Justices Resist Religious Study Using Subsidies

Justices Resist Religious Study Using Subsidies
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/03/national/03SCOT.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 — An argument by religious conservatives in a church-state case they embraced as a vehicle for expanding their recent Supreme Court victories met resistance from a deeply divided court on Tuesday. A majority of the justices expressed concern about the implications of requiring states to subsidize religious training if they choose to provide college scholarships for other kinds of study.

The court heard arguments on the validity of Washington State's Promise Scholarship Program, which makes awards on the basis of academic merit and financial need to students who attend accredited colleges in the state, including those with religious affiliations, but excludes students pursuing degrees in theology.

Nation-Building in Iraq: Lessons From the Past

Nation-Building in Iraq: Lessons From the Past
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/international/middleeast/21CND-GORD.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 — James Dobbins has long been one of those troubleshooters who never seem to miss a crisis.

As the special United States envoy for Afghanistan, Mr. Dobbins was responsible for finding and installing a successor to the Taliban after they were toppled in 2001. During the 1990's, Mr. Dobbins hop-scotched from one trouble spot to another as he served as special envoy to Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti and Somalia.

So when he offers a critique of the Bush administration's nation-building effort in Iraq, it is worth paying attention. Now out of government, Mr. Dobbins, who has worked for Republican as well as Democratic administrations, does not have a partisan ax to grind.

Heads-Up Displays Move From Cockpits to Cyclists' Helmets

Heads-Up Displays Move From Cockpits to Cyclists' Helmets
By JOHN MARKOFF
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/08/technology/08display.html

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 7 - Fighter pilots have long been able to view flight data projected onto jet windshields within their line of sight. Soon recreational motorcyclists and bicyclists will be able to take advantage of that technology.

Motion Research, a Seattle company founded in 1993 by a former racecar driver, Dominic Dobson, said that next spring it would begin selling an inexpensive information display system to be attached to a motorcycle helmet.

The Sportvue head-mounted display will allow riders to see speed, r.p.m. and gear position without taking their eyes off the road. The system gathers speed information from a global positioning satellite receiver attached to the rear of the helmet.

Japan Heads to Iraq

Japan Heads to Iraq, Haunted by Taboo Bred in Another War
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/19/international/asia/19LETT.html

TOKYO, Nov. 18 — Not one Japanese soldier has been killed, or has killed, in combat since the end of World War II.

That remarkable fact is being repeated here often these days, precisely because, as Japan prepares to send ground forces to Iraq, things could change in the near future. The death of a soldier, a sad though common reality for most nations, would be a pivotal point in Japan's postwar history.

The government twice pushed back the date of deployment because of mounting violence in Iraq, evidently wary of the public's reaction to any casualty. But the government's hesitation runs deeper than that. While Japan's wartime leaders sent more than two million soldiers to their deaths, its postwar leaders are proud of having avoided a single combat fatality. A single casualty would tarnish that record and, some fear, reopen the Pandora's box of ultranationalism, which thrived more than a half-century ago.

Wanted: Fanatical Moderates

Wanted: Fanatical Moderates
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/opinion/16FRIE.html

You know when I really get mad? It's when my wife tells me I'm not helping around the house — and I have not been helping around the house. There is nothing more enraging than someone exposing your faults — and being right.

What is true at home is true in diplomacy. I was reminded of that watching the enraged, hysterical reaction of Israel's ruling Likud Party to the virtual peace treaty — known as the Geneva Accord — that was hammered out by Yossi Beilin, the former Israeli justice minister, and Yasir Abed Rabbo, the former Palestinian information minister. Mr. Beilin and Mr. Abed Rabbo, with funding from the Swiss government, decided to see if they could draw up a detailed peace treaty, with maps, at a time when their governments were paralyzed. After three years, they did it. They shook hands on it Oct. 12 and today they are mailing copies in Hebrew and Arabic to every home in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

Ariel Sharon and his far-right coalition threw a fit, crying treason and sputtering about the gall, the "chutzpah," of Mr. Beilin drawing up a virtual peace treaty with Yasir Arafat's deputy. The Likud's over-the-top criticism of Mr. Beilin — and of the Israeli Army chief of staff when he pointed out the Sharon government's reluctance to strengthen Palestinian moderates — had all the earmarks of a ruling party that knows it has not washed the dishes, not made any creative initiatives for peace since coming to power, and hates being exposed.

Judging by Where You Sit

Judging by Where You Sit
By David A. Schkade and Cass R. Sunstein
The New York Times, June 11, 2003
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/sunstein-judging.html

Ideology matters when choosing judges -- perhaps too much, as the battles between President Bush and Senate Democrats show. But how much does ideology matter once judges are on the bench?

As it turns out, it matters a lot. We have studied thousands of votes by federal appellate judges, who are randomly assigned to three-judge panels, which then make decisions by majority vote. According to our research, judges appointed by Republican presidents show more conservative voting patterns, while Democratic appointees are more liberal.

These findings may not be surprising. The most striking lesson of our research, however, is the influence of what might be called the majority ideology. For both Democratic and Republican appointees, the likelihood of a liberal vote jumps when the two other panel members are Democrats, and drops when the two other panel members are Republicans.

Dean Believes Remains of Brother Have Been Found

Dean Believes Remains of Brother Have Been Found
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:46 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Deans-Brother.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said Tuesday that the search for the long-lost remains of his younger brother may be over with the discovery of bones, a sock, a pair of shoes and a bracelet buried in a Laotian rice field.

Charles Dean has been missing since 1974, when the 24-year-old University of North Carolina graduate was traveling through Southeast Asia with a companion, Neil Sharman of Australia.

Church Signs

[this is too funny!! from glenda.]

"You've seen them - the signs in front of churches, with a witticism or a pun that made you groan. I think they're hilarious, often unintentionally so. I've decided to start collecting the ones I see around Austin and on the web. If you'd like to contribute a picture, e-mail it to me and I'll post it here, credited to you."

Funny Church Signs
http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/churchsigns.php
Church sign generator:
http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/churchsigngenerator/index.php
Other Generators:
http://www.in4mador.com/index.php?cat=generators

Forced Repatriation -- Just Punishment?

[a heartbreaking narrative that questions whether justice is being served, where we draw the line, and competing and overarching rationales for setting rules and boundaries. also, why is it that we often only appreciate something after it is taken away...]

In a Homeland Far From Home
By DEBORAH SONTAG
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/magazine/16CAMBODIA.html

One witless day forever changed the life of Loeun Lun, a Cambodian-American who fled the killing fields as a baby and grew up in a crime-ridden housing project in Tacoma, Wash. It was not even a whole day, really, but an afternoon, a costly afternoon at the mall.

Lun himself doesn't remember the exact date. With his wide eyes and steady gaze, he is a gentle, somewhat passive guy who doesn't bother with facts and figures, even if they are the data that define him. Is he 27 or 28 years old? Lun gets it mixed up. His life, from the time he was a baby, a bag of bones in his mother's rucksack on a forced march through rural Cambodia, has been profoundly disorienting. Most of the time, Lun just tries to go with the flow.

According to court records, the particular day on which he stumbled into his fate was Aug. 20, 1994. Lun had been in the United States since kindergarten, one of the lucky Cambodians who survived Pol Pot's genocidal regime, a harrowing flight through a mine-laden jungle to Thailand and years in squalid refugee camps before making it to America. By 1994, he was a rudderless teenager, acculturated, like so many of the Cambodian refugee children, to the American inner city.

On that particular afternoon, Lun bumped into a drifter selling a nickel-plated .25-caliber handgun for $20. Unlike many other Cambodian-American guys his age, Lun had never sought refuge in a gang like the Loko Asian Boyz or the Royal Cambodian Brothers. He was a loner by nature. He had no criminal record and an aversion to risk-taking. But he was tired of being harassed in the projects and worried about his widowed mother's security. He bought the gun.

Joy, and Jeers, as New Police Patrol Baghdad

Joy, and Jeers, as New Police Patrol Baghdad
By SUSAN SACHS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/international/middleeast/15BAGH.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 14 — Tires squealing, sirens wailing and adrenaline pumping madly, dozens of Iraqi police officers charged through central Baghdad to take back their city from bandits.

Pistols and Kalashnikov rifles at the ready, they sprinted up a narrow alleyway in the notorious Fadhil district on Thursday, pulling one car theft suspect from his bed in his underwear. Hardly pausing for breath, the officers burst into a billiard parlor, pushed the six young patrons against a wall and searched them for weapons.

Women and children stared down at the ruckus from sheet-covered balconies. Startled peddlers stood frozen by their donkey carts.

"God bless the police!" shouted a shopkeeper as the men in blue passed by.

"What took you so long?" called out another.

Swords Into Plowshares

Swords Into Plowshares
By DAVID BROOKS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/opinion/15BROO.html

I've been waiting for one of the trailing Democratic presidential candidates to give the following speech. Since none have, I'm offering it to them, free of charge:

My fellow Democrats, it's good to be back in New Hampshire today. But I'd like to throw away my stump speech and talk honestly about the state of this campaign.

I am losing. Howard Dean is crushing me. He has money. He has a movement. And he's had one other big advantage: no opposition.

From the moment his campaign took off, the rest of us contenders tried to mimic his success. We ratcheted up our attacks on the Bush administration. We became more combative. We attacked the war in Iraq. In short, we've tried to be better Howard Deans than Howard Dean. The results have been pathetic.

Out-of-Town Tryouts for the West Wing

Out-of-Town Tryouts for the West Wing
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/fashion/16IOWA.html

DES MOINES -- THE 25 or so cars in the overflowing parking lot on a recent night at Wellman's Pub here had license plates representing a dozen states and bumper stickers from three current presidential campaigns, not to mention decals from six colleges and universities.

Inside, dozens of young workers from Senator John Edwards's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination gathered at the dark wooden bar. Campaign workers for Representative Richard A. Gephardt sat at tables near the dartboards and jukebox, and campaigners for Senator John Kerry claimed the back corner. Interspersed were a few isolated workers for Dr. Howard Dean.

Bloodlust revisited

Bloodlust revisited
By John Balzar, Times Staff Writer
November 11, 2003
http://www.latimes.com/features/outdoors/la-os-ethics11nov11,1,3185198,print.story

It begins before dawn, as usual. Two gray-haired men, coffeed, oatmealed and camouflaged, move out of camp. Wordlessly, their boots crunching through a glaze of autumn frost, they vanish into the moonshadows and trees at yonder end of a high mountain meadow.

One of them is an archer from the Rocky Mountains of the United States, and today he is a guide. The other is from the lush wetlands of central Canada. He carries a black-powder flintlock in the style of 200 years ago.

They are not walking, but choosing their steps. All senses are activated. A few paces, and listen. A few more, and sniff the air. Then more, and try to gauge the terrain ahead while anticipating the glow of daybreak. It is elk season in Colorado. These two men are out to kill a majestic bull. Over time, they also are out to change the way North Americans perceive — and pursue — this ancient endeavor of hunting.

There is nothing new in saying that hunters are being challenged by antihunters on this continent. That's been going on for more than a generation. What's fresher is the debate from within: the emerging arguments among hunters themselves about what is good and what is bad with hunting, what is defensible and what is not.

Among Saudis, Attack Has Soured Qaeda Supporters

Among Saudis, Attack Has Soured Qaeda Supporters
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/international/middleeast/11SAUD.html

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 10 — The bombing of a housing compound whose residents were almost entirely Arab and Muslim late on Saturday has appalled Saudis far more than other terrorist attacks, evaporating expressions of support for Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network that were vaguely whispered or occasionally even shouted over the last two years.

"They lost their support on the street," said Ehab al-Khiary, 27, a computer security specialist, standing on a broad avenue packed with cars during the typical 10 P.M. to midnight rush hour of Ramadan. "They are killing people with no cause."

"The street was divided before," he added, talking about similar attacks against three compounds in May that killed 34 people, including 8 Americans, 2 Britons and 9 attackers. "At that time it was seen as justifiable because there was an invasion of a foreign country, there was frustration."

The Rise of Homeschooling

[a trend is growing, and my sister is doing it too...]

Unhappy in Class, More Are Learning at Home
By JANE GROSS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/10/nyregion/10SCHO.html

In Penny Kjellberg's modest living room in Stuyvesant Town, one of her 11-year-old twins conjugates French verbs while cuddling a kitten. The book shelves sag with The Encyclopedia of the Ancient World, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Einstein" and Ken Burns's videos about the Civil War. Ms. Kjellberg's other daughter devours a book about Ulysses with periodic romps outdoors when she grows antsy.

The Kjellberg twins, Caroline and Jessica, were in a highly regarded public school until two years ago. But they were bullied, their mother said, and referred to psychiatrists when, miserable, they misbehaved in class. So Ms. Kjellberg, neither a hippie nor a fundamentalist, decided to educate them at home.

"I was always too afraid to take that giant step outside the mainstream," she said. "But now that circumstances have forced us out, our experience here on the sidelines is so good that I find it harder and harder to imagine going back."

The Kjellbergs' choice is being made by an increasing number of American families — at least 850,000 children nationwide are schooled at home, up from 360,000 a decade ago, according the Education Department. In New York City, which compiled citywide statistics for the first time this year, 1,800 children are being schooled at home.