The Education of Mary Robinson by Kareem Fahim:

“When Mary Robinson, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights, announced in recent weeks that she will leave her post in September, it was widely understood as the result of the Bush administration’s anger with her performance over the last year. She was criticized for her handling of the World Racism Conference in Durban last summer—which the United States, along with Israel, walked out of—and, perhaps fatally, for her very public concerns regarding the American war on terrorism after September 11.” The Village Voice

From the first Pop Music Studies Conference in Seattle: ‘Yes, there were talks about the shape of poetry and the plundering of genres, about representation and signification and diaspora. But though it had its clunkers, the conference proved a real bust for those Casaubons who bought tickets to Seattle hoping to hear the kind of criticism they like—dated, labyrinthine, and wishbone dry. Instead they got Last Plane to Jakarta zine-ist and Mountain Goat John Darnielle dramatically reading Poison fan mail, New York Times wunderkind K. Sanneh’s VH1-smooth take-out on MCs who won’t admit they’re MCs, the dotcom delirium of Listen.com’s Tim Quirk’s wry memoir “Topless at the Arco Arena,” Joshua Clover defending sameness in a multi-tiered reverie-analysis over Bob Seger’s sibilant “Night Moves,” and Glenn Dixon’s exposé of Christ-rock God-lust, “Making It With the Man Upstairs.” ‘ The Village Voice

Pope Says Priestly Pedophilia ‘A Crime’ ‘Pope John Paul, in his first words about child abuse in the U.S. Church, told its leaders on Tuesday that it was “rightly considered a crime” by society and that there was no place in the Church for it.’ Reuters via Yahoo! News

Abu Zubaydah says al Qaeda aims at building ”dirty bomb”: “Abu Zubaydah also told interrogators al Qaeda knew how the weapon could be smuggled into the United States. The network added that officials were unsure whether Zubaydah was ‘telling the truth or bragging.’

It said an FBI public warning issued on Friday to banks in the United States was based on a claim by Abu Zubaydah that al Qaeda was planning attacks on financial institutions.” Al Bawaba

Chinese Hail Viagra: “Chinese accept the idea that you can eat something to make up for what you lack and for thousands of years men have taken things made from deer penis or snakes or dog penis,” Dr. Ma said. “So now they have something that works!” NY Times

‘White Dot is based in Chicago and Brighton. We seek to answer that ridiculous question: “What do you do if you don’t watch TV?” and we keep an eye on the television industry. We have also written the anti-TV survival guide, Get A Life, published in Britain by Bloomsbury Publishing. Find out why the Guardian said it “hums like a little intellectual buzz saw, slicing through the pretensions of all those who people the plastic box” and called it “the finest rant available between hardcovers”!’

Related: This is Adbusters‘ TV Turnoff Week.

Should History Record the Unvarnished Bush? Don’t read the official transcripts if you want to be entertained by his bloopers and buffoonery — you’ll barely find them there. Washington Post

Al Qaeda Interrogations Fall Short of the Mark: “The effort to obtain information from al Qaeda and Taliban fighters detained at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba has been hampered by inexperienced interrogators and linguists, military bureaucracy and squabbles among private language contractors, according to sources familiar with the government’s mission there.” Washington Post The US ‘intelligence’ brought to bear on the Guantanamo detainees sounds as embarrassing as the proverbial gauche boorish American tourist abroad…