EMULATE THE IRAQI INSURGENTS...says Al Zawahri to Muslim youth. Does that mean running suicide car bombs into crowds of Muslim children as they did yesterday in Baghdad?
Friday, October 01, 2004
THE COST OF BEING OVERCIVILIZED...may well be destruction by the barbarians says John O'Sullivan in this op/ed from the Chicago Sun-Times. And, yes, he means the Islamo-Fascist murderers who, he says, must be met with countervailing and unrelenting force.
WERE THERE ANY REAL ALTERNATIVES TO INVADING IRAQ? Clifford May of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, raises the question and answers it in a compelling way. The essay was published yesterday at Town Hall.
THE BEST OF THE OVERVIEW-OF-THE-DEBATE ARTICLES: We have read a batch of them and this one, from the Washington Post, seems the most accurate and the least partisan. For tilted reportage see, as usual, the front page of the New York Times.
THE STANDARD'S TAKE ON THE DEBATE: Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, thinks that Bush held his ground solidly if not artfully--though the mediacracy will try to spin it otherwise.
THE REGISTER'S TAKE ON THE DEBATE: That's Register as in Des Moines where the media elite is local and, in this instance, more impressed by the "civility" of the traded comments on the candidates' daughters than by Kerry "beating the expectations."
CERN AT FIFTY: Its where the ultimate nature of matter may be deciphered, where the "Theory of Everything" may be perfected and where, incidentally, the internet was, more-or-less, invented. This valuably interactive story about the great research facility that is located half in France and half in Switzerland has just been posted by the BBC.
THE MALTHUSIAN PANIC OF A MINDANAON PROFESSOR. As the forest recedes, the "denuding" island will lose its capacity for agricultural renewal and disaster will "thin out" the unsustainable population. That dark vision has just been put forward by this Philippine sociologue. Did Paul Erlich pay an unscheduled visit to the Ateneo de Davao University?
KILL THE USELESS AND INCOMPETENT ELDERLY...said Professor Singer of Princeton, but not a member of that category who happens to be his mother!! We came upon this article while preparing for a conversation yesterday with Robert George, Singer's colleague/critic at Princeton.
THE UNIVERSITY AS ENTERTAINMENT: To be "really popular" as a teacher these days your courses have to be "enjoyable," and, of course, your grades have to be "friendly." This article by Mark Edmunson, drawn from his recent book, reminds the proprietor why, in recent years, he has enjoyed radio more and teaching less.
WHAT HAS "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS" DONE TO ART AND ART HISTORY? On our program we recently discussed that question with Roger Kimball. His new book, Rape of the Masters, is appreciatively reviewed here for Commentary magazine.
ALL LISZT!! Perhaps even more than you require...but these superb performances from the Argerich Festival in Lugano certainly give a sense of the rich range of his music. Particularly impressive is Argerich's performance of the First Piano Concerto.
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Tonight on Extension 720, Milt analyzes the presidential debates with Molly Andolina, professor of Political Science at DePaul University, and John McIntyre, co-founder of Real Clear Politics. WGN will be carrying the debates live from 8 to 9:30 p.m. central time, and the show will being immediately after the debates end. You can listen to the program here.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Tonight on Extension 720, Milt talks with Graham Allison, nuclear terrorism expert and former assistant secretary of defense about his new book Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe. 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.
YET AGAIN: WHY DO THEY HATE US? This time the speculative answer comes from Fareed Zakaria writing in Foreign Policy magazine and making fairly useful sense.
THE BEST RATHERGATE COMMENTARY...that we have so far seen is this by John Leo who examines the multiple causes that prompted the "rush to judgement" by the anchorman and his colleagues. And, as a measure of Leo's decency and Rather's long service and present shame, the former does not echo the loud call for the quick retirement of the latter.
WHEN KERRY CALLED FOR "PREEMPTION" AGAINST SADDAM. This Senate speech was turned up earlier and has recently got some deserved attention. The turner-upper was our friend Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics where, on Monday, he once again reviewed the facts.
YES, BUT ZAIDEH LOVED ROOSEVELT! The third word is a transliteration of the Yiddish for "grandfather" and that, Jeff Jacoby would agree, reamains one of the silliest--but still opearative--reasons for American Jews voting the straight Democratic ticket.
THE JOY OF BEING ILLEGAL AND LATINO. Increasingly, we seem to be pushing American police departments into the insane position of taking pains to not inconvenience ILLEGAL residents...even when they commit public offenses!! Heather MacDonald of City Journal--and a frequent guest on our program--reports on a new instance of this madness.
THE NEW GANGS RISING ACROSS THE NATION. A consequence of the large illegal and unchecked immigration from the south is the emergence of an hispanic gang culture. Again, Heather MacDonald is on the case and provides this valuable and troubling report in City Journal.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT IMMIGRATION, LEGAL AND ILLEGAL...is the most pressing item NOT BEING DISCUSSED in this campaign. This article by Lawrence Harrison, in today's Boston Globe, is a welcome follow-up to the two preceeding ones by Heather MacDonald.
THE IDEOLOGY AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE OF DEATH. The passing of Kubler-Ross gives Ron Rosenbaum (one of our favorite program guests) occasion for this fine critical/cynical essay on why "nil nissi bonum" cannot apply in this instance.
GIVING COMMUNION TO PRO-CHOICE POLITICIANS. Is there an official Catholic position? Father Richard Neuhaus obviously had an inside line to the last meeting of the American Bishops--and here, in First Things, he provides a behind-the-scenes report on present church politics as relevant to our national politics.
WHAT THE E.U. CAN LEARN FROM CHARLEMAGNE...or, if you prefer, from Karl der Grosse. The lesson, suggested in this curious review in The Economist of a recent biography, is that the "European elite" had best make only small plans.
THE NEW AMERICAN-JEWISH LITERARY MAFIA IS RUSSIAN!! So declares Donald Weber in this critical survey of the new Jewish novelists. He does, indeed, make a persuasive case--persuasive enough to have fostered the intention to get some of these books and actually read them.
KITTY KELLEY GETS WHAT SHE DESERVES FROM THE ECONOMIST. I.e. an appropriately brief, somewhat condescending and correctly disdainful review.
THE HIDDEN METATEXT OF INDIGENALITY...is deconstructed in this essay from the Australian Humanities Review, thereby demonstrating that their academics are just as inscrutable and unreadable as ours.
LAUGH? I THOUGHT I'D CRY. The connection between risability and the darker affective states is worth pondering; and also worth experimental investigation if you have ALL the cartoons the New Yorker ever published available as stimulus material. That, according to this article from the New York Times, is why one hears peals of laughter coursing down the halls of the Psych Building at the University of Michigan.
A TRUMPET, A PIANO AND A BUNCH OF STRINGS...seems an unlikely orchestration. But, it works marvelously in this inspired septet by Camille Saint-Saens. The third, andante, section is hauntingly woven.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Tonight, after the 7:05 Cubs game, Milt talks with Jay Bonansinga about the sinking of the Eastland, one of the greatest disasters in Chicago's history. You can listen to the show after the game (around 10 p.m. central time) here.
Monday, September 27, 2004
Tonight after the 7:05 Cubs game, Bambi Vincent and Bob Arno tell Milt how to avoid being taken in by pickpockets and con artists while traveling. More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show after the game (around 10 p.m. central time) here.
THE DEATH OF NETWORK NEWS...is pre-figured and speeded up by the sad case of Dan Rather and the forged documents. So says Anne Applebaum as she fits the current scandal into a prognostication of "the inevitable" in this Washington Post column.
AND MORE ON RATHER. This overview from the AP suggests that he will be eased out soon by the CBS suits. We confess some regrets: Rather was always "interesting" and he once gave us a Ficus tree as an earnest of his appreciation for having been invited on our program to promote his book. No one else has ever done that!!
BUT WHAT KIND OF PILOT WAS HE? George W. was a first rate pilot and an active one says the retired colonel who swore him into the Air National Guard. This interview story from a down-home Texas paper has not received much national play...but it should!
A REALISTIC EVALUATION OF THE U.N.? Read it and decide for yourself...but we are always impressed by the clarity and force of Victor Hanson's analyses. This most recent one from the Wall Street Journal does not disappoint.
THIS GOES ON OUR FAVORITES FILE. If you aspire to understand recent developments in Quantum Theory and the continuing search for an adequate "Theory of Everything," this new site will become a regular stop as you wander the internet.
WHERE DID "RACE" COME FROM...particularly when coded by pigmentation? Richard Dawkins, having raised the question, comes to an ingenious and sort-of-evolutionary answer in this excerpt from his new book.
A TOUR OF A DEAD CIVILIZATION...and of the places where it was killed is reported in this moving article from the Washington Post.
IN WHAT WAY ARE HOUSTON HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES DIFFERENT FROM OTHERS? For all we know they may be better educated than those in many other parts of the country, EVEN THOUGH two-thirds of them require considerable remedial instruction before they can take courses at the college level. Yuch!!! All veteran teachers of college undergraduates (like the proprietor here) will not be surprised--though the educationists and the college deans will continue to find ways of ignoring the appalling standards of far-too-many of our secondary schools.
BOOKS, TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE. This article from yesterday's New York Times Books section calls to mind the projects that some of our old friends are still working on...foremost among them, Bob Caro who may (or may not) complete his biographical masterwork on LBJ sometime next year.
BOOK REVIEWS, REVIEW JOURNALS, PUBLISHERS AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF CORRUPTION...in India, mind you. Surely the opinion-indebtedness of editors to publishers, though it is the case in India according to Mr. Srinivasa-Raghavan, could never happen here. Right? This article from an Indian business journal is....ah, edifying.
ICHIRO SUZUKI BEATS US AT OUR OWN GAME. He is on the verge of setting a new season batting record...and that's only the half (well, the two-thirds) of it. This article from Sporting News reviews, in gratifying detail, the achievements of this "gentleman from Japan."
WHO'S THE RICHEST? Once again Forbes Magazine has worked up the data in many ways. But what stands out for us is that among the ten richest American billionaires, five are Waltons!! Pursue the many links to your voyeuristic content...but remember: Happiness doesn't buy money.
MATURE BIG-BAND JAZZ/SWING. The categories blend by the 40's and 50's, but solid jazz veterans like Benny Carter adapted with grace--as is evident in these vintage recordings with his "big band."
