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His reelection is doubtful but that didn't deter Senator Lincoln Chafee from throwing in a spanner in the works. His surprise announcement to oppose confirmation of John Bolton caught Republican senators by surprise. "Republican efforts to formally confirm John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations hit an unexpected snag yesterday when a Republican senator in a tough reelection bid said he could not support the diplomat until the Bush administration answers his questions on Middle East policy."Excerpts: The Washington PostThe protest by Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.) is only the latest development in the long-running battle to get Bolton confirmed to the post he now holds on a temporary basis. Last year, Chafee supported Bolton's confirmation, but the opposition of Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) prompted President Bush to name him to the U.N. post as a recess appointment.Chafee is fighting for his political life. Next Tuesday, Rhode Island primary voters must decide between Chafee, the Senate's most liberal Republican, and Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey, who is challenging him from the right. If Chafee survives the GOP primary, he must then win reelection in one of the most Democratic states in the country.Stephen Hourahan, Chafee's spokesman, said the senator's move against Bolton was not motivated by politics, noting that Chafee remains in a political bind. The move might play well with Democratic voters in November, he acknowledged, but next week it could enflame Republican primary voters already drawn to Laffey."Unfortunately, there was no win on this one," Hourahan said.Moreover, Chafee's foreign policy concerns -- expressed in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- could alienate Jewish voters and some Christian conservatives who tend to be staunchly pro-Israel. In the letter, Chafee, who chairs the Foreign Relations subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, urged the Bush administration to stop Israel's construction of 690 new homes in two West Bank settlements."It is no secret that I have serious questions about this Administration's policies in the Middle East," Chafee wrote.But victory in the primary will probably be decided by independent voters, not party stalwarts, and burnishing his independent credentials may be a help. In a new campaign advertisement airing in Rhode Island, a character labels the senator "independent minded" before Chafee states: "I believe that neither Republicans nor Democrats are always right."Republican leadership aides said GOP leaders are willing to give Chafee some room to maneuver ahead of Tuesday's primary. But they indicated they will probably push for a vote after the polls close next week.

The cash cow has become a sick cow but those who exploited the national tragedy are not going to let it rest. Michael Abramowitz and Charles Babington in the Post: "With a series of forceful speeches on terrorism and a dramatic announcement that he has sent top-tier terrorism suspects to the Guantanamo Bay prison, President Bush this week has demonstrated anew the power of even a weakened commander in chief to set the terms of national debate.All week, the White House has made plain its desire to refocus the attention of voters this fall away from a troubled and unpopular war in Iraq in favor of Bush's vision of a worldwide struggle against Islamic radicalism and terrorism. Yesterday, Bush sought to turn a legal defeat at the Supreme Court into a political opportunity." ...

Salafism * Sharia and Pakistan's Rape Law Changes happen slowly....very slowly in the Islamic world, especially about the role of women in society. Two news items today make it clear that Muslim women who want equality and social justice have a long, hard road ahead of them.The Post reported about 7th and 8th grade Mulsim girl students' participation in a debate held at Silver Springs Community Center. The subject: "Is a segregated, all-Islamic upbringing key to protecting your Muslim identity?" While their concern about "sexually saturated pop culture" is understandable, if that is all they see then there is something wrong with what they are being taught. Indoctrination is not education.Eight of the dozen argued yes, using variants of the theme offered by Fatimah Waseem. Young Muslims "join with the non-Muslims, copy them and look up to them. This is hurting our identity. . . . Sometimes, we turn way from Islam," she said. "In conclusion, . . . we cannot sway in the wind and become weak. We need to be protected . . . by segregation."" Takbeer! " shouted some in the audience of proud, clapping parents as each girl concluded her case. "Let us praise God!"Like Fatimah, most of the debaters attend Al-Huda School in College Park. It is run by Dar-us-Salaam, one of the Washington area's most conservative Muslim congregations. Many of its members believe that, in order to be true to their faith, they should live apart from secular society as much as possible. The congregation's Web site describes how it hopes one day to become a self-contained Islamic community.The kind of Islam practiced at Dar-us-Salaam, known as Salafism, once had a significant foothold among area Muslims, in large part because of an aggressive missionary effort by the government of Saudi Arabia. Salafism and its strict Saudi version, known as Wahhabism, struck a chord with many Muslim immigrants who took a dim view of the United States' sexually saturated pop culture and who were ambivalent about participating in a secular political system. It was also attractive to young Muslims searching for a more "authentic" Islam than what their Westernized immigrant parents offered.Pakistan's Rape Law - Rule of the MullahsSome Pakistani legislators are protesting proposed changes in Pakistan's rape law based on Sharia . Changes are overdue and the current law has been criticized by women's organizations and human rights groups. The law is a classic Catch 22. It requires testimony from four witnesses! One gets the feeling that the Mullahs are bent on punishing women for being born with vaginas.Houston Chronicle - Associated PressLawmakers from a coalition of six Islamic groups threatened on Tuesday to vacate their parliamentary seats if Pakistan's government changes a rape law criticized by human rights activists.A walkout by the 68 lawmakers could destabilize the government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, criticized by Islamic parties since his ruling party last month presented a bill to amend the law in a bid to protect women's rights. Pakistan's National Assembly has 344 members. A walkout could force by-elections. Under the current law, approved by a former military dictator in 1979, prosecuting a rape case requires testimony from four witnesses, making punishment almost impossible because such attacks are rarely public. A woman who claims she was raped but fails to prove her case can be convicted of adultery, punishable by death. Maulana Fazalur Rahman, a leader of the Islamic coalition, said Tuesday that lawmakers in his group would vacate their seats in the National Assembly if the government tries to get the assembly's approval to change the law. "We will render every sacrifice for the protection of the Shariah (traditional Islamic) laws," he said at a news conference.However, the ruling Pakistan Muslim Party --— which has a majority in the assembly -- — has praised Musharraf for taking steps to amend the law and end the four-witness requirement.

"All hands drunk"I must confess to being among those who thought that long school holidays were one of the rewards that made teaching an attractive profession. Not so according to Tom Lutz, author of a new book titled "“Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers and Bums in America".” In a delightful article in the NY Times, Summer Next Time, Mr. Lutz commented: "In late May, for those of us who teach, the summer stretches out like the great expanse of freedom it was in grammar school. Ah, the days on the beach! The books we will read! The adventures we will have! But before hunkering down to months of leisurely lolling around a pool slathered in S.P.F. 80, we need to take care of a few things: see what got buried in the e-mail pile over the course of the year, write a few letters of recommendation, and finally get to those book reviews we agreed to do. A few leftover dissertation chapters. The syllabuses and book orders for next year's classes. Then those scholarly articles we were snookered into writing when the deadlines were far, far in the future --— deadlines that now, magically, are receding into the past. My God, did I really tell someone I would write an article called "“Teaching Claude McKay"”? Before we know it, the summer is eaten up, we're still behind on our e-mail, and the fall semester looms. On paper, the academic life looks great. As many as 15 weeks off in the summer, four in the winter, one in the spring, and then, usually, only three days a week on campus the rest of the time. Anybody who tells you this wasn'’t part of the lure of a job in higher education is lying. But one finds out right away in graduate school that in fact the typical professor logs an average of 60 hours a week, and the more successful professors work even more --— including not just 14-hour days during the school year, but 10-hour days in the summer as well. ...

Midterm ElectionsThe thought of November 7th, when midterm elections will be held, is making Republican Congressional candidates lose sleep. They thought they were invincible and their egos made them act at times like kings, at times like clowns (the posturing about Freedom Fries and Freedom Toasts, for example). Now they are looking at the handwriting on the wall. Their prospects are dismal. But they wrote the book on dirty tricks and they have the money for a blitz of ads; negative ads work. Then there are expectations that the Bush administration will pull a rabbit out of the hat -- an October surprise. Could happen but even that might not enable the Republicans to retain control of the House. Dan Balz and David Broder in the Post: "Facing the most difficult political environment since they took control of Congress in 1994, Republicans begin the final two months of the midterm campaign in growing danger of losing the House while fighting to preserve at best a slim majority in the Senate, according to strategists and officials in both parties."Over the summer, the political battlefield has expanded well beyond the roughly 20 GOP House seats originally thought to be vulnerable. Now some Republicans concede there may be almost twice as many districts from which Democrats could wrest the 15 additional seats they need to take control.President Bush's low approval ratings, the sharp divisions over the war in Iraq, dissatisfaction with Congress, and economic anxiety caused by high gasoline prices and stagnant wages have alienated independent voters, energized the Democratic base and thrown once-safe Republican incumbents on the defensive.As the campaign season begins, Democrats are trying to guard against premature celebration, even as their prospects are brighter than most ever imagined. Republicans are hoping for some outside event that would show the president and their party in a better light -- a spate of good news from Iraq, a foiled terrorist plot or an unlikely break in the deadlock over immigration on Capitol Hill.Labor Day 2006Remember the Veterans. "Healing War Wounds",an article by Karen Breslau in Newsweek describes radically new approach to rehabilitation of injured soldiers. "To address the problem, the military has adopted a holistic mind-body approach, deploying a fleet of experts ranging from orthopedic surgeons to therapists to work on the wounded. Doctors insist on group therapy to help cope with the guilt that often dogs survivors who have lost—or left—comrades on the battlefield. Of special concern are the service members, like Smith, classified by the Pentagon as "severely injured"—having lost limbs or eyesight, or suffering burns, paralysis or debilitating brain injuries that will not emerge fully in some cases for years. "Technology has advanced to the point where we can salvage patients who would not have survived before," says Lt. Col. John McManus of the Army's Institute for Surgical Research in San Antonio, Texas. "The bigger test is psychological. Can we restore a life worth living?"Iraq War - the tolls: U.S. Soldiers September 1/3,2006: 10 - Total todate 2652Injured 10782 (as updated by DOD Aug.30,2006)Source: Iraq Coalition Casualties

Karimov, FOB (Friend of Bush)Craig Murray, Britain's former ambassador to Uzbekistan, pulled no punches in describing his experience and his impressions of the Karimov regime. Mr. Murray's outspokenness cost him his job. "The courtroom provided a telling introduction. I had recently arrived as British ambassador in Uzbekistan's old Silk Road capital of Tashkent, where I was watching the trial of a 22-year-old dissident named Iskander Khuderbegainov. The gaunt young man was accused with five other Muslims of several crimes, including membership in a terrorist organization linked to al-Qaeda. The six sat huddled in a cage guarded by 14 Kalashnikov-wielding soldiers. The judge made a show of not listening to the defense, haranguing the men with anti-Islamic jokes. It looked like a replay of footage I'd seen of Nazi show trials. The next day, an envelope landed on my desk; inside were photos of the corpse of a man who had been imprisoned in Uzbekistan's gulags. I learned that his name was Muzafar Avazov. His face was bruised, his torso and limbs livid purple. We sent the photos to the University of Glasgow. Two weeks later, a pathology report arrived. It said that the man's fingernails had been pulled out, that he had been beaten and that the line around his torso showed he had been immersed in hot liquid. He had been boiled alive.""In other words, when the prisoner was boiled to death that summer, U.S. taxpayers had helped heat the water." Her Majesty's Man in Tashkhent can be read in the Washington Post.Excerpts:That was my welcome to Uzbekistan, a U.S. and British ally in the war on terror. Trying to tell the truth about the country cost me my job. Continuing to tell the truth about it dragged me into the Kafkaesque world of official censorship and gave me a taste of the kind of character assassination of which I once thought only a government like Uzbekistan's was capable.When I arrived in Tashkent, in the summer of 2002, I was a 43-year-old career diplomat with two decades of varied experience, which included analyzing Iraqi efforts at weapons procurement and negotiating a peace treaty with Liberian President Charles Taylor. But nothing had prepared me for Uzbekistan, a country immediately north of Afghanistan in the heart of hydrocarbon-rich Central Asia. President Islam Karimov had reigned here as the Soviet satrap since 1989; after independence two years later, he had managed to make poverty and repression even worse than in Soviet times.In Karimov's Uzbekistan, no dissent is allowed. Media are state-controlled, and opposition parties are banned from elections. Millions of people, including children, toil on vast state-owned cotton farms, receiving some $2 a month for working 70-hour weeks. Their labor has made Uzbekistan the world's second-largest cotton exporter. More than 10,000 dissidents are held in Soviet-style gulags. Many are pro-democracy advocates, but anyone showing religious enthusiasm is also swept up. Most are Muslims, but Baptists and Jehovah's Witnesses are routinely persecuted, too.I saw this happening in a country regarded as a strategic friend by the United States, which was looking for well-placed allies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Karimov had delivered for President Bush, allowing the United States to take over a major former Soviet airbase at Karshi-Khanabad to help wage war in neighboring Afghanistan; the several thousand U.S. forces stationed there were the first Americans permitted to serve in former Soviet territory. As a reward, Karimov had been Bush's guest for tea in the White House in March 2002.It was clear by the time I arrived in Tashkent a few months later that the United States was handsomely rewarding Karimov's cooperation. Hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid were flowing to the country -- after the U.S. government, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, repeatedly certified that the Uzbek government was making progress on human rights and democracy. According to a press release distributed to local media by the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent in December 2002, the Karimov regime received more than $500 million in U.S. aid that year alone. That included $120 million for the Uzbek armed forces and more than $80 million for the re-branded Uzbek security services, successor to the KGB.Mid-term ElectionsThe outlook is grim for Republicans. While control of the Senate is expected to remain in their hands, the Congress is a different story. So Bush and his team are out playing the card that has paid dividends in the past. Fifth anniversary of 9/11 is around the corner. They are ramping up the fear factor -- national security, terrorism, and that they know best. The army's top brass made a hole in Bush and Rumsfeld's exhortations about success in Iraq. But that is not going to stop them. They are desperate and lies come easy to them. Paul Harris in The Observer: "While 68 Iraqis have died in two days, the President talks up military success with an eye on the mid-term elections. Meanwhile, defence chiefs are ever more fearful of another Vietnam"President Bush yesterday denied that Iraq was plunging into civil war, just a day after the Pentagon painted a bloody picture of a nation caught in a spiral of increasing violence.His statement appears to widen the gap between the political message coming from a White House concerned about upcoming mid-term elections and a military establishment fearful of getting caught in another Vietnam.In his weekly radio address to the nation, Bush lashed out at critics of the war and portrayed the conflict in Iraq as an integral part of the war on terror. He said the country was not sliding into civil war.'Our commanders and diplomats on the ground believe that Iraq has not descended into a civil war. They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence,' he said.That may be true, but the tone of Bush's speech was deeply at odds with a Pentagon report released late on Friday, which showed Iraqi casualties had soared by more than 50 per cent in recent months. The Pentagon often releases bad news late in the week in order to minimise press coverage and the study certainly made for grim reading.

*The use of cluster bombs by the Israelis has received some attention but not enough. Numerous cluster bombs were used in air strikes in Lebanon. What was worse, most of them were dropped in the last few days of the conflict when cease fire was imminent. It is incomprehensible that the same people whose ancestors (some still alive) were victims of the holocaust during Hitler's Third Reich planned and carried out such fiendishly inhumane operations intended to kill and maim innocent people. No doubt some Hezbollah fighters would be among the dead. Does that justify it? Large supplies of cluster bombs were provided by America under the presidency of G.W. Bush.Washington Post (filed by Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters)A Decade to Clear Cluster BombsGENEVA (Reuters) - Clearing unexploded cluster bombs used by Israel in Lebanon during the month-long war, many of them U.S.-manufactured, could take 10 years, a British-based demining group said on Friday."We will be clearing unexploded cluster munitions from the rubble of the villages of southern Lebanon for another decade," said Simon Conway, director of Land mine Action. "That is the grim reality," he told reporters in Geneva.Before the recent war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas in the south, demining teams were still clearing unexploded cluster munitions from Israel's 1978 and 1982 incursions into Lebanon, according to the advocacy group which is campaigning for an international ban on their use.Such weapons continue to kill and maim civilians, especially children, for years after a conflict, it said.MoreThree types of artillery-delivered cluster bombs were used by Israel in Lebanon -- two U.S.-made (M42 and M77) and one Israeli (M85), each with roughly the same failure rate of 40 percent, he said.So far, the United Nations has found 400 strike sites where cluster bombs -- "a lot of them U.S.-manufactured" -- were used, said David Shearer, U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon.The GuardianIsrael faced a stinging rebuke from the UN yesterday when the world body's humanitarian chief expressed shock at the "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in Lebanon and Kofi Annan called for a rapid end to the conflict in Gaza.Jan Egeland said civilians were facing "massive problems" returning home because of as many as 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs, most of which were dropped in the last days of the war."What's shocking - and I would say to me completely immoral - is that 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," Mr Egeland said. "Every day people are maimed, wounded and are killed by these ordnance."

Passages - 2006Summer is coming to an end. Three weeks before the autumnal equinox, the signs of change are creeping in. The mornings are dark when I wake up and there is that different feeling when I step out of the door -- the air is cooler and the sky looks different. The late Philip Hamburger described it amazingly well in a few words.A piercing blue sky, gentle ocean breeze, low humidity, clean air. But what Seamus Heaney has called "the ache of summer" is increasingly palpable. Darkness will clamp down earlier and more suddenly this evening--one moment a rich, haunting Maxfield Parrish blue, the next pitch-black and night. Hard to face, but wouldn't you know, summer is ending and it is time for memories...Night is falling. There is a chill in the air. Winter will come. And go.The beach house at Pajaro Dunes©MusafirOne for Christmas Card 2006?© www.eliz-art.comSky is the Limit © www.eliz-art.comSand Castle Builders© www.eliz-art.comChildren on the beach© www.eliz-art.comFather and daughters© www.eliz-art.comMargarita time© JHLAs in past years, I went away to the coast to spend a week with friends. Pajaro Dunes is only 50 miles away but in summer it feels like a different world. Much cooler and on most days the sun does not emerge until late afternoon. That did not dampen our spirits. We walked on the beach; the children froliced; watched dolphins and shore birds. Some played tennis while others went out for runs along the shore. When the tides came in the sound of the waves crashing could be heard from the beach house. There were interesting books, good music and conversation. We had great meals accompanied by copious amounts of wine. The days went by too quickly and it was time to return to the valley.Poet's CornerSay Summer/For My MotherI could give it back to you, perhaps in a season,say summer. I could give you leaf back, greengrass, sky full of rain, rootthat won't dig deeper, the names called outjust before sundown: Linda back, Susy back,Carolyn.I could give you back supperon the porch or the room without a breathof fresh air, back the little tears in the heat,the hot sleep on the kitchen floor,back the talk in the great dark,the voices low on the lawnso the children can't hear,say summer, say father, say mother:Ruth and Mary and Esther, names in a book,names I remember -- I could give you back this name,and back the breath to say it with --we all know we'll die of our children --back the tree bent over the water,back the sun burning down,back the witness back each morning.---Stanley PlumlyWashington Post: Robert Pinsky - Poet's Choice

*On the offensive in a last ditch effort to prevent a debacle in November or are they circling the wagons to save themselves ? One thing is clear. They are desperate. A day after Donald Rumsfeld spoke before the American Foreign Legion about critics of Iraq war as "extremists waging 'a new type of fascism'", President Bush begins the first of a series of talks over the next 20 days. The American public heard this before and were not convinced. Nothing has changed. Can they be persuaded to fall in line? "President Bush and his surrogates are launching a new campaign intended to rebuild support for the war in Iraq by accusing the opposition of aiming to appease terrorists and cut off funding for troops on the battlefield, charges that many Democrats say distort their stated positions."With an appearance before the American Legion in Salt Lake City today, Bush will begin a series of speeches over 20 days centered on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But he and his top lieutenants have foreshadowed in recent days the thrust of the effort to put Democrats on the defensive with rhetoric that has further inflamed an already emotional debate.Bush suggested last week that Democrats are promising voters to block additional money for continuing the war. Vice President Cheney this week said critics "claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone." And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, citing passivity toward Nazi Germany before World War II, said that "many have still not learned history's lessons" and "believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased."Pressed to support these allegations, the White House yesterday could cite no major Democrat who has proposed cutting off funds or suggested that withdrawing from Iraq would persuade terrorists to leave Americans alone. But White House and Republican officials said those are logical interpretations of the most common Democratic position favoring a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

The President went and did his thing. Photo opportunities galore. Platitudes aplenty. As details emerge of what has actually been accomplished for reconstruction of New Orleans the consensus is clear -- very little. FEMA is not a scapegoat. Its ineptitude to cope and mismanagement of funds are glaring. "Bush again accepted responsibility for the botched federal response to Katrina. "The hurricane . . . brought terrible scenes that we never thought we would see in America," Bush told a friendly audience gathered at Warren Easton Senior High School. "Citizens drowned in their attics, desperate mothers crying out on national TV for food and water, a breakdown of law and order, and a government at all levels that fell short of its responsibilities."The White House carefully chose the scenes it wanted to highlight on this, the anniversary of one of Bush's biggest political embarrassments. Warren Easton is the city's oldest public high school and, like others, shut down after the city flooded. It has reformulated itself as a charter school, with greater leeway to set its own rules and have its own board.In anticipation of the president's visit, school employees scrambled to complete work on plumbing and electricity, according to the principal, Alexina Medley, and the entire first floor remained gutted. Still, Warren Easton will reopen next week a year ahead of schedule, with about 800 students expected to attend, about a third fewer than before.Jennifer Loven's report in the Post reveals the orchestrated events during the President's visit. "NEW ORLEANS -- President Bush comforted this city that lost so much in Hurricane Katrina and has regained so little in the year since. Amid the raw sorrow of Tuesday's anniversary, the president selected a few beacons of hope to give a lift to struggling Gulf communities and his own still-smarting presidency. He scarfed hot cakes with happy patrons at Betsy's Pancake House, a reopened hangout in a downtrodden, flood-stained New Orleans neighborhood. He chose as a speech backdrop a new charter school viewed as a sign of the city's commitment to a better post-Katrina educational system. He scarfed hot cakes with happy patrons at Betsy's Pancake House, a reopened hangout in a downtrodden, flood-stained New Orleans neighborhood. He chose as a speech backdrop a new charter school viewed as a sign of the city's commitment to a better post-Katrina educational system."Recommended reading:Disaster Capitalism: how to make money out of misery - Naomi Klein, The Guardian. "The privatisation of aid after Katrina offers a glimpse of a terrifying future in which only the wealthy are saved" The first step was the government's abdication of its core responsibility to protect the population from disasters. Under the Bush administration, whole sectors of the government, most notably the Department of Homeland Security, have been turned into glorified temp agencies, with essential functions contracted out to private companies. The theory is that entrepreneurs, driven by the profit motive, are always more efficient (please suspend hysterical laughter).