Fear on the Home Front

Fear on the Home Front
By BILL KELLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/22/opinion/22KELL.html

With our troops massed against Iraq, Americans are apprehensive and divided. The polls show us still torn between containment and war, between the instinct to give it time and the yearning to get it done. We worry about civilian carnage, American casualties and terrorist reprisals, about further shocks to a shaken economy, about being a nation alone. The Pentagon is ordering body bags by the thousand.

President Bush has enlarged the war agenda: we are not just eliminating a threat, we are delivering a promise of democracy to a region steeped in tyranny. Many, though, remain suspicious of his motives. "No Blood for Oil," the protest placards insist, and others mutter that this is somehow, too much, about Israel. The question of what comes after war has revived our longstanding fear of getting bogged down in unfriendly places.

Colin Powell, after trying to slow the march to war, has fallen loyally into step with his commander in chief. But the world, whose collaboration we crave, is in no hurry. The Germans are paralyzed by war angst. The French, deeply invested in Saddam and always happy to tweak the Americans, have been maddening. Democrats are straining for a way to be patriots without forfeiting independent judgment. The pope is calling for more "dialogue." Susan Sarandon is rallying opposition outside the United Nations. Saddam watches it all on CNN, and assures us we will be bloodily humbled.

Ah, the memories. The paragraphs above are constructed entirely from coverage of our national mood in the winter of 1991. Reading those old files made me wonder if maybe George Santayana was only half right: even those who remember history are condemned to repeat it.

A little time in the archives is a reminder that this war is in many respects a continuation of that war. We are calling to account a tyrant who has flouted the terms of his surrender. It's not just that we have been here before; technically, we never left.

Another thing that strikes you when you revisit the first gulf war is that much of what we anticipate with such confidence today will turn out to be wrong. Both the dire foreboding and the high hopes of Desert Storm proved exaggerated. The victory was not so difficult. Nor did it plant freedom in the Middle East — as the abandoned Kurdish resistance, the miserable inmates of Iraq and those yet-to-be-democratized Kuwaitis can all testify.

What leaps out most powerfully, though, comparing then and now, is the visceral fear that this time war will admit new horrors into our own lives. In the reporting of 1991 you find occasional mentions of a possible terrorist backlash, but they are hypothetical. Americans then, four years before Oklahoma City, were mostly innocent on the subject of terror. This time, when the C.I.A. predicts that invading Iraq will provoke new assaults on our cities, Americans know in our stomachs what that means.

These anxieties are amplified by doubts about the president who leads us. Some Americans question Mr. Bush's very legitimacy as president and as commander. I doubt anyone ever referred to his father as a "chicken hawk," or to the first Bush administration as a "junta." These are insults, not arguments, but they add heat to an opposition that is more passionate this time.

Our uncertainty about whether we are in safe hands has been compounded by Mr. Bush's own leadership. We have the skewed priorities of an administration that bids $26 billion for Turkish basing rights but shortchanges local emergency preparedness, that declines to call for any sacrifice, even from those who can best afford it. We have Mr. Bush's manhandling of our partners in security — beginning with the gratuitous decision to take a project that could have been framed from the beginning as the enforcement of United Nations resolutions and elevate it to an America-first doctrine of pre-emptive power. We have the loopy alarums of the Department of Homeland Security — what Garrison Keillor calls the Department of Scaring People Into Staying Home — which is prescribing duct tape one day and Prozac the next.

What most of all animates our national anxiety, I think, is the fear that war will backfire. Most people did not imagine themselves anywhere near the front line in 1991. Now the front line is where we live, and we are afraid.

We fear that in pursuing Iraq, we are diverting money and attention from the hunt for Osama's villains and from the fortification of America.

We fear that if we attack Iraq, Saddam will have every reason to arm the terrorist brigades against us, which we have no evidence he has done so far.

We fear that every civilian killed by American bombs will inflame the hatred that much of the Islamic world already feels for us.

We fear that if we occupy Arab land, new recruits will flock to the martyr brigades.

And we fear that fracturing our most vital alliances will leave us to face our legions of new enemies alone.

Those of us who have come to believe Saddam should be ousted must concede that all of those dangers are real — and they are also, to use the most abused adjective of this debate, "imminent." These fearsome possibilities can be minimized, but in the short run it is entirely possible that attacking Iraq makes us less safe.

The problem is, not attacking does not eliminate the risks. At best, it postpones them. At worst, it allows small nightmares to grow into big ones.

First, Al Qaeda terrorists do not need the pretext of an Iraq war to come after us. They will attack us, unprovoked, repeatedly and in as spectacular a fashion as their lethal ingenuity allows, regardless of what we do in Iraq. We know this, because they have done it.

Second, any containment regime we can conceive in place of war will eventually unravel, because the outside world does not have the resolve to maintain it and because a dictator with oil has the market on his side. We know this, too, because we have been through it. Saddam is likely to outlast our inspections and our sanctions, and certain to return to the production of the nuclear weapons that he sees as essential to his personal mythology and that any sober person regards as inimical to our well-being.

Third, any clampdown sufficiently draconian to reassure us would amount to a United Nations occupation, which would be a grave humiliation to Saddam. It seems to me a year or two of this would be as likely to stimulate vengeance as war itself.

Fourth, we come to the murky relationship between the terrorist state and stateless terrorism. The administration has surely strained our trust hyping the connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda, but skeptics have just as badly understated the mutual interests of these two thugs. Yes, Saddam came to power as a secular, pan-Arab extremist and Osama bin Laden as a virulent Islamic fundamentalist. Stalin and Hitler were ideologically incompatible too, when they signed their nonaggression pact. All these monsters are at heart power-hungry, history-seeking opportunists. None have a record of being terribly fastidious about doctrine when it stands in the way of expedience.

No one has stated this quite as baldly as bin Laden himself, in his latest taped screed. The Iraqi leadership may consist of "infidels" and ungodly "socialists," he said, but "it does no harm in these circumstances that the interests of Muslims and socialists agree in the fighting against the Crusaders." I would not be so quick to rule out Saddam's giving weapons to the Qaeda killers, but suppose he only gives them safe passage. Are we fine with that?

And finally, there is the price America would pay for backing down now with Saddam still in power.

Hawks within the administration have for some time dreaded the possibility that Saddam would make a good show of capitulating. Faced with a serious U.N. ultimatum, they worried, he would "discover" the missing toxins and offer them up for destruction. France and Russia would lead a new campaign to lift economic sanctions — keeping a skeleton crew of inspectors on hand. At this point President Bush would face enormous pressure to claim his hollow victory and bring home the troops. Saddam would remain smugly in place, biding his time. America's job would be unfinished once again, and our credibility severely compromised.

The peace camp will dismiss this as schoolyard machismo. But credibility is a great peacekeeper, because enemies who trust your word are less likely to test it. Which, as much as any other reason, is why we can count on going to war.

The protests last weekend and the anguish in the polls represent something genuine, a force that Mr. Bush will have to reckon with and that some of his foreign allies may not survive. But what the antiwar camp offers as an antidote to fear is a false sense of security. In the short run, war is perilous. In the long run, peace can be a killer, too.

An Arab Gadfly With a Memorable Bite

An Arab Gadfly With a Memorable Bite
By ADAM SHATZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/22/arts/22HARB.html

PARIS — If you can judge a man by the company he keeps, you can also judge him by the enemies he makes. And Mohammed Harbi, Algeria's most renowned intellectual, has certainly made some formidable enemies. Over the last decade, his writings on Algerian history and politics have landed him death threats from the Algerian secret police, radical Islamists and right-wing French settlers still angry over their loss of Algeria to the National Liberation Front or F.L.N., of which he was a high-ranking member as a young man.

The members of this improbable alliance of government spies, religious fanatics and unrepentant colonialists have little in common besides their hostility to Mr. Harbi, who embodies an Algeria still struggling to be born: democratic and secular, rooted in North Africa yet open to the West, embracing the Berber as well as Arab aspects of its identity. It may be surprising that someone so powerless is considered to be so threatening. After all, Mr. Harbi represents no party, faction or interest group. Yet a man of principle is always a thorn in the side of authoritarian forces.

"In addition to being an important historical figure and the most respected historian of the Algerian national movement, Harbi is the preeminent engagé Algerian intellectual of the past four decades," says Arun Kapil, an American expert on Algeria who teaches in Paris.

Like many secular Arab intellectuals caught between repressive military regimes and fundamentalist oppositions, Mr. Harbi has found sanctuary in Paris. Algerians here and at home speak of him with an admiration bordering on reverence. In Menilmontant — a neighborhood lined with halal butchers, pastry shops and hip little bars — young men greet him as "Si Mohammed," in Arabic Sir Mohammed.

"I've lived here for 25 years, and I feel very much at home," said Mr. Harbi, a slender, refined man of 69 with close-cropped white hair offset by striking black eyebrows. Sitting at a bistro around the corner from his apartment, he wore a black cashmere turtleneck, corduroys and wire-rimmed glasses, and spoke in lightly accented French. He dispatches quickly with personal questions, as if he'd rather talk about anything other than himself. Writing his memoirs — the first volume was recently published here to considerable acclaim — was, he says, "a strange undertaking, since I don't have a taste for intimate confessions."

It helps to have a good story, and Mr. Harbi undoubtedly has one. He helped lead his country to independence from France in one of the bloodiest colonial wars of the 20th century, only to become a prisoner of the newly independent state. Since fleeing to France in 1973, Mr. Harbi has gone from making history to writing it, establishing himself as an insightful student of Algerian politics and as an unbending champion of secular democracy and human rights. "The Algerian government," Mr. Harbi says, "is not a state with an army, but an army with a state." In books like "The F.L.N.: Mirage and Reality," he has traced the rise of a military-bureaucratic elite that, in his view, has led the country to economic ruin and civil war, displaying flagrant contempt for the people whose praises it ritually sings. "To understand Algeria today," he says, "you have to begin with the massive exclusion of people from power and the rejection of pluralism."

In 1992, a ghastly war broke out between government security forces and Islamist rebels after the army canceled the country's first democratic legislative elections, which the radical Islamic Salvation Front won. Tens of thousands of Algerians have died, and over 7,000 "disappeared." Since the early 90's, the Algerian government has projected itself as the country's only defense against theocratic despotism. In Mr. Harbi's view, this is a false choice, since, he said, most Algerians reject both the state and its radical Islamist opponents. The army and the rebels, he argues, are objective allies: both sides refuse to allow Algerians to govern themselves, both reject political pluralism and both are willing to use extreme violence — and even, some reports suggest, to cooperate behind the scenes — to further their aims.

Wishing a plague on both houses is, of course, the most dangerous position of all in a civil war, and Mr. Harbi has kept a low profile for much of the last decade, evading various assassination plots. "He seemed less nervous about his safety than I was," Stuart Schaar, a historian of North Africa at Brooklyn College, remembers. "I was afraid when he'd take subways. I begged him to take taxis, but he wouldn't."

If Mr. Harbi seems oddly serene in the face of these threats, it's because he is used to the clandestine life. Born in 1933 into an affluent and highly distinguished Muslim family in El-Arrouch, a town in eastern Algeria, he joined the nationalist underground at 15. From 1954 to 1962, the years of the independence war, he held various influential positions within the F.L.N. After the war, he served as an adviser to Algeria's first president, Ahmed Ben Bella.

Yet even at the peak of his influence, Mr. Harbi was always an outsider in the F.L.N. The seeds of rebellion were planted in him by his iconoclastic father, Brahimi Harbi, and by his French high school teacher, an anti-Stalinist Marxist named Pierre Souyri who had fought in the resistance. Under Mr. Souyri's tutelage, Mr. Harbi rejected the Islam-inflected populism common to most Algerian nationalists in favor of libertarian socialism.

Mr. Harbi's secular ideals placed him at odds with most of his colleagues in the F.L.N., who espoused the creation of an "Arabo-Muslim" state. A staunch defender of the few Algerian Jews and French settlers who supported the F.L.N, he says that these men and women "were arguably the most genuine nationalists, because their understanding of Algeria wasn't colored by religion."

As a member of Mr. Ben Bella's cabinet, Mr. Harbi tried in vain to combat the increasingly authoritarian direction of the revolution. He publicly condemned the torture of dissidents and urged Mr. Ben Bella to arm the people to avert a military coup. It was already too late: in June 1965, Col. Houari Boumedienne seized power. Mr. Ben Bella was jailed, followed, two months later, by Mr. Harbi.

Never formally charged, he spent the next six years being transferred from one prison to the next, until he was placed under house arrest in 1971.

Two years later Mr. Harbi escaped across the Tunisian border, with a fake Turkish passport. He ended up in Paris, where he'd studied two decades earlier at the Sorbonne, and where his children from an earlier marriage to a Frenchwoman lived. His first life, as a politician, was over.

But while under house arrest, the revolutionary was reborn as a historian. In the depths of confinement, Mr. Harbi had begun to write a chronicle of the independence movement.

In 1975, he published "The Origins of the F.L.N." It was the first in a series of sober, unsentimental studies that demolished the founding myths of the Algerian revolution, starting with the notion that Algerians had been unified under the F.L.N. and that anyone who opposed it was a traitor.

Using a trove of documents that he had collected during the war, Mr. Harbi revealed the internal life of the Algerian national movement, marked by ideological splits, purges and brutal score-settling. As a witness to the party's power struggles, and as an Algerian patriot of unimpeachable nationalist credentials, he was able to expose the grim underside of the F.L.N. as no scholar could. Without minimizing the wounds of colonialism, he insisted on the indigenous roots of Algeria's troubles, stressing the almost hysterical fear of political and cultural pluralism and the penchant for suppressing it by violence, as well as the weight of conservative, rural traditions.

As the French critic Pierre Vidal-Naquet, a close friend, puts it, "Harbi is that rare example of a political activist who has been able to achieve the historian's detachment from his subject."

By breaking the taboos surrounding the Algerian revolution, Mr. Harbi was placing himself in the line of fire. Algeria's secret police had assassinated a number of exiled dissidents. No sooner had Mr. Harbi arrived than Algerian agents began to stop by his apartment, offering a monthly salary in return for cooperation. French leftists with connections to the Algerian state promised to get him a French passport if he would keep quiet. "I felt extremely lonely in those years," he said.

Today, Mr. Harbi is a celebrated figure in French intellectual life, but his living conditions haven't much improved. He lives in a small apartment on a tiny pension from the University of Paris, where he taught political science for 20 years. "Mohammed refuses to be helped because he doesn't want to depend on anyone," Mr. Vidal-Naquet said, half in admiration, half in exasperation.

The first volume of Mr. Harbi's memoirs (the second is to be published this fall) is in large measure the story of a ferociously self-reliant man. Spanning the period 1945 to 1962, the book provides an absorbing account of Mr. Harbi's life in the underground in France, when he was raising support for the revolution and running from one safe house to the next. And it beautifully conveys the passage from lyrical illusions to lost illusions — the experience of an entire generation of Algerians who experienced the great hopes, and the equally great disappointments, of the independence era.

The most revelatory section may be Mr. Harbi's chapter on his adolescence in the city of Skikda, since it offers a view of the colonial experience that has seldom appeared in print, registering the volatile intimacy that both joined and divided Algerians and the settlers. As the historian Benjamin Stora notes, "Harbi was one of the first writers to show the colonial world as it really was, a world of segregation and inequality but also of contact between communities."

Mr. Harbi's memoir is now prominently displayed in bookstores throughout Algeria, where his work was banned until a decade ago. One Algerian reviewer, the sociologist Lahouari Addi, likened the book to "collective therapy," urging that it be "translated into Arabic and read by as many Algerians as possible." He added, "All is not yet lost in a society that can give birth to activists like Mohammed Harbi."

Mr. Harbi, for his part, doesn't see his life in heroic terms. "My story," he said, chuckling softly, "is the classic story of the radical son of bourgeois parents," a tale of rebellion, disillusionment and downward mobility worthy of Herzen. Does the retired academic ever feel a tinge of nostalgia for his days as a nationalist revolutionary?

"I have to be honest with you," he said, blushing. "For all its miseries, being a political militant is much more exciting than life in academia." A wry little smile flashed across Mr. Harbi's face, and he returned the conversation, once again, to the country on the other side of the Mediterranean.

A New Literature With Asian Roots

A New Literature With Asian Roots
By FELICIA R. LEE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/22/arts/22HMON.html

As a writer, Mai Neng Moua can braid bits of dreams and imagination with the remnants of the past. As the editor of "Bamboo Among the Oaks," a first anthology of Hmong American writers, she is midwife to the birth of a literary tradition.

Like many immigrant and minority writers before them — whether Jewish, Latino, Irish, Italian or African-American — the Hmong, an ethnic group with roots in Southeast Asia, face many of the same questions. How does it feel for the sons and daughters to write in English, forsaking the language of their parents? Does the first generation have any responsibility to uphold the images of the group as they seek economic and social parity? Is there conflict between being an immigrant writer and writing about universal themes?

"The pressure to be representative can be killing to writers," said Morris Dickstein, a professor of English at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. "People like Saul Bellow, you can see in his early work he wants to navigate the mainstream. You see him become more Jewish in his late work than in his early work."

The newest immigrant literature has an advantage, though, Dr. Dickstein added. He argues that American society has changed enough that immigrant writers no longer have to be "bleached out" to fit and no longer try to be representative of their group.

The old pattern, he said, is that the first generation of immigrants feels grateful, the second generation feels ambivalent and rebellious about their identity and the third generation tries to remember what the second generation tried to forget. Ralph Ellison in particular, he said, was prescient in arguing that America no longer had a primary culture but was a long braid of many cultural strands, a view reflected in his essays and the novel "Invisible Man."

"The culture shifted after the 60's so that the ethnicity that was frowned upon before became hot," Dr. Dickstein said. "To me, great writing is personal. If it's ethnically representative, that's accidental. You find the universal in the personal."

The Hmong (pronounced mung) stand out from other immigrant groups because of their ties to one of the most painful periods in American history. Most are refugees of the Vietnam War and the civil war in Laos and have been in the United States in large numbers since the mid-70's. There are estimated to be 12 million Hmong worldwide. Of the more than 160,000 in the United States, the city with the largest number (24,000) is St. Paul, with significant clusters sprinkled throughout California, Michigan, Colorado, Wisconsin and North Carolina.

One reason the Hmong have not created more of a literary splash is that their culture is rooted in an oral tradition, and they had no written language until about 50 years ago, when Christian missionaries in Laos used the Roman alphabet to translate the Bible into Hmong.

"People who don't have a written tradition don't seem to exist," said Ms. Moua (pronounced MOO-ah), 28, who lives in St. Paul and is also the editor of Paj Ntaub Voice, a biannual Hmong literary journal.

She has only a murky, dreamlike memory of how she, her mother and her younger brother left Laos in 1976, soon after the Vietnam War, and spent time in a refugee camp in Thailand. Like so many of the young Hmong writers, she said, she finds herself fighting to reclaim the past and also to feel part of contemporary American life.

"Bamboo Among the Oaks" (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002) includes fiction, fables, poetry and essays by 22 mostly Midwestern writers. Most are in their 20's and 30's, were born in Laos and are still seeking literary recognition. The search for identity is a common theme, with the competing pulls of assimilation and group membership. Other pieces feature interracial romances, the transcript of a taped interview with a long-suffering mother about being a good Hmong woman and an ancient fable about star-crossed lovers.

Ms. Moua's contributions to the anthology include essays about her kidney failure and her feeling of being unseen by a white lover.

Before the book there was the literary journal, which she began in 1994 while recovering from a kidney transplant. She read to pass the time and noted the absence of Hmong stories in Asian-American anthologies. Two years ago at a reading, the Hmong writers featured in a copy of Paj Ntaub that Ms. Moua carried caught the attention of an editor at the Minnesota Historical Society Press, the largest historical society in the country. It has a mission to document life in the Upper Midwest.

As for the Hmong, they are gradually coming into their own in America. They have elected their first state senator, from Minnesota, and the St. Paul police have learned to speak Hmong. The anthology is being bought particularly by educators and those interested in Asian culture, said John van Vliet, a spokesman for the Minnesota Historical Society Press. Since October, about 3,200 of the 4,500 books in print have been sold, said Kevin Morrissey, a marketing manager for the press. (The book is $24.95 in hardback; $13.95 in paperback.)

"There were some fights in the community about representation," Ms. Moua said, as the journal and then the book took off. "One woman talked about writing a story about polygamy, and she and her father got into a fight. People say, `Why don't you paint some happy pictures?' "

Another writer in the book, Ka Vang, said she writes simply to make herself understood. "I never thought I was speaking for my generation or my people," said Ms. Vang, 27, a St. Paul resident who was born on an American military base in Laos. She writes breezily about gang life, REM sleep, Twinkies.

"There was just this great energy inside of myself that needed to be released," she said. "It is related to the barriers I face, the conflicts I face as a first-generation Hmong woman."

While some white immigrant groups have managed to dissolve into the melting pot if they wanted to, writers of color remain particularized, said Elaine Kim, a professor of Asian-American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley.

American literature is marked by the tendency of publishers to rivet writers back to their ethnicities even as the writers try to present themes unbounded by their cultures, she said.

"Maxine Hong Kingston wore a sweatshirt on the cover of her book `The Woman Warrior' to show that she was a real American," Dr. Kim said. "That opened the door for Amy Tan. Asian-Americans were thought of as eternally foreign until recently."

She added that the point at which "literature becomes part of the canon of American literature has to do with the way a people are thought of."

Robert Viscusi, a professor of English at Brooklyn College who often writes about immigrants and literature, argues that "literature is the last citadel you can crack as an outsider."

He added, "Literary critics are among the arbiters of what the ruling class needs to know."

The socioeconomic status of a writer and the social status of the group to which that writer belongs is significant to how quickly one ascends the literary ladder, Professor Viscusi said. "Henry James was the grandson of an Irish immigrant, but that's not the first thing that crosses your mind with his name," he said. "There is the point at which the immigrant becomes a cosmopolitan. For James, his family had money, they were Protestants. The things we think about have so much to do with class and position."

Ms. Moua said she is well aware that most Americans knew little about the Hmong. While getting Hmong stories out in English has been important, she said, something is lost in not using the language of her ancestors. English, she said, is a blunt language, and the Hmong culture is nuanced and subtle.

Feeling caught between the past and creating a new identity often entangles immigrant writers, said May Lee, a 23-year-old writer from St. Paul who has two essays in the anthology. One is about Hmongspeak, her term for an indirect speaking style. The other is about finding her voice, a meditation in metaphor.

"I first started writing because I was just inspired by other people I read," Ms. Lee said. "Now I'm more intentional. We are not documented. We have an obligation to tell our story. There's no one else who will do it."

Asian American

amabelle writes -- "i'm trying to think... what is it that makes me asian american? i'm not talking about the way i look and the fact that i live here in the united states. i mean something more than that. how i act... who my friends are.. what i do. are those things that make me asian american?"

if only cantonese americans could visit Hong Kong, Taiwanese could visit modern day Taiwan, or mainlanders could visit the shining cities of Beijing and Shanghai (ok, maybe not so shining with all that construction debris and northern sandstorms!) -- most would be filled with such a sense of ethnic and national pride and generational accomplishment.

if we only knew the incredible sacrifices our parents and their parents made to get us to where we are now, and think and compare to where so many of our peers in China are currently, we would be so much more thankful and appreciative of our priviledged assimilated status (as asian or chinese americans).

(1) first, being "asian-american" on the west coast, is very different from being "asian american" in the midwest, the south, or the east coast. (although hawaii is probably a closer experience.) east coasters don't know anything about all-asian frats, about being a "majority minority", or about having large asian communities that have been american for more than one or two generations. we'd be lucky to have more than one or two other asians per class in school.

(2) second, being "asian american", or in this case "chinese american", carries with it over 5000 years of culture -- that part of being "chinese". most chinese who have been in america for more than a generation often lose their sense of ethnic identity from (a) successful assimiliation into the american culture by themselves or their parents, (b) the resulting loss of ethnic knowledge and generational experience over that time, and (c) the reality of the physical and psychological distance to the ethnic homeland (the fact that China is on the other side of the planet).

if only cantonese americans could visit Hong Kong, Taiwanese could visit modern day Taiwan, or mainlanders could visit the shining cities of Beijing and Shanghai (ok, maybe not so shining with all that construction debris and northern sandstorms!) -- most would be filled with such a sense of ethnic and national pride and generational accomplishment. not that China is so far behind in many ways. but that (a) there are so many deep cultural elements that have endured over the centuries, (b) that the country has come such a long way in such a short amount of time (bringing a billion people from an overwhelmingly agrarian existence closer to a modern nation of production and service), and (c) that the people of China, filled with a sense of survival, have and continue to work so hard for the future.

children of 1st generation parents in grungy new york chinatowns (like my mom) would have had a much stronger sense of pride if only they had been to HK and knew how cool it was there.

children of 2nd generation parents (me), would have had such a stronger sense of chinese identity if i had been to shanghai and beijing and guangzhou and HK and realized how extensive my own ethnic heritage is.

so many of us complain about our parents or our minority status. but if we only knew the incredible sacrifices our parents and their parents made to get us to where we are now, and think and compare to where so many of our peers in China are currently, we would be so much more thankful and appreciative of our priviledged assimilated status (as asian or chinese americans).

i would offer a few suggestions to asian and chinese americans who have grown up their whole lives here in the states -- (1) read a few books on what your parents and previous generations actually went through to get us to where we are now, (2) ask your parents and grandparents to tell more stories of their youth and tales of their own diaspora, and (3) go to HK, Taiwan, and China and see for yourself what an amazing and fascinating people you come from!!

none of us should feel any shame at being a minority (or from coming from poor or peasant blood if that is the case). we should instead feel intense pride in our long and enduring heritage. it is our true and honest identity.

[btw, the former Clinton speechwriter, Eric Liu, has written a pretty good book on some of these issues. although i find some differences with some of what he writes, he makes an excellent case for the loss of generational experience.]

A Last Chance to Stop Iraq

A Last Chance to Stop Iraq
By KENNETH M. POLLACK
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/21/opinion/21POLL.html

WASHINGTON — With the Bush administration set to put a resolution on Iraq before the United Nations Security Council next week, those opposed to war will rally around the notion that Saddam Hussein can be deterred from aggression. They will continue to say that the mere presence of United Nations inspectors will prevent him from building nuclear weapons, and that even if he were to acquire them he could still be contained.

Unfortunately, these claims fly in the face of 12 years — and in truth more like 30 years — of history.

Given Saddam Hussein's current behavior, his track record, his aspirations and his terrifying beliefs about the utility of nuclear weapons, it would be reckless for us to assume that he can be deterred. Yes, we must weigh the costs of a war with Iraq today, but on the other side of the balance we must place the cost of a war with a nuclear-armed Iraq tomorrow.

Observers have a very poor track record in predicting the progress of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. In the late 1980's, the nuclear experts of the American intelligence services were convinced that the Iraqis were at least 5 and probably 10 years away from having a nuclear weapon. For its part, the International Atomic Energy Agency did not even believe that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. After the 1991 Persian Gulf war, United Nations inspectors found that not only did Iraq have a program far more extensive than anyone had realized, but it was also less than two years away from producing a weapon.

Four years later, the international agency was so certain that it had eradicated the Iraqi nuclear program that it wanted to end aggressive inspections in favor of passive "monitoring." Then a slew of defectors came out of Iraq — including Hussein Kamel al-Majid, the son-in-law of Saddam Hussein who led the Iraqi program to build weapons of mass destruction; Wafiq al-Samarrai, one of Saddam Hussein's intelligence chiefs; and Khidhir Hamza, a leading scientist with the nuclear weapons program. These defectors reported that outside pressure had not only failed to eradicate the nuclear program, it was bigger and more cleverly spread out and concealed than anyone had imagined it to be.

In the late 1990's, American and international nuclear experts again concluded that the Iraqi nuclear program was dormant: yes, the scientists were still working in teams; yes, they still had all of the plans; and yes, they probably were hiding some machinery — but they were not making any progress. Then another batch of important defectors escaped to Europe and told Western intelligence services that after the inspectors left Iraq in 1998, Saddam Hussein had started a crash program to build a nuclear weapon and that the Iraqis had devised methods to hide the effort.

The reports of these defectors prompted the German intelligence service in 2001 to conclude that Iraq was only three to six years away from having one or more nuclear weapons. Today, the American, British and Israeli intelligence services believe that unless he is stopped, Saddam Hussein is likely to acquire a nuclear weapon in the second half of this decade.

Even this estimate may be overly optimistic. While it's true that the presence of weapons inspectors does hamper the Iraqis, there are some critical caveats. We simply do not know how close Iraq is to acquiring a nuclear weapon, nor do we know to what extent the inspectors' presence is slowing the Iraqi program. What we do know is that for more than a decade we have consistently overestimated the ability of inspectors to impede the Iraqi efforts and we have consistently underestimated how far along Iraq has been toward acquiring a nuclear weapon.

For all of these reasons the assurances from Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, that he has Iraq's nuclear program well in hand should be less than comforting.

Nor is there reason to be confident about how Saddam Hussein will behave once he has acquired a nuclear weapon.

He has been anything but circumspect about his aspirations: He has stated that he wants to turn Iraq into a "superpower" that will dominate the Middle East, to liberate Jerusalem and to drive the United States out of the region. He has said he believes the only way he can achieve his goals is through the use of force. Indeed, his half-brother and former chief of intelligence, Barzan al-Tikriti, was reported to say that Iraq needs nuclear weapons because it wants "a strong hand in order to redraw the map of the Middle East."

It is probably true that fear of retaliation kept Iraq from using chemical weapons against coalition forces during the gulf war. However, this should give us little comfort that he will be similarly deterred in the future. Before the 1991 war, Secretary of State James Baker warned his Iraqi counterpart, Tariq Aziz, that Iraq faced "terrible consequences" if it used weapons of mass destruction, mounted terrorist attacks or destroyed Kuwaiti oil fields.

Yet despite this warning, Saddam Hussein tried to send terrorist teams to America and did blow up the Kuwaiti oil fields — he simply gambled on which two of the three things Mr. Baker mentioned were unlikely to result in America ending the regime. (Many officials from that Bush administration have suggested, in fact, that Saddam Hussein didn't even make the right calculation.)

Proponents of deterrence also argue that since nobody has ever actually tried to deter Saddam Hussein from attacking another country, how can we claim that doing so will be difficult in the future? The example most often cited is the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, where the common wisdom holds that because of the botched messages he received from the American ambassador, April Glaspie, Iraq had no reason to believe we would fight.

In fact, all the evidence indicates the opposite: Saddam Hussein believed it was highly likely that the United States would try to liberate Kuwait, but convinced himself that we would send only lightly armed, rapidly deployable forces that would be quickly destroyed by his 120,000-man Republican Guard. After this, he assumed, Washington would acquiesce to his conquest.

Much of the evidence for this remains classified, but at least two points can be made using public material: Tariq Aziz has told reporters that this was what Saddam Hussein thought at the time; and we know that when the Republican Guards invaded Kuwait they moved quickly — even before they had consolidated control over the country — to set up defenses along Kuwait's borders and against amphibious and airborne landings.

In other words, Saddam Hussein thinks we tried to deter him, and that we failed. He was ready and willing to fight the United States for Kuwait.

Even that crushing defeat, however, didn't dim his adventurism. Just two years later he attempted to assassinate the emir of Kuwait and former President Bush. This was not a rational act but a meaningless bid for revenge. And he is lucky that the attempts failed. If they had succeeded, there is no question that the United States would have obliterated his regime.

Then, in October 2000, he dispatched five divisions to western Iraq. All of the evidence available to the American government indicated that, with the acquiescence of Damascus, he intended to move them through through Syria and into the Golan Heights. In response, Washington began preparing a military strike far greater than Desert Fox of 1999 (which itself prompted revolts throughout Iraq for six months), and the Israeli military planned its own crushing response. Only American and Saudi diplomatic intervention with Syria, combined with the Iraqi military's logistical problems, quashed the adventure.

Most ominous today, we have heard from many intelligence sources — including some of the highest-level defectors now in America and abroad — that Saddam Hussein believes that once he has acquired nuclear weapons it is the United States that will be deterred. He apparently believes that America will be so terrified of getting into a nuclear confrontation that it would not dare to stop him should he decide to invade, threaten or blackmail his neighbors.

America has never encountered a country that saw nuclear weapons as a tool for aggression. During the cold war we feared that the Russians thought this way, but we eventually learned that they were far more conservative. Our experts may be split on how to handle North Korea, but they agree that the Pyongyang regime wants nuclear weapons for defensive purposes — to stave off the perceived threat of an American attack. The worst that anyone can suggest is that North Korea might blackmail us for economic aid or sell such weapons to someone else (with Iraq being near the top of that list). Only Saddam Hussein sees these weapons as offensive — as enabling aggression.

Finally, we cannot forget that all evidence has shown Saddam Hussein to be an incorrigible optimist who willfully ignores signs of danger. Consider that on at least five occasions over the last three decades, he has embarked on foreign policy adventures that nearly destroyed him: his attack on Iraq's Kurds in 1974 (which might have ended in an Iranian assault on Baghdad if the shah of Iran had not unexpectedly decided to double-cross the Kurds instead); his invasion of Iran in 1980; his invasion of Kuwait in 1990; his assassination attempt against former President Bush in 1993; and his threatened attack on Kuwait in 1994. In each case, he took a course of action that we know even his closest advisers considered extremely dangerous.

This is the problem with Saddam Hussein. The assertion that he is not intentionally suicidal may be true, but it is irrelevant. In the end, he has frequently proven inadvertently suicidal.

And he seems to be doing it again. With more than 150,000 American soldiers taking positions on his borders he continues to run the international inspectors in circles, foolishly confident that his minor concessions will stave off an invasion. Is there any other person on earth who wouldn't turn his country inside out to prove that he did not have more weapons of mass destruction? Once again, he seems to be betting his life that the game is not as dangerous as everyone else thinks it is.

Given Saddam Hussein's current behavior, his track record, his aspirations and his terrifying beliefs about the utility of nuclear weapons, it would be reckless for us to assume that he can be deterred. Yes, we must weigh the costs of a war with Iraq today, but on the other side of the balance we must place the cost of a war with a nuclear-armed Iraq tomorrow.

Kenneth M. Pollack, a former analyst of the Iraqi military at the C.I.A., is a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and author of "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq."

Liberal or conservative idealism?

Mr. Bush's Liberal Problem
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/18/opinion/18KRIS.html

The big problem with liberals in international affairs is that ever since Woodrow Wilson, they've been too idealistic.

Liberals hamstrung the C.I.A. (thus impairing intelligence collection), scorned the military (undermining a humanitarian force in places like Bosnia and Afghanistan), campaigned against sweatshops in Bangladesh and Cambodia (forcing teenage girls out of manufacturing jobs and into the sex industry), and imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar (destroying the middle class and propping up military dictators).

Now, alas, President Bush is also trying to be a foreign policy idealist — from the right — and is showing the same cavalier obtuseness to practical consequences.

Mr. Bush is, for example, outraged at the way the Chinese government sometimes forces peasants to have abortions. Fair enough. But his solution was to cut off all $34 million in U.S. funding for the United Nations Population Fund, leading to the cancellation of programs in Africa to train midwives, fight AIDS and help pregnant women. The upshot is that women and babies are dying in Africa because of Mr. Bush's idealism.

Many conservatives are deeply sincere in their revulsion for abortion. But they have blindly pursued moralistic policies — like cutting funds for family planning, undermining sex education and stigmatizing condoms — that lead to more abortions. The U.N. estimates that cutting the money for the Population Fund will lead to 800,000 more abortions per year.

Then came North Korea, the place where President Bush has muffed up most dangerously, albeit for the noblest of reasons. Instead of devising a policy toward North Korea, Mr. Bush devised an epithet: "the axis of evil." It's the conservative version of liberal shibboleths like "Make love, not war" — and equally hollow.

Mr. Bush has refused to talk to the North Koreans, because of a highly principled — and entirely impractical — policy that we will not reward bad behavior. The predictable result was that North Korea started up its plutonium assembly line, and in a few years it will be capable of turning out 60 nuclear warheads per year.

Then there's the Middle East. Mr. Bush has a perfectly realistic view of Yasir Arafat — an incompetent leader who dabbles in terrorism — but it's a catastrophic mistake to then wash our hands and walk away. A Middle East peace now seems further away than ever.

Finally, Iraq. Mr. Bush and his aides, like Bobby Kennedy, dream things that never were and say why not. Mr. Bush imagines the transformative effect that a democratic, stable and prospering Iraq would have on the entire Arab world.

Maybe. But it would be helpful if he also had nightmares of things that never were, to understand how policies can go wrong. It seems equally possible that invading Iraq will trigger precisely the scenario we fear — Saddam handing out anthrax or even smallpox to terrorists — and that our invasion will lead thousands of young Arabs to join Al Qaeda. Instead of becoming safer, we could be in a more perilous state than ever.

There's a macabre sign of what's ahead in Iraq. The federal government publishes notices of contracts awarded, and recent listings include announcements from the Defense Personnel Support Center for a total of more than $400,000 for the likes of "Pouch, human remains, type II. Nylon; chloropene."

The irony is that some on the right seem to be sinking into ineffectual idealism just as the left has shown signs of growing out of it. President Clinton moved away from his early demagogic Republican-bashing on China (coddling dictators) and came to appreciate the need to engage China's leaders and bring about change through engagement.

The model in this respect is Jimmy Carter, who first made human rights an essential part of American foreign policy; he stands for ideals but does not let them trample real people. In his travels to third-world hot spots, staring down dictators and fighting disease, Mr. Carter recognizes that what matters most to Nigerian women or North Korean peasants isn't whether the White House mouths pious slogans on their behalf, but whether their children survive.

So let's hope President Bush learns from liberal mistakes and worries less about ideals and more about practical results. The world may not be able to afford much more of his idealism.

The Philharmonic

my friend linda took me to see the philharmonic tonight. i was so excited as Leonard Slatkin was replacing Riccardo Muti who was supposed to be conducting. Slatkin used to be one of my favorite conductors. when i was in middle school he conducted our county orchestra. and we also heard him work his magic on contemporary american pieces (his real strength) at the Kennedy Center. [i don't know anyone else who could make abstract contemporary compositions as interesting or accessible (listen-able) than him.]

tonight he was in top form. precise yet empathetically emotional. he delivered a flawless performance of haydn's "surprise" symphony. and an almost flawless performance of tchaikovsky's 3rd. afterwards, we went across the street for drinks with the philharmonic's juniors group, but had dinner instead. yum...

Think Pink

["think pink!" -- time to rewatch that old fred astaire and audrey hepburn favorite of mine Funny Face.]

Instead of Duct Tape, Indulge in Pink
By MICHELLE SLATALLA
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/20/technology/circuits/20shop.html

LAST week I tried to work, I really did, but all I could think about was pink.

A disturbing behavior pattern emerged. On Monday, as on other Mondays of my life, I sat down in front of my computer with a cup of coffee and plans to make a couple of hours of personal calls to eat up the workday clock and avoid thinking about whether we were going to war or how much an ample supply of duct tape might help me in the event of a terrorist attack.

The next thing I knew, I found myself in town lingering in front of a store window that featured a pale pink linen coat.

I reminded myself that I like to wear black, that once I bought a gray T-shirt but it seemed flashy. If I really want to go crazy, I might throw on a bit of white in the same spirit that other people dab expensive perfume behind their ears. Pink? It has no place in my life.

But the situation escalated. That afternoon I lingered for half an hour at a local store flirting with Puma sneakers, one pair a baby pink suede, the other described as "pink lemonade."

By Tuesday, after making up some specious excuse for going to the mall, I found myself in a dressing room at the Gap (I had not been in a Gap for about two years), surrounded by a huge pile of pink T-shirts, polo shirts and henleys that I had no memory of trying on.

Trips to Target followed. And Nordstrom's. By Wednesday, I was wearing one of my 5-year-old's pink barrettes, and that meant trouble. I was in the grip of compulsion far bigger and more powerful than I could hope to fight on my own.

"You have to help me," I said to Leatrice Eiseman, a color psychologist and author of "Colors for Your Every Mood: Discover Your True Decorating Colors" (Capital Books, 1998). "I am obsessed with pink."

"What shade of pink?" asked Dr. Eiseman, who is executive director of Pantone Inc.'s color institute, which spends a lot of time trying to standardize color.

"Well, not really a shell pink or a bubble-gum pink, but a darker pink, like peonies," I said.

Forget the old cliché about how pink means spring. It turns out that there's a lot more going on beneath the surface of pink.

"In its softest varieties, pink is nurturing, something to wrap ourselves in, to make us feel good, like putting our thumbs in our mouths, and we saw a lot of those colors last spring after we were all feeling like we needed that," Dr. Eiseman said. "This year the hotter pinks have even more energy. They suggest you're trying to feel optimism and excitement."

Color is a kind of fantasy fulfillment. It's no accident that bright pink will be in every shop window this spring when the world is in upheaval and war seems likely.

"Fashion designers and retailers are selling optimism?" I asked.

"They're making a conscious effort to give people what they want," Dr. Eiseman said.

My urge to buy pink felt patriotic. Of course, this creates another major problem for someone who likes to shop online. It's dangerous to buy anything pink online without seeing it first, because every computer screen's display is different, and there are many ways pink can go wrong. You don't want to risk opening a package and being confronted by fuchsia. Or salmon. Or mauve.

That's not going to lift anybody's spirits this spring.

The people at Pantone say that if online stores would label each product with a number that corresponds to one of the 1,932 colors in the Pantone Shopping Color Guide, they could solve that problem. Using the Pantone color guide, which looks like a paint swatch book and costs $19.95, a shopper could flip through color samples to confirm. (To see how it would work, visit the company's demonstration site, www.therightcolor.com.)

"It's feasible," said Richard Herbert, Pantone's president. "People have to put a color code in the database anyway, so why not a color code everyone could understand? But logistically, it's probably impossible. We haven't been able to get enough big retailers and manufacturers on board."

Pantone sent me a color swatch book. With it, I returned to stores to field test some pinks and see how they corresponded to the manifestations on my computer screen.

I was methodical. On my feet, light pink suede Puma sneakers (my daughters had warned me that the brighter pink might in the long run be a footwear mistake) corresponded to Pantone color 13-2006. But online, at store.puma.com ($65), the color was much lighter, 11-2309. At the Gap, a snap-front white baseball T-shirt with cotton-candy-pink sleeves was 11-2309. But online, it was darker (13-2004).

Then I saw the coat.

For several minutes I forgot everything else in the world.

It was a beautiful climbing-rose-pink canvas raincoat ($78 at the Gap). It was hanging near a rack of black raincoats, a rack of green ones, a rack of blue ones and a rack of khaki ones. The pink one was the last one left. Wrong size, but it did wonders for the complexion.

Suddenly I remembered that I needed a birthday gift for a person who would look smashing in pink, and that the birthday was a week away. I rushed home to order the coat from Gap.com and upgrade the shipping.

You would think that Gap Inc., with its recent financial problems, would put a sure winner like the pink coat smack in the middle of the Gap.com homepage to attract potential optimists. You would be wrong.

Nowhere on the site could I find the pink raincoat. Nor was there a keyword query box into which I could type "pink." I phoned customer service.

"Oh, no, the pink?" the sympathetic customer service representative said. "They sold out right away. They're completely gone."

In a lather, I phoned Gap Inc.

"I wish I had one, too," said Stacy MacLean, a company spokeswoman. "We're getting more."

But not until Feb. 28. And then the coats will be in stores only, not online. "Generally we have a pretty integrated online and offline experience," Ms. McLean said. "But for some items, we order specifically for online and specifically for stores."

That practice seemed misguided, as did the lack of a keyword search box on Gap.com.

I called around to Gap stores as if it were the Dark Ages to locate a pink raincoat. Then I ordered it over the phone, but not even the store manager knew how to upgrade the shipping.

I put a second coat on hold. I'm on my way there now.

The Yes-But Parade

The Yes-But Parade
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/20/opinion/20SAFI.html

WASHINGTON

After his resounding re-election in 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt turned on the right wing of his Democratic Party. "He invented a new word," recalled his speechwriter, Samuel Rosenman, "to describe the congressman who publicly approved a progressive objective but who always found something wrong with any specific proposal to gain that objective — a yes-but fellow."

In gaining the progressive objective of stripping a genocidal maniac of weapons capable of murdering millions, today's U.S. president is half-supported, half-obstructed by a new parade of politicians and pundits who applaud the goal but deplore the means necessary to achieve it. Count the banners of today's yes-butters:

1. Yes, Saddam Hussein is evil, a monster in power, but is it for us to assume the power to crush every cruel tyrant in the world?

2. Yes, only the threat of U.S. force enabled the U.N. inspectors to get back into Iraq, but now that they're there, why not let them poke around until they find something?

3. Yes, Saddam is probably working on germs and poison gases and maybe even nukes, but he hasn't used them lately, and what's the rush to stop him now — why not wait until inspectors find proof positive or he demonstrates his possession?

4. Yes, Iraqi weapons could someday obliterate New York, but what's the use of stopping them when North Korean missiles could even sooner take out Los Angeles?

5. Yes, Saddam has defied 17 U.N. Security Council resolutions over a dozen years to disarm, but aren't we his moral equivalent by threatening to get it done despite a French veto?

6. Yes, we have credible testimony from captives that Saddam harbors in Baghdad terrorists trained by and affiliated with Al Qaeda, but where's the smoking gun that shows the ultimate nexus — that he personally ordered the attacks of Sept. 11?

7. Yes, ending Saddam's rewards to families of suicide bombers would remove an incentive to kill innocents, but wouldn't the exercise of coalition power to curtail the financing of terror create a thousand new Osama bin Ladens?

8. Yes, the liberation of 23 million oppressed and brutalized Iraqis would spread realistic hope for democratic change throughout the Arab world, but wouldn't that destabilize the Saudi monarchy and drive up oil prices?

9. Yes, we could win, and perhaps quickly, but what if we have to fight in the streets of Baghdad or have to watch scenes of civilians dying on TV?

10. Yes, cost is no object in maintaining U.S. national security, but exactly how much is war going to cost and why not break your tax-cut promises in advance?

11. Yes, the democratic nation most easily targeted by Saddam's missiles is willing to brave that risk, but doesn't such silent support prove that American foreign policy is manipulated by the elders of Zion?

12. Yes, liberation and human rights and the promotion of democracy and the example to North Korea and Iran are all fine Wilsonian concepts, but such idealism has no place in realpolitik — and can you guarantee that our servicemembers will be home for Christmas?

This is the dirty dozen of doubt, the non-rallying cry of the half-hearted. The yes-butters never forthrightly oppose, as principled pacifists do. Rather than challenge the ends, they demean the means. Rather than go up against a grand design, they play the devil with the details. Afflicted by doubt created by the potential cost of action, they flinch at calculating the far greater cost of inaction.

Haughty statesmen felt for years that "poorly brought up" Bosnians and Kosovars were unworthy of outside military defense — until hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims embarrassingly died. Iraqi Kurds by the thousands were poison-gassed as well, their cries and exodus ignored by European leaders in the name of preserving the sovereignty of despots. These local crowd-pleasers are ready to again embrace peace at any price so long as others pay the price.

The firm opponents of a just war draw succor from the yes-butters, whose fears are expressed in dwelling on the uncertainty of great enterprises. Their fears are neither unreasoning or unjustified, but, in the words of a president who rose above paralysis, "paralyze needed efforts to turn retreat into advance."

Chirac's Words Widen a Divide Within Europe

Chirac's Words Widen a Divide Within Europe
By CRAIG S. SMITH
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/19/international/europe/19CHIR.html

BRUSSELS, Feb. 18 — "New Europe" barked back at "old Europe" today, deepening the continental rift over Iraq after President Jacques Chirac of France told Central and Eastern European countries to keep their views on Iraq to themselves or risk losing their chance to join the European Union.

"We thought we were preparing for war with Saddam Hussein and not Jacques Chirac," said Alexandr Vondra, deputy foreign minister of the Czech Republic, one of the European Union applicants that have drawn French ire by openly supporting the United States and Britain in the Iraqi crisis. Mr. Vondra said his country and its immediate neighbors "definitely cannot remain silent," as Mr. Chirac advised on Monday.

The French president, in an unusually emotional outburst in Brussels after the European Union meeting on Monday about Iraq, derided the Central and Eastern European countries that have signed letters expressing their support for the American policy on Iraq for being "badly brought up," and having missed "an opportunity to keep quiet."

All 13 candidates today endorsed the joint declaration on Iraq issued on Monday by the 15 European leaders, warning Saddam Hussein that he had "one last chance" to disarm and vowing to "avoid new lines of division" over European policy on Iraq.

But divisions exist. The war of words highlighted not only disagreement over Iraq, but also France's struggle for dominance in European affairs in the face of an enlarging European Union whose incoming members are historically beholden to the United States.

France has long been concerned that the former Communist countries, indebted to the United States for liberation from Soviet domination in the cold war, would turn out to be a sort of Trojan horse bringing America's influence into the union.

"For France, the European Union is a way for it to remain a big power in the world because it can use Europe to act and to have a certain influence in world affairs that it can't have anymore on its own," said Gilles Lepesant, a French expert on European identity and Eastern Europe. France fears that expanding the European Union membership will erode its influence and weaken Europe's position as a potential counterweight to American power.

The broader European Union membership is also more likely to produce a decentralized organization that leaves much power with national governments, rather than the more centralized, cohesive union favored by France and Germany.

The tension across Europe has grown steadily as Central and Eastern European countries have sided with the United States over how to resolve the Iraq crisis. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last month chastised France and Germany for opposing the United States, calling them "old Europe," out of step with the "new Europe" made up of former Soviet bloc countries.

While France this month recalled its gratitude to the United States for liberation from Germany more than half a century ago, the gratitude of former Communist states toward Washington seems far more immediate and, for now, binding. Even once rock-solid bonds like that between Germany and the United States have been undermined in recent months.

Andrzej Kapiszewski, professor of sociology and political science at Krakow University in Poland, recalled that even under communism, America remained a benevolent presence. "I'm from Krakow, and practically every single person had some relative in the United States," Mr. Kapiszewski said.

There is little sense of obligation to Western Europe, though, and some irritation at the long, difficult negotiations insisted on by Western Europe for membership of the European Union.

The East-West European divide broke into the open when eight European leaders, including the European Union candidates Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, signed a letter of support for Washington's position in January. That letter was followed by another signed by 10 more countries, including seven candidates for the European Union.

The letters reinforced widespread suspicion in France that the poorer European countries are primarily attracted to European Union membership for economic reasons while their political allegiance will remain with Washington.

"Europe is not a cash register," warned Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, on Sunday.

In his comments on Monday, Mr. Chirac went on to suggest that opposing France and Germany could hurt candidates for European Union membership. He warned, in particular, that Romania and Bulgaria, the poorest of the thirteen candidates and the two that are still negotiating to enter the bloc in 2007, "could hardly find a better way" of reducing their chances for membership by speaking up against France.

The French defense minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, echoed Mr. Chirac in Warsaw today, telling her hosts that "it was better to keep silent when you don't know what's going on."

The comments were rejected across Central and Eastern Europe on Tuesday, suggesting that France will face serious challenges in exerting its influence over an expanded European Union.

"France has a right to its opinion, and Poland has the right to decide what is good for it," said Adam Rotfeld, deputy foreign minister of Poland, the largest of the candidates for the union. "France should respect that."

Poland recently angered many European Union members by choosing Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets over French and Anglo-Swedish rivals.

The tensions between Poland and France are particularly notable because the two countries have traditionally been close. But President Bush is clearly regarded, at least for now, as a better friend to the Poles than President Chirac.

Charles Gati, a professor in European Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, said nationalist sentiment in countries that are candidates for the European Union could now rise.

"This will strengthen nationalist arguments," Mr. Gati said. "They will say the West is not only selfish but divided, and we can't count on it."

Sorin Ionita, director of the Romanian Academic Society, a leading think tank in Bucharest, said: "If France wants to lose all the sympathy it has in the East, this is the way to do it, to say you little guys will have to listen to us forever. You don't hear this kind of language from the United States."

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who initiated one of the controversial letters supporting Washington, insisted today that the candidate countries should not be silenced.

"They have as much right to speak up as Great Britain or France or any other member of the European Union today," Mr. Blair said.

Tell the Truth

Tell the Truth
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/19/opinion/19FRIE.html

As I was listening to the French foreign minister make his case at the U.N. for giving Saddam Hussein more time to comply, I was struck by the number of people in the Security Council chamber who applauded. I wish there were someone I could applaud for.

Sorry, I can't applaud the French foreign minister, because I don't believe that France, which sold Saddam his first nuclear reactor, the one Israel blew up, comes to this story with the lofty principles it claims. The French foreign minister, after basking in the applause at the U.N., might ask himself who was clapping for his speech back in Baghdad and who was crying. Saddam was clapping, and all his political prisoners — i.e., most Iraqis — were crying.

But I don't have much applause in me for China, Russia — or the Bush team either. I feel lately as if there are no adults in this room (except Tony Blair). No, this is not a plague-on-all-your-houses column. I side with those who believe we need to confront Saddam — but we have to do it right, with allies and staying power, and the Bush team has bungled that.

The Bush folks are big on attitude, weak on strategy and terrible at diplomacy. I covered the first gulf war, in 1990-91. What I remember most are the seven trips I took with Secretary of State James A. Baker III around the world to watch him build — face-to-face — the coalition and public support for that war, before a shot was fired. Going to someone else's country is a sign you respect his opinion. This Bush team has done no such hands-on spade work. Its members think diplomacy is a phone call.

They don't like to travel. Seeing senior Bush officials abroad for any length of time has become like rare-bird sightings. It's probably because they spend so much time infighting in Washington over policy, they're each afraid that if they leave town their opponents will change the locks on their office doors.

Also, you would think that if Iraq were the focus of your whole foreign policy, maybe you would have handled North Korea with a little less attitude, so as not to trigger two wars at once. Maybe you would have come up with that alternative — which President Bush promised — to the Kyoto treaty, a treaty he trashed to the great anger of Europe. You're not going to get much support in Europe telling people, "You are either with us or against us in a war on terrorism, but in the war you care about — for a greener planet — America will do whatever it wants."

I am also very troubled by the way Bush officials have tried to justify this war on the grounds that Saddam is allied with Osama bin Laden or will be soon. There is simply no proof of that, and every time I hear them repeat it I think of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. You don't take the country to war on the wings of a lie.

Tell people the truth. Saddam does not threaten us today. He can be deterred. Taking him out is a war of choice — but it's a legitimate choice. It's because he is undermining the U.N., it's because if left alone he will seek weapons that will threaten all his neighbors, it's because you believe the people of Iraq deserve to be liberated from his tyranny, and it's because you intend to help Iraqis create a progressive state that could stimulate reform in the Arab/Muslim world, so that this region won't keep churning out angry young people who are attracted to radical Islam and are the real weapons of mass destruction.

That's the case for war — and it will require years of occupying Iraq and a simultaneous effort to defuse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to create a regional context for success. If done right, such a war could shrink Al Qaeda's influence — but Al Qaeda is a separate enemy that will have to be fought separately, and will remain a threat even if Saddam is ousted.

It is legitimate for Europeans to oppose such a war, but not simply by sticking a thumb in our eye and their heads in the sand. It's also legitimate for the Bush folks to focus the world on Saddam, but two years of their gratuitous bullying has made many people deaf to America's arguments. Too many people today no longer accept America's strength as a good thing. That is a bad thing.

Some of this we can't control. But some we can, which is why it's time for the Bush team to shape up — dial down the attitude, start selling this war on the truth, give us a budget that prepares the nation for a war abroad, not a party at home, and start doing everything possible to create a global context where we can confront Saddam without the world applauding for him.

Economy Is Tough All Over, but in New York, It's Horrid

Economy Is Tough All Over, but in New York, It's Horrid
By LESLIE EATON
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/19/nyregion/19PULS.html

Michael Amodeo is New York's most prominent auctioneer of failed restaurants and bankrupt businesses, and these days he is a very busy man.

"It started right after the bubble ended in 2000, but after 9/11 it got really bad," said Mr. Amodeo, who was on the 50th floor of a skyscraper in Lower Manhattan one recent day selling off the contents of a cafeteria that once served a company that is now retrenching.

The economic slump, he added, is affecting all kinds of food businesses, "restaurants and caterers and delis."

The rest of the country may be debating whether the economy is recovering or heading into a second downturn, the dreaded "double dip." In New York City, there is no question.

The economy here is in recession.

New York City has lost almost 176,000 jobs in two years — more than the population of many cities. The unemployment rate, which in the spring of 2001 had fallen to 5.3 percent, has been climbing steadily and jumped to 8.4 percent in December.

While the national economy has shown at least some growth, as measured by gross domestic product, a similar measure of the city's economy shows that it has been shrinking for two years. The New York City comptroller's office is forecasting another decline this year.

Evidence of economic hardship in the city is increasing. There has been a big rise in the number of people who have been jobless for more than six months, and tens of thousands of people have exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits but remain out of work. The number of households not on welfare but receiving food stamps, which some analysts cite as an indicator of a bad economy, has risen 20 percent in the last year, to 124,000.

New York City has gone through boom and bust before, most recently during what Christine M. Cumming, director of research for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, described as "the long economic winter" from 1989 through 1992. The entire region suffered then; Connecticut, New Jersey and New York State lost hundreds of thousands of jobs.

But what has surprised economists this time is that the economic carnage has been concentrated in New York City — and only New York City.

Connecticut and New Jersey, relatively small and urban states, have suffered in the economic slowdown, but the unemployment rates, 4.6 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively, remain below the national average of 6 percent. Upstate New York, often described as economically beleaguered and suffering from steep declines in population, has an unemployment rate of just 4.9 percent.

Even areas long considered suburbs of New York City, with economies that had been tightly linked, are faring far better than the city. On Long Island, employment has declined by fewer than 4,000 jobs in the last two years; Westchester County, home of many of the city's bedroom communities, has had a dip of fewer than 3,000.

In the past, "we always received an equal-opportunity clobbering," said Marc M. Goloven, a senior regional economist for J. P. Morgan.

But in other parts of the region, the economies have become more diverse and less reliant on a few big industries. Their new bases of small and medium-size businesses, Mr. Goloven said, "represent a sea wall beyond which New York City's recession tide could not spread."

New York City's economy is also more diversified than it was 20 years ago, when Wall Street was the be-all and end-all, Mr. Goloven and other economists say. There are more retail and tourism businesses and, despite the dot-com bust, more technology companies. Immigration has brought economic vibrancy to many city neighborhoods.

"It's not like a town with just one auto plant," said James P. Brown, who analyzes the city economy for the State Department of Labor. "But a lot of what New York City does is related to the same thing: we sell services to other businesses." So while the 2001 recession arrived more slowly than it did in some manufacturing towns, it hit home all the same.

Then came the attack on the World Trade Center. James Parrott, chief economist for the Fiscal Policy Institute, a labor-backed research group, has calculated that half of the job losses in the last two years can be traced to the economic aftershocks of Sept. 11.

Big financial firms were displaced. Thousands of small businesses in Lower Manhattan were destroyed.

The steep decline in travel and tourism hurt not only restaurant- and hotel-heavy Manhattan, but also Queens, where many people lost jobs in and around the airports.

The fallout continues all over the city. In Brooklyn, about 1,100 businesses recently filled out questionnaires on business conditions for the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. More than two-thirds said they had lost revenue as a direct result of 9/11, and almost half of that group had laid off workers, said Kenneth Adams, president of the chamber. Very few, 45 of 365 businesses that cut workers, have rehired people.

"People talk about the ripple effect of 9/11, but ripple is understating it," Mr. Adams said. "To many businesses, it was more like a tsunami."

The shadow of Sept. 11 continues to hang over many businesses.

"New Yorkers have taken a huge beating to our self-confidence and entrepreneurship," said Chan Suh, chief executive of Agency.com, the company whose cafeteria equipment and excess office furniture Mr. Amodeo was auctioning.

A rare survivor among the city's once flourishing Internet sector, Agency.com still has 75 employees in New York City, as well as offices in San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. Mr. Suh said the business climate in New York was different.

"People are more reluctant to make decisions, launch something, get something started," he said, adding that worries about war and terrorism made things worse. "We know New York is a focal point," he said. "That's not just hubris: we know New York is a symbol."

If New York was the terrorists' target, Wall Street was the bull's-eye. And the financial industry, possibly the most important to the city in income if not in jobs, is in dire straits.

The stock market has dropped for three straight years, the only time this has happened since World War II. December is usually a good month for the stock market; in 2002, it was the the poorest since 1931.

Even worse for New York City's financial firms, corporations across America have largely stopped merging, making acquisitions or selling stock. Helping companies do those things — the business of investment banking — is where financial firms make the really big profits. At least, they used to.

Wall Street's revenues and profits have plunged. Bonus payments dropped to $7.9 billion last year, from $12.6 billion in 2001 and $19.4 billion in 2000, according to estimates by Alan G. Hevesi, the state comptroller. On Wall Street, bonuses are not icing, they are the cake. (Bonuses often dwarf base pay, and almost nobody in high finance lives off the salary.) This means Wall Street workers have just taken a $4.7 billion pay cut.

That bonus money has paid for a lot of things in New York City: high-priced apartments, private school tuition and lavish dinners at Alain Ducasse. But it has also provided paychecks for a lot of people, like nannies and housekeepers, livery car drivers, restaurant deliverymen and the like.

Taxes on those big bonuses and on stock-market profits also used to bring hundreds of millions of dollars into city government's coffers; their decline goes a long way toward explaining the city's fiscal crisis. The city is billions of dollars short of the money it needs to balance its budget, and analysts fear steep cutbacks in areas like health care, which has been one of the few bright spots in employment.

In the future, far fewer Wall Street employees are likely to be around to get whatever bonuses are paid. Brokerage firms have laid off more than 23,000 New Yorkers in two years. That is more than 12 percent of their work force, and they are not finished.

Even if the stock market rebounds, "the securities industry here will probably stagnate," said Frank Fernandez, chief economist for the Securities Industry Association. Wall Street firms have been cutting back the number of employees in New York for years, Mr. Fernandez said, and New York remains an expensive place to do business when companies are desperate to cut costs. The attack on the World Trade Center convinced some financial firms that they had to spread out their employees, decisions reinforced by federal regulators worried about the nation's financial markets if another disaster occurs.

For employment in New York City to improve, Mr. Fernandez said, investment banking must rebound, and that does not appear to be on the horizon.

Even enactment of President Bush's proposal to cut taxes on corporate dividends would not provide much immediate increase in Wall Street business, he added, in part because few corporations are in a position to pay dividends.

What all the laid-off investment bankers are doing these days is unclear. Most received severance packages for which they were sworn to secrecy about their former employers. The last thing they want to do is appear as a hard-luck case in a newspaper article.

But they are out there. In certain neighborhoods of Manhattan, in certain suburban towns, there has been a sudden increase in people with time on their hands. Some are from Wall Street; others had high-paying jobs in advertising, publishing or consulting.

Now, they are "working at home," said Owen R. Berkowitz, who runs a bakery in Pelham, in Westchester County. Commuters he used to see at dawn before they crowded onto trains are now stopping by after they drop the children off at school. Normally, he added, "in Westchester, men are not around at 10 of 9."

Paul Bernard, a consultant who works with executives, said he used to tell clients that finding a new job might take six months; now he warns them to expect to hunt for up to 14 months.

Those who graduated from business school three or four years ago are in a particularly tough spot, he added. "There are very few jobs for people in that category, if they want to stay in New York." He has even had M.B.A.'s apply to be his office manager, a job that pays about $60,000 a year. He said he had received almost 1,300 résumés from applicants.

One may well have come from Vicki Herschman, 43, who lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She said she had been sending out hundreds of résumés a month. Laid off from her job as a magazine circulation assistant in July 2001, Ms. Herschman has not been able to find a job of any kind.

"I've applied to places like Starbucks, but they see me as overqualified or say I don't have a retail background," she said. The employment agency that helped her find her last job has gone out of business.

Her unemployment benefits ran out early last year, Ms. Herschman said, and she has found it increasingly hard to keep body and soul together. She continues to volunteer at a soup kitchen, but does it now to get free meals, and she says she considers it a good week when she can afford subway fare.

Recently, she overcame her embarrassment and applied for public assistance. She is still looking for a job, but she is considering leaving New York City.

"I find it, especially after 9/11, gloomy and negative and depressing," Ms. Herschman said. "Before, it was lights, camera, action."

College-educated workers like Ms. Herschman are more likely to find themselves unemployed than they were in previous recessions, economists say. But those most likely to find themselves out of a job in New York City are blue-collar workers, those without high school diplomas, the young, and black and Hispanic workers, said Mark Levitan, senior policy analyst for the Community Service Society, which helps the poor.

Despite the gloomy statistics, visitors can roam the streets of Manhattan without noticing signs of economic distress. And their presence is part of the reason: tourists have returned to Times Square, and if they do not spend as much as business travelers or international visitors, they are keeping Broadway and other businesses alive.

Real estate remains relatively strong so far. Apartment prices have not tumbled, as they did in the last recession. An increasing number of small storefronts are empty, but retailers continue to open big new stores.

Vacancies in office buildings have risen in the last year, but the percentage of empty office space in Manhattan remains well below the average for city downtowns, said Bruce Mosler, president of United States operations for Cushman & Wakefield, real estate brokers. Much of the space available is being put up for sublease by retrenching companies, Mr. Mosler said.

That is the fate of the former cafeteria in the skyscraper, one reason the equipment had to be auctioned — to get it out of the way of potential tenants.

But also on display at that auction were the optimism and determination that New Yorkers like to think characterize them as much as their gift for complaining does. Despite the poor economy, several bidders were planning to open new bars or restaurants in the city.

One was Aricka Westbrooks, 32, of Brooklyn. Until about a year and a half ago, Ms. Westbrooks had one of those "only in New York" careers that combined fashion, public relations and the Internet. But after she was laid off — twice — she decided to go into business for herself, she said.

So, if all goes well, she will soon open a takeout restaurant in Brooklyn called Jive Turkey (after the house specialty, which will be deep-fried).

It is not at all what she expected when she moved to New York City seven years ago, she said, but she has no intention of moving back to Chicago.

"Never that," she said firmly. "Never, ever, that."

'McCain-Feingold School' Finds Many Bewildered

'McCain-Feingold School' Finds Many Bewildered
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/19/politics/19CAMP.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 — It began as a modest idea: a series of small seminars by Democratic Party lawyers for elected officials, political consultants and Congressional aides on the intricacies of the new McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Party officials reserved a dining room at the Democratic Club on Capitol Hill and sent out invitations across Washington.

By the end of last week, that low-key undertaking had drawn more than 400 people over the course of a month, a turnout that has astonished its organizers. The crowd came first for a three-hour introductory course on a statute that is upending the fund-raising culture of Washington, and many have returned for specialized weekly three-hour classes at what has become known, none too fondly, as McCain-Feingold School.

"We sometimes leave our audiences in a state of complete shock" at what they hear, said Robert F. Bauer, a lawyer for the Democrats' House and Senate campaign committees. "A sort of slack-jawed amazement at how far this thing reached" is not uncommon at the seminars, Mr. Bauer said. Nor are "a lot of very anxious questions."

Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a Republican Party lawyer who has conducted seminars for the other side of the aisle, said lawmakers were startled to hear that once-standard practices like acting as host at a fund-raiser for a home-state governor might now be illegal. "There's an initial stage where the reaction is, 'This can't be true,' " Mr. Ginsberg said. "And then there's the actual anger stage."

The chief provision of McCain-Feingold was a ban on the national parties' raising of soft money, the large, little-regulated contributions that were supposed to encourage general party-building activities but as a practical matter had become the chief method of raising millions from the wealthy during the campaign season.

Most of the party lawyers and fund-raising officials now explaining the new law were never fans of it to begin with. Adjusting to the measure's detailed workings, however, has proved bewildering and anxiety-producing even among those who supported it. As members of Congress begin refilling their coffers for 2004, the law's full effect is just beginning to sink in.

The law, being challenged as unconstitutional by dozens of groups spanning the political spectrum, has already had sobering financial consequences for the Democrats, who, it is becoming clear, have been put at a decided fund-raising disadvantage by a measure that many of them championed.

With federal candidates and national party committees now barred from raising soft money, they have been forced to finance their activities from the contributions of hard-money donors, who are limited to $2,000 per candidate in any one election.

Soft-money contributions were previously the main source of financing for the national Democratic Party, which roughly kept pace with the Republicans in collecting them. By contrast, Republicans last year raised nearly twice as much hard money as the Democrats, evidence of a much broader base of contributors that Democrats believe has put the Republicans in a dominant fund-raising position as the 2004 presidential and Congressional races approach. While campaign experts had predicted that the Republicans would have an advantage, the gap has been even wider than expected.

The new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Representative Robert T. Matsui of California, who voted for McCain-Feingold, says he has been surprised by its fine print.

"I didn't realize what all was in it," Mr. Matsui said. "We have cautioned members: `You have to really understand this law. And if you have any ambiguity, err on the side of caution.' "

One of the legislation's authors, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, dismisses the newly voiced concerns as overblown, maintaining that the main sources of criticism are lawyers and lawmakers who opposed the bill. He disputes the suggestion that lawyers and members of Congress are now discovering fine print they were not aware of when the measure was enacted last year.

"Those who support the law generally speaking aren't complaining," Mr. McCain said. "Those that opposed it are complaining. And these same people are trying to find ways around the law. They are having difficulty doing so, so they complain even more."

Yet the law does impose a vast array of unfamiliar and in some cases still evolving restrictions on both parties.

For example, members of Congress have been informed that while they can attend annual state party dinners back home, they cannot permit their names to appear on the invitation as members of the host committee, since most state parties are permitted to raise money in excess of the $2,000 hard-money limit embodied in the federal law.

And, while the lawmakers are allowed at least to show up, socialize and speak at those state party dinners, the law may be less forgiving when it comes to their attendance at bread-and-butter fund-raisers held by candidates running for state and local office. Some party lawyers have concluded that a member of Congress can attend and even speak at a fund-raising dinner for a local politician, but others argue that the question is open to interpretation involving everything from what the candidate says to the maximum level of contributions at the dinner.

Those are among the issues that will surely be litigated in the months to come. Given the confusion in the meantime, party officials are urging members of Congress to consult their lawyers about every political invitation.

Such restrictions are no small matter for members of Congress, whose political influence at home is very much a function of their ability to help local candidates raise money.

"I raised money for George Pataki, I raised money for candidates in the State Legislature," said Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "Now that's over. It's a real education process."

It turns out that the law also includes a provision requiring that federal candidates appear full-faced for the last four seconds of their campaigns' television advertisements and personally attest that they stand behind the advertisements' content.

Several consultants said this could prove to be quite a problem politically when the time comes to begin televising the kind of hard-hitting negative advertisements that have become standard campaign fare. As a rule, those ads at present tend to reduce the role of the candidate to a small line at the bottom of a screen.

"I think it was a total surprise to people who don't read C.Q. with a yellow pen," said Bill Knapp, a Democratic media consultant, referring to Congressional Quarterly, which keeps close tabs on legislative maneuverings here.

Several consultants predicted that the provision would result simply in the creation of "independent" committees that will pick up the scythe and produce negative ads themselves.

One other unanticipated effect of the law will apparently keep candidates for president from appearances before the annual meetings of either the Republican or Democratic governors associations: those groups raise money that exceed the federal hard-money limits.

"What that means is the Democratic presidential candidates cannot be invited speakers at the D.G.A. event to do a presidential cattle call," said Mr. Ginsberg, the Republican Party lawyer. "President Bush, as a federal officeholder, cannot be a featured speaker at a Republican Governors Association meeting."

Finally, members of both parties have been startled to learn the law's penalties. A violation of McCain-Feingold — be it a national party official's soft-money raising, or a senator's acting as a host at a fund-raiser on behalf of a governor — is a felony carrying a prison sentence of as much as five years.

At a recent weekend retreat for Republican members of Congress, Mr. Reynolds began an after-dinner discussion about the new law by announcing that those who ran afoul of it, even out of ignorance, faced the possibility of criminal sanctions.

"My message is, Don't be the first guy to find out if you go to jail," he told his listeners.

Reflecting on that moment later, he recalled, "I found that everybody stayed after that."

Terra-Cotta Army From Early Han Dynasty Is Unearthed

Terra-Cotta Army From Early Han Dynasty Is Unearthed
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/18/science/18WARR.html

The Chinese have raised another army of remarkable dimensions, hundreds of foot-tall terra-cotta warriors, along with horses and chariots, that come from the depths of a tomb site south of Beijing.

The discovery was made late last year in the province of Shandong, near Weishan Mountain, and the first pictures have just been made available in the United States.

Archaeologists and conservators are working overtime to preserve the colorful painted decorations of the 2,000-year-old figurines as they are being exposed to air and removed from the ground.

This is not the first or the biggest such find. The most famous one, excavated in the 1970's at a imperial tomb outside the city of Xian, included 7,000 terra-cotta figures of soldiers, all of them life-size. A second company of clay soldiers, including farm animals, was found in 1990 in the vicinity of Xian.

But archaeologists and art scholars say the new discovery suggests that the Chinese in the Qin and Han dynasties probably made a regular practice of burying their royal and noble dead with a symbolic military escort into the afterlife.

The Weishan site, as archaeologists are calling it, may spread over as much as 10,000 square feet, Archaeology magazine reported in its current issue. If so, excavators predicted, the site may hold several thousand of the figurines, an impressive funerary display indicating that this was the burial place of a nobleman or close relative of a ruler of the Han dynasty, one of China's longest and most powerful, extending from 206 B.C. to A.D. 220.

Experts said the tomb appeared to date from the first half of the Han rule.

Similar burial customs have not been found associated with the latter Han period.

The impressive life-size figures at Xian came from the tomb of a powerful Qin emperor in the third century B.C., and the second find has been linked to the tomb of a Han emperor and empress from the second century B.C.

Although excavators have found a coffin with a body in the Weishan tomb, the magazine said, they doubt that these are the remains of the tomb complex's owner.

"Exactly who gets these underground armies at their tombs is not clear," Dr. David A. Sensabaugh, curator of Asian art at the Yale University Art Gallery, said in an interview last week.

"This tomb has to be for someone of a very high level, probably a prince, a son of the emperor, who ruled in that region."

The first experts to examine the site were impressed by the organization of the military figurines. At the forefront were cavalrymen followed by highly decorated chariots and their red horses, then the ranks of infantry.

Alongside them were several musicians, one with a brightly painted drum next to him.

Some experts interpreted this as the first archaeological evidence for a typical Han battle formation. Others said they believed the figures were not combat soldiers, but a kind of honor guard.

Dr. Sensabaugh said the order of the troops appeared to be similar to those shown in Han paintings and described in documents for "touring formations." These were the occasions, he said, when a prince went out with his chariots and soldiers in a display of pomp and a show of power, not a march to war.

The magazine report noted that Han funeral practice "was strict and specified that only generals could be buried with combat warriors and horses." So the nature of the terra-cotta army and its significance in ancient Chinese burial practices, the magazine concluded, "will not be resolved until the owner of the tomb complex is identified."

The Good Bikers of Sichuan Roar Off

The Good Bikers of Sichuan Roar Off
By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/18/international/asia/18CHIN.html

XIANGSHUIXI, China — Dozens of motorcycles roared and sputtered through this mountain hamlet, the riders an anonymous swarm in their helmets and identical yellow jackets.

The biggest, if not the baddest, biker posse of Chengdu city was out showing its colors.

Hell's Angels these were not. Their steeds were inexpensive Chinese models — no Harleys here — and not one could honestly call his machine a hog. Villagers along their route, rather than cowering behind doors, watched in amusement and hoped to sell some bottled water or gum.

Still, they were a hardy lot, these easy riders of the Chengdu Old People's Health Club, who were making a four-day tour on icicle-draped mountain roads.

With an aging population and retirement sometimes required as early as 55 for men and 50 for women, China has growing legions of not-so-elderly pensioners in search of companionship, activities and even adventure.

In the United States, the same sorts of people can be spotted in caravans of Airstreams or Winnebagos, roaming the Interstates and filling public campgrounds.

"This is really lots of fun," said Xie Shenzheng, 50, who retired from a factory job last year and has made several trips with the club with her husband.

The health club started out in the 1980's as a retirees' bicycle club, said Ying Wenjun, 61, the current leader, as he dropped behind to talk. Around eight years ago, some members decided to move up to motorcycles, he said, and take on more ambitious journeys. That some were feeling their age might have had something to do with the switch too.

"Riding a bicycle was just too tiring," Mr. Ying said. "And you can't travel very far."

Now, more than 100 couples and singles belong to the motorcycle club, which organizes three or four tours each month that last anywhere from a day to more than a week.

"We have members from every walk of life," Mr. Ying said. "Workers, managers, teachers and former officials."

On the recent four-day trip, some 40 members on 25 motorcycles were exploring a new nature reserve in western Sichuan. Past journeys have roamed as far as Beijing to the north and Hainan Island to the south, and to a remote spot in Sichuan that took days of travel on dirt lanes.

"We felt like real pioneers that time," Mr. Ying chuckled.

Once on the road, they stay in small lodges and inns, and they spend their evenings playing mah-jongg, sharing a drink and ribbing one another.

Mr. Ying said he had never heard of the Hell's Angels. In fact, he said, "I didn't know that there are motorcycle clubs in the United States."

"But I know there must be bicycle clubs there, because we see a lot of Americans riding bikes around here," he added as he donned his helmet, revved his engine and buzzed off to catch up with the gang.

Architect Couple Build a New House in Harlem

Architect Couple Build a New House in Harlem
By TRISH HALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/realestate/16HABI.html

JOAN BLUMENFELD and Bob Krone live in something extremely unusual for Manhattan, though it's no big deal anyplace else. They live in a new house.

They built their modern interpretation of a brownstone on a vacant lot in Harlem, not far from the apartment at 104th Street and Central Park West where they were living with their two sons.

Initially, they figured they would buy a wreck and renovate it, and in fact they had signed a contract for a dilapidated building. But the deal fell through because of title problems. Then a broker they met while looking at houses suggested they consider a vacant lot — and it was a revelation.

"I didn't think they were available," Mr. Krone said. New construction in Manhattan is usually carried out on multiple parcels by developers, not individuals.

Mr. Krone and Ms. Blumenfeld are architects, so they weren't intimidated by the idea of building. In March 2001, they bought a 17-by-100-foot lot on 112th Street near Frederick Douglass Boulevard, just a two blocks north of Central Park. After 14 months of construction, they moved into their house in November.

They paid $150,000 for the land and spent about $760,000 on putting up their 4,000-square-foot home, or $190 a square foot, which they called "rock bottom" for new construction in New York. New buildings in New York are usually $250 to $300 a square foot, they said.

They assume they came out well financially because houses in mint condition in Harlem usually sell for more than $1 million.

In their work lives, both deal with large commercial jobs, so doing a residence was fun. "We love working together," Ms. Blumenfeld said. "We have wanted to do an architectural project for a long time."

Ms. Blumenfeld is a principal at Swanke Hayden Connell Architects, where she has worked on things like the 800,000-square-foot interior for the new Reuters building in Times Square. Mr. Crone is the president of WPG Design Group in Manhattan, which specializes in corporate interiors and retail, with clients like Bloomberg and Cantor Fitzgerald.

Indeed, they so enjoyed the experience of imagining and then creating a brownstone that they would like to do it again, perhaps as an investment. "We're actually looking for vacant pieces of land," he said.

Although their new house is farther north than their apartment, the neighborhood is not foreign to them, nor are neighborhoods that some people consider "in transition."

They had bought the apartment at Central Park West and 104th because they believed the neighborhood was improving. "It was very much at the edge of the Upper West Side," Mr. Krone said. "It looked like the neighborhood was coming up."

They were right, and when their apartment increased in value, they were able to use the equity to finance their new construction.

Nevertheless, they didn't want to feel unsafe, and when they first bought the land they weren't positive they would end up living there. The west side of Frederick Douglass Boulevard between 111th Street and 112th Street was unoccupied, and the vacancies pulled down the neighborhood. But now new stores have gone in, and the area is much more appealing, Ms. Blumenfeld said.

IN designing their house, they replicated the basic format of a brownstone. "We wanted it to fit into the neighborhood," she said.

On the exterior, the roof line aligns with the others on the block. The front stands out, but not jarringly, with its mix of brownstone, glass and metal. The interior follows the standard arrangement of four floors. Like many other owners, they will rent the garden apartment, which is still under construction.

Their interior, however, is lighter and more open than most brownstones, not only because they have minimized the use of walls but because of the staircase design. It is not enclosed in a wall, and there is much glass and metal around it, so the brownstone feels even wider than its 17 feet.

"In most brownstones you never feel the full width because the stairs are enclosed," she said. They have also left the entire parlor floor open. "Instead of getting a 12-by-15-foot room, you get 15 by 55 feet," Ms. Blumenfeld said. "It's a whole different feeling."

They also did whatever was possible to bring in light, Mr. Krone said. For instance, on the second floor, in the small area over the main entry, an area usually enclosed with walls, they used glass instead, so light from the front flows into the stairwell.

Their parlor floor is like a loft, one big open room with a kitchen at the far end and their sitting area with a fireplace at the front. On the second floor, the middle area is what they call the "Nintendo room," where their sons, Robert, 17, a student at Stuyvesant High School, and Max, 10, a student at P. S. 87 on the Upper West Side, can play games.

Each son's bedroom is furnished with a bed and a desk built by their father. In their previous apartments, the boys always shared a room, and the bed and desk were constructed as one unit, with the bed over the desk, to save space. When they moved into their new house, there was enough space to separate the beds from the desks, Mr. Krone said.

On the top floor is the master bedroom and bath, and an all-purpose room that is part office, part guest room. Eventually, they plan to put a deck and a garden on the roof. "The one thing we'll never have to do is use the Stairmaster," Ms. Blumenfeld said.

The house is simple, but so well designed and built that it doesn't feel in any way like rock-bottom construction. All the finishes are attractive and clean looking, but they said they kept the overall cost down by having nothing custom made. The floors are basic red oak laid in strips. The kitchen cabinets are stock, not custom, from Craftline. A DuPont product called Zodiac, which is 75 percent quartz chips in a resin base, was used for the countertop.

Building their own home was different from their work projects, they said, because they were dealing with small companies as subcontractors. In big commercial jobs, Ms. Blumenfeld said, the contractors can take people off one job and put them on another, so they meet deadlines. That's not the case in small residential work, so things go more slowly.

Both of them came to their passion for structures and materials through their families. Mr. Krone is the grandson of a cabinetmaker and grew up in a house in Chicago that was built by his grandfather. He still enjoys woodworking. "I'll take on any project that will only last a weekend," he said.

Ms. Blumenfeld's father, Adrian Blumenfeld, oversaw New York City's school construction projects from 1963 until 1973, she said, and it was he who suggested that she become an architect. Like a typical teenager, she said, "I never paid any attention to anything he said — except that."

Mr. Krone and Ms. Blumenfeld have moved every few years, and as much as they're enjoying their new place, it wouldn't surprise them if they moved again. Some people joke about moving when it's time to paint, but they really mean it.

"We typically stay at a place until it's time to paint," she said. "We get really restless, and feel like we need a change."

silent as we walk

Along the Hard Crest of the Snowdrift
Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)
translated by Jane Kenyon

Along the hard crest of the snowdrift
to my white, mysterious house,
both of us quiet now,
keeping silent as we walk.
And sweeter than any song
this dream we now complete --
the trembling of branches we brush against,
the soft ringing of your spurs.

Winter Wonderland

and its still coming down!!

Snowstorm!!

another busy weekend. friday, went to the opening party for the Matisse Picasso show at MOMA QNS. it was really great to see the works side by side, but i felt like i needed to do some more reading along with a followup viewing.

afterwards, went to a film-makers valentine's party at bowery bar where we were given fake money so we could dare people to do stuff, with prizes to the people that won the most money. [basically, it was a ploy to get everyone to start kissing each other; my friend diane and i tried to stay away from people we didn't know so we wouldn't have to do anything. i preferred to just give my money away.]

saturday, went to a formal benefit (i suited up in patigonia capilene under black tie to stay warm!) and performance for a private manhattan theater club that gave a really excellent execution of Tennessee Williams' Night of the Iguana. and sunday, church with jennifer, xiao long bao at shanghai gourmet, and a late night dinner at my old favorite shabu tatsu -- perfect for a cold and snowy winters night!!

its supposed to snow all night, so i almost can't wait for tomorrow. it will be absolutely beautiful out in the morning.

Peking Duct Tape

Peking Duct Tape
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/opinion/16FRIE.html

After a recent U.N. session on the Iraq crisis, I asked a Bush aide how China was behaving. "The Chinese?" the official said. "They don't think they have a dog in this fight."

That certainly is how China is behaving — as if this whole issue were for America to resolve. That is a deeply mistaken view, and it shows how little China (not to mention France and Russia) understands about the new world order. If I were explaining it to China's leaders, here's what I would say:

One more 9/11, one bad Iraq war that ties America down alone in the Middle East and saps its strength, well, that may go over well with the cold warriors in the People's Liberation Army, but in the real world — in the world where your real threat is not American troops crossing your borders but American dollars fleeing from them — you will be out of business.

Now which part of that sentence don't you understand?

Friends, with every great world war has come a new security system. World War I gave birth to the League of Nations and an attempt to recreate a balance of power in Europe, which proved unstable. World War II gave birth to the U.N., NATO, the I.M.F. and the bipolar American-Soviet power structure, which proved to be quite stable until the end of the cold war. Now, 9/11 has set off World War III, and it, too, is defining a new international order.

The new world system is also bipolar, but instead of being divided between East and West, it is divided between the World of Order and the World of Disorder. The World of Order is built on four pillars: the U.S., E.U.-Russia, India and China, along with all the smaller powers around them. The World of Disorder comprises failed states (such as Liberia), rogue states (Iraq and North Korea), messy states — states that are too big to fail but too messy to work (Pakistan, Colombia, Indonesia, many Arab and African states) — and finally the terrorist and mafia networks that feed off the World of Disorder.

There has always been a World of Disorder, but what makes it more dangerous today is that in a networked universe, with widely diffused technologies, open borders and a highly integrated global financial and Internet system, very small groups of people can amass huge amounts of power to disrupt the World of Order. Individuals can become super-empowered. In many ways, 9/11 marked the first full-scale battle between a superpower and a small band of super-empowered angry men from the World of Disorder.

The job of the four pillars of the World of Order is to work together to help stabilize and lift up the World of Disorder. Unfortunately, China doesn't seem to realize that. You (like some Bushies) still have a lot of cold war reflexes. Indeed, some Chinese intellectuals, not to mention French and Russian, actually believe you all have more to fear from American power than from Osama, Kim or Saddam. That's nuts. If America has to manage the World of Disorder alone, the American people will quickly tire. And as Michael Mandelbaum, the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert, notes, "The real threat to world stability is not too much American power. It is too little American power." Too little American power will only lead to the World of Disorder expanding.

China has to think clearly. If there is just one more 9/11, or if North Korea lobs just one missile our way, it will lead to the end of the open society in America, as we know it, and also constrict globalization. Because we will tighten our borders, triple-check every ship that comes into port and restrict civil liberties as never before, and this will slow the whole global economy.

Now the last time I checked, China had decided to base its growth on manufacturing for the global market and in particular for the U.S. market, where you now send 40 percent of your exports — 40 percent! — and where you just racked up a $100 billion trade surplus. One more 9/11 and your growth strategy will be in real trouble (unless you plan on only exporting duct tape), which means the Chinese leadership will be in real trouble.

So, you still think you don't have a dog in this fight? You still think you can be free riders on an Iraq war? You still think you can leave us to carry the burden of North Korea? Well, guess again. You need to get serious. It is quite legitimate for China to oppose war in Iraq or North Korea. But why isn't China's foreign minister going to Baghdad and Pyongyang, slamming his fist on tables and demanding that their leaders start complying with the U.N. to avoid war? I understand you don't want us to be impulsive, but why are you so passive?

One more 9/11, one bad Iraq war that ties America down alone in the Middle East and saps its strength, well, that may go over well with the cold warriors in the People's Liberation Army, but in the real world — in the world where your real threat is not American troops crossing your borders but American dollars fleeing from them — you will be out of business.

Now which part of that sentence don't you understand?

How's the Mayor Doing? He'll Tell You by Grading Himself

How's the Mayor Doing? He'll Tell You by Grading Himself
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/nyregion/16REPO.html

Accountability seems to be the prescription that more and more politicians are calling for these days to cure the nation's ills.

Worried about public school performance? Give students standardized tests. Worried about welfare cheats? Fingerprint them — and make them work for their checks. Worried about corrupt chief executives? Make them open the books.

But last week, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sought to turn the tables on the political establishment, releasing a report card surveying his own performance in office — then challenging other politicians to do the same.

The mayor's report reviewed his campaign promises, listing those he fulfilled, those he broke and, in a few cases, those he suggested he should never have made.

Mr. Bloomberg's challenge drew praise from no less a political maverick than Senator John McCain of Arizona (whose spokesman, incidentally, did not know whether the senator would follow suit). But many politicians were left wondering: was it little more than a publicity stunt, or was Mayor Bloomberg on to something?

Politicians have, of course, long promised more than they can actually deliver.

But providing a yardstick to measure the performance of elected officials may have special appeal at a time when voters are staying away from the polls in record numbers, complaining that candidates will say whatever they have to say to get elected.

In that sense, the challenge by Mr. Bloomberg — whose 35 years in business, his aides say, instilled in him the simple belief that a promise is a promise — is refreshing, if not exactly revolutionary, political analysts and some politicians themselves say.

Frank Luntz, the consultant who helped draft the Contract With America, which helped bring House Republicans to power in 1995, said he could not recall a politician who had taken a step as bold as Mr. Bloomberg's.

"This is never done because politicians are often too afraid of the electorate," said Mr. Luntz, who was one of the many consultants who worked for Mr. Bloomberg in 2001. But, he added, Mr. Bloomberg is a businessman first. "It takes courage and personal fortitude to admit you have failed, and most politicians don't have that."

But in truth, consultants like Mr. Luntz are part of the problem, government reform groups say. The promises that come out of modern campaigns are largely their creations: poll-tested and tailored to appeal to specific constituencies.

Individually, these promises may help politicians get into office. But taken together, they can work at cross purposes and result in a kind of governmental paralysis. Worse, they are often packaged in murky language that sidesteps the thorny details of governing.

In last year's Congressional campaigns, for example, both parties spoke of having to do the hard work of managing the federal deficit. But very few politicians, Republicans or Democrats, talked about the pain that that might require, like, say, cutting Social Security and Medicare, or imposing tax increases.

"It's hard to pin down politicians these days because the campaigns they run are about creating images, not about the details of governing," said Blair Horner, the legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

"The modern candidate is like generic vanilla ice cream," Mr. Horner said. "That's what makes Bloomberg's report card idea so startling. He is actually willing to offer a distinct flavor that people will either like or dislike. But it's distinctive."

Evan Ringquist, a professor of public policy at Indiana University, says he has spent the last few years compiling information to help him determine whether candidates around the country live up to their promises once they take office.

"One of the most common perceptions I found among my students is that candidates don't keep their campaign promises," he said. But much to his surprise, Mr. Ringquist said, the hardest part of his endeavor was actually finding politicians who had made ironclad commitments that they could later be called on.

"One of the first places I started to look was on the Web sites of individual candidates," he recalled. "And what I found was that more often than not, the promises were too vague to be useful."

That is what makes Mr. Bloomberg's appraisal so remarkable, he said. "I have to say, I was struck at how specific his campaign promises are," Mr. Ringquist said. "It's really unusual. It's really innovative."

But as Mr. Bloomberg learned, making a promise in a campaign is easier than governing. In his report card, the mayor listed about 25 promises that he later realized were not as nifty as they sounded on the campaign trail, his aides said.

One of the more quirky promises he abandoned was his proposal to install digital countdown clocks on crosswalks to let pedestrians know how much time they have to cross the street. The problem with that idea, city engineers explained to the mayor, is that people consistently misjudge how much time it takes them to cross the street.

In other words, a pedestrian, figuring he or she can scurry across in a few seconds, may actually need a little more time. "It's an idea that does more harm than good," one administration official said, contemplating constituents being run over.

As his report card noted, Mayor Bloomberg had to break what was perhaps his biggest promise on the campaign trail: no tax increases. Many political analysts and ordinary people say going back on that pledge may have damaged his prospects for a second term.

But Mr. Luntz, the Republican consultant behind the Contract With America, says the fact that Mr. Bloomberg was willing to openly critique himself may help ingratiate him with voters, even if they are not happy with his specific decisions.

"Voters appreciate candidates who aren't afraid to be held accountable," he said. "Even if you haven't done everything you promised you would, if you hold yourself accountable, voters will reward you."

That said, it is unlikely Mr. Bloomberg is going to start a trend anytime soon. Even as some politicians praised the mayor for his candor, they did not seem eager to commit to the idea of assembling scorecards of their own.

Gov. George E. Pataki, a politician who even some admirers say has made a career by committing to very little publicly, recently dodged a question about whether he might consider issuing a report card like Mr. Bloomberg's.

"I think the mayor is doing a great job," Mr. Pataki said before dashing to an elevator.

Even Representative J. D. Hayworth, Republican of Arizona, one of the vocal supporters of the Contract With America, would not say whether he would begin grading himself the way Mr. Bloomberg has.

"The mayor may be on to something," he said, committing himself no further. "The wheels are turning in my head as I hear about this."

But at least one major politician, Gov. James E. McGreevey of New Jersey, said he was willing to take up the mayor's challenge, calling such report cards "an opportunity to set forth one's successes and one's failures."

"It worked for 12 years of primary and secondary education," Mr. McGreevey said. "The only difference is I had to answer to nuns."

Chinese Freer to Speak and Read, but Not Act

Chinese Freer to Speak and Read, but Not Act
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/12/international/asia/12CHIN.html

BEIJING, Feb. 11 — An article last month insisted that China's Communist leaders must learn from the capitalist West, embracing "democracy and the rule of law." But this screed did not come from a dissident's pen, and its author is not in hiding. It appeared in the Communist Party's Southern Breeze magazine — the words of a senior retired official.

As China has edged toward more pluralism and openness in recent years, that much celebrated and persecuted class — dissidents — has struggled to redefine its role in a society where once radical ideas are increasingly mainstream.

Many former activists have come in from the cold to promote their ideas as lecturers, editors or authors. With China's private sector booming, they can now do so with a degree of intellectual and financial freedom.

The authorities still punish those who dare to undermine the Communist government's power, for instance by organizing a political party or a workers' protest. On Monday, China imposed life imprisonment on Wang Bingzhang, a dissident charged with buying weapons and plotting an underground movement.

But ideas that once could land someone in prison are acceptable commerce today.

"A Chinese friend who lives in the U.S. came back here recently for a visit, and he kept asking, `Where is the space for dissidents these days?' " said Liu Suli, a former pro-democracy activist who spent two years in prison for his role in the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square, and is now a successful bookstore owner. "He said that people would probably think you were mad if you stood up and gave a speech these days."

Even those who still advocate the dissident cause, and so cannot publish their work in China, admit that they are less isolated.

They have found outlets for their essays on overseas Web sites and have been cooperating with intellectuals at universities, where talk of multiparty democracy and free trade unions — ideas that would have meant jail time a decade ago — are now common cafeteria discussions.

"It's a big change that they are willing to have activities with us and are very sympathetic," said Liu Xiaobo, who still lives under police surveillance.

But he and others worry that the increasing acceptance of traditional dissident ideas may actually kill the movement before their mission of political change has even started.

"Even officials now say they want democracy, but they still oppress us, arrest us and exile us," said Ren Wanding, 58, who has spent his adult life as a dissident, in prison or under the eye of the police.

Human rights activists complain that dozens if not hundreds of dissidents are still in prison for espousing ideas that are now commonplace.

Dr. Hu Shigen, a physician, is halfway through a 20-year prison term for suggesting that China permit press freedom and trade unions. Jampel Changchub was sentenced to 19 years in prison in 1989 for translating United Nations human rights documents into Tibetan.

"Many of the ideas that these people represent wouldn't merit prison time or even attract much attention today," said John Kamm, director of the Dui Hua — or Dialogue — Foundation in San Francisco, which monitors the status of Chinese political prisoners. "But that hasn't helped these folks get out of prison."

Mr. Kamm estimates that 500 to 600 traditional dissidents remain in jail, most imprisoned before 1997, when China ended the crime of "counterrevolution." Hundreds fled overseas after the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.

Mr. Ren estimates that several hundred activists in China like himself have lost their jobs for their political beliefs, cannot publish their writings and live under surveillance.

But the primary distinctions between these activists and mainstream liberal thinkers now are methods and lifestyle. "There is very little difference in the political ideas of dissidents and intellectuals," said Liu Xiaobo, drawing on a cigarette and openly discussing his life at a Beijing restaurant. "It's just that the intellectuals are not so direct in their social criticism and they can exist within the system."

Young liberal intellectuals today often add their names to dissident petitions, he said, noting, "It's hard to imagine that kind of thing happening 10 years ago."

Still, the dissident life is difficult. Mr. Ren said his computer access had been blocked for more than six months, leaving him isolated, in an apartment 10 miles outside Beijing where the government had relocated him to discourage visitors.

The police still guard dissidents' apartments during important political events, like the coming National People's Congress, although the tenor of the interactions has changed.

Mr. Liu said his guard had sometimes asked to read his essays and had offered to convey them to higher leaders if he agreed not to publish them. Still, Mr. Liu said: "No one wants to be a dissident. You're forced into this by the government."

In today's looser intellectual environment, some who had seemed headed for dissident status have avoided it.

In 1999 the government blacklisted Liu Junning, a popular liberal lecturer and essayist and founder of the journal Res Publica. He left China, accepting a fellowship at Harvard.

But last year he decided to return home, where he has been treated as a hero. His articles on constitutional theory are appearing in influential journals like Strategy and Management, he secured an academic job and he is fielding increased requests for university lectures and Chinese media interviews.

"Before, people got scared and considered me quite sensitive," Liu Junning, dressed in a preppy blue sweater, said in a wood-paneled conference room where he works. "But now I am quite acceptable, and more and more people are developing an interest in democracy."

The government's newfound tolerance has mostly benefited liberals like Mr. Liu, who is more interested in writing articles on political theory than inciting the masses. And it is applied unevenly and unpredictably.

It did not extend to Liu Di, 22, a Beijing university student and chat room organizer, charged this year with subverting state power for posting satirical essays on the Internet.

Some human rights advocates say the increased tolerance reflects the police preoccupation with newer and bigger threats to Communist Party control, such as China's proliferating religious sects, and the rising number of worker protests.

"I think the police are as strong and as arbitrary as ever," Mr. Kamm said, "but in a sense they are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the dissidence — not dissidents — in Chinese society, and they have to prioritize these days."

In the small space that is created, longtime dissidents say they are finding new outlets for their work and new ways to live. Since last year, Mr. Ren said he and other activists had been "working on building a democracy movement culture" through the Internet. He and others can now earn decent incomes as freelance book editors, for example.

"As China's computers multiply, China's democracy movement has entered the information age, and we can organize without meeting," he said. But, after 25 years as a dissident, he rejected the notion that he might joint the mainstream, saying that dissidents were the only ones promoting "true democracy."

Many younger dissidents, in contrast, have been infected with the optimism that pervades Chinese society and are now willing to pursue their goals from within.

"I don't think China's fundamental problems have been solved, but the system is changing, becoming more public and open," said Liu Suli, sitting amid ferns in the coffeehouse of his Wan Sheng bookstore. "People go to extremes when they feel there is no hope. But I think many people feel there is movement forward now."

Shortly after Liu Siuli got out of prison, he opened his bookstore in a small alley, stocking it with political and social science texts. It became a gathering place for liberal intellectuals and has expanded by leaps and bounds. Last year it moved into a multistory building.

"The dissident community is weak and not in a position to engage in confrontation with the government," he said. "But people have found indirect ways to express their ideas and values."

By Frank Lloyd Wright, and Better Than New

By Frank Lloyd Wright, and Better Than New
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/garden/13FRAN.html

ORINDA, Calif.
KATIE BUEHLER, who radiates elegance at age 87 in pearls and a pink Chanel jacket, is not what she calls a "crying person." But when fire ravages a lifelong love — in this case a Frank Lloyd Wright house commissioned by Mrs. Buehler and her husband, Maynard, in 1948 — brave intentions can feel suddenly remote. "It was not one of my better days," she recalled with characteristic understatement, sipping Champagne from a crystal goblet.

A month or so after Mrs. Buehler wrote Wright a letter with photographs of a property east of San Francisco that the Buehlers wanted him to build on, the couple received a one-sentence reply: "I'm ready to go to work for you." Months later they got an unexpected telephone call: "This is your architect. I'm at the St. Francis hotel, and I'd like to meet you for breakfast tomorrow." He rolled out plans for the house on the hotel room bed, and Mrs. Buehler remarked that the kitchen seemed a bit too small. "Madame, you do not seem to realize that women have been emancipated from the kitchen," he said.

"Doggone it," she recalls thinking to herself. "Nobody told me."

The house was financed by the Buehler gun mount — one of a half-dozen patents held by Maynard Buehler — which seamlessly attaches a telescopic sight to a rifle. Mr. Buehler, who is no shrinking violet, with imposing flyaway eyebrows and a barbershop-quartet mustache, still calls Wright "absolutely the most domineering person I ever met." Nevertheless, Wright left the details and construction of the house — one of about 60 that he called "Usonian" and that were built as an affordable alternative for the middle class — to a talented apprentice, Walter Olds, who was then 38.

In 1994, the electric heater in Mrs. Buehler's dressing room overheated, setting a fire that stalked through Wright's long hallway, destroying the entire bedroom wing, the carport and the main kitchen wall. It charred the octagonal living room, with its gold leaf panel and redwood gravity-defying tilted ceiling, beyond recognition. In its last gasp, it also destroyed the handsome coffered dining room ceiling.

But there seemed to be something about Frank Lloyd Wright, who died in 1959 at 91, that inspired longevity. The day of the fire, Mr. Buehler, who is now 89, called Mr. Olds, who is now 84 and was still living in Berkeley. "Well, Walter," he said. "You figured this all out in '49. I don't see why you can't figure it out now."

For Mr. Olds, who was enjoying his retirement by renovating his own house, the prospect of dusting off 47-year-old plans was both a challenge and a conundrum. Life for the Buehlers had changed, and with it their needs. Decisions made when the house was built were not necessarily the perfect choices.

"First and foremost, this was a Frank Lloyd Wright house," Mr. Olds said one day recently, sitting in the warm embrace of his Prairie style living room overlooking San Francisco Bay. "You needed to retain the integrity and grammar of the structure, the look and feeling and detailing, the way the house fit together." Nevertheless, a slavish re-creation did not seem in the full spirit of Wright or the Buehlers. "There was nothing that changed more than Taliesin itself," Mr. Olds said, referring to Wright's own house in Spring Green, Wis. "Mr. Wright was constantly fine-tuning."

The fire gave the Buehlers an opportunity to address some deterioration that had occurred over the years, including a sag in the carport, whose cantilevered roof shelters four cars, including two Rolls-Royces. The floor, with its Usonian trademark radiant-heat system, had become detached from the heating coils below. The fire also gave the Buehlers a chance to rethink how the house had been working for them day to day.

As empty nesters, for instance, they had appropriated their two daughters' bedrooms as a wardrobe and a study. ("Mr. Wright didn't give diddly about bedrooms," Mrs. Buehler said.) The redwood passageway lined with bookcases that served as the main artery of the house "looked klutzy," Mr. Olds said. The kitchen — Wright's prefeminist outburst notwithstanding — was too small. There was the matter of leaking roofs, notorious in Wright houses.

Even more annoying was the tendency of the coffered dining room ceiling, originally designed with skylights, to overheat on sunny days, causing condensation to fall into the New York strip steaks, stuffed potatoes and asparagus during Mrs. Buehler's linen-napkin lunches. "Before I knew it, I had to send the triangles out to be refinished," she recalled, referring to the dining room table Wright designed as a series of interlocking triangular components.

The strict proportions and construction techniques of Usonian houses make any changes extraordinarily difficult, said Keith Alward, a Berkeley contractor who worked with Mr. Olds on the reconstruction after the fire. (Mr. Alward also recently restored the woodwork for the Hanna House, a Wright masterpiece in Palo Alto that is now owned by Stanford University.) "It's like building a cabinet," he said. "Everything must line up, from light switches to cabinet knobs. Even the screw slots have to be horizontal."

The Buehlers are among 30 or more original Wright clients who are still alive and living in their houses, all of them Usonian and all built between 1937 and 1954. The prototype Usonian house, in Madison, Wis., shown in a 1938 issue of Architectural Forum, captivated the Buehlers. "It was the way it fit the ground," said Mr. Buehler, who functioned as his own general contractor when the house was built in the 40's. "It looked like it belonged there."

But working with the imperious architect had its moments. On one occasion, Wright wanted to replace the walls, where three courses of concrete block had already been laid, with pink basalt. "He said, 'This is what I want,' " Mrs. Buehler said. "Maynard poked me in the ribs and said, `Over my dead body.' " (Maynard prevailed.)

In reconstructing the house after the fire, the Buehlers first decided to correct a decision they had made as young parents that altered Wright's original plan. The house was supposed to have been situated close to the swimming pool — now a Zen-like Japanese garden and koi pond — but they were worried about safety, so they asked that one wall be set farther back.

The long part of the L-shaped house is now four feet from the pool, where Wright wanted it. "The kids were gone," said Mr. Buehler. "We had to have a fire to do it."

Mr. Buehler is hardly the typical client. While the slab floor and the foundations were being repoured, Mr. Olds realized that the trowels were not accurately reproducing Wright's grooves. While the concrete was still wet, Mr. Buehler rushed to his workshop — the only part of the house untouched by the fire — and designed a trowel on the spot, "the exact shape of the groove on the drawing," Mr. Olds said.

Putting the wall back in Wright's original location allowed Mr. Olds to "reassign" space throughout the house. The kitchen, the hallway, the study and the Buehlers' bedroom and dressing room were enlarged slightly. Ringlike Buehler gun mounts replaced drawer pulls on the kitchen cabinets. The coffers in the redwood ceiling in the dining room had been covered with gold leaf several years earlier to soften the glare; Mr. Olds designed copper tracks that fit inside the coffers and hold tiny low-voltage lights that subtly accentuate the restored gold leaf. Ever the inventor, Mr. Buehler fashioned adjustable spotlights out of old radiant-heat piping.

The living room ceiling, blackened and infused with smoke, was scraped to the original redwood, and the gold-leaf panel was restored. In an attempt to halt the leaking — the Buehlers recall carefully placing seven buckets in the living room before a round-the-world trip in 1971 — the roof was covered in copper shingles.

Today, Mrs. Buehler can often be found in the living room reading newspapers below a ceiling whose angle, rising from 6 feet to 14 1/2, brings to mind the thrust of the nearby Hayward fault. At night Mr. Buehler ambles out to his telescope on the patio or peers at the moon as it glows through stylized perforated windows. Even now, Mrs. Buehler said, "the house is pretty conducive to feeling all is right with the world."

When the house was built, she recalls, Wright arrived to inspect it in his cape, with a fob and a cane. Occasionally he banged on walls and furniture for emphasis. As they recall it, he told them, "I'm happy to see you're living in the house satisfactorily."

Fifty-four years later, they still are.