THE PERSISTENCE OF THE SYRIAN PRESENCE...in Lebanon depends upon their Intelligence Service as much--or more--than their army. This well-informed examination of the secret side of the Syrian domination of what was once the most politically advanced state in the Arab Middle East is by Walid Phares writing foir Front Page magazine.

TWO CHEERS FOR THE MIDDLE EASTERN DEMOCRACY...that may now be a'borning says Karl Zinsmeister of AEI...and he has, and puts forward, some relevant but "realistic" reasons in this important new essay.

HOW GEORGE KENNAN WOULD WAGE THE WAR...on terrorism may be a matter of some conjecture, but we think that Ian Bremmer, writing in the International Herald-Tribune, has drawn the right comparison between "containment" then and "demogenisis" now.

THE FLOOD OF ILLEGALS...coming over the Mexican border will, if President Bush has his way, remain uncontrolled. This report from the Washington Times is, to say the least, disheartening. To say the most, it is unconscionable!

INSIDE THE MADRASSAS...nothing has changed for the better and much has grown even worse. This authoritative report on the schools of radical Islamist disposition has just appeared in the U.K.'s New Statesman.

THE OTHER CHURCHILL WILL SURVIVE...at the University of Colorado UNLESS it turns out that he is guilty of plagiarism which, apparently, is a far greater offense than jihadism. As we used to say at Brooklyn College, "go know!"

A JEWISH VEGETARIAN IN THE FIRST CENTURY A.D...is what Jesus may well have been. So reasons the author of Good Eating (The Christian Practice of Everyday Life). But what does that do to undermine the miracle of the seven fishes and seven loaves?

ON THE OTHER HAND, THE JEWS OF SOUTH FLORIDA...and probably everywhere else in this country are definitely sinophilic in their gustatory preferences according to this report from just off the beach.

TELLING IT LIKE IT IS ABOUT HIP-HOP MISOGYNY: Stanley Crouch nails the issue and collapses all of the rationalizations for the music that routinely--and savagely--demeans black women.

WHEN THE DEAD "SPEAK": This definitive analysis of events in which voices from "the other side" are heard is by one of the best of the skeptical investigators of the paranormal, psychologist James Alcock who serves with the proprietor on the advisory board of CSICOP (look it up!).

A GREAT FLAMENCO ARTIST: Angelillo left Spain in the wake of the civil war and became one of the great performers in Argentina. His style is a variant version of classical flamenco touched by Argentinian tango. To listen, scroll down to "Real Audio" and be sure not to miss "Yo Quise a una Columbiana."

Tonight on Extension 720: Albert Einstein once said that "the hardest thing in the world to understand is income tax." Tonight on the program, we will attempt to uncover the mysteries of the Internal Revenue Service with its former commissioner, CHARLES ROSSOTTI. Head of the IRS from 1997 to 2002, Rossotti has just written a book Many Unhappy Returns: One Man's Quest to Turn Around the Most Unpopular Organization in America.

Information on past and future programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

Tonight on Extension 720: Sam Bardell once defined a psychiatrist as “a man who asks you a lot of expensive questions your wife asks you for nothing.” But despite psychiatry’s place as an easy target for comedians and satirists, it has nonetheless become one of the most influential branches of medicine. Tonight, we will examine the state of modern psychiatry with three practitioners: HERZL SPIRO, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, EMIL COCCARO, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Chicago, and MINA DULCAN, Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Chief of Psychiatry at Children's Memorial Hospital and professor of child psychiatry at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

Information on past and future programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

Tonight, Extension 720 goes inside three major publishing houses located here in the midwest to examine the trends in the industry and to detail the process a work takes from manuscript to published volume. Our guests include SUE BETZ, editor-in-chief and head of acquisitions at Northwestern University Press, JOHN TRYNESKI, one of the editorial directors at the University of Chicago, and RAPHAEL KADUSHIN, acquisitions editor at the University of Wisconsin Press.

Information on past and future programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

Tonight on Extension 720: British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour is purported to have quipped: "History does not repeate itself. Historians repeat each other." Tonight, we will examine the veracity of that statement with three practicing historians who will evaluate the state of their discipline and discuss the art of historiography. Our guests will be JAMES CRACRAFT, professor of history at the University of Illinois Chicago, ETHAN SHAGAN, professor of history at Northwestern University, and SUZANNE KAUFMAN, professor of history at Loyola University Chicago.

Information on past and future programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

PROBABLY THE WORST FAILING OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION...is its "do-nothing" policy as the nation is swamped by illegal immigrants. This article from The National Interest, a neo-con journal, gets down to the disastrous particulars.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN MEXICO CITY...president Vicente Fox is preparing for his next visit to Crawford, Texas where he will urge quicker and more inclusive legalization of the illegals!!

EUROPEAN MUSLIMS...are not only rapidly increasing in their number and influence but are, in turn, deeply influenced by the oldest of the radical Islamist organizations: i.e. The Muslim Brotherhood. That assertion is strongly backed with telling data and detail in this report from the Middle East Quarterly.

THE SEAS ARE RISING, THE SEAS ARE RISING...and its not Chicken Little who is sounding the alarm. Rather, the scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research have run some computer simulations which are--to say it straight--rather scary.

THIS CAN'T BE TRUE...but, maybe it is! Thirteen strange findings that seem to contradict present scientific knowledge and theory are listed and described here at the New Scientist's web site. And the strangest is the last: cold fusion may, after all, be possible and just might solve our energy depletion problems forever!!

YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE...to the Chronicle of Higher Education. We have heard about this breakaway publication but most of our professorial colleagues apparently have not. Still, something less stiff and self-congratulatory (and perhaps even less conventionally "liberal") would be welcome. The basic facts are provided here by the Chicago Tribune.

THE SECRET WOMEN'S SCHOOLS...under the long noses of the Taliban who might well have killed both teachers and students if they had been caught. A now-it-can-be-told story from pre-invasion Afghanistan.

ONE NOBEL LAUREATE IN LITERATURE VIEWS ANOTHER: A new biography of Faulkner prompts J.M. Coetzee to a painstaking evaluation, not without high regard but tempted toward pathography. This review/essay has just appeared in the New York Review of Books.

THE MOST MAJOR OF THE MINOR POETS: Our long-established enthusiasm for the work of Sir John Betjeman is here properly explained in a fine essay of literary appreciation by Brooke Allen, writing in the current issue of the New Criterion.

AND HERE'S BETJEMAN IN LOVE! This sprightly song of infatuation is illustrative of the emotional availablity and light grace of Betjeman's poems.

THE LATEST FROM MTV...is enough to make you scream "stop it!" Or, perhaps, to grab the kids and get on a plane to New Zealand--where, almost certainly, MTV or its imitators will reach them anyway. This column by Rebecca Hagelin will fill you in on the vile details.

IT MAKES YOU WISH FOR THE THIRD AND FOURTH MOVEMENTS: What would Schubert have done to round out the great fragment known as the "Unfinished Symphony?" Here's what we have of it in a rousing performance conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi.