Some people, at least, knew how to remember the Stalin years. Writing in 1957, the poetess Anna Akhmatova recalled an encounter from the time she was trying to visit her son, who had been jailed by the secret police:

“In the fearful years of the…terror I spent seventeen months in prison queues in Leningrad. One day someone ‘identified’ me. Besides me, in the queue, there was a woman with blue lips. She had, of course, never heard of me; but she suddenly came out of that trance so common to us all and whispered in my ear (everybody spoke in whispers there): “Can you describe this?” And I said: “Yes I can.” And then something like the shadow of a smile crossed what had once been her face.”

And describe it, Akhmatova did:

“In those years only the dead smiled,

Glad to be at rest:

And Leningrad city swayed like

A needless appendix to its prisons.

It was then that the railway-yards

Were asylums of the mad:

Short were the locomotives’

Farewell songs.

Stars of death stood

Above us, and innocent Russia

Writhed under bloodstained boots, and

Under the tires of Black Marias”

From Requiem (1957)

Edvard Radzinsky’s Stalin has a good account of Stalin’s last days. This short passage caught my attention today:

“After February 17 no visitors to Stalin’s office are recorded. In fact he never returned to Moscow after that date. Someone has drawn a red line in the margins of the register as though closing the account.”

Except, of course, that this is an account that can never be closed.

This weekend’s Financial Times features a number of articles to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Stalin’s death (the old tyrant died on March, 5th 1953). There’s a lot that's worth reading, but the highlights include an interview with Robert Conquest, the greatest western historian of Soviet terror. Amongst the stories he tells is the response of French communists when Stalin lowered the age for the death penalty for children to 12:

"It was acceptable, they claimed, “because in Russia, they said, people mature so much quicker.""

Contrary to some of the bad press it has received recently, Belgium is, in its melancholy and rain-sodden way, a strangely alluring country (listen to Jacques Brel’s Le Plat Pays if you doubt me), but the ways of the appalling Belgian establishment make it all too appropriate that the country should be the epicenter of the EU, a body that is increasingly intolerant of dissent.

Here's a story from the London Guardian on Belgium's attempts to deal with the challenge posed by the Vlaams Blok, a Flemish nationalist party on the far right. The Blok is very far from being a likeable organization, to put it mildly, but the way to deal with such parties is through debate, argument and the ballot box. That's how democracy works.

Not all Belgians agree, apparently. Some of them tried another tack – they took the Blok to court.

And now it’s backfired. Idiots.

Another reader seems to think that one way that Aage could get round his legal difficulties is to prepare ‘special’ pizzas just for French and Germans. They could, he suggests, be topped with “all the weird crap they eat over there”.

Well, maybe, but let’s face it – a lot of that “weird crap” (the reader’s list includes liverwurst, sauerkraut and snails) is quite delicious. If Aage really wants to discourage French and German customers, why not offer them something American. Doctor Pepper should do the trick.

Of course, that will scare off the Brits, the Vilnius Ten and everyone else too.

Have you seen HBO's "Da Ali G. Show"? Oh, man, you gotta! "Ali G." is the creation of a British comedian named Sacha Baron Cohen. Ali G. is a Cockney "wigger," a hip-hop white gangsta clod who has his own interview show. In the taped episodes now running, Ali G. gets interviews with serious figures like Boutros-Boutros Ghali, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, ex-Atty Gen. Dick Thornburgh, et al. He straight-facedly asks them outrageously stupid questions (e.g., he asks ex-CIA director James Woolsey to return to the grassy knoll in Dallas to explain who really shot J.R.). What's so great is that these poor interview subjects don't realize they're being put on, and answer his questions with respect. It's a great send-up of what's happened to political journalism since Bill Clinton went on MTV and answered some yo-yo's question about his underwear.

Cohen has two other characters: Bruno, an outrageously gay Austrian fashion reporter; and Borat, a comically naive, sex-mad TV reporter from Kazakhstan, who travels the U.S. exposing himself, so to speak, to American culture. This show is ribald comic genius. Click here and here for videoclips and other info. New half-hour episodes come on every Friday night (Saturday morning) at 12:30 a.m. EDT, but they repeat throughout the week (see the schedule here).

A reader points out that I mistakenly and inadvertanly mischaracterized Scott Ritter's position on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Ritter's position is not that they never existed, but that they are no longer there and that, therefor, there's no evidence of them still being there. I'll flesh that out in a future column, but I just wanted to be on record.

Jonah:

The phrase "or else" is much older than your previous correspondent suggested. The phrase definitely existed in Middle English. Chaucer, who died at the end of the 14th century, used it often, most famously in his "Complaint to His Purse," which you can check out [here]

In the poem--a satiric love-ode to his empty purse and intended to make the new king laugh and send him some cash--Chaucer implores his money-sack, "Beth hevy agen, or elles moot I dye!" ("Be heavy again, or else I might die!"--delightfully pronounced, in Middle English, "or ellis motey dey-uh!")

The word "else" ("elles") is even older, from Old English, and crops up in _Beowulf_ and other Anglo-Saxon poems and prose works from the 10th century or earlier. I couldn't find any *specific* examples in the small corpus of surviving Old English texts to suggest that it was used to mean "or else," but it may have been, because even back them it had most of the other current meanings and usages (such as "otherwise").

Such questions are fine pasttimes for drowsy medievalists on cold, snowswept Fridays.

UPDATE: He sent me this follow-up email:
Cancel that last email! Just re-read and saw you were looking exclusively for "trailing" or-elses. My apologies--please ignore previous e-mail!

By a rough count, I've had two dozen people call me fascist. One person wrote to AOL to tell them that I am "Hitler incarnate." I began my McCarthy column referring to the erosion of meaning words suffer on the liberal side of the aisle. If I am Hitler incarnate, what words are left to describe genocidal murderers? If I am a fascist, what words are left for people advocating syndicalist economics and thuggish mass movements?

Gentlemen, According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first uses of "or else" in "trailing" form appear to have occurred in the 19th century, drawing upon the then-centuries'-old use of the phrase with a similar meaning but with the threats explicitly stated. The OED also defines the "trailing" use of the word as aposiopesis: the alternative to be imagined. ;)

Steve Teeter from New Orleans sent this encouraging dispatch yesterday, but I've been out of the office all week, and only just now got it:

Rod, you MUST know about this at once. Convey to the Corner as you see
fit.

I live in New Orleans on Napoleon Avenue, just above Magazine Street, which means that just about every uptown Carnival parade goes right in front of my house. (Because of the construction on Canal Street, they're all uptown this year.) Minutes ago I was out watching the Krewe of Chaos parade, Chaos being a three-year-old krewe formed from some of the members of the venerable Momus krewe, and continuing their ancient tradition of satire and mockery of current institutions and events.

Float No. 6 sent me rapidly indoors to my keyboard. In the Momus tradition, it was a moderate sized float with 8 or 10 masked riders throwing beads, and it was titled "The Betrayal." The papier-mache figure on the front was a rather ridiculous looking frog. Along the sides were painted images of determined-looking soldiers carrying American flags through heavy fire, with placards on the float reading "WW-I," "WW-II," "Cold War," "D-Day." At the rear was a sort of blocky superstructure labeled "French Toaster" with the NATO symbol on its side. At the front, just under the frog and facing forward, was the painted image of a rifle and two placards, the first thing all parade goers would see as it comes down the street, reading "French rifles for sale," "Never fired, dropped once."

In the next few hours, this float will roll in front of tens of thousands of parade goers as it wends its way down to Canal Street, and if the reaction of the people I heard around me is any indication, it will be greeted all the way by gales of laughter and loud cheers.

Ma'am, A real world example of what Mr. D. is talking about. Think of all those oddly shaped dice that players of Dungeons and Dragons use. Hope this is useful.

For Derb: When did the phrase "or else?" become a threat without need of finishing the sentence? Presumably at some point people would say "...or else we will cut out your tongue!" Or, "...or else, we will sew a ferret into your small intestine." When did the threat become implied? Was it a Shakespearean construction or deconstruction? Alas, unlike your Abbot and Costello question I have no idea what the answer is.

I also once read that he had a dime (or maybe it was a penny, considering inflation) stuck in his ear for nearly 30 years. Don't know where I read it or whether it's true.

I have to say I'm surprised "This Week" is doing so badly against "Meet the Press." I think Russert does a good job and all, but he seems so concerned with being the Sunday Show of Record. Meanwhile, "This Week" tends to break news and its panel -- especially when Fareed Zakaria is on -- is far superior to the occasional snore-fest panels on "Meet the Press" with Safire and Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Great item, via Drudge, about how Yassir Arafat is worth "at least" 300 million dollars. What a servant of his people.

Here's an email titled, "Under what rock did you crawl out from?"

Jonah,

I applaud your red-baiting ignoramus-rousing article,
"Two Cheers for “McCarthyism.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg022603.asp

You are a true example of why George Bush's Junta should be brought down a soon as possible. As US deficits soar, as false Homeland Security warnings abound, as the stock market continues to sink from the lack of addressing corporate fraud, we have you, Jonah Goldberg, tells us how wonderful it was to have Joe McCarthy falsely accusing thousands of upstanding Americans of being Communists.

Maybe we are better off with Bush's attack on Iraq resulting in having the whole Arab world committed to Jihad against America, rather than re-instituting McCarthyism. Why not? You are rich and can avoid the effects of the global upheaval that will result from your hero's misdirected war.

A: ... they give these ball players nowadays very peculiar names... C: You mean funny names? A: Strange names, pet names, like Dizzy Dean... C: And his brother Daffy? A: ...Daffy Dean... C: And his French cousin. A: French? C: Goo Fay. A: Goo Fay Dean... Oh, I see... [Lots of audience laughter.]

Jonah: Your "fair enough" response to this position is very congenial and illustrates a significant difference between conservatives and the left. If a conservative speaks or attends a seminar etc. at a place like Bob Jones University he or she will not be characterized as having a "vague association" with a fundamentalist group by the left.That person will be villified as showing their true colors.etc. Almost every person of the left I have known will tell you sooner or later that disagreement with their point of view means you are either stupid or a bigot. No leftist I have ever met would have been as receptive to an alternative point of view as you were to CALPUNDIT.

By the way all your efforts are a delight to read but this McCarthy
piece is a keeper.

AND:

Jonah, I have to admit my first reaction to your column was similar to Cal Pundit's. Shame on me for not reading more carefully. You are correct that there is nothing wrong in hunting communists, McCarthys's problem was that he did it with such paranoia and self-serving dishonesty. And you clearly identified him as a lout. Such a marvelous and infrequently used term is lout. You should do more with this. How about an online poll where readers vote for the "Greatest lout of the past" and "Greatest lout of the present". McCarthy could lead the list of choices from the past and, though my first reaction is to lead the list of the present with Bill Clinton, methinks Chuck Schumer would be far more appropriate (in the vein of McCarthyite dishonesty).

Has some thoughtful criticisms of my column. But I think he's missing the central point. He writes, "It's not McCarthyism to accuse a communist of being a communist. It is McCarthyism to accuse someone of being a communist who has only a vague association with communist friends, groups, or ideas."

Fair enough. And as I said the column and in the Corner, I am no defender of false-accusations and I think McCarthy's tactics set back the cause of anti-Communism. But the Hollywood Ten, for example, were not victims of "McCarthyism" since there was nothing vague about their membership -- not "association"-- with the Communist Party. Moreover, McCarthy had little to nothing to do with Hollywood communists. When Lilian Hellman said that anti-Communists picked communism as a cause with as much cynicism as Hitler picked anti-Semitism, she meant that there was no substance to the search for Communists. But there was. They did help Stalin get the atomic bomb, you know. That's hardly a strategically trivial point. Every effort to find, expose and punish spies and vassals for an enemy power -- which, again was really quite evil -- was ridiculed as McCarthyism. That's why the opponents of the Bush administration use the word so much. They want to suggest there is no point to looking for terrorists in our midst because they don't exist and anyone who claims otherwise is a bigot of some kind.

As for Calpundit's assertion that I spend 1,000 words defending McCarthy the "man," I'm not sure what he's talking about. It seems to me I defended the cause of anti-Communism which liberals routinely label "McCarthyism." As for the man, how many times do I have to call him a "lout" and a "jerk" before Calpundit will see that I'm not defending the man?

Now that's something you don't hear everyday.
Check it out.

I'm not going to post all of these emails. But i find this one really intriguing because of its larger significance:

I am constantly amazed by the views of a conservative mind. I was an Eisenhower Republican when I was young, but the party moved so far to the right after that, at ever increasing speeds, that I am proud to call myself a Democrat now. The Democratic Party moved to the center and replaced the Republican Party's concern for civil rights, the middle class, and sensible economic policies. A conservative, it seems to me, is homophobic in that they see evil in essentially all peoples that they disagree with. How sorrowful to have to live like that.

The first two thirds is boilerplate. But then this guys says that conservatives are "homophobic" because they see evil in essentially all peoples that they disagree with."

Again I say: Fascinating! Already, Fascism means anything undesirable, McCarthyism means anything mean and, now, homophobia means hatred of people who disagree with you. You would think that even this guy would understand that we still need words for people who don't like homosexuals. I confess that I don't like the word homophobia because I think fear is not necessarily the best explanation for anti-gay views. But we're stuck with it.

But here we have someone who believes, in all honesty, that hatred of active, dues paying, spying, Stalinists can best be described as "homophobia." This is the sort of slippery thinking that will give you road rash on your butt if you don't watch out. Are environmentalists homophobes because they hate oil men? Are vegans homophobes because they hate meat-eaters? Are gays homophobes if they hate Christian fundamentalists? By this logic I guess my dog is a homophobe because he loathes squirrels so. Then again, you know what people say about squirrels...

This guy makes me want to say nah-nah, booby-booby:

what disgusting drivel this one is. I used to think there might be a bottom for you conservatives to hit at some time. Now I think there is no low limit you folks will sink to in trying to justify your hatred of all people who do not agree with your and your self righteous bullshit. If you had lived during the Mcarthy era it might remind you of the lies, destruction and anti American wave of hatred and fear he generated through out our society. He was a liar and a boob and it was not till he was finally outted that we were able to resume life as Americans who could agree to disagree over political ideas. One thing you conservatives seem to always be ready to do is hate someone or something to justify your existence.

of a fan site if it's never updated?

I'll be debating Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, on the question "Does Global Free Trade Help Poor Nations?" at Wheaton College (the one in Mass) on March 11. Just an FYI.

And, if you've seen something really, really definitive that I might have missed, please send it to VoteGfile@aol.com.

Jonah, I'm with you on Mr. Rogers. I didn't care for his program as a kid, but as an adult -- and especially as a parent -- I really came to value what he stood for. Children's programming these days is so frenetic, artless and stylistically coarse, and as I've complained before, so much of it is one long commercial for toys and related products. I don't recall that Mr. Rogers ever licensed his name for marketing purposes. By happenstance, I spent a half hour last night watching a great videocassette sent to me by WAFB Channel 9 in Baton Rouge (thanks, y'all), a special commemorating Buckskin Bill, the local kiddie show host, who was on Channel 9 for something like 40 years. Of course it was a wonderful nostalgia trip for me (up with the Monday Morning March!), but it was also instructive to me as the father of a small boy.

It's hard to overestimate how much kids from the Baton Rouge area loved Buckskin Bill, and what a big part of our lives he was. How much we trusted him. Yet as is obvious from the old tapes, his program was extremely low-tech, and very gentle. There is no place for a Buckskin Bill in a Spongebob Squarepants world. Yeah, yeah, it's pathetic to listen to older people sit around whining about how they don't make 'em like they used to anymore, but I really do believe it's a huge loss for children that contemporary TV has formatted their brains to require jolts of manic entertainment, such that a Mr. Rogers or a Buckskin Bill comes off not as comforting but dull.

Malaysian leader Mahathir bin Muhamad has now taken over leadership of the so-called Non-Aligned Movement of nations, and used the occasion to launch a revolting attack on the West in general and Jews in particular. This news inspired David G. Littman, an NGO representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, to observe the following in an e-mail to the Corner:

"The outrageous remarks by the new chairman of the 116-member Non-Aligned  Movement: 'Mahathir -- one of Asia's most respected and outspoken statesman,'  according to an AP report  -- were in his usual fiery rhetoric style. Aside from 'collateral' damages comparisons - with 'the 3,000 who died in New York and the 200 in Bali,' his statement that 'there was no systematic campaign of terror outside Europe until the Europeans and the Jews created a Jewish state out of Palestinian land.' Four examples from the 1980s and 1990s should suffice to show the disgracefully racist flavor of his 'thinking' on 'Jews'!:
 
"1) At the 8th Conference Meeting in 1986 of the then 101-Member Movement of the same 'Non-Aligned' countries, held in Harare, Zimbabwe, he was quoted as saying : 'The expulsion of Jews from the Holy Land some two thousand years ago and the Nazi oppression of Jews have taught them nothing. If at all, it has transformed the Jews into the very monsters that they condemn so roundly in their propaganda material. They have been apt pupils of Dr. Goebbels.' (Int. Herald Tribune, Oct. 8, 1986). This public comment about 'Jews' by  Asia's 'respected and outspoken statesman' was made on Sept. 7, 1986, the day after Abu Nidal's PLO-dissident terrorist squad massacred 23 Jews at worship in the Neve Shalom ('Gates of Peace') synagogue in Istanbul.
 
"2) Three months later, he inaugurated Malaysia's 'Anti-Jewish Day' (New York Times Dec. 7, 1986, p. 6), and on a State Visit to Great Britain in July 1987 (received by the queen), he again repeated the 'Goebbels' calumny publicly, without overt criticism. 
 
"3)  In 1994, 'Schindler's List' was banned in Malaysia on the grounds that it was 'Jewish propaganda.' (IHT, March 24, 1994)
 
"4)  Then came the three months of accusations against American financier George Soros of 'helping trigger the region's currency losses' (the ringgit had lost 30% - 'Malaysian Leader Sees Hidden Jewish 'Agenda','  by Thomas Fuller, IHT, Oct. 11-12, 1996). He also declared: 'We are Muslims, and the Jews are not happy to see Muslims progress.'
 
"I need hardly add that at no time has this 'respected and outspoken statesman' from Asia been criticized at the UN Commission on Human Rights for his ongoing, blatantly racist and hateful remarks that are in contradiction with the International Bill of Human Rights.

"Earlier this week, again, he insisted that religious extremists were only reacting to 'blatant double standards' (Iraq and Palestine!). The real 'double standards' are that no Western democratically elected leader could get away with mouthing such crude garbage."

John - I must confess I was never a huge fan of Mr. Rogers. When I was a kid I watched him for a little while, but I quickly grew tired of him because he was so "soothing." I wanted more smashing and lasers -- that's just the kind of kid I was. But I have to say I grew to respect the man much more than I liked the show. Just this morning I was listening to him on NPR in an old interview. He had some profoundly conservative ideas about how children are and should be raised. First, he explicitly confirmed that children ape what they see grown-ups do -- one of the chief arguments for censorship. Second, he gave a great explanation of why kids need rules. I'm paraphrasing, but he said that if a kid runs away from you down the street and you don't yell "Stop! Come back!" that kid will reasonably assume that you don't care if he runs off. Children respond to limits on their behavior -- and test those limits -- because it is one of the most concrete ways we have to teach them that we love them.

Thankfully, this sort of thinking may be increasingly popular today, but I grew up among a lot of kids with parents who believed setting rules and limits for kids was a terrible idea. Being told that all of your ideas are brilliant and all your impulses should be acted upon teaches almost precisely the opposite lessons parents intend. Unconditional love is good, but unconditional respect and self-esteem-boosting creates not only dumb people but annoying ones. And, yes, this is a sweeping generalization with all sorts of exceptions.

My father is a font of anti-Communist arcana (what did you think I picked this stuff up from college or my New York City high school?). Here's an email he sent me about the Hollywood Ten, too late for inclusion in the column:

I believe the Hollywood Ten were legally at risk because they violated the Smith Act, which was passed in 1940 and made it a crime to advocate the violent overthrow of the government. The Smith Act was the bete noire of the Communist Party and they fought it tooth and nail. It became in Communist folklore the American Nuremberg Laws - BUT first to uphold the implementation of the Smith Act was none other than the Communist Party, USA, which gleefully turned over the names of Trotskyites to the FBI. I didn't trust my memory on this so I googled it (Smith Act - first entry gives a history - although tendentious in its opposition to it - of the act). Here's the pertinent paragraph:

"An ironic aspect of the convictions, which was not lost among civil libertarians and others, was that the Communist Party had fully supported the use in 1941 of the Smith Act against the leaders of the Socialist Workers Party. Motivated by its hatred of Trotskyist political opponents and its fervent support for the Soviet-American alliance of World War II, the Party had judged the Smith Act perfectly constitutional and the subsequent trials a legitimate government action. Those positions gravely undercut the credibility of the Party's efforts in the 1950s to characterize the Smith Act as unconstitutional and to mobilize a defense on the basis of political free speech and freedom of association."

The convictions referred to were of the leadership of the Communist party - Henry Winston, Eugene Dennis, John Gates, Gus Hall, Ben Davis, five others (all listed in the google story) - in, I believe 1949.) The Ten were convicted of contempt of Congress (HUAC hear ings), and several of them jumped bail and went underground but later were apprehended and imprisoned. Original sentences were for five years. The Commies had to wiggle out of their embarrassment of endorsing the Smith Act to punish the Trotskyites, back in 1940.. The bottom line in all this is that the Communists had no governing morality - they would use a law they detested in order to punish their enemies, just as they will use the word "peace" to disarm their enemies.

Jonah, you display the wisdom of Solomon! I already have a mug and a NRODT subscription. So, I'd like to offer you free use of my private jet for whenever you and your family need it and the keys to my villa in Tuscony. You deserve it!

Okay, I made that up. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't follow that lead. The rabbit race dogs chase isn't real either.

I love this email:

Jonah

I will be 73 in April. I have waited for 50 years to read what you said in the above mentioned column. 'nuff said.

Rebuilding Iraq will require a sustained commitment from many nations, including our own: We will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more. America has made and kept this kind of commitment before--in the peace that followed a world war. After defeating enemies, we did not leave behind occupying armies, we left constitutions and parliaments. We established an atmosphere of safety, in which responsible, reform-minded local leaders could build lasting institutions of freedom. In societies that once bred fascism and militarism, liberty found a permanent home.

Kathryn - egads! Obviously they've labeled my opponent's comments as my own. Heads will roll. The only good thing is that it must bother her more than it bothers me.

From a reader:

Jonah,

In stating that dogs can be sexist and racist, you seemed to thoughtlessly link pierced males with anti-war protestors. I know of at least on pierced, tatted ex-skater who subscribes to NRODT and barks even louder than Cosmo at war protestors. I didn't follow the whole crunchy-con debate too closely but was able to pick out that you dislike clouding politics with such abstract relations to personal preferences. Just because you don't plop a name on the abstraction doesn't mean you aren't employing the same style.

Keep up the great writing, as a holey-inked-con I've endured enough stereotypes I can't fault you for having this one.

Re-reading it now that I've taken a breath.

My relatively tame syndicated column on Roe V. Wade etc. Interestingly, I've gotten nasty email from pro-lifers and pro-choicers.

There's a good piece in Slate about whether or not dogs can be racist. I suspect most dog owners already know the answer. Dogs owned by whites oftern have problems with blacks and vice versa. This has to do with the way dogs learn about "others." There's nothing sinister about it.

Dogs can also be sexist. Cosmo, for example, likes the ladies but has got serious problems with men, especially young men. He'll growl at young black guys and at young white guys while he'll work the magic with women of any race. We've also noticed -- and I'm not making this up -- Cosmo particularly dislikes skeeves, skate rats, and other males with aggressive hair and pierced faces. He just doesn't like them and, truth be told, I'm quite proud of him for it. Whenever my lovely bride and I see anti-war protestors and the like, we'll say "Oh, man Cosmo wouldn't like those guys." (As long-time readers know this is hardly shocking since the Wonderdog is rumored to be a Scoop Jackson Democrat and Straussian). Meanwhile, I have another take on dogs and racism, which was published in Slate -- eek -- four years ago.

I'm increasingly sympathetic to the argument that factory farming needs reforming, but this is the sort of intellectual and moral filth which will turn me off completely. Be warned, the images are grim -- as they compare factory farming to the Holocaust.

off to CNN (12:30ish EST). G-File -- a real stemwinder -- is in K-Lo's overburdened hands.

I had my first in-my-face liberal law school experience yesterday. I've experienced the liberal professors in class, the liberal students etc., but I was fit to be tied when I saw signs posted around school yesterday explaining to the students why JAG recruiters would be allowed on campus. The signs were meant to redirect the obvious indignation and shock we would feel from seeing a uniform-clad member of the armed forces in the very building where we are busily expanding our minds away from the school administration and towards...whom? The sign actually says that "recently enacted federal legislation known as the Solomon Amendments" were to blame….I guess everyone was too flustered with the emotional turmoil they felt seeing these warriors invade campus to take a moment and celebrate progress--the Army JAG recruiter dressed in Class A's whom I was chatting with on the way to class yesterday was pushing a baby carriage!

Important news from the Associated Press. After the Vilnius 10 comes the Fanoe one:
"A Danish pizzeria has banned French and Germans from dining there because of their country's stance on a war with Iraq.

Aage Bjerre, who owns Aage's Pizza on the island of Fanoe, said he's tired of French and German attitudes toward the United States.

He's put two homemade drawings on the shop door, one a silhouette of a man coloured red, yellow and black for Germany and another in the red, white and blue for France.

Both silhouettes have a bar across them.
He says Germans will be allowed in if their country joins a war on Iraq, but the French will have to endure a lifetime ban.

Aage said: "Hadn't the United States helped Europe in defeating Germany, there would have been photos of Adolf Hitler hanging on the walls around here."

The ban has yet to effect his business because the tourist season only starts after Easter and peaks during the summer. "I do what my conscience tells me to do," he said.

He added: "Frenchmen have a lifetime ban here. Their attitude toward the United States will never change.""

I have never been bummed about snow. I join my canine friends in believing that all snow is a joyous occassion. But this is getting ridiculous.