Tonight on Extension 720, Milt discusses summer movies with our regular panel of film experts. More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

Milt's File now enables comments from all visitors. We welcome--indeed, we urge--that you chime in with your commentary whenever one or more of our items stirs some responsive thought or mere spasm of emotion.

FROM KANDEHAR TO MANHATTAN. The best account we have seen of the reconstruction by the 9/11 commission of the Al Qaeda plot and its execution is this one by two reporters for the New York Times.

THE LOOMING THREAT OF IRAN. We think that Jim Hoagland is right on target as he points up the intransigent march toward aggressive nuclearization by the government of the Ayatollahs. And he is still on target in suggesting that NEITHER presidential candidate has yet properly addressed that threat.

THE POLITICIAN WITH THE TIN EAR...is the president that almost was, Al Gore. Acoording to this columnist at the Seattle Times, the coolness between him and the man he used to report to has persisted down to the occasion, a few days ago, when everyone but he came to see the paintings unveiled at the White House.

THE REFLECTIONS AND CONFESSIONS OF ONE OF THE COUNTRY'S MORE SURPRISING PRESIDENTS! Though Nixon and Johnson were, in that connection, pretty hard acts to follow--Mr. Clinton's memoir will surely certify his considerable achievement in "letting it all hang out." The UK Independent's man in New York has obviously had a peek at the book.

GAD, SIR, THE PEW RESEARCHERS ARE RIGHT...when they find most media people to be, gulp, "liberal." It shows in their works and ways and publications and programs says this op-ed columnist (and he has examples!) in the San Francisco Chronicle.

O.J. IN THE BRONCO. Ten years ago, yesterday. Remember? Here, from U.S. News, is the transcript of his phone conversation with the detective who was keeping pace with the white Bronco on the Freeway.

MALE AND FEMALE CREATED HE THEM...and, apparently it does make a real difference. (Pace, the Mss. at NOW.) So says Steven Rhoads in a new book reviewed here with some enthusiasm in the American Spectator. Rhoads, in point of fact, will be a guest on our radio program on Wednesday, June 30th.

THE SEMPER FIDELIS VOLES MAY PROVIDE A REMEDY FOR HUMAN SEXUAL PROMISCUITY! Well, at least for human males, that is. This story based on "vasopressin" reseach at Emory University and now reported in The Australian has to be read and carefully contemplated even as one ponders "Oh What a Work Is Man."

DO HANDSOME AND/OR PRETTY TEACHERS GET BETTER RATINGS? An unusual question for academic economists to investigate--as these two have, nevertheless, done. Get beyond the lumbering research report style and you will find much that amuses and perhaps something that surprises.

THE FLEETING ILLUSION OF TENURE AT HAHVAHD, YALE AND THE LESSER IVIES. This accurately reported survey of the fate of assistant professors at the "great universities" of the northeast does hit home. At least for the proprietor who started his academic career professing very assistantly in New Haven.

MUCH DEPENDS UPON THE TRANSLATION! A fine writer, Richard Selzer, offers up his appreciation of a great translator's best effort--a forceful yet graceful rendering of the Iliad. The quoted passages are more than worth the price of admission.

YOU CAN TELL A REVIEW BY ITS TITLE...even when it deals with a book whose cover conveys little. Here's a fascinating bit of research into the reviewer's (and editor's!) art which we stumbled upon while looking for something else.

THE GREAT SINATRA RECORDINGS...are in generous supply in this collection. "That's Life" still delights--as do "It Was a Very Good Year" and "The Lady Is a Tramp."

A recorded edition of Extension 720 will air after the 7:05 Cubs game. You can listen to the show after the game here.

Milt's File is taking the day off, but will return tomorrow.

Tonight on Extension 720, after the 6:05 p.m. Cubs game, Milt chats with two experts about traffic in general, with a special focus on traffic in the Chicago area. More information on this and other program is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show after the game here.

Milt's File now enables comments from all visitors. We welcome--indeed, we urge--that you chime in with your commentary whenever one or more of our items stirs some responsive thought or mere spasm of emotion.

FROM THE 9/11 COMMISSION...come some first revelations of their findings about the plot and the plotters. As reported today in the Christian Science Monitor, this is fascinating stuff! Clearly, the interrogators have learned a great deal--after the fact--about the planning and execution of the 9/11 assault.

REAGAN AS THE "HERO" IN RECENT AMERICAN HISTORY. Irving Kristol, as a former Marxist, eschews the idea that history unfolds along "inevitable" lines. Without Reagan, he says in this essay from the current Weekly Standard, the Cold War might not have been so decisively ended. And the American economy might well have been headed in a different direction.

SAM HUNTINGTON UNDER GOD. As we said when we chatted with him on air a few weeks ago--Huntington is among the top three in the "political science" heirarchy. His projective scenarios for civilizational conflict and, more recently, for immigrant-induced diffusion of American identity are, to say the least, worrisome. In this important op-ed from today's Wall Street Journal he elaborates upon his oft-stated conviction that Christianity is essential to the maintenance of American social and cultural solidarity.

LET'S HEAR IT FOR NEO-CONSERVATISM. If you have a better plan for handling the threat (to western civilization!) of Islamic terrorism you had better present it right now. The author of this article in today's Tech Central Station demonstrates, to our satisfaction, that the neo-cons approach is the worst there is, except for all the others.

JUST GIVE THEM A JEWISH NAME...and it is amazing to see what mid-east media types can do with it. As witness what Arab News, Al Jazeera and the Teheran Times have made of the murder of Nicholas Berg. Steven Stalinsky lays it out in this piece from the National Review.

HUMAN CLONING: IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, YET...but apparently it can and will happen in the U.K. The plans are drawn and the "scientists" are ready to go right after they get the expected approval. Here's the story as reported today in Tech News World.

IS THERE A WAY OUT...of the trap into which American prisons have fallen? Perhaps it begins with knowing and telling the truth about life in "maximum security." This article from the Chronicle of Higher Education makes a valuable contribution in that direction as do the books it reviews.

THE EPISCOPALIAN FRACTURE. The American portion of the Anglican Communion is, to say the least, deeply divided and probably can't be put back together again. For evidence, see this interesting blog presided over by an impressively artriculate and embittered conservative Anglican priest from Missouri.

DON'T JUST SIT THERE: ARGUE! John Leo finds that adversaries don't engage in challenged advocacy anymore. Rather, they just clam up or they stride out in high dudgeon, slamming doors behind them.

TODAY IS BLOOMSDAY! And that is the occasion for this somewhat left-handed appreciation of Joyce's novel about Leopold Bloom's Iliadic perigrination around Dublin and of the various lasting cults it has inspired.

HE MAY HAVE RECIEVED THE PALME D'OR AT CANNES...but Michael Moore doesn't get quite the same endorsement from many who have now seen his "campaign film." Here's what Walter Shapiro of USA Today has to say about " 9/11" and the Democratic party-pushers who attended the N.Y. preview screening

SO WHO WAS BEETHOVEN'S "FERNE GELIEBTE?" The famous letter addressed to his "immortal beloved" raised a question that has yet to be answered. All the candidates for the Master's passionate preoccupations are reviewed in this engaging summary published recently in the UK Guardian.

WAS THIS HER MUSIC? Some have suggested--with no truly supportive evidence--that Beethoven wrote the Moonlight Sonata as a "portrait" of the "ferne geliebte." Probably not--but here are two seperate and equally moving performances of his most famous composition for solo piano.

Tonight on Extension 720, Milt talks with Peter Krass, author of a new biography of Jack Daniel, after the 7:05 Cubs game. More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show after the game here.

Milt's File now enables comments from all visitors. We welcome--indeed, we urge--that you chime in with your commentary whenever one or more of our items stirs some responsive thought or mere spasm of emotion.

IRAN IS TWO YEARS AWAY FROM MOUNTING NUCLEAR MISSILES...and we, according to some senior figures in Washington, might as well "get used to it?" What is not covered in this otherwise excellent piece from the Wall Street Journal is the possibility that Israel will knock out these nuclear facilities as they did years ago to the Iraqi nuclear program.

AND HERE'S HOW ISRAEL DID IT THE LAST TIME. The author of a new book about the Osirak raid that destroyed Iraq's nuclear weapons program tells the story to the managing editor of Front Page.

EUROPEANS VOTE (APATHETICALLY) AGAINST EUROPE!! The strange outcome of the election for the European Parliament raises serious questions as to whether "integration" is what the Slovenes, Poles, French and Luxembourgers really want. This BBC review story conveys the confusion--and probably cheers conservative nationalists in the UK and elsewhere.

THE FORMER PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER SPEAKS...but not to Yasser Arafat! Abu Mazen doesn't say much in this interview with a Newsweek reporter...but what he does say speaks chapters if not volumes.

DO YOU WANT YOUR KID TO AVOID ALZHEIMER'S? Take him, at a tender age, to live for a few years in France, Bulgaria or Finland. The relevant "scientific" discovery is that true bilinguals show less senile cognitive decline than mere monolinguals...or so says this report from Science Daily.

THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM ON THE LEFT THESE DAYS...is the rejectionist disdain for "fundamentalism." This searchingly brilliant dissection of prevailing confusions is by Kenneth Minogue of the London School of Economics and has just appeared in the New Criterion.

SO, DO THE MEDIA LEAN LEFT OR RIGHT? You can't persuade Don Feder that the former is not decisively the case. And we think he makes a good case for that being the case...in this broadside from Front Page magazine.

WHEN BILLY MET MONICA. With this satirical version of THAT CHAPTER in the forthcoming memoirs of the former president, Tony Hendra delights and amuses. But the possibly unanswerable question is: How did this get into the American Prospect, the semi-official journal of the Democratic Party?

I READ HAMLET--AND IT'S JUST A COLLECTION OF CLICHES...said the naive student. Great writers mold phrases that become items of general "cultural literacy." The trick, according to this amusing but pertinent essay from the Boston Globe, is to know when and how to use them and when to "stiffle yourself."

ON THE GOOD, BAD, MERETRICIOUS AND OVER-PRICED IN ART. Robert Hughes, a great and properly curmudgeonly critic, does his "j'accuse" in a London lecture reprinted here by the UK Guardian.

THE ANATOMY OF FLOPS. Whether in film, on TV or in print a true "flop" is not simply an offering condemned by the critics. To understand the essence of flopping you need to read this title-naming analysis from the current New Republic.

REMEMBERING--AND APPRECIATING--THE GREAT RAY CHARLES. Of various obits and celebrations we have seen, this one from the Washington Post seems "just right" in what it says about his splendid musical presence and his strong response to adversity.

"WHAT'D I SAY" ONE MORE TIME. This is probably the song that will remain emblematic of Ray Charles though, of course, there were hundreds of great recordings. Scroll down for this one and then listen to some of his "rocker" contemporaries.

Tonight on Extension 720, after the 7:05 Cubs game, Milt talks with Chicago Tribune features writer Ron Grossman. More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show after the game here.

Milt's File now enables comments from all visitors. We welcome--indeed, we urge--that you chime in with your commentary whenever one or more of our items stirs some responsive thought or mere spasm of emotion.

DE MORTUIS NIHIL NISI BONUM. The liberal press has "spoken only good" of President Reagan now that he is dead. But, as Krauthammer so effectively asserts in yesterday's column, they celebrate only his smile and his optimism and say nothing about the wisdom and positive consequences of his boldly executed policies.

THE ECONOMIST'S TAKE ON REAGAN. While not as fulsomely laudatory as Krauthammer, above, the writers for the Economist (though the piece is not by-lined it is almost certainly by the team of Micklethwaite and Woolridge) provide a richly detailed and analytical encomium on Reagan. And, as well, they provide a quite perceptive explaination of the shift toward conservatism by the Amererican electorate.

AS THEY CONTINUE TO MURDER WESTERNERS IN SAUDIA ARABIA...this recently published article by a just-returned British resident of the Kingdom makes for fascinating reading. It was published in the Telegraph just before the latest round of killings and abductions.

THE "UNDECIDEDS" IN THE COMING ELECTION...may well (when they finally dedide!) determine the outcome. Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Center has some relevant facts and wise words on the subject as reported here in the Boston Globe.

TWO CHEERS FOR "AMERICAN IMPERIALISM." Niall Ferguson, in a recent book, has found our hegemonic extension to be inevitable and, in the main, benign. He elaborates his views in this straight-talking interview recently published in the Atlantic magazine.

WHAT'S THE CONNECTION BETWEEN PUTIN AND DEMOCRACY? William Fleming pursues that question in a review, for the Moscow Times, of two new biographies of the Russian president. One of the biographers thinks Putin is working to bring democracy; the other thinks quite otherwise. Which one does the reviewer favor? Read on...and tell us if the facts he musters impress and depress you as much as they do us.

FATHERHOOD AND THE FATE AND FORTUNE OF AMERICAN CHILDREN. Divorced fathers have been under attack by government for many years. The results have not only been unjustly injurious for them but, still more important, have slighted the needs of children. So argues Stephan Baskerville in this challenging article from the Independent Review.

WHAT IS MULTI-CULTURALISM DOING TO AMERICA? Roger Kimball who has been a rather frequent guest on our program, adresses that question in this important--and elegantly written--essay just published in New Criterion magazine.

THE MAN WHO LOVED TO HATE...and who conveyed his condescension and disdain in superb modern novels, did a lot of travelling. The travel writings of Evelyn Waugh have now been brought together in a single volume and this review, from First Things, has led us, this very day, to ordering the book!

THE MOST FAMOUS IRISH JEW...was not Bobby Briscoe, the mayor of Dublin. Rather it was, of course, Leopold Bloom and major celebratory events commemorating "Bloomsday" are filling the week in Dublin. But what of the real Irish Jews? This fine article from yesterday's New York Times Magazine examines how Irish they are and how Irish their compatriots think they are.

THE JEWS IN AMERICA...are, of course, far more numerous than those in Ireland and, over three centuries they have "Americanized" their religion. So asserts Jonathan Sarna in a major new history which we discussed with him a few weeks ago on Extension 720. This appreciative and interesting review of American Judaism: A History has just appeared in First Things.

THE GREAT AMERICAN MUSICALS ARE GONE...but still performed in revival. Whereas the new ones, according to Terry Teachout in Commentary magazine, are post-mod in the most acidulous (almost anti-American) mode. This well-pointed essay makes you want to dig out the old albums of "Kiss Me Kate," "Carousel," etc. and truly, etc.

HAVE BLUES, WILL TRAVEL. Eric Clapton made the blues his own...in a British, gentle-rocker way. This generous cdollection includes "San Francisco Bay Blues," "Nobody Knows You," and "Layla." Not to mention the great reggae, "I Shot the Sheriff."