National Review articles from April 2005

National Review archives from April 2005

Defense and prosecution.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
April 11, 2005... Ramesh Ponnuru accuses me of presenting "fantasy as fact" ("How to be a Hero of Liberty," March 14), but succeeds only in displaying National Review's lack of journalistic scruple. I have written much about how the Ninth Amendment serves...

Correction.(letters to the editor)(Correction notice)
April 11, 2005... The editors goofed in titling the W. H. von Dreele verse on page 43 of our last issue. The title should have been "Two Old Troupers," not "The Big Question." The subjects of the verse were Chirac and Schroeder, who do raise big questions, but...

Playgirl has fired its editor for announcing that she is Republican.
April 11, 2005... Playgirl has fired its editor for announcing that she is Republican. The world is spared a Men of National Review issue.

The Senate has finally acceded to years of Bush-administration requests to allow drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.(environmental impact of the drilling)(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... The Senate has finally acceded to years of Bush-administration requests to allow drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Full congressional approval is expected to come soon. ANWR has too little oil for drilling there...

Liberals are complaining so much about the Alternative Minimum Tax, you would almost think that they wanted to cut it.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... Liberals are complaining so much about the Alternative Minimum Tax, you would almost think that they wanted to cut it. The AMT was originally designed so that rich people and corporations couldn't deduct their way out of paying any taxes. If...

The president has selected Rep. Rob Portman (R., Ohio) to be the new trade representative.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... The president has selected Rep. Rob Portman (R., Ohio) to be the new trade representative. Portman is one of 25 members of the House whom the Cato Institute considers to be relatively reliable supporters of the freedom of international...

The nomination of deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank shows that President Bush does not scant the importance of multilateral institutions, as the caricature has it, but rather dissents from conventional liberalism about what their future should be.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... The nomination of deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank shows that President Bush does not scant the importance of multilateral institutions, as the caricature has it, but rather dissents from conventional liberalism...

Voters were never enthusiastic about campaign-finance regulation.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... Voters were never enthusiastic about campaign-finance regulation. They may have favored the idea when asked about it by a pollster, but they were hardly demanding congressional action. So the proponents of regulation had to foster the illusion...

Lebanon continues to boil.(Lebanon and Syria relations)
April 11, 2005... Lebanon continues to boil. It has seen the amazing spectacle of dueling mass protests in Beirut. A Hezbollah protest drew an estimated 500,000 (reportedly swelled by demonstrators bused in from Syria and the PA), but was quickly trumped by an...

While the world frets over Lebanon's future, some Lebanese are taking a more lighthearted approach, using e-mail to circulate anti-Syrian jokes, cartoons, and even their own deck of "most wanted" cards.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... While the world frets over Lebanon's future, some Lebanese are taking a more lighthearted approach, using e-mail to circulate anti-Syrian jokes, cartoons, and even their own deck of "most wanted" cards. The cards, which mock Lebanon's...

Kofi Annan just can't win.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... Kofi Annan just can't win. When he does nothing (Rwanda, Iraq), people get killed; when he does something, he commemorates their killers. What's a U.N. secretary general to do? (Our answer: Resign.) Annan's latest little fiasco concerns a trip...

One of the most cheering things George W. Bush ever did was "divorce" Yasser Arafat after learning that the old murderer had lied to him.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... One of the most cheering things George W. Bush ever did was "divorce" Yasser Arafat after learning that the old murderer had lied to him. Arafat must have been devastated. He'd been lying to Western politicians for 35 years, and none of them...

Condoleezza Rice was in fine form during her recent Asian tour.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... Condoleezza Rice was in fine form during her recent Asian tour. She held firm against North Korea, calmly dismissing pressure from Pyongyang to apologize for calling the country an "outpost of tyranny" and insisting on a return to the six-party...

The Islamic Commission of Spain, the group that represents Spain's Muslims, issued a fatwa against Osama bin Laden on the anniversary of the Madrid train bombings.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... The Islamic Commission of Spain, the group that represents Spain's Muslims, issued a fatwa against Osama bin Laden on the anniversary of the Madrid train bombings. The group condemned bin Laden for istihlal, or making up his own religious...

China's unelected parliament, at the bidding of China's unelected government, passed a law making it illegal for Taiwan to secede from the nation that does not rule it, and has not ruled it to any serious effect for a hundred years.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... China's unelected parliament, at the bidding of China's unelected government, passed a law making it illegal for Taiwan to secede from the nation that does not rule it, and has not ruled it to any serious effect for a hundred years. The vote...

Vicente Fox, the president of Mexico, is deeply disturbed by the prospect of U.S. citizens reporting the breaking of U.S. laws to U.S. authorities.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... Vicente Fox, the president of Mexico, is deeply disturbed by the prospect of U.S. citizens reporting the breaking of U.S. laws to U.S. authorities. At a press conference, Fox said Mexico is carefully watching the Minuteman Project, an...

The Rev. Joanna Jepson, an Anglican curate, asked the courts to investigate the 2001 abortion of a 28-week-old fetus with a cleft lip and palate.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... The Rev. Joanna Jepson, an Anglican curate, asked the courts to investigate the 2001 abortion of a 28-week-old fetus with a cleft lip and palate. English law permits abortion after the 24th week only in cases of children with a "serious...

America was transfixed by the story of Ashley Smith, the Atlanta woman who got Brian Nichols, the murderous fugitive who had taken her hostage, to calm down, let her go, and ultimately give himself up.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... America was transfixed by the story of Ashley Smith, the Atlanta woman who got Brian Nichols, the murderous fugitive who had taken her hostage, to calm down, let her go, and ultimately give himself up. Smith accomplished this by talking about...

When Deborah Lipstadt, historian of the Holocaust, called David Irving, the bard of the Third Reich, a Holocaust denier, Irving sued.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... When Deborah Lipstadt, historian of the Holocaust, called David Irving, the bard of the Third Reich, a Holocaust denier, Irving sued. His case was thrown out of court--in Britain, mind you, where libel is easy to prove--and Lipstadt has written...

Here's one for the Things We Already Knew file: The Project for Excellence in Journalism, part of Columbia's journalism school, has found that American media coverage of the last presidential election was three times more likely to be negative toward President Bush than toward Senator Kerry, and 50 percent more likely to be positive about Kerry than about Bush.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... Here's one for the Things We Already Knew file: The Project for Excellence in Journalism, part of Columbia's journalism school, has found that American media coverage of the last presidential election was three times more likely to be negative...

How Could He?(Poem)
April 11, 2005... How Could He? The president's picked Wolfowitz To head the Worm Bank. Well! It's as if Merlin had been named; No kidding, lefties smell Something that's almost Faustian, When, actually, Paul Just wants to...

For a bunch of pacifists, those lefties sure have some anger-management issues.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... For a bunch of pacifists, those lefties sure have some anger-management issues. Take Nathan Alan Winkler, a 31-year-old Tampa resident, who went berserk when he saw a "Bush-Cheney '04" bumper sticker gracing Michelle Fernandez's car. She was...

A place to avoid in New York City: 395 Hudson Street, home of hip-hop radio station WQHT.(perjury case of musician)(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... A place to avoid in New York City: 395 Hudson Street, home of hip-hop radio station WQHT. That was the scene of a shootout four years ago, when the entourage of rap artiste Lil' Kim encountered a rival rap group on the street outside the...

We thought we'd share with you the great Paul Johnson, writing about America, in The (London) Spectator: "The plight of Europe is such that, whenever I have the chance to talk to young people now, at any age from 12 to 20, I always urge them to make their future in America, particularly if they are clever and energetic, qualities essential for a vigorous life over there.(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... We thought we'd share with you the great Paul Johnson, writing about America, in The (London) Spectator: "The plight of Europe is such that, whenever I have the chance to talk to young people now, at any age from 12 to 20, I always urge them to...

It is odd that a man as unworldly as George Kennan should have had a profound influence on the world.(Foreign Service officer)(Brief article)(Thumbnail biography)
April 11, 2005... It is odd that a man as unworldly as George Kennan should have had a profound influence on the world. The longtime Foreign Service officer and academic deplored vulgarity, materialism, democracy, and most exercises of American power (in his old...

Ruling out compromise.(changing state marriage law)
April 11, 2005... California superior-court judge Richard Kramer has struck down the traditional marriage laws of his state, which were reaffirmed in a referendum in 2000. Like the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Kramer found the law's definition of...

Too vigorously assisted suicide.
April 11, 2005... Opponents of assisted suicide have good reasons for persisting in efforts to save Terri Schiavo's life. But supporters of assisted suicide may have even better ones. The opponents have always asserted that allowing assisted suicide at all,...

Muscleheaded.(PUBLIC POLICY III)(Government Reform Committee's regulation on juvenile substance abuse)
April 11, 2005... At times, it was hard to know who should have been more embarrassed by the House Government Reform Committee hearings on steroid abuse in baseball--the congressmen or the players. The hearings were the worst sort of congressional grandstanding....

Notes & asides.(Letter to the editor)
April 11, 2005... * Dear Mr. Buckley: I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your latest book, Miles Gone By, which I found to be very informative, interesting, and entertaining, with your usual impeccable writing skills and gift of concinnity, combining intellectual...

Come the revisionists: self-flattering, self-deluded--almost desperate.(AT WAR)
April 11, 2005... Will the second Bush administration be less bellicose, more multilateral? That's what some of the president's critics are suggesting, after his much-publicized visit to Europe. Joseph S. Nye, author of Soft Power, thought he saw in Bush a new...

The World's Banker: Paul Wolfowitz is an inspired choice.(THE WORLD)
April 11, 2005... Say this for President Bush: The man has a sense of style. Critic after critic howls for the heads of the architects of the Iraq war, and above all for the head of the man the European media call "Paul Vulfovitz," as though he were a villain in...

Our enemy, the states: the federal Republicans are okay, but the governors need to get with it.(PUBLIC POLICY)
April 11, 2005... On November 5, 1990, the first President Bush signed a tax increase into law. The event is remembered as a betrayal of Bush's campaign promise not to raise taxes, and as the mistake that, in the opinion of many, cost him reelection two years...

Faux, maybe; novel, no: the Bush administration is catching hell for its 'video news releases'.(THE WHITE HOUSE)
April 11, 2005... At President Bush's March 16 news conference, a reporter noted that the White House has banned paying journalists to promote the Bush agenda--a reference to the Armstrong Williams scandal--but then asked, "Your administration continues to make...

An awful familiarity: Bukovsky sees developing before him an 'EUSSR'.(EUROPE)
April 11, 2005... The last building blocks of the European Union are being set in place, and a weird unfathomable process it is too. A dozen of the 25 countries involved are to hold referendums to ratify the continent-wide constitution already approved by their...

'Never Again,' that time: a recent movie spotlights Rwanda.(AFRICA)
April 11, 2005... When, in 1987, I crossed the border between Rwanda and Zaire, it was like going from a land of obsessive-compulsives into one of chronic hysterics. Everything on the Rwandan side was neat and tidy; everything on the Zairean side was broken down...

Latin America's terrible two: Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez constitute an axis of evil.(Cover story)
April 11, 2005... In military terms, the Western Hemisphere is the strategic rear area of the United States. The U.S. needs a secure and prosperous hemisphere not only to ensure a peaceful neighborhood in which to live, but also to be able to project its power...

Harvard's crucible: a question of academic freedom, and meritocracy, and sense.(HIGHER EDUCATION)(battle between Harvard president Larry Summers and the university's Faculty of Arts and Sciences)
April 11, 2005... The battle between Harvard president Larry Summers and the university's Faculty of Arts and Sciences reached a climax on March 15, when 218 members of the faculty voted that they "lacked confidence" in his leadership, with 185 opposed and 18...

The great right north? Conservatives may finally be getting their act together in Canada.(CANADA)
April 11, 2005... If you had swallowed the general view of the Canadian news media, the national convention of the (relatively) new Canadian Conservative Party in Montreal was likely to be a sad and solemn wake. Unfortunately, nobody told the corpse, who got up...

A tremendously costly law: Sarbanes-Oxley, three years after its unfortunate passage.(THE ECONOMY)
April 11, 2005... Early this year, an unusual full-page ad appeared in the Wall Street Journal and other financial newspapers. The ad attempted to refute claims from businessmen about the costs imposed by the mandates of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the "corporate...

Ask your mental health practitioner!(the long view)
April 11, 2005... Sponsored by Pfizer[TM] Dear Mental Health Practitioner, I am a fairly high-ranking official with the World Bank. Recently, the current president of the United States nominated a totally unacceptable person to be the new head of our...

Condi's U.N. Man.(HELP!!!!)(Poem)
April 11, 2005... Condi's U.N. Man My favorite Bolton apercu Was when John volunteered the view That, were the U.N. 's ten top floors Lopped off, remaining corridors Would never notice. Kofi found--While peering closely at the...

Decline and fall.(Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed)(Book review)
April 11, 2005... Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond (Viking, 592 pp., $29.95) Jared Diamond's bestselling Guns, Germs, and Steel argued that geography trumped culture, and that the current privileged position of the West...

Now, a masterpiece.(Gilead: A Novel)
April 11, 2005... Gilead: A Novel, by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 256 pp., $23) PROSE worth rereading does not merely communicate: Lucidity with "elegant variations," as they used to be called, is not worth a second look, since you get...

Lecture.(Poem)
April 11, 2005... LECTURE The hip professor lectured to his class this afternoon, but not a sound was heard, which looked quite odd, and certainly didn't pass unnoticed, but no one said a word. Why bother? His students had better things...

Sauce for the gender.(Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap--and What Women Can Do about It)(Book review)
April 11, 2005... Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap--And What Women Can Do About It, by Warren Farrell (Amacom, 288 pp., $23) We've all seen the statistics that purport to show the raw deal women get in the workplace. But that raw...

A man of the Gospel.(SHELF LIFE)(Memory and Identity: Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium)
April 11, 2005... To call the new book by Pope John Paul II a valediction is, in the most obvious sense, premature: Its author, though devastated by illness, has a famously strong constitution, and may well continue his earthly pilgrimage for years to come. But...

Reagan's Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All.(SHELF LIFE)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 11, 2005... * One of the season's most exciting political books is Reagan's Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All (Nelson Current, 417 pp., $25.99), by Craig Shirley. Many chapters in the Reagan story have become worn through...

The Best Year of Their Lives: Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon in 1948: Learning the Secrets of Power.(SHELF LIFE)
April 11, 2005... * In The Best Year of Their Lives: Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon in 1948: Learning the Secrets of Power (Basic, 312 pp., $26), veteran Time magazine writer Lance Morrow shows us three future presidents facing early political tests. All three were...

Cato: A Tragedy, and Selected Essays.(SHELF LIFE)(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... * One of the best-known historical tidbits about the Founders is that George Washington's favorite play was Joseph Addison's Cato. With the publication of Cato: A Tragedy, and Selected Essays (Liberty Fund, 282 pp., $12), in a new edition by...

A dozen discs.(MUSIC)(pianist Say Fazil)(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... FAZIL SAY, a pianist, is enjoying a well-promoted career. He's Turkish-born, in his mid-30s, energetic. He tours around with distinguished musicians such as Maxim Vengerov, the violinist. And he makes records--or CDs, if you must--which is not...

Two pianists have recently recorded Beethoven's Sonata in A major, Op. 101, one of that composer's most sublime works.(MUSIC)(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... * Two pianists have recently recorded Beethoven's Sonata in A major, Op. 101, one of that composer's most sublime works. Anton Kuerti pairs it with the "Hammerklavier" Sonata, on the Analekta label. This pianist was born in Austria, but he grew...

Anne-Sophie Mutter.(MUSIC)(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... * Anne-Sophie Mutter has attracted many composers, as well as many fans (other fans, one might say). Not the least of the composers who have written for this starry violinist is her husband, Andre Previn. (The other week at Carnegie Hall,...

Nikolaus Harnoncourt.(MUSIC)
April 11, 2005... * Many of Bruckner's nine symphonies are monuments of spiritual greatness. You would never dare rank them. But some of us have a special fondness for the Fifth, which unassumingly builds, until it leaves you numb with appreciation. Here, as...

Lennox Berkeley.(MUSIC)(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... * Sir Lennox Berkeley is one of those 20th-century English composers almost never heard in the United States. A shame. Berkeley, along with many of his compatriots, is worth hearing, if not immortal. Chandos has been publishing The Berkeley...

And now for something American--a couple of things American, actually.(MUSIC)(Sound recording review)
April 11, 2005... * And now for something American--a couple of things American, actually. Harmonia Mundi gives us a disc called American Angels: Songs of Hope, Redemption, and Glory, sung by "the Anonymous 4," who are, in fact, a quartet of women perfectly...

Bartok.(MUSIC)(Bela Bartok)(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... * Finally, a dip into the historical-reissue bins. Where were you on April 13, 1940? Joseph Szigeti and Bela Bartok were in the Library of Congress, playing a recital of Beethoven, Debussy, and, of course, Bartok. You can hear this recital on...

Anton Heiller.(MUSIC)(Brief article)
April 11, 2005... * A king of the organ in the middle part of the 20th century was Anton Heiller, an aristocratic Austrian--aristocratic in his playing, that is. Vanguard Classics brings him back to life--or perpetuates his life--with an all-Bach CD, which...

We'll conclude with the human voice, or rather several of the best we've ever known.(MUSIC)
April 11, 2005... * We'll conclude with the human voice, or rather several of the best we've ever known. The aforementioned Kathleen Ferrier died in 1953--she was only 41--but all can experience her through recordings such as the Bach and Handel program...

Last call.(THE STRAGGLER)(old age)
April 11, 2005... THE college I attended had a large teaching hospital attached, so I spent many hours of my youth socializing with medical students. They were an amiable crowd on the whole, though my reverence for the medical profession never quite recovered...

Killers at large.(on the right)
April 11, 2005... NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 19 Tony Venenum (we'll call him), 26, reasons that he has always taken risks in life. He was raised by a single parent and made his way in a neighborhood where toughness was a requirement for survival. He discovered, in...

Galbraith up close.(on the right)(biography book about John Kenneth Galbraith written by Richard Parker )
April 11, 2005... NEW YORK, MARCH 4 PROFESSOR John Kenneth Galbraith leans back on his chaise longue and answers the question about the book: "I think it's fine. I couldn't have done it better if I had written it myself." The reference is to John Kenneth...

Human butchery.(on the right)(against Islamic Law and human torture)
April 11, 2005... NEW YORK, MARCH 18 THE week gone by has been incessant in its reminders of human depravity, the collectivization of which was a specialty of the century gone by. There were singular acts of cruelty in old Russia, and indeed in Bismarck's...

A new tyrant.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
April 25, 2005... Otto J. Reich and NATIONAL REVIEW should be celebrated for exposing the threat posed by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez ("Latin America's Terrible Two," April 11). The human-rights record of Lieutenant Colonel Chavez is appalling. Thousands of...

The feminist delusion.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
April 25, 2005... Victor Davis Hanson incisively notes ("Decline and Fall," April 11) that Jared Diamond's materialist determinism blinds him to the fact that "material want is often a mere pretext for national delusion and aggression"--as, for example, with...

So, starving to death is "euphoric" (according to the Los Angeles Times)?(The Week)
April 25, 2005... * So, starving to death is "euphoric" (according to the Los Angeles Times)? Then North Korea must be the happiest nation on earth!

Even death-row convicts get.(The Week)
April 25, 2005... * Even death-row convicts get a last meal.

Sandy Burglar (sometimes spelled Berger), former national security adviser to Bill Clinton, cut a deal with the Justice Department after he swiped classified documents from government files.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * Sandy Burglar (sometimes spelled Berger), former national security adviser to Bill Clinton, cut a deal with the Justice Department after he swiped classified documents from government files. Burglar was reviewing Clinton-era documents at the...

Neighborhood watches are groups of private citizens who patrol their neighborhoods and report crime to the cops.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * Neighborhood watches are groups of private citizens who patrol their neighborhoods and report crime to the cops. The neighborhood being patrolled by the Minuteman Project is the San Pedro Valley of Arizona, a 23-mile strip of border that is...

Conservatives are being excoriated for hypocrisy in the Schiavo matter.(The Week)(Terri Schiavo )(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * Conservatives are being excoriated for hypocrisy in the Schiavo matter. Those who supported congressional intervention to keep Terri Schiavo alive are said to have betrayed their principles on limited government, the sanctity of marriage,...

Meet the invisible woman, Eleanor Smith.(The Week)(conservative's beliefs about Terri Schiavo case)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * Meet the invisible woman, Eleanor Smith. Smith, still wheelchair-bound at 65 from a childhood bout of polio, sat in vigil outside Terri Schiavo's hospice. "This agnostic liberal says 'Feed Terri.'" Or meet the invisible man, Nat Hentoff,...

John Danforth, a former Republican senator and, most recently, Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times decrying the alleged takeover of his party by the Religious Right.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * John Danforth, a former Republican senator and, most recently, Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times decrying the alleged takeover of his party by the Religious Right. On his account, the Republican...

During the Clinton years, the Department of Education began to interpret the gender-equity Title IX law to impose quotas on college and high-school sports teams--resulting in the elimination of many men's teams.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * During the Clinton years, the Department of Education began to interpret the gender-equity Title IX law to impose quotas on college and high-school sports teams--resulting in the elimination of many men's teams. In 2003, the Bush...

When the New Orleans Times-Picayune endorsed Eddie Jordan for election as the city's district attorney in 2002, it cited his efforts to fight "public corruption.".(The Week)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * When the New Orleans Times-Picayune endorsed Eddie Jordan for election as the city's district attorney in 2002, it cited his efforts to fight "public corruption." At his inauguration two months later, Democratic senator Mary Landrieu hailed...

Back to 55?(National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released analysis abou speed litmit)
April 25, 2005... WHEN recounting the greatest advances for freedom enacted by the Republican-controlled Congress over the past decade, conservatives often overlook the abolition of the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit on federal highways. Enacted back in 1974,...

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave a speech defending the Supreme Court's use of foreign law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave a speech defending the Supreme Court's use of foreign law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution. "The notion that it is improper to look beyond the borders of the United States in grappling with hard questions...

A government is finally forming in Iraq.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * A government is finally forming in Iraq. The delay took a little of the shine off the January 30 elections, and prompted (what else?) panicked commentary in the U.S. about an insoluble crisis. But squabbling, procrastination, incompetence,...

The Syrian foreign minister, Farouk al-Sharaa, told U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen that all Syrian troops and intelligence agents would be out of Lebanon by April 30.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * The Syrian foreign minister, Farouk al-Sharaa, told U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen that all Syrian troops and intelligence agents would be out of Lebanon by April 30. Distrust, but verify.

Kofi Annan is innocent!(The Week)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * Kofi Annan is innocent! Or at least so says Kofi Annan, who announced that the preliminary Volcker report on the Iraqi Oil for Food boondoggle was an "exoneration." It's a good thing nobody believes him--even his own staff--because it's...

Pope John Paul II will go down in history as "an anti-Communist force," to borrow an insult the Communist party threw at its opponents.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * Pope John Paul II will go down in history as "an anti-Communist force," to borrow an insult the Communist party threw at its opponents. The attempt to murder him in May 1981 coincided with rising resistance to the satellite regime in Poland....

As the media of the world report on the burial of John Paul II, we should note another religious vigil.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * As the media of the world report on the burial of John Paul II, we should note another religious vigil. Every Sunday, 30 women, relatives of Cuban political prisoners, have heard Mass at a Havana church, then walked silently down the...

The Religion Thing.(Poem)
April 25, 2005... The Religion Thing Bugged by it or bemused, the Dems Continue to exhale When queried by constituents: Some on the campaign trail (John Kerry's fumbles come to mind) Sweat quarts or simply stall-An off-putting...

Zimbabwe's general election at the end of March was conducted in "a climate of fear," according to Zimbabwe Election Support network, a monitoring group made up of Zimbabweans.(The Week)
April 25, 2005... * Zimbabwe's general election at the end of March was conducted in "a climate of fear," according to Zimbabwe Election Support network, a monitoring group made up of Zimbabweans. Stuffed ballot boxes? Intimidation of voters? Dead souls on the...

Is the Axis of Evil heading for a nasty crackup?(The Week)(North Korean soccer team lost to Iran in a World Cup qualifying match)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * Is the Axis of Evil heading for a nasty crackup? The North Korean soccer team lost to Iran in a World Cup qualifying match played in Pyongyang the other day. Taking exception to a decision by the Syrian referee, the North Korean spectators...

Jane Fonda, 67, has partly apologized for Hanoi Jane, her younger self who posed on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun in 1972.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 25, 2005... * Jane Fonda, 67, has partly apologized for Hanoi Jane, her younger self who posed on a North Vietnamese anti-aircratt gun in 1972. In an interview with 60 Minutes to promote her memoir, My Life So Far, Fonda said, "I will go to my grave...