This week's cover is an homage to actress Ava Gardner. One of our Publisher's soulmates will understand why.

DELHI, INDIA - Hiroto Kobayashi used to be editor-in-chief of Wired Japan. But after the magazine was suspended in September 1998, after a four-year run, he established his own publishing company, Infobahn. He also became e-in-c of a new magazine: Cyzo is full of sensational articles and generally criticizes what's happening in Japan, including Bit Valley. Kobayashi says he's just pursuing whatever he's skeptical of -- which is what journalists should do, he reminds us. Kobayashi visited the India recently, where he had a talk with DHAMAKA NEWS Editor in Chief M H AHSAN. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Dhamaka News is a G21 international News Partner.]

G21: What was Wired Japan like?

HIROTO KOBAYASHI: Wired magazine in the US started in 1993, and it came to Japan in November 1994. There was no commercial Internet service in Japan before the summer of 1994, when the first ISP, IIJ, started up. The concept of the magazine was to report how "multimedia" -- the hot word of the time -- would change our lifestyles. We also talked about technology and science, and the magazine was supposed to help foresee the future.

G21: How did the magazine change? You wrote in one of your old HotWired columns that the magazine had shifted its direction.

HIROTO KOBAYASHI: When it first started, about 60 to 70 percent of the articles were translations from the US version. But we eventually started doing 100 percent of the articles ourselves. When we interviewed Steve Jobs, we were the first to get him in the magazine, and we later introduced him to Wired in the US. ... MORE





by BRAD BALFOUR

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, USA - While this president tries as hard as he can to present the image of our immutable moral superiority in invading and occupying Iraq, numerous other voices have other opinions. Certainly, the Arab world and Western European citizenry sees this administration, not Saddam, as the problem.

The voices of both the left and the paleoconservatives (see lewrockwell.com) have trouble with Bush's warmonger style of nation-building. The patriotic atmosphere purveying the country's mood had precluded such a critique until those 16 words that flowed from Bush's lips in his January State of the Union address: "...The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" suggesting that he lied and opening the field for criticism, now flowing in from many directions, including from the troops themselves.

As the Associated Press recently reported, "Senior American officials are sending a message that violence against U.S. soldiers in Iraq is increasingly the work of foreign fighters", by implication, Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

But Iraqis and American officers on the ground say the evidence is stronger that Iraqis angry at American occupation and Saddam Hussein loyalists are behind most attacks.... MORE





by BOB POWERS

MARIETTA, OH, USA - One of the nicest as well as most talented singers in show business has been undergoing a revival. There are several releases within the past few months that bring back to stores material recorded long ago by the great Tony Bennett.

Bennett is not only in the highest echelons of pop music, but he's one of the most cordial and beloved performers in his trade. At the age of 77, his voice shows little signs of deterioration and his sense of understanding lyrics and delivering just what the composer intended continues as thoughtful as early in his career, dating back to the 1950s. Owner of two Grammy awards, in 1962 and 1994, Bennett continues to ply his trade with unmatched skill and sincerity....MORE





by YUSOF AHMAD

ASSAM, INDIA - Sometime last year, I received an email from a Muslim preacher who teaches Islamic studies at an American University and is a graduate in Islamic Studies from the University of Medina. The email was one of many such emails from different preachers of different Islamic schools that I receive as part of my ongoing education about Islamic theology and Muslim politics. This email was, however, different from the rest-most of which were simple rehashes of the moral science classes I received at my old Catholic school.

The author was here trying to prove how, from an Islamic jurisprudential viewpoint, the TV must be considered prohibited. And he premised his argument on the very principle on which I would have supposed it to have failed ã that where the religious law is not clear, a thing is to be considered permissible or prohibited depending on the use to which it is to be put. The author had even provided the example of the act of procuring a knife to illustrate his point. I forget the exact line of the reasoning that led the author to his surprising conclusion. What remains is that this was an email, delivered over the Internet to which both, the sender and the majority of his readers, had access. It did not matter that the Internet held out far greater avenues for moral corruption than the TV and that the virtues and vices of both these media depended on what use was made of them ...MORE





by ROD AMIS

NEW ORLEANS - 11 October, 2003: The words in my mind at the time were penetration and conquest. I had entered the undiscovered country that I had wanted to explore. I found that the words in her mind had been acceptance and possession. Upon entering her I had become part of her.

It fascinated me, as a writer, to look at how we both had conceptualized the event. I was slightly embarrassed to acknowledge that I had thought of it in military terms. (As my friend, Drew, said to me recently - upon discovering that I am an Aries: "How did you become the god of war?") I was fascinated that I had become both part of her because of what we'd done and something which she now felt she owned, like a dress or a necklace.

Understand, if you will indulge me on this, that neither of our concepts was impersonal or callous. You cannot be callous about coitus. As I've written about it in the past, part of what happens is that you let down your metaphorical "shield" (in the scifi sense,) that bubble of personal space we all keep around ourselves becomes permeable. From that moment on, the other person enters our "personal space" impercievably. So her concept was much better than mine, I decided. I no longer felt the need to protect myself as she approached.

Which threw me back on my own, admittedly masculine, take on the act. Lynda once commented that there was something predatory in the way I thought of my campaigns (There's that military thang again!) on women. She, you, were right. I tried to deal with that during my penance.

Do not assume, Luv, that I am talking now about something recent. This is a reminiscence. I am thinking about the last woman who broke my heart, thinking about what she and I said when our love was fresh and new. She was one of the many women I was willing to marry but she was definitely the most toxic. I now refer to her as "The Old Wound," a la Launcelot in the film "Excalibur". But I did not steal her from a king, only another woman ... MORE


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