The April 16th Weekly Review from Harper’s is here. Favorite item:
More than 700 Finnish women declared that their wombs were on strike and would not give birth for four years unless the government halts its plan to build another nuclear power plant.
From USA Today:
In a First Amendment case that could have national implications, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that a Denver bookstore does not have to give sales records to police seeking information in a drug investigation. The 6-0 decision Monday overturns a lower court ruling that the Tattered Cover Book Store had to comply with a warrant seeking records on the sale of books about making illicit drugs. The court said the authorities’ need for the information was not ”sufficiently compelling to outweigh” the likely harm to state and federal constitutional protections.
I finished reading Stupid White Men, finally! I had many interruptions (more on this later.) I was browsing through recent reviews of the book, and came across a particularly harsh one: One Moore Stupid White Man, and it counter-claims that many of Moore’s resources and footnotes are factually incorrect. The author seems to take particular issue with Moore’s claims against Clinton, though in his book, Moore pulls no punches with Bush II either.
I think the book is selling well right now because there is a thirst for non-aligned thinking, if you will. People want to know the other side of the story, whether it be about the last election or about the current war against terrorism. Today’s Boondocks says it nicely.
As for the interruptions, they include mostly short stories by T.C. Boyle and Ellen Gilchrist. And the news, of course.
Let’s hope her stance doesn’t do to books what it once did to red meat.
To the disappointment of the book industry, authors and readers, Oprah Winfrey said yesterday that she is ending her influential book club as a regular feature. “It has become harder and harder to find books on a monthly basis that I feel absolutely compelled to share,” Winfrey said in a brief release yesterday. “I will continue featuring books on the ‘Oprah Winfrey Show’ when I feel they merit my heartfelt recommendation.” It is not clear how often Winfrey will introduce books on her show.
Zbigniew Brezinski’s Op-Ed piece in today’s New York Times is worth a look. Here are some excerpts:
The current crisis poses a grave threat to United States interests. One can argue forever as to whether Yasir Arafat or Ariel Sharon is more responsible for its eruption. What is clear is that the two cannot reach peace together and neither can impose his version of it on the other. Ultimately, the 4.8 million Jewish Israelis cannot permanently sustain the subjugation of 4.5 million Palestinians (1.2 million of whom are second-class Israeli citizens), while Israel’s own democracy and sense of moral self-respect would be jeopardized by continuing to do so. The Palestinians have neither the power nor the international support to drive the Israelis into the sea, while their terror tactics are morally indefensible.(…)In these circumstances, America cannot ignore world public opinion. There is a nearly unanimous global consensus that United States policy has become one-sided and morally hypocritical, with clear displays of sympathy for Israeli victims of terrorist violence and relative indifference to the (much more numerous) Palestinian civilian casualties. At risk is America’s ability to maintain international support for the war on terrorism, and especially for plans to deal with Saddam Hussein. (…)
President Bush’s statement on the crisis on Thursday took an important step toward shedding the administration’s ambiguous and, of late, somewhat incoherent posture. But it falters on three points. First, by noting that an imminent agreement on a cease-fire was aborted by the bombing of March 27, Mr. Bush risks making the peace process again a hostage to any future terrorist act. (…) Second, Mr. Bush’s highly personal condemnation of Yasir Arafat implies that the Palestinians should select their leader in keeping with American or even Israeli preferences. Third, the president’s statement should have made clear that Secretary of State Colin Powell’s mission to the Middle East is not to restart a process that focuses more on procedure than on substance. Secretary Powell should seek an Arab statement that categorically condemns suicide bombing even if it reserves the right of the Palestinians to resist the occupation and the settlements. Mr. Arafat could then issue such a statement without seeming to be bowing to American and Israeli dictates.
The United States must also now push forward with a specific peace plan. The point of departure for such a plan – based on United Nations resolutions, earlier settlement negotiations conducted at Taba, Egypt, in January 2001 and the Saudi proposal for normalization of relations between Israel and Arab nations – is already in place. The United States should also indicate its willingness to deploy, with the consent both of Israel and of Palestine, a peacekeeping force to enhance security for both parties. (…)
One should entertain no illusions that any such initiative would gain the immediate approval of either the Israelis or the Palestinians. But one should also not underestimate the leverage the United States has or the degree to which the people on both sides are eager to find a way out. Our own national interest and moral obligations demand that we do no less.
The May issue of the Atlantic Monthly features an in-depth article on Saddam Hussein by Mark Bowden. This is an interesting glimpse into the personal life of the dictator, how he conducts business, how he operates, how he rules, how his people loathe and fear him. The article is not yet available online, but when it is, I will post a link. Makes for a good read, especially in light of the fact that Bush II and Blair appear to have agreed to remove him.
Go past the misspelling of “principles” and the pop reference to the Coen brothers’ film, and just enjoy this article at the Discovery News site:
Most historians attribute the classic Greek works to the poet Homer. According to the recent study, though, Homer–if such a writer existed–likely scripted the Iliad solo. But he probably had plenty of help from other poets when creating the Odyssey (…)[Researchers] came to that conclusion after replacing syllables and pauses in the poems with numerical symbols. Zero represented long syllables, short syllables equaled the number one, and the number two represented pauses. The resulting numerical strings of characters were then analyzed with a computer program based on Fourier physics, which uses numbers or symbols to reveal patterns in functions. The researchers found that rhythmic patterns in the Iliad were more consistent, suggesting that the poem had one author. The Odyssey was broken into groups of similar structures, indicating that more than one poet had contributed to the work.
Synagogues and other Jewish institutions in France have recently been the target of violence, presumably a fall out of reactions to the recent incursions in the West Bank. I don’t understand how people can take out their anger at someone just because they happen to be of the same race, or color, or gender as someone they disagree with. The French government is doing what it can, and has deployed about 1,100 men and women to protect these sites, but they say they don’t know whether that will prevent all attacks
Read: Ecole Juives et Synagogues Sous Haute Protection.
Violence from the Middle East continues to spread. Bush II, under criticism for his stoicity, is trying to back-pedal as best he can. Here is an interesting analysis of his policy since September 11th: Bush Doctrine Begins to Blur.
Elsewhere, Javier Solana, the EU foreign minister, has a simple solution: Arafat and Sharon should both step down if there is going to be a real step forward: Solana: Sharon and Arafat both should go.
Sharon doesn’t quite seem ready to go, though. He’s offering Arafat a one-way ticket out of Ramallah. No go, says Arafat. Well, that possibility is now seeming like a probability, what with the rumors that Colin Powell himself is looking to relocate Arafat to Morocco. The Moroccans are saying yes, but without his entourage. Check it out: Morocco said ready to grant Arafat asylum.
A recent poll shows that, when asked whether the United States should become more involved in resolving the conflict in the Middle East, 59% of respondents said No. Unfortunately, whether we want to or not, we are involved. Israel receives 3 billion dollars in US aid. Since our tax money is being given away, I think Americans have a right to ask what that money is being used for. But since Bush II took power, the Administration has been increasingly less involved, and the violence has continued to spiral completely out of control. Are the two correlated? Probably. In times like these, I need to believe that moderate voices will take over.
“I’m not an activist, and I’m not a member of Peace Now or the Peace Coalition or anything like that,” says Itai Dishon, a 34-year-old engineer from Tel Aviv. “When [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon was first elected, I supported his policies. Like most people, I was disgusted with the Palestinians and the violence. And when the first terrorist attacks happened, I still supported this government, because I thought that a tough response was a good response.”
But Dishon has had second thoughts.
“Now I think that this was just a knee-jerk reaction on my part. Like most Israelis, I thought that when the country is at war, when our soldiers are under fire, we shouldn’t protest. We were taught that this is the loyal, Zionist thing to do. But then I started to ask myself, why are we at war at all? That’s really the important question. And I don’t think that I’m willing to go to war for the settlements.
“I agree with Peace Now,” Dishon continues. “We should just evacuate most of the settlements, pull back to the 1967 borders, and then begin negotiations – whenever there is a partner, and whoever that partner is. I never thought I’d demonstrate like this, while my buddies are in the reserves, and while I myself have been called up to do reserve duty in the territories next month.”
