Hit & Run: What's Missing From the Year's Top Religion Stories?: (Reason.com

"I seem to recall having heard some stories about religiously-motivated people bombing bars in Indonesia, ambushing workers in the Philippines, attacking a French tanker in Yemen, blowing up pizza places and schools in Israel, shooting American Marines in Kuwait, and so on. And isn't some guy about to be executed for blasphemy in Iran?

"I hate to sound like a Taranto-type crank here (and I think this is more symptomatic of a failure of the imagination than of that ol' hobgoblin, left-wing media bias), but isn't the trend of violence that is intimately connected to Islamic faith a pretty major religion story? Maybe they're applying a dog-bites-man principle, and figuring this story is so common it can't be called news. But wouldn't one of the above stories (if nothing else, the case of Hashem Aghajari, which has theological as well as political import) pass muster as one of the big religion stories of the year? (Suicide bombings in Israel do get a mention, but only as an addendum to the entry on the Church of the Nativity siege.)"

    

Israeli Adventures in Controlling the Internet (Ha'aretz)

"A few months ago, the Education Ministry opened an Internet forum for kindergarten teachers. The purpose at first was to allow the teachers "to conduct fruitful, focused discussions about pedagogical issues in early childhood education." That appeared to be a reasonable thing to do. The kindergarten teachers, like many others in Israel, are online. There is no reason not to use the Internet to take part in a useful forum that helps the teachers professionally.

"But after welcoming the ministry's creativity and the way it is taking the trouble to raise the professional standards of teachers, one discovers that there is a limit to the ministry's pedagogic tolerance. When the teachers began expressing their views about the contradictory instructions issued by the ministry and the teachers union over whether the kindergartens should be opened while the kindergarten aides were on strike, the ministry decided to close the forum, because of "insults and incitement against the ministry director-general and ministry professionals." No matter how one looks at the welcome initiative, one finds that as always, the Education Ministry is at the forefront with respect to openness, criticism and real understanding of the online medium."

    

As American Friends Lose Elections Around the World.... (Talking Points Memo)

"The Roh victory in South Korea (ROK) is perhaps the most sobering, as Roh is the first Korean head of state since the partition to be elected on a platform which called into question key aspects of the US-ROK security alliance, which has been a linchpin of America's position in East Asia for half a century. An Asia hand TPM spoke to said Roh had gotten elected "by playing the Schroeder card." There too there was a recent incident of American soldiers acquitted for criminal acts against South Korean civilians.

"So, yes, in each case, the roots of the election result were multi-causal. But add these and other election results up and you start to see that hostile reactions to America's newly strident and confrontational stance in the world are becoming an important force in world politics and an important force in the domestic politics of many of our allies.

"Think of it this way: when was the last time one of our friends -- or someone friendly, rather than unfriendly, to our current policies -- won an election in a major country around the world?

"Does this matter? Is it our fault? These are difficult questions to answer, certainly. It would be wrong to say or assume that just because people don't like what we're doing that we shouldn't be doing it. What's more, much of this is clearly in response to our policy toward Iraq. And as I concluded -- quite to my own surprise -- last June, I think military action against Iraq probably is necessary -- if it is done in the right way.

"The point here, I think, is in that last clause. If it is done in the right way. Much of what we've done in the last eighteen months since 9/11 has been absolutely necessary. The question is how we've gone about it. And I think the election results noted above are some of the first signs that there are costs to how we've gone about it, for the petulant unilateralism, the mania to tear up every global treaty which might possibly constrain us in any way.

"Think how much time and diplomatic capital might have been saved if the White House had figured out three, or six, or even nine months earlier that its guns-blazing-screw-the-UN policy toward regime change just wouldn't work."

    

Top 10 Space Mysteries for 2003 (Space.com) "

#1. Dark Energy

Nobody knows what the heck it is, but it is officially repulsive. And man is it powerful! More powerful than gravity, even.

While gravity holds things together at the local level (and by local I mean within galaxies and even between them, forming galactic clusters) some unknown force is working behind the scenes and across the universe to pull everything apart. Scientists have only come to realize this dark force in recent years, by discovering that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing pace.

Having no clue what it is, they've labeled it dark energy.

The past year was a good one for proving that dark energy is at work. Calculations have been refined: The repulsive force dominates the universe, comprising 65 percent of its makeup.

(Similarly unseen and exotic dark matter makes up 30 percent of the universe, leaving us with a universe that contains just 5 percent normal matter and energy.)

    

Bush's gay nominees draw little opposition (SF Gate.com)

Just five years ago, President Bill Clinton's decision to appoint gay San Franciscan James Hormel as an ambassador provoked an ugly, prolonged national debate.

But President George Bush has quietly nominated six gay men for positions in his administration, including the recent appointment of another gay San Franciscan to a board that could play a key role in the war on terrorism -- and the nominations have been approved with comparatively little opposition.

    

Bill Of Rights Pared Down To A Manageable Six (The Onion)
    

A letter from Jimi Hendrix: Hey Dad (Jimi Hendrix, quoted in the NYTimes Magazine)

 "Nowadays people don't want you to sing good. They want you to sing sloppy and have a good beat to your songs. That's what angle I'm going to shoot for. That's where the money is. So just in case about three or four months from now you might hear a record by me which sounds terrible, don't feel ashamed, just wait until the money rolls in because every day people are singing worse and worse on purpose and the public buys more and more records.

I just wanted to let you know I'm still here, trying to make it. Although I don't eat every day, everything's going all right for me. It could be worse than this, but I'm going to keep hustling and scuffling until I get things to happening like they're supposed to for me."

    

Market Research: 2-D Doritos Sales Lagging (The Onion)

DALLAS--In the wake of the launch of "Doritos 3-Ds," Frito-Lay is experiencing a sharp decrease in sales of its original two-dimensional Doritos. "The public has gone wild for our revolutionary three-dimensional chips, which, in addition to the usual length and width, also possess depth," Frito-Lay spokesman Isaac Toomer said. "So wild, in fact, they have lost interest in traditional monoplanar snack chips."

Toomer said Frito-Lay is now developing a highly theoretical "Funyuns 4-D." "One day, people everywhere will enjoy crispy, extratemporal Funyuns that intersect with an infinite number of parallel universes," Toomer said. "It will be a whole new world of non-Euclidean snacking."

    

It's the Bushed Economy, Stupid! :States of Alarm (Bob Herbert in NYTimes)

"If you want a story with legs, this is it. President Bush will have a heck of a time getting the national economy back on track while states from coast to coast are trying to balance their budgets by raising taxes, cutting spending and laying off employees.

"The National Governors Association, in a report last month, said states are facing "the most dire fiscal situation since World War II." Nearly every state "is in fiscal crisis," the governors said.

    

Settlers opposed fence (Ha'aretz)

Otniel, which saw four people killed there Friday night, for some time had been of the most adamant "fence objectors" in the settlement movement. Its residents opposed the erection of a fence around their enclave on ideological grounds.

    

Meretz to use Christmas tree in Russian campaign [Jerusalem Post]

Democratic Choice leader Roman Bronfman, who is No. 5 on the Meretz list, said that Meretz decided to launch its campaign in the Russian sector this week to coincide with the secular New Year.

Bronfman said the "New Year" campaign also serves as a response to Shas's "anti-immigration campaign." He said the tree is a part of the "tradition" of new immigrants from Russia, while Meretz said the move emphasizes the party's position that religion and state must be separate.

    

Life beneath the ozone hole: In an Upside-Down World, Sunshine Is Shunned (NYTimes)
    

Palestinian Uprising Strikes Chord in Israeli Music (Reuters)

"The land absorbs our blood and tears...but the SOB has yet to be born who can stop the state of Israel," raps a local hip hop star.

Hip hop, rooted in the urban ghettos of the United States, has become the voice of defiant Israeli youngsters whose social life has been jolted by suicide bombings in cafes, pubs and discos during a Palestinian uprising for statehood.

"Hip hop used to be too out there, too extreme, too non-conformist for the Israeli public," said Gad Gidor, artist and repertoire manager at Israel's Helicon Records.

"Nowadays, it is like the rock and roll of Israel because (hip hop performers) dare to speak about things commercial artists don't," he said.

Take Subliminal and the Shadow, whose black album cover shows a muddy hand clutching a Star of David, a symbol of the Jewish state.

"United we stand, divided we fall," is the theme of the popular album.

(If the Yahoo link goes bad, I've cached a copy here.)

    

Exploiting family tragedy for political points? Is She Dr. Laura or Dr. Strange Love? (Robert Sheer in LA Times)

"Some family values. Your 77-year-old mother lies dead and decomposing for two months in a condominium not far from the radio complex where you sternly hector millions about how to live a moral life while attacking those who "deviate."

"And you never bothered once to inquire how your own mom was doing? Maybe send a minion over to knock on the door once in a while? For two months, the mail piled up, the condo fees went unpaid, and you, successful syndicated radio advice guru "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger, never noticed these and other worrying signs that, as the police suggested, your mother may have been murdered?

...

"What can we draw from all this? That family relationships are exceedingly complicated and often painful. That maintaining true "family values" is not a matter simply of attending church, being heterosexual and mouthing platitudes, but demands humility, resiliency and deep compassion. That religious texts like the Bible can provide inspiring lessons in the hands of sincere teachers and also can be used as clubs by the cynical and ambitious.

"And finally, that the "Dr. Laura" show typifies the dangerous hypocrisy of those who build profitable and politically potent empires on the basis of claiming a monopoly on simplistic answers to complex problems. The guilt and shame they induce in those who might resist their nostrums is loathsome, made more so when they themselves so casually ignore them."