Like my life, my blog is in a constant state of re-invention.

If Torricelli drops out of the race, does that actually make it easier for Democrats to retain the seat? Is there a Democractic politician in NJ who can come in at this point and hope to win? I wish I knew.

And you thought I had no heart.

Here she is -- my niece, Samantha Debra Magazine.

Very interesting news

Torricelli considers dropping out of N.J. Senate race - timesunion.com Sen. Bob Torricelli, his re-election hopes dimmed by an ethics controversy, is considering dropping out of the race, a Democratic party source said today.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was no clear timetable for the first-term lawmaker to make a decision about his plans.
Torricelli's campaign manager, Ken Snyder, declined comment on the report the first-term Democrat was considering leaving the race. He said the senator planned an afternoon news conference but gave no details on exactly when and where.

Salon.com Politics | Joe Conason's Journal If all this makes you wonder whether we're going to war because Saddam tried to kill the President's dad, there are some American veterans asking about that, too. They love their country at least as much as the tough-talking super-hawks (like the bug exterminator and the Ole Miss cheerleader) who just never had time to join the service.

Max Sawicky on the IMF/World Bank protests

If you want a good primer on the issues involved in the ant-globalization movement, you can't do better than MaxSpeak.

MaxSpeak Weblog The dominant trend in the movement is reformist. The labor movement is on the reformist side of the divide. Whether you seek to reform or abolish an institution like the IMF does not bear on the substance of your critique of its policies. Disagreement over remedies does not impeach the validity of the critique.

An important focus of all these groups is trade, but it is not the only one. The interest is in what is called 'fair' trade, not no trade. Fair trade could mean different things. An analogy is regulations in the U.S. against child labor. The movement seeks similar regulations applying to child labor in other countries. Since no world government exists to implement such regulations, the recourse is to include such stipulations in trade agreements. If you think it is legitimate for the U.S. to promulgate a regulation against child labor, what could be wrong with two nations' governments agreeing to do the same?

A principal interest is to include "social clauses" in trade agreements. Such clauses would be aimed at safeguarding basic human rights, and at upholding minimum standards for labor and environment.

Outside the trade area are demands aimed at promoting economic development in the world's poor countries. A reflection of the impact of the movement is that one such demand -- debt relief -- has gone mainstream. Making such a policy real is another matter. But the principle has been established. The debate has been won. The only issue now, not a minor one, is to see that it is implemented in a serious way.

Oh, the disappointment.

In case you missed it, the Macarthur Foundation "genius" grants were announced last week. I was passed over once again. This was in the same year that I was once again not named People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive (I came in fifth).

Things We Can Count On

In these wacky times, it's good to know we can trust in a few eternal verities. For example:
* A business-friendly administration is good for the economy.
* The stronger we act, the more the world respects us.
* The wise framers of the Constitution established Congress as a body to grant the President whatever powers he may request from time to time.
and finally
* No terrorist group would ever dare stage an attack on U.S. soil with the no-nonsense Republicans in office.
-- Mr. Joel

The Village Voice: Nation: Mondo Washington: D.C. Chief Denies Role in Alleged Beating by James Ridgeway

The Village Voice: Nation: Mondo Washington: D.C. Chief Denies Role in Alleged Beating by James Ridgeway The nation's capital looks like it is in a virtual state of siege today. Cops in full riot gear stand grouped in twos and threes on every corner. At Dupont Circle, they form a protective cordon in front of shops.

The air is full of sirens as cop cars escort busloads of officials from one part of the city to another for their World Bank meetings. Convoys of unmarked, all-black vans speed through the streets, agents peering intently out of the tinted side windows. By noon, more than 500 demonstrators were reported to be under arrest. There's been nothing like this in Washington since the Vietnam protests.

This morning a Department of Energy employee, John McGill, told WTOP reporter Christy King that as he and his girlfriend were riding to work on their bikes, cops pulled the girlfriend off her bike, and, with D.C. police chief Charles Ramsey joining, in "beat her to the ground.''

"We got caught up in all this,'' said McGill, who claimed that when he complained to the chief, Ramsey paid no attention. The woman was taken into custody and hauled off.

Ramsey denied any role in the incident. "I didn't beat down anybody," Ramsey told King. "I wasn't there. I didn't touch anybody. . . . If he wants to file a complaint let him file it. . . . I don't care. It's just not true."

King persisted. "Are your officers acting appropriately?" she wanted to know.

Replied Ramsey: "You're following a [line of questioning] that is total bullshit

Gulf War General Says Iraq Invasion 'Totally Unjustified'

Gulf War General Says Iraq Invasion 'Totally Unjustified' The officer who commanded the British 7th Armored Brigade in the Gulf War has revealed that he is strongly opposed to a military invasion of Iraq.

Maj Gen Patrick Cordingley, who commanded the brigade - the renowned Desert Rats - in 1991, believes that Iraq poses no imminent threat to Britain or its interests and that "the case for war has not yet been made by the politicians".

Gen Cordingley told The Telegraph: "I'm absolutely opposed to a war. I feel very strongly that it is wrong. There is no justification for sending British troops to Iraq."

He doubted that the dossier of evidence against the Iraqi regime - to be released by Tony Blair on Tuesday - would prove the case for war. "I don't think they have much, frankly," he said.

I don't believe him.

After Cheney went on TV and lied about the Al Qaeda/Iraq meeting in Prague, how can we believe anything the administration says?

Al Qaeda linked to Saddam -- The Washington Times Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday accused Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of harboring al Qaeda terrorists and aiding their quest for weapons of mass destruction.
His charges, based on "evolving" intelligence reports, marked the Bush administration's most detailed account of links between Baghdad and al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's terror group that carried out the September 11 attacks.
"We do have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad," the defense secretary said. "We have what we consider to be credible contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapons of mass destruction capabilities."

Michael Kinsley -- Keep Preachin' Brother

Ours Not To Reason Why By Michael Kinsley The official U.S. government message on how citizens should decide about going to war is, "Don't worry your pretty little heads about it." Last week the White House issued a sort of Official Souvenir Guide to the Bush administration's national security policy, and it is full of rhetoric about democracy. Yet that policy itself, including at least one likely war, has been imposed on the country entirely without benefit of democracy. George W.'s war on Iraq will be the reductio ad absurdum of America's long, slow abandonment of any pretense that the people have any say in the question of whether their government will send some of them far away to kill and die.

Add it up. You may not agree that the Bush family actually stole the presidency for George W., but you cannot deny that the other guy got more votes. Once installed as president, Bush asserted (as they all do) the right to start any war he wants. Members of Congress can pass a resolution of support if they would like—in fact, he dares them not to—but the lack of one is not going to stop him. You may not agree that this is flagrantly unconstitutional, but you cannot deny that this makes any discussion of the pros and cons outside of the White House largely pointless. Finally, it's already clear that Bush will copy his father's innovation of rigorously controlling what journalists covering the war can see and report. You may not agree that the obvious purpose of this is to protect official propaganda and lies from exposure, but you cannot deny that such will be the convenient effect.

Bragging about myself -- from a review of Three Sistahs at MetroStage

MetroStage Good work was done by the design team as well. Milagros Ponce de Léon’s nicely detailed setting has a number of features that Jones uses in his staging to great effect. Some of the walls are solid but others are thin painted cloth through which the audience can see what the sisters cannot. One of the nicest moments of the show has each sister holding a candle, seemingly alone with her own thoughts but lined up and connected by the softly lovely number they sing, "Temple of My Dream." LeVonne Lindsay’s costumes evoke time, generation and economic status for each of the three without overdoing the 1960’s feel. No Mama Mia! pink spandex or flashy polyester Nehru jacket excesses. Instead the feel is just right for the characters and time. Adam Magazine’s lighting design similarly avoids flashy excesses but delicately differentiates time and mood from scene to scene, while Alison Sigethy’s follow spot work is about as subtle and unobtrusive as has been seen on a local stage in a while. Tony Angelini’s sound design amplifies the voices, which seems extraneous given the strength of the three ladies’ voices in such a small room. But it appeared to be necessary to compete with the band which, although only a piano, bass and guitar, seemed to fill the space and might have crowded out the voices.

They'd have to pay me to do this.

Now that Rosie O'Donnell is no longer involved with Rosie, its time that the publishing community (everything's a freaking community) approached me and that the world should be introduced to ADAM MAGAZINE, the Adam Magazine Magazine. (What, tha's sillier than O, the Oprah Magazine?)

ADAM can be the vehicle for spreading the Adam Magazine lifestyle. Every week there will be a picture of me, Adam Magazine, and my fabulous celebrity friends. (I don't have any, but that's what Photoshop is for.)

It's brilliant! I await the call from Conde Nast.

You go, Gore!

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Martin Kettle: Mentioning the war In a speech this week, a senior western politician controversially compared the effects of George Bush's foreign policy to the conditions which created the rise of Adolf Hitler. But the politician in question was not the unfortunate former German justice minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin, who was sacked by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on Monday for saying much the same thing at the height of the German election. The man who drew the comparison this time was none other than former US vice-president Al Gore.

In his remarkable speech in San Francisco on Monday night - remarkable not least because Gore spoke there with a freedom and frankness that he disastrously abandoned during his presidential election campaign two years ago - Gore ripped into Bush's ideological opposition to "nation-building" as a catastrophically dangerous policy. "The absence of enlightened nation-building after world war one led directly to the conditions which made Germany vulnerable to fascism and the rise of Adolf Hitler, and made all of Europe vulnerable to his evil designs," Gore argued.

A Brit on American Puritanism

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Matthew Engel: Their very own Taliban The US was a Victorian country even by the time Victoria came to the throne, as Captain Frederick Marryat, author of Mr Midshipman Easy, discovered when he visited Niagara Falls in 1837 and a young lady knocked her shin. "Did you hurt your leg much?" he asked. She was horrified by the use of the vile word "leg". The 1830 and 40s, according to Mencken, were the golden age of American euphemism. "Bitch, ram, boar, stallion, buck and sow virtually disappeared from the written language, and even mare was looked upon as rather racy."

Maybe this is a new golden age. Most British visitors are fooled because they watch minority cable TV programmes like South Park or The Sopranos or go to licentious enclaves like New York or San Francisco and imagine these somehow constitute America. If I have tried to say anything in a year of writing from here, it is that there is a vast hinterland where life is very different.

The values of the hinterland permeate the cultural life of the country. Politicians might talk of assholes in what they think is private - Nixon swore all the time, we know - but public discourse is sanitised to suit the values of a churchgoing nation. The CBS late-night host, David Letterman, is still barred from mentioning, as he tried to explain on air, the word "bull-[bleep].

Congratulations to Shoshana and William Magazine on the birth of Samantha Magazine. Eight pounds seven ounces, twenty and one-half inches, and a long two and a half hour labor.

Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | Jonathan Freedland: Rome, AD ... Rome, DC?

Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | Jonathan Freedland: Rome, AD ... Rome, DC? But that difference between ancient Rome and modern Washington may be less significant than it looks. After all, America has done plenty of conquering and colonising: it's just that we don't see it that way. For some historians, the founding of America and its 19th-century push westward were no less an exercise in empire-building than Rome's drive to take charge of the Mediterranean. While Julius Caesar took on the Gauls - bragging that he had slaughtered a million of them - the American pioneers battled the Cherokee, the Iroquois and the Sioux. "From the time the first settlers arrived in Virginia from England and started moving westward, this was an imperial nation, a conquering nation," according to Paul Kennedy, author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.

More to the point, the US has military bases, or base rights, in some 40 countries across the world - giving it the same global muscle it would enjoy if it ruled those countries directly. (When the US took on the Taliban last autumn, it was able to move warships from naval bases in Britain, Japan, Germany, southern Spain and Italy: the fleets were already there.) According to Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, these US military bases, numbering into the hundreds around the world, are today's version of the imperial colonies of old. Washington may refer to them as "forward deployment", says Johnson, but colonies are what they are. On this definition, there is almost no place outside America's reach. Pentagon figures show that there is a US military presence, large or small, in 132 of the 190 member states of the United Nations.

washingtonpost.com: HHS Seeks Science Advice to Match Bush Views The Bush administration has begun a broad restructuring of the scientific advisory committees that guide federal policy in areas such as patients' rights and public health, eliminating some committees that were coming to conclusions at odds with the president's views and in other cases replacing members with handpicked choices.

In the past few weeks, the Department of Health and Human Services has retired two expert committees before their work was complete. One had recommended that the Food and Drug Administration expand its regulation of the increasingly lucrative genetic testing industry, which has so far been free of such oversight. The other committee, which was rethinking federal protections for human research subjects, had drawn the ire of administration supporters on the religious right, according to government sources.

A third committee, which had been assessing the effects of environmental chemicals on human health, has been told that nearly all of its members will be replaced -- in several instances by people with links to the industries that make those chemicals. One new member is a California scientist who helped defend Pacific Gas and Electric Co. against the real-life Erin Brockovich.

Eagles lead 30-7 in third quarter -- I am not happy.

Another good reason not to go to war for no reason.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Oiling the wheels of war History is not always a reliable guide to the future. But the fact that every global recession in the past 30 years has been preceded first by a crisis in the Middle East and then a spike in the oil price does little to reassure those fretting over the economic consequences of a war on Iraq. It may explain why the International Monetary Fund, a body not given to exaggeration, warned last week that ousting Saddam Hussein would not be "a very healthy development", and one that could lead to the panic selling of shares. The fund's image of "fear feeding on fear" on the world's stock exchanges emphasises that the devastation would not be confined to the Middle East. Although there may be political capital in equating the Iraqi leader to Hitler there is none in comparing world war two's reinvigoration of the US economy to any putative boost that America might enjoy if it bombed Baghdad. The assessment this time is clearly tilting towards the view that a strike against Saddam would be more of a burden than a boon.

Everyone should read this outstanding article by France FitzGerald.

The New York Review of Books: George Bush & the World In his State of the Union speech Bush did not mention any positive goals for American foreign policy, and he has mentioned none since. Indeed, apart from some vague talk about the expansion of freedom and democracy, he has never presented any clear idea of the world he would like to see emerging from the "tectonic plate shift" of September 11. He has spoken only of threats, and in recent months, his emphasis on American autonomy and his reliance on military solutions has become even more pronounced. For example:

• In May the administration "unsigned" the treaty negotiated by the Clinton administration establishing the International Criminal Court; it then attempted to destroy the court by threatening to veto UN peace-keeping missions unless the Security Council overrode the treaty and gave Americans on these missions blanket immunity from prosecution. Canada, Mexico, and the European allies all pro-tested so forcefully that the administration agreed to put the matter off for a year.

• That same month Bush signed a strategic arms treaty with Putin; but the treaty states merely that the two sides will reduce their active forces to a level of 2,200 warheads by 2012, at which point the treaty will lapse. Administration officials recognize that Russia's huge stocks of poorly secured nuclear weapons and fissile materials could find their way to rogue states or terrorists; so could unemployed Russian experts willing to give assistance in making chemical and biological weapons. Yet the administration thus far has made no new effort to deal with any of these threats, and the treaty has merely added to the possible dangers, for it contains no provision for the destruction of launchers and no verification procedures that would allow the US to monitor what happens to the 4,000 decommissioned Russian warheads. It also permits either side to withdraw from the treaty on three months' notice.[1]

• American troops continue to search for al-Qaeda units in Afghanistan, yet the administration still refuses to allow an international force to help secure the countryside outside Kabul. As a result, the Kabul government cannot extend its authority, reconstruction efforts cannot go forward, and many parts of the country have reverted to the warlordism from which the Taliban and al-Qaeda emerged during the 1990s.

• In a speech on June 1 Bush announced a new doctrine of preemptive warfare. As leaks from the Pentagon later revealed, US military commanders were at his request preparing detailed plans for an attack on Iraq involving up to 250,000 American troops. On June 24 Bush, after making and breaking a promise to intervene in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, essentially withdrew the US from the Middle East "peace process" for an indefinite period by calling upon the Palestinians to reject Arafat and build a working democracy before he gave them any assistance. Apparently he had decided to let Sharon deal with the Palestinians while he went ahead with an attempt to bring down Saddam Hussein.

Washington Post Review of Signature Theatre's What The Butler Saw

washingtonpost.com: Chaos Served Properly: This 'Butler' Does It "What the Butler Saw" has absolutely no redeeming social value, and that's a blessing. Joe Orton's 1967 farce of wild yens and vile urges is mayhem of the highest -- in other words, lowest -- order, a delirious dark twin to all those tacky, libido-driven West End romps that appeal to the snickering-schoolboy aspect of the British psyche.

The play, the last major one Orton wrote before being murdered by his lover, Kenneth Halliwell, is Wildean in structure and Rabelaisian in spirit. It's both well made and anarchic, conventional and scandalous. A love of language, a penchant for chaos, and a contempt for the Establishment are all vividly present in this gleefully nasty piece of work, which features, among other things, a drug-crazed policeman, an ingenue in bondage, a naked bellboy and Winston Churchill's unmentionables.

Like all good farce, "What the Butler Saw" works only if all the disorder is scrupulously orderly, a condition that Signature Theatre has seen to admirably in its crackerjack revival. Directed by Jonathan Bernstein with fine slapstick flair for the well-timed door-slam, this "Butler" serves Orton exceedingly well. Bernstein and his nimble ensemble, drilled in their quick changes and getaways nearly as rigorously as Parris Island recruits, are at one with Orton's brand of dysfunction in the ranks.

It's about time

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | WorldCom to reconsider Ebbers payoff WorldCom, the bankrupt telecommunications company, is to reconsider the generous severance it gave to its former boss, Bernie Ebbers, it emerged today.

When Mr Ebbers stepped down as chief executive in late April, just before WorldCom went bankrupt, his package included lifetime retirement pay of $1.5m (£965,988), lifetime use of the corporate jet and a $408m loan with only a 2.3% interest rate.

But the Wall Street Journal reports that WorldCom's board will meet today to consider whether to claw back those generous conditions.

More reviews of shows I have designed:

BOB ANTHONY Free-Lance Arts CriticSeptember 9, 2002

The MetroStage has a lovely musical that mostly takes on an operatic veneer with its production of "Three Sistahs", a world premiere musical by Janet Pryce and Thomas W. Jones,II. It should be named "In My Father's House" since the empty house is truly a fourth character in this musical and the reference to Chekov's "The Three Sisters" is vague regarding the story line. Yes, the wonderful thing about this musical is the naturalistic playing and singing that never touches on contrivance throughout the evening. And, the relationships of the three women, their dead brother and their two parents show fully drawn characterizations and motivations throughout. And the blending of the three voices (Bernardine Mitchell, Crystal Fox and Desire Dubose)is perfect every time and always emotionally moving. This is a highly recommended family musical about families that ends the stereotypes of the Black family seen in most recent stage work. Color lines just disappear as one looks at the inner soul of loving, although sometimes secretive, lives of these family members.

*****

Signature Theatre opens its season with the rollicking satire, "What the Butler Saw" , that "fries" the psychiatric profession and shows that these guys are crazier than the toubled and/or innocent people that they serve. All ends well with a delighful Shakespearean recoupling scenario as a family becomes whole again. Huge credit goes to the skills of Jonathan Bernstein who creates a world of madness for the audience. Yes, Signature Theatre is not just for their wonderful musical comedies anymore. They add another notch for highly effective comedy with this one.

Is Cheney a Liar?

On Sunday, vice President Chenye trotted out the now-discredited report that Mohammed Atta met with IUrqi officials in Prague. Here's what he said:

Transcript for Sept. 8 VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I want to be very careful about how I say this. I’m not here today to make a specific allegation that Iraq was somehow responsible for 9/11. I can’t say that. On the other hand, since we did that interview, new information has come to light. And we spent time looking at that relationship between Iraq, on the one hand, and the al-Qaeda organization on the other. And there has been reporting that suggests that there have been a number of contacts over the years. We’ve seen in connection with the hijackers, of course, Mohamed Atta, who was the lead hijacker, did apparently travel to Prague on a number of occasions. And on at least one occasion, we have reporting that places him in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official a few months before the attack on the World Trade Center. The debates about, you know, was he there or wasn’t he there, again, it’s the intelligence business.
Mr. RUSSERT: What does the CIA say about that and the president?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: It’s credible. But, you know, I think a way to put it would be it’s unconfirmed at this point. We’ve got...

But here's what was reported today in the Washington Post:

U.S. Not Claiming Iraqi Link To Terror (washingtonpost.com) Most specifically, analysts who have scrutinized photographs, communications intercepts and information from foreign informants have concluded they cannot validate two prominent allegations made by high-ranking administration officials: links between Hussein and al Qaeda members who have taken refuge in northern Iraq and an April 2001 meeting in Prague between Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent.

"It's a thin reed," said a senior intelligence official describing the information on both cases.

If Cheney wasn't lying, he was doing the next best thing. He knew that the reports weren't credible, and yet used them to buttress his position on Iraq.

Mark Crispin Miller -- always on point.

In the Wake of 9-11, the American Press Has Embraced a 'Demented Caesarism' They haven't bothered to report, for instance, that the war against Iraq has already begun. Last week the US and UK together hit the largest air-defense installation in western Iraq - a mission that involved 100 jets. At the same time, "we" began the largest military build-up in that region since the start of Operation Desert Shield twelve years ago. Neither story was reported by a single mainstream news source in this country. "Despite the assurances of President George Bush and Tony Blair that 'no decisions' had been made on how to deal with the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, compelling evidence has emerged in the past week that the US has begun a military build-up not seen since the last Gulf war," reported the Observer, which, along with the Daily Telegraph, the Independent and, in Canada, the National Post, among other foreign press outlets, has duly covered what should be big news, but isn't news at all, in these United States, whose soldiers - and civilians - are the ones who stand to suffer once this war begins.

'The Washington Post's Review of Three Sistahs at MetroStage (Lighting Design by Adam Magazine)

'Three Sistahs': R&B in Search Of Chekhov (washingtonpost.com) As in the Chekhov play on which the musical is loosely based, the sisters inhabiting the production at MetroStage in Alexandria can imagine a better future without any real hope that it is actually going to come. And while "Three Sistahs" is not so presumptuous as to attempt to replicate Chekhov, it also, unfortunately, does not have the necessary structural logic to allow an audience to fully invest in these searching women. Like a skeleton whose bones have been scattered, the soapy musical lacks the connective tissue that would help make more sense of the puzzle.

I guess the marriage isn't working out.

Thousands flock to see weeping Madonna -- The Washington Times

Who is President?

Salon.com Life | Man awakes from 7-year coma Man awakes from 7-year coma

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printe-mail

Sept. 7, 2002 | HONOLULU (AP) -- A man who regained consciousness after being in a coma for seven years has a lot of catching up to do.

When Peter Sana slipped into a coma in March 1995, the murder trial of O.J. Simpson was still going on.

Sana was 27 when he fell into a coma after contracting meningitis, the inflammation of a membrane that encloses the brain and the spinal cord.

Sana has been in a Honolulu nursing home and began responding to commands from his nurse over the last month. The nursing home staff says regular visits from his family over the years played a large role in his recovery. Sana's father visited every day.

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The NFL season starts tomorrow for my beloved Washington Offensive Names. If Steve Spurrier wins a couple of games, I am ready to drink the Kool Aid.
Football and The Sopranos. Woo hoo!

Sanity seems to be returning.

The National Economy 59% of Americans say that they approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president, 34% disapprove, and 7% are undecided. Bush's disapproval rating has more than doubled since May and it is at its highest since July 2001.

I apologize to my many loyal fans (yeah, right) for the paucity of postings lately. Unlike everyone else, I haven't been on vacation. Instead, I've been busy in the theater, designing lighting for Three Sistahs at MetroStage in Alexandria, Virginia and What The Butler Saw at Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia.