Dear Rod,

I particularly enjoyed Faycal Falaky's article on Jews, victimhood and anti-Semitism. I pretty much agreed with everything he said, and thought some of it applied just as well to Chinese people, or at least the Chinese in Taiwan.

The Chinese-language media here in Taiwan is very eager to report cases of apparent racial discrimination when the victims are Chinese living abroad, and are up in arms whenever a foreign publication criticizes Taiwan or Chinese people. (Taiwanese racism against Southeast Asians or Africans isn't newsworthy, it seems.) However - like the Israeli editor quoted by Faycal - several local columnists excoriate Taiwanese culture, behavior and attitudes on a weekly basis, and not only get away with it, but are respected for it...... More

POWERSSOUND: Who's the greatest pianist of the 20th century?

All right, the arguments could last for days, if not weeks. But before you decide, let me suggest that you listen to a new release that makes a strong argument that Bill Evans should be given the crown.

"The Last Waltz: The Final Recordings" (Milestone Records) documents the pianist's performances at the famed Keystone Korner in San Francisco, September 1980.

Evans, who would die a week afterwards, knew he was near the end. These eight CDs, boxed with excellent notes by Derk Richardson, show that even though he was at the end of life, Evans was determined to make every note count. And he did. ... BOB POWERS "Bill Evans Gave His All" More

MY GLASS HOUSE: One of the most fun parts of doing this is the e-mails I get from all over the world. (No, really! I'm not joking this time.) Let me share a couple of great ones I got this last week and you'll see what I mean

One guy wrote in and compared me to Jack Parr. Jack Parr! You have to be either a videophile, a television historian, or OLD --- like me --- to recognize the name of that genius. He's up there with Ernie Kovaks, another master of a new medium..

"Retractions"

As my regular contribution metaphorically "goes to press" on Mondays, you will have to wait for my comment on the outcome of the United States Elections. But, as I have been unkind to both Presidential candidates, I hope that time will lead me gracefully to retract some of my harsh assessments. After making gloomy forecasts it is nice to be wrong.

This principle, however, does not hold in assessing figures from the past as I have just found out to my considerable cost.

I have just finished reading Gary Wills' superb short book on St. Augustine which has shown me --- to my temporary dissatisfaction --- that I have been partially wrong about the good Bishop of Hippo all my adult life. I have built a substantial edifice which I have inhabited with the comfort familiarity brings on the basis that Augustine was a misguided neo-Platonist and that Christianity has on the whole fared better since the Aristotelian St. Thomas Aquinas. This assessment has been based on four errors of analysis which I now, in the spirit of Augustine, confess. .. More


AMERICAN DREAMS:

"Election of Losers"

ROD AMIS

There were more losers in this most recent US Presidential election than for any election in my lifetime. Perhaps, we'll learn later, than at any time in the history of this country.

The response to that proposition, presented to the elderly citizens of Palm Beach by the camp of Governor George W. Bush, is that almost 20,000 of them losing their right to vote is sad, but "...nobody complained about the ballot before the election."

I understand this reasoning. It's like a place we now call "Deadman's Curve." There is no reason to change the traffic patterns there because nobody complained before all those kids died. .. More


THE SEX COLUMN:

"Climax Means Beginning...

PHALA RAY-ORIANS & CHARLIE THE TUNA

CORPOREAL MATTERS PHALA RAY-ORIANS Rather, better to ask and answer my mirrored self than question my insatiable Satyr. As your keystroke weary fingertips, all ten in unison, trailed up the outsides of my legs from my ankles past my knees and then down again inside my thighs, you opened me up to a realm of new possibilities. One by one, as I kissed your splayed and singularly columnar digits, I polished my technique and imagined what ecstasy I would bring you when my mouth eventually reached its ultimate destination.

The Church of Sex CHARLIE THE TUNA I am a deacon in the Church of Sex. I have succeeded Anais Nin as the spy in the House of Love. I am an emissary of the god Priapus sent with a living offering to the temple of the Great Mother. I aspire to join with one who will make the worm, Ouroborus, with me -- that one which swallows its own tail. Unless you have drank long and deep of the sacrament of sex, these mysteries may well be foreign to you. There is nothing, or little, as exhilerating, transcendent, ego‚crushing, dangerous, sublime and challenging as good sex. It is the most difficult thing for us to talk about because it is so central to the core of what it means to be human, and it is that timeless experience which defies mere words to contain it. I know; most often in my space I portray the fantasies which drive the search for the sexual Grail, or the pull‚and‚tug between the gender‚motivations which too often make a minefield of the sexual quest‚‚‚but that is only the backdrop...

....More

G21 STUFF: We know. You want to let people know that you KNOW. So why not prove it by wearing a G21 t-shirt? Drink from a coffee mug that proclaims your allegiance to The World's Magazine. Thank you so much!!!


RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT:

"Beelzebub's Buzzwords"

THOMAS HART

Larry McMurtry, Molly Ivins, Bruce Sterling, Jim Hightower... Yeah, ya'll we got a lot of good writers comin' outtah Tejas. Ole Jim Hightower put out a new book recently that I think might make you feel a little more In-The-Know about what all them folks is callin' our "Election Crisis."

Let's get real, my fellow Sanitation Engineers, and admit that we need to look to the SOURCE of the problem, not the danged symptoms! Jim Hightower is one ole boy who is durn good at that...More

RDR 11.15.00: CHARLIE THE TUNA explains why he's back and what he's about. "Tuna Time!"

RDR 11.10.00: RON DIENER challenges us to look at new educational models in America. "Every Child!"

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