Tonight on Extension 720: As Milt takes the night off to celebrate Yom Kippur, recorded segments of Extension 720 will air after the 6:10 Cubs game. Tapes to be heard include noted author ANTONY BEEVOR on his new book The Mystery of Olga Chekhova.

More information on other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the program after the Cubs game here.

THE TERRORISTS ARE GOING AFTER AUSTRALIA...says Krauthammer, to turn the coming election against Prime Minister Howard and, thus, to get our most reliable partner to pull out of Iraq!!

THE DEBATES WILL BE DECISIVE...say these writers for the National Journal. Their rundown on the preparations, the handlers and the strategies seems to us to set the stage realistically.

VIETNAM, PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS AND THE NEW YORK TIMES. This story from today's edition suggests that they are finally facing electoral reality over on 43rd Street.

IT'S BUSH SAYS GLASSMAN...AND HERE'S WHY. The former publisher of The New Republic is not just predicting; he is opining in this article from Tech Central Station. Clearly his choice is not the same as that of the colleagues he left behind at TNR.

WHAT DID THE KERRYITES KNOW...and when did they know it, as concerning the Burkett memos? Someday, long after this election, it will all be unraveled. Until then the question persists: Did the Kerry camp have advance knowledge of the CBS "revelations?"

MICHELLE MALKIN DEFENDS INTERNMENT...both in World War II and as a possible expedient in the future. For this she has been heavily vilified by critics from the left. Now Tom Sowell comes to her defense in this piece published yesterday.

HERE'S WHAT MAY FINALLY SINK NEW ORLEANS. Not another dread hurricane but, rather, the rising of the waters that is now visible in the Antarctic. This report from New Scientist will surely activate the global warming doomsayers.

DER BESUCH DEM HISTORISCHEN ADOLF. Hitler studies we shall have with us for centuries to come. Two fine works that will serve as foundation documents are thoughtfully reviewed in this essay from First Things.

THE ACADEMIC NOVEL...as a modern literary genre probably began with The Masters by Snow. It has flourished ever since and has reflected the successive ailments of "University Life." This essay from The American Prospect puts it all in order and reminds us of some the available delights.

AND SPEAKING OF ACADEMIC NOVELS...what about Bellow's lightly fictionalized memoir of Allan Bloom? Here's what the always interesting Robert Fulford had to say shortly after the publication of Ravelstein.

GRAHAM GREENE EVALUATED AND APPRECIATED. He is--almost against our judgement--a favorite writer and why that continues to be the case is clarified in this fine essay just published in Book Forum.

IS THIS THE ORIGINAL SLYTHY TOVE...that did gyre and gimble in the wabe? And if you don't remember your Lewis Carroll you can just settle for the Dinocephalosaurus Orientalis.

A GREAT JAZZ CLARINETIST. Kenny Davern does it with outstanding precision, taste and lyrical invention. Here he is in five extended improvisations on great standards including Summertime and Mood Indigo.

Tonight on Extension 720:
THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Though G.K. Chesterton once claimed that “all slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry,” we at Extension 720 are more inclined to agree with Samuel Johnson, who “laboured to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations.” Joining us tonight in our quest to save the English language are ELLEN HUNT, SUSAN HARRIS and CRAIG SIRLES, all experts in the proper usage of our vernacular.

More information on other Extension 720 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 is taking the day off, but will return tomorrow.

Tonight on Extension 720, expert paleontologist Paul Sereno joins the program to discuss his latest findings. More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show after the show after the 6:05 Cubs game here.

KEEGAN SAYS "STAY THE COURSE" IN IRAQ. John Keegan is a great (and, happily, non-academic) military historian who has graced our program many times. In this op-ed for the U.K. Telegraph he argues, in his usual practical and informed manner, that the Iraq insurgency can be, and is being, effectively dismantled. England and the U.S., he argues, must persist; and the payoff will more than justify their efforts and redeem their present losses.

LUCY RAMIREZ, PLEASE CALL DAN RATHER! The whole miserable tale grows stranger and stranger...and, as the lies pile up, less and less believable. Here's the story from USA Today that broke the "Lucy did it" revelation. Whoever may have forged the papers, the larger question is: What did the Kerry people know and when did they know it? And ditto for Rather and CBS!!

THE JOURNALISM "INTELLECTUALS" ZERO IN ON THE RATHER MESS. Here are some of the Poynter Institute Faculty asking and answering: What went wrong? What lessons should be drawn? What should now be done?

THE TANTALIZING QUESTION OF THE CBS-KERRY CAMPAIGN CONNECTION...is further amplified by the "less than coincidental" parallels between the documents from the two sources. NewsMax may be ahead of the crowd on this.

BUSH'S REAL MILITARY CAREER. This piece by Byron York was published in The Hill about ten days ago and should have received far more attention than it got. The real story about Bush as Air Guardsman seems to involve more time put in at flight training and mission performance than Kerry spent in Vietnam!

TOM BEVAN ON THE BATTLEGROUND POLLS. This latest analysis of the data from the "swing states" was worked up by the co-proprietor of the always informative Real Clear Politics website. Rs are entitled to smile a bit and Ds to frown...but "who knows what shocks will come?"

THE FAR RIGHT YOU SHALL ALWAYS HAVE WITH YOU...though it often seems strangely continuous with the far left; and so it appears to be in eastern Germany after recent regional elections. This highly informative article is from the current issue of The Economist.

IS A PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI PEACE POSSIBLE? Yes, says Dennis Ross who went seeking it for Bill Clinton for some eight years. The big "but" is that it can only be achieved through significant American intervention--or so he argues in his recent book which is reviewed here in the new issue of Foreign Affairs.

ISLAM IN AND WITH EUROPE...is the real meaning of Eurabia says this Israeli scholar. While her views, as conveyed in this interview in yesterday's Front Page magazine, are "extreme," they require respectful and close consideration for, among other things, the light they shed upon anti-Israelism and anti-Americanism.

CA N'ARRANGERA PROBABLEMENT RIEN! So the French governmant has a plan (sort of!) to reverse anti-semitism by showing a movie to the kids. Perhaps, like chicken soup "it couldn't hurt" but doesn't that depend upon what they hear in their after-lycee madrassas?

DIDN'T I READ THIS VERY ARTICLE SOMETIME AGO? At any rate, it treats of the deja-vu experience and its hidden causes which are now, perhaps, adequately explained by young Dr. Brown who is interviwed here by Benedict Carey of the New York Times. Why is that name so familiar?

AN ANTI-PATRIARCHAL, ANTI-SMOKING AND HIGHLY PC CARMEN...is reviewed here, with his tongue firmly in cheek, by Denis Dutton. Delightful stuff!

THE METASWING OF STAN KENTON. That's how one music critic described this great band that toned it arrangements with dissonances, Latin metrics and resonances to "Les Six." Peanut Vendor is a classic as is Willow Weep for me. And then, there's The Concerto To End All Concertos.

Tonight on Extension 720, Milt discusses the legacy of the Holocaust with Mona Sue Weissmark, professor of psychology at Roosevelt University in Chicago. More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the program after the 6:05 Cubs game here.

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

Tonight on Extension 720, Milt welcomes veteran Chicago journalists John Drummond, Bernie Judge and Dick Kay to discuss their long careers covering the Second City. 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.

THE NUCLEARIZATION OF IRAN...will not, apparently, be halted by U.N. resolutions, nor by IAEA resolutions, investigations or abject pleading. This coverage by Reuters yesterday does not address the question of how to block the fabrication of the Iranian nuclear bomb--but some appropriate entity had better look to it soon.

YES, THERE WERE BLUNDERS IN IRAQ...says Larry Diamond in this important essay from the current issue of Foreign Affairs. Why and how were they made? At what cost? Can they be fixed and, if so, how?

THE POLLS AS OF YESTERDAY...suggest that the Bush lead is holding in the most important "battleground" states. This useful summary article was provided by Bloomberg; also reported are the obligatory and far less useful comments from the usual campaign sources.

IF KERRY IS AGAMEMNON, WHO IS ULYSSES? David Brooks' Homeric rendering of the turbulence in the Camp of Kerry may well outlast this campaign and wind up in some future anthology of political satire.

THE WORKS, WAYS AND FUTURE OF THE NEOCONS...as perceived through its American correspondents eyes rather darkly, by the U.K. Economist. Despite their "more sophisticated than thou" stance they do manage to come up with a few telling insights.

A MUSLIM COLUMNIST IN SINGAPORE...struggles with the hard reality of Muslim terrorist violence and comes out--after some rather delicate hedging--against killing the innocent. But, as he confesses, he might not be so "bold" if he lived in Ramallah or Chechnya.

THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD IN BEIJING...as reported by the official news agency, Xinhua. It's good to know that deadening Communist officialise has not yet disappeared from the linguistic repertoire

IF DEMOGRAPHY IS DESTINY...then the way to predict the future is to reason about the consequences of population decline in the west and (curiously) in much of the rest of the world as well. Some quite surprising recent projections are intelligently presented in this article from Newsweek.

MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY FROM THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE. This article from the Phoenix Business Journal does rather recall the little gizmo that "Bones" used to wave around the patient's head and pelvis before pronouncing his always acurate diagnosis.

WHO IS COMMUNICATING AT YOU? The media, of course. And to whom do the various media that you depend upon actually belong? This useful guide to the media mega-corporations and all their holdings makes for some fascinating browsing.

HAS SPIEGELMAN TRIVIALIZED 9/11? The question has arisen and been ventilated in numerous book reviews. Here's an interesting review of those reviews from the Christian Science Monitor.

HOW LINDBERGH WON THE PRESIDENCY IN 1940...and how Philip Roth came to imagine this alternative history as revealed by him in yesterday's New York Times. Compelling reading!

A FEW MORE SUCH MITZVAS (MITZVOT) AND THE WAR MAY BE LOST. The adventures of Madonna in Israel do, after all, provide a welcome change from the usual news beamed from the Middle East.

BRAHMS' TRIO IN A MINOR...calls for a virtuoso clarinet performance and here are three seperate versions with three such virtuosi. We think its a toss-up between Hill and Collins, though Pay aquits himself well. Whichever performance you choose, the music is Brahms at his most moving.