Hello,

Many of you may be familiar with the memoir-family history Wild Swans, which spans three generations in the life of a Chinese family: concubine grandmother, apparatchik mother, Red Guard and London scholar daughter.

Now the author of that book, Yung Chang, has written a book on Mao together with her historian husband Jon Halliday. (Mao. The Unknown Story. Cape.) (A bit more about it later.)

One review of the book appeared in the (London) Times Literary Supplement, you can read it at http://www.the-tls.co.uk/this_week
What is distressing, however, is that reviews for the Financial Times and for the BBC were BLOCKED.
(More BELOW.)

Hello, today the Daily Outrage in The Nation is about the case of the two NY girls detained by  the FBI.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/outrage?bid=13&pid=2316

A nice quote:

¨These days, arresting sixteen-year-old Muslim girls as would-be suicide bombers passes for homeland security.¨

See also the main editorial in the NYTimes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/opinion/12tue1.html?

Many thanks to moiv, for writing to Bob Herbert!

--- A.

Edkra's Sunday update on the case of the two NY girls is at

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/10/152739/349

PLEASE-PLEASE-PLEASE

        RECOMMEND THIS DIARY!

For those who want to help, or are merely concerned about the two girls, it is v. important that the info be visible and quickly accessible!
(Not to mention those who don't know about the  case yet, but could be interested!)

Thanks to all,

Agnes

Many of you have asked what one can do about the 2 detained NY schoolgirls. I think we can act in several ways:

-- find out as much as possible about the case (with legal means, of course)

-- find out what is being done for the girls, by parents, school, civil rights groups a.s.o., a.s.o.(edkra's original diary has the addresses,
phone and fax numbers etc of the 2 high schools:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/9/7440/37974)

-- alert as many people as possible; I've just sent a tip to  TalkingPointsMemo, and, since I am a junkie for detective stories, I'm going to write to Sara Paretsky, who is as liberal as it gets, and her latest novel, Blacklist,  looks like a blueprint for this case; (http://www.saraparetsky.com)

-- of course, should there be a fund for legal aid, one can do the usual (right) thing.

Hello,

this editorial in the LATimes uses the OBL tape and the case of the missing explosives in Iraq to explain why Kerry's strategy/plans to combat terrorism are more promising.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-intel30oct30,1,5178761.story?coll=la-news-comme nt-editorials

Since registration is required for the LAT, I'll reproduce it at the end of this post.

Something else that can be passed along: there is an article in the Boston Globe where GWB is cast as Graham Greene's Quiet American:starry-eyed,full of missionary zeal, wreaking havoc in the name of democracy and liberty. The piece is not confrontational, just  quietly devastating.

 http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/30/bush_steps_out_of_a_grah am_greene_novel/