Thanks to Jim Higgins for suggesting this. Weblogger William Fields is also a wonderful composer. Here’s a page of Fields’ Music at his website, with links to downloads.

As an unabashed anglophile, I’m indebted to plep for pointing to this index of British Myths & Legends.

Tuning in to multimedia reporting:

For the past year, NPR has been asking its radio reporters to lug digital cameras and video cameras an assignments as a way of enhancing its Web site. Reporters are not required to add cameras to their usual bag of sound recorders, but the station’s push for a greater Web presence has made incorporating multimedia into its reports inevitable.

“These people are certainly not professional photographers, but they capture what reporters are seeing on the ground,” said Maria Thomas, vice president of NPR Online. CNN

Dear Members of the American Conservative Union Foundation:

I am highly concerned about an escalation among people to advance their political causes through violence. What has been remote for most of my lifetime–groups with particular interests expressing their positions with car-bombs and automatic weapons–is no longer just something I see on the news. I’ve seen terrorism out my window. It is out of this concern that I appeal to you to issue a public statement denouncing the call to violence implicit in the comments of Ann Coulter at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 2, 2002.

Ann Coulter said, “When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors.”

It promotes neither unity nor security to stand behind a statement that people who share a particular ideology within our society ought to be murdered. It does not serve national unity to assert that John Walker is a liberal when he is not. It does it serve national security to assert that liberals have any particular likelihood to evolve into traitors.

The purpose of the CPAC, to “advance important everyday issues such as taxes, crime, culture and foreign policy and to provide basic conservative viewpoints and solutions” is ill-served when the overwhelming message the CPAC brings to the greater community is a call to exterminate fellow citizens. I think that the community at large wants to know that conservatives don’t truly intend to work toward a future where opposing viewpoints are punishable by death.

I am concerned about the impact of Ann Coulter’s statement on the people of our nation, wherever they stand on the political spectrum, as they read about the recent conference in the press. As the developer of the nations premiere conservative conference, the CPAC, it is up to you to whether you want to send a message to America that a new mission of conservatism is to promote the murder of “college liberals” by letting Ms. Coulter’s statement represent the tone of the CPAC, or to send a message to America that the American Conservative Union does not advocate the physical intimidation of law-abiding citizens because of their political beliefs. As much of the public is concerned, I appeal to you to make a public statement denouncing Ms. Coulter’s inflammatory remarks.

Thank You…

Schools Translate Terror Into Curriculum Changes: ‘The Sept. 11 terror attacks and their aftermath are taking a front-and-center seat in the nation’s classrooms, sparking a surge of student interest in topics from Arabic to crisis management and prompting educators in fields as disparate as Islamic studies and microbiology to revamp their courses.’ Washington Post

Pakistan Hopes Suspect’s Family Will Lead to Pearl. “Getting closer every day.” Sounds ominously like whistling in the dark to me… NY Times

“I don’t know where he’s coming from, except he’s the director and he’s in denial. It was absurd. Nobody in the building believed it, not even the people who were cleaning up the room.” — Sen. Richard Shelby (R.-Ala.)

Wolf Blitzer: CIA Intelligence Failures? ‘When Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet appeared this week before the Senate Intelligence Committee — his only public question-and-answer session since September 11– he firmly denied that there was any U.S. intelligence failure leading up to the terrorist attacks. “Where did the secret for the planning reside?” he asked the senators. “Probably in the head of three or four people, and at the end of the day, all you can do is continue to make the effort to steal that secret and break into this leadership structure. And we have to keep working at it. There will be nothing you do that will guarantee 100 percent certainty here. It will never happen.” ‘ CNN

Safety board says pilots can cause tail fin to break off

‘Many airline pilots are unaware that their maneuvering can cause part of an airplane’s tail fin to break off, the National Transportation Safety Board announced Friday during a progress report on the crash of American Airlines Flight 587.

“We’ve calculated that certain rudder inputs by pilots made during certain stages of a flight can cause catastrophic failure of an airline’s vertical stabilizer,” said NTSB chairwoman Marion Blakey.’ CNN

Reports of Priests’ Abuse Enrage Boston Catholics. ‘As the number of implicated clergy members soared to 80, the crisis grew so deep that nearly half the Roman Catholics polled said Cardinal Bernard Law should resign. The turmoil over what church officials knew, when they knew it and what they did or did not do to protect themselves and their parishioners has rocked a region that is more than 50% Catholic.’ LA Times Certainly, to use Malcolm Gladwell’s phrase, we seem to have reached a tipping point in public sentiment, although this emerging evidence of a longstanding Catholic Church coverup should have surprised no one…

No matter what your position on capital punishment, think for a moment about the barbarity of sending to her/his execution someone without sufficient mental capacity to grasp the fact of her/his imminent demise. Now, some glad tidings in this regard: Va. Moves To Limit Executions — ‘The Virginia Senate voted unanimously today to bar the execution of mentally retarded people convicted of capital crimes, a highly unusual step for a state legislature that since the 1970s has consistently expanded the reach of the death penalty.

By shielding a mentally retarded person, Virginia would join 18 states, including Maryland, that bar such executions.’ Washington Post

Creating a Stir Wherever She Goes

“What does `Moving Devi’ mean?” (the organizer) asked.

“The answer,” she said, “is a change in the relation of the subject who is writing from a place where Devi belongs as she slowly moves into the text of the museum. What I’m looking at here is that itinerary, not the nostalgic identatrianism of the metropolitan migrant.”

As she spoke, Ms. Spivak summoned a dazzling array of references: Marx, Hegel, Freud, Lacan, Rilke, Aristotle, and Hindu and Sufi mysticism. “The Sufi is not invaginated in the polytheistic universe,” she said, “but the supernatural is invaginated in the natural.” NY Times

Two pieces of cannabis-related news from the New York Times: Oregon Doctor Stands Out in Marijuana Prescriptions. One Portland MD has granted 50% of the authorizations under Oregon’s recently-passed medical-marijuana law. Regulators who cannot quibble with the law, the will of Oregon voters, are turning to the standards of care the doctor uses to diagnose and treat his patients. He has previously been disciplined for inappropriate prescribing of pain medications.

And: the DEA has extended its deadline for banning hemp in food, about which I wrote when the regulation was first proposed as one of those examples of narrow-minded misguided witchhunt mentality I’m so fond of railing against…

Philippine Arrest Offers Clues to Web Of Asian Terrorists. As attention in the America-Strikes-Back® Show shifts to the role of Islamic insurgencies in Southeast Asia, I wonder whether the US notion about a global conspiracy of terrorists, reflected in stories like this from the Washington Post, is largely a self-serving fantasy-land misreading of local movements. In an earlier iteration of the same pathology of American thought, it is clear in retrospect that there really was never a global conspiracy of Communism to dominate the world; rather Marxist ideology and alignment with foes of the West was a convenient and inspiring peg on which local self-determination movements hung their hat. Makes me wonder whether shaping bin Laden and al Qaeda’s image into that of global masterminds of terrorism is actually going to drive local insurgents to forge new links to their heroic figurehead, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. I haven’t seen much to indicate the contrary, that other ‘terrorist’ groups are running scared, chastened by the ferocity of US resolve.

A related point by Michael Kinsley: ‘The more things you call terrorism, the fewer you are likely to wipe out.’ Slate And The Progressive‘s editor Matthew Rothschild comments:

‘There was something almost pathetic about George W. Bush’s attempt to make his fight against terrorism akin to the fight against the Nazis.

In his State of the Union address, he evoked the comparison when he said that North Korea, Iran, Iraq, “and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil.” ‘

And, from Toronto Star

columnist Thomas Walkom [via wood s lot]:

The war against terrorism is a brilliant construct. It may not have been started by George W. Bush, but it certainly works to his advantage.

It has provided oomph to the sagging U.S. economy and a new raison d’être for the alliance of politicos, defence contractors and security specialists who make up what former U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower christened the military-industrial complex.

What makes this war so superior, in political terms, is its vagueness. Since the terrorist, by definition, can be anyone — the man in the next apartment, the person lurking on the subway platform — we can never be sure who the enemy is.

Also noticed by wood s lot, from Stephanie Salter in the SF Chronicle [via CommonDreams]:

Bush: All War All the Time —

“…(W)hen it comes to marketing a mediocre product, my hat is off to the GOP.

Nobody does it better.

In George W. Bush, Republicans have transcended the Emperor’s New Clothes Hall of Fame. And, now, thanks to the murderous, Sept. 11 deeds of a newly christened “evil axis,” Republicans hardly need to work to ensure long-lasting, widespread brand loyalty for their boy.

In fact, as Bush so enthusiastically demonstrated in his State of the Union message last week, the only thing his administration must do is keep America afraid and “at war.”

[All right, enough already, Eliot, they get the picture…]

Two pieces of interesting war news in the Washington Post

today: Taliban Foreign Minister Gives Up. “The foreign minister of the Taliban, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, surrendered to Afghan government officials yesterday and was turned over to U.S. forces, U.S. officials said last night. He is believed to be the highest-ranking member of the Taliban to have beentaken into custody.”

And “I’m not angry at the Americans. It’s not their fault, it was Mullah Mohammad Omar and his friends’ fault. They’re the ones to blame.”

While Washington debates its culpability for civilian casualties in the U.S. war on terrorism and Omar’s radical Taliban movement, ‘Kabul has proven remarkably forgiving of military attacks that have mistakenly killed innocent people. Afghan political leaders eager to cement good relations with the West for the difficult days of reconstruction ahead have brushed off the issue as largely insignificant. And even many of the ordinary Afghans who have suffered most as a result of what the Pentagon calls “collateral damage” express little bitterness toward the foreigners who visited it upon them.’ While the reporter acknowledges that the sentiment may not reflect feeling in other parts of the country, there is no broad sense of outrage in the capital. Could it be, however, that he has access largely to those who have a vested interest in US reconstruction aid? He admits that the issue of ‘collateral damage’ is discussed, with some irritation, only when brought up by journalists.

Fury at president’s ‘axis of evil’ speech: Patten lays into Bush’s America: ‘Chris Patten, the EU commissioner in charge of Europe’s international relations, has launched a scathing attack on American foreign policy – accusing the Bush administration of a dangerously “absolutist and simplistic” stance towards the rest of the world.

As EU officials warned of a rift opening up between Europe and the US wider than at any time for half a century, Mr Patten tells the Guardian it is time European governments spoke up and stopped Washington before it goes into “unilateralist overdrive”.’ Uhhh, George? Anybody home? There’s probably no more valuable, trustworthy feedback you should be listening to than the growing sense of everyone in Europe (except your obsequious toady Blair) that you haven’t a clue on how to manage a real alliance if your life depended on it…