A Quieter Time

This past weekend was quieter than the last. Here goes:

The Presentations.

First, Friday night, Professor Judith Hauptman of Jewish Theological Seminary speaking on the relationship between Mishnah and Tosefta. (If you want to know more, call me.) She was quite good. The only unnerving thing about the presentation is that she sounds (voice, accent, intonation) 100% like a client of mine whom I had been speaking to that very afternoon. Who probably knows little about this subject. But what do you think Judith Hauptman knows about lead based paint?

Second, Sunday afternoon, Hannah did a solo talk back at Theater J about the plays of Richard Greenberg. Good job, Hannah. I still think that the two characters (Russell and Trey) in the 3rd act of Bal Masque underwent a personality transformation from the first acts.

The Restaurants.

Saturday evening, a quick salad at Panera in Friendship Heights. Not bad. Very reasonably priced. Comfortable enough. Not crowded, but not empty - an international crowd, plus some 20-somethings having supper with their laptops (while talking on their camera phones).

Sunday (Mother's Day) evening at RIA15, or 15RIA (forget which one we went to) at (clever, clever) 15th and Rhode Island Avenue (or Rhode Island Avenue and 15th). The two best features: comfort and decor (that's one feature) and our young Romanian waitress, four months in the US of A after 5 years on a Carnival Line cruise ship. But then, they were out of everything: the Sunday meatloaf special (no tears, there), chicken, beet salad and cheese grits. Reason given: 70 reservations for 11 - 4 brunch; 250 customers. We had steak (apparently good), salmon (not bad), rockfish (not good). The salads were OK, the deserts festive enough, the price too high.

The books: None completed. Still plodding along.

The movies: Two, both at home.

First, the original Manchurian Candidate. Very stylistic, black and white. The blurb said that after Kennedy's assassination it was not shown for 25 years. Pretty incredible that. Lawrence Harvey as the killer, Frank Sinatra as the guy who figured it out, Angela Lansbury as the evil foreign agent (and as Harvey's mother, although she is just 3 years older than he). The stylism was a bit surprising to me, as the newer, Denzil Washington version is simply an action thriller. Same plot, very different movies. For 2006, the newer is the better. For 1962, ????

Second, the Bourne Conspiracy, a 3 year old espionage/spy/CIA movie that I wanted to see when it first came out to good reviews. A lot of action in far away places (here particularly India, Moscow, Berlin and Naples). But, like Syriana that we saw earlier, the plot was a bit too convoluted and complicated for me to (a) follow and (b) care about. Well acted.

The Book Sale.

In this case, we did not go to buy, but to run it at the Murch School Rummage Sale. We had to get there by 7 a.m. and stayed until noon or so. Problem was it was so early, that it tired us out the rest of the day.

I think that was it.

Alphonso Jackson (15 cents)

HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson (who?) makes a speech in Texas where he tells about someone who had made a terrific proposal to the Department, and was about to get a lucrative contract, when Jackson found out that he was not a supporter of President Bush. So, Jackson says, the contract was not signed.

A mini-furor arises.

Jackson then says that he said it, yes, but he didn't mean it.

His office then says that he said it, yes, but it was only an anecdote (since when aren't anecdotes true?).

The HUD Inspector General is investigating.

Will Bush replace Jackson? Speculation runs both ways, but I think the answer is yes.

Of course, it is not because Jackson said something stupid, and then made stupid remarks about his stupid statement. Making stupid statements is not apparently anathema to the Bush administration.

And it is not going to be because of the substance of the remarks. The Bush administration gives contracts to its friends, and does not appear to have any qualms about that.

Jackson will be fired, because he was being honest. And, if there is one thing this administration cannot tolerate, it is honesty.

Quick Profit (15 cents)

So, I am roaming around this used book store and, for some reason, pick up a book about Georgian architecture in London, a book that I had no interest in although I am sure that it is a fine piece of scholarship, and I open it up and sense that there is something sort of thick between some pages towards the middle and look to see what it is and find 8 $20 bills. The book cost me $4. My profit was $156.00.

Hitler's Pawn (2 cents)

There was a one hour documentary this morning on HBO's second channel (in DC, channel 302) called Hitler's Pawn, which told the story of a German Jewish woman named Greta Bergmann, who was in the 1930's a world class athlete and the holder of Germany's women's high jump record. Beginning in 1933, when she was a young teenager with a growing reputation, her world collapsed with Hitler's arrival because she was Jewish, and she was dismissed from sports' clubs and shunned by friends.

When the 1936 Olympics were planned, the US threatened to boycott because of German's racial restrictions on its athletes, and (unbeknownst) to Bergmann, she became a pawn as one of the two Jewish athletes on Germany's team, sufficient to placate the easily convinced American Olympic Committee (thank you, Avery Brundage) and Amateur Athletic Union. The day after the American olympians set sail for Europe, Germany told Greta that she did not make the team, and she did not compete.

It was not until after she emigrated to the US in 1937 that she learned the full story and how she was used.

It is an excellent documentary, and would be very instructional for children and adolescents. If you get a chance to watch it, do.

See how they run (7 cents)

I just went on a random blog that said that candidates are coming out of the woodwork to run for office in West Warwick, and asking the question: where are the candidates for Coventry?

Thought you ought to know.

Cynthia Ozick at Nextbooks (4 cents)

We went to see novelist/essayist Cynthia Ozick last night at Nextbooks at the DC Jewish Community Center. She spoke for almost an hour, talking of Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, Isaac Babel, Gershon Sholem, Israel, the Disapora, Jewish-American writing, American-Jewish writing, A.B. Yehoshua, and even Ted Koppel. I listed very closely to what she said, and my reaction was: "Huh?"

National Anthems

Should the Star Spangled Banner be sung in any language other than English? Should it be sung in English? Or at all?

What an important debate!

Last week, when in the Embassy of Finland, I picked up a brochure that had the Finnish national anthem in Finnish and in English. It looked much funnier in Finnish.

And, as the Adas Israel presentation to the Dutch Holocaust rescuer, the program had the Dutch national anthem in Dutch and English. This was a bigger problem, because once you see the Dutch national them in English, you realize that the Dutch are pledging loyalty to the King of Spain. For the sake of the Hague, I hope that they don't translate that one into Spanish.

P.G. Wodehouse, P.G. County (1 cent)

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse did not mind being called P.G. So you can imagine my surprise when I read in the Washington Post Sunday that residents of P.G. County find "P.G." insulting (by Jeeves) and that they want to be known as residents of Prince George's (who is Prince George anyway?). I had no idea.

So, it got me thinking. Residents of Los Angeles say that they live in L.A., and we here in Washington don't mind living in D.C. Even in Kuala Lampur, they say that they live in K.L., as I understand it. But do they say K.C. in Kansas City? (I really don't know) And none of the "San" cities (Francisco, Antonio, Diego) go by S. Anything, do they? And no one in Walla Walla would ever think to say that they live in W.W.

Now people live in Philly and Indi and Cincy, but they don't live in St. Louie, but do in St Pete. And I think they used to live in Frisco, but no more. And they live in Vegas, but not Angeles.

I think P.G. should cool it.

Bay Bridge Walk

The pattern repeats itself.

They schedule the 4 mile walk across the Bay Bridge and forget to tell us.

Then we read in the newspaper that it happened yesterday.

This is the annual pattern.

There must be some way to break the pattern, but it will require the full cooperation from the bridge authorities, and I just do not see this coming.

Busy, busy, busy (3 cents)

This was a busy weekend.

1. The restaurants. There were three. Lunch on Saturday was at a restaurant in Glover Park with the intoxicating name of "Bourbon". It looks to be primarily a bar, with only a few downstairs tables, a series of green naugahyde booths upstairs and a large sun-drenched patio. We went there for lunch because we were there, and it was there. We had never heard of it. We had a salad and scrambled eggs. Just so-so.

Saturday night, we ate at St-Ex., on 14th and S (or is it T?), named after St. Exupery, the French aviator lost in the war, and filled with air pioneer photos and memorabilia. Blackfish and halibut. This is a good restaurant, very popular now, and very informal.

Sunday night, with cousins, we went to Addie's on Rockville Pike, short of White Flint, one of the Black's restaurants (along with the Blacks in Bethesda, Garrett Park and Palisades). I was disappointed. We both had salmon. The fish was good, but the restaurant was an ordinary, good restaurant, nothing special.

2. The Conversation. On Friday night, we had supper with our study group, and a guest, Gesa Ederberg, Germany's only female rabbi (and perhaps the first woman to hold that title since Regina Jonas was ordained in 1935). She is the Masorti (Conservative) rabbi of Berlin, and runs many community programs and a pre-school program there, and serves a congregation in the Bavarian city of Weiden in Bavaria, composed of Jews from the Soviet Union.

All that would be impressive enough, but she turned out also to be a very bright, and extremely engaging young woman. Born in Tubingen to a Christian family, she developed an early interest in Judaism and the holocaust, and visited Israel when she was 13. She studied and was converted to Judaism at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and studied and was ordained by the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem. Her husband is also a German convert to Judaism, but they met after their conversions.

We talked about Judaism in Europe, Germany and Berlin. She is clearly the most liberal of the Berlin rabbis (there are now 7 operating synagogues in the city). She spoke of the openness of the Jewish community in Berlin, which has admitted her and the Masorti congregation which she helped found, into the Jewish Community. In Berlin, a Jew does not define his or her own denomination, and does not join a particular synagogue. You join the community, and all synagogues and rabbis are governed by the community, and paid and supported by the community. There are 12,000 members of the Jewish community of Berlin, and 100,000 of the Jewish communities of Germany. There may be twice as many Jews in Germany, with the others not affiliated.

Her activities can be viewed at www.masorti.de.

3. The festival. The flower mart at the National Cathedral was a treat. We had not planned on attending, but drove by, saw there was a used book sale, and found a good parking space. The sale was not large, although I found Bill Clinton's book "Between Hope and History" signed by him to Smith Bagley (he is someone, isn't he?) for $2. But we spent an hour or so wandering the craft booths, looking at the plants, and walking by the food. We found a very nice booth run by a older couple who make jewelry from leaves and bugs, with some system where they are coated with copper. We bought a gift, and my wife bought earings and a brooch. We found other gifts for the upcoming Israel trip, saw some people we knew, and the weather was beautiful.

4. The other book sale. There was a sale at Janney Elementary School. I did not find anything I wanted, but my wife saw some friends and bought a couple of cook books.

5. The mini-museum. We went to see the wooden architecture exhibit at the Embassy of Finland, on Massachusetts Avenue, just southeast of Reno Road, and to see the embassy itself. There is a tradition of wooden architecture in Finland, but the use of wood went out of favor and other, longer lasting materials were being used for much of the 20th century. But with better treatment, there has been a rebirth of wood as an external building skin. The new Sibelius Concert Hall in Lahti (is that near Helsinki?), is similar in feel and design to the embassy building. but there are also university buildings, private homes, churches and schools. The exhibit itself was not large, and was strangely designed. For each of the 20 or so featured structures, there were poster-sized photos, three dimnesional models, and written explanations and a series of smaller photos. But they were in three different places, all the posters here, all the models there, etc.

6. The maxi-musuem. We then went to the Sackler Asian Art Museum, on the mall, to return to the Hokusai exhibit. We had seen half of the exhibit a month or so ago. This time we walked quickly through the section we had seen before, and went to the second floor of this very large exhibit, to see his paintings (as opposed to block prints and books). Portraits, religious and mythic figures, landscapes and animals. Some very impressive.

Hokusai lived to be 90, and worked for about 75 of them. What struck me this time, was his sense of color. He was just a very, very skilled artist.

We also went quickly through an exhibit called History of History, put together by photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, whose photographs continue on exhibit at the Hirschhorn, and which impressed me so much when I saw them (actually I saw them twice). This exhibit will take another visit. There are fossils that are millions of years old, including some enormous ones from Morocco. There are clay figures that may be 8000 years old. And everything in between. Very impressive items; but I have not figured out yet exactly what the exhibit is trying to say.

7. The book talk. We went to Candida's, the travel book store on 14th street, to attend a book presentation by David Fairley and Jessie Sholl (never heard of them), who had edited an anthology called "Prague" as part of the "travelers' tales" series. Had not heard of the series, either, but basically, the book contains about 40 short first person memoirs of people who have traveled to Prague (generally for more than a two day stay) and give their impressions. Some of the authors are from Prague, some have lived there for long periods of time.

Two stories were read, which were quite nice. There are a number of well known authors. We bought the book.

8. Theater. After our dinner at St-Ex, we went next door to see "The Play's the Thing", by Ference Molnar, as adapted by P.G. Wodehouse. It was put on by the Washington Stage Guild, which has been around about 20 years, even though we did not know them. The actors, and the audience, were older than other theaters we have attended in town. The production was quite well done. The play, which was fairly long (two intermissions) had some dull, and some very enjoyable, parts.

Basically, a young composer is in love with and engaged to a prima donna, and when he and the playwrights with whom he is traveling, go to the Italian villa where she is staying, they take the room next door to her and hear through the walls her intimate conversation with an old boyfriend, an older married actor. The fiance is distraught, but the lead playwright has an idea, and convinces the old actor/boyfriend and the diva to pretend that they were rehearsing a play. Staying up all night to write the script, the play within the play is put on at the villa, and everyone winds up happy.

It is the play within the play that contains the best lines and leads to the loudest laughter. The first two acts are much slower. Except for Chris Davenport, who played the young composer and who was too silly and impossible to love, the cast was excellent. Particularly, Bill Largess as the playwright, Jeff Baker as the butler (Dwornitschek), and Michael Glenn as the secretary.

9. The Presentation. Today was the annual Guardian of the Righteous program at Adas Israel, honoring someone who helped save Jewish lives in Europe in World War II. This time, the honoree was Jaap Penraat, who was a young architect in Amsterdam. The story is extraordinary. He started by helping a Jewish friend hide on the farm of a gentile farmer. Then, he became a forger, forging papers for Jews to pass as gentiles. Then, he obtained stationary of a German corporation and set himself up as its representative in Holland to find workers for a factory in France. How he did this without being caught is hard to comprehend.

Penraat is quite frail. He must be close to 90. He spoke sitting down. And the speech, when he went through the history of how it happened, was riveting. Over 400 people were saved. Once they got to France, there was an underground network that got them to Spain and Portugal and beyond. All 400 were saved; none were lost.

In addition to Penraat's speech, representatives of the Dutch and Israeli embassies gave very nice presentations.

10. The book. I finished a short novel called Island of Saints by Andy Andrews. It was a bit too preachy, but the premise of the novel was interesting, and the prose not bad. Nazi U-boats off the Alabama coast during World War II, and their attacks on merchant ships, which were hushed up by the American press. But a German goes overboard, winds up on shore wounded, is nursed back to health by a young American war widow, winds up staying, marrying her, and becoming a real American (although an illegal alien). The format is unique, because the author writes in the first person, as if he is actually interviewing elderly residents of the area who help put the story together, finding out at the very end that this couple that he has known for years are in fact the central features in the story. He promises not to publish the story, unless he can convince his publisher to categorize it as fiction.

Would I recommend the book? I would not go out of your way for it, although the information about the Nazi infiltration of the Gulf is worth learning about.

On Amazon, this book got 5 stars from 9 commenters. How is this possible, since it is clearly not a 5 star book? My guess is that the reviewers were not strangers to Mr. Andrews.

Bakunin and B. Akunin

Bakunin was a 19th century Russian revolutionary. B. Akunin is the pseudonym used by Russia's most popular mystery writer.

I just read the first of his Erast Fandonin mysteries, The Winter Queen, set in 19th century Moscow, St. Petersburg and London. I found it short, but tedious, and of little interest. It had a terrible ending, and the start and middle weren't so hot, either.

On Amazon, there are 60 reader reviews of this book. That is quite a large number. The majority of the reviewers loved the book; the minority absolutely hated it. No one was indifferent.

KIds, Kids, Kids

Kids seem to be the focus of the current exhibit at the Ripley Center, and the major current exhibit at the Museum of African Art. That is unusual and, what is more, when I went to see them today, there were no kids at either show. I don't know how they are being promoted.

The Ripley Center exhibit is called Amazon Voyage. It is not an art exhibit, but a natural science exhibit, with a very long participating sponsor and contributor list. The concentration is on nasty animals.

Do you know that there was a prehistoric piranha which looks just like today's but was much, much bigger? Do you know that there are a large number of catfish varieties, including some known as blood suckers, which feed on blood of animals (including people)? Do you know there are sting rays in the Amazon? And caymens in the jungle? And other dangerous creatures?

But, do you also know that the biggest problems in the Amazon are not the animals, but the non-indigeneous peoples?

A lot of pictures and bones and movies and music and boats and ship captains and whatever is the equivalent of karaoke for dancers.

At the African Art Museum, there is a fairly large exhibit called Big and Small, again which seems to be targeted to children, although some of the pieces are high enough that small children will have a problem. The pieces are all very, very nice. There are BIG masks, there are BIG sculptures, there are LITTLE figurines. Other than some items are big and some are little and that they are all African, I could not quite figure out the exhibit.

There is another exhibit at the museum (there are two exhibits in preparation), called Personal Items, which is also quite enjoyable. The stools seem all uncomfortable, but not nearly as uncomfortable as the wooden head/sleeping rests. The pipes are very well done. And there are combs and hairpieces, and dolls, and snuff boxes, and dishes and spoons.

But I would probably wait until the next exhibits open before taking a trip here.

Congratulations (1 cent)

Congratulations to the Washington Bach Consort for finishing their cycle of Bach cantatas, with their extremely well done performance of Hochsterwunschtes Freudenfest, BWV 194, Tuesday at the Church of the Epiphany. A very large crowd came on a beautiful day.

Too bad my tuna wrap at Au Bon Pain was not as good as the cantata.

After lunch, I picked up a signed copy of Annie Proulx's The Shipping News, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. It was a valuable find for $4. I also picked up a copy of Joe Alsop's memoirs (published posthumously) signed by journalist Adam Platt, who completed the task after Alsop's death. Not worth what The Shipping News is worth, but a find nevertheless. I do not think Platt signed many of the books.

I already wrote about our Korean dinner. It was followed by an hour at Ikea. I really like Ikea.

Seoul Food (1 cent)

It wasn't planned, but we had dinner at the Gah-Rham Korean/Japanese restaurant in Beltsville. Why? Two reasons. We were in Beltsville. And it was dinner time.

Actually, we were going to Ikea and kept on going north on Route 1 looking for some place to eat. (Our original thought was to eat at the restaurant at Ikea, but we changed our minds, for no apparent reason whatsoever).

Driving up Route 1 in that no-man's territory south of Laurel, we passed every possible fast food restaurant, a couple of restaurants that looked less than hospitable, and then a small shopping center, with a Korean restaurant with a very odd name. We went in.

Surprise! It is quite a place. Large, very attractive, with polished pine tables and fish tanks, light and cheery. And with a very friendly staff.

There were other customers. They were all Korean. While we were there, other customers arrived. They were all Korean.

We may have been the first Caucasians ever at Gah-Rham. Certainly, they never had Jewish customers before.

There were three of us. We ordered (1) salmon terriyaki, (2) a vegetable rice hot pot, and (3) a seafood hot pot.

While we were waiting they brought us small plates of kimchi, bean sprout salad, sesame greens, seaweed salad, potato salad, mushroom salad and more. We ate them all (thinking as we looked around that maybe these were condiments to eat with the meal, rather than appetizers).

Then the main courses. They were delicious, and were served with a dish of shirred eggs, and miso soup.

We obviously must not have known how to eat, because the staff was very attentive. They poured sauce on our food, they made sure we mixed it up (the two hot pots had sticky rice, and they wanted to make sure we didn't just eat the add-ons), they served us the eggs.

They looked like they were having a good time as did everyone there - all of whom were eating delicious looking meals.

The cost for 3? $39.

Can't beat it. 5027 Garrett Ave. Beltsville. 301 595 4122.

Da Da (3 cents)

The Da Da movement wast he direct result of the destruction of European society during World War I. Starting in about 1917 and lasting no more than 7 or 8 years, the Da Da artists went in entirely new directions. Even the name Da Da was a conscious creation, evoking a baby, a new start, the Russian word for yes, and so forth.

The exhibit at the National Gallery is interestingly organized by city: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York and Paris. Starting in neutral Switzerland with Hans Arp, Marcel Janco, Sophie Taeuber, Francis Picabia, Christian Schad and Otto van Rees, to moved to John Heartfield (Herzfeld), Otto Dix, Hannah Hoch, Raoul Hausmann and George Grosz in Berlin, Kurt Schwitters in Hannover, Max Ernst in Cologne, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray in New York, and - after the war - many of these in Paris.

Nonrepresentational painting, sculpture, collage. And there is the more polished, somewhat cartoonish drawing of George Grosz, perhaps the most appealing of all these artists.

To what good was all of this? It may have shown disgust and estrangement from society, but it offered no solutions. As Grosz said with regard to his uncle: "Uncle August had these crazy ideas, and what became of them? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Instead of bringing something in, it only cost money and in the end he had to be admitted to a mental hospital."

So be it with Da Da?

The Weekend: a little of this/a little of that

1. The Book. "River Sutra" by Gita Mehta. I usually like novels set in India. The setting is normally just exotic enough, and the characters distinctive. But this novel is not really a novel. It is more like a series of short fables, told by pilgrims of all faiths wandering up and down the banks of the Narmada River. The central character is an Indian high level government bureaucrat who leaves his post and takes up a much easier one in the quiet Narmada country, where he runs a government inn for travelers and pilgrims. So, the book is like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, with Moslem, Hindu and Jain travelers telling their fairy-tale like stories, all of which have a similar theme. I used to be very different from the way I am now, but the world was too much with me, so I decided to leave it all behind. Worth reading? Not really.

2. The Play. See yesterday's blog.

3. The Restaurants. Mixtec, a low-key Mexican restaurant in Adams Morgan (stick with the baked cheese appetizers) and Cafe Luna on 17th and P (soup and a salad; guess what? it was excellent).

4. The Book Sale. Arlington Library's spring sale, always a big one. Didn't get there until today at noon (it opened Friday), but the big book I found was "This I Cannot Forget" written by Anna Larina, Bolshevik Mikhail Bukharin's widow. After a life no one should have to lead, she wrote this book when in her late 70s (she was much younger than her husband). It was published in the 1980s. Larina signed the book (in Russian). there are no signed copies on ABEbooks.

5. The Rally. The Dafur rally on the mall this afternoon drew a large crowd (I would guess 30,000 to 40,000, but the estimates I have seen so far are not that high). Many speakers; most repetitive. But you have to admire those who are trying to do something. 200,000 people dead. 2,000,000 displaced. Unknown numbers attacked and raped. Still going on. Best speech that I heard: Al Sharpton. David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center spoke well. I would say 1/3 or so of the rally attendees were members of Jewish groups. This is probably OK--the motto is, after all, 'never again'.

Angels in America/Devils in Germany (3 cents)

We just saw "A Bright Room Called Day" (an impossible to remember name), Tony Kushner's first play, performed by the Rorschach Theater Company. Hannah acted as dramaturg and assistant director.

It was a very ambitious project for this relatively small theater company, operating out of a church off 16th Street that itself seems quite impoverished. The play takes place on the stage in Germany, in 1932-1933, and on the screen in America in 1984-1985. The live action follows a group of leftist/Communist friends who see their dream of a Marxist uprising in Germany and a united front againt Fascism turned upside down as Hitler comes into, and consolidates power. The screenplay follows the ravings of Zillah Katz, who seems to fear the Ronald Reagan is almost as bad. (What would she think of George Bush II?)

I thought the play was well done, but it is a very wordy play, and takes almost three hours from curtain to curtain. It gives you a lot to think about both as to how difficult it is to determine which negative trends in governmental policy are truly worrisome, and which are likely to pass, and as to how differently different people react to them. It shows how much can depend on one individual (in this case Hitler), and provides interesting thoughts about why the Germans reacted to him as postively as they did.

Is it the most enjoyable play ever written? The cleverest? The fastest moving? No. But it does provide a worthwhile evening of theater.

Another Disappointment

I went to hear Sebastian Junger talk and read about his new book about the Boston Strangler tonight at Politics and Prose. It was quite disappointing, and I know that the review of his book have been mixed.

I do not know much about Junger. His bestseller was "The Perfect Storm", which I have not read.

The strangler, Albert di Salvo, worked at the Junger house in Belmont MA when Junger was a child and while the murders were taking place. This gave him a connection.

But, he says, the story is really about "reasonable doubt". What is it? How do you measure it? How do we know that we know what we think we know? Not only as a murder case juror, but throughout life?

He does not present particularly well, and he does not convince you that he has a lot to add on the subject of reasonable doubt.

All I could think of was O.J. Simpson. Why does everyone assume (know) he was guilty?

Another Extraordinary Young Woman Leads an Extraordinary Life (1 cent)

Having read about Roya Hakakian in Iran and Zainab Salbi in Iraq, I have now come across Yelena Khanga in Russia, and her 1994 memoir, Soul to Soul (or dusha k dushu).

Listen to this: Her maternal grandmother was Jewish, born in Warsaw, emigrating to the U.S. with her family as a young girl. Her maternal grandfather was African American, originally from Yazoo City, MS. Both interested in leftist politics and Communism, they decided to put their money where their mouth was, and moved to the USSR in 1931. It was there, in 1934, that her mother was born, an African American in the USSR, who became the Russian authority on historic African music. And she met a Muslim from Zanzibar, who left her shortly after their child was born to move back and become independent Zanzibar's first vice president. Shortly thereafter, he was murdered.

Yelena grew up with her mother and grandmother. She was one of the few native blacks in a white society. She was very bright, had perfect pitch, became Moscow doubles tennis champion, and went to Journalism school at Moscow State University.

She knew little about her grandparents. Her grandmother, who was ostracized by her family when she married a black man, did not talk about her Judaism. Her grandfather died at 53; Yelena never knew him. She knew nothing about Zanzibar.

She knew a lot about the USSR. And because her mother was an important figure in Moscow intellectual society, she knew many of the important Russian literati. Her mother had remarried Yegor Yakelev, editor of the Moscow News. And, because she was black, her mother knew the leftist blacks of the world, including Paul Robeson and W.E. Dubois.

In 1985, during the Yeltsin years, the first exchange of journalists between the USSR and the USA was arranged, and Yelena flew to Boston. She was, of course, fluent in English. As a result of this trip, she began to explore both sides of her American family, and eventually met her 92 year old grandmother in Zanzibar.

What a fascinating story.

And the story is only part of the fascination of this book. Yelena Khanga has a totally new and fresh perspective on race relations, and racially based assumptions, that will add much to your understanding of this important topic, and help you (I think) work through issues today.

Front Page WSJ (1 cent)

Yesterday.

1.

"When he was 22 years old, Loren Davis bought 75 chairs from a funeral home and opened his own fundamentalist church next to a Hells Angels bar on the Houston docks. Someone shot out a window once, he says, but nobody ever came in to hear him preach.

"Every Sunday for three months, Mr. Davis stood before the empty seats and preached the Gospel as if he were Billy Graham in a packed stadium. Finally, he recalls, his mother showed up and, after listening to her son's solo sermon, suggested he find another career."

It turns out that Davis is now an evangelizing success in Africa, where there are currently 95,800 "long-term" missionaries preaching.

With 95,800 Christians with Bibles, and even more Moslems with scimitars, what's a poor African to do?

2.

Italy (surprisingly) might be the cleanest country, and household product advertisements fail there is they promise time-saving efficiency or ease of use. 80% of Italians iron all of their laundry and only 2% use cleaning wipes.

3.

Air Canada has realized that you can't make money off flying airplanes, so they are turning their main task into a loss leader and concentrating on all the side tasks that most airlines fan out.

Having flown Air Canada.........

4.

Ken Lay says that it was the media and underlings who brought down Enron.

Sort of like saying, "yes, I helped push him off the cliff, but it was the gravity that caused him to fall."