Welcome to the Rapture!

Who would have thought that witnessing a coupling could be so shocking? -- and so disheartening!

Welcome to Doomsday

In 2005, Kabul is full of surprises: new walled-off villas with mock-Palladian façades, well-stocked supermarkets, Internet cafés, beauty parlors, restaurants, and stores selling DVDs of Bollywood as well as pornographic films. Sitting in one of Kabul's great traffic jams caused by the Land Cruisers, surrounded by the vivacious banter of Afghanistan's new radio stations and the cries of children hawking newspapers, I often felt as if I was in a small Indian city, among people prospering under the globalized economy.

Quick -- name three well-stocked vivacious films!

But to know, as the days passed and I traveled around Afghanistan, that the new mansions with the architectural adventurousness of Los Angeles belonged to corrupt government officials, often built upon lands stolen from poor Afghans; to learn that the provincial governor, who spoke fluently of "peace," "reconstruction," "international community," and "poppy eradication," was a drug lord; to find out that the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), which was briefly famous in the West for highlighting the Taliban's harsh treatment of women, was too fearful of radical Islamists to announce its presence in Kabul -- to know this was to begin to have a different sense of the change that had come to Afghanistan in the last three years.

Now -- name three briefly famous radical Islamists!

The Real Afghanistan

Going from Tess Harding to Carrie Bradshaw, Dorothy Thompson to Candace Bushnell, is not progress.

Dish It Out, Ladies

There are a lot of messages in this bottle.

New Signs on the Arab Street

Francis Fukuyama has written this article for the Book Review in the Sunday New York Times.

This year is the 100th anniversary of the most famous sociological tract ever written, "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," by Max Weber.

In the present decade, when cultures seem to be clashing and religion is frequently blamed for the failures of modernization and democracy in the Muslim world, Weber's book and ideas deserve a fresh look.

The Calvinist Manifesto

"We declare ... that Usama bin Ladin and his al-Qaida organisation ... are outside the parameters of Islam."

Spanish Muslims issue Bin Ladin fatwa

This retrospective exhibition, the first in more than 30 years, presents the artist's signature images -- such as Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, NYC, 1962 and A Jewish giant at home with his parents in the Bronx, NY, 1970 -- as well as previously unpublished photographs and writings drawn from the artist's archive.

This exhibit runs through May 30, 2005. If you live in or near New York City, or if you are visiting soon, this is something to see.

Diane Arbus Revelations

"A big part of Longhorn," Bill Gates said, "will be its peer-to-peer capability, and having Groove help us will be a big part of that."

Microsoft Acquires Groove Networks

I know this because, as head of the CIA's bin Laden desk, I started the Qaeda detainee/rendition program and ran it for 40 months. And in my 22 years at the agency I never a saw a set of operations that was more closely scrutinized by the director of central intelligence, the National Security Council and the Congressional intelligence committees. Nor did I ever see one that was more blessed (plagued?) by the expert guidance of lawyers.

Michael Scheuer says the White House micromanaged his renditions.

A Fine Rendition

The big secret of lock picking is that it's easy.

The MIT Guide to Lockpicking