Gene Wojciechowski: Bonds' Record Homer Doesn't Enhance Baseball

ESPN.com
Updated: August 8, 2007, 1:12 PM ET

The pitch left the hand of journeyman Mike Bacsik at exactly 8:50 PT Tuesday evening, reached home plate going 84 miles per hour, and then, as camera flashes turned AT&T Park into the world's largest photo shoot, the specially marked baseball met its maker.

For the 756th time in his singularly spectacular and conflicted career, Barry Lamar Bonds turned a pitcher's best intention into a home run. On a 3-2 count in the bottom of the fifth inning, Bonds swung that custom-made, double-lacquered, Canadian toothpick of a maple bat of his and sent Bacsik's fastball about six rows into the right-center field seats -- and into baseball history.

Bonds is now the all-time major league leader in home runs and controversy. He did it 14 days after his 43rd birthday and 21 years after his first dinger. He did it on his own exacting and mysterious terms.

As the ball arched toward the waiting sea of humanity, Bonds dropped his bat and then raised both arms in triumph and perhaps relief, too. He stood at home plate for several seconds, took four steps toward first base, and then began his familiar 360-foot tour of the base paths. His smile was as wide as the bill of his cap.

The San Francisco Giants fans roared loud enough to set off sensor warnings at earthquake centers. That stadium, that city and those fans remain Bonds' refuge, and he rewarded them with The Home Run and, if you believe in such things, The defining moment in all of sports.

Bacsik, the 29-year-old Texan who had clawed his way back to the big leagues after years in such places as Burlington, Buffalo and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, tipped his cap to Bonds. The left-hander had given up a double and a single to Bonds earlier in the game. This time, with one out in the fifth, he gave up the home run that allowed Bonds to end Henry Aaron's 33-year reign as the major league home run king.

Fireworks exploded above the center field scoreboard. Teammates waited at home plate for handshakes and hugs. Bonds' family assembled for kisses.

Bonds then bowed and blew kisses to the AT&T sold-out crowd. His godfather, the great Willie Mays, was escorted to the field. A prerecorded video from Aaron was played.

You can admire or despise him, but you can't deny Bonds' ability to make us watch. It was spellbinding stuff and -- wait ... I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore.

I can't pretend what Bonds did Tuesday night in front of a national television audience and his adoring but myopic Giants fans is anything more than a make-believe piece of baseball drama.
I can't pretend Bonds' 756 homers truly matter because there's no way of knowing how many of them were hit by Barry The Clean or Barry The Cream.

I can't pretend Bonds is the legitimate successor to Aaron because there are simply too many questions and too much evidence to suggest otherwise.

And in the end, I can't pretend because I believe in the purity of Aaron's numbers, but not in coincidences. What Bonds has done, as his body has morphed from a lithe, ungodly, athletic rookie into a Silver Surfer look-alike, was no coincidence. I believe it was cheating. Rationalize and justify all you want, but Bonds had a choice. And I believe he chose to cheat.

The disconnect between Bonds and actual baseball immortality has never been more obvious. Commissioner Bud Selig wasn't in attendance. His absence wasn't out of spite, but let's face it, Selig has looked like he'd rather be doing anything -- giving congressional testimony ... going to the Westminster Dog Show with Michael Vick -- than wait for Bonds to hit No. 756. By skipping Tuesday night's game, he saved everyone the sight of him with his hands in his pockets again.

Of course, Aaron took a pass on the trip. Was it because he didn't want to schlep around the country as the one-dimensional Bonds labored to reach 756? That's the official Pravda stance, and Aaron has stuck by it. But you wonder what would have happened if it had been anyone other than Bonds who was breaking his record.

But maybe he can't pretend, either.

"It is a great accomplishment," said Aaron in the video, "which required skill, longevity and determination."

And a chemist's skill.

This isn't about Bonds himself. This isn't about his being as embraceable as a cactus. And while I hate to disappoint the racial-conspiracy theorists, this isn't about his being an African-American. If this were the very freckled and very white Mark McGwire in Bonds' cleats, I'd be saying the very same thing: that you can't celebrate the accomplishments of someone who allegedly used illegal performance enhancers.

No, this has to do with who Bonds is, not what he is. Who cares if he's a self-absorbed control freak (Gary Sheffield's words, not mine) with a martyr syndrome? What matters is his moral DNA. And in Bonds' case, he traded his baseball ethics for the money and for Aaron's record.

Bonds and his career numbers are a fraud. Just like McGwire's. Just like Rafael Palmeiro's. Just like Sammy Sosa's. Bonds wasn't the first to be connected with steroids or performance enhancers, but he's the first to overtake Aaron. And that's why you should care.

There was a time, regardless of how you felt about Bonds, when you couldn't ignore the width and breadth of his talent. Those were during his days with the Pittsburgh Pirates and early in his Giants career. Now you can't ignore the width and breadth of his cap size.

For all intent and purpose, he is the closest thing to a designated hitter in the National League. He can't run. His arm is modest at best. He is a defensive liability.

But the man knows what to do with a bat. The realities of middle age have forced him to downsize to a preferred 34-inch, 31.6-ounce maple model, but it's still fascinating to watch as Bonds tries to coax his body into keeping up with his baseball mind. It was so much simpler a few seasons ago, when he was using Victor Conte's miracle flaxseed oil.

As usual, Bonds continues to miscalculate his appeal. He thinks a great injustice has been done to him, when really it's the other way around. He is the master of inflicting collateral damage and then pretending none of it was his own doing. Just watch, he'll spin the new record into a passion play.

Last month, during a pre-All-Star Game media session in a downtown San Francisco hotel, Bonds was nearly enveloped by reporters and TV cameramen. At the end of the hour-long session, Bonds stood up and, in a satisfied, smug tone, said to no one in particular, "They all say I'm the most disgusting thing, but they all stand here for me."

We all stand, but not to honor him. That's reserved for players who did it the right way, the honest way.

Take a bow, Mr. Aaron.

Gene Wojciechowski is the senior national columnist for ESPN.com. You can contact him at gene.wojciechowski@espn3.com.

Gwen Knapp: Alone at the Top

He hits blast at home, among the faithful

San Fransisco Chronicle

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

This was where it had to happen, in his haven at China Basin, among the true believers. Barry Bonds launched a ball into history Tuesday night, sending the only 756th home run ever hit by a major-leaguer into the center-field bleachers and setting off a celebration more rapturous than anyone could have expected.

Rejected by large portions of the baseball-loving public as a chemically enhanced fraud, Bonds found himself enveloped in an adoring crowd of Giants fans, his family and teammates, plus applauding opponents and, most heartwarmingly, an aristocracy of sluggers.

Among the top seven home-run hitters of all time, the four who could be present, in some form or another, came together to celebrate the moment. Frank Robinson attended as a representative of Major League Baseball, and 76-year-old Willie Mays emerged from the warmth of a suite to join his godson on the field.

Then came the deposed king, Henry Aaron, whose face appeared on the park's enormous scoreboard, offering videotaped congratulations full of warmth and goodwill. Aaron had said long ago that he would not try to be in the park when Bonds broke the record. His statements, though very limited, were widely interpreted as a rebuke to Bonds, who has been linked to performance-enhancing drugs and remains under investigation by the federal government and Major League Baseball.



But when the time came, Aaron passed the torch with all the dignity he displayed when he overtook Babe Ruth 33 years ago.

"I move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry and his family on this historical achievement," Aaron said. "My hope today, as it was on that April evening in 1974, is that the achievement of this record will inspire others to chase their own dreams."

The audience cheered Aaron vigorously, drowning out almost half of his message. "It meant everything," Bonds said of the video. "It meant absolutely everything."

He took Aaron's crown at 8:51 p.m., hitting a 3-2 pitch from Washington Nationals lefthander Mike Bacsik in the fifth inning, just after the packed house of 43,154 started the familiar chant of "Barry, Barry, Barry" in earnest for the first time all night.

Bonds touched home plate and pointed to the sky, a gesture that used to punctuate his home-run trots regularly but has been noticeably absent this season. Later, as he stood next to Mays, Bonds pointed to the sky one more time, adding a final name to the list of people he was thanking. "My father," he said, doubling over as he held his arm aloft. Bobby Bonds, a major-league star during Barry's youth, died of cancer four years ago.

During the 10-minute celebratory delay, several Nationals remained on the field, quietly applauding Bonds. When Bacsik finally returned to the mound, he tipped his cap toward the Giants dugout.

A 29-year-old who spent the last two seasons in the minor leagues, Bacsik is the son and namesake of a former Texas Ranger who pitched to Aaron in 1976, when, like Bonds on Tuesday night, he had 755 home runs to his name. The younger Bacsik had said the day before that he could live with becoming the first major-league pitcher to allow No. 756.



"Me and Al Downing can do card shows together and sign famous autographs for being the guy," he told reporters Monday, referring to the pitcher who allowed Aaron's 715th home run, which took him past Ruth.

With his historic swing, Bonds unified both significant home-run records for the first time in 46 years, since Roger Maris hit 61 to replace Ruth as the single-season king.

Bonds hit 73 homers in 2001, becoming a prodigious slugger 15 years into his career. "There are some things I can't understand right now," he said at the time. "The balls I used to line off the wall are lining out (of the park). I can't tell you why. Call God. Ask him."

Since then, a laboratory in Burlingame and a personal trainer who did time for steroid dealing have been identified as the alleged sources of his transformation, putting Bonds in a national crucible of hostility and the entire sport under scrutiny it should have faced years ago.

Commissioner Bud Selig, who infamously acknowledged 755 on Saturday night in San Diego with his hands tucked in his pockets and a yawn on his face, was absent for the record-breaker. Robinson was one of his surrogates.

The commissioner did place a call to Bonds and issued a statement of congratulations, which referenced the MLB investigation by saying: "While the issues which have swirled around this record will continue to work themselves toward resolution, today is a day for congratulations on a truly remarkable achievement."

In several gatherings with the media since Bonds drew close to Aaron, Selig had avoided uttering the slugger's name aloud. But his conflicted reactions didn't extend to the profit motive.

On its Web site, MLB had already arranged to sell apparel commemorating No. 756. The T-shirts and caps, unlike the commissioner, actually say the words "Barry Bonds," and at $19.99-$29.99 a pop, they will repeat the name as often as you want.



Barry Bonds, with his godfather, Willie Mays, alongside, tears up as he talks about his late father, Bobby, while addressing the crowd at AT&T Park. Chronicle photo by Lance Iversen

He is the king now, at the pinnacle all by himself. How he got there, and how baseball will change because of the dirty secrets that he embodied and inadvertently exposed, will be a question for the ages. On Tuesday night, the exhilaration of the crowd, and of the moment, masked the uncertainty and doubts of the world outside Bonds' happy bubble by the bay.

Does he belong alongside the disgraced Pete Rose, the banished Shoeless Joe Jackson and the reclusive Mark McGwire? Will Bonds' connections to doping become a footnote rather than an impediment to the Hall of Fame? What does it all mean?

In the words of the new home-run king: Call God. Ask him.

E-mail Gwen Knapp at gknapp@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Mike Lupica: Hollow Record for Bloated Slugger

It's a tainted celebration as Bonds hits homer No. 756

New York Daily News
Wednesday, August 8th 2007, 4:49 AM

Photo Gallery: 756*
Photo Gallery: Chasing Aaron
Photo Gallery: Bonds through the years
Bonds Video Package
Join the discussion

Barry Bonds hit No. 756 last night, hit it against a former Met named Mike Bacsik, hit it in the one place in this world, San Francisco, where he is cheered more than booed and loved more than hated.

He hit No. 756 over a Bank of America sign in AT&T Park, the official capital of Barry Bonds, where all who cheer him seem to believe he passed Henry Aaron and became the all-time home run king of baseball without the help of enough performance-enhancing drugs to keep a battleship afloat.

Bonds finally passed Aaron at the age of 43, did it looking like some bloated version of the sleek and splendid talent he was when he was young. It does not change who he is or how he got here.
There has never been a sports moment quite like this, never a record broken under circumstances such as these, never a more polarizing star than this in all of sports history.

The commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig, was under no obligation to cheer Bonds when he tied Aaron last weekend, and you are under no obligation to cheer him now and neither am I.

This is No. 756 but with a bullet, from a ballplayer who hit 292 home runs over the first 10 years of his major-league career and now has hit 464 since.

Bonds finally stops chasing Aaron now, all this time after Aaron stopped chasing Babe Ruth in old Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta in April of 1974. Bigots were after Aaron in those days.

The United States government is after Bonds. Why? Because the government clearly thinks Bonds lied in front of a grand jury once when he said he never knowingly used steroids.

A ball hit off the 29-year-old lefthander Bacsik - he goes into history with Bonds the way an old Yankee went in with Aaron the night Aaron hit No.715 - does not change the fact that Bonds' former personal trainer, Greg Anderson, sits in a jail cell because he refuses to answer questions from the feds about the new home-run king of baseball.

Bonds passes Aaron in San Francisco last night at a time when you can go into a bookstore and read about the laundry list of performance-enhancing drugs from the authors of "Game of Shadows," Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams.

Ask yourself a question now that he has the record: If Fainaru-Wada and Williams made it all up, if they have told all these terrible and slanderous lies about Barry Bonds, why hasn't he sued them all the way into that famous McCovey Cove out beyond the ballpark he practically built for the Giants himself in San Francisco?

Ask yourself why his trainer would spend month after month in a jail cell if he has nothing to hide.

If you don't think they made it up in that book, and it sure would be a lot to make up, then you think what Bonds did is all right because a lot of other guys were doing it along with him.
"I ain't public enemy No. 1," Bonds said to me once, a long time ago, just the two of us sitting in the visitors' clubhouse at Shea Stadium for a magazine interview.

Nobody is saying he is public enemy No. 1 now. Or that he is the only one whose body grew along with his home-run totals over the last decade in baseball. He is just the best one. He was the best all-around player in the game, a Hall of Fame combination of speed and power. It wasn't enough for him.

He needed to be bigger, in all ways. He has made his history now. How he is judged by it is another matter altogether.

You don't have to believe he took everything from female fertility drugs to human growth hormones as his body grew the way it did, got him to 73 home runs in a season at the age of 37, on his way to 756 last night. I do.

Bonds was always going to hit a lot of home runs, for a long time, because he is one of the great talents to come along in 50 years in baseball. He was never going to pass Aaron without help. Two-hundred-ninety-two home runs in his first 10 years, 756 now. Go figure.

"I'll tell you something," Bonds said to me that day in Shea, at a time in his career when he had done nothing to indicate he would hit more home runs someday than his godfather, Willie Mays, or Ruth, or Aaron. "At this stage in my life, in my career, I'm more comfortable with myself than I've ever been. I'm a very happy person, except when I'm in a slump. I know the truth about myself."

He knew the truth about himself then. And he knows the truth about himself now. He knows how he got bigger, and stronger, and showed even more bat speed than he had when he was young. Bonds says that steroids don't hit a baseball for you. Maybe he can explain why he looks the way he does now and his numbers look the way they do after the first 10 years he had in baseball.

"The only thing I ever used was chewing gum," Aaron said once to a friend of mine.

The most Aaron ever hit in a season was 47 home runs. He did what he did at 6 feet and 180 pounds. Look at him. Look at Bonds. You cheer Bonds if you want to. Maybe the real reason Aaron wasn't there last night to stand next to Bonds was this: Somebody as big as Aaron should never look small.

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Andrew Walden: Oakland's Unholy Alliance

Andrew Walden

http://www.frontpagemag.com/

8/7/2007

Islamists in Oakland have been waging a campaign of intimidation and violence to carve out a section of the "progressive" city that conforms to Islamic law -- and the far-Left municipal leadership has looked the other way. It appears, however, they have finally gone too far.

Last Friday, August 3, Oakland police arrested figures associated with “Your Black Muslim Bakery”. In pre-dawn raids, Oakland Police SWAT team searched the bakery and three related locations finding several weapons and placing seven Muslims under arrest. They quickly recovered guns they believed to be the murder weapon used to kill Chauncey Bailey, Editor of the Oakland Post. Police say a 19-year-old bakery handyman named Devaughndre Broussard confessed, stating, "I am a good soldier."

The raids came just hours after Bailey, 57, was gunned down in broad daylight at a busy downtown Oakland intersection as he walked to work. Preparing an article for the Post, a black community weekly, Bailey had been investigating charges that the Muslims were involved in several recent Oakland murders.

Among the arrested was Yusef Bey IV, son of bakery founder, Yusef Bey. The other five arrested were not initially named. Police are still searching for two individuals who they also declined to name.

Shamir Yusuf Bey speaking in front of the bakery August 4 said: "This is not a reflection of Dr. Yusuf Bey." The organization's members all take the last name Bey. Explained Shamir Bey: "We are all sons of Dr. Yusuf Bey. He has taught us morals; he has taught us how to be advocates in our community."

Shamir Bey is correct about the source of his ‘morals.’ The elder Yusuf Bey died of cancer in 2003 awaiting court hearing on charges of rape, sodomy, and lewd acts with a child stemming from a 1992 case involving an impregnated 13 year old girl. Like the “prophet” Mohammed, Yusuf Bey was reputed to have fathered as many as 50 children–many by underage girls.

The bakery briefly made national news in November 2005, when members attacked two Oakland liquor stores, smashing bottles and demanding that the owners stop selling liquor. This follows a pattern established by the Taliban and other Islamist movements which form religious police squads for the “Suppression of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue.”

Bay Area leftists responded by saying, “Liquor stores are a blatant symbol of racism in America.” Oakland’s then-Mayor Jerry Brown gently criticized the attacks pointing out that, “not all liquor store owners should be tarred by the bad ones." According to the Oakland Tribune, “The clerk on duty (at the New York Market on San Pablo Ave) Sunday night was reported missing early Monday afternoon. He was found around 2 p.m., locked inside the trunk of a car in a supermarket parking lot in El Cerrito.”

Threatening and trashing local businesses wasn’t the only activity overlooked by the Politically Correct Oakland authorities operating under Mayor Brown’s replacement, open socialist Ron Dellums. After the murder of Chauncey Bailey, the New York Times reported August 3:

Oakland police officials said they suspected that the men were part of a group operating “a very violent criminal enterprise” out of a neighborhood bakery….

The police said the raid came after a lengthy investigation of other crimes, including two kidnappings on a single day in May, and two killings in July that occurred in the same north Oakland neighborhood where the bakery is located. The police had connected those crimes and put the bakery under surveillance before Mr. Bailey was killed.

“During our investigation, Chauncey Bailey was murdered, and it turns out that the evidence in that case also linked the same individuals we were looking at in the other two prior murders to that case,” said Lt. Ersie Joyner of the Oakland Police Department.

Asked whether there were any regrets about not moving faster to arrest the suspects before Mr. Bailey was killed, Assistant Chief Howard Jordan said that the Oakland Police Department’s resources were “very thin” and that the long-term investigation involved the cooperation of neighboring departments.

“Today was the best day we had, that we could have done this with the coordination of our allied agencies,” Mr. Jordan said. “We weren’t just kind of waiting around.”

Mr. Jordan said it was “very disheartening” to hear about Mr. Bailey’s killing, “and it was particularly disheartening to know it was connected to our investigation.”

Lieutenant Joyner said that many residents of the neighborhood surrounding the bakery had been afraid of the Muslim group, whose members sometimes shot automatic rifles in the air in a show of intimidation. Other members of the group, the police said, flaunted their defiance of outstanding warrants on assault and gun charges.

The incident that prompted the investigation, Lieutenant Joyner said, occurred last November. The police suspect that members of the group shot up a local car; no one was injured. The gun used in that shooting was linked to the recent killings, the police said.

In spite of its lengthy criminal ties, “Your Black Muslim Bakery” was able to establish retail locations at Oakland International Airport and the Oakland Coliseum. While they allegedly murdered Oakland residents, they sold “natural,” “reinvigorating” baked products through several Bay Area health food stores.

Journalist Adrian Morgan explains the origins of the group:

When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, Nation of Islam members in California continued under one of the NoI's alternative names - the Black Muslims. These were led by Yusuf Bey, who typified the sort of person who led the NoI in its heyday, an entrepreneur who wanted to be a politician, with a decidedly sinister side.

While the Nation of Islam was riven into factions, following the 1975 death of Elijah Muhammad, Yusuf Bey, a captain of the group, negotiated a meeting in 1979 between Farrakhan and Silis Muhammad, leader of a breakaway faction. When Farrakhan revived the NoI in 1981, Yusuf Bey was not a part of the movement.

Born Joseph H. Stevens in Greeneville, Texas, in 1935, Bey moved with his parents to Oakland at the age of 5. He joined the US Air Force at age 17, and after four years he was honorably discharged. A qualified cosmetologist, Bey ran beauty salons in Oakland Santa Barbara, before opening a bakery in Santa Barbara in 1968 which later became "Your Black Muslim Bakery". He became involved with the Nation of Islam in 1964, and in 1971 moved his bakery to the East Bay. The bakery sold produce free of artificial colorants, with no refined sugar, fats or preservatives.

Bey had a weekly cable show called True Solutions, a platform for Elijah Muhammad's brand of Islam. He even ran for the position of Mayor of Oakland. He died on September 30, 2003, of colon cancer, having established an empire running housing, a school, a security firm and retail businesses, including Your Black Muslim Bakery. At the time of his death, he was engaged in a legal battle with a woman who claimed he had first raped her in 1982 when she was 13. She claimed she had been sexually abused by Yusuf Bey since the age of 10.

As members of Bey's family vied for the position of successor, violence broke out. On February 27, 2004 Waajid Aljawwaad Bey, president and CEO of the bakery, vanished. His rotting corpse was later found in a shallow grave in the Oakland Hills. In June 2005, Bey's adopted son John was wounded by a gunman in an ambush, and on October 25, Yusuf's 24-year old son Antar Bey was shot dead at a gas station. Nineteen-year old Yusuf Bey IV appeared to have taken over the leadership - he was indicted for smashing up Muslim-owned liquor stores in Oakland, events which happened a month after Antar Bey was killed. One store was torched, and an employee was locked in the trunk of a car. The tactic of wrecking premises had been employed under the leadership of Bey senior - in 1994 a rival laundry had been trashed by Black Muslims.

Why is this group still in business? It is not because the accused child-molester Bey was popular, he won only 5 percent of the vote in his 1994 run for Oakland mayor. Politically Correct Bay Area authorities have a long history of coddling gangsters who attach political rhetoric to their crimes. Publicly and openly.

A 2002 article by Chris Thompson in the East Bay Express explained criminal allegations against “Your Black Muslim Bakery” including the March 4, 1994, kidnapping, torture and extortion of Nigerian immigrant Olasunkanmi Onipede over a real estate deal with a Bakery associate. Presiding over the torture and extortion was, “Nedir Bey, the public face of Oakland's most prominent Black Muslim organization, the man who lobbies the City Council, orchestrates media events, and runs interference for the group's elusive leader….”

As the Express explained: “A group of up to six soldiers in the Black Muslim organization, led by a senior member of the Bey family, allegedly tortured two men for up to four hours – and were allegedly transporting him under armed escort when police arrived. When Oakland police tried to arrest the men involved in this incident, thirty Black Muslims mounted an organized assault on the officers – and the leader allegedly rallied his troops by calling for the death of white cops.”
These were not the only criminal accusations against Bey associates pointed out by the Express. “While acting as managers of a North Oakland apartment complex, four Black Muslims allegedly beat a tenant unconscious during an argument about his daughter.” Also, “prominent family member Nedir Bey has been accused of stalking his estranged lover, threatening to hurt her or steal their children.”

Al-Taqiyyah is a Muslim doctrine which allows Muslims to do anything as long as it furthers the power of Islam. The elder Bey built a multi-million dollar property and business empire following these methods. But after his death, his amoral followers’ narcissistic impulses began pulling the empire apart. As the Express explained:

According to court records, (Oakland drug dealer Lavelle) Stewart looked in his car and noticed that someone had stolen $1,200 worth of drugs. Turning on the crowd (outside the Omni Nightclub), he said he shouted, "One of you motherfuckers know what happened to my weed.

We've been out here enjoying ourselves all day, and my shit didn't just come up missing like this." As (Akbar) Bey and his friends began arguing, Stewart said, "It's like this," pulled a .357 "bulldog" Magnum from his waistband, and shot Bey four times. Two bullets smashed his jaw and passed through his brain, and two rounds hit him in the chest. Stewart was sentenced to sixty years in prison. According to court records, the pathologist concluded that Akbar Bey was high on heroin or morphine at the time of his death.

Even after decades of murder and mayhem, pseudo-intellectual academic frauds can still make up conspiracy theories and excuses. Quoted by AP August 4, California State University–East Bay professor Benjamin Bowser claims:

The group has deep roots in Oakland's life and politics, and for decades it played a positive role in Oakland's black community, said Cal State East Bay professor Benjamin Bowser, a sociologist who has chronicled the city's history.

The group served as an example of upward economic mobility in an impoverished community, and its members tried to serve as a buffer against the rising drug trade, Bowser said. The bakery has also long provided ex-convicts with one of the few places they could work after being released from prison.

"The Black Muslims along with the Black Panthers were instrumental in really keeping the widespread mass marketing of drugs out of east and west Oakland in the late 1960s, until the government focused on taking the Panthers out," Bowser said.

Ironically Bowser is listed as a “Journalists’ Resource” by the Association of American University Presses.

Most leftists are too effete to physically enforce their own ideology. This is why they need thugs to do it for them. Substantial portions of Hillary Clinton’s 1969 senior thesis are about the benefits of “test(ing) whether the mechanisms of (Chicago) gang structures could not assist in shifting attitudes toward productive adult citizenship.” (p. 34.) Hillary’s mentor, Saul Alinsky, spent years working with Al Capone’s Chicago gang.

It was not a problem when the victims were other members of the Bey group or private citizens in Oakland, but with the murder of Chauncey Bailey, the thugs made the mistake of taking out one of the elite – a journalist. Suddenly the “very thin” Oakland police find themselves permitted to make multiple arrests and shut down the bakery. It is not yet clear whether Oakland authorities will actually finish the job and dismantle the Islamist monster which they have for years cultivated in their midst. But a line has been crossed. With the murder of Chauncey Bailey, the Islamists have killed one of the cultural elite.

The Express asks: “Why has it taken so long for all these allegations, the torture and rapes and beatings, to come before the public? Why has Bey commanded the respect and admiration of so many people – and why were so many civic leaders eager to call him friend? Countless Oakland leaders have offered the Bey family their services. It's time for them to answer for it.”

That was written five years ago.

Thomas Sowell: A Bridge Too Far Gone

August 07, 2007

http://www.realclearpolitics.com

This is the scene of the collapsed 35W bridge over the Mississippi River Thursday, Aug. 2, 2007, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

It took a collapsing bridge in Minnesota to alert people across the country to the fact that many other bridges in many other places have been allowed to deteriorate without adequate maintenance.

If this were just a matter of poor political leadership at various levels of government, we could at least hope for better leaders in the future. But the problem goes deeper than that.

It is not just the people but the incentives that are responsible for the neglect of infrastructure, while tax money is lavished on all sorts of less urgent projects.

In other words, when there is a complete turnover in political leaders over time, the same problem will remain because the same incentives will remain when new leaders take over.

Some people claim that the problem is how much money it would take to properly maintain bridges, highways, dams and other infrastructure. But money is found for other things, including things far less urgent and some things that are even counterproductive.

The real problem is that the political incentives are to spend the taxpayers' money on things that will enhance politicians' chances of getting re-elected.

There may be enough money available to maintain bridges and other infrastructure but that same money can have a bigger political pay-off if spent building something new instead of maintaining and repairing existing structures.

When money is spent building a new community center, a golf course, or anything that will be newsworthy, there will be ribbon-cutting ceremonies and the politicians who cut the ribbons can expect to see their pictures in the newspapers and on TV.

All that keeps their name before the public in a positive role and therefore enhances their prospects of being re-elected.

But there are no ribbon-cutting ceremonies when bridges are being repaired or pot-holes are being filled in. These latter activities may be more valuable than a community center or a golf course, but they are not nearly as photogenic.

The preference for showy projects that will enhance a politician's career prospects is not peculiar to current politicians. Adam Smith pointed out the same thing about politicians in 18th-century Europe.

We can vote the rascals out but the new rascals who replace them will face the same incentives and in all likelihood will respond in the same way.

A pattern that has persisted for more than two centuries is likely to continue unless something fundamental is changed.

What really needs to be done is to change the incentives.

While most bridges in the United States are owned and operated by government agencies, there are times and places where bridges have been owned and operated by private companies, just as numerous other goods and services are provided through the marketplace.

How would that change the incentives?

A company that has to get the money to build and maintain bridges or other infrastructure through the voluntary actions of people in the financial markets, instead of being able to extract money from the taxpayers, is going to find financiers a lot more finicky about what is being done with their money.

People who are putting their own money on the line are going to want to have their own experts taking a look under the bridges they finance, to see where there are rust, cracks or crumbling supports.

When people know that the lawsuits that are sure to follow after a bridge collapses are going to drain millions of dollars of their own money -- not the taxpayers' money -- that keeps the mind focussed.

Those who like to think of the government as the public interest personified may be horrified at the idea of turning a governmental function over to private enterprise.

Politicians who want to hang onto sources of patronage and power will of course encourage people to look at things that way. But the track record of privately run infrastructure will compare favorably with government-run infrastructure.

But that is only if we stop to compare -- and to think.

Film Review: "Hot Rod"

Hop on, Gen X, 'Hot Rod' is a fun ride

By Susan Carpenter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 3, 2007

The new stuntman comedy "Hot Rod" should come with a warning: Anyone above the age of 42 is not going to get it. Chock-full of references to bad teen movies from the '80s and saturated with sarcasm, "Hot Rod" is a cheekily fun sendup of Gen X iconography.

"Napoleon Dynamite" fans are sure to like Rod Kimble, the moronic and talentless Evel Knievel-wannabe played by "Saturday Night Live" regular Andy Samberg. Sporting a fake mustache, coveralls and cape as he attempts, and fails, to launch his moped over a milk truck, then a swimming pool and, finally, a stretch of 15 school buses, Kimble is on a mission to show his worth to a disapproving stepfather and also to get the girl.



Ian McShane and Andy Samberg in Paramount Pictures' Hot Rod - 2007

That girl is Denise, played by Isla Fisher. Unfortunately, Fisher isn't allowed to demonstrate the comedic chops she so handily displayed as the redheaded bombshell in "Wedding Crashers." She's merely eye candy in what is clearly a star vehicle for Samberg, who plays the part of an affable, if emotionally unevolved, loser with a sort of buff but nerdy sex appeal.

A lot of the comedy in "Hot Rod" will be meaningless, campy fun for teen viewers but in-jokes for Xers, who'll test their powers of recall and cringe with recognition when they hear songs and watch scene reenactments from "The Karate Kid," "Flashdance" and "Footloose," the most notable being an outrageously drawn-out sequence that has Kimble back-lighted and dancing wildly in a forest, then pommel horsing on a log, then falling -- endlessly -- down a wooded slope.



Jorma Taccone, Bill Hader and Danny R. McBride in Paramount Pictures' Hot Rod - 2007

Much of the humor in "Hot Rod" consists of "Jackass"-caliber gags that often result in bodily injury. At least the gags hang together as a viable plot. When Kimble vomits on Denise after nearly drowning in a kiddie pool, then plummets into an RV at the tail end of a street luge run, then flies through the air after a hit from a friend's van, it all has a purpose. It's training for the big jump, which Kimble is "too legit to quit," he tells Denise, complete with M.C. Hammer hand signs.

Executive produced by "SNL" star Will Ferrell and directed by Samberg's childhood pal and "SNL" writer Akiva Schaffer, "Hot Rod" was written by Pam Brady, an Emmy-nominated writer-producer for the animated comedy series "South Park." Together, they've managed to stitch together a funny and irreverent movie that's likely to create the same sort of adoring, if temporary, fan base as the movies it spoofs. My guess is it won't be long before the red Team Rod T-shirts that Kimble's team wears in the film begin showing up in low-rent trinket shops, à la Vote for Pedro.

susan carpenter@latimes.com

"Hot Rod." MPAA rating: PG-13 for crude humor, language, some comic drug-related and violent content. Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes. In general release.

Robert Spencer: Battling Censorship

Washington Times

July 20, 2007

One of the most potent weapons that global jihadists have to advance their cause is one of the least-remarked: censorship. And Rachel Ehrenfeld, founder and director of the American Center for Democracy, stands today as one of the primary targets of this tactic — and, by her ongoing resistance, one of the foremost defenders of the freedom of speech against encroaching attempts at legal intimidation that, if successful, will effectively silence the anti-jihad resistance.

Billionaire Saudi financier Khalid Salim bin Mahfouz sued Miss Ehrenfeld in the U.K. for libel: in her book, "Funding Evil," she wrote that he was involved in funding Hamas and al Qaeda. Mr. bin Mahfouz denied that he had knowingly given any money to either. Taking advantage of British libel laws that place the burden of proof on the defendant, rather than the plaintiff, Mr. bin Mahfouz sued not in the United States, where Miss Ehrenfeld lives and published her book, but in Britain, where neither he nor Miss Ehrenfeld live and where his entire case depended upon a handful of copies sold in that country mostly through special orders from Amazon.com, and the appearance of one chapter of the book on the Internet, where it may have been read by British readers.

Britain's libel laws have given rise to the phenomenon of wealthy "libel tourists," who sue there on the slimmest British connection in order to ensure a favorable ruling. Mr. bin Mahfouz had the good fortune of having the case heard by Judge David Eady, who has a long history of strange rulings in libel cases — rulings that generally ran in favor of censorship and against free speech. In connection with another of these rulings in May 2007, British journalist Stephen Glover wrote: "Mr Justice Eady is beginning to worry me. Is he a friend of a free Press? There are good reasons to believe that he isn't."

In May 2005 Justice Eady ruled that Miss Ehrenfeld must apologize to Mr. bin Mahfouz and pay over $225,000. This fine remains uncollected, and Miss Ehrenfeld sees no reason to apologize. Now she cannot travel to Britain, and her writing and research work has of course been banned there — thus preventing important information from reaching the public.

Miss Ehrenfeld countersued in New York, asking the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals for a declaration that the British judgment was contrary to the First Amendment and hence unenforceable on an American citizen. And on June 8, the appellate court handed down a landmark decision, ruling that Miss Ehrenfeld's case was valid, and that she could appeal for relief from American courts in order to keep the British court order from being carried out in this country. Said Circuit Court Judge Wilfred Feinberg: "The issue may implicate the First Amendment rights of many New Yorkers, and thus concerns important public policy of the state." He also declared that the case had implications for all writers — since they, like Miss Ehrenfeld, could be subjected to harassment. This decision could also have great impact on the September 11 victims lawsuits, in which Mr. bin Mahfouz is also a defendant.

Lost, meanwhile, amid the legal wrangling surrounding Miss Ehrenfeld's case has been the release of a September 13, 2001, note from France's foreign intelligence agency, the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE). The French news site Geopolitique.com obtained the note in late June 2007, and has revealed that already in 1996 Mr. bin Mahfouz was known as one of the architects of a banking scheme constructed for the benefit of Osama bin Laden. Moreover, the report claims that both U.S. and British intelligence services knew this. This is just the latest addition to the mountain of evidence from which Miss Ehrenfeld constructed her case in "Funding Evil." Even if this evidence is all mistaken, the British libel judgment against Miss Ehrenfeld appears all the more fantastic and unjustifiable in light of the fact that French intelligence agents had documents allowing them to came to the same conclusion she did.

This calls for open and thorough investigation, unhindered by legal intimidation. If Saudis or others who have indeed supported the global jihad are able cover their tracks using British libel laws to silence investigators, the only winners are the jihadists. "The British legal and political leadership's constant appeasement of the jihadists," says Miss Ehrenfeld, "facilitated the rise of terrorism." She sees consequences for both the United States and Britain in her legal struggle: "My fight against bin Mahfouz is not only to prevent the extension of that influence here — to defend our First Amendment from British laws. My success here would deter other jihadists from using the British courts to silence U.S. writers and publishers especially since it would — in similar situations — render U.K. court decisions useless."

For that reason, all who wish to remain free and resist the encroachments of global jihadism and Islamic supremacism should hope and pray that she prevails.

Robert Spencer, a scholar of Islamic history, theology and law, is director of Jihad Watch.

Oliver Kamm: Terrible, But Not a Crime

Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be remembered for the suffering which was brought to an end

Monday August 6, 2007
The Guardian

Today is Hiroshima day, the anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb. As the wartime generation passes on, our sense of gratitude is increasingly mixed with unease regarding one theatre of the second world war. There is a widespread conviction that, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, America committed acts that were not only terrible but also wrong.

Disarmament campaigners are not slow to advance further charges. Greenpeace maintains that a different American approach might have prevented the cold war, and argues that new research on the Hiroshima decision "should give us pause for thought about the wisdom of current US and UK nuclear weapons developments, strategies, operational policies and deployments".

This alternative history is devoid of merit. New historical research in fact lends powerful support to the traditionalist interpretation of the decision to drop the bomb. This conclusion may surprise Guardian readers. The so-called revisionist interpretation of the bomb made headway from the 1960s to the 1990s. It argued that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were less the concluding acts of the Pacific war than the opening acts of the cold war. Japan was already on the verge of surrender; the decision to drop the bomb was taken primarily to gain diplomatic advantage against the Soviet Union.

Yet there is no evidence that any American diplomat warned a Soviet counterpart in 1945-46 to watch out because America had the bomb. The decision to drop the bomb was founded on the conviction that a blockade and invasion of Japan would cause massive casualties. Estimates derived from intelligence about Japan's military deployments projected hundreds of thousands of American casualties.

Truman had to take account of this, and dropped the bomb for the reasons he said at the time. Contrary to popular myth, there is no documentary evidence that his military commanders advised him the bomb was unnecessary for Japan was about to surrender. As the historian Wilson Miscamble puts it, Truman "hoped that the bombs would end the war and secure peace with the fewest American casualties, and so they did. Surely he took the action any American president would have undertaken." Recent Japanese scholarship provides support for this position. Sadao Asada, of Doshisha University, Kyoto, has concluded from analysis of Japanese primary sources that the two bombs enabled the "peace party" within Japan's cabinet to prevail.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are often used as a shorthand term for war crimes. That is not how they were judged at the time. Our side did terrible things to avoid a more terrible outcome. The bomb was a deliverance for American troops, for prisoners and slave labourers, for those dying of hunger and maltreatment throughout the Japanese empire - and for Japan itself. One of Japan's highest wartime officials, Kido Koichi, later testified that in his view the August surrender prevented 20 million Japanese casualties. The destruction of two cities, and the suffering it caused for decades afterwards, cannot but temper our view of the Pacific war. Yet we can conclude with a high degree of probability that abjuring the bomb would have caused greater suffering still.

Commemoration of war is part of our civic culture, and campaigners against Trident and the US missile defence system have every right to state their case. But those things must not be confused. The campaigners must advance independent grounds for their policy views. Dubious historical claims are not a legitimate way to advance them.


· Oliver Kamm is the author of Anti-Totalitarianism: the Left-Wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy


oliver.kamm@tiscali.co.uk

John Harper: In Lefty World, Tom is All Right

New York Daily News

Monday, August 6th 2007, 4:00 AM


CHICAGO - In the end, after Tom Glavine officially had stamped himself as a Hall of Famer by claiming his 300th win, the overwhelming emotion he said he felt was not so much joy as relief.

Can you blame him?

Nothing has come easy for Glavine since he joined the Mets five years ago, and on a night when it looked as if he might have a laugher for the milestone victory, he had to sweat out another bullpen scare before the hitters helped him finally enjoy an 8-3 victory over the Cubs.

But beyond that, his understated emotion was typical of Glavine's career, one defined by class and precision pitching. You surely wouldn't expect him to pull a Rickey Henderson and pull the rubber up on the mound and declare himself the greatest of all time.

Instead Glavine made a point of addressing his teammates in the clubhouse after the game, thanking them for "putting up with all this crap," meaning the circus atmosphere that surrounded his quest for the 300th victory.

Then he went out and hugged his wife, Chris, in front of the dugout, and thanked his friends and family who had gathered there for being part of his historic night. They too were cause for his relief, because he had started to worry about what a burden this would become for everyone if he didn't win last night.

That and the fact that his kids would need to return to Atlanta to start school in a week made yesterday the most stressful day of all during his chase of the magic number for pitchers.

"I was nervous today, more so than in Milwaukee last week," he said after the game. "With everybody following me around, and knowing I had only one more start before my kids would go back to school, I put a lot of pressure on myself to get it done.

"I guess that's why, now that it's over, I have such a sense of relief."

It was one more reason so many people feel so good to see Glavine have this moment: He has a selfless quality, a way of keeping things in perspective, that makes him easy to like, easy to root for.

So while he always will be remembered as a Brave, not a Met, it was a nice thing to see so many Mets fans making themselves heard at Wrigley Field, and then most of them standing behind the dugout, chanting Glavine's name as the game ended.

But it was perhaps more telling that Cubs fans, like Brewers fans in Milwaukee the other night, gave Glavine a warm ovation as he came out of the game. Even opposing fans can't help but admire the style and grace with which he's gone about his business all these years.

As such it was appropriate that he reached his milestone in this Sunday night showcase, the game on national TV so that both fans and fellow major leaguers around the country could watch.

After all, there is an entire generation of pitchers, particularly lefthanders, who grew up not only watching Glavine from around the country on WTBS, the Braves' superstation, but believing they could become big-leaguers at least partly because they saw an average-sized pitcher with an average fastball showing the world you could be a dominant pitcher with smarts, precision control and a great change-up.

Randy Johnson was more dominant, but at 6-10 he also was something of a freak of nature. Glavine, by contrast, is practically the everyman of Hall of Famers.

Two Cubs' lefthanders, Ted Lilly and Rich Hill, made that point yesterday when asked about Glavine, saying they had grown up learning to pitch at least in some ways by watching him.

"Tom Glavine is a guy I watched and learned from," Lilly said. "I watched a lot of tape of him, trying to copy just about everything he does. He's a great guy for anyone to watch and learn how to pitch, because he showed that you don't have to be overpowering to be a great pitcher."

Hill too tried to emulate Glavine.

"Besides the pitching side of it, there was the way he carried himself out on the mound," Hill said. "I liked to watch the way he handled tough situations. You could learn a lot from him. I still do."

He will leave a legacy in that respect, as well as for the sheer magnitude of the accomplishment. No one will ever argue that Glavine is in the argument as the greatest pitcher of his era. He didn't have that kind of transcendent talent, but he brought a toughness to the mound you'd expect of a former hockey player good enough to be selected in the NHL draft years ago.

Indeed, he never has been on the disabled list in his career, and he reminded everyone last night that he could hit a little too, his hard single through the middle contributing to the Mets' first run.

Yes, No. 300 was fitting in so many ways. Reason to celebrate, even if Glavine only wanted to take a deep breath and be glad it was over.

jharper@nydailynews.com

Islamic Education For All

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS

Great Britain plan would move toward 'religion of state'

Posted: August 2, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

A new government study is being condemned by the Christian ministry the Barnabas Fund because its proposals would move closer to imposing Islam in the United Kingdom as "a religion of state."

Among the proposals from the study being considered for implementation is the provision by universities for Islamic studies for all students.

The report was initiated by Bill Rammell, the minister of state for higher education and lifelong learning, officials said. He appointed Ataullah Siddiqui, senior research fellow at the Islamic Foundation, to write it.

The Barnabas Fund, in an analysis, said the report "signals another step toward the Islamisation of Britain and its education system"
"Should this report be implemented, education will be handed over more and more to Muslims who will train and shape the next generation," the analysis said.

The Barnabas Fund, which works primarily with Christians in Muslim-majority environments by channeling money from Christians, through Christians to Christians for projects developed by local bodies of believers, said the appointment of Siddiqui, at the outset, signaled a problem.

"It is well known that the Islamic Foundation is an Islamist institute founded by high ranking members of the Pakistani Islamist party, Jama'at-I Islami," the group said. "However, in answer to questions in the House of Commons about possible links between Ataullah Siddiqui and Jama'at-i-Islami, Rammell stated that 'Dr Siddiqui has assured me categorically that he has no links to the Jamaat-e-Islami Party.' … This reveals that Rammell does not understand how Islamists use dissimulation (taqiyya) to hide their real goals while claiming to be moderate and liberal," the analysis said.

Among the other recommendations are that universities should employ Muslim scholars to teach Islamic theology, all universities must employ Muslim chaplains and provide Muslim prayer rooms, Islamic Student Societies should be better recognized and encouraged, and universities should cooperate with Islamic schools and colleges to break down the divisions between British society and the Muslim community.

The study also recommended Islamic studies should be linked to job opportunities such as teaching, chaplaincy and Islamic banking, and guidance should be given to all universities on Friday prayers, Ramadan and halal food.

The Barnabas Fund said it's simply a demand for a "privileged position for Islam in the universities."

"It would seem to aim at transforming Islamic studies in Britain into a Muslim monopoly, a Muslim enclave in which the vast majority of staff and students are Muslim. It is implied that non-Muslim scholars cannot teach Islam because they do not unquestioningly accept its basic premises regarding the revelatory nature and divine authority of Quran and Hadith."

If that happens, the teaching faculty soon would be limited to Muslim and Islamist lecturers, the group said.

"It is most likely that censorship would develop, affecting choice of staff, teaching methods and acceptable subjects for research and publication," the group said.

It's a part of the larger goal, the Barnabas Fund said. "The aim is to expand Islamic domination into all spheres. The whole system of Western academic education must, say the Islamists, be recast and remolded on Islamic lines as it is tainted by Christian and pagan influences."

"Implementing these recommendations, as the British government has promised to do, would be likely to narrow the scope of university Islamic studies and make them more intolerant and radical," the critique said.

The organization said one of its goals is to inform and enable Christians in the West to respond to the growing challenge of Islam to the church, society and mission.

Reports said the government already has pledged several million dollars to universities in order to boost Islamic studies.

China's Hairiest Man

This picture freaked me out to the point where I felt that I just had to share it....jtf



China's hairiest man, Yu Zhenhuan, poses on a track in Beijing in his bid to run in next year's Olympic torch relay, state media said this week.

TV Review: "The Company"

Cloak-and-Dagger in All Its Charm

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
The New York Times
Published: August 3, 2007

There weren’t a lot of gun battles during the cold war, and the targets were judiciously selected. “Only the ones in uniform,” one C.I.A. agent says to another as they crouch on a Berlin rooftop in 1954 and fire shots at enemies a building away. The K.G.B. man among them is off limits. “They don’t shoot at us,” the agent says, “we don’t shoot at them.”



Jan Thijs/TNT
Michael Keaton works for the C.I.A. in "The Company," a mini-series beginning on Sunday on TNT.

“The Company,” a mini-series beginning this Sunday on TNT, is a spicy drama about the Central Intelligence Agency in the days when the lines of battle were clearly drawn, and the enemy played by the same rules and was easy to spot. (The spies wore black, the East Germans wore gray.)

It wasn’t exactly a time of unmitigated triumph. The series, based on the semi-fictional thriller by Robert Littell, spans some of the most embarrassing espionage disasters of all time, including Kim Philby, the double agent in MI6, and the Bay of Pigs fiasco. But in its heyday, the C.I.A. was the emblem of American certitude, when arrogance was more of an issue than ignorance, and zeal, however misguided, loomed larger than incompetence and interagency paper shuffling.

“The Company” is a look back in sorrow, but also in muffled fondness, at an era that by post-9/11 standards, seems enviably unambiguous and navigable. Two years ago “Good Night, and Good Luck,” George Clooney’s black-and-white tribute to Edward R. Murrow, tapped into viewers’ appetite for moral clarity and unfiltered cigarettes. More recently, Robert De Niro tried to capture the WASP ethos at the marrow of postwar American power in “The Good Shepherd.” Sam Mendes is working with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio on a film version of Richard Yates’s 1961 novel about suburban angst, “Revolutionary Road.”

It’s not a coincidence that so many writers and directors are fascinated by the era of the Automat, the space race and Bob Newhart comedy albums. When the present is uncertain, and the future looks bleak, the past holds so much promise.

Television is on a similar retro wavelength. “The Company” takes the same lovingly reproachful look at cold war antics that “Mad Men,” on AMC, brings to the Madison Avenue rat race.

Centered on advertising executives in the 1960s, “Mad Men” is a darkly lighted montage of martini lunches, smoke-filled rooms, starched white shirts, illicit affairs and well-trained children who at the dinner table were seen and not heard.

TNT’s mini-series is a darkly lighted montage of martini lunches, smoke-filled rooms, starched white shirts, illicit affairs and well-trained agents who in a bugged room were heard and not seen.

Both series second-guess the errors of those times — the sexism and racism of Madison Avenue, the betrayals and extralegal activities of Cockroach Alley, as the C.I.A.’s first headquarters were nicknamed — while savoring their now-forbidden pleasures.

Chris O’Donnell plays Jack McAuliffe, a recent Yale graduate and oarsman, who, along with his classmate and best friend, Leo Kritzky (Alessandro Nivola), is tapped for the C.I.A. by his coach. A third friend, Yevgeny Tsipin (Rory Cochrane), is the son of a Russian diplomat who returns to Moscow after Yale and is also recruited for cloak-and-dagger work, only by the K.G.B.

But the real star is Alfred Molina, who plays Harvey Torriti, a crabby, overweight, obsessive field agent code-named the Sorcerer, who becomes Jack’s mentor in Berlin. Torriti is the type who keeps slivovitz in the office water cooler. (“I drink what my medical report says is a toxic level of alcohol,” he says.) He is convinced that there is a high-level British intelligence mole who is privy to top-secret C.I.A. information and is feeding it to Moscow.

James Jesus Angleton, played by Michael Keaton as a paranoid and prissily secretive head of counterintelligence, doesn’t believe Torriti but consults his close friend and wartime mentor, Adrian (Tom Hollander), who is more widely known as Harold A. R. (Kim) Philby.

Much of the action in “The Company” is set in the same shadowy netherworld that was so evocatively portrayed in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” and “Smiley’s People,” the BBC series based on John le Carré novels. (Philby, who in his day betrayed le Carré along with countless other British agents, was a model for Smiley’s nemesis, Bill Haydon.)

This spy drama is not as dense and psychologically intricate, but it has compensations, most notably the placement of fictional characters like McAuliffe and Torriti alongside real-life figures like Angleton and Philby, and inside real-life crises like the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

The historical events are real, but some of the re-creations of the period are overly romanticized, particularly life in the Soviet Union.

Yevgeny is recruited by a K.G.B. general known by the code name Starik ( Ulrich Thomsen), a true believer who woos Yevgeny at his summer dacha. That idyllic, sun-dappled estate is modeled on the Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov’s more lyrical country scenes — more Chekhov than Cheka.

Yevgeny falls in love with a young Jewish woman, whose parents were deported to Siberia, and she appears to live alone in a large Moscow apartment with a private telephone in her bedroom, which in 1951 was out of the question for anyone, let alone “rootless cosmopolitans,” as Jews were called in Stalin’s time. Those and other slips are minor, however.

History has shown that neither the K.G.B. nor the C.I.A. was nearly as powerful or effective as it once seemed. “The Company” provides a welcome break from that reality; it’s an escape into the bracing, deluded days before the cold war ended, and the war on terror took its place.

THE COMPANY

TNT, Sunday night at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time.

Directed by Mikael Salomon and adapted by Ken Nolan from the novel by Robert Littell; Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, John Calley, executive producers; David W. Zucker and David A. Rosemont, co-executive producers. A Sony Pictures Television production.

WITH: Chris O’Donnell (Jack McAuliffe), Alfred Molina (Harvey Torriti, a k a the Sorcerer), Michael Keaton (James Jesus Angleton), Tom Hollander (Adrian Philby), Ulrich Thomsen (Starik), Alessandro Nivola (Leo Kritzky) and Rory Cochrane (Yevgeny Tsipin).

Mark Steyn: The vanishing jihad exposés

Orange County Register

August 5, 2007

How will we lose the war against "radical Islam"?

Well, it won't be in a tank battle. Or in the Sunni Triangle or the caves of Bora Bora. It won't be because terrorists fly three jets into the Oval Office, Buckingham Palace and the Basilica of St Peter's on the same Tuesday morning.

The war will be lost incrementally because we are unable to reverse the ongoing radicalization of Muslim populations in South Asia, Indonesia, the Balkans, Western Europe and, yes, North America. And who's behind that radicalization? Who funds the mosques and Islamic centers that in the past 30 years have set up shop on just about every Main Street around the planet?

For the answer, let us turn to a fascinating book called "Alms for Jihad: Charity And Terrorism in the Islamic World," by J. Millard Burr, a former USAID relief coordinator, and the scholar Robert O Collins. Can't find it in your local Barnes & Noble? Never mind, let's go to Amazon. Everything's available there. And sure enough, you'll come through to the "Alms for Jihad" page and find a smattering of approving reviews from respectably torpid publications: "The most comprehensive look at the web of Islamic charities that have financed conflicts all around the world," according to Canada's Globe And Mail, which is like the New York Times but without the jokes.

Unfortunately, if you then try to buy "Alms for Jihad," you discover that the book is "Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock." Hang on, it was only published last year. At Amazon, items are either shipped within 24 hours or, if a little more specialized, within four to six weeks, but not many books from 2006 are entirely unavailable with no restock in sight.



Well, let us cross the ocean, thousands of miles from the Amazon warehouse, to the High Court in London. Last week, the Cambridge University Press agreed to recall all unsold copies of "Alms for Jihad" and pulp them. In addition, it has asked hundreds of libraries around the world to remove the volume from their shelves. This highly unusual action was accompanied by a letter to Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, in care of his English lawyers, explaining their reasons:

"Throughout the book there are serious and defamatory allegations about yourself and your family, alleging support for terrorism through your businesses, family and charities, and directly.

"As a result of what we now know, we accept and acknowledge that all of those allegations about you and your family, businesses and charities are entirely and manifestly false."

Who is Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz? Well, he's a very wealthy and influential Saudi. Big deal, you say. Is there any other kind? Yes, but even by the standards of very wealthy and influential Saudis, this guy is plugged in: He was the personal banker to the Saudi royal family and head of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, until he sold it to the Saudi government. He has a swanky pad in London and an Irish passport and multiple U.S. business connections, including to Thomas Kean, the chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

I'm not saying the 9/11 Commission is a Saudi shell operation, merely making the observation that, whenever you come across a big-shot Saudi, it's considerably less than six degrees of separation between him and the most respectable pillars of the American establishment.

As to whether allegations about support for terrorism by the sheikh and his "family, businesses and charities" are "entirely and manifestly false," the Cambridge University Press is going way further than the United States or most foreign governments would. Of his bank's funding of terrorism, Sheikh Mahfouz's lawyer has said: "Like upper management at any other major banking institution, Khalid Bin Mahfouz was not, of course, aware of every wire transfer moving through the bank. Had he known of any transfers that were going to fund al-Qaida or terrorism, he would not have permitted them." Sounds reasonable enough. Except that in this instance the Mahfouz bank was wiring money to the principal Mahfouz charity, the Muwafaq (or "Blessed Relief") Foundation, which in turn transferred them to Osama bin Laden.

In October 2001, the Treasury Department named Muwafaq as "an al-Qaida front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi businessmen" and its chairman as a "specially designated global terrorist." As the Treasury concluded, "Saudi businessmen have been transferring millions of dollars to bin Laden through Blessed Relief."

Indeed, this "charity" seems to have no other purpose than to fund jihad. It seeds Islamism wherever it operates. In Chechnya, it helped transform a reasonably conventional nationalist struggle into an outpost of the jihad. In the Balkans, it played a key role in replacing a traditionally moderate Islam with a form of Mitteleuropean Wahhabism. Pick a Muwafaq branch office almost anywhere on the planet and you get an interesting glimpse of the typical Saudi charity worker. The former head of its mission in Zagreb, Croatia, for example, is a guy called Ayadi Chafiq bin Muhammad. Well, he's called that most of the time. But he has at least four aliases and residences in at least three nations (Germany, Austria and Belgium). He was named as a bin Laden financier by the U.S. government and disappeared from the United Kingdom shortly after 9/11.



Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz

So why would the Cambridge University Press, one of the most respected publishers on the planet, absolve Khalid bin Mahfouz, his family, his businesses and his charities to a degree that neither (to pluck at random) the U.S., French, Albanian, Swiss and Pakistani governments would be prepared to do?

Because English libel law overwhelmingly favors the plaintiff. And like many other big-shot Saudis, Sheikh Mahfouz has become very adept at using foreign courts to silence American authors – in effect, using distant jurisdictions to nullify the First Amendment. He may be a wronged man, but his use of what the British call "libel chill" is designed not to vindicate his good name but to shut down the discussion, which is why Cambridge University Press made no serious attempt to mount a defense. He's one of the richest men on the planet, and they're an academic publisher with very small profit margins. But, even if you've got a bestseller, your pockets are unlikely to be deep enough: "House Of Saud, House Of Bush" did boffo biz with the anti-Bush crowd in America, but there's no British edition – because Sheikh Mahfouz had indicated he was prepared to spend what it takes to challenge it in court, and Random House decided it wasn't worth it.

We've gotten used to one-way multiculturalism: The world accepts that you can't open an Episcopal or Congregational church in Jeddah or Riyadh, but every week the Saudis can open radical mosques and madrassahs and pro-Saudi think-tanks in London and Toronto and Dearborn, Mich., and Falls Church, Va. And their global reach extends a little further day by day, inch by inch, in the lengthening shadows, as the lights go out one by one around the world.

Suppose you've got a manuscript about the Saudis. Where are you going to shop it? Think Cambridge University Press will be publishing anything anytime soon?

Filip Bondy: Wait of the world is outta here

Late to his own party, A-Rod finally celebrates No. 500

New York Daily News

Sunday, August 5th 2007, 4:00 AM

He dropped his bat not far from the plate to watch a patch of white, spherical cowhide on its historic flight. Tilting to his right, Alex Rodriguez wondered if the ball would curve foul, just left of the pole, and if his trial by flashbulbs would go on forever.

That's the way things had been going for him, hooking the wrong way for days. But then, he would say, the ball righted itself, "almost like a fade in golf." The drive landed safely fair in the lower deck, just below a walkway, and a lucky Rutgers student came away with the ball.

A-Rod trotted around the bases like a man who no longer was toting Jimmie Foxx, the Bleacher Creatures, sniping columnists and most of the Bronx on his back. "The Natural" played in the background, and while he rounded the bases, his wife, Cynthia, was hustling like crazy into the Stadium hoping to catch just a glimpse. She was running late for the game - "30 minutes late, right on cue," A-Rod joked - so she'd parked her car illegally and made a dash for it.

"I saw him cross home plate," Cynthia said. A-Rod waved to her seat as he reached home plate, though she hadn't quite reached it.

And there it was. An empty seat, a meaningful homer. Rodriguez had his 500th, at the ridiculous age of 32 years, eight days. His three-run shot in the first inning had come early enough for him to enjoy the whole, sultry afternoon and a 16-8 victory. It had arrived in time to make everyone happy, except the Kansas City Royals.

For the record, it was the very first pitch from Kyle Davies that served the slugger so well. There was what he later called "a high school reception" waiting for Rodriguez near the dugout, led by none other than Derek Jeter. A-Rod had earned these hugs the hard way, after 28 official at-bats, three hits and zero homers over a tortuous nine days. There were times when Rodriguez looked anxious, almost confused at the plate. But he settled into the circumstances by Thursday, when it became more a matter of time than of mind.

"The energy of the fans put it in perspective," Rodriguez said. "It seemed they cared more about it than I did."

There was a loud ovation at the old, lame-duck Stadium, and of course a curtain call. A-Rod raised both fists toward the sky, leaving us to ponder the mythic power of the longball. It never quite falls out of vogue, despite the steroid backlash and the inflated numbers.

This much we know: 500 homers is not the mark it once was, and A-Rod will surely smack many, many more. There are four active players ahead of Rodriguez in the career category, and Rafael Palmeiro retired not that long ago with 569. Going into the games yesterday, Jim Thome had 489, Manny Ramirez had 488 and Gary Sheffield was at 478. Home runs are so plentiful now that by the end of the day, Rodriguez was actually further behind Frank Thomas in the standings than he was at the start.

Still, this was Rodriguez's moment, fair and square. And with A-Rod, there is always a subtext or two. People wondered whether this milestone and the good cheer it created would push him a bit more toward sticking here beyond the season.

Rodriguez said that it had taken him three or four years to get comfortable in New York, but who really knows what happens next? Joe Torre just said that Rodriguez looked very good in the uniform. It has only been 10 months since the manager penciled in his third baseman for the eighth spot in the batting order. On a day like yesterday, it felt much longer.

"This is a stopoff for him, not a destination," Torre said, about No.500. "He's certainly going to stand tall with the others who wore the pinstripes. We obviously know he gets all the attention all the time and that it's not easy to live with."

Everybody had wanted to get this done, to move on to the wild card race and the schedule crush that lies ahead. If the Yankees can keep amassing these runs against tougher competition, then they have a shot at October after all. They've scored at least seven runs in each of the last six games, and in 13 of their last 15. They've averaged nearly 10 runs over that stretch.

After carrying the team through much of the early season, A-Rod had little to do with this recent outburst. Then yesterday he hit that 500th homer, for three runs. No resting now. Rodriguez is always a special case. He could hit 999, and everybody would wonder why 1,000 was taking so long.

fjbondy@netscape.net

Bob Ryan: Ignoring eras is an error

Boston Globe

August 5, 2007



Barry Bonds blasts his 755th career home run off Clay Hensley, of the San Diego Padres, in the second inning of their baseball game in San Diego, Saturday, Aug.4, 2007.

Any moment/minute/day/hour/week/month/year/decade/millennium now, the most joyless pursuit of a major American sports record will conclude. Barry Bonds will have hit more home runs than any major league baseball player in history.

But hitting the most homers doesn't necessarily make someone the Home Run King. That's where you and I come in. Ain't nobody gonna be crowned King unless we say so.

This has nothing to do with personality (Well, maybe a little). No, this has to do with baseball's ongoing attempt to con gullible followers into believing that the game is one great, seamless story of achievement, that the game and conditions under which Ned Williamson swatted 27 home runs for the 1884 Chicago White Stockings are the same as the game and conditions under which Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs for the New York Yankees in 1927, Roger Maris hit 61 home runs for the Yankees in 1961, or Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs for the San Francisco Giants in 2001. It's a splendid myth.

Just so you know, Ned Williamson took aim at a right-field fence at Lake Front Park that was 196 feet from home plate. The year before, when balls hit over that fence were ground-rule doubles, he had a record 49 two-baggers.

So when it comes to home runs, all conditions are not created equal.

The modern home run story starts with Ruth. This is beyond dispute. Until Ruth, many old-line baseball purists thought the home run was a show-off gesture, antithetical to the purpose of "real" baseball. Among those True Believers was Ty Cobb, who, according to legend, decided to show there was no great trick to hitting homers by announcing in advance on May 5, 1925, that he was going for homers that day, and who proceeded to hit three. Makes for a nice story, anyway.



Ty was certainly entitled to his beliefs, but the fact is that both guys and gals dug the long ball, and that The Babe was the first great practitioner of the art. Serious baseball historians will forever debate the whys and wherefores of the dead ball vs. the live ball and whether the binding of the baseball did or did not change significantly in 1920 (it's hard to believe it didn't) in order to make the ball, yes, "livelier," and I'll leave that to the true diamond scholars. Just let the record show that Ruth increased his own season home run record from 29 to 54, and baseball has never looked back.

The Babe's home park in those days was the Polo Grounds, which had a unique horsehoe configuration. Ruth took aim at a right-field foul pole at 257 feet (it was 279 to left, but the fence angled out sharply, and by the time you got to dead center the center fielder was stationed in a different hemisphere). I'm sure the Bambino hit a few cheapies to right. I'm also sure he hit a few 450-foot outs in a ballpark where the dead-center-field fence was listed as far as 483 feet from home plate, and never listed as less than 475.

In 1923, the Yankees constructed a new ballpark in the Bronx. No fools, they, the park looked as if Babe had been asked to design it. The right-field fence was set at 296 feet. At a comparable spot in right-center where Fenway Park goes to 380, the Yankee Stadium distance was 344, with a 4-foot fence. Right field in the old Yankee Stadium -- it was reconfigured for the 1976 season -- was a home run haven built for the personal swatting pleasure of Babe Ruth.

Left field, meanwhile, was a daunting proposition for righthanded batters. It was only 301 down the line, but it fell off sharply, and among the signs for righthanded power hitters to ponder were 457 to left-center and 461 to straightaway center. There were three monuments located on the field and they seldom came into any game discussion. You can certainly forgive Joe DiMaggio for wishing he'd been born lefthanded.

Everything in sports, and life itself, is always contextual, so let's put Babe Ruth into context. In the prime of his career, Ruth twice hit more home runs than every other team. He did it in 1920 and 1927. He was a colossus. He was really and truly establishing new concepts. There was baseball Before Babe and baseball After Babe. This is true of no other baseball player, perhaps of no other athlete (I'll listen with a very sympathetic ear to pleas for Bobby Orr and Bill Russell).

Hank Aaron is an entirely different proposition. At no time in the first 15 years of his career did anyone think of him in terms of catching Ruth. At that time he had 510 homers. But when he hit a career-high 47 at age 37 in 1971, the dialogue changed.



Even in pursuit of Ruth, when you thought of home runs you didn't think of Hank Aaron. Harmon Killebrew? Home run. Willie McCovey? Home run. Willie Mays? Home run. Not Hank Aaron. But Hank did what none of them could. He hit 20 or more for an astonishing 20 consecutive years.

Babe rode trains. Hank flew.

Babe played in hot flannel uniforms and sweltered in hotel rooms that had yet to hear of air conditioning. Hank got to wear a modern fabric (eventually) and slept in the comfort of AC (eventually).

Babe played all day games. Hank played in the night-ball era.

Babe got to hit against tired starters in the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings. Hank played in the transitional era when fresh, skilled relievers assumed great prominence.

Babe swung at dirty, scuffed balls that had been in play a while. Hank always swung at a fresh, white baseball.

Babe had Yankee Stadium. Hank started out in Milwaukee County Stadium, which was home run neutral (315 down the lines, but with reasonable power alleys) before switching in 1966 to Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, which, during Hank's time, was nicknamed "The Launching Pad."

Babe played against all-white competition. Hank played against all available comers.

Babe spent his first three years exclusively as a pitcher, not playing full-time outfield until 1919, his fifth full year. Even with a so-called dead ball, may we not give him, oh, 40 more homers? 50? Who knows?

So, is it all a wash? You decide.

I'm not going to rehash Barry this morning. I think we're all Barryed out by now. If you think he's really the Home Run King, you salute him.

I say there are three Home Run Titans. Babe was the champ of the Booze and Broads Era. Hank was the champ of the Transition Era. Barry is the champ of the Steroids Era.

Champ, OK, but "King?" Nah, I'll pass. How about you?

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com.