The composer George Perle observed when Stravinsky died that the world was without a great composer for the first time in six hundred years. It still is.

This is an astoundingly neoconservative book. Back in the days before the left transmuted the word "neoconservative" to mean war-mongering Jew, a prevailing understanding of the term was that it referred to a certain group of intellectuals who imported the sociological method to conservatism. What made, say, the Public Interest a neoconservative magazine was that it attacked issues of public policy with social science--then the lingua franca of the serious left--in order to reach conservative conclusions. Hence, one of the main criticisms of neoconservatism from the right was that it did not work enough from first principles. It had to prove everything that earlier generations thought self-evident. Neocons were too concerned with immanentizing and not concerned enough with the eschaton, to mangle a phrase from Eric Voegelin. Indeed, even the benefits of religion could not be taken on faith. The neocons had to prove that believing in God tended to keep societies more orderly, families more intact, and children more successful.

Well, here we have "Human Accomplishment," a book written by an avowed libertarian that, quite literally, puts all of humanity through the algorithmic wringer. What comes out the other end? Unsurprisingly, the rediscovery of what conservatives had said all along: The combination of the West's indebtedness to Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome set the foundations for an exceptional civilization that, in turn, created the Enlightenment and, eventually, the United States of America. The postmodernists and critical theorists, who shriek that the edifice created by these many giants should be dismantled, are taking sledgehammers to the very platforms from which they shriek.

... I think Hanna Arendt was right when she said that Western Civilization is invaded every generation by barbarians - we call them children. I would add that parents are the first, best, line of defense against the invaders.

There are no citizen factories. The State cannot create citizens on a mass scale (history is full of bloody failed attempts to demonstrate otherwise). In a successful society, citizens must be made by small artisans working on a case-by-case basis. We call these artisans “parents.” I have no doubt that in a world of bad parents some children would still become good citizens. But not enough, not nearly enough.

A civilization that forgets this has signed its death warrant. Parents matter - a lot.

In his nervy, tightly documented Islamic Imperialism, Karsh challenges scholars and Muslim leaders to refute his own picture of Islam: an imperialist seventh-century Arabic movement that forced itself on neighboring lands such as today's Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Egypt for secular colonialist payoffs - money, booty, territory.

According to Karsh, Muhammad, by claiming Allah's authority to act as both a political and religious leader, was able "to cloak his political ambitions with a religious aura" and "channel Islam's energies" into geographic expansion.

It is my opinion that KW’s advocacy of meditation consistently violates his principles of validity, yet he continues to promote meditation; ... I am troubled that he may continue his unfounded, misleading, and potentially harmful pronouncements concerning the benefits of meditation...

The proposal applies to any stores with more than 90,000 square feet of space that are owned by companies that have at least $1 billion in annual sales. That covers 38 existing retailers, including Sears, Nordstrom, Home Depot and -- most important -- Wal-Mart, whose efforts to enter Chicago two years ago sparked the recent debate. Unions see Wal-Mart as public enemy No. 1, and they have lobbied aldermen hard to win their support for the higher wages.

The risk to Chicago, of course, is that those retailers will follow through with their threats to avoid the city and instead locate in nearby suburbs, which would get the jobs and generate the sales and property tax revenues that would have otherwise come to the city. And those big-box stores tend to spur other development, providing a further economic boost that would be lost to Chicago.

Wal-Mart, which has one store under construction in the city, has said passage of the law will make it reconsider plans to add perhaps 20 more. Target has said it will reconsider three new stores and may even close existing locations.

Maybe what they should do instead is open stores that are 89,999 square feet in size. That would expose the arbitrary and unfair nature of the law. McDonald's, for instance, has more than $1 billion in sales but isn't affected because it has lots of little outlets instead of fewer big ones. More to the point, so does Walgreens, whose inventory is similar to that of Wal-Mart. Why should the size of the store dictate the pay for its workers? That will probably be a question for the courts because a lawsuit is all but inevitable.

Hey, Hot Dog, Bratwurst, Italian and Polish sausages, guess who's coming to dinner at Miller Park? Meet the Chorizo, a zesty Mexican sausage.

On Thursday, the Milwaukee Brewers and Klement's Sausage Co. are expected to introduce the Chorizo as the newest member of the Famous Racing Sausages, according to a source with knowledge of the promotion.

The sausages, which emerged sometime in the early 1990s at old County Stadium in virtual scoreboard races, have attracted national attention and are a huge fan favorite at Miller Park.

Ideally, the garden is the site where man engages nature without defeating it, an encounter Borchardt expresses as "the eternal tension between the flower and the garden. ... The order within the flower is prehuman, and governs the flower itself. The garden speaks of human modes of order, where man is master, subduer, and transformer." The key to a successful garden, he insists, is to maintain "the wealth of this tension," allowing the gardener and the garden, nature and humanity, to work in partnership.

Israel = Hezbollah

I fully expect that "argument" to flower into nearly full blown conventional wisdom in the weeks ahead, particularly if the Lebanese Army ends up fighting alongside Hezbollah. Yesterday, on NPR I listened to Rami Khouri of the Lebanese Daily Star ask with deep scorn "So America can ship precision weapons to Israel but Iran and Syria can't send weapons to Hezbollah." I'm quoting from memory, but I'm fairly certain that's close to an exact quote.

This captures, in a nutshell, the essence of the asininity of the forthcoming debate. The point of fact, Khouri's highly cultivated righteousness notwithstanding, is, yes, America can ship precision weapons to Israel and, no, Iran and Syria should not be sending missiles to Hezbollah, an established terror organization. Hezbollah claims to be a political party. Why does it need anti-ship missiles? Moreover, look at what the U.S. is shipping to Israel. We're selling them precision munitions so as to avoid casualties. What do Iran and Syria give to Hezbollah? Rockets intended to kill casualties, many of them loaded with buck shot, almost none of them with a guidance system to aim at strategic targets. Their rockets are intended to just fly in any old direction. If they hit a school, fine. If they hit an old-age home, fine. If they hit an oil refinery, bonus!

Of course, we sell other weapons to Israel, but this is a small illustration of how important moral distinctions get deliberately worn down in these sorts of conflicts.

As time goes by, we're going to see the analogy between Hezbollah and Israel harden for two reasons: 1) People on the anti-Israel side want to elevate Hezbollah's moral status while lowering Israel's and 2) journalists are very, very lazy and will want to take comfort in supposedly "balanced" formulations.

Mr Kent added that he felt the secret of composing successful film music was working with the director - and that it was not possible simply to come up with a bolted-on score at the end of the process.

"I don't really know what the director wants unless the director's involved with me on a fairly regular basis," he said.

"I'll write some music and the director will come in several times a week to talk about what I'm doing and where it should go.

"So I depend upon directors being involved and being able to articulate what they want and help shape the score.

"Frankly it makes me much better at doing what I want to do."

Given that Matisyahu, now 26, sings about God and related matters, it’s impossible not to class him as a devotional artist -- and pusillanimous not to acknowledge that Hasidic doctrine is as male supremacist as any other churchly fundamentalism. But despite the sexually oppressive roots of his faith, Matisyahu sings music that is open, rangy, catchy, novel, and compulsively appealing enough that any listener can take from it the sound and feel of a certain kind of freedom -- a licentiousness of the spirit that by its nature is anti-orthodox and represents the opposite of oppression. In fact, more than Hasidism’s harsh moral strictures and gender inequality, Matisyahu incarnates the sect’s other tradition: its 18th-century comprehension of song as religious rapture and its emphasis on joy expressed through wild dance, free gesticulation, the open throat.

NEW YORK -- Shortly after Oneonta beat Brooklyn 6-1 in 26 innings Thursday, Mark Wright could hardly believe he had played in the longest game in New York-Penn League history.

"It kind of gets to the point where you get in a rhythm and it seems like it will never end," said Wright, a reserve outfielder who ended up pitching and taking the loss when the Cyclones ran out of pitchers. "I think it's hard, it gets into your mind a little bit."

Deik Scram's one-out run-scoring single in the 26th put the Class A Tigers in front and Randor Bierd pitched two scoreless innings to get the win in one of the longest games in the history of professional baseball.

The Pawtucket Red Sox beat the Rochester Red Wings 3-2 in 33 innings in a Triple-A game in 1981 for the longest pro game. In 1920, the Boston Braves and Brooklyn Dodgers tied 1-1 in 26 innings in the longest major league game by innings.

Oneonta, a Detroit affiliate, and Brooklyn, a Mets farm team, combined for 34 hits, seven errors and 15 pitchers in the game that took 6 hours, 40 minutes to complete. Danny Cummins doubled in a run in the first for Brooklyn, but Ryan Strieby's RBI groundout in the fourth inning tied it.

And on it went.

One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.

"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities. Few people even seem interested in the actual track record of so-called "peace" movements -- that is, whether such movements actually produce peace or war.

Take the Middle East. People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent.

Was World War II ended by cease-fires or by annihilating much of Germany and Japan? Make no mistake about it, innocent civilians died in the process. Indeed, American prisoners of war died when we bombed Germany.

There is a reason why General Sherman said "war is hell" more than a century ago. But he helped end the Civil War with his devastating march through Georgia -- not by cease fires or bowing to "world opinion" and there were no corrupt busybodies like the United Nations to demand replacing military force with diplomacy.

There was a time when it would have been suicidal to threaten, much less attack, a nation with much stronger military power because one of the dangers to the attacker would be the prospect of being annihilated.

"World opinion," the U.N. and "peace movements" have eliminated that deterrent. An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.

That has been a formula for never-ending attacks on Israel in the Middle East. The disastrous track record of that approach extends to other times and places -- but who looks at track records?

KETCHUM, Idaho (AP) -- It took surgery to save a 12-foot Burmese python after it swallowed an entire queen-size electric blanket - with the electrical cord and control box.

The blanket must have gotten tangled up in the snake's rabbit dinner, owner Karl Beznoska said. He kept the blanket in the cage to keep the 60-pound reptile, named Houdini, warm.

"Somehow, he was able to unplug the electric cord," Beznoska said Wednesday. "He at least wasn't hooked up to the power. It might have been pretty warm there."

Veterinarian Karsten Fostvedt conducted a two-hour operation on the python Tuesday, and said afterward, "The prognosis is great."

Unusually among successful film composers, Morricone has never moved to Hollywood. He has also refused to learn English, which, having got some sense of his character over the last hour or so, is beginning to make sense. "I never had the time," he says of his lack of linguistic knowledge. As for relocating to America, it was never an option, even after his high-profile success with Hollywood films such as The Mission (for which he was nominated for an Oscar). America would just have to come to him.

"They said they would give me a villa," he says of the attempts Hollywood studios made to get him to move. "I told them I liked it in Italy, and there was no need to leave Rome because I only speak with the director about the score, not the studio." He is deeply critical of the Hollywood trend for composers to write a score that is then sent to a professional arranger. "In the history of music, composition is instrumentation - a composer doesn't just write the music and then get someone else to do the orchestration. Nobody, apart from a few people in America, does this."

Beluga born at Shedd

Chicago's Shedd Aquarium announced today the birth of a male beluga whale calf.

One of the Shedd's adult belugas, Puiji, gave birth to the calf about 6 p.m. Monday, the aquarium said in a news release. The mother and calf were doing well after their first night together, and will remain under 24-hour observation for several months, the release said.

Puiji and her calf will not be on public view for at least a month or more.

"We are excited and thrilled about the birth, however, a calf must reach several milestones in its first days and months," Ken Ramirez, vice president of animal programs and animal training, said in the release.

Those milestones include learning to nurse and, later, learning to feed independently, the Shedd said.

MOBILE -- To the bafflement of insect experts, gigantic yellow jacket nests have started turning up in old barns, unoccupied houses, cars and underground cavities across the southern two-thirds of Alabama.

Specialists say it could be the result of a mild winter and drought conditions, or multiple queens forcing worker yellow jackets to enlarge their quarters so the queens will be in separate areas. But experts haven't determined exactly what's behind the surprisingly large nests.

Auburn University entomologists, who say they've never seen the nests so large, have been fielding calls about the huge nests from property owners from Dothan up to Sylacauga and over into west-central Alabama's Black Belt.

At one site in Barbour County, the nest was as large as a Volkswagen Beetle, said Andy McLean, an Orkin pesticide service manager in Dothan who helped remove it from an abandoned barn about a month ago.

"It was one of the largest ones we've seen," McLean said.

When you say "World War Three" the average person conjures the image of World War II. But the Cold War is the more relevant episode. The Cold War certainly involved bloodshed (Korea, Vietnam, etc) but it also involved aggressive efforts across a wide variety of fronts including public diplomacy, intelligence, propaganda (the good kind) etc. We understood that we were in a battle of ideas and values as much as a battle of blood and territory. Indeed, the stakes during the Cold War were arguably higher than those of the second World War because nuclear annihilation was in the cards. That, it seems to me, is a better prism through which we should see the current predicament. Domino theory and public diplomacy had fairly minor roles in World War II. But such considerations are central to our understanding of today's challenges. Of course, the Cold War analogy fails in some important respects as it was mostly a contest between states. But all analogies fail in important respects, that's why they're analogies.

It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility. Overall, our committee believes that Dr. Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.

Matthew Dallman To Be Profiled in Marquis Who’s Who In America Publication

Milwaukee, WI — July 12, 2006 — Matthew Dallman, of Chicago, has been selected to be profiled in the 2007 (61st) edition of Who’s Who in America (forthcoming), the leading biographical reference publisher of the highest achievers and contributors from across the country and around the world.

Dallman has a unique multimedia voice. He is a composer, classically trained in the European and American traditions. He is also an art/aesthetics scholar, leading blogger, and poet. He is the editor-in-chief of POLYSEMY Magazine, which he founded in 2005. He has released several albums of original compositions, and composes for independent films. A composition for marimba is the soundtrack to the film, A Whirling Tango, an Official Selection of the 2005 Chicago International Film Festival, that was directed by Hannah Dallman (his wife). He also is currently an MFA candidate in Music Composition for the Screen (film scoring) at Columbia College Chicago. He is the recipient of a 2006 Individual Artist grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. He is the author of numerous essays on contemporary arts/aesthetics available on his website (www.MatthewDallman.com), as well as a forthcoming book, A River of One’s Own: A Manifesto for Artists to Save the Humanities. He has given lectures on issues facing contemporary artistry.

Matthew is the son of Robert (of Milwaukee, WI) and Katherine Dallman (of Grand Rapids, MI). He grew up in the Village of Fox Point and then the Village of Bayside. He attended Nicolet High School (Glendale), where he was honored regionally for his performance as the quarterback of the varsity football team. He received a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis (1997).

Since 1899, when A.N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who’s Who in America, Marquis Who’s Who has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor — including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who’s Who in America remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world.

The book can be read as a vast Gothic novel whose heroes are enslaved and consumed by the monster they created ("Capital which comes into the world soiled with gore from top to toe and oozing blood from every pore"); or as a Victorian melodrama; or as a black farce (in debunking the "phantom-like objectivity" of the commodity to expose the difference between heroic appearance and inglorious reality, Marx is using one of the classic methods of comedy, stripping off the gallant knight's armour to reveal a tubby little man in his underpants); or as a Greek tragedy ("Like Oedipus, the actors in Marx's recounting of human history are in the grip of an inexorable necessity which unfolds itself no matter what they do," C. Frankel writes in Marx and Contemporary Scientific Thought). Or perhaps it is a satirical utopia like the land of the Houyhnhnms in Gulliver's Travels, where every prospect pleases and only man is vile: in Marx's version of capitalist society, as in Jonathan Swift's equine pseudo-paradise, the false Eden is created by reducing ordinary humans to the status of impotent, alienated Yahoos.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - "Magic mushrooms," used by Native Americans and hippies to alter consciousness, appear to have similar mystical effects on many people, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

More than 60 percent of volunteers given capsules of psilocybin derived from mushrooms said they had a "full mystical experience."

"Many of the volunteers in our study reported, in one way or another, a direct, personal experience of the 'beyond,'" said Roland Griffiths, a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry and behavioral biology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who led the study.

A third said the experience was the single most spiritually significant of their lifetimes. Many likened it to the birth of their first child or the death of a parent.

And the effects lingered.

This World Cup should silence those who continue to believe world-class soccer is for suburban minivan types, usually referred to as "pansies" or other more colorful colloquialisms. Between Zidane's head butt, Wayne Rooney's testicle trample, and Daniele de Rossi's surgical opening of Brian McBride's face, Germany 2006 was the real thing — a cruel, violent test of wills. All the talk about sissy diving misses an attendant concept. Diving happens because there is plenty of actual abuse out there. Defenders take liberties outside of the penalty area—strikers get payback by embellishing contact where it is more costly.

Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiph'rah and the other Pu'ah, "When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, she shall live."

But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. So the king of Egypt called the midwives, and said to them, "Why have you done this, and let the male children live?" The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and are delivered before the midwife comes to them."

So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live."