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8-13-09—At the World Cup, Mexico’s teams are often among the three teams whose fans are loved by nearly all supporters from other nations: Brazil, Scotland and Mexico. The Brazilian fans are loved for their rowdy mixture of samba and sex appeal, the Scots for their bagpipes and kilts, if not their sex appeal, and the Mexicans for their outlandish sombreros and tequila-fueled good nature. WSJ D8

8-12-09—Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jesson were military retirees and psychologists ... in 2002 [for the CIA] they became the architects of the most important interrogation program in the history of American counterterrorism. They had never carried out a real interrogation, only mock sessions.. They had no relevant scholarship; their PhD dissertations were on high blood pressure and family therapy. They had no language skills and no expertise on Al Qaeda. NYT A1

--“Golf is a bourgeois sport—“ Hugo Chavez—NYT A4

--a new study argues that the Beatles may have helped bridge today’s generation gap in America.--NYT A13
--The young grass-roots army that swept Obama into office has yet to mobilize now that the fight is about something complicated rather than a charismatic hope-monger. No, they can’t? Instead of a multicultural tableau of beaming young idealists on screen, we see ugly scenes of mostly older and white malcontents, disrupting forums where others have come to actually learn something. Instead of hope, we get swastikas, death threats and T-shirts proclaiming “Proud Member of the Mob.” President Obama has proven quicksilver instincts, but not in this case. You would think that a politician schooled in community organizing and the foul balls of a presidential campaign would be ready to squash this kind of nuttiness. (Like it or not, Speaker Pelosi, that’s democracy in action.) Instead, the president’s overconfident Harvard Law Review side, expecting a high-minded debate, prevailed. –NYT A21

8-9-09--Climate Change Seen as Threat to US Security; Pentagon Studies Issue.—NYT A1 [d’oh...!...]