ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE--INCLUDUNG THE U.N.! Or, so it seems as one examines the political preachments and favored causes of Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Angelina Jolie and yet other official "good will ambassadors" of the organization. This instructive article is from today's Wall Street Journal.

A RARE SPIRIT PASSES. George Plimpton graced our program on many visits. A fine spirit, a gracious fellow and--as amused as he was amusing. Here is today's obituary from the New York Times, with links to reviews of most of his books.

ROMNEY AND BUCKLEY ON THE DEATH PENALTY. The parole of Kathy Boudin, who helped kill three policemen when she was a "radical activist," prompts this (to say the least!) mutivalued essay by Buckley.

HOW IMPORTANT IS YOUR UNCLE? Having a well-established relative (fathers are even better!) will probably advance your career. Is that so bad? Saul Bellow's son (he should know) says that nepotism has its good points. Here, from the New Statesman, is a British take on that thesis.

WHO OR WHAT IS REPLACING THE CAREERIST MOTHER? One is a bit surprised that a leading, left-oriented sociologist is preoccupied with that question. But, according to this Atlantic article about her new book, Arlie Hochschild is raising some troubling questions about what global capitalism and feminist ideology are doing (and have done) to the American family and its children.

FAR FROM MAINSTREAM JUDAISM. Since the disaster of the "false messiah," Shabtai Zvi, Judaism has eschewed messianism. Except for one chassidic group of the ultra-ortodox. This story from last Sunday's New York Times Magazine tells what happened after their "possible" messiah passed on.

THE GOVERNOR GENERAL WROTE "MYSTERY-THRILLERS." That could only apply to John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, who spent some time as His Majesty's Governor General of Canada. This appreciation of the fuller meaning of his novels and his memoir is by Roger Kimball, the managing editor of the New Criterion and a past guest on Extension 720.

IF AN E-MAIL ANNOUNCES THAT YOU HAVE WON THE LOTTERY! You haven't. You are being scammed. Here are the details from the valuable Truth or Fiction website. Now, on the other hand, if the widow of Nigerian ruler Mobuto Sese Seko asks you to share her wealth...

SOME GREAT SELECTIONS FROM BROADWAY MUSICALS. These are all from original cast recordings. Included are Les Miserables, Evita, Porgy and Bess and Cabaret. Great stuff!

THE ENTIRE EXTENSION 720 WITH MILT ROSENBERG WEBSITE CAN BE ACCESSED HERE.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LISTEN TO EXTENSION 720, STREAMING AUDIO IS AVAILABLE HERE. THE SHOW RUNS FROM 9 TO 11 P.M. CENTRAL TIME, MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS: WHAT ABOUT IRAN? The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has just published a well-informed examination of what is happening in and around the reactors of Iran. Apparently there is no good reason NOT to worry!

IT WON'T BE JUST BUSH AND A DEMOCRAT. In case you have not been following their fortunes, the Prohibiton Party is still around. And here, from their official website, is a run-down on their presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

TROUBLED TIMES AT THE BBC. One of the indirect casualties of the Iraq war may be the BBC. But the trouble was brewing before that--and was discernible even when we broadcast from their studios at Portsmouth Place a number of years ago.

AFTER 2800 YEARS SADDAM'S CELLAR HOLDS ALL THAT IS LEFT OF THE JEWS OF BAGHDAD. Hershel Shanks, the editor of Moment magazine and the author of this startling account, is a specialist in biblical archeology.

MICROSOFT CLOSES DOWN (SOME OF) ITS CHATROOMS. The stated purpose is to protect children from paedophiles--but there may be more to it than that says the Economist magazine in this story published yesterday.

THE MARRIAGE AMENDMENT. A great debate is coming in the American congress--on the question of how we shall legally define marriage in coming years. In this editorial from First Things (probably written by Father Richard Niehaus, editor of the magazine) the arguments for the amendmant are put forward without obfuscation.

HUMBOLDT PARK, BELLOW, BROOKS AND HANSON. The new columnist at the New York Times compares Bellow's Augie March with the current residents of Humboldt Park (the once Jewish and now Puerto Rican neighborhood in Chicago) and he finds a crucial difference. As did Victor Davis Hanson, in a recent conversation on Extension 720, he worries about the abandonment of the "assimilationist ideal."

PLAGIARISM AS THE HISTORIAN'S PLAGUE. Over recent years a number of prominent historians have been accused of plagiarism or, even worse, of "faking" their data. One such case, that of Doris Goodwin (who has been a guest on Extension 720 more than once) is reviewed here, with some judiciousness, on a website maintained for the American Historical Association.

INVENTING ELVIS. Two new books give us the sense that Elvis, though a considerable artist, only dimly understood the ways in which he was used by others. Thus, he comes through, surprisingly, as an "innocent." This fine essay is from the New York Review of Books.

RAVEL'S DAPHNIS AND CHLOE SUITE. Performed here (in video!) by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus. The conductor is Valery Gergiev.

THE ENTIRE EXTENSION 720 WITH MILT ROSENBERG WEBSITE CAN BE ACCESSED HERE.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LISTEN TO EXTENSION 720, STREAMING AUDIO IS AVAILABLE HERE. THE SHOW RUNS FROM 9 TO 11 P.M. CENTRAL TIME, MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY.

A SHARP "TAKE" ON THE PRESIDENT'S U.N. SPEECH. This went up on the Reason magazine website just a few hours after the speech. Some good guesses here--and some very useful links, including the full text of the speech.

ON THE GROUND IN BAGHDAD. This interesting account from an American civilian who is helping to reconstruct the Baghdad Stock Exchange contains some fine, non-journalistic, impressions and information. It was put up on the internet yesterday by Tech Central Station.

A WISE MAN EXAMINES ANTI-AMERICANISM. The wise man is Fouad Ajami of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The issue is the developing world's ambivalence toward the bringers of modernization. This valuable essay has just appeared in Foreign Policy magazine.

TRYING TO SCOPE OUT GENERAL CLARK. Here is today's attempt by the people at the Weekly Standard. Some useful detail here, but the Clinton presence just behind the scene is not yet properly deciphered.

DAMN THE VOUCHERS--FULL SPEED BACKWARDS! Former Governor (Delaware) Pete DuPont examines the Senate "liberals" who are trying to kill off a small, experimental school voucher program for the D.C. system.

DAMN THE ETHICS--FULL SPEED AHEAD IN THE CHINESE CLONING PROGRAM. There's big money to be made in the production of human replacement organs and the Chinese plan to lead the market. A truly disturbing story put forward today in the Washington Times.

PHILOSOPHERS IN ISTANBUL. Were you at the meeting in Turkey of the Federation Internationale des Societes de Philosophie? If not you will be brought up to date by this rather hilarious account from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

WILL EVERYONE PLEASE WATCH THEIR PRONOUNS? This plaintive query is, of course, ungrammatical. Does anyone care anymore? This full (and slightly disheartening) examination of the issue is from the Vocabula Review.

AND, SPEAKING OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. A fine book about a great book (The Oxford english Dictionary) has recently appeared. Here is the review from the Christian Science Monitor.

CLASSIC JAZZ FROM CHICAGO. Johnny Dodds and some of his friends (including Lil Hardin-Armstrong) recorded these elegant sides one day in 1929.

THE ENTIRE EXTENSION 720 WITH MILT ROSENBERG WEBSITE CAN BE ACCESSED HERE.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LISTEN TO EXTENSION 720, STREAMING AUDIO IS AVAILABLE HERE. THE SHOW RUNS FROM 9 TO 11 P.M. CENTRAL TIME, MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY.

THE PRESIDENT'S UN SPEECH. Here is some quick, but impressively sharp, reportage on the speech just delivered in New York. Cliff May is a former New York Times foreign correspondent who now writes for the National Review.

CAPTAIN YEE AND THE WAHABI PRESENCE IN THE AMERICAN MILITARY. Frank Gaffney reviews the role of a suspect Saudi school in Virginia and the ambivalence that may wrack the military careers of some other Islamic chaplains.

ITS ON AGAIN! As expected, the full Federal Appeals Court for the 9th District has restored the California election date. Here's the story, together with some interesting links, including the "ever-optimistic" Gray Davis in a TV appearance.

THIS ARTICLE MAY STUN YOU...just as its author advocates "stunning the Arab world." Helprin is an indeopendent analyst of considerable depth and clarity. A novelist who has also been a presidential speech writer, he is now a fellow at the Claremont Institute in whose journal this unmincing essay has just appeared.

IS SWEDEN IN EUROPE? The murder of the Swedish Foreign Minister prompts a leading national journalist to reflect on whether isolation from (rather than integration into) Europe may not be the best course. Incidentally, Goran Rosenberg is not a cousin.

IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE TODAY, READ THIS! The ruinously degraded performance of our public schools leaves more and more American high school "graduates" incapable of college work. Suzanne Fields reveals just how badly we do education as compared to countries that pay much less for it. The one thing she leaves out is how higher education has been "dumbed down" to accomodate the poorly educated among the cohort that reach the college level.

IS THERE AN INFINITY OF OTHER UNIVERSES? OR JUST A FINITE FEW MILLION OF THEM? OR JUST OURS? These questions, playful as they may seem, are now seriously contemplated by the cosmologists. And in this article from Slate (we are about a month late in posting it) Jim Holt renders the controversy comprehensible. No small achievement!

HAROLD BLOOM IS DEEPLY OFFENDED...by the National Book Foundation's award to Stephen King. And in this piece by the emminent Yale literary scholar he tells us why and damns some other writers who, in his view, also debase their calling. The article appeared today in the Los Angeles Times. This link requires free regristration.

TCHAIKOVSKY'S FIFTH SYMPHONY. Another fine performance by the BBC Symphony. The conductor of this live performance is Yan Pascal Tortelier.

THE ENTIRE EXTENSION 720 WITH MILT ROSENBERG WEBSITE CAN BE ACCESSED HERE.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LISTEN TO EXTENSION 720, STREAMING AUDIO IS AVAILABLE HERE. THE SHOW RUNS FROM 9 TO 11 P.M. CENTRAL TIME, MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY.

THE ORIGINAL 9/11 PLAN? Khalid Sheik Mohammed is, supposedly, talking in captivity. And here is what he has "disclosed" about the original plan. But is he to be believed or is he enough disciplined and dedicated to be capable of "disinformation" even in his "uncomfortable" incarceration?

IS THIS AT ALL BELIEVABLE? We surely don't vouch for the accuracy of this story from yesterday's U.K. Mirror. No other newspaper seems to have picked up on this account of negotiations underway between Saddam Hussein and the American military. Still.......???

THE REAL REAGAN? Is the "real Reagan" revealed in the new collection of his letters? This article from the new issue of Time gives a teasing taste of those letters and of the impressions and the further questions they generate.

WHAT'S IN IT FOR THE CLINTONS? Bill Safire, in today's New York Times, suggests the Clintons are engineering the Clark candidacy. And they are doing it either for altruistic (not likely!) or Machiavellian reasons. The prospect of another Clinton presidency does, as Dr. Johnson might say, "concentrate the mind."

WHAT WOULD THE DISCOVERY OF LIFE ELSEWHERE DO TO CHRISTIANITY...or to Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and all the others. This fine speculative essay by an Australian philosopher has just appeared in The Atlantic magazine.

HOW KATHY BOUDIN TALKED HER WAY OUT OF PRISON. The case, as you may remember, involved the leftist-terrorist killing of three cops. Here's a just obtained transcript of the parole hearing in which she persuaded a two-man committee of the New York State Parole Board to let her go free.

WHAT ARE THEY DOING TO MONTEVERDI..and why? This troubling but amusing review is from Slate, last Friday. And, as befits the e-zine from Microsoft, it contains some useful links.

AND SPEAKING OF MONTEVERDI, HOW ABOUT SOME BACH? What gives more delight than the Brandenburg Concertos? And, among them, what pleases more than the Sixth? Here it is in a fine performance from the Mainly Mozart Festival.

THE ENTIRE EXTENSION 720 WITH MILT ROSENBERG WEBSITE CAN BE ACCESSED HERE.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LISTEN TO EXTENSION 720, STREAMING AUDIO IS AVAILABLE HERE. THE SHOW RUNS FROM 9 TO 11 P.M. CENTRAL TIME, MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY.