I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning, and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. Together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I am grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. I am also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu alaykum.

We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world - tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust.

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles - principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth." That is what I will try to do - to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

Part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.

As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam.  It was Islam -- at places like Al-Azhar -- that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment.  It was innovation in Muslim communities -- (applause) -- it was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.  Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.  And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.  (Applause.)

I also know that Islam has always been a part of America's story.  The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco.  In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President, John Adams, wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims."  And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States.  They have fought in our wars, they have served in our government, they have stood for civil rights, they have started businesses, they have taught at our universities, they've excelled in our sports arenas, they've won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch.  And when the first Muslim American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers -- Thomas Jefferson -- kept in his personal library.  (Applause.)

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.  That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't.  And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. (Applause.)

But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America.  (Applause.)  Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.  The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known.  We were born out of revolution against an empire.  We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words -- within our borders, and around the world.  We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept:  E pluribus unum -- "Out of many, one."  

Now, much has been made of the fact that an African American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President.  (Applause.)  But my personal story is not so unique.  The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores -- and that includes nearly 7 million American Muslims in our country today who, by the way, enjoy incomes and educational levels that are higher than the American average.  (Applause.)

Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion.  That is why there is a mosque in every state in our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders.  That's why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it.  (Applause.)

So let there be no doubt:  Islam is a part of America.  And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations -- to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God.  These things we share.  This is the hope of all humanity.

Of course, recognizing our common humanity is only the beginning of our task.  Words alone cannot meet the needs of our people.  These needs will be met only if we act boldly in the years ahead; and if we understand that the challenges we face are shared, and our failure to meet them will hurt us all.

For we have learned from recent experience that when a financial system weakens in one country, prosperity is hurt everywhere.  When a new flu infects one human being, all are at risk.  When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations.  When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains, people are endangered across an ocean.  When innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience.  (Applause.)  That is what it means to share this world in the 21st century.  That is the responsibility we have to one another as human beings.

And this is a difficult responsibility to embrace.  For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes -- and, yes, religions -- subjugating one another in pursuit of their own interests.  Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating.  Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail.  So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it.  Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; our progress must be shared.  (Applause.)

Now, that does not mean we should ignore sources of tension. Indeed, it suggests the opposite:  We must face these tensions squarely.  And so in that spirit, let me speak as clearly and as plainly as I can about some specific issues that I believe we must finally confront together. 

The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms.

In Ankara, I made clear that America is not -- and never will be -- at war with Islam.  (Applause.)  We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security -- because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject:  the killing of innocent men, women, and children.  And it is my first duty as President to protect the American people.

The situation in Afghanistan demonstrates America's goals, and our need to work together.  Over seven years ago, the United States pursued al Qaeda and the Taliban with broad international support.  We did not go by choice; we went because of necessity. I'm aware that there's still some who would question or even justify the events of 9/11.  But let us be clear:  Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day.  The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody.  And yet al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale.  They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach.  These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with.

Now, make no mistake:  We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan.  We see no military -- we seek no military bases there.  It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women.  It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict.  We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can.  But that is not yet the case.

And that's why we're partnering with a coalition of 46 countries.  And despite the costs involved, America's commitment will not weaken.  Indeed, none of us should tolerate these extremists.  They have killed in many countries.  They have killed people of different faiths -- but more than any other, they have killed Muslims.  Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam.  The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as -- it is as if he has killed all mankind.  (Applause.)  And the Holy Koran also says whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.  (Applause.)  The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism -- it is an important part of promoting peace. 

Now, we also know that military power alone is not going to solve the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  That's why we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses, and hundreds of millions to help those who've been displaced.  That's why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend on.

Let me also address the issue of Iraq.  Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world.  Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible.  (Applause.)  Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said:  "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be."

Today, America has a dual responsibility:  to help Iraq forge a better future -- and to leave Iraq to Iraqis.  And I have made it clear to the Iraqi people -- (applause) -- I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources.  Iraq's sovereignty is its own. And that's why I ordered the removal of our combat brigades by next August.  That is why we will honor our agreement with Iraq's democratically elected government to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by July, and to remove all of our troops from Iraq by 2012.  (Applause.)  We will help Iraq train its security forces and develop its economy.  But we will support a secure and united Iraq as a partner, and never as a patron.

And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter or forget our principles.  Nine-eleven was an enormous trauma to our country.  The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals.  We are taking concrete actions to change course.  I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.  (Applause.)

So America will defend itself, respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law.  And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities which are also threatened.  The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer.

The second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world.

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known.  This bond is unbreakable.  It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust.  Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich.  Six million Jews were killed -- more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today.  Denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful.  Threatening Israel with destruction -- or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews -- is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.  For more than 60 years they've endured the pain of dislocation.  Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead.  They endure the daily humiliations -- large and small -- that come with occupation.  So let there be no doubt:  The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.  And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.  (Applause.)

For decades then, there has been a stalemate:  two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive.  It's easy to point fingers -- for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought about by Israel's founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond.  But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth:  The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.  (Applause.)

That is in Israel's interest, Palestine's interest, America's interest, and the world's interest.  And that is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience and dedication that the task requires.  (Applause.)  The obligations -- the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the road map are clear.  For peace to come, it is time for them -- and all of us -- to live up to our responsibilities.

Palestinians must abandon violence.  Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed.  For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation.  But it was not violence that won full and equal rights.  It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding.  This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia.  It's a story with a simple truth:  that violence is a dead end.  It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus.  That's not how moral authority is claimed; that's how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build.  The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities.  To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel's right to exist.

Vote for Obama

McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. And Palin is simply a disgrace.

By Christopher Hitchens | Slate.com | Oct. 13, 2008

I used to nod wisely when people said: "Let's discuss issues rather than personalities." It seemed so obvious that in politics an issue was an issue and a personality was a personality, and that the more one could separate the two, the more serious one was. After all, in a debate on serious issues, any mention of the opponent's personality would be ad hominem at best and at worst would stoop as low as ad feminam.

At my old English boarding school, we had a sporting saying that one should "tackle the ball and not the man." I carried on echoing this sort of unexamined nonsense for quite some time—in fact, until the New Hampshire primary of 1992, when it hit me very forcibly that the "personality" of one of the candidates was itself an "issue." In later years, I had little cause to revise my view that Bill Clinton's abysmal character was such as to be a "game changer" in itself, at least as important as his claim to be a "new Democrat." To summarize what little I learned from all this: A candidate may well change his or her position on, say, universal health care or Bosnia. But he or she cannot change the fact—if it happens to be a fact—that he or she is a pathological liar, or a dimwit, or a proud ignoramus. And even in the short run, this must and will tell.

On "the issues" in these closing weeks, there really isn't a very sharp or highly noticeable distinction to be made between the two nominees, and their "debates" have been cramped and boring affairs as a result. But the difference in character and temperament has become plainer by the day, and there is no decent way of avoiding the fact. Last week's so-called town-hall event showed Sen. John McCain to be someone suffering from an increasingly obvious and embarrassing deficit, both cognitive and physical. And the only public events that have so far featured his absurd choice of running mate have shown her to be a deceiving and unscrupulous woman utterly unversed in any of the needful political discourses but easily trained to utter preposterous lies and to appeal to the basest element of her audience. McCain occasionally remembers to stress matters like honor and to disown innuendoes and slanders, but this only makes him look both more senile and more cynical, since it cannot (can it?) be other than his wish and design that he has engaged a deputy who does the innuendoes and slanders for him.

I suppose it could be said, as Michael Gerson has alleged, that the Obama campaign's choice of the word erratic to describe McCain is also an insinuation. But really, it's only a euphemism. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear had to feel sorry for the old lion on his last outing and wish that he could be taken somewhere soothing and restful before the night was out. The train-wreck sentences, the whistlings in the pipes, the alarming and bewildered handhold phrases—"My friends"—to get him through the next 10 seconds. I haven't felt such pity for anyone since the late Adm. James Stockdale humiliated himself as Ross Perot's running mate. And I am sorry to have to say it, but Stockdale had also distinguished himself in America's most disastrous and shameful war, and it didn't qualify him then and it doesn't qualify McCain now.

The most insulting thing that a politician can do is to compel you to ask yourself: "What does he take me for?" Precisely this question is provoked by the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin. I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to her just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed. Moreover, given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party's right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama's position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses.

It therefore seems to me that the Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and that both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated, along with any senators, congressmen, and governors who endorse them.

I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that "issue" I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the "experience" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke. One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign.

The Last Days of David Foster Wallace

The people who knew the brilliant writer best talk about the crippling anxiety and spiraling depression of his torturous final weeks.

By Robert Ito | Salon.com | Sept. 26, 2008

Following David Foster Wallace's suicide on Sept. 12, stunned fans, colleagues and friends paid tribute to the writer in countless articles and blog posts. They wrote of his imagination and breadth of knowledge, of the ways in which his books and essays inspired a generation of writers and forever altered the literary landscape. They used words like "virtuoso" and "genius." Many, like Jocelyn Zuckerman, the Gourmet editor who went to bat for Wallace's infamous and groundbreaking essay "Consider the Lobster," a masterwork that morphed from a scene piece about a festival in Maine into an essay about whether it's ethical to boil lobsters alive (short answer: no), now mourn the enormous talent the world has lost. "A lot of people," she says, "are really sad for all the books we're not going to get to read."

Those who knew him personally speak of his kindness: Longtime agent Bonnie Nadell recalls how he stood on line at FedEx the week before Christmas to mail an autographed book to a fan. "He would just do things like that because he was a really sweet person," she says. His students at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., remember the committed, engaged teacher: Amanda Shapiro had taken writing classes with him the past three years, and recalls the copious comments she got back from him about her assignments. "He would write five pages of notes on a six-page story," she says, "and put so much care and thought into helping us as writers. He would type out the letters, and then annotate them, in pen, with little smiley faces and notes and corrections."

A common thread running through the many magazine and newspaper tributes, the online eulogies and recalled anecdotes, was shock. Wallace may have been a hugely influential and critically celebrated figure, the winner, in 1997, of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, but he was also a very quiet one. He had given few interviews in recent years, and he found much of the fame that came with literary success, the adoration and spotlight that countless other writers would have killed for a taste of, embarrassing and uncomfortable. He taught creative writing at Pomona, wrote short stories and essays and attended the occasional book reading and conference. When news of his suicide began to spread, fans were left wondering: Why? Why had this gifted, funny, often disarmingly humble writer -- a man with seemingly so much to live for -- taken his own life?

Unbeknown to most, Wallace had suffered from clinical depression for the past two decades. Family and close friends knew of it, but few others did. Over those years, Wallace had taken powerful anti-depression medication that had allowed him to work and write, according to his father, James Donald Wallace. But recently the drugs had been having very serious side effects. In June of 2007, Wallace and his doctor decided that they would have to try another course of treatment.

"Going off the medication was just catastrophic," his father remembers. "Severe depression came back. They tried all kinds of things. He was hospitalized twice. Over the summer, he had a series of electro-convulsive therapy treatments, which just really left him very shaky and very fragile and unable to sleep."

Suffering from near-crippling anxiety, Wallace found himself unable to write. "I don't think he'd been able to write for more than a year," says his father. Wallace told the human resources department at Pomona College that he would be unable to teach there in the fall, and he was granted a medical leave for the fall semester.

"I knew this summer had been particularly bad," says Nadell. "My job was just to keep everyone and everything away from him."

On Aug. 18, Wallace's parents came to Claremont to stay with their son. Wallace's wife of four years, Karen Green, had been called away on an urgent family matter, and Wallace did not want to be left alone. He had canceled previous visits with his parents over the past year, telling them that he couldn't bear to have people in the house, even those he loved, so the invitation came as a welcome surprise to them.

When Mr. and Mrs. Wallace arrived, they found their son exhausted and gaunt. "He was very, very thin," says his mother. "He weighed about 140 pounds, so I immediately started to try to put 40 or 50 pounds on him, the way mothers will." She cooked and cleaned. Wallace couldn't eat, he told his sister later, but he liked the way the house smelled, and how clean everything was.

Mornings were spent walking Wallace's two dogs, Werner and Bella. Wallace and his parents strolled the streets of Claremont, talking of small things. In the afternoons, they spoke some more, and helped their son deal with the paperwork and insurance issues that had been piling up. "He was very glad we were there," says his mother. "And he was very emotional. He was just terrified of so much. We would just try to hold him." The memories bring tears. "He did tell me that he was glad I was his mom."

The time together, she says, was a gift. "We hadn't spent that much time with David since he was a small boy. Once they grow up and leave home you see them, of course, and you visit, but you don't spend hours and hours with them."

Toward the end of their visit, Wallace and his parents called his sister Amy. "I'm a public defender," she says, "and I had just lost a trial that I was really upset about. He was really in a lot of pain, but he said all the right big brother things, you know, like how lucky my client was to have me." She pauses. "That was the last time I spoke with him, and it was his last chance to be a big brother. I think it really made him feel better, at least for a few minutes. I know it made me feel better."

The respite, though, was brief. "He told me that he wasn't OK," she says. "He was trying really hard to be OK, but he wasn't."

His wife returned home shortly after, and, on Aug. 30, James and Sally flew back to their home in Urbana, Ill. It was the last time they would see their son. Two weeks later, Wallace hanged himself. He was 46.

News of Wallace's death shocked fans and colleagues worldwide, even those who knew firsthand of his struggles with depression. Longtime friends busied themselves with preparations for a memorial service in October, even though the very thought of speaking publicly of their friend filled them with dread. Jonathan Franzen, author of "The Corrections," who knew Wallace for two decades, found it nearly impossible to speak about him, noting that if the words barely came now, how, in a month, would he know what to say?

His sister Amy described emotions ranging from disbelief to sadness to acceptance, of a sort. "Inevitably our thought was, if only he could have held on a little bit longer," says sister Amy. "And then we realized, he did. How many extra weeks had he hung in there when he just couldn't bear it? So we're not angry at him. Not at all. We just miss him."

While friends and family recalled the anguish of Wallace's final weeks and days, they also wanted to talk about his sweetness, his unfailing politeness, his generosity of spirit. Amy spoke of the "magical uncle" who wasn't so big on kids, but adored his two nieces. "He took them to Disneyland a few years ago," she remembers, "and God, he hated stuff like that! Just all the people and the parking and the driving in L.A. But he absolutely delighted in being with them." His mother talked about him as a husband who had, in Karen, found his best friend and soul mate. A painter and mixed media artist with her own art gallery, Beautiful Crap, in Claremont, Karen had met Wallace through a mutual friend and married him on Dec. 27, 2004, in the Champaign County Courthouse in Urbana. "The happiest he had ever been in his life was being married to Karen," his mother says. "She was the one ideal person on the planet for him, and thank God he found her."

When David was 5, his mother recalls, he decided that he had two careers to look forward to. He would be a professional football player, for one. In the off-season, while the other players were recuperating or doing whatever it is that pro football players do when they're not running or passing or slamming their bodies into each other, he would be a neurosurgeon. His mother has no idea how, at 5, her son might have heard about neurosurgeons or what they were or did, but he had. The first day of his medical career, he promised his mom, he would take out all of her frayed nerves and fix them. "Somehow he knew about neurosurgeons," she says, "and he knew that my nerves needed fixing."

After Wallace's death, readers began revisiting his books and essays, searching for clues to his death, hints of suicide notes planted between the lines. There were, of course, plenty to be found. There were references to depression, death, paranoia and, yes, suicide -- more and more clues, the more one chose to look. But those who knew him hope that what we now know of the demons he struggled against won't forever color the way his books are read, or the way he is remembered.

"I understand that he was apparently depressed, but that wasn't the only important part of his life," says former student Amanda Shapiro. "And I don't think that's where his genius came from. I think his genius came more out of his passion, and the things that he thought were worth living for and writing about in the world."

"I hope he'll be remembered in the way that every writer hopes to be remembered," says Little, Brown publisher Michael Pietsch, who acquired and edited "Infinite Jest" in 1992 and had worked with Wallace ever since. "That people will continue to read his books. His mind is there on every page. 'Infinite Jest,' in particular, is one of the great works of a mind in our time."

Heavy on Emotion

By JOHN BRANCH | NYTimes.com | Aug. 20, 2008

BEIJING — After Matthias Steiner of Germany became the world’s strongest man, the most important thing he carried weighed nothing more than a few ounces.

It was a framed photograph of his smiling wife, Susann. After the medal ceremony for weight lifting’s super heavyweight division on Tuesday, Steiner posed for pictures. He held a bouquet of flowers and his gold medal in one hand and the photograph of Susann in the other.

She was killed in a car accident in July 2007, two years after they married.

“There was so much emotion that I cannot describe,” Steiner said. “It was, after a few weeks last year, a big motivation to fight for the gold medal. For her. For friends, for family.”

Steiner needed to clean-and-jerk 258 kilograms, about 569 pounds, on the last lift of the sport’s glamour division, involving immense barrel-chested men who weigh at least 231 pounds.

He did it, then collapsed in an emotional heap atop the barbell. A moment later, he was jumping up and down on the stage at the 6,000-seat Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics Gymnasium. The successful lift gave him a combined total in the snatch and clean-and-jerk of 1,016 pounds, vaulting him past Evgeny Chigishev of Russia, who lifted 1,014 pounds and was left with the silver medal.

Viktors Scerbatihs of Latvia, the tournament favorite, who carried the added story line of being a member of Latvia’s 100-member parliament, finished with a disappointing bronze. It was Latvia’s first medal of the Games, but that was little consolation to Scerbatihs, aiming for just the second Olympic gold medal in Latvian history.

“I believe I lost,” he said. “If you ask me about my feelings, I lost.”

All medal hopes had been buoyed by the absence of the Iranian Hercules, Hossein Rezazadeh, who was the Olympic champion in 2000 and 2004 and remains the world-record holder. A hand injury kept Rezazadeh from competing, and he surprised his nation and his fellow competitors in July by announcing his retirement from the sport he long dominated.

“If he’s here, I have to fight against him,” Steiner said. “I don’t know how strong he would be. I think he would not be strong enough, so he didn’t come.”

Steiner, who will turn 26 on Aug. 25, was born in Vienna. He competed for Austria at the 2004 Athens Games, but a fallout with his country’s weight-lifting federation led him to apply for German citizenship in 2005. That decision, to trade countries and coaches, forced him out of international competition for three years.

German citizenship was granted this year. And the first thing Steiner did upon learning the news was visit his wife’s grave.

“She should be the first to know,” Steiner said at the time.

His victory on Tuesday was a mild surprise. Most expected the winner to be the 33-year-old Scerbatihs, who won the 2007 world championship when Rezazadeh sat out of the competition. He also won his fifth consecutive European championship this year, beating Steiner by a kilogram.

Scerbatihs was in position to take the lead this time until he could not handle 538 pounds on his second clean-and-jerk attempt. He attempted 567 pounds to move past Chigishev and try to put his total out of reach for Steiner. He lifted the bar over his head but could not gather his feet under him. The bar, and his hopes, crashed to the floor.

He hinted that his duties as a lifter and a politician had hurt his chances. He needed the permission of other government officials to be granted time to train. It was ultimately decided that Scerbatihs meant more as a potential gold-medal winner than as one of 100 parliamentary members.

But Latvia’s hopes for gold will be transferred elsewhere. The country’s only gold medal winner remains the gymnast Igor Vihrovs, who won the floor exercise at the 2000 Sydney Games and was awarded a Latvian stamp.

Steiner, 6 feet tall and weighing 321 pounds, with a wispy beard and a boyish face, admitted to being nervous before the event. When he lifted the last massive barbell over his head, he had a look of joyous disbelief.

After he bounced around the stage, Steiner knelt and kissed the weights. Then he went backstage and reached into his bag for a photograph he had taken with him.

There was someone else with whom he wanted to share the moment.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

By Jon Meacham | Newsweek.com |June 28, 2008

History has always been a tactile thing to me, and I like to think that I come by it honestly. I grew up on Missionary Ridge, a Civil War battlefield where you could still find Minié balls in the ground and in trees more than a century after Union troops broke the Confederate line in the autumn of 1863. As a boy, I played World War II, wearing my grandfather's old gunnery-officer Navy helmet from the Pacific. Years later, a secretary to Winston Churchill gave me one of the signed pictures of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt that had been presented to members of the prime minister's party during the White House Christmas of 1941—a souvenir that reminded me of the old lyric "I danced with a man who's danced with a girl who's danced with the Prince of Wales."

It is true that living in the past—to be a kind of History Channel Miss Havisham—can be bad for the mind and the soul, preventing us from engaging in the battles and causes of our own time. But when we are at our best, history and heroes enable us to look ahead, not backward. We are the sum of the stories we tell ourselves, and those stories are necessarily rooted in our experience, and by how we choose to interpret the experiences of others. These mechanics of memory create a new, present reality that then determines the future. To understand where a leader might take us, or what a friend is really like, requires understanding what they look to, and what they make of it.

There are moments around the NEWSWEEK offices when the interest many of us have in the past provides others with plenty of ammunition. A few years ago, Jonathan Alter and I were standing outside a small kitchen here, intensely debating the comparative significance of Louis Howe and Harry Hopkins in FDR's life. A colleague who needed an answer to a question about the issue of the magazine we were working on came by, shook his head sadly and somewhat pleadingly said: "Can't we please talk about this century for a minute?"

We could, and did, but in fact all the centuries run together. It is tempting in a discussion like this to cite a Certified Great to make the case, from Shakespeare ("What's past is prologue") to Faulkner ("The past is never dead; it's not even past") to Churchill ("The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope"). But we do not need an eloquent benediction to see an obvious truth: the future and the past and the present are all mixed up together.

What we choose to remember is critical, since the narratives that play in our heads shape everything. Churchill saw himself as another Marlborough or Nelson, defeating a Continental foe, and there was a happy ending. George W. Bush thought of himself as another Truman or Reagan, but the story would have turned out better if he had been willing to play the role of president more as his own father did.

This issue of stories and fathers seems particularly relevant at a time when we are about to choose between two presidential candidates who have thought deeply about history and family. It is interesting that both John McCain and Barack Obama are authors of books about their fathers; they clearly believe that, in Wordsworth's phrase, the child is father of the man.

Epigraphs from McCain's "Faith of My Fathers" and Obama's "Dreams From My Father" say much about their views of the world. McCain quotes the old hymn—a favorite of FDR's, the war president under whom McCain's father and grandfather served—from which he drew his title:

Faith of our fathers, living still
In spite of dungeon, fire and sword;
O how our hearts beat high with joy
Whenever we hear that glorious word!
Faith of our fathers, holy faith!
We will be true to thee till death.

Obama cites a verse from I Chronicles. The passage is from a prayer of King David's at the end of his life: "For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers." Obama stops his quotation there, but the verse goes on: "our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding." Both the section Obama quoted and the one he did not speak to the same theme: life is transitory, incomplete—and incompletable.

The two men, then, have more in common than either might cheerfully acknowledge 17 weeks from Election Day. McCain's faith—in country, in his fellow prisoners, in himself—endured the dungeons of Hanoi, ultimately shaping a man with a wry, tragic sensibility. Some things work out, some things do not: the duty of the honorable man is to fight in the cause of the right, and perhaps the forces of light will edge out the forces of darkness.

Obama is just as pragmatic, and there is more tragedy in his view of the world than one might think. His rhetoric of hope is so powerful that the candidate's understanding of leadership as a fallible thing can go unnoticed.

The unsentimental passage from I Chronicles ("our days on the earth are as a shadow") "does speak to a certain sensibility that is part of my makeup, and that traces itself back to the circumstances of my birth and the absence of a father," Obama told me. "Growing up oftentimes means that imperfection and weakness and evil are all part of the human condition as much as joy and happiness and good are." The Obama narrative, like the McCain one, is grounded in the recognition that politics and life will never be perfect, but they can be better. "It's not pessimism," Obama said. "One of the things I am always trying to reject is a false choice between blind optimism and despair and cynicism. What I at least am always after is a hardheaded realism that does not extinguish hope."

Both nominees hear distant drumbeats. "I have a lot of role models and a lot of heroes, and I need them because I have been a flawed servant of my country," McCain told me. I asked him which presidents he bore in mind as inspirational figures. "On the obvious plus side, Lincoln, TR and Reagan are people who are in many respects my role models," McCain said. And who, I asked, do you think of and say, "I don't want to be him"? McCain replied: "One I was thinking about very recently because of this anti-free-trade, protectionism sentiment that understandably is being bred by our severe economic problems is Herbert Hoover. In 1930, he signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and there were other actions that the administration and Congress took that sent us from a recession into a deep depression. And my study of history is that Herbert Hoover was at least acquiescent, if not very active, in taking all the wrong steps, which again not only didn't help the situation but exacerbated conditions which led to the most severe depression in the history of this nation."

Obama shares McCain's love of Lincoln. "When I think about presidents, I start with Lincoln, and not just because I'm from Illinois," Obama said. "I think he embodies those qualities that are the very best in America: upward mobility, an embrace of the future and an ability to stand fast on principle while acknowledging the other side of the debate." Washington's leaving office after two terms impresses Obama, too: "Our first president was someone who could step outside his own ambitions."

And the examples he wants to avoid? "You know, I have to admit that I don't spend a lot of time reading about failed presidents," he said, then went on: "There is a long list of presidents who did not rise to the times—Hoover, Buchanan, Andrew Johnson. Many of them are people who did not see, for example, the fault lines of slavery, or the dangers of depression."

McCain just finished a 1904 book of Theodore Roosevelt's about hunting, and is now reading Philip Bobbitt's "Terror and Consent." Robert Jordan, the protagonist of Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls," is a hero of McCain's. "He's everything I always wanted to be, and has always been larger than life," McCain says. "I reread it all the time, and cry when he says, 'Maria, we won't be going to Madrid'."

In the pages that follow, a collection of NEWSWEEK writers contribute essays on things they think are important—arguments, insights and facts that can form the raw material for all sorts and conditions of stories. From Lincoln vs. Darwin to war presidents to whether politicians should pander, the issues raised will take you on excursions into the past or to unexpected precincts in the present.

Lincoln was the commander in chief of the Union armies that triumphed at Chattanooga. Understanding that greatness and humility are not mutually exclusive, he was always essential but not central in the drama that played inside his own head. When a Northern minister visited the White House during the Civil War and told the president how glad he was that God was on the Union's side, Lincoln corrected him, saying: "Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side." He knew that pride goeth before a fall, and courage is not the same thing as hubris. That is a story worth telling ourselves often.

Fittings

by Floyd Skloot

My wife Beverly and I arrive at the nursing home shortly after noon.  We enter the access code for the Memory Impairment Unit and walk down the hall to my mother’s room.  She is standing where she usually stands: in her bathroom, hands on the sink, gazing into the mirror, smiling at her image there.

She looks remarkable.  Gone is the lacquered golden pouf, rouge and darkened eyelids that long defined her presentation to the world.  Her hair is its natural gray.  It’s clean and soft, and smells like human hair rather than a chemistry experiment.  Instead of layers of gauzy fabric and elaborately swirled capes, she wears cotton lounging pants and an unpredictable mix of undershirts, tee shirts and sweaters.  She is braless and sockless.  Her feet, which have lost much of the swelling caused by a lifetime of elegant high heeled shoes, are encased in suede sandals held in place by velcro straps.

According to everyone involved in her care, my mother is a happy, jovial woman.  No one has ever said that about her before.  As transformed in spirit as in fashion, she’s cooperative and serene, provided someone can tell her exactly what she should do at every moment.  Triggered by stray words, she routinely breaks into song.  Say It’s a beautiful morning, Lillian and she will respond with a few lines of Rodgers and Hammerstein: Oh what a beautiful mornin’ oh what a beautiful day.  Tell her there’s a full moon out and she’ll croon Fly me to the moon.  Just don’t ask her where she comes from, or where she is, or what her two husbands’s names were, or what she had for lunch today.

Since she forgets our weekly visits the moment we leave, she’s aggrieved whenever we show up because we haven’t been there in months.  Years.  But joy in seeing us magically appears like a golden thread within the tapestry of her distress.

“Do you still write?” she asks.  Then adds, “aren’t you the one who writes?”

“Yes, mother.  I’m still at it.”

“Then it would be nice if I ever had one of your books.”

I pick up a few from her bedside table.  “You’ve got them all.”

“Oh, so nice of you to bring them at last.”

I know that this little exchange is just another example of my mother’s inability to form memories.  She’s not forgetting me or my books, she hasn’t been able to place or keep them in memory.  They’re not there to be forgotten. Still, for all my knowing, it’s frustrating to feel that our visits and our gestures offer my mother no lasting sustenance.  In the most literal sense, she is oblivious of them as soon as we leave.

There is a counterbalance to that frustration:  I’m amazed to hear her let go of perceived offenses so readily, to see things in a positive light.  Now that dementia has ravaged her memory, she no longer hoards and seasons her indignation.  This has to be as good for her as it is for me.  She lives in the moment–in the instant, really–and is more cheerful than I have ever known her to be.  Except for rare bursts of anger or frustration, as when she knows she cannot remember something, she seems content. 

As David Shenk says in his book The Forgetting, “When introspection begins to break down, so does willfulness.”  This change in my mother is almost more than I can handle.  No brooding, no defensiveness or moody tirades.  Who is this woman?  Where was she when I was young?  I wonder if this might have been my mother’s “true self,” hidden all along under some combination of psychological forces that I will never discover.  The happy little girl buried in a rubble of wrongs.  The idea fills me with sadness for her.  Or perhaps my mother has truly been transformed.  Perhaps her memory and the gothic theater it always housed–she never seemed to remember joy--was the very thing that tormented her.  Now that memory is gone, so is the torment.  Her mind seems more at east.

And what is most on her mind now is marriage.  Hers, mine, the aide’s, the social worker’s, the rabbi’s, the tv newscaster’s, the sons and daughters of her compatriots in the nursing home.

As she looks at herself in the mirror, she asks, “how old am I, dear?”

“You just turned ninety-one.”

She turns to look at me, to see if I’m joking. “Don’t say such a thing.”  Returning her attention to the mirror, she says she hopes to find another husband soon.  The men in this place don’t know what they’re missing. Then, as she always does when we show up, she asks, “when are you two going to get married?”

I hold up my hand and let the light sparkle off my wedding ring.  “We are married.”

“Oh, yes.”  She looks back into the mirror, trying to fit the pieces together, trying to connect that image with her sense of who she is, trying to figure out how Beverly and I belong in the picture that refuses to cohere.  “I remember now.”

I was present when my mother, widowed five years, met the man who became her second husband.  It was a New Year’s Eve party in the basement of her apartment building, as 1965 turned into 1966.   I’d come home for the holidays during my freshman year of college, and been hired to work the party as a waiter.  Minimal salary, but they said the tips would be great.

My mother’s escort was an old boyfriend named Teddy, the man she’d abandoned in 1938 to marry my father.  Teddy had re-surfaced in her life after my father’s death, first showing up as a contestant on To Tell the Truth in its next-to-last season.   Posing as a South Seas explorer, he’d stumped Peggy Cass and Tom Poston but not Orson Bean, and made my mother stand up at the kitchen table and scream: “He’s no explorer, he’s Teddy Serenata!”  When a grinning Teddy told Bud Collyer that he lived in New York, my mother grunted, picked up the phone and dialed Information.  She and Teddy started their second romance a week later.

By New Year’s Eve, they’d been dating for over a year.  I remember liking Teddy the few times I met him, a dapper little man the same size as me and my father, given to wearing striped sport jackets and loose slacks in pastel shades, his graying hair slicked back.  He reminded me of the old Yankees shortstop, Phil Rizzuto.  My mother said he was good company, which meant that he still wasn’t husband material.

So it wasn’t a surprise when my mother left that New Year’s Eve party with someone else.  Julius, recently widowed, was visiting his sister and brother-in-law for the holidays and had agreed to tag along with them.  Fate sat them at my mother’s table.  By the time I served their soup, I could see what was happening.

My mother and Julius danced.  Teddy sat, smiling, nodding to me or to the occasional neighbor who recognized him, growing smaller as he nibbled on a roll.  My mother and Julius danced some more.  He was lean and handsome, six inches taller than my mother, correct in posture, serious in demeanor.  At midnight, she kissed Julius first, then pecked at Teddy’s cheek and–quite publicly–the poor man was once again abandoned.

When the party broke up, Teddy left without saying goodbye, not even to me.  My mother walked out arm-in-arm with her new beau, beaming.  She forgot about rallying everyone to leave their waiter a tip, and I ended up with five dollars from the table for my night’s work.  They were married in early March.

“Yes, I remember when you met,” my mother says now, walking over to us.  “I was there.  Some kind of party.  Floyd, you came with somebody else, what’s-her-name, your old girlfriend, the Italian.  Then you met beautiful Beverly.  You forgot the Italian immediately and out you walked with this one.  Very romantic.”

That is not, of course, how Beverly and I met.  But such confabulations are typical of the way memory and identity and time have grown fluid for my mother now.  Within the space of a moment–the time it takes for her to lift a cup of coffee to her lips–she might see me as her son, her late brother, her first husband and her last boyfriend.  Oh Floyd, it’s so good to see you.  How is your house on the lake? (this is addressed to her brother, whose house on Lake Mahopac in New York was a place she last visited about thirty years ago).  I’m glad you stopped with the cigars (to my father).  Let’s go up to my room later, and don’t forget to bring me a Pepsi (this is to Irv, her final boyfriend, whom she last saw in New York six months ago).                 

I’m trying to learn how to drift in time with her, to let go of my yearning for a genuine conversation or connection, for the things she says to make sense.  If I can do that, it becomes possible to witness her rediscovery of things I’ve never known about.  Suddenly, there’s a touch of warmth in these stray memories, and a veracity that convinces me they’re real.  Passing a friendly Weimaraner and her owner as we approached a coffee shop, I expected her to recoil and curse the man for exposing her to potential filth.  Instead, she said oh, what a nice doggie! and stopped, hands lifting from her walker, to add, we had a dog when I was a little girl.  Its name was Wee-toy but Papa called it Pee-toy because it always wet the carpet.  Huh?  My mother had a dog?  In a Bronx apartment?  It peed and wasn’t immediately put to sleep? 

Mostly, though, her memory fails utterly.  When two students from Portland State University, as part of their course requirements, visited the nursing home on a strangely ironic mission to help residents compile “memory books,” they were unable to discover anything from my mother except that her parents sold furs in New York.  She simply could not tell them anything about her life.  The problem, in part, was that they asked directly.  My mother can’t retrieve items from memory that way anymore; they have to surface of their own accord, driftwood on a sea of forgetfulness .  And she certainly can’t present her few memories in any sort of coherent whole–she can’t tell a story now, can’t connect the few bits that remain into a narrative.  So, when asked, she didn’t remember her marriages, her relatives, her experiences in art or theater, her childhood.  She did think she had a son who was a writer.  But he died.  One of the students called me to schedule a visit here, to collect photographs and assemble a life story.

Prosecutor: DNA Clears JonBenet Ramsey's Family

By CATHERINE TSAI, Associated Press Writer

BOULDER, Colo. - Prosecutors cleared JonBenet Ramsey's parents and brother Wednesday in the 1996 killing of the 6-year-old beauty queen and told the family they were "deeply sorry" for putting the Ramseys under a cloud of suspicion for more than a decade. The district attorney said new DNA tests point to a mysterious outsider.

"To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry," Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy wrote in a letter to the little girl's father, John Ramsey. "No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion."

Lacy said new "touch DNA" tests on skin cells that were left behind on JonBenet's long underwear point to an "unexplained third party" and not a member of the family.

John Ramsey, a software entrepreneur who now lives in Michigan, said Wednesday he is hopeful the killer will be found based on the DNA evidence.

"I think the people that are in charge of the investigation are focused on that, and that gives me a lot of comfort," he told KUSA-TV in Denver. He added: "Certainly we are grateful that they acknowledged that we, based on that, certainly could not have been involved."

For years after the slaying, tabloids and crime shows went after the couple, and Lacy's predecessor as district attorney, Alex Hunter, said in 1997 that the parents were under an "umbrella of suspicion." News reports also cast suspicion on JonBenet's older brother, Burke, who was 9 when his sister was killed.

The suspicions outlived JonBenet's mother, Patsy, who died in June 2006 of ovarian cancer at age 49 in Atlanta, where the family moved after JonBenet's death.

"My first thought was obviously I wish Patsy Ramsey was here with us to be able to at least share vindication of her family," said L. Lin Wood, an attorney for the Ramsey family. "There are many people in this country, if not around the world, that also owe John and Patsy Ramsey and Burke Ramsey an apology."

Early in the investigation, police found male DNA in a drop of blood on JonBenet's underwear and determined it was not from anyone in her family. But Lacy said investigators were unable to say who it came from and whether that person was the killer.

Then, late last year, prosecutors turned over long underwear JonBenet was wearing to the Bode Technology Group near Washington, which looked for "touch DNA," or cells left behind where someone has touched something.

The laboratory found previously undiscovered genetic material on the sides of the girl's long underwear, where an attacker would have grasped the clothing to pull it down, authorities said. The DNA matched the genetic material found earlier.

Lacy said the presence of the same male DNA in three places on the girl's clothing convinced investigators it belonged to JonBenet's killer and had not been left accidentally by an innocent party.

"It is therefore the position of the Boulder District Attorney's Office that this profile belongs to the perpetrator of the homicide," she said in a statement. In her letter to the Ramseys, she said the DNA evidence "has vindicated your family."

She said investigators hope someday to find a DNA match in the ever-expanding national DNA databank.

Through a spokeswoman, Lacy declined to comment any further.

John Ramsey found his daughter's strangled and bludgeoned body in the basement of the family's home in Boulder on Dec. 26, 1996. Patsy Ramsey said she found a ransom note demanding $118,000 for her daughter.

Lacy had previously expressed doubts that the parents were involved. In 2003, a federal judge handling a defamation lawsuit in Atlanta involving the Ramseys said evidence in the case was more consistent with the theory that an intruder killed JonBenet, and Lacy said she agreed.

Less than two months after Patsy Ramsey died, the case appeared to blow wide open with the arrest in Thailand of John Mark Karr, a sometime teacher obsessed with the little girl's slaying. Karr made bizarre, detailed confessions to the killing, but authorities said DNA evidence showed he did not commit the crime.

Patriot Games

By Michael A. Cohen | NYTimes.com | July 8, 2008

Last week, Barack Obama traveled to Independence, Mo., to talk about patriotism, a perennial campaign topic that has taken on added relevance this year. Mr. Obama’s earlier refusal to wear a flag lapel pin, his failure to put a hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem, his supposed Muslim lineage have all been seized upon by his opponents to make the case that Mr. Obama is somehow “not one of us.”

Unfortunately, in his remarks, Mr. Obama missed an opportunity to move beyond this nonsense. By focusing largely on his own personal definition of patriotism — as a means of inoculating himself from scurrilous rumors — Mr. Obama failed to make the more important argument of what he is prepared to ask of the American people.

Indeed, Mr. Obama should seize the opportunity to redefine patriotism, particularly as military service has become the primary means by which national devotion is defined in America today. For the millions of Americans who choose not to join the armed services, Mr. Obama must lay out what he believes are their patriotic responsibilities.

In his speech, Mr. Obama sought to straddle the divide that exists between what the July 7 Time magazine cover story calls the patriotism of affirmation, which appeals more to conservatives, and the patriotism of dissent, which is particularly cherished by liberals. On the one hand, he said: “For me, as for most Americans, patriotism starts as a gut instinct, a loyalty and love for country rooted in my earliest memories.” And on the other: “When our laws, our leaders or our government are out of alignment with our ideals, then the dissent of ordinary Americans may prove to be one of the truest expression of patriotism.”

But it’s not clear that embracing a little of the conservative and a little of the liberal definitions of patriotism will work. Conservative commentators like Jonah Goldberg continue to intimate that “at the end of the day the patriotic American believes that America is fundamentally good as it is.”

And even Time magazine’s Joe Klein complains of a “chronic disease among Democrats, who tend to talk more about what’s wrong with America than what’s right.” The debate over patriotism is still being waged on conservative turf. And one can be sure that John McCain, who seems to focus his greatest patriotic respect on those who have served in the military, will continue to trod this ground.

Instead, Mr. Obama should shift the patriotism conversation — much the way he did with his race speech in Philadelphia last April — by offering a redefinition of our civic duties as citizens. He should ask and answer the question: Short of taking up arms, how do citizens today demonstrate their devotion to America?

Mr. Obama offered a useful sermon on what America means to him, but he failed to spell out a more robust understanding of patriotism at a time when the country faces grave challenges that demand national sacrifice. Indeed, he only offered two paragraphs about the importance of national service in his speech. (Though he spoke at greater length on this issue later in the week, he offered more of a laundry list of items than a national call to arms.)

Mr. Obama must find a way to seamlessly merge patriotic devotion with national service and civic responsibility so the country can move beyond the stale notion that patriotism is the dominant province of our fighting men and women. As a former community organizer in Chicago, he understands well the many ways in which love of country can be expressed.

Mr. Obama can bridge America’s patriotic divide by demanding of Americans the sacrifice that has been lacking not just for the last eight years, but indeed for much longer. Since Mr. McCain has chosen to emphasize military service over national service and President Bush has asked little sacrifice from Americans in the post-9/11 world, defining patriotism need not be seen by Mr. Obama as a vulnerability to be mitigated, but instead an opportunity to be mined.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy spoke of a New Frontier that appealed to the American people’s “pride, not to their pocketbook” and that held “the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security.” These were courageous words that at a time of national drift reminded a generation of Americans that they had genuine responsibilities to their country and flag. They are the kind of words that many Americans crave to hear now; and Mr. Obama should not be afraid to challenge the American people. Not only is it smart politics but, one could argue, it is his patriotic responsibility to the country he seeks to lead.

Summertime Blues

Sometimes big events shake the nation's sense of self. But sometimes it is the small things, like the sound of jingle mail.

By Anna Quindlen | NEWSWEEK | Jun 28, 2008

The symbol of the summer of 2008 may well be the FOR SALE sign swinging wildly in a thunderstorm outside a suburban house, or outside two houses, or nearly every house on the cul-de-sac or the street. Or maybe it will be the gas-price signs, the numbers ticking up as rapidly as the symbols on the slots in Vegas as motorists fill their tanks and shake their heads. Or the sodden remains of a den in Iowa, or the smoking husk of a California hill house.

Once I read that humans resonate to the season in which they were born. Maybe that's why I love summer. Hate the cold, like the heat, love the pace. I'm still on a school schedule, and it's not just me. Some offices in New York City go dark on Friday afternoons during the summer months. Compared with the other seasons, summer seems easier, brighter, fraught with promise, a state of mind redolent of lying on a beach at the Jersey shore drenched in baby oil, a sin for which I pay now at the dermatologist's office, and about which I am insufficiently repentant.

Of course there were summers past that were dark and fraught with peril. There was that terrible summer after Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy were murdered, when the police and protesters did bloody battle in the streets of Chicago during the Democratic convention, a summer when the American ideal of dissent seemed like a preposterous lie. There was the breathless summer of Watergate, the televised hearings and the revelations of wrongdoing that ended with the August resignation of Richard M. Nixon, a summer when the American ideal of principled leadership seemed like a laughable fiction.

This summer is different. There is, so far, no one day or date, no central event, no indelible political scandal or tragedy. Instead the domino theory that justified the war in Vietnam suddenly seems to be true, not in terms of world communism but in terms of American optimism. One thing has led to another, and another, and shaken the stability of the nation down to the ground.

"Zeitgeist" is a term so overused that the vocabulary guru of The New York Times once banned it until further notice. But there's no better term for the vague and persistent sense, like a low-grade fever, that all is not well in the United States. Most of us expected to hear the term "run on the bank" only when watching "It's a Wonderful Life" each Christmas, but there it was in real time as the investment giant Bear Stearns began to crash and burn. Many of us grew up with the maxim "home sweet home" but are new to the phrase "jingle mail," which describes keys left in mailboxes for lenders by homeowners who would rather default than fight their rising payments under adjustable-rate mortgages.

Whole neighborhoods in the South and West have been foreclosed; whole areas of California are ablaze, while in Iowa they are underwater. In Cedar Rapids, the river broke all records as residents fled homes and businesses. Those of a Biblical state of mind might see the End of Days (or retribution for single celebrity moms and sex blogs) in these natural disasters, while environmentalists said they were not natural at all, but reflected manipulation of the landscape that changed its ability to withstand both fire and floods. The flooding in the farmlands will likely drive food prices higher, which is unfortunate: like gas prices, they've already risen this year at an alarming rate. This has gone down hard with the nation's neediest families, since the food-stamp allotment will not increase until October. No milk and eggs this summer for those poor kids!

Four out of every five Americans—more, if you just survey the wealthiest—think the country is in a recession. But there's a precise formula for such a thing, and economists say it's not so, although Warren Buffett says it is, and my money's on Buffett (I wish). Of course, it's mainly a semantics game, particularly if you're hard-pressed to afford a gallon of milk or a gallon of gas. The economic classification "recession" was actually invented in 1937 when the economy was back in the toilet but FDR didn't want to call it a depression. And the description "depression" first surfaced during the Hoover administration, a substitute for a more vivid but disconcerting term of art: panic.

Most of us feel the ground trembling beneath our feet, as though the epicenter of an earthquake is somewhere else but still nearby. Some of the growth industries in the country nowadays are built around disaster. There are companies devoted to clearing away debris from flood zones, and contractors who tend houses that have been foreclosed on behalf of the banks that now own them. The Forest Service will be hiring every qualified applicant in California to battle the fires scorching hundreds of acres there.

But at least since the days of the New Deal there has been a national assumption that failure is not an option. Playing by the rules and working hard will lead to prosperity. Prosperity will lead to security, and security is immutable. But little seems immutable this summer, and prosperity has led to credit-card indenture. Having a two-car garage has an entirely different feeling when the cost of filling a car with gas begins to edge toward $100. This is the summer of our discontent, when the equivalent of the ice-cream-truck bells is the music of jingle mail, signaling that our old optimistic notion of America is on increasingly shaky ground.

Hollywood & Horror

By Stephen King | EW.com | 3 July 2008

While walking back to my Boston hotel after a surprisingly well-attended Tuesday afternoon showing of Bryan Bertino's horror thriller The Strangers, I found myself musing on what's scary and what's not. Whatever it is, The Strangers had enough of it to do incredibly well at the box office. But what makes such a little film with only one star (Liv Tyler) work in the first place? That the question interests me shouldn't amaze anyone, since I've worked in the scare-'em-silly field for years. And it must be of vital interest to Twentieth Century Fox, which this summer releases two movies in the genre with much higher budgets: The Happening and The X-Files: I Want to Believe. The Happening was better than I expected, but it wasn't as scary as The Strangers. As for The X-Files (out July 25)? Children, I have my doubts.

One thing that seems clear to me, looking back at the 10 or a dozen films that truly scared me, is that most really good horror films are low-budget affairs with special effects cooked up in someone's basement or garage. Among those that truly work are Carnival of Souls, Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead, and The Blair Witch Project. All cost almost nothing to make and earned millions, while their sequels and remakes were crap (Dawn of the Dead in both its incarnations being the exception that proves the rule).

Horror is an intimate experience, something that occurs mostly within oneself, and when it works, the screams of a sold-out house are almost intrusive. In that sense, a movie such as Blair Witch is more like poetry than like the ''event films'' that pack the plexes in summer. Those flicks tend to be like sandwiches overstuffed with weirdly tasteless meat and cheese, meals that glut the belly but do nothing for the soul. Studio execs, who not only live behind the curve but seem to have built mansions there, don't seem to understand that most moviegoers recognize all the bluescreens and computer graphics of big-budget films and flick them aside. Those movies blast our emotions and imaginations, instead of caressing them with a knife edge.

The scariest sequence I can remember is in Night of the Living Dead. The cemetery-visiting heroine, Barbara, is chased back to her car by a lurching zombie with white hair and dazed eyes. She locks herself in only to discover her brother has taken the keys. The zombie reaches down, finds a rock, and begins to bash it strengthlessly against the car window. The first time I saw this (and twice after), the scene reduced me to jelly.

Of Fox's two summer creepshows, give the edge to The Happening, partly because M. Night Shyamalan really understands fear, partly because this time he's completely let himself go (hence the R rating), and partly because after Lady in the Water he had something to prove. And, happily, Happening plays as a relatively small movie. The new X-Files movie, on the other hand, looks big...but horror is not spectacle, and never will be. Horror is an unknown actress, perhaps the girl next door, cowering in a cabin with a knife in her hands we know she'll never be able to use. Horror is the scene in The Strangers where Liv Tyler tries to hide beneath the bed...and discovers she can't fit there.

One more problem: Big movies demand big explanations, which are usually tiresome, and big backstories, which are usually cumbersome. If a studio is going to spend $80 or $100 million in hopes of making $300 or $400 million more, they feel a need to shove WHAT IT ALL MEANS down the audience's throat. Is there a serial killer? Then his mommy didn't love him (insert flashback). A monster from outer space? Its planet exploded, of course (and the poor misunderstood thing probably needs a juicy Earth woman to make sexy with). But nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations; they're antithetical to the poetry of fear.

That's why I can't imagine that anything in X-Files will match Liv Tyler's exchange with one of the masked home invaders in one particularly terrifying scene of The Strangers.

''Why are you doing this to us?'' she whispers.

To which the woman in the doll-face mask responds, in a dead and affectless voice: ''Because you were home.''

In the end, that's all the explanation a good horror film needs.

Colombia Frees Betancourt, US Hostages from Rebels

By FRANK BAJAK | Associated Press Writer | 3 July 2008

BOGOTA, Colombia - Ingrid Betancourt woke up, as always, at 4 a.m., for another numbing day in her seventh year of rebel captivity deep in Colombia's jungle.

The former presidential candidate listened to news of her mother and daughter over the radio then was told to pack by her guerrilla captors — helicopters were coming.

The sound always filled her with dread, but this time she and 14 other hostages — including three U.S. military contractors held since 2003 — were airlifted to freedom in an audaciously "perfect" operation involving military spies who tricked the rebels into handing over their prize hostages without firing a shot.

The stunning caper involved months of intelligence gathering, dozens of helicopters on standby and a strong dose of deceit: The rebels shoved the captives, their hands bound, onto a white unmarked MI-17 helicopter, believing they were being transferred to another guerrilla camp.

Looking at helicopter's crew, some wearing Che Guevara shirts, Betancourt reasoned they weren't aid workers, as she'd expected — but rebels.

This was just another indignity — the helicopter "had no flag, no insignia." Angry and upset, she refused a coat they offered as they told her she was going to a colder climate.

But not long after the group was airborne, Betancourt turned around and saw the local commander, alias Cesar, a man who had tormented her for four years, blindfolded and stripped naked on the floor.

Then came the unbelievable words.

"We're the national army," said one of the crewman. "You're free."

The helicopter crew were soldiers in disguise. Cesar and the other guerrilla aboard had been persuaded to hand over their pistols, then overpowered.

Not a single shot was fired in Wednesday's rescue mission, which snatched from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the four foreigners who were its greatest bargaining chips.

"The helicopter almost fell from the sky because we were jumping up and down, yelling, crying, hugging one another," Betancourt later said.

The operation, which also freed 11 Colombian soldiers and police, "will go into history for its audacity and effectiveness," Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said.

It was the most serious blow ever dealt to the 44-year-old FARC, which is already reeling from the recent deaths of key commanders and thousands of defections after withering pressure from Colombia's U.S.-trained and advised armed forces.

Military intelligence agents had infiltrated the FARC's top ranks — not one but many — in an operation that began last year and developed slowly and with meticulous care, Colombia's top generals said.

Many relatives of hostages have opposed rescue attempts, mindful of a botched 2003 operation in which rebels killed 10 hostages including a former defense minister when they heard helicopters approach.

This time, there were no such mistakes.

Through orders the hostages' handlers believed came from top rebels, they had maneuvered three separate groups of hostages to a rallying point in eastern Colombia's wilds for Wednesday's helicopter pickup.

"The helicopter was on the ground for 22 minutes," said army chief Gen. Mario Montoya, "the longest minutes of my life."

The agents had led Cesar, the local commander overseeing the hostages, to believe he was taking them to Alfonso Cano, the guerrillas' supreme leader to discuss a possible hostage swap.

A French and Swiss envoy were reported in the country seeking a meeting with Cano so the operation's timing was perfect.

"God, this is a miracle," Betancourt said after the freed Colombians landed in Bogota a few hours later. "It was an extraordinary symphony in which everything went perfectly."

She appeared thin but surprisingly healthy as she strode down the stairs of a military plane and held her mother in a long embrace.

A flight carrying the Americans — Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell — landed in Texas late Wednesday after being flown there directly. They were to reunite with their families and undergo tests and treatment at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

Betancourt said she will travel to France on Thursday and meet President Nicolas Sarkozy.

President Alvaro Uribe, in a celebratory news conference flanked by the freed Colombian hostages, said he isn't interested in "spilling blood" that he wants the FARC to know he seeks "a path to peace, total peace."

Although only Colombians were directly involved in the rescue, U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield said "close" American cooperation included intelligence, equipment as well as "training advice." He refused to offer details.

The two rebels overpowered will face justice, officials said. But the 58 others left behind on the ground were allowed to escape as a goodwill gesture, said Gen. Freddy Padilla, the armed forces commander.

"If I had given the order to fire on them they would almost certainly all have been killed," he said. Another 39 helicopters had been standing by, prepared to encircle the rebels and hostages if the rescue failed, Santos said.

Betancourt, 46, was abducted in February 2002. The Americans were captured a year later when their drug surveillance plane went down in rebel-held jungle. Some of the others had been held for a dozen years.

The French-Colombian Betancourt wore a floppy camouflage hat as she arrived in Bogota and hugged her mother, Yolanda Pulecio, and her husband, Juan Carlos LeCompte. Her two children and sister, Astrid, were expected to arrive early Thursday from France, where they live with her ex-husband.

Betancourt broke into tears several times — first on arrival and later at Uribe's side during the news conference.

"They used the pain of our families to pressure the entire world," she said, and appealed to the FARC to release its remaining hostages — about 700 by government count — and make peace.

"The people who stayed behind there, I forgive them," Betancourt said of her rebel captors. "Nobody is at fault."

She thanked Uribe, against whom she was running when she was kidnapped, and said he "has been a very good president."

However, she said, "I continue to aspire to serve Colombia as president."

Before leaving Paris, her son Lorenzo Delloye-Betancourt called her release "the most beautiful news of my life."

Brownfield said the Americans were healthy and "very, very happy" but two suffered from the jungle malady leishmaniasis and were "looking forward to modern medical treatment."

Congratulations swarmed in for Uribe and his military from around the world, including from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had made Betancourt's liberation a priority of state.

Betancourt, a dual French national who grew up in Paris, had become a cause celebre across Europe, where scores of cities had adopted her.

Many Colombians believe the end is near for the FARC, whose ranks are filled with poor peasants resentful of government neglect but who are widely despised for their ransom and political kidnappings and reliance on cocaine trafficking.

FARC battlefield losses and widespread desertions have cut rebel numbers in half to about 9,000 as the United States has poured billions of dollars in military aid into Colombia in support of Uribe.

In March, co-founder leader Manuel Marulanda died of a reported heart attack, and two other top commanders were killed, one by a turncoat bodyguard.

Padilla said the FARC informants who had made the hostages' release possible would be rewarded not with cash but with "liberty."

"They did it so that they and their families can have a better life."

Books With Batteries -- Why Not?

The new Kindle from Amazon.com won't replace books, says Uncle Stevie. But a good story's bound to be compelling no matter how it's ingested

By Stephen King | EW.com |

What did I do during the holidays? Read a good book, of course. It was called In Pale Battalions, by Robert Goddard. Goddard's British, and his tales of suspense and mystery have recently been reissued in America. I'd never read him. Now I'm glad I did. Set mostly during World War I (but with a leisurely framework that allows the story to stretch comfortably all the way to 1968), In Pale Battalions is a story of sex, secrets, and murder — all the good stuff, in other words. What makes it especially riveting is the malevolent demon-woman at the novel's center: Olivia Powerstock's greatest talent is making those around her suffer. And Goddard is clever, giving the reader not just one solution to what happened at drafty ole Meongate Manor, but three — each fuller and more satisfying than the last.

A book to remember, in other words, but one I'll remember another way: as the first book I read on my new Kindle.

Most of you will already know what that is, but for those of you who have been living in a barn, your Uncle Stevie will now elucidate. It's a gadget available from Amazon.com. The advance publicity says it looks like a paperback book, but it really doesn't. It's a panel of white plastic with a screen in the middle and one of those annoying teeny-tiny keyboards most suited to the fingers of Keebler elves. Full disclosure: I have not yet used the teeny-tiny keyboard, and really see no need for it. Keyboards are for writing. The Kindle is for reading.

There are two controls on the back. One is the on/off switch (duh). The other turns on a wireless connection called Whispernet. With this you can download books directly from the electronic ether, where even now a million books are flying overhead, like paper angels without the paper, if you know what I mean. The catch: For now, you can only order the ones at the Amazon-run Kindle Store. The advantage: It's cheaper than your local big-box store, with $9.99 as the price for many new releases. But a book is a book, right?

Or is it? One of my writer friends expressed strong reservations. Although raised on TV and weaned on the Internet, this talented young man made a strong argument for books as books: beautiful objects that take up real space in our lives. ''Books do furnish a room,'' people used to say when I was a kid, and I know what my talented young writer friend means. Covers, for instance. The Robert Goddard reissues have beauties. In Pale Battalions features vivid red poppies, those emblematic flowers of World War I, against a field of green. The ''cover'' of the Kindle version is a flat statement of title and author. Borr-ing. On many Kindle books the cover art is reproduced...but in tepid black and white.

I've argued all my life that the story means more than the delivery systems involved (and that includes the writer). I have never been able to understand the prejudice some people seem to feel about recorded books, for instance. Not only are good stories better when they are told out loud; bad stories declare themselves almost at once, because the spoken word is merciless. You cannot, for instance, listen to one of the later Patricia Cornwell novels without realizing how little feel she has for language, or to a Sue Grafton without appreciating her divine eye for the minutiae of ordinary life.

The Kindle isn't as gratifying as a good book narrated by a great reader...but for what it is, it's just fine. It's light, holds its charge, is simple to operate. And for a fellow of my years (a less-than-generous reader recently referred to me in his blog as ''that elderly douchenozzle''), the Kindle has one great feature: You can adjust the typeface. In the printed version of In Pale Battalions, the type is readable but small; after an hour or so, I'd be maxed out. At its highest Kindle magnification, though, the narrative looks twice as big as this, and I can breeze along for twice that length of time, my finger stuttering on the NEXT PAGE button. It's a boon that makes up for having to charge the gadget at night...which I never had to do with a novel until this one.

Will Kindles replace books? No. And not just because books furnish a room, either. There's a permanence to books that underlines the importance of the ideas and the stories we find inside them; books solidify an otherwise fragile medium.

But can a Kindle enrich any reader's life? My own experience — so far limited to 1.5 books, I'll admit — suggests that it can. For a while I was very aware that I was looking at a screen and bopping a button instead of turning pages. Then the story simply swallowed me, as the good ones always do. I wasn't thinking about my Kindle anymore; I was rooting for someone to stop the evil Lady Powerstock. It became about the message instead of the medium, and that's the way it's supposed to be.

And did I mention that you can also look up definitions of words that puzzle you as you read? My definition of Kindle: a gadget with stories hiding inside it. What's wrong with that?