GO WEST, YOUNG MAN Sending a quick email to someone and I stumbled across the below link, which should prove to be the only reason to interupt my vacation in the mountains. The mountain laurel blooms are fading, but the air is crisp, the ridgeline green and all around is sunshine and silence...

AFRICA COMES ALIVE Peter Maass's weblog nudged me in this direction with a very simple and true declaration about the World Cup: "... I’m partial to Third World countries that need something to cheer about, and if the country in question happens to turn soccer into a form of ballet, all the better. But the team I’d most like to see go all the way is Senegal, an underdog from a continent of underdogs. A World Cup victory, which is nearly unthinkable, would bring pride and happiness to everyone in Africa, which the IMF and World Bank will never do," he writes. And as this editorial in Nairobi's The East African Standard proclaims, as the Senegalese team heads into the finals, "The whole of Africa will be waiting to re-write several pages of African history."

AARGH! Blogger ate my code.

NOT SO HAPPY WORLD REFUGEE DAY Today is World Refugee Day, which doesn't exactly make it a special day for the millions of displaced people in our world. But, in fact, the U.N. High Commission on Refugees says that the number of people it is responsible for has dropped from 21 million to 19 million between 2000 and 2001. But new displacements are taking place regularly in Africa, South America, Asia and Europe. The UNHCR website presents the facts, but more importantly celebrates some successes and puts a face on the human aspect.

MORAL CHOICES A clear call from Gershon Baskin of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. Baskin says, clearly and loudly, that not only do the ends not justify the means (in regards to suicide attacks), but that the means risk destroying the ends. Palestinians held the moral high ground, if there is such a thing in this conflict, several years ago when Oslo was taking shape. They've lost it now. So, in fact, has Israel. Both sides need to reclaim a moral sense of peaceful purpose in order to move forward toward a solution.

IT'S BETTER THAN CATS Probably a bad anology. I somehow found myself invited to "Girl's Night Out" yesterday, and just plain enjoyed the hell out of the "Vagina Monologues," which is passing through town. It was funny and racuous, and at moments was completely tragic and depressing (discussing rape, abuse and female mutilation), as well as a bit awe-inspiring. Oddly, I was one of perhaps 30 men in the audience. Okay, so it probably wasn't odd. Best moment: a very vocal and well-timed gasp (of delight, amazement, despair?) from a woman in the audience brought the cast of three to tears of laughter.

I HEART MOZILLA Goodbye Netscape. Goodbye Opera. And though we never met, goodbye Internet Explorer. The first full build of the long-awaited Mozilla browser is out, about and dancing down the streets. So far, it is making me a happy camper -- and if more people download and use it, it will make Bill Gates a less happy camper. And you need more encouragement?!

AFRICA PLANNER As I begin to mull an extended trip to Africa in 2003 or 2004, I'm discovering that gleanings from our friends at the National Geographic Society are pretty darned useful. And if you've got about a thimbleful of knowledge about this amazing continent, there aren't many better places to go to read words and see images that will just captivate you.

D.C DOINGS This month's National Geographic Traveler magazine visits Washington, but there's a much better list of activities outlined online -- as usual, the B-List of staff picks is more earthy, quirky and interesting than what the article writers and editors settled to use in print. I've already planned my four visits in July: Rachid Taha at the Club 9:30, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, an exhibit of Silk Road photographs by Kenro Izu and some research at The National Archives. Plus some of the quirky things noted herein. Herein... heh.

BAMBOO YOU I have rare moments of obsessive greenthumb fidgeting, which in this most recent case arrived soon after I over-fertilized my plants on the balcony, searing their leaves into shriveled brown misery. And so we meet the versatile bamboo plant, which comes in clumping (good) and creeping (evil) forms, and is quite happy in apartments. Above all else, in our hyper-modern times, bamboo shoots in well-shaped glass cylinders fills even the most antiqued rooms with spry hipness.

BACK TO IRAQ? An insightful interview with Sandra Mackey, author of a new book on Iraq. Mackey has it right in some ways: that the U.S. has a poor understanding of Iraq (even minus Hussein) and needs to ask some tough questions about which dangerous path we truly want to walk. But I think she overstates the "tribalism" within Iraq, which while important and passionate is not so fragmented and archaic that Iraq minus Hussein necessarily equals tribal warfare, and she misrepresents the motivations of the ideologues pushing the White House to get boots on the sand and topple Hussein's regime. All in all, an educational piece, and one that frames up some important questions that we can only hope the right people are asking.

VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS After yesterday's deadly attack in Jerusalem (the worst in six years), you might expect that all bets would be off in terms of the possibility of peace between Israel and Palestine. But never mind the New York Times, what are the voices on the ground saying? Ha'aretz chimes in with a call for pressing ahead with an accord that ensure security for Israel and statehood for Palestine, while the Jerusalem Post issues an ultimatum: either the U.S. forces Arafat to stop the attacks or Israel should, that the process of half-measures serves no one. And the Jordan Times chimes in that President Bush's vision for the region is long overdue and is needed to press Sharon to accept Palestinian statehood and to end the violence. Three voices casting disparate calls, drawing different conclusions. Opinions in the region will never settle on some middle ground until someone plants a flag there; hopefully, Bush will do just that this week -- and seriously pressure Arafat to lead or step down, and Sharon to take his finger off the trigger.

HOMAGE TO VINCENT John Berger published this very lovely tribute to Mssr. Van Gogh last year in the Threepenny Review. Very nice.

LONG & WINDING ROAD The Washington Post dishes on the zest and flavor of the Folklife Festival with maps, schedules, highlights, interviews and lists of related activities and Silk Road-influenced restaurants. In addition to some great music and dance, as well as yurt-making contests, the Festival will feature Uzbek Puppet Theater and a storytelling showdown featuring bards from China.

BLOG IRAN A nice tidbit from Andrew Sullivan's site, this BBC piece on the rise of web logs within Iran, and how this easy-to-use tool is giving many Iranians (especially women) an open, uncensored forum to air their (predominantly) social views. Iran, curiously enough, does not censor the Internet, and the usage numbers are expected to soar from approximately 400,000 users last year to 4 million-plus several years from now.

NOT A BLAST Kamran Khan posted this first-person account of last week's bombing of the U.S. consulate in Karachi. Sometimes, I think, when we hear or read about these things (especially when they are under-reported because no Americans died), it is easy to dismiss them without really appreciating the carnage and horror, and the utterly human moments, that make them more real than we could ever imagine for the people who live through them. This is not some grotesque retelling, but rather a visible first-person account.

PIANO POP CONNECTIVITY Woo. What is it with these Sullivans? First Andrew, not Kate (unrelated). Her pop discourses are smartly written. Today's explores -- in lovely detail -- the degrees of separation between Clara Schumann and Max Martin.

Pens Sullivan: "An intriguing inaugural duo! Schumann was a 19th Century German pianist/composer, probably the most important female musician of her era. Martin is a 21st Century Swedish pop songwriter/producer, certainly the best pop songwriter of his era. (Britney, Backstreet Boys, etc. I was horrified to learn tonight that he is only 31 years old.)"

She delves into the details, illuminating my own dim mind about Schumann, Bach and modern pop music. And concludes with this stellar exclamation: "Two of my favorite pop songwriters, having ahistorical sex on Radio Disney!" Mon dieu!

THE AGE OF EMPIRES White House strategist Phillip Bobbitt's "Shield of Achilles" has hit the bookshelves, and the Times' (o' London) Simon Jenkins has a hearty go at it in this commentary. Bobbitt's thesis, in part, is that an Age is ending -- borders have become permeable, global institutions irrelevant and threats to international stability less obvious. None of which is wholly inaccurate. But his rallying cry appears to be that the United States should shoulder the mantle of Empire, coordinate the mercenary teams needed to decisively destroy any and all threats, and redefine the law of the land. Jenkins does an admirable job here of not only countering Bobbitt's arguments, but where appropriate, bolstering them.

Jenkins writes, "I cannot see anything remotely comparable to Hitler or Soviet communism in the threat from al-Qaeda. I disagree that the traditional state is decaying. The end of the Cold War has seen the revival, not the demise, of nationhood. Geographical self-determination remains a pillar of democracy. It instigated the justified war to rescue Kuwait and was Nato’s battle cry in the Balkans. Nations are more vigorous than ever during the Age of Empire or the Cold War."

He continues, "The great wars of the 20th century were real wars. They threatened the existence of states with subjugation and slavery. The need to eradicate al-Qaeda and those who wield dangerous weapons is serious. But al-Qaeda’s success was in large part the result of a gross failure of American policy, both in domestic intelligence and in appeasing Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. Such a threat must be fought, but as a criminal conspiracy not a war of states."

One of the main issues that the events of September 11 raised, and one that has largely been dismissed or ignored since, is that the attacks on the United States were the result of some misdirection of American and Western cultural and diplomatic force. And while some effort to counter future attacks needs to involve the projection of military force, the longer term solutions will occur (or not) through the redirection of Western engagement on other, more significant, levels. We'd do well to ask why the "war on terrorism" is almost entirely Donald Rumsfeld's war, while the Department of State, numerous global organizations and key economic groups sit on the sidelines.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF AUTOMATONS A new drug is emerging on the streets of America's Type-A cities. It's called modafinil, and it promises something that no politician, advertising executive or otherwise normal American can walk away from: the ability to function -- with little or no impairment -- for days. Without sleep. Without unusual tiwtches or euphoric rushes. Without totally crashing out for 23 hours at the end of a three day, abnormally productive cycle of work in which you didn't sleep, hallucinate (much) or visit the bathroom 63 times from all the coffee you were drinking. It's totally freaky, totally intriguing and, after this article appeared in today's paper, probably the single-most requested prescription drug in Washington this week.

MY ALLY, MY ENEMY In a rather curious (some might say unholy) move, conservative Christian groups are allying themselves with conservative Muslim nations in an effort to block U.N. conference activities related to rights for women, children and gays. It might seem odd that the same groups berating some Muslims for their support of terrorism, or pummeling nations like Sudan for the persecution of Christians or the not-so-subtle practice of slavery, would be joining hands with the same people to stop movement on issues such as reproductive rights (including abortion rights and contraception), but there you have it. Nothing like the ends justifying the means, that's what I always say. Because God knows, we don't want to make any effort that might create more equality, economic sustainability or even reduce poverty in nations where whole segments of the population are starving to death or providing cheap labor for the rest of us.

ON THE ROAD Forget the Beat Generation, head to D.C. between June 26 and July 7 for a melange of sights, sounds and textures from the Silk Generation as the Smithsonian's 36th annual Folklife Festival celebrates the peoples and cultures of the ancient Silk Road that once bound Europe with Asia. This bountiful Post piece explores the nightmares involved in recruiting Indian tentmakers, Pakistani truck painters and herders for the camels (from Texas) needed to pull the yurts (not from Kansas) around our nation's Mall.

TUMBLED GLASS After countless promises, I've finally created headers, coded and posted "Tumbled Glass," a 33-poem manuscript that is currently being smothered by kindred collections on the desks of various New York publishing houses.