Recall, I’d been curious about whether any attention was bing paid to the African American reaction to the terrorist attacks. AlterNet observes: Old Glory’s New Appeal to Blacks — “For a younger generation of African Americans like Jones, now may be the first time they have felt such a level of identification and belonging in their national homeland. In the absence of national conflict, younger blacks have often felt like outsiders in America as they have had to deal with America’s history of racial oppression and remnants of racial discrimination that are an everyday reality.

But the terrorist attacks, which killed people of all racial backgrounds, religions and nationalities, have forced many African Americans to come to grips with their Americanness.”

Many of today’s blinks courtesy of Phil Agre’s Red Rock Eaters list. Sadly, here’s what Agre has to say today:

This is the last of these encyclopedic collections of URL’s about the

attack and war that I am going to put together. It’s too much work.

Besides, I feel like the fever broke today. The war talk has suddenly

calmed down, having finally confronted the reality that there’s no

single place to drop a bomb. The whole world has now shifted into

some weird new configuration, and we’re going forward from there.

I’d rather have the old world, obviously, but this new world has some

real advantages. I am struck that American culture, amidst all of

the bad feelings that anyone would have, is more thoughtful and less

absorbed with trivia than it was last month. Maybe the rageaholics

will even lose their grip on our political system. We’ll have to see.

We’re going to have civil liberties controversies in this new world,

that’s for sure, and I’ll certainly be covering those. And please

do keep sending URL’s that represent, say, the top 5% most important

URL’s reporting information that people aren’t going to come across

by reading the major papers. I hope that everyone has been introduced

to some new information sources by these reader-contributed URL’s; I

know I have.

If anybody wants to take over the job of collating URL’s related to the

war, let me know. I’m not sure how that would work, exactly. Maybe

I would simply announce your address to the whole list and ask people

to send the stuff to you. Then you can filter and arrange them however

you want.

Grasping Ruins: Todd Gitlin’s meditation on various aspects of the attack and its aftermath: “We had better inquire deeply into this hatred because terrorists are neither gods nor animals who massacre and ruin and call their acts godly. Others, possibly already in place, may be consecrated to their furious cause, ready to murder again, even with joy in their hearts. To stop terrorism will require more than military self?defense, more than police and courts. Can there be any doubt, to thoughtful people of all persuasions and nations, that there is an urgent need for some disciplined curiosity?”

The people who resolve to do whatever necessary to destroy their Great Satan of choice devote themselves to years of planning. Their lives become the planning and they disappear into their tasks. He who signs up for such schemes convinces himself that there is a devil responsible for his and his people?s wounds; that his hatred is love?for his people or his God? and that he must regenerate himself as pure righteousness and fling himself against absolute evil. As a man, he does not matter. He melts himself down into a symbol, a symbol at war with symbols. Deploying himself against the heart of American capitalism and its chief military citadel, he will overcome earthly limits.

Violence is crucial in his scheme. Violence is at once his break from yesterday, his link to a glorious past and his door to the luminous future. Claiming ancient vindication and denying his modernity, except when it comes to techniques, he struggles to fuse the glorious past with a glorious future and burns up the present between them. To such a man, there can be no civilians. His pure totality is at war against the enemy?s impure totality. Of this, sacred men assure him. If the dead matter at all, it is as symbols themselves, symbols of the raw power, he believes, that has brought him and his people low. Their deaths will stand for his rectitude, inspirations to those who will come along behind him, inspired by his martyrdom.

Open Democracy

Airport security guard arrested for asking police officer for ID Globe and Mail

Obscure Team Scans Systems To See Where Enemy May Hit. ‘The eclectic, low-profile researchers — among them, a college physics

professor, a nuclear engineer and a veteran of the federal government’s Y2K

preparations — are working in near-obscurity at the Commerce Department.

The team is trying to map the government’s electronic underbelly to identify

the systems and services whose failure or disruption by a hacker or foreign

enemy could cripple the U.S. military or economy or threaten public health,

and to determine how those systems are linked with, or “cascade” upon,

others.’ Wall Street Journal via lists.jammed.com

Editorial: Take the broad view— “This umbrage over presumed US rejection doesn’t behove (sic) us. Members of the cabinet, among others, are still apparently smarting from the perceived US rejection of India?s offer of bases and logistic support. When the US published a list of terrorist and other organisations whose assets were frozen, the cry went up that India?s concerns were ignored. All this unhappiness is absurd and unnecessary and comes from looking at the global fight against terrorism through the prism of India-Pakistan rivalry.” The Indian Express

Happy New Year: It’s 1984. “Seventeen years later than expected, 1984 has arrived. In his address to Congress Thursday, George Bush effectively declared permanent war — war without temporal or geographic limits; war without clear goals; war against a vaguely defined and constantly shifting enemy.” Common Dreams

Berlusconi: The West must conquer Islam: “Breaking ranks with allies reaching out to the Muslim world, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday said Western civilization is superior to Islam. He also said he hopes the West conquers Islamic civilization.

The conservative billionaire’s remarks were instantly disavowed by more moderate politicians in Italy, who called them both ill-timed and offensive.” Salon

White House Drops Claim of Threat to Bush: “The Bush administration appeared to back away yesterday from its claim that a threat was lodged against Air Force One on the day terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.” Doubts about the original ‘spin’ the White House put on Bush’s limited visibility for most of Sept. 11th; are you surprised? Washington Post

Most victims male; many were parents. “A portrait of the people the terrorists murdered Sept. 11 is slowly emerging…” USA Today

When I walked into my local Starbucks yesterday, they were prominently displaying a tally of how much money Starbucks has donated to the relief effort. Now for something completely different — the Guardian UK reports that Starbucks charged rescuers for water: “A branch of the coffee chain Starbucks charged New York rescue workers for water to treat victims of the suicide attack on the World Trade Centre, it emerged today.

Ambulance workers were forced to scramble in their pockets for money to pay a $130 (£88) bill for three cases of water used to treat victims for shock after the twin towers collapsed.”

Architects don’t foresee skyscraper’s demise — “…while skyscrapers may be a painful reminder to some of the September 11 destruction, it’s unlikely they’ll stop sprouting on the urban landscape in the wake of the attacks, architectural experts say.” CNN

Amygdala’s Inner Workings: “The amygdala, an almond-sized and -shaped brain structure, has long been linked with a person’s mental and emotional state. But thanks to scientific advances, researchers have recently grasped how important this 1-inch-long structure really is. Associated with a range of mental conditions from normalcy to depression to even autism, the amygdala has become the focal point of numerous research projects.” The Scientist

“There is no time, there will be time…” A 1998 Forbes magazine essay by Peggy Noonan “devoted to the subject of time–how we experience time, how modern men and women relate to it in ways that might be different from our predecessors. Ms. Noonan has received many requests for reprints since the events in New York the past week.” Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal

Jon Cohen, a writer for Science: Vax Populi: “A viable anthrax vaccine exists. Why aren’t we making it and other defensive vaccines available to the public?” Scroll down for an excellent compilation of links to bioterrorism resources. Slate

Kiss and make up: “Like animals, humans can transcend their capacity for violence…

Humans might be forgiven a little despair now as the warplanes gather and terrorists hide. But in the animal world, giving in completely to the dark side is out of the question.” San Francisco Chronicle

Girls giggle and guys grunt. New Scientist

Response displays kindness of strangers: “Help selflessly offered in emergency situations differs somewhat from everyday acts of kindness, according to psychologist John Dovidio of Colgate University in New York.

In non-emergency situations, people are more selective about who they help and consider the potential costs and benefits of lending a helping hand.” Times-Dispatch

Rouse yourself! Sit up!

Resolutely train yourself to attain peace.

Do not let the king of death, seeing you are careless,

lead you astray and dominate you.

–Sutta Nipata II, 10

Daily Words of the Buddha

An Open Letter to the Peace Movement, a letter to the editor of the Willamette Week Online from Portland playwright Charles Deemer: ‘…(T)here has not been a single military action by the United States that I’ve supported as an adult. Not one.

Over the years, however, I’ve expressed the view that, if the U.S. were under attack, I would support a military response. And I believe that is the case now, which is why I am leaving your ranks.

I am writing to share my steps in deciding to leave the peace movement; to challenge you to do your work in a way that is constructive rather than divisive (as I believe your early responses have been); and to urge you to avoid easy analogies, such as Vietnam, and to find radical new ways to “wage peace.” ‘ [via Ed Fitzgerald]

Mr. Putin’s Choice: “On Monday, Mr. Putin gave Chechnya’s rebels a 72-hour deadline to begin talks on disarmament with his envoy in the region, and he demanded that they “halt all contacts with terrorists and their international organizations.” The statement suggested the possible onset of a major new Russian offensive against the Chechens, which Mr. Putin would insist be accepted on the grounds that some allies of Osama bin Laden allegedly have joined the Chechen resistance.” Washington Post editorial

George Will’s style of yellow journalism and saber rattling, in the Washington Post. There’s no such thing as a war against an abstraction, so we’d better get about the business of Taking Down Enemy Territory. ‘Soon, on campuses, in the media and in Congress (where, in 1991, 47 senators opposed using force to reverse Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait), there will be familiar calls to confine the war to minor objectives. But those objectives would mock the president’s calculated and correct use of the word “war.” When advocates of merely minor objectives are praised as “cooler heads,” the pertinent attribute may be cold feet.’

Anti-terrorism proposals worry civil libertarians. “Advocacy groups, legal experts and some members of Congress are voicing strong concerns that a proposal to expand law enforcement powers in order to ratchet up the fight on terrorism could end up treading on civil liberties enjoyed by all Americans.” CNN

Readers of FmH know I’m often preoccupied with civil liberties issues, and I have since Sept. 11th covered concerns about whether a precipitous reform of law enforcement authority will exact too steep a price to our fundamental rights. In the last few days, I’ve been even more worried about another civil liberties implication of these events, more along the lines of my membership in Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch than the ACLU. The “allies” whose cooperation we are seeking for our global “war on terrorism” are surely looking for concessions in return. They include some authoritarian regimes whose repressive stance toward their own citizens we may no longer have the discretion to object to. The threat of terrorism or of domestic unrest over being in bed with the U.S. may be the impetus, or the pretext, for such regimes to take even more draconian measures, that will make any domestic clampdown in our civil liberties pale in significance by comparison. (Many so-called anti-terrorism measures are of course not really about terrorism, although at times of passion it may be an effort to stop and analyze the implications of proposed new state powers to conclude that.) “If you thought the Taliban were monsters, just wait until you meet the West’s new friends…” warns the Sydney Morning Herald.

Amid fears, antibiotic selling fast: “Pharmacists in New York have sold greater-than-normal amounts of antibiotics for treating anthrax, a highly contagious and potentially fatal disease, amid rising fear of biological warfare.

Sales of antibiotics normally rise in September, when children return to school and parents worry about their exposure to infections. But pharmacists said the sale of Bayer AG’s antimicrobial drug Cipro are much higher than usual.” So reports the Boston Globe, which also has an opinion piece exhorting the U.S. to take this opportunity to reinstitute Iraqi weapons inspections.

Meanwhile, in the New York Times, frightened Europeans snap up gas masks, an editorial on the specter of biological terror, and a report on added security for dams, reservoirs and aqueducts.

In my region, the Quabbin Reservoir in Western Massachusetts, which supplies much of Boston’s water supply, has been “off-line” since last weekend when two light aircraft swooped low over its waters. Experts attempt to reassure us that contaminating the water supply is not as easy as most doomsday scenarios would have it, because the volume of reservoirs is so great that anything short of multiple truckloads of toxic material would be diluted to harmlessness. Will post-attack fears heighten watershed consciousness? How many urban dwellers even know with confidence where their drinking water comes from? Should we all become much more conversant with the language of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and CBW (chemical and biological warfare)? The Bush admnistration had been reluctant to sign a treaty (one of the many at which it thumbed its nose in its go-it-alone stance until Sept. 11th) that would have tightened controls on the production of biological agents, supposedly because it would have obligated us to reveal details of our so-called “defensive” research into virulent strains of anthrax and who knows what else. Will the administration be able to get away with this with a population more highly educated about the terrible potential of biological weaponry?

Analysts: signs point to U.S. strike within two weeks: “Official lips are sealed, but U.S. analysts say the signs — military buildup, coalition formation, and weather forecasts — point to U.S. strikes on Afghanistan in the next two weeks.” Rapid action before snow falls or resolve of ambivalent allies weakens. Boston Globe

In Cases of Euthanasia, Men Most Often Kill Women — ‘Colorado State University psychologist Silvia Sara Canetto recently uncovered a curious statistic: two thirds of the people who die in so-called mercy killings are women. Moreover, most of these women are killed by men. “Many people may view women’s high rates of death by mercy killing as an indication of men’s beneficence or of women’s healthy pragmatism, rational thinking and self-determination,” Canetto says. “Yet one should be wary of those who present mercy killing as a gift to women. These are fatal gifts, embedded in a long tradition of legitimizing women’s sacrifice.” ‘ Scientific American

No brainer: ‘A new culture war is emerging. This one pits “minders” against “brainers,” and cuts across the usual political lines. Brainers build their cultural castles on the rock of cutting-edge science: genetics, brain biology, and evolutionary psychology. Minders craft a worldview the old-fashioned way, by drawing on religion, philosophy, and classic social science.’ The author, Stankey Kuntz, a fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank, describes himself as a “confirmed minder” and is essentially cheerleading for the various salvos fired against the brainers’ “medicalization of unhappiness.” Perhaps worthwhile, but unfortunately he doesn’t know enough about neuroscience to criticize it, and some of his assertions — e.g., that there is no well-established understanding of the pathophysiologiy of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — are just plain untrue. It is also remarkable to hear him proclaim that the brain/mind battleground is a new one. Indeed, it’s one of the longest-running shows in the psychological sciences. I won’t go too far into his efforts to disparage and patronize the positions of his opponents as “religion”, since he also seems to know little of the philosophy of science and epistemology. His crowning blow is to imply that this is a battle about “the degree of humanity we shall be able to retain.” You can guess which side he thinks holds all the humanity. National Review

Married 203 Times, He Has Only Memories, Not Wives: “(Egyptian) law and custom make short, legal liaisons a form of protection. Musician, 70, now wants to settle down–with two mates.” LA Times

Los Angeles Times letter to the editor: “I am an 80-year-old veteran of 3 1/2 years in the Army during World War II and am really upset by one thing in our reaction to our recent tragedy. Ever since the terrorist attacks it has been appropriate to sing our national anthem on the radio or TV–yet “America, the Beautiful” or “God Bless America” have been substituted. I hope this is not a case of the religious right trying to use this recent tragedy to promote their agenda of getting God into the national anthem. Our national anthem is “The Star Spangled Banner”.

Some See ‘Ghost’ of Towers at Night: ‘For many New Yorkers, the Twin Towers are legendary. But for some, there is now talk about the buildings, the kind that sometimes spurs urban legends. Some residents of the Lower East Side, who for decades have had an unobstructed view of the majestic 110-story towers simply by glancing down East Broadway or Madison Street, say they see the outlines of the two destroyed buildings.

“It was amazing,” said Mike Atta, who works at a grocery store at Rutgers and Madison streets. “It was a light, a straight light going up into the sky. It actually looked like the Twin Towers.”

Atta said many people have stood outside his store on evenings to admire the “ghost” and have spoken to him about it. “Some people say it’s just a light,” Atta said. “Some people say it’s an amazing thing.” ‘ Newsday [via Spike]

Researchers Find Enzyme Crucial To Preservation Of Memories: “…elimination of the enzyme, calcium-calmodulin dependent kinase (CaMKIV), in the forebrains of mice had profound effects on signaling pathways in the brain and learning behavior.

The scientists began their studies to clarify the enzyme’s role in late long-term potentiation (L-LTP), the process by which enduring memories are established through a mechanism of activating genes that trigger protein synthesis. This protein synthesis, in turn, alters the synapses — connections between neurons — and ?etches? permanent memory pathways.” Science Daily News

FAIR Action Alert: Media Pundits Advocate Civilian Targets Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

The ‘art’ of naming military operations, a 1995 historical survey from the

World Wars to ”infinite justice’. US Army War College Quarterly

Everyone’s talking about how the weblog has served us well as a tool since 9-11. But of course it is also a potential vehicle for inanity. Take this, from WarLog by Jeff Jarvis, self-described “president & creative director of Advance.net and former TV critic for TV Guide, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday Editor of the NY Daily News, and a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner“, who writes (taking the cake from Andrew Sullivan’s “fifth column” comments I noted below):

The Axis alliance of this war: Extreme fundamentalist Muslims who hate America, extreme fundamentalist Christians (read: Falwell) who hate what America has become, and extreme fundamentalist liberals (read Matt Welch and Christopher Hitchens’ attack on them) who want to blame America for what has befallen it. They’re all dangerous lunatics. Shouldn’t we in the media be exposing and ridiculing these kooks and cults? Isn’t that in our job description?

US considers faceprints for air security — “Officials given the task of tightening security at airports were impressed by a demonstration of the technique and believe that the expected opposition of civil liberties groups will resonate less widely with the public because of widespread fears about safety.

A government committee under the jurisdiction of Norman Mineta, the Transport Secretary, examined the FaceIt system last week and was told that it could be installed at key airports within weeks.” Times of London

And:

ID cards “don’t stop crime”: “Civil liberties groups are crying foul over the possible introduction of identity cards in Britain, claiming they would infringe liberty but have little impact on the West’s newly declared war on terrorism.” Reuters

How the British national identification card might look. Times of London

Rep. Barbara Lee: “Why I opposed the resolution to authorize force” San Francisco Chronicle

Remiss: “Dubya and the national media have continued to harp on their latest song: America, America, America! I dearly love my country — I had an American flag hanging in my front window long before the Big Awful came down on the 11th — but this is getting embarrassing. Have they not noticed how many of the missing (go ahead and say it: the dead) are from other countries?” Making Light

Researchers map how schizophrenia engulfs teen brains: “Scientists at UCLA and the National Institute of Mental Health employed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to

scan a group of teenagers repeatedly as they developed schizophrenia. Using a new image analysis method that detects

very fine changes in the brain, the scientists detected gray matter loss of more than 10 percent first in the parietal, or outer,

regions of the brain; this loss spread to engulf the rest of the brain over five years.” EurekAlert

Now, Doctors Must Identify the Dead Among the Trade Center Rubble, “… gearing up for the largest

effort in the annals of forensic

medicine…” New York Times [login:”fmhreader”; password: “fmhreader”]

How big a war? More on the Wolfowitz/Powell schism. I thought Powell’s restraint in not wanting to march on Baghdad during Desert Storm was a soldier’s conceit about getting done just the job he was sent to do. According to this essay, however, he was more the diplomat even then, concerned for the fragility of the alliance the U.S. had forged.

During the Gulf War, then-President Bush sided with Powell, rejecting calls from Gen.

Norman Schwarzkopf and others to continue on to Baghdad. Bush’s background as a

legislator and, like Powell, a diplomat made him sensitive to Powell’s concerns about

undermining the tenuous coalition that was assembled during the Gulf War.

But the current President Bush does not have the foreign policy experience of his father, and

so the question of who has his ear on key foreign policy decisions has been the topic of

much speculation. During the presidential campaign, Bush tried to temper concerns about his

lack of foreign policy experience and knowledge by pointing to the seasoned foreign policy

hands surrounding him. But those advisors have real ideological divides over a number of

issues, and so far Bush has not sided clearly with one side or the other. Salon

The terrorist attacks: news frames and filters Susan D. Moeller’s 1999 book Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine,

War and Death describes a typology of media coverage of assassinations and terrorist events that anticipates what we’ve seen in the last two weeks.

…there is rarely even any cognizance that the media’s rendition is itself

“framed.” Only if multiple similar events are compared is it made evident

that conscious choices guided the media’s coverage. Many news

frames appear to be natural, unforced, perhaps even self-evident ways

of reporting a story.

— Susan D. Moeller

disinformation

U.S. Plans to Release Its Evidence on Bin Laden: “The Bush administration, determined to prove to the world that Osama bin Laden and his cohorts are guilty of the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, plans to make public a detailed analysis of the evidence collected by intelligence and police agencies, senior officials said today.

In deciding to publish its case against the Afghanistan-based terrorist, the administration concluded that international support for its planned military, diplomatic and economic retaliation is more important than the intelligence secrets that might be compromised.” LA Times

The Phantom Towers, a memorial Paul Myoda and Julian Laverdiere

The Phantom Towers, a memorial Paul Myoda and Julian Laverdiere

The Phantom Towers, a memorial Paul Myoda and Julian Laverdiere

Television can enhance children’s intellectual development, study finds EurekAlert

They’ve got it covered

Book shops are no

longer sweet, sedate, cerebral places in the calm, measured

business of selling knowledge. They’re battlegrounds for

publishers, piled high, battalions of their products coming after

you. Their weapon is the book cover.

Publishers think we’re all mugs and, by and large, that’s exactly

what we are. We judge books by their covers. We know what to

expect. The bookshop is almost colour-coded to make selection

easier. Bubblegum cartoon covers for girly relationship novels.

Cold-war thrillers, horror, sci-fi, all dressed in gothic black with

melodramatic gold lettering. It’s design shorthand. Publishers

have just a few seconds to catch your eye, as you

promiscuously scan the shop floor. Let your eye rest for a

second, and they’ve almost got you. Make contact, read the

blurb on the back and, most important today, clock the face of

the author. Raffishly lived-in like Paul Auster, or boho glam like

Zadie Smith: either way, you’re sold. It’s not enough any more

for wannabe bestselling authors to send in a mere manuscript. A

photo, professionally styled, is mandatory. The Guardian UK

Governments struggle to second guess terrorists’ next move: “As the dust starts to settle on the terrorist atrocities in the US, governments around the world are urgently reviewing their counter-terrorist measures. One of their biggest unknowns is whether terrorists are now likely to stick to the low-tech approach of 11 September, or whether they will turn to chemical or biological weapons.” New Scientist

Hacker rewrites Yahoo! news stories: “A computer security expert has revealed how he altered news

articles posted to Yahoo!’s web site without permission. The

incident highlights the danger of hackers posting misleading

information to respected news outlets, say experts.” New Scientist

What happens next? Six options beyond war and peace. Reason

This is robo-roach:” …surgically

implanted with a micro-robotic backpack that allows researchers to control its movements.”

Attack on America: An Islamic Perspective

In short, America isn’t anti-Islamic. Nor does it need to be. America and Allah are not at odds. Nor do they need to be. If the United States fails to alter the course of its foreign policy and if it continues to be perceived as anti-Islamic, Islamic terrorism may not go away with missiles and bombs. In that event, more than six million Muslims, now living in the United States, may suffer persecution that American Indians, African-Americans and American citizens of Japanese descent have experienced in the past. In that event, America will also fail from within. –Professor Ali Khan (Washburn University School of Law), The Jurist

The war effort gears up:

Kabul looted as order disintegrates: “As thousands of nervous Afghans flee Kabul and other big towns, reports have emerged of looting in the capital as law and order begins to break down.” The Times of London

Destined to Shadowbox With the Devil: “When is someone going to admit that the terrorists have already won, immobilizing the world’s greatest democracy and that much of what we are doing as a nation is simply stomping our feet in frustration? LA Times

The Hunt for bin Laden Gears Up on a Trail Gone Cold — ‘For his part, Mr. bin Laden is where he has so often been since he proclaimed his holy war in the mid- 1990’s and set out to kill as many Americans as he could — everywhere, and nowhere, the subject of countless rumors and speculations. The only thing certain is that each passing day gives the world’s most wanted fugitive more opportunity to move and to hide.

As of today, 24 hours after the Taliban announced their “final decision” to refuse his handover, this much was known publicly about Mr. bin Laden’s whereabouts: virtually nothing.’ New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

However, whom would you rather believe? “British intelligence agents have discovered the position of terror chief Osama bin Laden… PM Tony Blair’s official spokesman last night confirmed: “Bin Laden is in Afghanistan. We know he is there, put it that way.” ‘ News of the World

Or: Bin Laden ‘fleeing to Somalia’: “US officials believe Osama bin Laden is preparing to

leave Afghanistan to set up his terrorist operations in Somalia.” This is London

The Phantom Towers, a memorial Paul Myoda and Julian Laverdiere

U.S. Measures May Incite Domestic Terror: “These new measures may be necessary components to protect the United States from further attacks by foreign terrorists. But they will also likely fuel the fears and anger of domestic groups such as the Michigan Militia or the North American Volunteer Militia. In time, as the U.S. security apparatus looks for threats coming from outside the country, the United States may again face attacks from within.” StratFor

Rumors of War: “A collection of links to pages discussing the various rumors to come out of the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States of America.” It brands claims as true, false, undetermined or indeterminate. Urban Legends reference pages

I’ll give you the punchline: email circulating telling you you’ll find something sinister if you enter the supposed name of one of the hijacked flights, “Q33NY”, in the Microsoft font Wing Ding, especially at a large size. What you’ll find is an airliner, “twin towers”, a skull’n’crossbones, and Star of David. There’s also been about a decade’s worth of concern about “NYC” in Wing Ding, which gives you the skull’n’bones, the Star of David, and a thumbs-up. Microsoft has felt compelled to issue denials that it had embedded hidden anti-Semitic messages in its fonts.

Zeldman:

Saturday, or was it Sunday, the TV networks began running commercials again. Carrot Top shilling a 1-800 number while cracking panty jokes in a laundromat. Babes With Guns, a very special season premiere.

We are blessed with a rich culture, woven from thousands of years of European, African, and Asian art, philosophy, and political thinking. But you wouldn?t know it to look at the junk we put on TV and export to the world.

Suddenly pop culture looks like excrement smeared by a mental patient.

Of course it always did. But suddenly the shallowness feels shameful. Am I the only one who feels this way? What dream have we been living in?

Somehow in my pursuit of happiness I failed to notice that children were dying in Iraq.

Somehow when car bombs exploded in London, or gunfire ripped the West Bank, I felt a moment of sorrow and disbelief, then went about my business ? never realizing that love was my business, the world was my business.

We use love to sell mouthwash.

The thing is, I am under a cloud ? literally. A cloud of pulverized metal, asbestos, and human beings blankets my city.

I find it hard to work, hard to think. Like my mother when she began to come down with Alzheimer?s, I find myself at a loss for names, a loss for dates, a loss for titles of books I?ve read.

I say, “that guy, that actor, who married that woman, actress, who was in Batman” when I mean Alec Baldwin.

I say “that fucker” when I mean bin Laden.

That one doesn?t bother me.

The thing is, like everyone, I keep putting one foot in front of the other.

The thing is, I feel helpless as an embryo.[via wood s lot]

More on the bravery of the Flight 93 passengers, after analysis of the cockpit voice recorder.

And, folded into the same article, speculation that the assassination of the Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massoud by suicide bombers may have been the work of Al Qu’ida, and timed to throw the opposition into chaos to coincide with the American attacks. Recall, further, the reports of explosions in Kabul on the night of the 11th, about which I’ve seen no further followup after it became clear that the U.S. had not started a bombardment. But, with reports that Massoud had died that day (inaccurate; he lingered for several more days before succombing), I thought that anti-Taliban forces might be retaliating in Kabul. New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

Thinkers Face the Limits of a Just War: ‘Few moral philosophers except committed pacifists dispute that the United

States has just cause to use force in this case. But many emphatically reject

the use of the word “war” in anything but a metaphorical sense, noting

that in this case the enemy is not a state against which hostilities can be

formally declared and from which surrender can be sought.’

The moral philosophers are not the only philosophers grappling with the implications of the attacks and our response. Attacks on U.S. Challenge Postmodern True

Believers:

The destruction of the World Trade Center

and the attack on the Pentagon may have

similar effects, challenging the intellectual

and ethical perspectives of two sets of

ideas: postmodernism (affectionately

known as pomo) and postcolonialism

(which might be called poco). These ideas,

which have affected political debate and

university scholarship, are now being

subject to a shock that may lead in two

directions: on one hand to a more intense commitment, and on the other

— I hope — to a more intense rejection.

New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

For Bush, a Mission and a Defining Moment: ‘ “This,” he told them, “is the purpose of this administration.” …One of the president’s close acquaintances outside the White House said Mr. Bush clearly feels he has encountered his reason for being, a conviction informed and shaped by the president’s own strain of Christianity.

“I think, in his frame, this is what God has asked him to do,” the acquaintance said. “It offers him enormous clarity.” ‘ [While I’m all for people finding themselves, how will the Islamic world (or for that matter our allies) face a war shaped by Christian zealotry?]

‘…Although the current moratorium on presidential criticism in the nation’s capital prohibits most on-the-record carping, there is off-the-record concern, expressed not only by Democrats but also by some Republicans.

They fear that there is something headlong and immature in some of Mr. Bush’s exhortations over the last few days. They wonder if he is making promises he cannot keep and threats he cannot back up.

They note it is impossible to know how ? and how much ? Mr. Bush has really changed, because efforts by the White House to control what gets said about him, and who says it, have been unusually aggressive.

Most of the people in a position to talk knowledgeably about Mr. Bush’s emotions are not talking at all. Those who do talk have often sought the administration’s permission, and they reel off the same adjectives, like focused and resolute, that White House spokesmen do.

Moreover, there are indications that Mr. Bush’s nonchalant, jocular demeanor remains the same. In public, his off-the-cuff language still veers toward the colloquial. In private, say several Republicans close to the administration, he still slaps backs and uses baseball terminology, at one point promising that the terrorists were not “going to steal home on me.” ‘ New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

Sweeps Find Box-Cutters On Two More Airliners: “Federal investigators found box-cutter knives on at least two airplanes during sweeps conducted in the aftermath of the deadly Sept. 11 hijackings, including two stuffed into seat cushions on a flight out of Boston and one found in a trash bin of an Atlanta jetliner headed for Brussels…”

And:

Rumors of New Attacks Leave Cities on Edge — “In Atlanta, Richmond and now Boston, vague, unsubstantiated threats received since the Sept. 11 terrorist attack have presented authorities with the difficult task of sorting through raw intelligence and alerting authorities without panicking a jittery public. In each case, there have been warnings of possible violence followed quickly by retractions.”Washington Post

‘The harm done to innocents’ — “Most Americans who have lived or traveled in the Arab world can relate similar experiences: Arabs are entirely capable of differentiating between a people and the actions of its government, or the values of a people and the political agenda of a narrow minority of them. What confuses, and, yes, angers them is that we do not seem to return the favor.” Boston Globe

Bin Laden didn’t do it, says an Egyptian security analyst. American conclusions are based on inaccuracies in understanding of Islamic fundamentalism and of bin Laden himself. Al Ahram (Cairo)

In 1974, I spent several months in Afghanistan, and several weeks stuck in limbo in ‘no man’s land’ on the Pakistani-Afghani border in the Khyber (because of a visa problem that blocked me from official movement into either country). Part of my lifelong urge to make pilgrimmages to what the current cliché calls forbidding mountainous terrain. Of course you know I’m going to say this: I loved the country, and its people. I’ll try to dig up my slides and get some of them digitized and posted, if I can…

When blogging came of age Charles Cooper at CNET; Second sight: the atrocity through the eyes of webloggers Nick Denton, founder of Moreover, at The Guardian

E-bombs: “In the blink of an eye, electromagnetic bombs could throw civilization back 200 years. And terrorists can build them for $400.” Popular Mechanics [via MetaFilter]

This essay by the editor of The New Republic argues that the honeymoon after the attacks may be over, and political fault lines are reopening around the question, “Does America have the moral authority to go to war?” Widening the cracks, he immediately goes after The Nation for claiming that the attacks were about the U.S.’s support for Israel (“…downright bizarre”) or the sanctions against Iraq (“Longtime bin Laden watchers know he has never been especially concerned with the plight of the Palestinians… Nor has bin Laden been a big supporter of Saddam.”):

In bin Laden’s mind, America’s greatest offense–by far–is its military presence in his home country of Saudi Arabia. (The bin Laden-sponsored attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam occurred on the eighth anniversary of the dispatch of U.S. troops to the Gulf.) And that’s a harder line for Western leftists to peddle. Because bin Laden isn’t upset at the United States for bolstering Riyadh’s oppressive policies–after all, the Saudi government’s views on individual freedom and the status of women roughly mirror his own. Bin Laden is upset simply because non-Muslims live in the Holy Land around Mecca and Medina. His first priority is banishing Christians and Jews from Saudi Arabia. And his second priority is banishing Christians and Jews from every other Muslim country…

Bin Laden, after all, is an ethnic cleanser. And the United States is the only powerful country on Earth willing to take up arms to make sure that people of different religions and races can live together. The main difference between September 11 and what came before is that bin Laden desires ethnic cleansing on a scale far greater than the Hutus and the Serbs, a scale that has only one true twentieth century parallel.

If Fisk and The Nation really want to argue that America brought the World Trade Center attack on itself, they shouldn’t delude themselves. They are not defending the Palestinians’ right to a state or the Iraqis’ right to medicine. They are defending a Muslim’s right not to live with a non-Muslim. And in so doing they are renouncing this country’s most sacred principles–principles that saved countless Muslim lives in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s…

The Spinsanity site (“countering rhetoric with reason”) singles out malignant conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan for calling dissenting leftists a “fifth column”. For those who don’t know, this scurrilous term has connoted domestic traitors who covertly aid their country’s attackers or occupiers.

On the other hand, it occurs to me, some would say that, in automatically linking dissent to the cause of the enemy, Sullivan may be the true “fifth columnist” [grin]. The message that the terrorists have won if their attack prompts us to dismantle X or Y that is best about America has been bandied about this week. Of course, it ignores the fact that it was almost certainly not merely begrudging the U.S. its ‘best’ attributes like freedom and affluence (the closest Dubya’s speechwriters came in his address to the nation last night to offering any explanation) that motivated the carnage. As much or more, of course, it is some of our unacknowledged baser aspects — our bullying arrogance, our interventionism, our perceived support for corrupt oppressive regimes — that give the fanatics an axe to grind against us.

In another sign of the intolerance of dissent, the President of the University of Texas felt compelled to criticize the expression of just such sentiments by a UT journalism professor who had written an antiwar column in the Houston Chronicle.

Faulkner’s letter begins by stating Jensen made his remarks entirely in his

capacity as a free citizen of the United States, but that “no aspect of his

remarks is supported, condoned or officially recognized by the University of

Texas at Austin.”

Faulkner’s letter then turned to a more personal note.

“Jensen is not only misguided, but has become a fountain of undiluted foolishness

on issues of public policy,” Faulkner wrote in his letter. “Students must learn

that there is a good deal of foolish opinion in the popular media, and they must

become skilled at recognizing and discounting it,”

says Texas coverage of the controversy.

Back in June, the U.S. designated the “Real IRA” as a terrorist organization. Are we going to go after them along with the other infidels? American Embassy London [via MetaFilter]

Not War, Crimes. Says a former State Department attorney and professor of law at Hofstra, ‘The enormity of the attacks has almost inevitably led to war talk, among the people, opinion writers, and political leaders. “We’re at war,” President Bush remarked on Saturday. “There’s been an act of war declared upon America by terrorists, and we will respond accordingly.”

But the ultimate nature of the attacks is more akin to crime than to war, and should to the maximum extent possible be addressed as such.’ FindLaw legal commentary

And Phil Agre on a similar subject [must read]: War in a World Without Boundaries

An odd feature of the new war is the mixture of languages: George

Bush and his staff constantly switch between the military language

of war and the police language of crime. It is, for example, a war

to bring evildoers to justice. This development is relatively recent.

It was during the Clinton years, for example, that the FBI went

global. Congress vastly increased its funding and it opened offices

worldwide. This was reasonable enough, given the globalization of

crime along with the globalization of everything else. The drug war,

likewise, brought complaints that military forces were being used for

police activities. Before the 1990’s, though, the distinction between

military and police activities was relatively clear. The Korean

War was supposedly a “police action”, but it was obviously a war;

the “police” language was universally understood as a legal fiction

to escape the Constitutional demand that US military activity be

authorized by a Congressional declaration of war. Legal scholars

protested this development, but it has now been institutionalized.

Other wars have ended with criminal tribunals, but these tribunals

have been conducted under the law of war, not under peacetime criminal

law.

So something is taking form here — a “war” whose sole stated aim

is catching individuals who have committed crimes — and it raises

questions. The difference between war-talk and police-talk is

not trivial. When a war is over, the victorious party customarily

lets the rank-and-file soldiers go back to their lives; having

been subject to the laws of their nation-state, and they are regarded

as following orders. With a crime, however, one does not let the

soldiers go. To the contrary, one tries them as individuals for the

full extent of their activities and punishes them if they are found

guilty. In the United States, this punishment can include death.

In a war, either party is empowered to use nearly any means to detain

or kill the soldiers of other. Captured soldiers have certain rights,

but others do not. Criminals, however, have rights, and police are

heavily constrained in ways that soldiers are not. The distinction

between “war” and “crime” is particularly important for the attack

on the Pentagon, which would be an ordinary military action in a war,

but it is also matters for the ways in which the World Trade Center

attackers can be brought to justice.

Here, then, is the danger. Does Osama bin Laden, assuming for the

moment that he is the “commander” of the terrorist forces in whatever

sense is relevant, have “soldiers” who are just following orders?

Or is the United States setting the precedent that the winning power

in a war tries all of the losing power’s soldiers for capital crimes?

That would set back the rules of warfare by centuries. An odd feature of the new war is the mixture of languages: George

Bush and his staff constantly switch between the military language

of war and the police language of crime. It is, for example, a war

to bring evildoers to justice. This development is relatively recent.

It was during the Clinton years, for example, that the FBI went

global. Congress vastly increased its funding and it opened offices

worldwide. This was reasonable enough, given the globalization of

crime along with the globalization of everything else. The drug war,

likewise, brought complaints that military forces were being used for

police activities. Before the 1990’s, though, the distinction between

military and police activities was relatively clear. The Korean

War was supposedly a “police action”, but it was obviously a war;

the “police” language was universally understood as a legal fiction

to escape the Constitutional demand that US military activity be

authorized by a Congressional declaration of war. Legal scholars

protested this development, but it has now been institutionalized.

Other wars have ended with criminal tribunals, but these tribunals

have been conducted under the law of war, not under peacetime criminal

law.

So something is taking form here — a “war” whose sole stated aim

is catching individuals who have committed crimes — and it raises

questions. The difference between war-talk and police-talk is

not trivial. When a war is over, the victorious party customarily

lets the rank-and-file soldiers go back to their lives; having

been subject to the laws of their nation-state, and they are regarded

as following orders. With a crime, however, one does not let the

soldiers go. To the contrary, one tries them as individuals for the

full extent of their activities and punishes them if they are found

guilty. In the United States, this punishment can include death.

In a war, either party is empowered to use nearly any means to detain

or kill the soldiers of other. Captured soldiers have certain rights,

but others do not. Criminals, however, have rights, and police are

heavily constrained in ways that soldiers are not. The distinction

between “war” and “crime” is particularly important for the attack

on the Pentagon, which would be an ordinary military action in a war,

but it is also matters for the ways in which the World Trade Center

attackers can be brought to justice.

Here, then, is the danger. Does Osama bin Laden, assuming for the

moment that he is the “commander” of the terrorist forces in whatever

sense is relevant, have “soldiers” who are just following orders?

Or is the United States setting the precedent that the winning power

in a war tries all of the losing power’s soldiers for capital crimes?

That would set back the rules of warfare by centuries. Red Rock Eaters

Why the Spooks Screwed Up: “Bin Laden’s network is much harder to penetrate than previous terrorist groups.” Time

And Spike documents a particularly egregious case of foot-in-mouth disease:

“Anyone wondering how America’s intelligence community could have been so

spectacularly blindsided by last week’s terrorist attacks should look at an

essay written two months ago by former CIA officer and State Department

counterterrorism specialist Larry C. Johnson.

In a July 10 New York Times Op-Ed entitled (ouch!) “The Declining Terrorist

Threat,” Johnson snickers at the idea of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

“Americans…seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the

United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal,” Johnson

writes. “They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular

target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that

extremist Islamic groups cause the most terrorism. None of these beliefs are

based in fact.”

“[E]arly signs suggest that the decade beginning in 2000 will continue the

downward trend” in deaths from terrorism, the confident expert continues.

America’s irrational fears can be blamed on irresponsible politicians and

military and intelligence experts desperate to justify their agency budgets.

Also to blame (of course): sensation-seeking journalists.

Change Ahead for Troubled Boston Airport Agency. In trauma, people point fingers; trying by hindsight to take control of the uncontrollable and contingent. So you have to walk a fine line between that tendency and the need to investigate the roots of the disaster. As a Bostonian, I was wary of the assertions that Logan security had been particularly lax. Defensively, “It could’ve ben any major U.S. city.” But what can you say about Massport, the agency that runs the airport, where the security chief was a patronage appointee who had previously been the Massachusetts governor’s driver, and he succeeded a security chief who had been the driver for the previous governor’s wife? Where more than 100 airport security badges have gone missing in the past two years? In fact, now I’m hearing that, after planes were grounded in the wake of the attacks, suspicious passengers who may have been intending to hijack another flight outbound from Boston were allowed to debark with no scrutiny. New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

Hunting Osama: interview with Mark Bowden. The author of Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo says that American special forces have been training to go after bin Laden for years and are more than ready. And more on the shadowy world of special operations. This article suggests that our successful campaign against Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, about which Bowden wrote in his latter book, may be the clearest model for chasing down the terrorist perpetrators. Salon

True patriotism the opposite of jingoism: ‘True patriotism differs from jingoism the same way that healthy

parental love differs from the sick obsession of parents who live

their broken, frustrated dreams through their children. Time

and again it’s been the dissidents among us, those most likely

to be mislabeled “un-American,” who’ve been the true patriots

and done the most to make America a light unto the world. Now

is no different, as we seek to articulate a solution that goes

beyond war to eradicate terrorism at its roots.’ Independent Media Center, Los Angeles

Dept. of State International Information Programs: foreign press commentary on the attacks.

Transcript of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s press conference on World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. I’ve been very curious about the Black Muslim reaction but, more generally, the reaction in the largely African American inner city to the attacks and our impending war footing. Will the widespread black cynicism about being “cannon fodder” in the white man’s war that I recall from the Vietnam era, and which temporarily abated during the volunteer Army, rear its head again? Do the most disenfranchised and alienated in American society feel they belong to the ‘we’ who were attacked? Is the widespread grief, outrage, and vulnerability of other segments of our society felt as much in the ghetto? I’ve seen no coverage of this aspect of things. One reason it may be germane is the increasingly dominant role of hip hop in shaping youth style and attitude, both black and white.

To wit: Eerie image pulled from CD:

The cover for the upcoming CD from a popular hip-hop group portrays an eerily familiar sight.

Against a backdrop of morning skies, the towers of the World Trade Center stand engulfed in flame from the impact of twin explosions. Clouds of smoke spew from the upper stories, all but obscuring the tip of what was once the epicenter of the New York City skyline…

The cover design predates Tuesday’s twin attacks on the World Trade Center by months. Wired

‘Infinite Justice’ May Not Stand, Pentagon Says — “The initial

code name for the Pentagon’s response to attacks on the

United States, Operation Infinite

Justice, likely will be changed to avoid offending Muslims,

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday.

The issue arose at a Pentagon briefing when a reporter told

Rumsfeld that several Islamic scholars objected to the name

on the ground that only God, or Allah, can mete out infinite

justice in their view.” Second gaffe against Muslims in a week — cf. Dubya’s calling this a ‘crusade’ — leads to impatient Rumsfeld minimization. As Phil Agre suggests, maybe we should call it ‘Operation Holy War”?

US ‘planned attack on Taleban’ — “Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign

Secretary, was told by senior American

officials in mid-July that military action

against Afghanistan would go ahead by the

middle of October.” BBC

Pakistani sources report: Bin Laden already gone from Afghanistan: “The most wanted man in the US, Osama bin Laden has

silently left Afghanistan for an undisclosed destination and has

moved out of the Afghan territory at least 4 days before the

religious Shura of the clerics issued its recommendation to leave the

country.

Sources in Pakistan, known for their close contacts with Taliban as

well as some officials of the students’ militia confided to The News

that Osama bin Laden was no longer on the Afghan soil since

Monday.”

Where in the world has he gone, if so? Forbes details the global network of groups possibly aligned with bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, and notes some pertinent negatives:

Though accurate information about bin Laden’s grand alliance is hard to

come by, it is clear that it does not include many of the states that United

States regarded as enemies or potential enemies in the 1980s and 1990s.

Iraq, Syria and Libya, for example, are largely secular nationalist regimes.

While they abhor America, and no doubt rejoice at the murder of Americans,

they are mortal enemies of the kind of Islamic fundamentalism represented

by bin Laden and his allies. Iran, meanwhile, practices a Shiite brand of

fundamentalist Islam that is vehemently opposed to bin Laden’s version (the

extremist Wahhabi tendency). Over the past five years, in fact, Iran has been

financing a war against bin Laden and his Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

Officials Told of ‘Major Assault’ Plans. In August, Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad passed on to FBI and CIA officials indications that up to 200 terrorists were planning a “major assault on the United States”, linked to bin Laden. Los Angeles Times Meanwhile, “America and the West are bracing themselves for

another potential ‘Day of Infamy’ this Saturday, when

accomplices of the hijackers are suspected of having

plotted new outrages.

The most solid evidence so far is the discovery that

five associates of the suicide gang had booked seats on

two internal passenger flights, taking them from Texas

to California, in two days’ time.” The Times of London

Secret plans for 10-year war; Generals rule out ‘D-Day invasion’ ‘… Most of the focus of the ten-year campaign plan, the

sources say, is on using military action as a potent

back-up to all the other strands of Operation Noble

Eagle.

However, President Bush, conscious of the demand for

“revenge” from the American public, might sanction

shorter-term military operation by special forces, or

airstrikes, but only if there is sufficient intelligence to

guarantee a sucessful outcome.’ The Times of London

The Taliban: Engagement or Confrontation? Hearing before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, July 20, 2000. Download a .pdf of the hearing transcript here.

Psychopaths Among Us: Retired University of British Columbia professor of psychology Robert Hare is a world’s expert on psychopathy and developer of a gold standard rating scale for its recognition, and he’s in anguish.

“The PCL-R has slipped the confines of academe, and is being used and misused in ways that Hare never intended. In some of the places where it could do some good — such as the prison in the TV documentary I was yelling at — the idea of psychopathy goes unacknowledged, usually because it’s politically incorrect to declare someone to be beyond rehabilitation. At the opposite extreme, there are cases in which Hare’s work has been overloaded with political baggage of another sort, such as in the United States, where a high PCL-R score is used to support death-penalty arguments, and in England, where a debate is underway about whether some individuals with personality disorders (such as psychopaths) should be detained even if they haven’t committed a crime.”

Hare believes that a large number of people — perhaps 1:100 of the population — who are not violent criminals are nevertheless ‘subclinical psychopaths’ among us. [link courtesy of David Brake]

Recall my grumblings below about the DSM system of diagnosis (with regard to another controversial diagnosis, PTSD). Here‘s an article by Hare about the confusion between the sophisticated concept of the psychopath and the closest official DSM diagnosis, antisocial personality disorder.

The problems with DSM-III and its 1987 revision (DSM-III-R) were widely discussed in the clinical and research literature (Widiger and Corbitt). Much of the debate concerned the absence of personality traits in the diagnosis of ASPD, an omission that allowed antisocial individuals with completely different personalities, attitudes and motivations to share the same diagnosis. At the same time, there was mounting evidence that the criteria for ASPD defined a disorder that was more artifactual than “real”.

And this is more information, if you’re interested, on the concepts.

People like serial killers who cannot contain their urges to kill repeatedly for no apparent reason are assumed to suffer from some mental illness. However, they may be more cruel than crazy, choosing not to control their urges, knowing right from wrong, knowing exactly what they’re doing. In such cases, they fall into one of three types that are usually considered aggravating circumstances in addition to their legal guilt — antisocial personality disorder (APD), sociopath, or psychopath — that are neither insane nor psychotic. APD is the most common type, afflicting about 4% of the general population. The American Psychiatric Association estimates that 3% of all males in our society are sociopaths. Psychopaths are rare, found in perhaps 1% of the population.

“Resisting the conclusion that everything has changed is one way to help prevent it from being true.” — Michael Kinsley: Has Everything Changed? – Maybe not. “The notion that there are days when history swings on a pivot is irresistible and, to some extent, valid. The shooting of the archduke that started World War I ? the bombing of Pearl Harbor ? the Kennedy assassination ? Before: innocence and sun-dappled lawns. Afterward: knowledge, modernity, and darkness. Will Sept. 11, 2001, really turn out to have been one of those days? A horrible day, certainly, and?yes?a day that will live in infamy. But a day when life changed dramatically and permanently for everyone, at least in America? Maybe so, but there are adequate reasons to doubt, and excellent reasons to avoid leaping to that conclusion if it can be avoided.” Slate

Jeff Faux, president of the Economic Policy Institute, writes in The American Prospect:Three Things We Learned: “The attacks of last Tuesday revealed some truths about the American political economy that have been obscured in recent years.”

Victims of Mistaken Identity, Sikhs Pay a Price for Turbans: “Frightened by a wave of violence and harassment, Sikhs across the country are struggling to explain to an uncomprehending public that despite their turbans and beards, they are not followers of the Taliban and not in any way responsible for last week’s terror attacks. Although there are fewer than a half million Sikhs in the United States, they have attracted a disproportionate share of the anger following Tuesday’s attacks.” New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

This poem by W. H. Auden has been circulating in the wake of the terrorist attack. Many find it resonates uncannily with our state of mind.

September 1, 1939

I sit in one of the dives

On Fifty-second Street

Uncertain and afraid

As the clever hopes expire

Of a low dishonest decade:

Waves of anger and fear

Circulate over the bright

And darkened lands of the earth,

Obsessing our private lives;

The unmentionable odour of death

Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can

Unearth the whole offence

From Luther until now

That has driven a culture mad,

Find what occurred at Linz,

What huge imago made

A psychopathic god:

I and the public know

What all schoolchildren learn,

Those to whom evil is done

Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew

All that a speech can say

About Democracy,

And what dictators do,

The elderly rubbish they talk

To an apathetic grave;

Analysed all in his book,

The enlightenment driven away,

The habit-forming pain,

Mismanagement and grief:

We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air

Where blind skyscrapers use

Their full height to proclaim

The strength of Collective Man,

Each language pours its vain

Competitive excuse:

But who can live for long

In an euphoric dream;

Out of the mirror they stare,

Imperialism’s face

And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar

Cling to their average day:

The lights must never go out,

The music must always play,

All the conventions conspire

To make this fort assume

The furniture of home;

Lest we should see where we are,

Lost in a haunted wood,

Children afraid of the night

Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash

Important Persons shout

Is not so crude as our wish:

What mad Nijinsky wrote

About Diaghilev

Is true of the normal heart;

For the error bred in the bone

Of each woman and each man

Craves what it cannot have,

Not universal love

But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark

Into the ethical life

The dense commuters come,

Repeating their morning vow;

“I will be true to the wife,

I’ll concentrate more on my work,”

And helpless governors wake

To resume their compulsory game:

Who can release them now,

Who can reach the deaf,

Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice

To undo the folded lie,

The romantic lie in the brain

Of the sensual man-in-the-street

And the lie of Authority

Whose buildings grope the sky:

There is no such thing as the State

And no one exists alone;

Hunger allows no choice

To the citizen or the police;

We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night

Our world in stupor lies;

Yet, dotted everywhere,

Ironic points of light

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair,

Show an affirming flame.

Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden, renewed by The Estate of W. H. Auden

Unscripted, Bush Shoots From the Lip. His puppet-masters must be sweating bullets that they can’t keep him from the public as well as they usually do. International Herald Tribune

Afghan Clerics Urge bin Laden to Leave; White House Says Unacceptable “Afghanistan’s top clerics recommended today that the accused terrorist Osama bin Laden should be persuaded to leave the country, a development that the leader of Pakistan’s largest Islamic party described as “a ray of hope.”

The ruling, which ministers said is binding on the Taliban government, could almost certainly have been reached only with the agreement of the Taliban’s spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

But the White House said this morning that the clerics’ edict “doesn’t meet America’s requirements” and again demanded that Mr. bin Laden be turned over to “responsible authorities” and that the Taliban close terrorist camps in Afghanistan.” New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

Novelists Reassess Their Subject Matter: “In the hours after the terrorist attacks last

week, many American novelists,

whether engaged in themes far removed

from the horrific events or not, asked

themselves if what they do had turned

irrelevant.” New York Times

Bush Advisers Split on Scope of Retaliation. It appears to be Cheney and Wolfowitz vs. Colin Powell, and the issue is whether to strike broadly and include toppling Saddam Hussein as an objective from the outset. Who would have thought that the commander of Desert Storm would turn into a model of diplomacy and restraint? New York Times

Can belief in God kill you?

Religious beliefs are not always a source of comfort during ill health: they may actually increase your risk of dying.

A study of nearly 600 older hospital patients (95 per cent of whom were Christian) showed negative feelings evoked by religious beliefs sometimes predicted mortality.

…Several studies have demonstrated a reduced risk of death among those who attend church regularly, but the new research, published in today’s Archives of Internal Medicine, is the first to examine negative aspects of religiousness. ABC

And Richard Dawkins asks if science is a religion:

It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, “mad cow” disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion. And who, looking at Northern Ireland or the Middle East, can be confident that the brain virus of faith is not exceedingly dangerous? One of the stories told to the young Muslim suicide bombers is that martyrdom is the quickest way to heaven — and not just heaven but a special part of heaven where they will receive their special reward of 72 virgin brides. It occurs to me that our best hope may be to provide a kind of “spiritual arms control”: send in specially trained theologians to deescalate the going rate in virgins.

Given the dangers of faith — and considering the accomplishments of reason and observation in the activity called science — I find it ironic that, whenever I lecture publicly, there always seems to be someone who comes forward and says, “Of course, your science is just a religion like ours. Fundamentally, science just comes down to faith, doesn’t it?”

Thomas Friedman: “The terrorists actually want to provoke attacks on Arabs or Muslims in the U.S., because if the American communities start going after each other, if we see America fragment, then you destroy that special thing that America stands for. That’s what the terrorists want ? they want to be able to turn to your friends here and say, `Look, this is all a myth.'” (quoting Jordan’s King Abdullah.). New York Times

Pentagon said to eye nuclear attack against terrorists: ‘On ABC television’s “This Week” program Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Rumsfeld, who is notoriously tight-lipped with the press, avoided answering a question on whether their use could be ruled out. To a similar question, a Pentagon official also replied, “We will not discuss operational and intelligence matters.” ‘ Japan Times

The diplomatic sources said the Pentagon recommended using tactical nuclear weapons shortly after it became known that the terrorist attacks caused an unprecedented number of civilian casualties.

Who’s Who in the Terror War: “a who’s who of the countries in the terror war: which side they’re on and why, and whether they’re likely to endorse any American military campaign.” David Plotz, Slate Washington Bureau chief

Telesurgery realized: surgeons in NY perform cholecystectomy on woman in Strasbourg, France, via high speed data link and robot arms. New Scientist

After the Horror, Radio Stations Pull Some Songs —

Clear Channel Communications, the Texas-based company that owns about 1,170 radio stations nationwide, has circulated a list of 150 songs and asked its stations to avoid playing them because of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Some listed songs would be insensitive to play right now, such as the Gap Band’s “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” and Soundgarden’s “Blow Up the Outside World,” but other choices, critics and musicians say, are less explicable because they have little literal connection to the tragedies.

These include “Ticket to Ride” by the Beatles, “On Broadway” by the Drifters and “Bennie and the Jets” by Elton John. Even odder, some songs on the list are patriotic, like Neil Diamond’s “America.” Others speak of universal optimism, like Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” and others are emotional but hopeful songs that could help people grieve, like “Imagine” by John Lennon, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel, “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens and “A World Without Love” by Peter and Gordon. New York Times