SYRIA AND THE IRAQI RESISTANCE. The latter is directed by the former's secret service according to a major Kuwaiti journalist. These excerpts from the recent article by Ahmad Al-Jarallah have been reprinted today by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

BUSH IN BAGHDAD. This account turns up at a curious web-location. All the same, it does give some intersting angles on the Thanksgiving Day visit.

WAS THERE AN ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE FAILURE IN IRAQ? The question is raised here by a major scholar from the rather "hard line" Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. This strikes us as a detailed, responsible and, thus, valuable analysis.

DR. KRAUTHAMMER IS IN. Some of his readers may not have heard that Charles Krauthammer was trained as--and for a while functioned as--a psychiatrist. Thus he can be excused for this lapse, in today's Washington Post column, into the "genetic fallacy." However, if Dean's accusations are not due to mental derangement they must be due to tertiary cynicism which is, for a presidential aspirant, possibly worse but, of course, not without precedent.

ANOTHER SOURCE OF AIDS INFECTION! And it is one about which a great deal can be done right now--IF James Randerson's report in New Scientist magazine is accurate as, in all likelihood, it is. This is must reading for doctors, their patients and, particularly, hospital administrators.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL READS THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF PLAYBOY. Well, someone's got to do it but, thankfully, not us. The reader, Michael Judge, lives up to his name and delivers a negative verdict from the bench.

YES, VIRGINIA, CRIME DOES PAY...depending, of course, on how much chutzpah and PR you can muster or have mustered for you by your publisher. All of which signifies that Jayson Blair's book has just been published, and that we share the indignation of Joe Strupp as conveyed today in Editor and Publisher magazine.

THE AAUP, DAVID HOROWITZ AND THE PERSISTENCE OF P.C. PERSECUTIONS IN THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES. Horowitz's proposed Academic Bill of Rights seems to gall the AAUP. But it does enthuse many embattled professors and students. Here he lays out the case in this article from his own web-journal, Front Page.

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST'S DAUGHTER AS A TROUBLED WOMAN. A biography of James Joyce's daughter was published recently and here, in the current New Yorker, it prompts a fine essay by Joan Acocella.

THE CORNUCOPIA OF MANHATTAN...as viewed by New York Magazine. This one is to browse, file and refer to when heading for--or back to--New York where we first learned how to dine.

THE GREAT CLAPTON. Whatever he did in reaction to American blues, country and rock--he did it distinctively and with musicianly ease. Here's a fine collection of his performances. On the don't miss list: After Midnight, Bell Bottom Blues, I Shot the Sheriff, Presence of the Lord.

THE LOST VIRTUE OF PATIENCE. We had better recover it and put it to use in Iraq or disaster may follow. So says Herbert London, the president of the Hudson Institute as he takes a sideswipe at some of the Democratic presidential candidates.

THE HOME TOWN OP-ED EDITOR FINDS THE GENERAL FALTERING. Wesley Clark isn't doing any better in the estimation of Little Rock's best-known journalist than did Bill Clinton.

THE ANTI-SEMITISM PLAGUE IN EUROPE. Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, reviews the outbreaks not only in synagogue bombings but in parliamentry speeches. The "study of Anti-Jewish Hatred" report which the EU won't release was, all the same, printed by the Jerusalem Post a few days ago and was linked on this blogsite.

DO YOUR LETTERS TO THE TIMES GO UNPRINTED? John Derbyshire of the National Review has suffered the same rejection but has found a way to ease the pain: publish them elsewhere and the more outrageous the better.

FROM RAMALLAH ON THE HUDSON. This article from the Columbia Spectator informs that MEALC (their Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures department) remains an outpost for the rationalization of Palestinian militancy and for home-grown academic anti-Americanism.

THE HIGHER LEARNING AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY. But still not answered: Will the ACLU step in to protect her "free speech" filming fornication rights? The story is from today's New York Times.

THEY HAVE NOT FOUND THE HEART ATTACK GENE...but they have found A heart attack gene and that could be the beginning of something big. This slightly hyper-ventilated report from CBS News is, for that reason, a somewhat cheering contribution.

WHAT THE WARREN REPORT LEFT OUT...and how the CIA agent who knew about Oswald was supressed by Richard Helms. And it all adds up to Oswald as sole assassin! This truly informative, secret-breaking article is from the current issue of Washington Monthly.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE "MODERN" NOVEL? Just about everything, says Dale Peck who specializes in writing systematically negative reviews and ..his own novels. And where did it all begin to go wrong? With Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man! For further elaboration of this strong thesis do read this assertively proclaimed literary jeremaid from the current New Republic.

NO, CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE WASN'T WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE...but he wasn't quite what he seemed either. His life as a spy for the Queen is recounted in this surprising article from The History Net.

MIDDLE PERIOD TRADITIONAL JAZZ...done with warmth and musicianly ease by a band "led" by two great musicians: Henry Allen and Coleman Hawkins. The sound of the Hawk in mid career is quite different from the later Hawk of "Body and Soul."

AFTER OSLO, INTIFADAH AND ROAD MAP COMES GENEVA. Can anyone seriously believe that the non-governmental accord "signed" in Geneva will help bring peace? It sounds as if a few of the people at the UK Economist would like to think so but can't actually persuade themselves.

IT'S THE SAME TH'OLE WORLD OVER
IT'S THE POOR THAT GETS THE BLAME
WHILE THE RICH 'AS ALL THE PLEASURES
AIN'T THAT A BLOOMIN' SHAME! The old cockney ballad of class consciousness does come to mind as one learns more about the uses that the mangers of mutual funds have been making of OUR money!! The report is from the current Newsweek.

THE INTIMIDATED PRESS IN CHINA. According to the founding chairman of Human Rights Watch the Chinese goverment exerts much repressive control over the foreign press as well over their own journalists. The text, reported by the Washington Post, is from a speech given yesterday in Washington.

THE EXTENT AND VIRULENCE OF THE NEW EUROPEAN ANTI-SEMITISM. Here is the full report (over 90 pages!) of the EU study on anti-semitism in present-day Europe. It has been published, in advance of its official release, by the Jerusalem Post.

AN ANTI-JUDEOPHOBIA RIFF. Whoever Julie Burchill is, it is clear from this swinging commentary, that she doesn't belong at the UK Guardian. Possibly the best way to handle the new antisemitism of the left is with just this brand of amused contempt.

THE COLUMBIA CATASTROPHE--COULD IT HAVE BEEN AVOIDED? William Langeweische has become the master journalist of modern catastrophe (he did the definive book on 9/11). Here, from the most recent issue of The Atlantic, he provides the detailed and deeply disturbing inside story of the doomed shuttle.

INTIMATIONS OF AN EARTH-LIKE PLANET IN THE FAIRLY NEAR DISTANCE...that is, only 25 light years away. And it has features that suggest the possibility of organic life! The report comes from the BBC Science News Site.

ENGAGING ISSUES OF RACE, CLASS SEX AND GENDER AT HAAHVAHD. An undergraduate "radical" explains to incoming students just where the action is on the all-too-apathetic (but "center-left") campus. This from the student liberal monthly, Perspective.

RESCUING AN AMERICAN UNIVERSITY FROM ITSELF. Something important is happening in Providence, Rhode Island and the outcome may be providential for the needed turnaway from the PC era in American higher education. This article from Front Page magazine is by the editor of the Brown Spectator.

THIS, AS ED SULLIVAN USED TO SAY, IS REEEELY BIG. The 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica was considered the best written and most authoritative. It is now on line--or at least a lot of it is. And here it is, alphabetically ordered and with the original articles by Freud, Einstein, Henry Ford and hundreds--count them, hundreds--of other notables.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE SEGWAY SCOOTER? It got a super PR buildup but, after it was launched, it seemed to sink under the horizon. Now it can be told! They are trying to turn it into a battlefield device--and it does sound feasible...sort of.

A SUPER-CONCERT FROM THE LUGANO FESTIVAL. Major works by Bach, Mozart and Mendelssohn and all superbly performed by the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by Rabinovitch-Barakovsky.

A STARTLING INTERVIEW WITH GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS. He predicts the abrogation of the US constitution if we take a WMD hit, judges the president as intelligent and forceful and Hussein as having intended big trouble for the US. But why in the world was this interview given to Cigar Aficionado?

GETTING TO KNOW THE CANDIDATES. So who, exactly, is Al Sharpton? Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, gives us a hand on this one. More than one of the Rev's fellow candidates has asked: "Wouldn't he make a great VP candidate?" Welllll...that depends. Vice President of what?

WHERE DOES ANTI-ZIONISM TURN INTO ANTI-SEMITISM? Wherever and whenever, says Ottolenghi, "sympathy for Jews is conditional on the political views they espouse." It sounds like a sensible standard to us. Otherwise, treat each man according to his desserts and which would escape whipping? This brief essay is from last Saturday's UK Guardian.

AFTER THE GLOBE WARMED UP. This imagined interview from late in the 21st century will fill you in on the worst case scenario. We checked this with a climatologist of our acquaintance and he says that the science evoked here makes sense. This essay into dysphoric prognostication is from New Scientist magazine.

THE SIX IMMORTAL MONKEYS STRIKE AGAIN! Those are Huxley's hypothetical monkeys and in this instance they are aided by a non-hypothetical student at Georgia Tech and two of his professors. The achievement? The monkeys can do as well at football prognostication as the NCAA Division I-A Bowl Championship Series ranking system--whatever that is. And there is a mathematical analysis that provides irrefutable proof of it all.

THE GREAT PSYCHIATRIC BLOVIATOR. We agree with Anthony Daniels that Carl Jung doesn't deserve a lengthy biography. He confabulated his way through a lengthy career as pseudoscientific guru, crypto-Nazi and one of the identifiable fathers of "new ageism" and for this he deserves notoriety if not emminence. One thing he surely shared with his rejected master, old Sigmund, was the ability to shift and rewrite his theory almost daily. Keep weaving around and they can't catch you! As usual Daniels provides, in this piece from the current New Criterion, a vigorous and compelling review.

THE SOPHIST OF CHICAGO. This Fish story, as put together by John Rosenberg (no relation) of the Discriminations blog, demonstrates the master of confounding, axiom-shifting persiflage at his best; that is, doing his worst with the fancy footwork that drove them either admiring or mad at Duke and then at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

HERE'S HOW SCHOLARS SOMETIMES REVIEW SCHOLARS! As the famous anecdote has it, the British visitor to Princeton asks Woodrow Wison (President of Princeton before he moved on up) why the faculty fought so bitterly among themselves. The classic answer was, "because, my dear fellow, the stakes are so small." This review comes from the H-Net service for university persons of various disciplines.

HOW THEY GOT ABERCROMBIE & FITCH TO STOP PORNOGRAPHING. This column brings the news that you might be able to let your eight-year old look at their catalog, courtesy of James Dobson and other aggrieved and aghast Christians. Captain Boycott would understand

BEETHOVEN TAKES A STROLL IN THE COUNTRY. The great sixth, the Pastoral Symphony, is as close to "program music" as he ever came, and it never fails to delight. This fine performance is conducted by Sir Charkes Mackerras.

TERRORISM ACROSS THE RELIGIOUS SPECTRUM. The recent book, Terror in the Name of God, has stirred considerable, and deserved, debate. Here the author, Jessica Stern of the Kennedy School at Harvard, is thoughtfully interviewed by Tim Cavanaugh of Reason magazine. Stern's thesis argues that Muslim, Christian and Judaic extremism have, essentially, the same underlying dynamic.

A CANDIDATE FOR LEAR, SPIELBERG, MADONNA AND JEN AND BEN? Who is that? None other than General Wesley Clark according to this interesting filing from the UK Telegraph's man in Hollywood. If Sorkin comes can Streisand be far behind?

HATING BUSH THE WAY BETTER PERSONS HATED CLINTON. That's what Andy Ferguson of the Weekly Standard thinks we have in this spate of anti-Bush books. Of the reviewing of many books there is no end---at least when it comes to political diatribes.

JACKIE MASON TAKES ON GEORGE SOROS. Well, someone's got to do it. Interestingly, the critique starts with Soros defense of the estate tax and, only after that, goes on to characterize him as a "self-hating" Jew.

THE MUSLIM JESUS. He is, of course, a figure in the Koran; but he is prominent in many other and later Islamic narratives. A recent scholarly work on those narratives is reviewed here.

HOW DO YOU FORM A MINYAN IN NEW DELHI? Probably with some effort. This account of synagogue life in India's capitol is from last week's issue of The Forward.

ACCOMPLISHMENT, EXCELLENCE AND EMINENCE. We discussed the connections between these with Charles Murray recently on our radio program. We thought his book, Human Accomplishment, a distinctively important contribution. Judith Shulevitz of the New York Times is a bit less enthusiastic but her discussion is lively and intelligent (if not quite excellent).

THE DESIGN OF A SOCIAL ORDER...In this case the habitat and pecking order of the Florida Harvester Ants. They are a very different species but it might be asked whether they have anything to teach us. Probably not, but the findings of this myrmecologist, as reported in Discover magazine, compel both wonder and delight.

THE POTTER PLOT. Now it can be told! What lies behind the Harry Potter series is a not-so-subtle campaign to sell you on the Libertarian world view. It is all explained here on the web site of the Libertarian Party.

AND SPEAKING OF LIBERTARIANISM...This postmod essay will show you how it connects to the capitalist paradigm of narrative. The source, as you will discover if you read closely, is the Postmodernism Generator developed at Monash University.

AND SPEAKING OF POSTMODERNISM...what does it make of Winnie the Pooh? Frederick Crews addressed that burning issue a few years ago. This appreciative review of his Postmodern Pooh is by Bruce Thornton (both have appeared on our radio program!) and was recently published in the University Bookman.

THE MASTERS OF CLASSIC SWING: BASIE, GOODMAN, SHAW AND MILLER. This cornucopia of big-band swing is not to be missed. In addition to the aforementined, also heard are: Les Brown,Charlie Barnet, Jimmy Dorsey and Harry James.