Is Bush's Central Asia Policy for Sale?

Josh Foust of Registan.net called our attention to this story in the Times of London about an alleged scheme to pay for access to top Bush administration officials, on behalf of toppled Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev--in exchange for donations to the Bush Presidential Library:

Stephen Payne, who claims to have raised more than $1m for the president’s Republican party in recent years, said he would arrange meetings with Dick Cheney, the vice-president, Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, and other senior officials in return for a payment of $250,000 (£126,000) towards the library in Texas.

Payne, who has accompanied Bush and Cheney on several foreign trips, also said he would try to secure a meeting with the president himself.

The revelation confirms long-held suspicions that favours are being offered in return for donations to the libraries which outgoing presidents set up to house their archives and safeguard their political legacies.

Unlike campaign donations, there is no requirement to disclose the donors to the libraries, no limit on the amount that can be pledged and no restrictions on foreigners contributing.

During an undercover investigation by The Sunday Times, Payne was asked to arrange meetings in Washington for an exiled former central Asian president. He outlined the cost of facilitating such access.

“The exact budget I will come up with, but it will be somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush library,” said Payne, who sits on the US homeland security advisory council.

He said initially that the “family” of the Asian politician should make the donation. He later added that if all the money was paid to him he would make the payment to the Bush library. Publicly, it would appear to have been made in the politician’s name “unless he wants to be anonymous for some reason”.

Payne said the balance of the $750,000 would go to his own lobbying company, Worldwide Strategic Partners (WSP).

Video here from YouTube:

James Warner on John McCain

From the Herald-Mail:

McCain's bravery, as seen by one man imprisoned with him

"Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." That was retired Gen. Wesley Clark's condescending assessment of John McCain's military service. Clark's words have great weight because he was speaking as a key political/military advisor to Barack Obama.

If Gen. Clark had been talking about me, his remarks might be true. After all, I rode in a fighter plane and got shot down over North Vietnam. In no way do Clark's words apply to McCain. I know, because I was a firsthand witness to his singular leadership and courage. In the years I spent as a POW in North Vietnam, I saw McCain inspire and lead under trying circumstances that Gen. Clark has not the imagination to understand.

As for the role of a president, I was fortunate enough to serve as a domestic policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan. Seeing him in action, and seeing John McCain in action, I know they are equals in character, ability and political courage.
I met John McCain in a POW camp in Vietnam. He told me his father and grandfather read history every evening. Since our release, I have done the same. From my study of history I know what we need in a leader.

Great leaders have an undefinable quality: Call it charisma. Young Winston Churchill once wrote to his mother, "We are all worms, but I am a glowworm." And so it proved. John McCain, too, is a "glowworm." You cannot help but notice him.
Gen. George C. Marshall, Army chief of staff during World War II, said, "The first thing a leader needs is courage." Churchill had courage. As a cavalry officer in the British army, Churchill left garrison duty to go where the action was. During his army career he was several times under hostile fire and conducted two daring and famous rescues. The second rescue came when he was a war correspondent covering the Boer War in 1899. It led to his capture as a prisoner of war. He escaped and after several adventures reached safety in Portuguese Mozambique. The story made him a world-wide hero and helped get him elected to Parliament.

When he became Prime Minister in World War II, all looked bleak. After the surrender of France there were some who thought that Britain could not carry on alone and should negotiate a peace with Hitler. But Churchill would not quit. He fought on until, as he said, "In God's good time, the new world comes to the rescue of the old."

McCain, like Churchill, has courage. McCain, like Churchill, stood strong when all looked bleak. My friend, Col. Jack Van Loan, was in a cell from which he could see several senior Communist officers, along with an interpreter and men with a stretcher, enter McCain's cell. He knew that John was immobilized by his wounds. He heard them offer McCain early release and heard John answer that he would go home when we all go home.

He heard the voices of the officers rising until they were shouting angrily at McCain and threatening him. This was followed by a stream of obscenities from McCain and the rapid exit of the senior officers. John told them never again to try to get him to accept early release. He was defiant at a time that he was physically helpless, unable even to crawl on his own.

In the spring of 1971, I personally witnessed John McCain's courage. After the attempted rescue of POWs at the camp at Son Tay, in November of 1970, almost all Americans were moved to Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi, the infamous "Hanoi Hilton." The communists felt so threatened by the raid that, for the first time, they concentrated us in large cells, with as many as 60 men to a cell.

One of the first things we did was to institute regular religious services in our cells. On Jan. 1, 1971, we were told that all religious activity was forbidden. This led to a long series of increasingly hostile confrontations that someone has labeled "the Church Riots." I was in a cell next to McCain's. In early March, the four senior men in his cell were removed and for some time we lost contact with them. Then the four senior men in my cell were removed, and we lost contact with them, also. The confrontations rapidly escalated. On the evening of March 18 there was a confrontation that almost descended to guards shooting mutinous POWs. The communists were now afraid of losing control.

My recollection is that John McCain was now the senior man in his cell. In any case, I know that he was deeply involved with what followed. The senior men in our two cells kept us under tight control, but carefully staged demonstrations of our anger over the religious ban and the removal of our cell mates. On March 19, St. Joseph's Day, the day after the dangerous confrontation, I remember the men in McCain's room singing, at the top of their lungs, first "the Battle Hymn of the Republic," then "Onward Christian Soldiers." This was not merely courage, but exquisite leadership to get men to show open defiance when it was clear that there would be retaliation. The only question was in what form and how harsh that retaliation would be. Remember that all of these men had been tortured and knew to what lengths the enemy was willing to go to maintain control.

Courage alone, however, is not sufficient. A great leader also needs greatness of spirit. Again, I turn to Churchill, who never held a grudge and was prepared to be gracious and magnanimous toward a defeated foe. When McCain led church services, he prayed for the enemy who had tortured him. I have observed Ronald Reagan in the White House and I have observed McCain in the Hanoi Hilton. I have seen that McCain, like Churchill, like Reagan, has courage, prudence, and magnanimity. That is why he is qualified to be president, even if he hadn't ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down.

James H. Warner is a retired attorney. He was a policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan from 1985 until 1989. He was a Marine officer in Vietnam and was held as a POW, in North Vietnam, for five and a half years.

WALL-E and Me

What can I say, I watched this a week ago with someone I know and haven't stopped thinking about it...It's great! On one level, it's a satire of the Bush administration. On another a religious parable ("Eve" behaves quite a bit like Kali, Indian goddess of creation and destruction; the garbage dump WALL-E inhabits resembles the Old Testament's Gehenna; the Axiom space station/cruise ship is someone's idea of heaven or Disneyworld Orlando); the parable is one of redemption and second chances--the "directive" appears to be: "Choose Life!"

Lots of in-jokes remind one of The Twilight Zone, Metropolis, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Wizard of Oz, Alien (Sigourney Weaver provides one of the voices), et al. And don't forget the Disney legacy--anyone out there remember Victory Through Air Power? Hello, Dolly! is just the tip of the iceberg.

Way to go, Pixar!

Here's a trailer from YouTube:

Here's a different YouTube promo:

Jacqueline Trescott on US Postal Service's New Issue: Black Film History Stamps

From yesterday's Washington Post:

The earliest poster is of "Sport," the story of a woman who moves to that naughty New York after her husband goes to prison for a crime he didn't commit. The stars were Edward R. Abrams and Elizabeth Boyer. The silent movie was based on a novel by poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and was made by the Reol Motion Picture Corp., a white-owned company.

"Sport" was only one of hundreds of films made about black subjects in the early years of cinema. The films were entertainment but also had a purpose. "Between 1912 and 1929, these movies were made exclusively by independents, some black and some white. They offered sharply different portrayals of blacks than you would find in Hollywood films of the time. They were lawyers, cowboys. If there were African American characters in the Hollywood films, they were secondary and servile," says Gerald R. Butters Jr., dean of general education at Aurora University in Illinois, who has written on film history.

Martin Puryear at the National Gallery of Art

After seeing treasures from the Bactrian Horde and other artworks on tour from Afghanistan at the National Gallery of Art, someone I know and I took a look at the Martin Puryear retrospective on display in the main building of the National Gallery of Art (highly recommended by my sculpture teacher, Nick Xhikhu). First exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 2007, the show presents an interesting collection of wooden sculptures--some massive, some small--reminding views of redemption, second chances, aspiration, uplift, negritude, and endurance. If you are in DC this summer, it is well worth a visit. (However, I wish the museum director had not moved all the European art into the basement. IMHO, one can enjoy both European art and Martin Puryear at the same time.)

How Many Flags Does Al Gore Need?

I've become a fan of photographer Bruce Guthrie's Washington, DC digital photo library, DigitalPhalanx.com, since meeting him the other day at the National Press Club. When he mentioned that he was at Al Gore's rally, I took a look at his pictures--and found this one. Personally, I wish all politicians would stop using the US Flag as decoration, it seems disrespectful. Instead, have one flag on stage, and put up bunting like in old Hollywood movies to show your patriotism.

For the record, I counted seven flags behind Al Gore in this picture...although there may be an eighth one, partially obscured. IMHO, It looks worse than a Bush event...

ETS Fails British Test

Last year, for some inexplicable reason (maybe graft?), the British government "contracted out" educational testing to an American NGO, the Educational Testing Service (ETS). Now, in the first test of Britain's new Sats (sic) exam system--ETS has failed, according to reports from the BBC, which indicate a major scandal on the way:

Hundreds of thousands of secondary school pupils in England are set to finish the school year without receiving their Sats results.

The latest figures for the delayed tests taken by 14-year-olds show that 29% of English results, due by 8 July, are still not ready for publication.

Shadow Schools Secretary Michael Gove is calling for an interim report next week from inquiry head Lord Sutherland.
Head teachers have warned of record levels of appeals over marking.

This year's Sats test results for primary and secondary pupils have become embroiled in missed deadlines, lost papers and allegations over the quality of marking.

The reports of delays with the secondary results has prompted the Conservatives to call for an immediate report from the independent inquiry, claiming that "confidence in the government's handling of our exam system is collapsing".

More in the Telegraph (UK):

Yesterday Mick Brookes, the General Secretary of the Association of Head Teachers, said: "I have had a steady flow of emails from colleagues reporting problems. One person is saying that half of his English Sats are marked wrongly, mostly in the adding up of the scores. Scores are being calculated incorrectly.

"I have also heard from a head in Cornwall, who says that his papers are at a school in Kent, because ETS has not managed to pick them up."

My suggestion to Prime Minister Gordon Brown: Cancel the ETS contract, and return to the traditional British system of examinations...

Move Over, C-Span...

Or at least BookTV. Google has a series of YouTube videos featuring authors who spoke at Google HQ--they call itAuthors@Google. They also have PolicyTalks@Google. Finally, there's Candidates@Google:Remember, Brian Lamb, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

New US Holocaust Museum Display Features Bergson Group

For some reason, I didn't see anything about this in the Washington Post today--but Etgar Lefkovits' story made the Jerusalem Post:

The exhibition was unveiled less than a month after Yad Vashem rebuffed a petition signed by 100 Israeli political and cultural leaders from across the political spectrum to include an exhibit about the group in Israel's Holocaust Museum as well.

The new exhibit, which is located in a section of the museum devoted to rescue, is in a display titled "American Rescue Efforts: The War Refugee Board" near another display about the famous Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who saved tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

The new display states that US congressmen and Jewish organizations began openly criticizing the State Department for its inaction, and that the Bergson Group, which was known as the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, organized a campaign for the creation of a US government rescue agency to help save the Jews of Europe.

The exhibit then offers a brief summary of the work of the War Refugee Board and states how it helped save lives.

"This was a totally neglected issue which was not on their agenda," said Rabbi Benyamin Kamenetzky, 85, founder and longtime head of the South Shore Yeshiva in Long Island and one of the few surviving participants of a historic march by 400 Orthodox rabbis in Washington that the group organized during the Holocaust to protest the US government's inaction to save the Jews of Europe.

"It took a lot of effort and influence to have it exhibited," he said. The new exhibit was also welcomed by the prominent American Holocaust Institute, which had lobbied the US Holocaust Museum, and more recently Yad Vashem, to include an exhibition about the Bergson Group in their museums.

"The US Holocaust Museum has officially recognized that the Bergson Group's rallies, newspaper ads, and congressional lobbying played a significant role in the process leading to the creation of the War Refugee Board," said Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. "We urge other Holocaust museums and institutions around the world to take note of the US Holocaust Museum's important step and likewise update their own exhibits."

Didn't see anything about this on the US Holocaust Museum website, either...

Bruce Guthrie's Washington Photo Album

At a National Press Club Book & Author talk by Al Felzenberg to promote The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game, I ran into photographer Bruce Guthrie, who took this picture. As a personal hobby, he maintains an online digital photo library with thousands of pictures of Washington, DC events and celebrities. "I've never taken a dime for a photograph," Guthrie told me. IMHO, Guthrie's pictures are as good, or better, than those taken by professionals...

Obama-Richardson?

I've been wrong before, but scuttlebutt around DC was that former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson endorsed Obama--and "betrayed" the Clintons--in exchange for serious consideration as Vice Presidential running-mate. Calculation: He should secure the Hispanic vote safely in the (D) column; he has legislative experience as a congressman; executive experience as a governor and cabinet officer (Secretary of Energy); and international experience as UN ambassador during the Clinton Administration. Oh, and he's run for President, too...

Happy Bastille Day!

From RTE (Irish Television):

The Taoiseach is in Paris today attending Bastille Day celebrations at the invitation of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

All EU leaders are attending the event to mark the French presidency of the EU.

The event commemorates the storming of the Bastille prison and the start of the French revolution of 1789.

The Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées are decorated with French and European flags.

Despite some opposition to the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland on the grounds of the EU's developing military capabilities, the Taoiseach said it was entirely appropriate that he attend today's parade, which is the national day celebration of a close neighbour.

Mr Cowen also pointed out that Irish and French troops are serving together on an EU mission in Chad, and that Ireland remains fully engaged in the EU's security and defence policy.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was the guest of honour at the festivities with two units of UN blue helmets leading off the march.

Visitors can see a key to the Bastille at Mt. Vernon, presented to George Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette

Anne Radice is Back...

Imagine my surprise on reading an interview with Anne Radice in the Wall Street Journal the other morning, to learn that she has been the head of the federal government's Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) since 2005. I interviewed her a decade ago, while she was receiving telephone threats and being run out of town on a rail for turning down a couple of grants at the National Endowment for the Arts--and for talking to critics of the agency, such as yours truly. I had no idea she even lived in Washington, which for a low-profile bureaucrat, is a sure sign that she has been doing a good job...

A belated welcome back to Washington, Anne.

Michigan Hezbollah Supporter Pleads Guilty to Death Threats Against Jewish Blogger

Michigan blogger Debbie Schlussel is worried that her tormentor may get off lightly, following a plea bargain over death threats:

Oh, and don't look for this to get the coverage in the mainstream media that federal indictments of two men--who sent more benign e-mails to an extremist Hezbo Muslim Imam--got. The feds charged those men were charged with felonies, and it was all over Detroit and national mainstream media.

A note about the plea agreement: Not that it would justify a thing, but Mohamad Fouad Abdallah never wrote in his death and rape threat e-mails why he was sending them or that they were in reference to a specific post I wrote. The plea agreement claims it was something I wrote about "two Arab men," but clearly, he was responding to what I wrote about the Hezbollah supporters and agents here in the greater Detroitistan area.

Mr. Abdallah stands to serve a year in prison and pay a $30,000 fine (the maximum is $100,000). I need your help in getting this Hezbollah sympathizer and death/rape threat purveyor sentenced to that year. Even though it is the minimum sentence, according to federal sentencing guidelines, you never know what judges will do.

* HOW YOU CAN HELP

This case is before Federal Judge Marianne O. Battani, one of the brightest minds not only on the federal bench for the Eastern District of Michigan, but among jurists nationally. A Clinton appointee, she is a no-nonsense judge. I hope you will write her--it has to be via snail mail--and ask her to sentence Mohamad Fouad Abdallah to the year in federal prison that he deserves. Write her, referencing United States of America v. Mohamad Fouad Abdallah, Case Number 2:08-cr-20223 (and please copy me) at:

The Honorable Marianne O. Battani
United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Michigan
Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse
231 W. Lafayette Blvd, Room 277
Detroit, MI 48226

Mohamad Fouad Abdallah is the third of four Muslims who've sent death, rape, and torture threats to me, who has been prosecuted. Robert Mustaq John pleaded guilty, last summer (and was sentenced to several months in prison) and Wasil Burki was indicted (he is in Pakistan). Only Lola Elzein-Merhi (a Shi'ite Lebanese woman in Dearbornistan Heights)--who admitted to FBI Special Agent Mike Glennon--that she sent me these six scary death, rape, and torture threats remains to face the music.

Thankfully, I had two very good FBI agents--Mike Glennon and Mike Fitzgerald--pursuing these cases. I was lucky.

Gerald Steinberg: Israel Needs Defense Against NGOs...

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Gerald Steinberg calls upon Israel's Foreign Ministry to recognize anti-Israel NGOs such as Human Rights Watch are part of an international campaign to demonize the Jewish State:

For many years, the rhetoric of human rights has been one of the most effective weapons used against Israel. The strategy is simple - Israel is attacked, responds, and is instantly condemned for "war crimes," "apartheid" and "collective punishment." As a result, one would have thought that the Israeli government would have long ago launched a counter-offensive to expose and defeat such campaigns, led by powerful non-governmental organizations and amplified in the UN and the press.

But despite repeated defeats on this propaganda battlefield, the government, and the Foreign Ministry in particular, have failed to understand the danger or invest significantly in effective responses. For many years, the Foreign Ministry declared: "We only deal with governments, and not with non-government organizations (NGOs)." This may have been logical, but in practice, it meant that the intense bombardment from powerful organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and local NGOs such as B'Tselem, Adalah, Machsom Watch, and many more went unanswered. The officials of these groups used their resources to set the media agenda, invent (or distort) the terms of international law, falsify facts, and violate the universality of human rights....

...Now, as the UN and the anti-Israel NGO network prepare for the Durban Review Conference to be held in Geneva in April 2009, the Foreign Ministry has left the minimalist NGO desk empty. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has denounced the anti-Semitism of the UN's Durban process, and announced that Israel will not participate if this continues. But the Israeli diplomatic corps was surprised when the Preparatory Committee for this review conference accredited the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. European members of the committee simply waved them through, and no Israeli official was aware of the process.

The damage from this black hole in the Israeli diplomatic universe goes far beyond the Durban process. Some of the NGOs promoting the demonization campaigns get more then half their annual budgets from European governments, under the misleading headlines of "partnerships for peace" or projects claiming to promote democracy and Palestinian development. Additional funds come from the Ford Foundation and from often well-intentioned Jewish donors to the New Israeli Fund based in the US, Britain and Canada. In every discussion with the ambassadors, heads of state and foreign ministers, as well as NIF members, Israeli officials should make the case for a halt in this funding of demonization.

Officials from the United States government, while generally less prone to repeat the mantras of human rights rhetoric and the false factual claims directed against Israel, are not immune. As NGO Monitor's detailed analysis show, the State Department's annual human rights reports often copy NGO claims without bothering to check their accuracy or the underlying bias. And recently, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice condemned Israel for barring candidates for a Fulbright fellowship from traveling from Gaza to Jerusalem for interviews. (Rice failed to mention the [Palestinian] attack on the Fulbright convoy that killed three Americans 2003, after which video interviews were initiated.)

Senator Fulbright & Senator Helms, Together At Last...

Politics makes strange bedfellows, indeed. MountainRunner points out that the two politically opposed former Chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee agreed on at least one thing--elimination of US propaganda by USIA (now run by the Broadcasting Board of Governors):

It should be noted that Senator Helms succeeded where the equally, if not more, legendary Senator Fulbright (D-AR, and as I just learned a fraternity brother of this blogger) failed. The 1972 Amendment to Smith-Mundt was, in fact, the best Senator Fulbright could do in his attempt to abolish USIA. According to Nick Cull, he demanded that Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty “should be given an opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics.” But they escaped with the creation of the Board for International Broadcasting, the predecessor to the Broadcasting Board of Governors. According to contemporary news accounts, votes he brought to the floor as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee were losing and losing not on merit but on personality. He had lost support, an especially bad situation for a Chairman. The New York Times would remark on the “eclipse of Senator Fulbright and the weakening of the Foreign Relations Committee” and wonder if the Senator would support the pending Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty when he couldn’t count on the support of the Administration or of his own committee. Soon after he remarked that he would not even bring something up for a vote because he knew it wouldn’t pass.

While he lost the battle and his next election, he won the war against USIA as he adjusted perceptions of USIA and Smith-Mundt, the Act he never fully supported. His conflict with USIA was openly reported in the papers and explored by Nick Cull in his forthcoming book on the history of USIA, as well as by Stacey Cone in her 2005 “Pulling the Plug on America's Propaganda: Sen. J.W. Fulbright's Leadership of the Antipropaganda Movement, 1943-74” in the journal Journalism History.

It’s also noteworthy, for the detail oriented reader, that the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy has no authority by law over the Fulbright scholarship board. (Nor does it have any authority on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, but that’s another story and one that is conceptually foreign to modern Americans.)

Interestingly, I met both Senator Fulbright and Senator Helms, and was impressed by both of them--charming and intelligent. And I agree with them (of course, I'm biased, since I received a Fulbright myself...).

Google's Twitter Election Map

Learned about this at the Press Club yesterday, too...

Five Killed in Mongolian Democracy Riots

Registan's Josh Foust comments on news reports from Ulan Bator:

Mongolia saw some violence after a group of apparently drunk activists disputed the election and ransacked the headquarters of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party and an adjacent art gallery. In response, the government banned alcohol sales as Prime Minister Sanjaagiin Bayar urged calm.

The election almost certainly wasn’t fraudulent, at least according to international observers, who reported no irregularities. Rather, most analysts seem to be chalking this up to simmering tensions over corruption, economic stagnation, and disputes over mining rights. Curiously, one of the instigators of the violence was Democratic Union leader Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, the former Prime Minister, and one-time bosom-buddy of democracy-loving George W. Bush for his decision to send troops to Iraq in 2005.

This isn’t the first time the MPRP has run into electoral protests at the hands of the DU: in 2006, when the MPRP swept back into power and displaced Elbegdorj, Ulan Bator also saw a massive wave of protests. Sore losers, or legitimate victims of electioneering? In all likelihood, it is probably a mixture of both.

A beautiful gallery of the riot’s aftermath, including the incongruous image of Mongolians recording the damage on their cellphones, is available the New York Times’ website.

New York Times story here. Amy Chua wrote about this sort of thing in her book, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability

Ann Althouse on Today's New York Times Art Review

From Ann Althouse's blog:

Apparently, the NYT has not heard of some of the less-frequently-invoked American freedoms: the freedom to ignore propaganda, the freedom to avert your eyes from artists who scream for attention, the freedom to shop without genuflecting at sanctimonious criticism of your country, and the freedom to loathe hideous art. (emphasis Althouse)

Now, the journalist who wrote this piece, Damien Cave, did spend "18 months on and off" reporting from Iraq, and he is "stunned by the war’s lack of impact on people’s lives or thoughts." I'm not sure why his personal experience belongs in this article. He seems to be offering it as a basis of authority for his promotion of this exhibit which aims to goad Floridian shoppers to agonize about the war. I'd say it reveals that Cave's field of expertise is not art.

The most powerful efforts tackle the tension between the American democratic ideal and its practice. The Map Office, a design studio in New York, produced three unequivocal images. One poster shows democracy as a green goo spread across a pristine landscape; another reads, “kiss the fist of democracy.” A third says, “Democracy is the Helvetica of Politics,” reflecting its ubiquity, openness and adulteration, the artists said.

The most powerful efforts? Look at the slide show at the link. These are the most embarrassingly unsophisticated pictures in the bunch.

A paradox is embedded in this round of cynicism and self-doubt...

Why, then, are we so depressed?...

In many cases the results feel more like heartbreak than like anger...

Democracy often seems to grow uglier with age.

But amid the happy, escapist shoppers at the Aventura mall, these thoughts felt as out of place as Rockwell’s proud posters. The sprawling darkness of Mr. Kuitca’s remake of “Freedom of Fear,” with the original tucked in the corner, seemed far more apt.

You've got to be kidding me. This is the New York Times, not the student newspaper at Florida International University?

Compete.com

Just learned about Compete.com, which compares traffic on websites, at a seminar today held at the National Press Club library, from audience member Josh Kaufman, at an event hosted by librarian Beth Shankle. You can enter any URL, and compare it to two others...

Also learned about popurls.com, which as the man sitting next to me explained, is made for "pack journalism." And EC2 (and here at Amazon) cloud computing, used to put together sites like the New York Times archives' TimesMachine.

You can find links to all the sites we learned about at the Press Club's del.icio.us site.