periodical update

--[Richard Rhodes in ARSENALS OF FOLLY meticulously documents] how American officials frequently and deliberately inflated their estimates of military threats facing the US, beginning with he 1950 report to President Truman ... Under President GWB, the practice of exaggerating threats to the US in order to justify aggressive military policies has been taken to alarming extremes. ... Rhoades writes “Far victory in the Cold War, the superpower nuclear-warms race and the corresponding militarization of the American economy gave us ramshackle cities, broken bridges, failing schools, entrenched poverty, impeded life expectancy, and a menacing and secretie national-security state. NYRB, 3-6-08, 18f

--[In THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WAR ON CANCER] Devra Davis’ main charge against eh cancer establishment is that it has ignored accumulating evidence pointing to environmental hazards as a –perhaps THE—major preventable casuse of malignant disease. NYRB, 3-6-08, 25

--“In the back-and-forth between Clinton and Gingrich, and in the elections of 2000 and 2004, I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the Baby Boom generation—a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago—played out on the national stage.”—Barack Obama, quoted NYRB, 3-6-08, 43

--For safety’s sake, a child and an adult SHOULDN’T be ALONE in a closed room together. If a child and an adult happen to be alone, someone should KNOW where they are and the door should be OPEN or have a big window in it. ... Remember it’s ALWAYS SAFER with a group of people you know, but if you are alone with an adult, make sure OTHERS KNOW where to find you.—Girlie Angel in from BEING FRIENDS,BEING SAFE, BEING CATHOLIC, in a coloring book distributed this winter by the Archdiocese of New York. HARPERS, March 2008, p 25

--...nobody ever promised a big rock candy mountain to those of us who would rather read Proust ... than get an honest job. HARPERS, March 2008, p 84