Some of the news that is fit to print

Seekin' info about you...

As noted on Poynter's 'E-media tidbits'
Blog Readers: Take This Survey

Over at BlogAds, Henry Copeland is conducting a survey of blog readers. He explains why: "With luck, we'll get a fun and semi-useful snapshot of blog readers. If blog readers portray themselves accurately, the aggregate data could be good PR for blog advertising." If you'd like a demographic snapshot of the readers of your own blog, Copeland says he's happy to oblige. Just tell your blog's readers to take the survey and for question No. 22 (Referral), type in the name of your blog. (Caveat: All your readers must type in exactly the same letters for your blog.) I'll take advantage of this for E-Media Tidbits, so if you take Copeland's survey, please type in "E-Media Tidbits" -- exactly like that -- for question No. 22.

You can just type in "CJD's blog"

The Friday round-up

The Friday round-up...

Want a Different Abu Ghraib Story? Try This One [WSJ, 5.14.2004]
Saddam had their hands cut off. America gave them new ones.

Polls Show Bush's Job-Approval Ratings Sinking [NYT, 5.14.2004]
By DAVID E. SANGER
President Bush's job-approval numbers have sunk to all-time lows, with a majority of Americans now saying, for the first time, that the invasion of Iraq was not worth the cost.

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Needle in the Database [NYT, 5.14.2004]
By CHRISTOPHER WHITCOMB
The United States has the world's most comprehensive spyworks, but it is a system that doesn't understand its own strengths.

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
How the Feds Got Their Men [NYT, 5.14.2004]
By BRYAN BURROUGH
F.B.I reform? It's happened before — 70 years ago.

On the Road Again, But Now the Boss Is Sitting Beside You [WSJ, 5.14.2004]
As employers increasingly turn to GPS technology to keep track of their fleets, more workers are balking at having the boss constantly looking over their shoulders.

Web Sites Offer Campaign Garb [WSJ, 5.14.2004]
When it comes to offering a broad array of official campaign merchandise, Bush has a healthy lead over Kerry.

Well, Aren't You Special [WSJ, 5.14.2004]
You don't have to be very important these days to be a VIP. From symphonies to museums to rock concerts, America's entertainment, travel and fitness industries are selling specialness -- to everybody.

Lights! Camera! (and plenty of) Action! [CSM, 5.14.2004]
Summer is the cinematic silly season and promises no shortage of sequels and spin-offs.

Is the New York Ice Age In That Summer Movie A Realistic Possibility? [WSJ, 5.14.2004]
The upcoming disaster flick, "The Day After Tomorrow," is hitting theaters at a pivotal moment in research into whether the current global warming caused by the greenhouse effect could, paradoxically, trigger a deep freeze in some regions.

Summer Reading [WSJ, 5.14.2004]
The new wave of beach books has a serious undertow. We look at the best of this season's weighty biographies and novels -- plus some sunnier alternatives.

TV's big draw [CSM, 5.14.2004]
Networks plan to launch several animated series aimed at young adults.

And Slate’s Today’s Papers…
Vanity Unfair? … Earlier this week, LA Weekly reported that the LAT and NYT were both investigating Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's ties to Hollywood. Well, the LAT beats its East Cost rival to the punch today, even if it turns out to be a glancing blow. Though Carter admittedly weaseled himself a shocking $100,000 consulting fee for A Beautiful Mind, the LAT apparently couldn't deliver on leaked speculation that he had received kickbacks for cover slots. Instead, the paper paints a picture of an editor increasingly distracted by his Hollywood friends—a shame for readers, perhaps, but hardly worthy of front-page treatment.

You too can talk like Mariah...

It's Friday, so... I thought you might enjoy this. It is quite amazing...
Yes, you too can talk like Mariah Carey! Why would you want to? Excellent question, but...
Mariah Carey's Web site has -- what does one call it? A dictionary? She calls them 'Mariahisms'! -- of Mariah words and phrases and the proper way to use them.

A best-of sample...

BAG:
An Austin Powers characteristic that Mariah uses. She often says "it’s not my bag" to state "it’s not my thing"

BANGING:
A word for "cool" or another word for "stellar".

BING BONG!:
Used to quickly end an argument or conversation while still able to be funny

CHOPS:
A derivative of 'lamb' - e.g. 'Hi Chops!'- the male variation on the same theme. This does not mean you can not call a girl 'chops', or a boy 'lamb', they're unisex.

DRAMATICKING:
The verb describing the action of drama

HEY, MIGHT AS WELL...IF YOU GOT A LITTLE EXTRA:
Said in the same accent as "yeah...and hey" with a tad more zest - e.g. A waiter approaches with the question, 'Would you care for something to drink?' Your response could be, "Hey - if they got a little extra in the back and ain't nobody else drinkin' it... might as well...fill me up a glass" - or something of that nature.

" " (Quotations made with hands):
Just a funny thing to do to emphasize certain words or phrases.

YEAH, AND HEY...:
Said together as a verbal pause in the following ways: 1. Sometimes while resigning due to the realization that you can't change something or someone - i.e. whatever - not said angrily, though. 2. A random transition (said slowly) - i.e. 'yeah...and hey---'. Here 'yeah' is a tone or two higher than 'hey'. It is necessary to pause between the 'yeah' and the 'and'. 3. When a hush falls upon a crowd of two or more people, it is also appropriate to say. We all know why!

Also...
THE KILOWATT CATTLE [SFChron, 5.14.2004]
Poop from 270 cows generates electricity for farm.

Chess boxing

The basic idea in chessboxing is to combine the no.1 thinking sport and the no.1 fighting sport into a hybrid that demands the most of its competitors – both mentally and physically.

In a chessboxing fight two opponents play alternating rounds of chess and boxing. The contest starts with a round of chess, followed by a boxing round, followed by another round of chess and so on. In every round of chess the FIDE rules for a ´Blitz game´ apply, in every boxing round the AIBA rules apply with the some extensions and modifications.

And the infinite cat project
Both of those thanks to GMSV.

Making US look bad...

Both Friedman and Dowd have good columns today... both on Iraq, of course... also a WP business column from yesterday about poor management from the MBA president...

Dancing Alone
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
For the Bush crowd, getting re-elected and staying loyal to the conservative base is more important that getting Iraq right.

It is time to ask this question: Do we have any chance of succeeding at regime change in Iraq without regime change here at home?

"Hey, Friedman, why are you bringing politics into this all of a sudden? You're the guy who always said that producing a decent outcome in Iraq was of such overriding importance to the country that it had to be kept above politics."

Yes, that's true. I still believe that. My mistake was thinking that the Bush team believed it, too. I thought the administration would have to do the right things in Iraq — from prewar planning and putting in enough troops to dismissing the secretary of defense for incompetence — because surely this was the most important thing for the president and the country. But I was wrong. There is something even more important to the Bush crowd than getting Iraq right, and that's getting re-elected and staying loyal to the conservative base to do so. It has always been more important for the Bush folks to defeat liberals at home than Baathists abroad. That's why they spent more time studying U.S. polls than Iraqi history. That is why, I'll bet, Karl Rove has had more sway over this war than Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Bill Burns. Mr. Burns knew only what would play in the Middle East. Mr. Rove knew what would play in the Middle West.

War Management Follows the Wrong Corporate Model [WP, 5.12.2004]
By Steven Pearlstein
There are lots of ways to explain why the Bush administration has made a hash of its Iraq policy. To my mind, however, this is fundamentally a story about management failure and a corporate leadership style that the first MBA president and his crew of former CEOs brought to Washington.

Companies that get into trouble, or lose their edge, have many of the same characteristics at the top: an overemphasis on hierarchy and orderliness; a penchant for secrecy and keeping decisions closely held; an instinct to discount information or dismiss views that don't comport with the company line; a habit of pronouncing rather than engaging intellectually with those outside the inner circle; an unhealthy arrogance and sense of entitlement.

When something goes wrong, the all-too-typical corporate response is to downplay its importance or bury it in bureaucratic processes. And if that doesn't work, the next line of defense is to pin it all on a few "bad apples" and move aggressively to "put the issue behind us," without ever really admitting serious error.

That should sound familiar to anyone who has watched Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and John Snow on C-SPAN, or read Paul O'Neill's account of his ill-fated attempts to warn of the budgetary fallout from a second tax cut, or heard what Richard Clarke told the 9/11 commission about warnings of terrorist attacks that fell on deaf ears. It also describes to a T the process by which the administration has dealt with Iraq, from the original decision to go to war to the handling of the prison scandal.

Clash of Civilizations [NYT, 5.13.2004]
By MAUREEN DOWD
The Bush hawks, so fixated on making the Middle East look more like America, have ended up making America look un-American.

Testifying before the Senate yesterday, General Richard Myers admitted that we're checkmated in Iraq.

"There is no way to militarily lose in Iraq," he said, describing the generals' consensus. "There is also no way to militarily win in Iraq."

Talk about the sound of one hand clapping. And they say John Kerry is on both sides of issues.

...

The administration's demented quest to conquer Arab hearts and minds has dissolved in a torrent of pornography denigrating other parts of the Arab anatomy. George Bush, who swept into office on a cloud of moral umbrage, now has his own sex scandal — one with far greater implications than titillating cigar jokes.

The Bush hawks, so fixated on making the Middle East look more like America, have made America look un-American. Should we really be reduced to defending ourselves by saying at least we don't behead people?

Genetial torture for dummies...

SFChron columnist Mark Morford is left wring, but I think he is more on the mark then the 'Yes, what happened is horrible, but...' that seems to be entering the norm these days.

Genital Torture For Dummies [SFChron, 5.12.2004]
Hey, it's a war -- what did you expect, flowers and bunnies and hopscotch in the Baghdad streets?
By Mark Morford

The Powers That Be know one thing: This lack of perspective, of the gruesome details of war, keeps the nation stupid. It makes us compliant. It makes us all go, well sure, I know war is heck and all, but we're the good guys therefore any bloodshed is in the name of democracy and any rapes are necessary evils and all those dead Iraqi women and babies are unfortunate casualties in the quest to protect our president's corporate interests and life goes on and hey "American Idol" is down to three finalists! Woo!

Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is also Bush. This is a man who goes on Saudi television to claim rape and torture and sadism is not the American way of conducting a war (but not, actually, to apologize -- never that), that such behavior is contrary to our God and our principles and our morals and our happily imbecilic black-and-white, good-versus-evil worldview.

Good one, George. Here's some words to stick in your craw, Dubya: Vietnam. Guantanamo Bay. Somalia. El Salvador. World War II. Show me a U.S.-led battle, Shrub, and I'll show you some nifty n' horrific American-made abuses of prisoners and detainess and innocent civilians that would makes your skin peel. Hey, it's war. You asked for it. You don't invite the Devil to the table and not expect him to spit in the mashed potatoes, you know?

...

Why, nothing short of guaranteeing that the United States has never been so violently hated among Middle Eastern nations as it is right now.

Nothing short of massacring any last vestige of remaining 9/11 sympathy. Nothing short of supplying a whole new generation of enraged terrorists with all the proof they need that their cause is entirely valid and just.

And nothing short of proving, for the 10,000th time, that BushCo has dug us a grimy, violent, blood-soaked hole so deep we may never fully emerge.

Disco sucked...

Wrong, wrong, wrong!
So last night's vote made the Jennifer Hudson vote look fair! So America boots the best singer of the group -- by a long shot! And Fantasia is the next lowest?
I was disappointed last night. Today I'm pissed off! I am so pissed off that I may give up AI for the rest of the season because it is just a farce at this point. The fact that Jasmine is still in the running and Jennifer Hudson and La Toya are not is a travesty.
Luckily, La Toya is right -- she will end up with a record deal and she will be a huge hit -- the next Whitney Houston, I think.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Regardless, given that the show was an hour and six minutes, I'm glad we watched "The West Wing" and just flipped over for the necessary four minutes of grotesquesness and corruption
La Toya London Voted Off 'American Idol' [AP, 5.13.2004]
The most amazing thing about it is they somehow stretched out four minutes of results into more than an hour.

Among the filler to prolong the tension during Wednesday night's hour-and-six minute broadcast: observations from "psychic channeler" Kimberly Berg, who reassured the four finalists, "You're being supported not only by the fans but by the universe."

Disco ducked...

So the AI tally and predictions...
It is disco night and the producers have enticed disco queen Donna Summer as a guest judge and outfitted the AI studio a disco ball, so can fun be that far behind?
I thought up front that the ladies would do well with this genre and generally they did. Of course, the most touching moment of the night was when poor Jasmine broke down after the second of her two mediocre performances. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Each of the four sang two songs, so…
Jasmine Trias is up first… She sings “Everlasting Love.”… Of course, Clay sang this song last year, so she has big shoes to fill. Unfortunately you can just tell that she is going to be overwhelmed by the music. It is kind of sad because she does have a very good and graceful voice, but she needs to be more selective about her song choices. She seems to be competing with the rest of the big voices still in the competition and she is just different. Despite looking the best she has so far, the performance is just weak – one of the weakest she has given so far. She even uses Diana’s “Come on, everybody!” She is ‘pitchy’ and misses the big notes. She is just off. And the judges largely agree.
They reverse the judging order, so… Simon says, “Jasmine, I think you know how vulnerable you are this week…probably the one most likely going out. After that performance, I think you’re definitely going home. It was like a very average karaoke performance. It just was not good enough.”
Donna… “You did have some pitch problems here and there, but I thought it was pretty good.”
Paula says Jasmine she looks great (which means that Paula can’t say anything nice about the performance, so she is grabbing whatever she can!) and she adds, “I’m really looking forward to your second performance.” Ouch!
Randy… “I must really agree with Simon. It wasn’t really good.”

La Toya London … the Bee Gees’ hit “Love You Inside And Out” … Given the above comment about Paula’s comment, I have to say that La Toya looks fantastic. It is a great dress and she is just so attractive. As for the performance, she is a bit off. Frankly, she appears just a bit boring. As much as I love La Toya and as amazing as her voice is, there is a certain coldness about her – you never really feel as if you get to know her. One even gets a taste of that in her post-judging comments when she says that the contestants are just there to have fun and that they are all going to be successful afterwards. (Simon later refutes that – it’s a contest about winners, he says.) It just seems cold and a bit calculating.
Anyway, the judges largely agree about the performance critique.
Simon: “You know, there’s really nothing much we can add about you in this competition. We all know you’re a great singer, and everybody else knows it, too. I think it was a bit boring, almost ‘safe’ performance. My only criticism about you, La Toya, is that we’ve known you for 10 weeks now in this competition, and I know nothing more about you now than I did 10 weeks ago in terms of your personality.”
Donna: “Beautiful…great job.”
Paula: “You continue to shine week after week. I feel like I’m looking at an American Idol.”
Randy: “I do agree that it was nothing special. It felt kind of old, actually.”

Fantasia Barrino … singing the 1979 hit “Knock on Wood”… Fantasia wearing one of her skimpy tops that is not all that attractive, but she kicks it as usual. She goes into the audience and although they seem uncomfortable at times, she is still a consummate pro. The great thing about Fantasia is that, unlike La Toya, you do feel like you get to know her every week.
What do the judges say?
Simon: “This is a winner’s competition… [We are looking for] somebody who is different and what you have is that you are different. That was a great performance.”
Summer: “You’re self-possessed. You know who you are… got a great voice. You’re fabulous.”
Paula: “What’s great about you … is you’ve always known how to pick the right songs … You didn’t knock on that wood. You karate chopped right through it.”
Randy: “As soon as you open your mouth, you can feel the spirit… You’ve got it going on.”

Diana Dedorko… singing 1976’s “This Is It” … Yes, she gets her “Come on, ya’all. Up on your feet” out of the way right at the start… Given the judges comments, I am apparently alone on this one but I thought it was completely the wrong song for her. I felt that she missed some notes. She does great on the big blast notes, but she really loses it at on the best parts of this song, which are the more subtle parts. No doubt, she does have an amazingly powerful voice, but this performance it just doesn’t cut it for me. And I don’t care for the dress either – again.
Apparently I’m alone because the judges seem to like it.
Simon: “I’ve said all along that you are too young for this competition. I’m going to take that back…. Of all the people who have shown more progress over the last five weeks, it is you… I have one piece of advice for you, though. Before you sing your second number, you might want to stay away from Fantasia and La Toya. I think you could break up what everybody’s been predicting was going to be the finals. I really do.
Donna: That showed a lot of heart … I was really impressed.
Paula: “Something’s broken through for you. That was unbelievable. Your voice is outstanding tonight.”
Randy: You worked it out. You did your thing. You are the most improved performer.

On to round two…
Jasmine … singing The Weather Girls’ “It’s Raining Men”… She comes on stage and does a Diana once again. “Come on everyone, I want everyone dancing”… Unfortunately she is off from the beginning. This performance is better than her first, but she just seems overwhelmed. She seems to forget some of the words and she is still flat in some spots. At this point, it sure seems like Jasmine is gone.
What do the judges say after the second song?
Simon: You’d better hope that every phone in Hawaii has five phones, because you’re going to need all the help you can get. You can’t do the Weather Girls.
Donna: I didn’t like the choice of song, but you gave it your best
Paula: You got thrown off because you forgot the lyrics, but you covered it nicely. Hawaii loves you. America loves you. I think they’re going to be will to forgive you for this.
OUCH!
Randy: Not your best performance… Hit a few notes than then miss a few.
And then, the most crushing moment of the night: Jasmine, who had been welling up, completely breaks down once the judges have finished. Will the tears spur votes? I don’t think so, but…

La Toya London… “Don’t Leave Me This Way”… This time we see the casual La Toya with a short skirt and some kind of vest jacket. She is definitely putting more into her second song trying to connect with the audience and it is a much improved performance from her first song.
Simon: The best compliment I can pay you is that was as good as the original.
Donna: Fabulous.
Paula: Stunning.
Randy: You brought it back on that one, dog. Props to you!”
Whatever that means…

Fantasia… “Holding Out For A Hero”… This is a disco song? Yeah, so the song sucks, but Fantasia does what she can with it.

Simon: Actually I didn’t like that because you’re just so much better then that kind of song. She responds, “I’m looking for a good man, Simon” Um, doesn’t she have a boyfriend who is often in the audience? Anyway…
Donna: You could sing the newspaper to me and I would love it.
Paula: I say that you always pick the great song but not that song.
Randy: It doesn’t matter what song you choose, you can really sing.
You can hear Simon say, “Good point, Randy.”

Finally… Diana singing Donna/Barbra’s “No More Tears/Enough is Enough”… Most importantly, Diana wears a decent outfit -- black slacks. And she shows off those powerful pipes. It is a better song and a much better performance.

Simon: Undoubtedly the best song of the night. Where I have to compliment you is how you controlled that song in the middle… I give you total respect tonight.
Donna: It was yours. It was great.
Paula: This was your week.
Randy: You get the honors – the best song of the night. Unbelievable.

So my Rankings…
For the first Song
1. Fantasia
2. La Toya
3. Diana
4. Jasmine

For the second Song
1. Diana
2. La Toya
3. Fantasia
4. Jasmine

Best of the night… Diana’s “No More Tears,” with La Toya’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way” a very close second
Worst of the night… Jasmine’s “Everlasting Love”
Who will be in the bottom two… Jasmine and… Fantasia. Yep!
Who should/will go home… As much as I hate to say it, I think it will be more tears for Jasmine.

Tune in tonight.

CJD out!

The gruesome round-up...

Most of the papers headline the release of the online video of the decapitation of an American in Iraq. And there are apparently more reports of more incidents coming from Iraq prisons and now apparently some from Afghanistan as well.

Slate details that there is a growing debate about whether these pictures should have been shown.

Tally of Americans abroad hits snag [IHT, 5.12.2004]
A test census to count private American citizens living in France, Kuwait and Mexico has hit a snag because of the low number of people participating, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“The response so far has been disappointing,” said Kathleen Styles, project manager for the 2004 Overseas Enumeration Test, which began in February and is due to end by July.

Nations Vow Passport Aid [WP, 5.12.2004]
The G-8 leading industrial nations agreed yesterday to share information about lost and stolen passports and vowed to work together to secure borders, ports and skies to help thwart terrorism.

From the WSJ front page…
At the Pentagon, Quirky PowerPoint Carries Big Punch [WSJ, 5.12.2004]
In a World of 'Gap' States, Mr. Barnett Urges Generals To Split Forces in Two Austin Powers on Soundtrack

In 1998, Thomas Barnett, an obscure Defense Department analyst, teamed up with senior executives at the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald LP to study how globalization was changing national security.
One scenario they studied was a meltdown caused by the Y2K computer bug followed by terrorist attacks designed to exploit the chaos. Mr. Barnett posited that Wall Street would shut down for a week. Gun violence, racially motivated attacks and sales of antidepressants would surge. The U.S. military would find itself embroiled in brushfire conflicts across the developing world.
His theories were met with skepticism. "People began referring to me as the Nostradamus of Y2K," Mr. Barnett says.
Then came the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Suddenly Mr. Barnett didn't look so crazy.

Media notes...
For NBC, Good if Not Best 'Friends' [WP, 5.12.2004]
NBC handily won the ratings race last week with a lot of help from its "Friends." (You saw that one coming a mile away, didn't you.)

Frasier' Finale: Amid Nostalgia, A Product Plug [WSJ, 5.12.2004]
In the series finale of "Fraiser," a product placement of Milano cookies symbolizes the lengths to which marketers and media are going these days to capture consumers' attention.

Hit French reality TV takes viewers back to 'the farm' [CSM, 5.12.2004]
Farmers' union objects to derisive portrayal of peasants.

In the other news…
Where the US goes after Abu Ghraib [CSM, 5.12.2004]
Testimony on abuse continues, war support drops, and talk of justice grows.

How the images of prison abuse shape perceptions of the war [CSM, 5.12.2004]
In an age of 24 hour news, the graphic pictures harden views on both sides about US involvement in Iraq.

From the editorial pages…
The undersecretary of defense insisted that the abuses may be nothing more than a few misguided guards. "I still don't know that there is a significant issue here," he said. A WP editorial retorts:

The Bush administration still seeks to mislead Congress and the public about the policies that contributed to the criminal abuse of prisoners in Iraq. Yesterday's smoke screen was provided by Stephen A. Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence. Mr. Cambone assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that the administration's policy had always been to strictly observe the Geneva Conventions in Iraq; that all procedures for interrogations in Iraq were sanctioned under the conventions; and that the abuses of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison were consequently the isolated acts of individuals. These assertions are contradicted by International Red Cross and Army investigators, by U.S. generals overseeing the prisoners, and by Mr. Cambone himself
[...]
If President Bush and his senior officials would acknowledge their complicity in playing fast and loose with international law and would pledge to change course, they might begin to find a way out of the mess. Instead, they hope to escape from this scandal without altering or even admitting the improper and illegal policies that lie at its core. It is a vain hope.

And the NYT…
The Abu Ghraib Spin
The administration's cynical approach to damage control was on display at the second Senate hearing on the prison abuse scandal.

And a different take from the WSJ…
Winning in Iraq
The public puts Abu Ghraib in perspective.

Politics...
Candidates Face Sprawling and Complex Electoral Map [NYT, 5.12, 2004]
President Bush and Senator John Kerry are pouring resources into more than 20 states in a struggle to master one of the most complex electoral playing fields in nearly 20 years.

Executive Calls Vote-Machine Letter an Error [NYT, 5.12.2004]
The top executive at Diebold Inc., which makes voting machines, said that it had been a "huge mistake" for him to express support for President Bush's re-election in a fund-raising letter.

CAPITAL JOURNAL, By John Harwood [WSJ, 5.12.2004]
Polls have pointed toward another exceedingly close contest for president. Yet the deeper America gets into this political year, the more campaign operatives are bracing for something different: a race that breaks decisively one way or the other.

Why the Polls Don't Add Up [NYT, 5.12.2004]
Voters are too focused on evaluating the president right now to compare him to John Kerry.

Lie, and the Voters Will Believe [NYT, 5.12.2004]
The presidential campaign ads running in 18 states are proof that you shouldn't believe everything you see on TV.

Revolution Under the Hood [WSJ, 5.12.2004]
The global auto industry is racing to come up with the next big thing under the hood. Everything from gasoline-electric hybrids to internal-combustion engines powered by vegetable-oil derivatives is on the table.

A Hall With Jazz on Its Mind [NYT, 5.12.2004]
Jazz at Lincoln Center's first season in its new home in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle will be a dialogue between the music and where it will be played.

For the Coolest Vibes: Accentuate Acoustics, Eliminate City Noise [NYT, 5.12.2004]
As the world's first performance center built for jazz, the new Jazz at Lincoln Center represents a milestone for the genre as an American art form.

Global Warming Ignites Tempers, Even in a Movie [NYT, 5.12.2004]
Twentieth Century Fox does not seem to have fully anticipated the political firestorm being whipped up by "The Day After Tomorrow," a $125 million movie about global warming.

THE MOSSBERG SOLUTION, By Walter S. Mossberg [WSJ, 5.12.2004]
Thanks to technology, you soon will be able to not only hear your favorite music and the sound effects of videogames, but to actually feel these sounds.

What's hot in backyard grills? [CSM, 5.12.2004]
Grills keep getting more high-tech. Think sear plates, auto ignitors, and infrared heat.

AI’s Tuesday Night Fever…

So it is disco night on American Idol, reportedly with guest judge Donna Summer.

I am going to be bold and make my 'before-they-have-even-uttered-a-note' predications for the final four, although I don’t think that they will be a shock to anybody.

Best performance: Tie between Fantasia and La Toya
Worst: Jasmine
Who goes home: Jasmine

Now this is all subject to change, but tune in tonight to see how the final four do.

Calculating the troops...

The Formula for How Many U.S. Soldiers Will Stay in Iraq

The Washington Post on Sunday, included an interesting "Outlook" piece on the history of post-war occupation forces. Slate summarizes the Post piece this way:

Upon Germany's surrender in 1945, the U.S. Army had 1.6 million troops in the country, and over the next 18 months it maintained 400,000 in the American occupation zone. That amounted to one soldier for every 40 Germans. A recent Rand study concluded that at least one solder per 50 civilians is needed to occupy a country. What's the ratio in Iraq? One to 160. (140 if you count contractors.)

The Post article said after World War II:

...Army plans called for an occupation force of some 400,000 in the American zone for the first 18 months -- or one U.S. soldier for every 40 Germans.

When NATO forces went into Kosovo in 1999, they followed the same proven formula: 50,000 troops for a population of 2 million, one soldier for every 40 inhabitants. A recent Rand Corp. study by military analyst James Quinlivan concluded that the bare minimum ratio to provide security for the inhabitants of an occupied territory, let alone deal with an active insurgency, is one to 50.

In Iraq today, coalition forces number about 160,000, or one for every 160 Iraqis. (Even adding in an estimated 20,000 civilian security contractors working in Iraq, that still translates to one for every 140 Iraqis.) In response to the unremitting attacks and continuing instability, U.S. commanders have now canceled plans to cut troop strength by some 20,000 this year. It is a significant about-face, and one that has unquestionably put a severe strain on both regular and reserve units whose deployments have been extended well beyond what they had originally been told.

But it is still a drop in the bucket compared with what's needed. "U.S. Troop Levels in Iraq to Remain High," read a headline in The Washington Post this past week. Yet these levels are "high" relative only to the fantastically optimistic plans that the Defense Department had doggedly clung to as recently as a month ago.

Meanwhile, the WP Outlook section also had two other interesting articles...
What Are Those Contractors Doing in Iraq? [WP, 5.9.2004]

The alleged U.S. abuses at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, and the suggestion that contract employees may have been among those responsible, has cast a spotlight on the military's extraordinary reliance on civilian contractors to perform even the most sensitive jobs. Consider this: During the first Gulf War, U.S. forces employed one civilian contractor in Iraq for every 60 active-duty personnel. At the start of the current Iraq war, that figure was about one in 10.

A Sorry State [WP, 5.9.2004]
The Artlessness Of the Apology

We live in the age of the public apology. When a crisis occurs or a scandal is exposed, the first instinct of many public figures today is to erupt in a torrent of remorse. From Bill Clinton's 1992 apology to his wife for his sexual infidelities to the notorious 1998 Oprah Winfrey show where guests apologized to people they had "hurt," saying sorry has become all the rage. On the Oprah show experts even offered tips on how to apologize. "Don't be afraid to apologize," the incomparable Ms. Winfrey advised on her Web site. "Apologizing to your child doesn't mean you lose."