BOOKS: DON'T LET'S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT Alexandra Fuller's memoir of her childhood in Rhodesia as the country spiraled into civil war and became Zimbabwe is humorous, painful and honest. Few memoirs have captured me so quickly, and kept me rapt and bound page after page -- a consequence of the pull of Africa when painted vividly and well, as much as it is of Fuller's brutal honesty when describing her family and the blind cultural rule of white Europeans during the crumbled days of colonialism. Random House's boldtype magazine features an excerpt from "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight," as well as an interview with Fuller --

I had written around the subject of my life ("write what you know") for about eight years but I had struggled with so many aspects of my stories — how to explain racism (if it can be explained and, because I don't think that there are racial, but only cultural differences, I don't think it can be), how to write about a woman whom I love while not necessarily loving everything about her (my mother), how to write the humor and passion of a place into a story (Africa) while at the same time showing her at war.

WHERE'S LAWRENCE? Toward the end of the epic "Lawrence of Arabia," the British and the Arabs have entered Jerusalem, and the Arab tribes are dividing responsibilities and power throughout the areas of the city they control. The result? A city awash in flames and chaos, as each individual tribe and individual demands a piece of the conquest. Jerusalem circa 1917. Baghdad circa 2003. The Washington Post's Anthony Shadid offers his readers a glimpse into the chaos of Baghdad days after the fall of Saddam Huseein's government --

A day after Hussein's government fell, signaling an end to three decades of ruthless Baath Party rule, Baghdad descended into lawlessness. Scenes of mayhem were repeated across a city relieved, anxious and vengeful. Hospitals and embassies were looted, as were ministries, government offices, Baath Party headquarters and homes like Majeed's in the Dora neighborhood. Ambulances were hijacked, as were public buses that ran their routes until the very moment of the government's collapse. Cars barreled the wrong way down streets deserted by traffic policemen and the party militiamen who once scrutinized drivers with a steely gaze.

Emotions -- euphoria, desperation, vindictiveness and sometimes confusion -- surged to the surface. Hussein was gone and so was every vestige of the government and bureaucracy he once represented. In a country whose government tolerated no dissent, the word uttered by many today was fawda, Arabic for disorder and chaos.

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH, HOMAGE 2 Book Sense 76, those rocking small book sellers of an independent sort, tosses out its 2003 Top Ten Poetry list. Read up, buttercup.

SPRING: WHEN MEN'S THOUGHTS TURN TO LINEN Well, some men. But it is appropriate to take a moment from our National Day of Celebration for the Goodness of American Values and Air Support to think about how you plan to dress yourself when the azaleas bloom next week. The Morning News delivers with their overview of men's fashion for springtime. Here's what they say about short-sleeved shirts:

Short-sleeve shirts are appropriate to offices that allow them, but crappy short-sleeve shirts are appropriate to crapheads. Keep them clean and ironed; even the finest-aged vintages – a 1977 remnant of a sailing contest, say – can be worn down the hallways of industry if the hems are straight and free from puckering.

Collared dress shirts with short sleeves are fantastic; Steven Malkmus and the engineers of NASA have endorsed them. Despite your own yearnings for cropped sleeves, however, you’ll want to avoid ripping the sleeves off your long-sleeved dress shirts. Instead: purchase. Buy a fitted shape, but nothing too tight. Larger men will want to err on the looser side. Button-down collars say unbuttoned personality. Details on either side of the placket – cute little boxes, illustrations, zippers – went out when Matthew Perry went to rehab. If your short sleeves are at all rolled up, you’re looking to get laid, not promoted. Plaids almost always work; patterns rarely ever do. A straight hem on the shirt will make it look like a cheap jacket, especially if the fabric’s at all waxy; stick to flap-tails. Like capri pants, three-quarter sleeves belong on women. Pockets are good for anything but storage. Bowling or gas-station shirts are good for bowling or gas stations, or demonstrating the only known proof for the argument irony is dead.

GET YOUR WAR ON WITH A VICTORY PARTY David Rees' Get Your War On tackles Liberation Day (cough, cough) in Iraq, reminding us that the good intentions of the Bush administration surely outweigh the lies and misdirections they occassionally use to justify their actions. (Oh, was that a barb? Sorry.) Here's an excerpt from one of the strips:

Office Woman: So what do you suppose Dick Cheney is thinking right now? "Thank God, my decades-long dream of liberating the Iraqi children has been realized! Now, to cure AIDS!"

Office Man: Maybe he'll think, "Thank God, Saddam Hussein will no longer assist al Qaeda in terror operations!" Then he'll think, "I can't believe I actually just thought that."

Office Woman: Then he'll roll up his sleeves and think, "OK! Let's get moving on that ROAD MAP FOR PEACE! That's something I give a flying fuck about!"

KIM JONG IL'S LIVE JOURNAL Reading this one from the bottom up will ensure maximum chuckles. Yet another example of why young people with a moderate level of political awareness and an appreciation for irony and satire should be given free Internet access.

IN THE BEGINNING First of all, the war in Iraq isn't over yet, despite the amazing progress and images. Secondly, what we've been seeing in the United States and what the Arab world has been seeing are widely different interpretations of similar events. And, finally, how we proceed from here is more important than most people imagine -- and the objectives are many, and disparate. As this Washington Post snapshot of reactions throughout the Arab world shows, our motives are (and possibly always will be) suspect. Stablizing Iraq, keeping Turkey and Syria and Iran from overly influencing that process, reconstructing a devastated land, keeping our hands of the oil, re-engaging the Israeli-Palestinian peace process... the list is long. Whether you believe that folks like Tom Friedman opine too much, or jump the gun, or state the obvious, there is one thing the administration needs to keep centered in their vision -- in the eyes of much of the Arab world, what we do next is all that matters.

A MOMENT IN TIME Polls are being spit (spat?) out at a furious rate these days, but a summary of the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows some obvious, and some interesting, trends. Support for Bush is as high as it was last June (the obvious bounce from a successful campaign in Iraq), and more people are feeling good about the way things are going in the United States. What surprised me was the trendlines around Iraq -- many people think there will be more fighting ahead (despite the fall of Baghdad), that the U.S. needs to be committed to rebuilding Iraq, and that the United Nations has a siginificant role to play in the effort. A large minority believes that the ease with which our troops rolled up the Iraqis might make the United States too reliant on using military power to settle disputes. A new survey from the Pew Research Center says, in effect, enough already with war news. Large margins of those polled believe there has been too much war news, and not enough news about the tax cuts, the economy, the budget, the Democratic candidates for President, or SARS.

WE MAY NOT DESERVE HIM... but I'm sure glad we've got him. That'd be Jon Stewart, naturally, the funnyman-e-centerpiece of Comedy Central's "Daily Show." He's wry. He's funny. He's even self-effacing. Get out with that. Here's a recent exchange, culled from the journalistic sweat of Salon --

Stewart: What should the media's role be in covering the war?

Colbert: Very simply, the media's role should be the accurate and objective description of the hellacious ass-whomping we're handing the Iraqis.

Stewart: Hellacious ass-whomping? Now to me, that sounds pretty subjective.

Colbert: Are you saying it's not an ass-whomping, Jon? I suppose you could call it an ass-kicking or an ass-handing-to. Unless, of course, you love Hitler.

Stewart [stammering]: I don't love Hitler.

Colbert: Spoken like a true Hitler-lover.

Stewart: Look, even some American generals have said that the Iraqis have put up more resistance than they were expected to.

Colbert: First rule of journalism, Jon, is to know your sources. Sounds like these "generals" of yours may be a little light in the combat boots, if you know what I'm saying.

Stewart: I don't think I know what you're saying.

Colbert: I'm saying they're queers, Jon. They're Hitler-loving queers.

Stewart: I'm perplexed. Is your position that there's no place for negative words or even thoughts in the media?

Colbert: Not at all, Jon. Doubts can happen to everyone, including me, but as a responsible journalist, I've taken my doubts, fears, moral compass, conscience and all-pervading skepticism about the very nature of this war and simply placed them in this empty Altoids box. [Produces box.] That's where they'll stay, safe and sound, until Iraq is liberated.

Stewart: Isn't it the media's responsibility in wartime ...

Colbert: That's my point, Jon! The media has no responsibility in wartime. The government's on top of it. The media can sit this one out.

Stewart: And do what?

Colbert: Everything it's always wanted to do but had no time for: travel, see the world, write that novel. I know the media has always wanted to try yoga. This is a great time to take it up. It's very stressful out there -- huge war going on. Jon, hear me out, it was Thomas Jefferson who said, "Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach."

Stewart: Stephen, Stalin said that. That was Stalin. Jefferson said he'd rather have a free press and no government than a government and no free press.

Colbert: Well, what do you expect from a slave-banging, Hitler-loving queer?

A DIFFERENT VIEW After several weeks of being hacked into inaccessibility, Al Jazeera's English-language site is back up and running (and currently reporting that Saddam Hussein is shacking up in the Russian embassy).

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT A WAR Weblogger Caterina has launched a new daily site, Poems About War, which reminds us of the convergence of war and National Poetry Month. The poems -- unlike many of the pro- and anti-war poetry sites sprouting these days -- are selected, are good, and run the gamut in terms of the views they express. Visit daily. Reflect a little.

REFUGEE IN D-MAJOR U2's Bono and opera star Luciano Pavarotti are joining together to raise funds for the United Nations Refugee Agency via a May 27 concert in Modena, Italy. More on UNHCR's work around the globe, and in Iraq specifically, can be found right about here.

I SPY... A MISTAKE Don't look now, but Homeland Security is about to get a little more restrictive. At least if Orrin Hatch gets his way.

Congressional Republicans, working with the Bush administration, are maneuvering to make permanent the sweeping anti-terrorism powers granted to federal law enforcement agents after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said Tuesday.

The move is likely to touch off strong objections from many Democrats and even some Republicans in Congress who believe that the Patriot Act, as the legislation that grew out of the attacks is known, has already given the government too much power to spy on Americans.

The landmark legislation expanded the government's power to use eavesdropping, surveillance, access to financial and computer records and other tools to track terrorist suspects. When it passed in October 2001, moderates and civil libertarians in Congress agreed to support it only by making many critical provisions temporary. Those provisions will expire, or "sunset," at the end of 2005 unless Congress reauthorizes them.

But Republicans in the Senate in recent days have discussed a proposal, authored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that would repeal the so-called sunset provisions and make the expanded powers permanent, officials said.

SMALL, QUIET, POWERLESS In this audio column, Colbert I. King reminds us why he won the Pulitzer Prize, and that we have forgotten something essential and real during this time of war: the children who have lost.

FRIEDMAN'S FINE FORM Tom Friedman is at his best when he is on the streets, talking to average people and getting a sense of life in places most of us never travel. Which is why his column from Um Qasr today feels right; it evokes the best of his reporting from Israel and Beirut in the 1980s, when Friedman was breaking new ground. New ground, old message -- there's a peace that demands winning now that the war is winding down.

It's hard to smile when there's no water. It's hard to applaud when you're frightened. It's hard to say, "Thank you for liberating me," when liberation has meant that looters have ransacked everything from the grain silos to the local school, where they even took away the blackboard.

That was what I found when spending the day in Umm Qasr and its hospital, in southern Iraq. Umm Qasr was the first town liberated by coalition forces. But 20 days into the war, it is without running water, security or adequate food supplies. I went in with a Kuwaiti relief team, who, taking pity on the Iraqis, tossed out extra food from a bus window as we left. The Umm Qasr townsfolk scrambled after that food like pigeons jostling for bread crumbs in a park.

This was a scene of humiliation, not liberation. We must do better.

MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO Military analyst John Keegan is one of the finer big picture minds in play, and his depiction of Saddam Hussein's downfall is spot on. Keegan is perplexed and amazed that Iraq -- a nation blessed with particularly difficult terrain for invaders -- failed to use even one of a large handful of its strategic advantages: "Saddam's war plan, if he had one, must be reckoned one of the most inept ever designed. It made no use of the country's natural defences. All advantages the defence enjoyed were thrown away even before they could be utilised."

HORSESHOES AND COMMENTARY Mark Holmberg has remained one of an extremely small cluster of writers in Richmond who simply shines. A reporter and columnist for the Times-Dispatch, Holmberg spends much of his time, energy and creative talent capturing and sharing the voices of victims. He's done it for more than a decade. And this year he was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. The Washington Post's Colbert King, another stellar voice for the disenfranchised, received the award. Here's how the TD's Gary Robertson captured Holmberg recently --

The 6-foot-9-inch Holmberg, who wears a size 15 shoe and frequently sports a ponytail, strikes an unforgettable image, even in a profession known for its mavericks and odd dressers.

Holmberg was a full-time bricklayer for more than a decade before he joined the newspaper. Over the years to support his family, which includes four children, Holmberg has frequently laid brick during the day and come in at night to work a full shift at the newspaper.

Seven years ago, Holmberg won the title of "Fastest Trowel on the Block" in becoming Virginia's champion bricklayer at the State Fair...

Holmberg has won a large newspaper following, thanks to his articles about people from every side of life, including the dark side - pimps, prostitutes, career criminals - as well as the homeless, the helpless and those who might never get their name in the newspaper, except in an obituary.

FABLES OF THE RECONSTRUCTION II Remember Afghanistan? Dusty, rocky place with lots of opium, warlords, terrorists? Right. That place. Well, the loosely woven web the Bush administration cast over the beleaguered nation after its swift victory over the Taliban (and equally swift adoption of a philosophy I'll call "Sort of Nation Building, But Not Really") is beginning to unravel. Springtime in Afghanistan may be sad fodder for the "told-you-so" crowd. The Washington Post editorial page says that now is the time for the Bush administration to atone for its efforts to stitch a broken nation back together on the cheap.

Seen from a complacent Washington, Afghanistan still may look better than it did before the U.S. intervention. But experts following the country say they worry about a steady unraveling, much like that which preceded the Taliban's seizure of power in the mid-1990s. The symptoms are similar: Outside the capital, warlords and bandits rule the country, sometimes battling each other and regularly robbing their fellow citizens at highway checkpoints. At the borders, aid shipments and "customs collections" on imported goods are diverted to the warlords, depriving the central government of resources and revenue. The opium trade is booming. In some places, the Taliban's extreme practices, including the persecution of women, have been reimposed.

All of these phenomena have flourished in a vacuum knowingly created by the Bush administration, which refused to support the deployment of peacekeeping forces outside Kabul. Rather than disarm and disable the warlords, U.S. commanders continue to depend on them and even to finance some of them. The relationships help provide security for U.S. forces and support in some combat operations, but they also make it impossible to end the lawlessness in the countryside or extend the authority of Mr. Karzai's government.

AM I HYPER ENOUGH? Superchunk's Mac McCaughan sidelines -- or headlines -- as a healthy sized portion of Portastatic, which released its sixth full-length CD last week. Portastatic has already hit the road in support of their new release, touring with Yo La Tengo hither and yon.

TOP OF THE POPS Virginia Commonwealth University's sculpture program elbowed Yale University and the Art Institute of Chicago aside to claim U.S. News & World Report's list of best graduate sculpture programs. The School of the Arts at VCU ranked 6th with the graphic design and painting and drawing programs both ranking in the Top 10.

THE WORLD'S SLOWEST INQUIRY The website for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States is up and running. Currently, outside of some general background on the Commission itself, details about the first publlic hearing held March 31 and April 1 make up the bulk of the site content.

BE OF GOOD CHEER The good folks at McSweeney's continue to lay forth the Gospel of Words with their new magazine, The Believer. The monthly magazine (on newstands now!) is dedicated to authors and books, and the first issue features a conversation between Salman Rushdie and Terry Gilliam, among other juicy tidbits.

SURVEY SAYS... The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has, among other things, been posting a daily survey of American attitudes toward the war in Iraq.

IT'S SUPERFICIAL DAY AT FLORICANE.COM My head hurts from reading the newspapers. Which explains why I'm posting links to livejournal IMs between George Bush and Kim Jong Ill.

WANTED: UNEMPLOYED FLASH ANIMATORS With two million people laid-off in the past two years, you'd think the number of useless websites dedicated to their foibles would soar. Especially sites that take advantage of Flash to put a creative whiz-bang spin on the whole traumatic affair. Like Odd Todd's site.

IDLE HANDS. Oneword remains one of the simpler treasures on the Internet.

WAR AND ELECTIONS As the campaign for the presidency lumbers to a steady crawl (top fundraisers for the first quarter of 2003, in order, are Edwards, Kerry and everyone else combined), it's time to start asking: How much impact will this war on Iraq have on the 2004 campaign? Short answer: Not much. Here's what voters in Iowa are focused on, according to Dan Balz, who's been getting more right than wrong this cycle --

DES MOINES, April 6 -- For 90 minutes here today, Iowa Democrats changed the subject.

The war in Iraq dominates the world's attention and gobbles up television air time and newspaper columns round-the-clock. But at the first in a series of forums for Democratic presidential candidates, Iraq and President Bush's foreign policy took a back seat to the economy, health care and education.

Not one question dealt directly with the war.

A LIBERAL WAR? So argues Andrew Sullivan, citing Nat Hentoff and Paul Berman, neither of who come close to being part of the ambivalent middle of the electorate. Hentoff says -- in effect -- that if taking action against a regime rooted in torture and murder isn't liberalism, he's not sure what is. Berman writes in his new book that the roots of the Middle East's current political despotism is not Islam, but the West itself. Berman sees the origins of Saddam Hussein and others in Nazism, Soviet Communism and other Western cults of oppression and personality. By summarizing Hentoff and Berman's views, Sullivan puts forward a compelling and important notion: "Liberalism cannot co-exist with terror or totalitarianism. One must vanquish the other."

The war in Iraq has been the most poorly articulated, suspicious exercises in power that has been undertaken by the United States in my lifetime. And it has been initiated by a group of politicians I distrust and dislike. But at the same time, accepting that a portion of the world deserves to live in terror, fear and oppression -- whether in Iraq, Pakistan, North Korea, Venezuela, Rwanda, Nigeria or Bosnia -- is not a political ideology I can accept. It's unfortunate that the Bush administration has chosen to selectively confront totalitarianism with such arrogance and force.

WORDS AND IMPRESSIONS John Kerry's apparently decided that winning the White House in 2004 involves getting into the ring with George Bush, and calling a spade a spade. Here's Kerry on where the rubber hasn't been meeting the road during the Bush administration --

Unfortunately, this administration has failed to honor the service of citizens who are doing what's right. After Sept. 11, Americans wanted to contribute and to serve. This administration told them to go shopping. They have cut AmeriCorps when we should be expanding it so every young person has the opportunity to perform national service. But nothing flies in the face of the values of duty and service more than what this administration is doing when it comes to fulfilling our obligation to our troops, our veterans, and their families. We can do better -- and our soldiers deserve no less.

We made a sacred bond with these men and women when we asked them to risk their lives for their country. And this administration has failed to hold up its side of the bargain. Just as we wouldn't think of sending our military into battle without the uniforms and equipment they need, we shouldn't neglect to care for our troops and their families before, during, and after the war. Yet, 20 percent of our Reservists and their families don't have healthcare coverage.

And at the same time that American soldiers are engaged in battle at home, this administration is proposing substantial cuts in federal school aid to children of military families. As we learned the hard way after Vietnam, our duty to our troops doesn't end when the battle is won. Those that put their lives on the line have earned a lifetime of support. And America must live up to that commitment.

Yet, two months ago, this administration announced it would suspend enrollment in the healthcare system of at least 160,000 qualified veterans. And now they want to deny another 230,000 veterans the healthcare they deserve.

WEB-EMPOWERED LUNATICS You know, this would have been much better as the premise behind Phone Booth. As it is, it's a creepy, engaging look at the world of weblogs gone bad.

NUDE ROBOTS? HOT! You might be familiar with Survival Research Laboratories, what with their giant flame-spitting, chainsaw-waving destructive robots going at each other with aggressive music blaring in the background. Or you might not be. In which case, your interest in the Official SRL Nudie Calendar would be limited. It pairs SRL humans with SRL robots to raise money for SRL friend Tim North, who has cancer.

ANOTHER WRONG NUMBER AT THE MOVIES Ah, Phone Booth, how could you? I wanted to feel contained, trapped, crunched and demoralized. I wanted anxiety. All you gave me were laughs and groans. But, no, I'll let the reviewer from Slate tell the story --

Let's start with the lame-ass ending. No, I won't spoil it -- although I should spoil it, and maybe I goddamned will spoil it. I think the studio spoiled it by not doing reshoots when those sicko snipers blew the movie off the fall schedule and the filmmakers suddenly had four extra months to shoot a whole new climax with a twist you couldn't see coming at 50,000 yards and a proper payoff that didn't make you want to pick up a rifle and...

LIFE WITHOUT CABLE If you live a miserable existence without cable television (Strangely enough, I actually read books as an alternative!), you're missing another of what I call MTV's "Life Lessons" programming efforts -- Sorority Life and Fraternity Life, the reality shows. Her'es what we're learning about the sociological conditioning that is Thi Beta Confusion:

So, that's what a sorority is: a system of laws used to prolong childlike female separatism -- and to discourage mixing with men except in fleeting, superficial ways. A sorority's power can be seen in how well or poorly it enforces these laws. In the last Sorority Life, the Sigmas found no end of ways to chastise Jordan for being good-looking, vivacious, and friendly to men -- but she stuck around for abuse all season. So, Sigma, in the end, worked.

And while Buffalo's DZOs are uniformly prettier than the Sigmas, they too resent poised, self-reliant girls who hold back from full commitment to the brood. Last Wednesday sturdy, pushy Maggie (a Billy Joel fan) took on pretty, haughty Brooke (a Bruce Springsteen fan), implying that she'd been disloyal to the sisterhood for skipping one of their escapades. Brooke, who's tougher than she looks, liked the fight but was unmoved by the general attacks on her womanhood. Not trembling before the authority of the girl gang? This doesn't bode well for order at the DZO house. Bored, Brooke retreated to her room. Now she's talking about depledging.

BAGHDAD BELEAGUERED Anthony Shadid's latest dispatch from Baghdad, where he seems to have the ability to roam and chat with virtually anyone. Shadid does an excellent job of capturing an increasingly confused, nerve-wracked citizenry who have no way of knowing what the future holds.

MY BEST DREAM MEETS MY WORST NIGHTMARE At this archived post from Dog Door of Death...