At one point, while I circle the remains of Rudolph's fire, a low-hanging branch slaps me in the throat. The branch would have nailed Rudolph-who at five foot eleven is five inches shorter than me-square in the eyes.

"If you stayed here, how many times would that branch hit you before you cut it off?" Farner asks. And what about that bench, which is just right for two people: Did Rudolph have guests? Farner draws on his cigarette, exhales, and spits. "He didn't do this alone," he says. "That man had help."

You know, you can make a coherent case for using violence to stop abortion--taking guilty life to save the innocent--but it never fails that the folks who resort to it are nutjobs. It would seem that the same ethos that leads one to value life in the first place must act as a restraint on those who are not deranged when it comes to even seemingly justifiable killing. Those who do end up killing do not have the courage of their convictions but are unstable.

In somewhat the same vein, this story comes as no surprise, Relatives at risk of suicide (Sarah Boseley, September 9, 2003, The Guardian)

Nearly a third of those who are investigated for the "mercy killing" of a friend or relative with a terminal illness end up committing suicide because of the trauma of what they have done and the strain of society's reaction, it was revealed yesterday.
People who proactively kill people, for whatever reason, appear to have a problem. Thus, the euthanasia movement ended up with the demented Dr. Kevorkian as its poster boy.

The question then is why so many want to turn this into a culture of death.

MORE
-The Violent Anti-Abortionist's Handbook: Executed for kiling an abortion-clinic doctor, Paul Hill leaves a book he hopes will inspire others to follow in his stead  (BROWARD LISTON , 9/05/03, TIME)
-The Executioner's Hill (Steve Kellmeyer, 9/06/03, Catholic Exchange)

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SPIRIT OF '76:

The Sound and the Fury: Lester Bangs and the relevance of rock criticism (David L. Ulin, 9/05/03, LA Weekly)

For anyone who grew up reading Creem and Crawdaddy in the 1970s, when rock & roll still seemed like it could change everything, Lester Bangs was an unofficial avatar, the rock critic's rock critic, his ability to make connections (who else would open a piece on the roots of punk by referencing literary critic Leslie Fiedler?) surpassed only by his honesty, his willingness to change his mind in public, as well as his own odd strand of empathy, his tendency to examine every nuance of an issue until he often ended up identifying with the very people he was arguing against. What you got from Bangs, in other words, was integrity, a sense that this stuff mattered, that anything could be the subject of serious consideration if you were willing to engage with it deeply enough.

Bangs died in 1982 at 33, the victim of an accidental Darvon overdose. In the generation since, he has come to occupy his own corner of the pop-culture pantheon, been mentioned in songs by R.E.M. and the Ramones, and even portrayed, in a bit of fact-meets-fiction reinvention, by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film Almost Famous. The more iconified he's become, the greater the distance between his image and his writing, between the myth of Bangs as gonzo genius and the reality of what he had to say. It was at least in part to set the record straight that Greil Marcus compiled Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, a 1987 collection of Bangs' writing, and it's for the same reason that John Morthland has now edited Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste, a companion volume that gathers more than 50 pieces on, among others, Jimi Hendrix, Sid Vicious, David Johansen, Captain Beefheart and Patti Smith. Reading them again, you can't help but revel in Bangsí vitality as a writer, the acuity of his thoughts on music and American life. "Given that one of his pet themes concerns romanticizing," Morthland points out, "or reducing to their most colorful caricature, pop figures (especially those who die young) rather than looking harder at the totality of their lives and the work that brought them to prominence in the first place, it's the very least a book such as this should do."

Like Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste is an attempt to show Bangs at his most incisive, as skeptical and idealistic, committed and disillusioned, at once. If that sounds contradictory, it is, and unapologetically so -- a stance that emerges most profoundly when he takes on his heroes, who include Miles Davis, the Rolling Stones and Lou Reed. Some of the pleasure here comes from hindsight; you have to laugh as Bangs asserts that, in a 1973 poll "asking who would be the next rock person to die, Keith [Richards] came in first. Lou Reed was second" (or when he comments, "The Rolling Stones lasting twenty, thirty years -- what a stupid idea that would be"). More to the point is his understanding that in an art as commercial as rock music, the acts we love are destined to disappoint and move us at the same time. Here is Bangs on the Stones' Sucking in the Seventies: "The Stones confess they sucked for most of the decade, but we sucked too, hey just one big happy family, except guess who sucked the bigger one?" Or Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music (64 minutes of electronic screeching): "Most of the people who buy Metal Machine Music are going to be pretty mad at Lou, but it's an even bigger joke on RCA, and the ultimate fall guy is the artist himself." What Bangs is getting at is complicity ó between the artist and the system, and both of them and the audience. ì[L]ook around you," he demands. "Do those look like people? Hell, they ain't even good enough to be animals. Androids is more like it, mutants at best. They have become the machines they worship, successfully post-human. Now go look in the mirror. Like what you see? Think you're pretty cool, eh? Well, reflect on the fact that they all think the same thing when they look in their mirrors. And you look just as grotesque to them as they do to you."

Psychotic Reactions is an excellent guide to how godawful and pretentious mainstream rock music had become by the 70's and how enjoyable that made punk rock when it came along to humble it.

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SIMPLE FAIRNESS:

Anger over adultery stoning case (CNN.Com, September 19, 2003)

Pressure is mounting on the Nigerian government to spare the life of a Muslim woman condemned to death by stoning for adultery.

An Islamic court in the northern Nigerian city of Katsina will next week rule on whether to acquit 31-year-old single mother Amina Lawal on charges of adultery, or uphold the sentence of death by stoning.

Protesters in South Africa and Nigeria have demanded a reversal of the decision first handed down in March last year and unsuccessfully appealed in August.

Lawal gave birth on January 6 last year, more than two years after her divorce but only six-and-a-half months after Katsina formally reinstituted Islamic Shariah law. [...]

South African protester Nomsa Makhaye echoed the sentiment of her president when she said to CNN, "It takes two to the tango, so why is it that just the woman must suffer?"

Nomsa Makhaye has it right. Stone the lover too.

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THEY'VE GOT A STATE DEPARTMENT; ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD:

'As Long as It Takes' Iraqis are on the road to democratic self-government. (COLIN POWELL, September 19, 2003, Wall Street Journal)

I have just returned from Iraq. What I saw there convinced me, more than ever, that our liberation of Iraq was in the best interests of the Iraqi people, the American people and the world. [...]

Streets are lined with shops selling newspapers and books with opinions of every stripe. Schools and universities are open, teaching young Iraqis the skills to live in freedom and compete in our globalizing world. Parents are forming PTAs to support these schools, and to make sure that
they have a voice in their children's future. The hospitals are operating, and 95% of the health clinics are open to provide critical medical services to Iraqis of all ages.

Most important of all, Iraqis are on the road to democratic self-government. All the major cities and over 85% of the towns have councils. In Baghdad, I attended a city council meeting that was remarkable for its normalcy. I saw its members spend their time talking about what most city councils are concerned with--jobs, education and the environment. At the national level I
met with an Iraqi Governing Council that has appointed ministers and is tak