trip report

Democracy in action: OK! Justin McMahon: Awesome! Ignoring clearly posted road condition warnings: Stupid!

domestic news

Today the Times begins a two-part series on the process of creating a "new system of justice" for terrorists: exclusive and secretive, driven by a false sense of urgency, and controlled by Dick Cheney. Here's how things were: At one point John Ashcroft argued that the proposed policies were too harsh.


Census officials are hoping to eliminate the 'some other race' option, selected by Kathia Mendez and nearly 15 million other Hispanics in 2000:

Zunilda Diaz, 48, said she would describe herself as white even though her mother is a dark-skinned woman who would be considered black in the United States. Nelly de la Rosa, who is 33 and has chocolate brown skin, said she would choose "some other race."

Without that option, she said, she would be hard pressed to pick a racial category.

"We have so much mixture," said Ms. de la Rosa, who said she is described as morena or india at home. "These other census categories just don't reflect who we are."

The 9/11 Commission Report, National Book Award nominee.

"Democrats pushed for adjectives to support President Clinton while Republicans pushed for adjectives to support President Bush," said Lee H. Hamilton, the vice chairman of the commission and president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "It was such a minefield that we finally cut all adjectives and ended up with a sparse narrative style."

international news

There's a big article about challenges faced by newly free schools in Africa. People's desire to learn is palpable, and not easily fulfilled.

Turkey has revised pretty much its entire legal code in order to fit in with the European Union. (For example, women now have equal rights in marriage.) It turns out that revamping a legal system is hard.

Muslim integration in Spain.

Every country in the UN wants to ban human cloning for reproduction, but they can't sign a treaty because the US and some other nations want it to ban cloning for stem cell research too.

The Marines in Ramadi:

"They don't have a clue what's going on here," said Cpl. Patrick Hansen, 24, of Tewksbury, Mass. "The Iraq story will come in fourth on the TV news, behind Betsy the Cow having a first-prize calf at the county fair. Then it'll go back to Bob the weatherman."

"All I heard back home was, 'Once we get Osama, this whole thing will be over,' " he said. "It's like the Iraqis here saying, 'Once we get rid of Saddam, it'll be over.' Well, right now, it's far from over."

Also, the Dutch in Samawa.