Kafka in Canada

Good Morning. A few items for the weekend...

• Maher Arar is the Syrian-born wireless technology consultant American authorities detained on false information from Canada, then "rendered" to Syria, where Arar was imprisoned and tortured for almost a year before his release. Canada cleared him of all suspicions. The Americans refuse to remove him from a terrorist watch list. See "The Hounding of Maher Arar"
  

• "The Bush presidency Is Over." Need we say more?
  

• "The Multinational Failures of Condi Rice"
  

• "Hugo Chavez, Press Thug"
  

• "Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Islam's Prickly Enlightenment"
  

Plenty more in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading.pt
Plenty

Herbert Tippen Davidson Jr., 1925-2007

Good morning,

On Tuesday morning, Herbert Davidson, third-generation owner of the last major family-owned newspapers in Florida, died. A personal tribute, "Colossus of Heart and Verve."

• Hezbollah is at it again in Lebanon, edging the country toward civil war: See "Lebanon's Slide."

• A tribute to Jacques Brel and "Le plat pays," see "Brel, Ever Alive and Well."

Much more in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading.pt

Education's Heists

Good Morning. A couple of new items today...

• What's the purpose of education--to manufacture workers or mold individuals? The "free" market drives the answer. See Pierre's Tuesday Column, "Cogs and Ends: Education's Heist?"
  

• Anthony Swofford scored big with Jarhead, his memoir of the first Gulf War. His first novel, Exit A, draws less than pink mist. See "Jarhead Shoots Blanks."
  

• From the archives: 15 years old and shot down for wielding a fake gun. Remember "Chris Penley's Fatal Bullies."

Plenty more in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading.pt

Bush the Empire Slayer

Good morning. A few items from the weekend...

• Bernard Chazelle, a computer science professor at Princeton, contributes a terrifically written piece that sums up the Bush years in red white and blight: See "Bush the Empire Slayer."
  

• The war on terror's great delusion? That Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are American allies, when they are, in fact, al-Qaeda's enabling axis. See "Pakistan, Bush and the Taliban"
  

• On Lebanon's Michel Aoun, "The General in His Laban Cloth"
  

• Can Bach--or any classical music--be translated into words? Not likely. But don;t let that stop you from trying. See "For the Love of Bach."

Plenty more in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading.pt