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Who Shall Live And Who Shall Die?
Masterpiece Theatre and the Politics of Quality
PBS: Behind the Screen
After the NEA

"The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them . . ."

Two new books capture the painful pleasures of lives devoted to the muse. White Swan, Black Swan by Adrienne Sharp, is about the world of dance, and Max Phillips's The Artist's Wife is a portrait of Alma Mahler . . .

"After Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Egypt in April, the government- subsidized newspaper, Al Akhbar, included racial innuendoes about Powell and said that he was 'even more stupid' than his predecessor, Madeline Albright. It claimed he had 'the mind of a bird.' And that's a comment about one of the highest officials in the country that gives Egypt its second largest financial support . . ."

The 60th anniversary on 14 August 2001 of the Atlantic Charter -- when the leaders of the US and Britain met off the coast of Canada to plan for a world in which all peoples "may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want" -- would be good time to begin work on a Pan-Atlantic Charter, to consolidate and enhance the movement to democracy recently undertaken by most countries bordering the Atlantic . . .

"Mike woke with a start and looked at his watch, which read 7:00 a.m. Monica was nowhere to be seen . . "

"It" is everything, yet it is never mentioned. It is to be enjoyed, but not too much, and not too obviously. If you don't have it, you are nothing. If you have too much of it, you risk making nothing of yourself. "It," of course, is money . . .

"So I sat at Eudora Welty's feet and looked up. She was taller than you might expect, but she was still a little old lady, even then . . ."

"Incited by their leaders -- and what red-blooded Palestinian teenager, with hormones raging and dreams of being a martyr enjoying all those virgins reserved for him in heaven, could resist the temptation -- the stone-throwing started. Most of the projecticles fell on Israeli women, worshipping below . . ."

"Marufu was abducted by Zanu Pf supporters before the elections. He was kept in a container, which is a long iron box without windows that ships use to carry cargo. He was kept in the container all day, which was locked from the outside. It had no toilet. His 12 year old son was abducted by the same perpetrators a week later and was locked in the same container with his father... He witnessed his father being beaten ... verbally abused, threatened, kicked and hit with hard objects. The boy also received verbal abuse and threates from the perpetrators. He said the perpetrators bought their girlfriends to the container and had sexual intercourse with them while he and his father tried to sleep..."

"Quickly they freed themselves of their remaining underwear. Monica whispered, 'Condom.' Mike rose from the bed and sheepishly extracted a condom from the wallet in his pants pocket. She looked at him with a wicked smile. 'Dr. Todd, what kind of woman do you think I am, bringing one of those over to my place? It’s not even our second date!'"Chapter Twenty Two . . .

"Katherine Graham was buried on Monday. In 1980, she and I had a long private lunch during the course of which we promised confidentiality, and in her words, 'gave each other hostages.' Since she's passed on, I think that permits me to tell this story . . ."

The Americans are likely to impose an American-style constitution on Macedonia, and the Europeans to implement a bevy of "minority rights" measures. In a region steeped in nationalistic lore, these might spell the end of Macedonia . . .

What ties recent American confrontations with China together is that they all reflect a deep-seated -- and well-nurtured -- sense of aggrieved nationalism that colors the PRC's interactions with the outside world, especially with the U.S. and other Western powers . . .

Could the next Chairman of the NEA be Tony Chauveaux, a native of Claude, Texas, who now practices law in Beaumont, population 100,000? Yep, pardner, he might could be . . .

"Each detective interpreted the note differently, and an animated discussion followed that led to no agreement. 'I do know one thing for sure,' Trevor finally said. 'Our forensic psychiatrist is going to have a field day with this e-mail.'"Chapter Twenty One . . .

As leaders of the G8 nations meet in Genoa, Raymond Lloyd believes the time has come to for them to designate the 2000s a "United Nations Decade of Democracy" . . .

In Zimbabwe, hundreds of farmers are caught in a cycle of fear, where they desperately want to tell the world what is happening to them, but feel that if they speak out they will be victimised, and their families put at risk . . .

Why does Nancy Grimes paint still life? "It has something to do with being a woman. I’m not that interested in the great events," she says. "I’m interested in more intimate kinds of experience, which, I believe, are just as important as the big names and big events . . ."

Dennis Loy Johnson asks: "What if the only way a magazine would run a short story by Eudora Welty were if she agreed to an accompanying photo in which she posed as the protagonist of her story -- 'a Sex and the City type woman', say, 'wearing a bright red spaghetti-strap dress and sandals?'" . . .

"The next morning everyone crowded around Trevor’s desk to read the front-page story in Vancouver‘s Province newspaper. 'Women Murdered at Nightclubs—Serial Killer Involved?' the headline screamed." Chapter Twenty . . .

United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon were anti-Israel long before the Hizbullah kidnappings they captured on secret videotapes. For Hizbullah uses UNIFIL as a shield. It launches its artillery attacks into Israel near UNIFIL posts, which UNIFIL apparently tolerates without objection. But, when Israel fires back, the UN complains . . .

"With the appointment of Walter Isaacson CNN joins the establishment . . . Isaacson is Harvard, Rhodes Scholar, author of a friendly biography of Henry Kissinger, and a man whose rolodex is even better than Tom Johnson’s. 'Establishment' was not my dream for CNN . . ."

July 13, 2001 is the seventh anniversary of the sinking of the "13 de Marzo" tugboat, when 42 Cuban men, women and children trying to escape for the U.S. lost their lives, including 12 children -- one of them just 6 months old. The American media was silent when it happened, and hardly mentioned it since . . .

Chuck Kinder's struggle to complete his lengthy unfinished novel inspired Michael Chabon to write Wonder Boys. Ten years after Chabon's book, Kinder's Honeymooners has finally appeared, and Dennis Loy Johnson finds out what took so long . . .

Critic Alexander C. Kafka finds Iphigenia, as performed in the national capital, a "peculiar melange of classic tragedy, road saga, and heist thriller--a cup of Aeschylus seasoned with just a dash of Sam Peckinpah . . ."

"I’m Detective Armit Singh with the Vancouver police. We’re investigating the theft of controlled substances, specifically narcotics, from various institutions in the Lower Mainland. We understand you have a substance called carfentanyl, which might have been targeted." Chapter Nineteen . . .

"Total hell is not an exaggeration. Imagine having 30 odd 'war veterans' literally camped in your, sleeping on your veranda, so close that they can even hear you flushing your toilet. Just imagine - 4 days and nights of it, you can't even go outside your front door. It is an abomination which is in contravention of every human right known to mankind and there is a human face on it - there is fear, anger, frustration but mostly, total despair . . ."

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America . . .

Arlynn Nellhaus argues that the VOA's skewed news reports help contribute to European pandering to Yasser Arafat -- and the failure to hold him accountable . . .

Sam Vaknin argues that it is not clear whether Albanian rebels are preparing for the breakup of Macedonia, or fighting because they so deeply distrust the goodwill of the Macedonians. If the former, he believes that no extent of NATO involvement will be able to prevent a ferocious -- and Balkan-wide -- war.

"The thing is, Detective Doctor--or is it Doctor Detective?--I’ve got five drunk friends and a hysterical boyfriend in our waiting room demanding to see the patient. We don’t have time to play cops and robbers." "Well, Burse Nitch--or did I reverse the first letters?--why don’t you send them all in, totally contaminate the crime scene, induce general hysteria, and then go for a nice long break." Chapter Eighteen...

"Even if he'd been some poor slob in a bar trying to impress a woman with macho tall tales, Joseph Ellis' list of whoppers was pretty amazing . . ."

In addition to a national energy policy, President Bush's issues agenda should include coordinated policies for: (1) international financial arrangements and international assistance; (2) international commercial policy; (3) international migration policies and property rights protection, argues Bernard E. Munk . . .

"Remember when a 'work accident' referred to a painter falling off a ladder or a carpenter sawing his fingers, instead of wood? Not any more. In the dazzlingly confusing lexicon of journalists covering the Middle East, a 'work accident' is what happens when a Palestinian terrorist making a bomb to blow up teen-agers at a disco or kids in their school bus accidentally blows himself up, instead . . ."

The case of Sandra Jova v. Fidel Castro is indicative of what the Cuban regime thinks about the importance of the institution known as the family, in the aftermath of the Elian Gonzalez story. Sandra is a girl held hostage in Cuba for four years to punish her parents, who now live in Brazil . . .

"She was standing in her doorway when they reached the hallway. Mike noticed she was wearing lipstick and eye shadow for the first time since he had met her. She was dressed casually in jeans again, but she wore a bright blue cotton top that clung to her curves more than any previous outfit he had seen. She smiled. 'Hi and welcome. Please excuse the mess,' she said, ushering them inside." Chapter Seventeen . . .

It was the announcement Dennis Loy Johnson had been waiting for. Apparently, to get a story into the New Yorker magazine, what he should have been sticking in those submission envelopes with his manuscripts was some cash . . .

"Around the world, and worse, in Zimbabwe, everyone thinks that because it is no longer all over the newspapers, the terror on the farms has stopped - it has not. Day after agonising day it goes on and yet everyone is silent . . ."

Shadia Drury's book argues that Straussian ideas provide American neoconservatism with all its dominant themes: the internal enemy, the weakness of liberalism, the iniquity of liberal elites, the need for a public orthodoxy, and the populist cure for America's liberal modernity. And, in its intellectual roots, neoconservative Straussianism may be an un-American activity. Chapter Four:American Applications of Straussian Philosophy . . .

The recent settlement of producer Jack Smith's lawsuit against CNN shows Tailwind is a story they still can’t kill with a stick . . .

"Mike was the first to arrive at the conference room for the debriefing. On the noteboard, beneath the heading 'Suspect One,' a composite drawing had been attached. Mike studied the picture. The man had short black hair, dark eyes, a straight nose, and heavy-framed glasses. Except for his neatly trimmed black beard, the suspect looked pretty ordinary. Under the picture a caption read: 'He is approximately six foot three, 225 pounds, with brown eyes. Have you seen this man? If so, please contact the Vancouver Police Department at 555-5121.' Under the caption someone, Mike suspected Ken, had written in pencil: 'Or kill him yourself.'Chapter Sixteen . . .

"In this period of intellectual high-wire acts at the theater, when Michael Frayn and Tom Stoppard and David Auburn have us untangling nuclear physics, arcane classics, and obscure mathematics to get at the roots of the human condition, there’s an allure to a troupe that is smitten by smut . . ."

"I do not rejoice at the death of Chenjerai Hunzvi. I do not rejoice at the thousands of Zimbabweans who have suffered, and continue to suffer to this very day, at the hands of 'war veterans' across the country of my birth. I do not rejoice at murder, torture, rape, intimidation, extortion, burning, beating, looting. I do not rejoice . . ."

David Ehrenstein links Andrew Sullivan's private life to his writing, charging that his New York Times article about the end of the AIDS epidemic, "When the Crisis is Over" was misguided--because it's not over . . .

"It may come as a surprise, but the most even-handed reports are from Israel Radio. . . Israel Radio always includes Palestinian sources and interviews Palestinian representatives. Often their outrageous accusations -- such as that Israelis are dropping poisoned candy for children -- are left unanswered. (But how could anyone even try to answer that accusation with a straight face?) . . ."

"'It’s funny,' Sandy almost snarled. 'I once sat in this same room and listened to a child pornographer explain how the four-year-old in his photos insisted he take all the pictures of her naked because she felt so warm in her clothes.'"Chapter Fifteen . . .

James Bamford's new book, Body of Secrets, a history of the National Security Agency, displays a fanatical animus against Israel and its American supporters . . .

A mystery explored: Why moviegoers seem anxious to hand over hard-earned dollars, as well as three hours and three minutes of their precious lives, to see Pearl Harbor, despite less than enthusiastic reviews . . .

"Last night the phone was ringing until all hours. 'Have you heard?' the news people kept asking me. 'The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, is on a four-nation African Tour . . .'"

"When the drug dealer opened the door to his twenty-second-floor condo, he was wearing a black silk robe and slippers; although slightly overweight, he was tall and handsome. Armit introduced them, while Ken walked in as if he owned the place. He took a quick tour, then said, 'I don’t get it, Jimmy. What is it with you pushers? All the money in the world and you still can’t buy taste.'" Chapter Fourteen . . .

"More than 300 companies have now been invaded and still Zimbabweans do and say nothing. More than 3000 farms have been (and still are) invaded, and yet Zimbabweans say nothing, do nothing. What on earth is wrong with us as a nation, as a people?" . . .

What do you call a publication that will publish a review if the author pays them to? You call it ForeWord Magazine . . .

The Idler's Charlie Clark came face-to-face with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at the Army-Navy Country Club. He found it a rather civilized occasion . . .

"'Remind me to send her a letter bomb sometime,' she said with a smile. Then she leaned toward David and kissed him hard on the lips." Chapter Thirteen . . .

On his recent trip, the Pope had to be careful not to make the plight of the Syrian Christian minority even more precarious. A well-known Arab saying, often quoted in the Middle East, is roughly translated as: "First we kill the Saturday people [the Jews], and then the Sunday people [the Christians] . . ."

"I now concede, for the first time, that there was sufficient evidence presented to the jury and known to me that painted Tim McVeigh as a member of the conspiracy to bomb and destroy the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. But Tim, I resolutely maintain, did not receive a fair trial. More importantly, there remains significant reasonable doubt, in my mind, as to whether he himself committed murder . . ."

"I know many Americans will question why the execution of someone who is clearly guilty of such a heinous crime should be delayed. I understand that victims and victims' family members await justice. But if any questions or doubts remain about this case, it would cast a permanent cloud over justice . . ."

"Detective Sandy Brown sat at his desk reluctantly reading about poisons. He had spent most of the morning on the computer, which for Sandy was akin to torture. He loathed most types of technology" Chapter Twelve . . .

Atrocity allegations against former Senator Bob Kerrey have reopened the Vietnam debate. Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History says the conventional wisdom is wrong . . .

Timothy McVeigh is scheduled to die in Terre Haute, Indiana -- a midwestern town Jefferson D. Dunbar, Jr. remembers well . . .

Israel doesn't have one day a year when offspring say thanks to their mothers (whether they want to, or not). In Israel, every day is Mother's Day . . .

When Nicholson Baker came to Washington, DC, on May Day, he spoke for the thousands of old books and newspapers "disbinded" in a government "preservation" campaign -- including his grandfather's . . .

"Ken and Armit met Faldini at a trendy though gauche café on Robson Street, Vancouver’s answer to New York City’s Park Avenue, or Los Angeles’s Rodeo Drive. Their date was fifteen minutes late. Dressed in an expensive black suit with a navy shirt and white tie, he entered the café with deliberate flourish." Chapter Eleven . . .

That today's poetry is self-absorbed, lazy, and elitist hardly disqualifies it from commercial success, says Canadian critic Alex Good. What is killing poetry today is that it is so dull . . .

"There are only two words that dominate our lives in Zimbabwe now, two words that are in almost every article in every newspaper, two words to explain our descent into anarchy, fear, chaos and poverty: 'war veterans'". . .

Alexander C. Kafka reviews Roth's latest novel and finds it not a shock, nor an epiphany, but a harangue and a bore . . .

A flood of court cases -- banning The Wind Done Gone and questioning the legality of e-books -- reveal how mega–corporations and new technology are in conflict with individual rights of authors and consumers . . .

Mike sat beside Sandy, then Trevor cleared his throat and said, "Now that Sandy's given us a lecture on racial harmony, let's get down to business. It looks like we've got a killer out there who's poisoned at least two women at Vancouver nightclubs." Chapter Ten . . .

"If only the Arabs said in 1947 what even today they can't say: 'We accept compromise.' They, too, could be having a celebration now . . ."

When CNN started, it was a rebellious kind of place. The two founders were both troublemakers. Ted Turner had been kicked out of Brown for having a girl in his room, and Reese Schonfeld was expelled from Harvard Law School for gambling . . .

"Weíve got one dead woman and a second one who barely survived. But I get a sinking feeling thereís more in store." Chapter Nine . . .

"Understanding Jewish heroism and courage during the Holocaust is important for our future, in order to prevent a recurrence of such a tragedy . . ."

There is no war in Southeast Asia now. But it is is rife with violence, and a power vacuum is appearing. We should be thinking ten years ahead about how to minimize violence -- and how to stay out of regional conflict ourselves . . .

Spring 2001 finds a bumper crop of books by Dante. What explains the craze? Robert Hollander, coñtranslator of the newest Inferno, says the Italian poet "can be as simple and straightforward as one's country neighbor, or as convoluted as the most arcane professor . . ."

Passover, celebrated last week, commemorates the Hebrew people's escape from slavery in ancient Egypt and God's promise to deliver the Israelites to the Promised Land . . .

"So we have two young, attractive women apparently poisoned at different clubs within the same month," Trevor added. "You donít know any connection between these two?" Chapter Eight . . .

It is absolutely vital for American credibility that the Chinese understand that their actions have consequences, and that we mean what we say . . .

There were gasps from the audience when a panelist at Virginia's Festival of the Book predicted that e-books will replace the printed word . . .

You're an author with a new book out and it gets a bad review. What do you do? Why, offer a bounty on the critic . . .

Will tiny Macedonia be the site of the Third Balkan War? Sam Vaknin asks Prime Minister Lubcho Georgievski whether the deadly Albanian conflict will spread . . .

"Using a laryngoscope, Mike found the vocal cords and slipped the tube between them into the windpipe. Once on the ventilator, and with the aid of a few other medications, a more reassuring pink replaced the boyís ashen color. His vital signs also improved, and the staff expressed a collective sigh of relief. It wasnít until then that Mike noticed that the two paramedics who had brought the boy in were the ones he was looking for." Chapter Seven . . .

The crisis over the collision between a Navy plane and Chinese jet shows Asia will provide a real test for the ingenuity and leadership of the new Bush administration . . .

What's the best section of any newspaper? Charlie Clark argues for the published correspondence of outraged readers . . .

"I went to Hebron to say, whatever the politics of the people in the "occupied territories," they do exist for me . . ."

Carlo Goldoni revolutionized theater in the 18th century, transcending stock conventions of commedia dell'arte by imposing a multidimensional and witty realism of plot and character . . .

"Six weeks away and not much has changed. More deaths, more Arab fantasy, more international condemnation of Israel for violence it didn't begin. Welcome home . . ."

If something can be thought of but is not known yet, it is most probably due to the shortcomings of Science -- and not because it does not exist . . .

When Dennis Loy Johnson was suddenly asked to return a review copy of T.A. Alderson's novel Subversion, he asked himself: "Why would they pull a book they've already printed -- an expensive hardcover, no less?" So, he began investigating . . .

"When Katie arrived at the ER, she was comatose. Seconds later she had a seizure. As soon as the seizure abated, her blood pressure dropped, which led to a full cardiac arrest. Again she was resuscitated successfully, then her heart rate sped up to 300 beats per minute. This time two large defibrillator paddles were used to shock her back to a regular rhythm. Katie had exhibited a textbook full of cardiac pathology before eventually succumbing, and Mike figured she had lived about three hours on borrowed time."Chapter Six . . .

In 1991 Agustin Blazquez wrote to Harry Belafonte after seeing Routes of Rhythm, agreeing that Cuba was the source of inspiration for popular music in this hemisphere. But he could not overlook that "for the last 32 years no more new rhythms have evolved or been launched from that island. That is very revealing indeed. I wonder if it has anything to do with freedom of creation . . ."

Today's Russian crisis is part of any post-Communist transition, to a large degree shaped by the three factors: the legacy of Communism, the national political and economic culture, and the clash of both with the sweeping changes introduced by modernity . . .

"David, who never took notes during an interview, studied Monica as she spoke. She spoke freely, but merely provided the barest facts and details as she sat upright in the bed. After the initial exploration of her hair, she placed her hands on the bedside; sometimes they gently explored the ruffled sheets beside them. Underneath the sheets David could see her legs cross and uncross, especially when she spoke about her time as a model. She maintained a near-constant eye contact with him which, he noted, was particularly unusual for supposedly depressed patients." Chapter Five . . .

"On the Morning of February 6, as I was sitting in the studios of Fox Morning News, the anchor asked, what would I do if I were still running CNN. I said, ì Iíd be talking to Bill Clinton about taking over ëThe Larry King Show.íî Within hours of my return to the office, the Fox Morning News producer called our PR firm and said that Fox executives had heard the show and they were talking about making overtures to Clinton . . ."

When applied to Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, the first thing that Dennis Loy Johnson's Lady With A Pet Dog In The Attic Test shows is, as Vladimir Nabokov said, the notion of a "literal translation" is nonsense . . .

Is it worth sitting through a two-hour downer, featuring a sullen, abusive drunk who dribbled paint for fame and fortune? Yes, if only to admire the artistry of Ed Harris as he gracefully pirouettes, dripping paint, and equally adeptly smashes furniture . . .

"After a brief consultation, it was decided the SWAT platoon would storm the building. In spite of the protests of the sergeant, Trevor felt obliged to join the assault team. As soon as he was handed a bulletproof vest, he regretted his decision, particularly when he noticed a slight tremor in his hands. He could see that Glen was equally uncomfortable."Chapter Four . . .

Bye Bye Birdie is the America that time forgot, but high school drama departments, somehow, didn't. Alexander C. Kafka thinks high schools got it right . . .

The recent arrest of a Russian spy in Washington has revealed that U.S.- Russian relations are not nearly as good as many people assume. Western boasts about the collapse of communism fueled resentment in a newly pauperized country, where "democracy" and "capitalism" appear to be synonyms for chaos and crime. And President Putin, whose style might be best described as "KGB-lite," has skillfully used these views to reassert the primacy of the State . . .

"My publisher has just called, a Hollywood studio is inquiring about the rights to Me And Ted Against The World. Ted gets the big star. What man in Hollywood would not like to play Ted Turner?" A Tale Of Two Turners . . .

"Mikeís fascination for homicide investigations bordered on an obsession. His involvement with the VPDís Homicide Squad began strictly as a medical consultant, but he was hooked right from the start."Chapter Three . . .

"I think I cried more during the writing of the book, than I had when the events were taking place on my doorstep. I still cannot believe that we lived through that hell, and came out in one piece . . ."

BACK ISSUES

(At the request of readers, in order to speed up the home page connection, older stories from The Idler are moved into this section at the end of each month. Stories may also be found by using the search box in the left-hand column).

Table of Contents for February 2001, Volume III The Idler, v.III, February, 2001 (links to January 2001 Table of Contents).

Table of Contents for 2000, Volume II The Idler, v.II, January - December 2000.

Table of Contents for 1999, Volume I The Idler, v.I, 1999.