Refreshing to have someone who really does know what he's talking about discuss what questions those supplying troops to the peacekeeping force in Lebanon need to have answers to, and why. Franklin D Kramer was assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs from 1996 to 2001. He is now an international consultant on defense and national security, and is writing in the Washinton Post.

The Guardian's book section is publishing extracts from a book called How to Read a Novel, by John Sutherland. This week's extract contains some information about copyright which is worth reading (n the odd world of journalism, possessing such knowledge is considered almost an act of treachery by some editors). "There is no copyright in ideas, merely in the linguistic form in which those ideas are expressed. Here, an author may reap where he has not sown. This means that plot lines, scenarios, character types, gimmicks are all there for the taking. A new idea in fiction, if it catches on, will quickly be snapped up by other writers. Take, for example, the alternative, or parallel, universe gimmick often used in science fiction. The pioneer is generally taken to be Ward Moore, whose Bring the Jubilee (1953) fantasises an America in which the south won the civil war, existing in some neighbouring universe alongside ours in which, of course, the north won. This was picked up by Philip K Dick in one of the greatest of science-fiction novels, The Man in the High Castle (1962), in which in one universe Japan, and in another the Allies, won the war - characters slip between the two. Since then there have been any number of creative plunderings of Moore's alternative universe gimmick: Len Deighton's SS-GB (1978) and Robert Harris's Fatherland (1992), in both of which Germany won the Second World War, are two bestselling examples."

Thanks, Brenda.

Duke Jordan, who was the pianist in the Charlie Parker Quintet, has died in Denmark, where he had lived since 1978. Other members of that quintet were Miles Davis, Max Roach and Tommy Potter on bass. As the Los Angeles Times recalls, the quintet "worked together from 1946 to 1948, recording primarily for Savoy as well as Los Angeles-based Dial Records."

The University of Wisconsin and the Presbyterian Church in the US are both sponsoring people who claim it wasn't terrorists who caused the collapse of the World Trade Center. The Christian Science Monitor says University lecturer Kevin Barrett believes "the US government planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks, the World Trade Center imploded due to explosives set up ahead of time in the buildings, Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone's plane crash was no accident, and Osama bin Laden has probably been dead since 2001.

Barrett, the Monitor says, "has drawn national attention and provided grist for conservative talk-show hosts, while the university has been deluged with e-mails against Barrett. Yet it has stuck by the decision to have him teach a planned course on Islam this fall."

The Presbyterian Church, according to the Washington Times has published a book called Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action whose content takes a similar tack. The Times says "It accuses the Bush administration - in power only eight months at the time of the 2001 terrorist attacks - of plotting September 11 to justify war with Afghanistan and Iraq, and to expand an 'American empire'.

Both the University of Wisconsin and the Presbyterian Church are prepared to disassociate themselves from the views, but not from the people who express them. That's a crock. The media can do that, because people are used to that process, but in allowing these two men to use the University's name, and the Church's name, to dignify their lunatic views, the two organisations are doing a terrible disservice to those for whom they are responsible.

Reactions to the ruling by a federal judge in Detroit that the administration's eavesdropping programme is unconstitutional have been interesting. The New York Times, which broke the story and was criticised heavily for doing so, approves, as you would expect them to: "Ever since President Bush was forced to admit that he was spying on Americans' telephone calls and e-mail without warrants, his lawyers have fought to keep challenges to the program out of the courts. Yesterday, that plan failed. A federal judge in Detroit declared the eavesdropping program to be illegal and unconstitutional. She also offered a scathing condemnation of what lies behind the wiretapping - Mr. Bush's attempt to expand his powers to the point that he can place himself beyond the reach of Congress, judges or the Constitution."

Is the Grey Lady thinking wishfully? Almost certainly. The Wall Street Journal puts the other point of view pretty forcefully: "In our current era of polarized politics, it was probably inevitable that some judge somewhere would strike down the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretaps as unconstitutional. The temptations to be hailed as Civil Libertarian of the Year are just too great.

"So we suppose a kind of congratulations are due to federal Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, who won her 10 minutes of fame yesterday for declaring that President Bush had taken upon himself 'the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, itself.' Oh, and by the way, the Jimmy Carter appointee also avers that 'there are no hereditary Kings in America.' In case you hadn't heard."

Hollywood's love affair with the boozy poet Charles Bukowski continues with the release today of a film version of his novel, Factotum. The New York Times seems to like it: "For years the boozy, beautiful world of Charles Bukowski has proved catnip to European filmmakers and a few American actors happy to go along for the rough ride: Ben Gazzara, Mickey Rourke and now Matt Dillon. Bukowski's own story (his parents moved to Los Angeles from Germany when he was 3) clearly holds attraction for certain creative types, as do all his tales of ordinary madness. That many of those stories take place in Los Angeles may be particularly seductive, since few images telegraph the paradox of the American dream better than a drunk passed out in the shadow of Hollywood.

Hollywood, as sign or guiding principle, is nowhere to be found in Factotum, and there isn't a palm tree in sight. Shot in a seedy, forlorn Minneapolis, far from that city's green-canopied streets and Prairie School architecture, the film was directed by the wonderfully named Bent Hamer, a Norwegian whose earlier features include the deadpan comedy Kitchen Stories.” Working with the producer Jim Stark, Mr. Hamer adapted the screenplay from the 1975 novel of the same title, with snippets from three other, more characteristically Bukowskian sounding volumes: The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills and the posthumous What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire and The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship."

The LA Times Food Section scores another 10 in my book with this article on the rise in popular taste of the open-faced sandwich: "Walk through Paris's St-Germain-des-Pres and you're bound to see a glamorous cafe patron lingering at an outdoor table over a gorgeous tartine, maybe piled with slices of ham and topped with a dollop of griotte cherry jam and a big curl of butter, served on a large slice of Poilane sourdough. Traditionally, tartine was prepared for breakfast, spread simply with butter and confiture, but has become chic lunch fare.

"And tony llesquerias in Barcelona have elevated what was once a humble repast of day-old bread rubbed with tomato and topped with ham or cheese or possibly anchovies to what is now considered an elegant dinner: crisp, fresh toast layered with arugula, beef carpaccio, paper-thin slices of delicate foie gras and shaved Parmesan.

"The combinations are endless, though some are considered classic - and, of course, classic depends largely on geography. A smorrebrod of gravlax and honey mustard sauce is a Danish favorite. Balzac extolled pork rillettes from Tours for a tartine."

Thanks again, Brenda.

"A year ago, before the Supreme Court issued its decision in Kelo v New London, the abuse of eminent domain was practically invisible. Today," says the Weekly Standard, "it's a hot-button issue in nearly every state in the Union - not least in Ohio, where the state supreme court last month unanimously blocked the city of Norwood's attempt to clear out a middle-class residential neighborhood to make way for a private developer to build condominiums, offices, and retail space.

"It's worth revisiting the oral argument in City of Norwood v Joseph P. Horney et al, which took place before Ohio's high court on January 11. One exchange in particular captures the passions stirred by the controversy over eminent domain.

"Attorney Timothy Burke, arguing for the city, explained that the neighborhood could be taken and handed over to the developer because it was deteriorating owing to a 'diversity of ownership' - that is, lots of people owned their own homes. Asked by one of the justices why the city government alone should be allowed to control property ownership, Burke replied, 'These are the folks who live there. They've lived there all their lives, they've walked those neighborhoods, they've seen how it has changed. They've made a decision.' Another justice interjected, 'Counselor, couldn't the same argument be made for the homeowners?'"

Just when you thought it couldn't get any sillier, the City Council in Newcastle in the North of England has banned its workers from using words of endearment that are staples in Geordie speech. To give you an idea of just how silly that is, think of it this way: the American equivalent would be trying to stop Texans from saying 'howdy'. The Times reports: "Newcastle City Council has instructed its workers to refrain from addressing women in the traditional Geordie manner. No matter that everyone grows up hearing affectionate greetings such as 'Alreet, pet?' and 'Howay, hinny', a council edict has proclaimed that they are potentially patronising, sexist and insulting and should therefore be treated with as much contempt as a Sunderland fan at St James's Park. As a consequence, the Liberal Democrat-controlled authority now stands accused of vandalising Northumbrian culture and is under pressure to reverse its decision or face the wrath of the Geordie nation."

The London Times says that Turkey, the one 'secular' Muslim country, is having a difficult time as a result of recent Middle East developments: "The Lebanese conflict has magnified the forces pulling Turkey in different directions at once. It is a member of Nato, and its army has long experience of peacekeeping, from Kosovo to Afghanistan. It is a longstanding ally of the US. It has cordial relations with both Israel and Arab countries. It has ambitions of joining the European Union.

"Yet in this conflict, as it weighs up the risks of taking a much more active role in its own backyard, it is pulled between its support of the EU, US and Israel, and sympathy with other Muslim countries. For the moment, those forces have pulled the Government to a standstill, as it tries to please all sides. But this summer there has been a distinct shift in public mood away from Europe. The message of the Lebanon crisis is that the West cannot take Turkey's support for granted. Yesterday, Abdullah Gul, the ubiquitous Turkish Foreign Minister, flew to Beirut to try to thrash out plans for a Turkish military contribution to the United Nations force planned for southern Lebanon."

A pair of British polls, taken days apart, make some interesting measurements. The Telegraph reports that the Brits are less confused about the war on terror, certainly than I would be if I had to rely on the BBC and Fleet Street for news. "A majority of British people wants the Government to adopt an even more "aggressive" foreign policy to combat international terrorism, according to an opinion poll conducted after the arrests of 24 terrorism suspects last week.

"However - by a margin of more than five to one - the public wants Tony Blair to split from President George W Bush and either go it alone in the "war on terror", or work more closely with Europe. Only eight per cent of those questioned by YouGov said Mr Bush and Mr Blair were winning the battle against Muslim fundamentalism. A majority also wants tougher domestic legislation that would allow police more time to detain suspects while they investigate complex terrorism plots. Some 69 per cent said that the police should be able to hold suspects for up to 90 days without charge, rather than be bound by the current 28-day limit."

And over on the other side of the Atlantic, Irshad Manji, a fellow at Yale University and author of The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith, suggests in a New York Times article that the second poll indicates Muslim are capable of reforming themselves: "The good news is that ordinary people of faith are capable of self-criticism. Two months ago, 65 percent of British Muslims polled believed that their communities should increase efforts to integrate. The same poll also produced troubling results: 13 percent lionized the July 7 terrorists, and 16 percent sympathized. Still, these figures total 29 percent - less than half the number who sought to belong more fully to British society.

"Whether in Britain or America, those who claim to speak for Muslims have a responsibility to the majority, which wants to reconcile Islam with pluralism. Whatever their imperial urges, it is not for Tony Blair or George W. Bush to restore Islam's better angels. That duty - and glory - goes to Muslims."

Thanks for the tip, Brenda.

The by now well-known case of the Reuters stringer who altered photographs of Israeli damage in Lebanon for effect, and was fired in the wake of the discovery, is far from unusual in the Arab world, according to the Washington Times: "...Almost nothing that is purported to happen in the Arab world can automatically be taken at face value. Not even if it's captured in a photo.

"Nowhere is the use of Arab 'fixers' (as they are known) more common than in the Palestinian territories. And yet despite the extensive reliance on locals who presumably enjoy greater familiarity with the terrain and key players, negative press coverage of the Palestinian Authority or various Islamic terrorist organizations operating in the territories has long been scant.

"This void in coverage is not because such evidence does not exist. Palestinian Media Watch, a nonprofit that operates on a tight budget, has easily reported more on incitement and indoctrination by the Palestinian Authority, for example, than all Western media outlets combined."

If you want to know why the Lebanese are so eager to get back to their properties, evacuated when Israel attacked, you need to look back at their civil war, and what happened in its wake. So much property was seized by one side or the other that the Lebanese created a government department to sort it out. It was in existence until recently, when it was disbanded in the wake of complaints that money had been embezzled from it. This article about the Ministry of the Displaced is a little out of date, and a little densely-written, but you'll get a good idea from it of the scale of the problem.

John Keegan, the best military writer alive, is reviewing Thomas Ricks's book, Fiasco, for its publisher, the Wall Street Journal: "For several months the second Iraq War seemed a triumph. Then the American army of occupation, whose continuing presence was dedicated to the political transformation of the country, began to come under low-grade attack by Iraqi guerrillas. American soldiers began to die, and attempts to create a successor regime, organized on democratic principles, failed to take root. Political instability was accompanied by rising military difficulty, until by 2005 a full-scale insurgency was in swing, with dozens of American soldiers dying every month and the numbers of insurgents growing proportionately.

In Fiasco, Thomas Ricks traces this familiar history and attempts to explain its reasons, interviewing various military experts and reporting from the fighting in Iraq itself. He has severely critical views of Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Wolfowitz and Mr. Feith, but he does not heap all the blame on their preinvasion policy. He also points to the mistakes made by American leaders of the postwar administration in Iraq, notably Paul Bremer, who became head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in May 2003...

"America was so certain that what it had to offer - modern government in an incorrupt and democratic form - was so obviously desirable that it failed altogether to understand that the Iraqis wanted something else, which is self-government in an Islamic form. It is too late now to start again."

There's so much spin going on about the just-concluded scrap between Israel and Hezbollah that it's a little difficult to sort out what the new reality is. But if you look at analysis as a kind of medicine, I think this is the kind of take-two-every-morning-until-further-notice dose that the Israelis need to swallow: "Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government's inept prosecution of the war against Hezbollah has left Israel in a much more dangerous, vulnerable position to confront the Islamofascist threat from the north.

"Israel's failure to meet the Hezbollah challenge will likely have major implications for Israel's value as an ally to the United States. 'Part of the reckoning will be our reputation as a strategic partner, when we tell the Americans, 'Give us the tools and we'll do the job,'' Itamar Rabinovich, Israeli ambassador to the United States under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the 1990s, told the New York Times. 'Part of our self-image is of military miracle workers, and we didn't do that this time.'

"There is no pleasant way to say this: Over the past six and a half years, Israel's handling of the Hezbollah threat from Lebanon is a compendium of failure and self-delusion by governments of the right, left and center that have emboldened Israel's enemies and endangered its people. Ever since Hezbollah chased Israel out of Lebanon on May 24, 2000, there have been continuing provocations on the border: random shooting attacks that killed Israelis, kidnappings of Israeli soldiers and Katyusha rocket attacks. Time and again, Israel restricted itself to retaliatory airstrikes but little else. A 2004 exchange of hundreds of imprisoned terrorists for an Israeli businessman and three soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah further emboldened the terrorists."

There is a different point of view. The London Times ran an analysis piece yesterday which ventured that, "the damage inflicted by the Israeli Defence Forces on Hezbollah's infrastructure and resources is far, far greater than the equivalent harm that it has suffered. A sizeable proportion of Hezbollah rocket launchers and fighters have been eliminated, while the Israeli army has lost no more than a few tanks and, to its regret, about 100 soldiers. For a body that is used to incessant combat, this is not a spectacular setback.

"Secondly, Hezbollah has deployed a huge percentage of its missile arsenal to very little advantage. Only in the Alice in Wonderland world of the Middle East could it be seen as a 'triumph' for a terrorist organisation simply to launch Katyusha missiles in the direction of Israel and roughly 95 per cent of them to hit nothing of any value. It took Hezbollah six years to accumulate a stockpile that, fundamentally, it has wasted.

"Thirdly, the administration in Lebanon, which had ostentatiously refused to send its soldiers to the south of that country for the past six years, has been obliged to pledge to the United Nations that it will now do so. It will, furthermore, be under the de facto control of a much larger international force than has been assembled in that region before - one that will be judged a success or otherwise by the extent to which it keeps the place quiet.

"The wider strategic consequences of these recent events are yet more significant. Hezbollah was, until July 11, a problem exclusively for Israel. That dilemma has been internationalised. It is now of paramount importance to the Lebanese Government and the UN Security Council. If Lebanon's troops cannot pacify Hezbollah then ministers there well know that Israel's air force will be back over Beirut. The UN will come to appreciate that if it cannot maintain the peace this will be because Hezbollah has broken the ceasefire that the Security Council imposed, and its own authority will be endangered. This is an important breakthrough for Israel. If Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, had been told six weeks ago that Hezbollah would cease to be the principal militia in southern Lebanon by the beginning of September he wouldn't have believed it possible."

If there are big truths and little truths, the things the Times focuses on are, by comparison, little truths. The bigger truth is that Israel had a shot at crippling Hezbollah, threw it away and Hezbollah has emerged as a much-strengthened organisation as a result. Olmert is the first civilian to be Prime Minister of Israel during an armed conflict, and I think probably when the dust settles, it will be his un-instinctual appreciation of how military victories are won that will have made the big difference.

The talented Claudia Rosett notes, in a National Review article that "It's happy hour at the United Nations. After four weeks of Hezbollah-provoked war in Israel and Lebanon, accompanied by much diplomatic hand-wringing, the UN Security Council met Friday evening to adopt 15-0 its latest attempt to paper over the real problems: Resolution 1701 on 'The Situation in the Middle East.' This resolution is meant to deliver the 'ceasefire' that Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been calling for, also described in the lingo of the U.S. State Department as a 'cessation of hostilities'.

"Unfortunately, if Resolution 1701 has any effect at all, its real meaning is that we now embark on a period in which Hezbollah will seize the opportunity to regroup and reload. The feeble and compromised mix of UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army, which is the force authorized in this resolution, will fail to stop them. Iran and Syria will proceed apace with their terrorist infection and subjugation of Lebanon. The UN will wave around this latest piece of paper to try to prevent Israel from defending itself, or, for that matter, defending the rest of us against the 'Death to Israel! Death to America!' Hezbollah agenda. Iran's President Ahmadinejad, enjoying yet another confirmation of the UN's mincing impotence in the face of guns, bombs, rockets, and terror, will continue his fevered preparations to roll out the nuclear bomb.

"In sum, it's already time to start drafting the next resolution."

She has a suggestion.

For something a little different (yet, I hope, the same), I've linked to a video interview with Roz Chast, who was an edgy new cartoonist only yesterday morning, it seems, but is now a respected mainline vet. The interview's in The New Yorker, and it isn't really a video at all, but a video made from stills, with a voice-over. Whatever...it's worth watching, and if Roz Chast happens to be situated towards the back of your mind, it will bring her right up to the front, where she belongs.

A Greek importer in Queens is making a revolution in the world of yoghurt - the New York Sun explains: "Antonios Maridakis says that when one of the world's most famous and well-chiseled actors headed to Mexico recently to shoot a movie, he first placed a call to Queens with a special request - for a case of yogurt.

"From his small office in an industrial strip on the border of the Woodside and Astoria sections of Queens, Mr. Maridakis controls a small dairy empire, importing 40 million cups of Total yogurt a year from his native Greece to be shipped to 38 American states."

The Wall Street Journal looks at differences between American and British ways of approaching crime, like the plot to blow up airliners. "The British national-security bureaucracy is smaller and more tightly knit, and appears to be much less affected by the intense institutional feuds that are commonplace in Washington. Having an intelligence service operate for years in a state of virtual rebellion against its political masters - as has been the case with the CIA during the Bush administration - would be unthinkable in Britain.

"Britain also takes a much more pragmatic attitude toward the need to cooperate with regimes, or their intelligence services, that have poor human-rights records. This has periodically been an issue in both countries. The US has cooperated, and does cooperate, with numerous less-than-savory intelligence services. Working with foreign intelligence services (like Pakistan's) with similar interests but questionable practices will continue to be a necessary part of the war on terror.

"...There is, of course, no substitute for experience and there is no doubt that Britain benefits (if that is the right word) from its experience in fighting Irish Republican Army terror. Although the IRA was arguably a less dangerous threat than al Qaeda and its allies - if only because the IRA eventually concluded that minimizing civilian casualties was in its political interests - it was nevertheless well-organized, ideologically committed and vicious. For 30 years, Britain's military and law-enforcement forces investigated, infiltrated, surveilled and openly fought the IRA and won, deriving two important advantages in the process. First, Britain's armed forces and police have been thoroughly schooled in the most advanced techniques of surveillance and counterterrorism. Second, its political establishment and population (obviously, with some exceptions) have become accustomed to the measures, sometimes intrusive and burdensome, necessary to prevent terrorist attacks."

You could look at this as a well-meant attempt by the New York Times readers' editor to examine the ethics of an insignificant fib by the newspaper's editor, or you could look at it as the lowest-key possible way of admitting that the editor lied in a major way over one of the most controversial stories in the newspaper's history. Read all about it.

George Orwell once said England was the most class-ridden country under the sun. "It is a land of snobbery and privilege, ruled largely by the old and the silly," he wrote. The Telegraph recalls that he made that comment in an essay entitled England Your England in 1941. And if he suddenly sprang to life in Britain in 2006, he's feel perfectly at home, as this silly and mean-spirited article in the Guardian demonstrates. It criticises - actually what it does is pretend to rip the veil from the truth - that David Cameron, the new leader of the Conservative Party in Britain, "far from reaching out to multicultural, meritocratic Britain...is relying on the most prestigious of old-boy networks in his attempt to return the Tories to power.

"Out of 130 office holders sitting on the Tory frontbench are 15 Old Etonians - from a school that, more than any other, symbolises extreme privilege as well as academic excellence. Of these most went on to Oxbridge and many now drink in the same male-only private members clubs in central London.

"And the Eton influence is not restricted to the junior positions. Three of the 24 members of the shadow cabinet - including Cameron - went to the $43,500-a-year school, as did the higher education spokesman, Boris Johnson."

Let's be clear. It's a bloody good school that gives its pupils a first-rate education, as evidenced by the fact that it has produced more fine leaders than perhaps any other school in the world. But in Britain, that's not something to celebrate, something to cherish, it's something to pull to bits because it costs a lot to go there. If the lowest common denominator can't afford it, then it must be destroyed as an institution in which reeking privilege thrives.

Yet the very same newspaper is perfectly prepared to admire the fruit of an excellent education elsewhere: "The dazzling journalism of the New York Review of Books is enough to shame the vanities of its British imitators," the Guardian says. Of course it is, because the people who write for it went to excellent schools and excellent universities and are proud of every vestige of the "privilege" that confers on them. Those in the US whose parents couldn't afford that kind of an education don't want to pull those institutions apart, they want to get enough to send their own children there.

If there is such a thing as a process of Darwinian cultural evolution (and I'm sure there is) then Britain ain't.

Mind you, as Victor Davis Hanson says in the National Review, Britain isn't the only place in which such skewed thinking takes place. In an article on the new Through the Looking Glass rules of war, he writes: "All media coverage of fighting in the Middle East is ultimately hostile - and for a variety of reasons. Since the 1960s too many reporters have seen their mission as more than disinterested news gathering, but rather as near missionary: they seek to counter the advantages of the Western capitalist power structure by preparing the news in such a way as to show us the victims of profit-making and an affluent elite...

"Any death - enemy or friendly, accidental or deliberate, civilian or soldier - favors the terrorists. The Islamists have no claim on morality; Westerners do and show it hourly. So, in a strange way, images of the dead and dying are attributed only to our failing. If ours are killed, it is because those in power were not careful (inadequate body armor, unarmored humvees, etc), most likely due to some supposed conspiracy (Halliburton profiteering, blood for oil, wars for Israel, etc.). When Muslim enemies are killed, whether by intent or accidentally, the whole arsenal of Western postmodern thought comes into play. For the United States to have such power over life and death, the enemy appears to the world as weak, sympathetic, and victimized; we as strong and oppressive. Terrorists are still 'constructed' as 'the other' and thus are seen as suffering...through the grim prism of Western colonialism, racism, and imperialism."