July 2004 Archives

Bush's 9/11 Farce (washingtonpost.com)

Almost three years after the events of Sept. 11, 2001 -- the biggest intelligence failure in U.S. history -- and after his own administration went to war for reasons that did not exist, the president has ordered his crack staff to see which of the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations can be implemented fast and without congressional approval. Bush, you will recall, opposed the creation of the commission in the first place.

Surely we would have been better off to focus the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda: "War on Terror" is catchier but has ultimately served to give the Bush administration a blank check to undertake whatever illegal or repressive actions it wished. Cohen now points out, again, what everyone suspected: the Bush administration has never been serious about domestic security.

Mouthful Gets Metro Passenger Handcuffs and Jail (washingtonpost.com)

Curry-Hagler turned around and followed Willett into the station. Moments after making a remark to the officer, Willett said, she was searched, handcuffed and arrested for chewing the last bite of her candy bar after she passed through the fare gates. She was released several hours later after paying a $10 fine, pending a hearing.

What on earth made this woman think she could flout the law against eating in the Metro in front of a transit cop, continue to break the law after being warned by the officer, mouth off to the officer, and keep on walking after she had been ordered to stop, and that there would be no consequences. Unfortunately, it appears that she has learned nothing from the experience.

Arab Americans Report Abuse (washingtonpost.com)

Fifteen percent of Arab Americans in the Detroit area said they have experienced harassment or intimidation since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and a significant number wish other Americans understood them better, according to a University of Michigan report to be released today.

The real test of a civil society is how it treats its least popular members.

Francis Crick, DNA Scientist, Dies (washingtonpost.com)

Francis H.C. Crick, 88, co-discoverer of one of the most important scientific findings of the 20th century, the recognition of the "double-helix" structure of DNA as the blueprint to life, died Wednesday at the San Diego's Thornton Hospital. He had colon cancer.

The Correspondence of Queen Elizabeth I and King James VI An essay from my favorite professor at the University of Chicago.

"The Wrath of the Northmen": The Vikings and their Memory Another article by von Nolcken, with a fascinating contemporary Arab account of a Viking burial ceremony.

I recently read Egil's Saga, one of the best known and most extensive of , and one that sets the tone for many of the other sagas in the collection I am reading. I almost took a class with Christina von Nolcken when I was at the University of Chicago, so I was quite interested to find that she had an online essay on Egil: Egil Skallagrimsson and the Viking Ideal. A slightly oversimplified view of the sagas is that when they were not raiding Denmark or the British Isles, the Vikings were generally either engaged in killing each other or suing each other for wrongful death. One of the most interesting literary features of the sagas is that major characters such as Egil are not only explorers, plantation owners, and warriors, but also poets. Egil's speeches at significant moments are spoken in verse, and it is clear that the Vikings esteemed poetry very highly.

Vegetarians in Paradise/Avocado history, Avocado nutrition, Avocado recipe/Avocado folklore

Blondie, Fairuz, Paul Simon, Saut El Atlas, Isabelle Boulay. Write on!

MoorishGirl

MoorishGirl mentions that the latest issue of Tingis is out.

The Summer 2004 issue of Tingis, a quarterly magazine devoted to Morocco, is now available, with non-fiction by Anouar Majid, David Kuchta, Oumelbanine Zhiri, and others.

I like the magazine, so I am pleased to see it getting more exposure, and I am looking forward to receiving my summer issue.

In the meantime, I am trying out my new CD of Gnawa and Issawa music.

WGMS reminds me why I love Rossini.

I caught Friday Night Jazz at Borders at 18th and L, N.W. tonight. The great thing was that the four person combo — trumpet, piano, bass, and drums — wasn't a regular group even though they sounded like one. They were just four musicians who get together a couple of times a year to play.

Charleston.Net: News from the Associated Press

The law has caught up with Bobby Fischer for having an expired passport. His detention by the Japanese authorities may be a way to show that they are cooperating with the United States in apprehending international lawbreakers before they have to make the difficult choice of whether to hand over deserter Charles Robert Jenkins. Jenkins is married to a Japanese woman, so turning him over to U.S. authorities for prosecution may not be a popular decision.

Charleston.Net: News from the Associated Press

MADRID, Spain (AP) -- Europe's biggest terrorist threat is Morocco - seething with as many as 1,000 al-Qaida adherents capable of suicide attacks and skilled at slipping through the continent's southern gateway, Spain's leading anti-terrorism judge testified Thursday.

It's not as though Spain has been pointing the finger at Morocco for the last 1500 years, or anything.

The New York Times > Books > Books of The Times | 'Resurrecting Empire': Those Who Ignore History Are Doomed to Hear About It

Rashid Khalidi is an angry man. He is angry at the Bush administration for ignoring experts on the history and politics of the Middle East. He is angry at the neoconservatives who filled the gap with their ignorance and "blind zealotry." He is angry at the decision to invade Iraq, and the grave consequences that resulted.

I met Rashid Khalidi briefly while I was a student at the University of Chicago. When I emerge from my current absorption in Norse sagas and Celtic mythology and turn my attention to the Arab World again, I intend to pick up a copy of his book.

The New York Times > Travel > An Ancient Scottish Isle

I heard the name of the Outer Hebrides, a chain of islands 40 miles off the northwest coast of Scotland, as a siren's call. Once, as a young reader, I had briefly confused it with the Hesperides, a mythical garden at the edge of the world famous for its golden apples. Ever since, I had thought of those Scottish islands as magical places.

Next time I go to Scotland, I would like to answer the siren's call.

Portland was beautiful, a milder version of Maine. The ceremony was very simple and very beautiful, a quick exchange of vows in the evening on the banks of the Willamette River. After the ceremony, we devoured a spit roasted pig and watched fireworks.

A recent post by Halley Suitt suggests that there is nothing unusual about what the Washingtonienne had to say. What was unusual was that — deliberately or not — she let herself get caught writing a sex journal from a Senate computer.

Off to Portland, Oregon, for my cousin's wedding!

Rachel's new word: "boom!"

Frank Kinahan's scrutinizes at length the Irish legend of Oisin and Niamh that formed the basis for William Butler Yeats' The Wanderings of Oisin. Oisin, leader of the Fenians, who have been vanquished in battle, is lured away to the realm of Faery by the faery Niamh, who has fallen in love with him. Once there, Oisin spends a hundred years hunting, a hundred years fighting, and a hundred years sleeping. Upon his return to the earth, against Niamh's wishes, the full weight of his three hundred years falls upon him when his foot touches the earth. He lives long enough to recount his story to St. Patrick. Niamh wastes away and dies.

One suspects that J.R.R. Tolkien, a professor of Medieval English literature at Oxford, had stories such as Oisin's in mind when he composed the stories of Beren and Luthien (see the ) and of Aragorn and Arwen (see ). The twist, in Tolkien, however, is that the emphasis is on the renunciation by the Elf of her immortality for the sake of love, rather than on the mortal human's renunciation of the chance for immortality.

Kinahan emphasizes that the realm of poetry is the impermanent, material world, not the unchanging (and sterile?) realm of Faery or the occult, a truth that both Yeats and Tolkien implicitly recognize.

Chinese Pressure Dissident Physician (washingtonpost.com)

BEIJING -- Chinese military and security officials are forcing the elderly physician who exposed the government's coverup of the SARS epidemic to attend intense indoctrination classes and are interrogating him about a letter he wrote in February denouncing the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Arabic Language A Tough Assignment (washingtonpost.com)

According to a survey by the Modern Language Association, the number of students at U.S. colleges enrolled in Arabic language courses nearly doubled from fall 1998 to fall 2002 -- the largest growth rate of any foreign language during that period. At Georgetown University, enrollment in Arabic courses is up by 300 percent since 2001. At George Washington, twice as many students applied as could be admitted into the new summer-long intensive Arabic program.

It is encouraging to hear of more interest in Arabic as a foreign language, discouraging to be reminded how difficult the language is and how few people study it despite renewed interest.

According to W.B. Yeats' Faery and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, butterflies in Irish folklore are the souls of the dead awaiting entry into Purgatory.

NAMES & FACES (washingtonpost.com)

Stop the presses! Or should we say start the presses? Washingtonienne, that 26-year-old infamous former Hill staffer who grabbed everyone's attention by blogging each nitty-gritty detail of her sexual escapades with six men, not only has a six-figure book deal anchored with Hyperion Disney, but the rumor that she'll be posing for Playboy mag is true, too! (November issue, for those interested.)

The Post's Reliable Source has the background on 26-year-old Jessica Cutler, a.k.a. Washingtonienne. Her Senate boss chose a creative legal angle when he fired her; apparently she was discharged for misuse of government property because she was blogging on a Senate computer. In a way, it is odd that the Senator gave her a reason; I would have thought that a Senate staff job would be at-will, and that a Senate staffer could be fired for any reason or no reason at all.

It is remarkable not only how much attention this story has garnered, but how much anger it has generated, as evidenced by comments on the Wizbang weblog.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Moore's Public Service

Paul Krugman echoes Barbara Ehrenreich's column of a comple of days ago, in which he points out that Michael Moore — unlike the privileged George Walker Bush — comes from an ordinary background. Krugman thinks that Moore — whose tone and political conspiracy theories he does not endorse — nevetheless has performed an essential service by telling stories about the Bush administration that the mainstream media lacked the moxy to reveal. And he makes a good point when he states that Moore's critics point to Moore's alleged distortions, but they have little to say about he Commander in Chief's.