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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

lunarchick - 07:30am Aug 26, 2001 EST (#8146 of 8151)
lunarchick@www.com

Philip Pullman : Surging sales in the United States of books by Philip Pullman - whose The Amber Spyglass has been tipped to become the first 'children's novel' to win the Booker Prize - are subverting the influence of the Religious Right at the moment of its greatest political triumph.

With the sponsorship of the Bush administration, it has laid siege not only to American medicine, politics and academe - making Adam and Eve scientific fact in Kansas - it has also declared holy war on literature, targeting books written for young people. It has even sought to purge tales of witchcraft and magic from library shelves.

Against this tide of orthodoxy, Pullman's books - almost two million of them - have been selling like the fires sweeping the parched plains of the Bible Belt, a fact that gives him considerable satisfaction. In an interview with The Observer , Pullman, who lives in Oxford, said that the Right was striving to establish a hegemony which was 'orthodox, authoritarian doctrine'.

Published last autumn, The Amber Spyglass is the final book in the trilogy. His Dark Materials , which takes its name from Milton's Par adise Lost and also deals with Creation and the fall of man.

It has been described as the most dense and provocative of the three novels: in its 550 pages Pullman contrasts innocence and experience, good and evil. He redefines Mary as a fallen woman and Eve as the redeemer of men, and presents God as an ordinary angel before killing him. The plot is full of fairytale inventions, with witches, armoured bears, tiny spies who travel on dragonflies, and a 'subtle knife' which can be used to cut windows into parallel worlds.

lunarchick - 07:40am Aug 26, 2001 EST (#8147 of 8151)
lunarchick@www.com

Pullman : http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,542616,00.html

lunarchick - 07:57am Aug 26, 2001 EST (#8148 of 8151)
lunarchick@www.com

Musing: Noted in reading that the EU has granted human rights to Pagans. Wondering here re Communists of yore .. were they left of left? Has Russia - taking on the Orthodox mantel once again, moved backwards, forwards or right. If Orthodoxy is left of Communism .. does this mean the world is Round? In the US what's understood by left, right and far right? Does this equate with tomorrow, today and yesterday?

rshowalter - 08:48am Aug 26, 2001 EST (#8149 of 8151)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We're living in a new world, with many relations changing -- and changing fast. The United States, long the "undisputed leader" is now at risk of becoming the "undisputed pariah among nations." Relationships not thought seriously about five months ago make sense now.

A lot of things are happening where good action is going to depend on true, balanced, properly crafted information.

The question "how do you check?" -- is becoming very important. I'm finding myself challenged by it. Issues that have been discussed for many months on this thread are coming into focus.

A central fact is that, when there are barriers to checking - barriers to communication - "switches" that tell people "we don't have to listen" -- many good things that are otherwise possible are ruled out.

Interesting pieces in THE WEEK IN REVIEW today !

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