TAKING IT OFF AT WEST POINT Lily Burana is a retired stripper who happens to be married to an officer at West Point, aka Ye Olde Military Academy. Her weeklong journal on Slate from her new duty station is as wry, well-written and insightful as anything you'd ever hope to see from the ranks of U.S. military spouses.

Dealing with deployment is some funky shit. I was surprised by its strange emotional wallop. The dread loneliness mixed with aversion to people; the frantic need for ritual to stabilize your life, as if you could right yourself from the outside in. The constant, high-pitched generator hum in your brain that gets louder when you watch CNN, see yet another country music video with troops in it, or drive past a funeral procession.

And, somewhere, buried way down deep, deeper than it dwells in peacetime, that nagging voice: What If? What, what if, what if.

When I was home alone, I surfed the Web for support, but the type offered online was strictly of the Shlock and Awww variety. Cringe-inducing stories. Saccharine songs. If I was really down, I could order a Beanie Baby bear made just for the military wife. ("Oft left behind. … NEVER forgotten.")

Let me tell you something. When my husband was gone, I didn't need a Military Wife teddy bear; I needed a Military Wife shot glass.

POW! TO THE MOON! As President Bush mulls the prospects of taking America back 40 years and inviting us to return to the moon, former astronaut Buzz "Been There, Done That" Aldrin makes a suggestion: Instead of retracing history and kicking up some lunar dust, Aldrin suggests we establish a permanent space platform at L1. Man, I love me some visionaries who use their brains. [NYTimes login: buttermilk.com, password: buttermilk]

A much more practical destination than the moon or the space station is a region of space called L 1, which is more than two-thirds of the way to the moon and is where the gravity fields between the Earth and Moon are in balance. Setting up a space port there would offer a highly stable platform from which spacecraft could head toward near-Earth asteroids, the lunar surface, the moons of Mars and wherever else mankind decides to travel.

Unlike the Moon and the International Space Station, which is in low-earth orbit, L 1 is not the site of strong gravitational pulls, meaning that spacecraft can leave there without using much energy. Thus L 1 would be the most sensible position for a base that would function as a test area and way-point for robotic flights as well as a support station and safe haven for human exploration of the solar system.

It would also be relatively cheap, at least in terms of space travel. To create a port at L 1 we can use the building methods that have already proved successful for Skylab and the International Space Station — and we can probably get it up and running for $10 billion to $15 billion, significantly less than the International Space Station, which will likely exceed $100 billion in the end. We can also save money by shifting away from using the space shuttle as the transport vehicle and by developing a new, more flexible launch vehicle and crew module to get people and cargo up to the L 1 port.

THE SAMARRA STORY Depending on when and how you get your news, the firefight in Samarra, Iraq, over the weekend was either "a major U.S. offensive," a "minor skirmish involving fedayeen" or "a slaughter" of innocent civilians. Either 8 terrorists or 54 fedayeen militia or 8-10 civilians were killed. How's that for clear reporting from the front? The CSMonitor pulls together some of the various reporting out of Samarra this week, which provides no definitive answers, but helps put some questions into perspective.

NOTES FROM AFRICA The CSMonitor's new reporter in Africa is maintaining a running journal of his impressions. He's stationed in Joburg, but covers 49 countries on the continent, most recently Ethiopia.

RATE THIS An Alumn of the often hilarious Brunching Shuttlecocks website now spends their free time rating lists -- such as Superfriends, or the new state quarters, or Thanksgiving symbols. It's hit and miss, but the hits are pretty solidly funny, like, say, the rating on "Sandpeople" from "Star Wars":

I was never able to figure out whether "Tusken Raiders" referred to the fact that they had little tusk-like thingies on their masks, or if they were from a town called Tusken or what. They were mean, though, with the scary faces and the rags for clothes and the Gaffi sticks with the spikes on the end and the big furry elephants to stomp the unassuming homes of hapless moisture farmers. But then, all you have to do is learn to make that noise that Ben Kenobi made and they're off like rabbits, even in mid-clobber, which kind of cuts down on their effectiveness. C+

CRAPTOWNS It was such a hit in the United Kingdom, the editors of The Idler have brought it stateside. Craptowns lets you gripe about the world cities and towns in the U.S.; of all the cities and towns in Virginia, Danville is the first to have received some well deserved venom.

THROUGH THE LENS The Mail & Guardian presents a series of photos by Nadine Hutton during a police raid in Johannesburg.

HOLIDAY CHEER The good news is you'll probably never know. Apparently, just a few alcoholic drinks a week shrinks the brain over time.

POET'S CORNER Lucille Clifton hates to be called beloved, especially by the critics, but she remains one of those poets whose work breathes with life. It probably has something to do with the tumultuous path she followed in living her own. The CSMonitor interviewed her last year.

Clifton, who writes unflinchingly about both her own sensuality and the darker sides of human experience – drug abuse, poverty, physical abuse, and slavery – views herself as a witness, "a person who tries to see the whole [human] history."

The act of bearing witness is important, she explains, "because someone must be a voice, someone must notice things and see beyond the obvious. If one person speaks, no one can say that they never heard."

wants my son
wants my niece
wants josie's daughter
holds them hard
and close as slavery
what will it cost
to buy them back.

[From "white lady – a street name for cocaine"]

But teaching people to hear is a challenge. Clifton, who is a professor of English at Saint Mary's College in southern Maryland, is often surprised by how unaware young people are about the past. "We don't know the history of our time, and we don't know the history of our country."

And, on a more basic level, she says, students often don't realize that they can "learn with more than just the intellect." Poetry, she says, "is a balancing between intellect and intuition," and if one must choose between the two, "one should always fall on the side of intuition."

EVEN YOU CAN DANCE TO THE BEAT BBC Radio 3 has developed its shortlist for 2004's Awards for World Music. The site includes bios and audio from a host of nominees. A must-visit site to whet your appetite for new tunes to grace your holiday stocking.

SPY VS. SPY If you were lucky and curious enough to have caught the tail-end of Spy Magazine's publishing run early in the sardonic decade of the 1990s, the name Kurt Andersen should ring a bell. Andersen guided the satirical whirlwind for several years before serving as editor of New York magazine. Now he's taking on editorial duties at Colors Magazine, which back in the day was to world publishing and nervy photo essays what Abercrombie and Fitch is to juvenile pornofashion. Speaking of which, issue #58 of Colors (the latest pre-Anderson edition) gets groovy with the topic "Photo Studio," capturing moments in Cairo, Plovdiv and other cities throughout the world.

WORLD GROOVE Colors, that once-natty magazine from the corporate fashionistas at Benetton, has launched a new music series. Colors Music has issued two compilations, one focused on modern Nordic grooves and a second collecting the Afro-Amerindian tunes from the Atlantic coast of Colombia.

A MUST-READ The Brookings Institute recently pulled together a panel featuring three of the more perceptive analysts you'll find on defense and Middle Eastern issues. The full PDF transcript runs some 30 pages, but Michael O'Hanlon, Kenneth Pollack and Charles Duelfer deliver -- in spades -- some of the most cogent, articulate analysis of the current situation in Iraq as I've seen in recent weeks.

DON'T ASK, IN ANY LANGUAGE In the past two years, at least 37 Arabic-speaking linguists have been discharged from the Department of Defense's Defense Language Institute for being gay. Maybe it's time for the rules to change. Again.

At a time of heightened need for intelligence specialists, 37 linguists were rendered useless because of their homosexuality.

Historically, military leaders have argued that allowing gays to serve would hurt unit cohesion and recruiting efforts, and infringe on the privacy rights of heterosexuals. In 1993, at the urging of President Clinton, Congress agreed to soften the outright ban on gays in the military with a policy that came to be known as "don't ask, don't tell," which allowed them to serve as long as they kept their sexual orientation secret.

On its 10th anniversary, "don't ask, don't tell" exists in a vastly changed nation. In 1993, there was no "Will & Grace," no gay Jack on "Dawson's Creek," no gay-themed Miller Lite commercials. In 1993, fewer than a dozen U.S. high schools had Gay-Straight Alliance organizations. Today, there are almost 2,000. In 1993, fewer than a dozen Fortune 500 companies offered health benefits to domestic partners. Today, nearly 200 do.

This newer version of America is the one young enlistees leave behind when they join the military. On average, three or four service members are discharged each day because they are gay. Most are discharged for making statements about their sexuality, and most are younger than 25.

"In the case of some, they get in the Army and they are traumatized by an awareness that the military is 20 years behind the societal curve," said Jeff Cleghorn, a former lawyer with the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a gay-rights group monitoring military justice.

The Army says the discharged linguists were casualties of their own failure to meet a known policy. "We have standards," said Harvey Perritt, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va. "We have physical standards, academic standards. There's no difference between administering these standards and administering 'don't ask, don't tell.' The rules are the rules."

WHAT THE DEMOCRATS SHOULD FEAR Writer Orson Scott Card takes a frank look, as a Democrat, at the current political rhetoric and makes a case for turning his back on the party. Card argues that the current tune -- something along the lines of "Bush is an evil and must be defeated" -- is both false and disengenuous; Bush is not evil, his presidency has not been a flop and what does it say about Democrats that they can only campaign on fear instead of ideas, Card posits. Iraq is not Vietnam; retreat from Iraq is a politically novel idea that stinks of failure; and ignoring real issues and threats for political advantage is wrong, he continues. I don't think he's far off the mark when he suggests that the current trail the Democratic candidates are blazing will lead the party, and perhaps the country, deeper into the wilderness.

And in all the campaign rhetoric, I keep looking, as a Democrat, for a single candidate who is actually offering a significant improvement over the Republican policies that in fact don't work, while supporting or improving upon the American policies that will help make us and our children secure against terrorists.

We have enemies that have earned our hatred, and whom we should fear. They are fanatical terrorists who seek opportunities to kill American civilians here and Israeli civilians in Israel.

But right now, our national media and the Democratic Party are trying to get us to believe that the people we should hate and fear are George W. Bush and the Republicans.

I can think of many, many reasons why the Republicans should not control both houses of Congress and the White House.

But right now, if the alternative is the Democratic Party as led in Congress and as exemplified by the current candidates for the Democratic nomination, then I can't be the only Democrat who will, with great reluctance, vote not just for George W. Bush, but also for every other candidate of the only party that seems committed to fighting abroad to destroy the enemies that seek to kill us and our friends at home.

And if we elect a government that subverts or weakens or ends our war against terrorism, we can count on this: We will soon face enemies that will make 9/11 look like stubbing our toe, and they will attack us with the confidence and determination that come from knowing that we don't have the will to sustain a war all the way to the end.

DC'S ARTS BOOM The Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C., has developed into one of the country's finer theatrical companies. It announces today its plans for a second location in DC, which will serve as an anchor site for the company, while providing a venue for other organizations, as well.

The new theater, at 620 F St. NW, will be a venue not only for the Shakespeare's nationally recognized productions but also for jazz, dance, chamber music and film programs presented by other organizations. The 800-seat theater is expected to cost $77 million and is to open in 2007. It will be called the Sidney Harman Theatre after the stereo magnate who gave $15 million for its construction.

The company's presence in a 451-seat theater in the Lansburgh Building on Seventh Street NW and its often sold-out productions are credited with some of the revitalization in the surrounding Penn Quarter and Gallery Place neighborhoods. The area, which also includes MCI Center and the popular International Spy Museum, has become a destination for visitors.

Michael Kahn, the Shakespeare's artistic director since 1986, said artistic aspirations and economic realities drove the theater to expand. He said the new theater will mean the company can offer more seats, put on more plays, extend the runs of popular productions and offer more discounted tickets.

BE STILL, MY INNER GEEK The temptation to rush out and subscribe to cable is strong. And Monday's premiere of a four-hour "Battlestar Galactica" mini-series just makes it stronger. The Sci-Fi Channel has a chance to do what it does well -- revamp an old story for a new audience. But will it capture the imagination the way the 1970s TV series did with its tin-can villians with glowlight eyes and superstar space jockeys with their tight poly pants and deftly winged hair? I mean -- no Lorne Greene? And Starbuck is a girl? Where's Boxy!?

HALF MEASURES Yesterday's decision by the government to allow alleged Taliban fighter Yaser Hamdi access to a lawyer is a step in the right direction for the Bush administration, and lowers the bar for next year's Supreme Court hearing on the subject of enemy combatants. But while it is a positive move on the legal front -- as is the decision to begin releasing more prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, and to begin holding hearings -- there remains a larger issue. More than two years into a complex struggle against terrorism, the government has not clearly defined a set of standards, much less a process, to guide investigators, prosecutors or the public.

Critics said the government's announcement also does little to answer the larger question of how those detained in the war on terrorism should be treated by civilian and military courts, and whether the same rules will apply to another U.S. citizen being held as an enemy combatant in the same military brig -- alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla. (The only other person designated by President Bush as an enemy combatant, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Bradley University graduate student accused of being an al Qaeda sleeper agent, is not an American citizen.)

In a court brief filed yesterday, the Justice Department argued that the Pentagon's decision to grant Hamdi access to a lawyer has no bearing on the government's right to detain him without further hearings.

"Common sense is beginning to take hold, but it's only halfway there," said Frank W. Dunham Jr., the public defender who has been seeking to represent Hamdi. "I see it as a welcome shift on the part of the government in realizing it can't just run roughshod over everybody. . . . But the next shoe that needs to fall is an architecture by which these people can be sorted out."

THE VIETNAMIZATION OF IRAQ Iraq is not Vietnam, if there's one thing to be clear about. But the U.S. military is quickly putting into place several on-the-ground policies that smell suspiciously like ones that failed us in a small, southeast Asian nation three decades ago. And faced with a choice between benign imperialism and benign neglect, the Bush administration seems to be favoring the latter.

The military is beginning to look for opportunities to put the Iraqi police in charge of towns within the ill-defined "Sunni Triangle," where hostility toward U.S. forces is most visible. The argument is that local forces can more effectively identify local threats, and that local residents will be less hostile toward policing by local forces. In addition, U.S. forces, in theory, will be free to regain the offensive against Baath Party loyalists/local criminals/terrorists/etc. In theory.

The theory works itself out most perfectly in an environment where local Iraqi police are free of corruption, work as a cohesive unit, communicate effectively with regional authorities and U.S. forces, and see the reward of their efforts far outweighing the risks. That perfect world doesn't exist in Iraq today. The local police forces are understaffed, undertrained, poorly equipped, inadequately organized and managed... you get the point. In addition, they have become a favored target of an anti-American resistance, which recognized long ago that an effective insurgency -- much like an effective military dictatorship -- operates best when the local population is cowed and intimidated by violence (or the threat of).

The policy of ceding control to local police in select towns is not just bad policy from the perspective of the local forces. It is bad military policy, bolstered by the Bush administration's lack of desire (or, frankly, ability) to increase troop strength in Iraq in any meaningful fashion. It sounds wonderful to Americans watching the news, turning authority over to loyal Iraqis. It sounds like opportunity for anyone operating under the rulebook of guerilla fighting. The less physical ground controlled and patrolled by the U.S. military ultimately equates to more opportunity for insurgents to infiltrate, build local cells and reinforce sympathy and support within small, easily traversed regions of Iraq.

The second new policy involves the creation of a new Iraqi paramilitary/counterinsurgency force, comprised of Iraqis representing major factions/ethnic groups/political groups. Again, a wonderful idea in a perfect world, but in the imperfect world of Iraq it sounds like a wonderful idea waiting to implode.

One of the primary benefits of Iraq being administered militarily and politically by the U.S. or U.N. is that this is a country that spent 20+ years under a dictatorship. Traditional social structures that normally build and sustain democracy are non-existent; they will not blossom overnight. In order for new social and political communities to emerge and develop, Iraq needs an extended (several years, perhaps) period of stability. That stability will not come from a council of Iraqi expatriates, no matter how well intended (and there are very few well intended individuals on the council). The stability will come from one of several possible factions: the U.S. military, the United Nations, the Shiite clerics or a resurgent Baathist Party.

The issue of Iraq is no longer whether we should have gone in or not. And it is no longer whether we were prepared to stabilize the country after winning the initial war. The issue of Iraq is not what lies behind us, it is what lies ahead. And what lies ahead are some very tough choices about short- and long-term outcomes. The current political desire to hand power over to Iraqis and get out quick will feel very good to whoever wins the 2004 Presidential election next November; it will suck for Iraq, proponents of a more democratic Middle East, and the next several Presidents. The lack of desire to do what is necessary to stabilize Iraq and allow the country to grow into its own fashion of democratic or consensus rule will be a mistake. The heavy lifting can't be avoided; only deferred.

RALLYING FOR THE ARTS Save Richmond's October/November weblog archives conclude with a shout-out to the perseverance of a local artist, who has managed to capture the attention of the local artistic rabble-rousers and politicians with what would seem to be a no-brainer idea: use the artistic community to set the city afire, and stop trying to stamp it out.

GET A MOVE ON MoveOn.org has created quite a buzz. The group first showed its muscle as an online group of barnstormers rallying the troops during the 2000 Presidential election's Florida debacle has evolved into a potentially powerful, progressive media tool. Salon takes a look at MoveOn.org's future possibilities.

MILKING THE BOX TVBarn is the place to go for more news, information and commentary than the average television afficionado can digest.

THE LITTLE ENGINE Richmond's Main Street Station hosts a grand re-opening this weekend, and has plans to welcome the first passenger trains later in December. The renovation outshines my childhood memories of the station, which does the city far more justice than its cinderblock counterpart just outside of town.

IRAQI TRAVELS A series of articles chronicling the travels of Jo, a Brit who has been roaming parts of Iraq with Raed (of Salam Pax fame). The accounts paint a more real image of the mood of average Iraqis than you'll get from NBC News. At the end of November, a post on Bechtel explains how a multi-national corporation devours vast sums of money with few results, while small, local firms are able to quickly and inexpensively rebuild. Riverbend posted something along those lines last month, as well, pointing out that local Iraqi engineers believed they could reconstruct key bridges in Baghdad in a matter of months for several hundred thousand dollars, while Bechtel called them multi-year, $50 million projects.

ALL WE ARE SAYING David Ignatius sees both hope and foolishness in the Geneva accord being embraced by some Palestinians and Israelis. The accord, worked out over the past year unofficially by former negotiators from both sides, has done something that three years of violence, repression and platitudes have not -- given people a sense that there really is an alternative to war and conflict. Ignatius cites John Lennon's song "Imagine" to demonstrate the double-edge of the Geneva accord.

The "Imagine" fantasy being enacted in Geneva by Israelis and Palestinians is wonderfully detailed, with maps, timetables, annexes and all the other minutiae of an actual peace treaty. It divvies up roads, airspace and even the "electromagnetic sphere." ("Neither Party's use of the electromagnetic sphere may interfere with the other Party's use.") More important, the "negotiators" tried to resolve the hardest endgame issues -- the ones that have ruined all the previous peace processes. They agreed on a formula for sharing control of Jerusalem. They outlined a plan for defusing the Palestinian "right of return" so that refugees would be guaranteed a "permanent place of residence," but not necessarily in Israel. They proposed a multinational force to guarantee security for both sides.

Critics may argue that this illusory concreteness only reinforces the absurdity of the Geneva accord. But the same complaint could be made of any effort to speak about peace in a time of war. By sending a copy to every home in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the drafters allowed citizens on both sides to imagine a different future. That's subversive, in itself.

The idea of compromise embodied in the Geneva accord is threatening to those who believe they can have it all. It's threatening to Sharon, who promised that his harsh methods would provide the security that Israelis demand. And it's threatening to the Muslim militants who argue that suicide bombings will eventually force a demoralized Israel to capitulate.

The real illusion in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the idea of victory. It ain't going to happen -- no matter how many suicide bombings or house demolitions each side attempts. By contrast, the idea of a negotiated peace settlement ought to seem practical. I like the thought of Israelis and Palestinians sitting in their homes this week, looking over the maps and clauses of the Geneva accord, and telling each other, "You know, maybe this isn't so crazy after all."

That's the value of the thought exercise conducted this week in Geneva -- that it made the possibility of peace seem as real, for a moment, as the prevailing state of war. Yes, rational people must be vigilant and determined. But imagine. . .

LIBERAL BOMBAST I have mixed feelings about the pending launch of a liberal radio network. On the one hand, anything that can counterbalance the conservative hot air found on the radio these days would be nice. On the other hand, do we really need to encourage the trend toward reactionary, emotive banner waving? At any rate, Progress Media announced last week that they should have stations in five major markets by early next year; plans include shows hosted by Al Franken and comedian Janeane Garofalo.

TOODAY IS WORLD AIDS DAY Take a minute to learn about how the HIV/AIDS crisis has gone from being perceived as an American problem to becoming a global tragedy.