My Life and Times

December 7, 2004
The United States Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of state laws that block merchants from shipping wine across state lines. Affected businesses and consumers claim that such laws are invalid under the commerce clause, long held to ban a state's discrimination against interstate commerce.
Frans van Anraat is arrested in the Netherlands for shipping chemical weapons precursors to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War (CNN) (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/12/07/dutch.iraq/index.html)
High profile Democratic New York State attorney general Eliot Spitzer announces his campaign for Governor in 2006. (Yahoo) (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041207/ap_on_el_gu/spitzer_governor)
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Two Hamas militants, two Islamic Jihad members and an Israeli soldier have died following clashes in the central Gaza Strip. (BBC) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4074517.stm)
Shahar Dvir-Zeliger, a Jewish settler in Nablus, has been sentenced to eight years imprisonment for membership of an extremist group. He was found guilty of being a member of the Bat Ayin cell, which has killed eight Palestinians. (BBC) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4075001.stm)
An entire Israeli Army elite unit has been suspended from duty while investigations continue into what B'Tselem alleges was a killing of an unnarmed injuried Palestinian man. (BBC) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4075673.stm)
2004 U.S. presidential election controversy:
In a sworn affidavit Monday, a former programmer for a NASA contractor said that he developed a vote-rigging prototype at the request of a then-Florida state representative, Tom Feeney, who is now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. (Blue Lemur) (http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=477)[2] (http://www.bradblog.com)
Ohio Secretary of State, and Co-Chair of the George Bush Ohio Campaign, Ken Blackwell certifies election results. Two parallel vote count efforts are pending, one claims evidence that John Kerry is the legitimate winner of Ohio. (Associated Press) (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041206/ap_on_el_pr/ohio_vote) (NYT) (http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/html/eng/2209-AA.shtml)
The U.S. military discusses plans for mandatory visibly worn ID badges, forced labor, DNA testing, and retina scans at "citizen processing centers" for all residents of the rebellious Iraqi city of Fallujah, saying they plan to make it a model city for the whole of Iraq. (Boston Globe) (http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/12/05/returning_fallujans_will_face_clampdown/)
Hamid Karzai is inaugurated as President of Afghanistan. (CNN) (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/07/afghanistan.inauguration/index.html) (BBC) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4074175.stm)

December 7, 2004INTELLIGENCE
2 C.I.A. Reports Offer Warnings on Iraq's PathBy DOUGLAS JEHL
ASHINGTON, Dec. 6 - A classified cable sent by the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief in Baghdad has warned that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and may not rebound any time soon, according to government officials.
The cable, sent late last month as the officer ended a yearlong tour, presented a bleak assessment on matters of politics, economics and security, the officials said. They said its basic conclusions had been echoed in briefings presented by a senior C.I.A. official who recently visited Iraq.
The officials described the two assessments as having been "mixed," saying that they did describe Iraq as having made important progress, particularly in terms of its political process, and credited Iraqis with being resilient.
But over all, the officials described the station chief's cable in particular as an unvarnished assessment of the difficulties ahead in Iraq. They said it warned that the security situation was likely to get worse, including more violence and sectarian clashes, unless there were marked improvements soon on the part of the Iraqi government, in terms of its ability to assert authority and to build the economy.
Together, the appraisals, which follow several other such warnings from officials in Washington and in the field, were much more pessimistic than the public picture being offered by the Bush administration before the elections scheduled for Iraq next month, the officials said. The cable was sent to C.I.A. headquarters after American forces completed what military commanders have described as a significant victory, with the retaking of Falluja, a principal base of the Iraqi insurgency, in mid-November.
The American ambassador to Iraq, John D. Negroponte, was said by the officials to have filed a written dissent, objecting to one finding as too harsh, on the ground that the United States had made more progress than was described in combating the Iraqi insurgency. But the top American military commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., also reviewed the cable and initially offered no objections, the officials said. One official said, however, that General Casey may have voiced objections in recent days.
The station chief's cable has been widely disseminated outside the C.I.A., and was initially described by a government official who read the document and who praised it as unusually candid. Other government officials who have read or been briefed on the document later described its contents. The officials refused to be identified by name or affiliation because of the delicacy of the issue. The station chief cannot be publicly identified because he continues to work undercover.
Asked about the cable, a White House spokesman, Sean McCormack, said he could not discuss intelligence matters. A C.I.A. spokesman would say only that he could not comment on any classified document.
It was not clear how the White House was responding to the station chief's cable. In recent months, some Republicans, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, have accused the agency of seeking to undermine President Bush by disclosing intelligence reports whose conclusions contradict the administration or its policies. But senior intelligence officials including John E. McLaughlin, the departing deputy director of central intelligence, have disputed those assertions. One government official said the new assessments might suggest that Porter J. Goss, the new director of central intelligence, was willing to listen to views different from those publicly expressed by the administration.
A separate, more formal, National Intelligence Estimate prepared in July and sent to the White House in August by American intelligence agencies also presented a dark forecast for Iraq's future through the end of 2005. Among three possible developments described in that document, the best case was tenuous stability and the worst case included a chain of events leading to civil war.
After news reports disclosed the existence of the National Intelligence Estimate, which also remains classified, President Bush initially dismissed the conclusions as nothing more than a guess. Since then, however, violence in Iraq has increased, including the recent formation of a Shiite militia intended to carry out attacks on Sunni militants.
The end-of-tour cable from the station chief, spelling out an assessment of the situation on the ground, is a less-formal product than a National Intelligence Estimate. But it was drafted by an officer who is highly regarded within the C.I.A. and who, as station chief in Baghdad, has been the top American intelligence official in Iraq since December 2003. The station chief oversees an intelligence operation that includes about 300 people, making Baghdad the largest C.I.A. station since Saigon during the Vietnam War era.
The senior C.I.A. official who visited Iraq and then briefed counterparts from other government agencies was Michael Kostiw, a senior adviser to Mr. Goss. One government official who knew about Mr. Kostiw's briefings described them as "an honest portrayal of the situation on the ground."
Since they took office in September, Mr. Goss and his aides have sought to discourage unauthorized disclosures of information. In a memorandum sent to C.I.A. employees last month, Mr. Goss said the job of the intelligence agency was to "provide the intelligence as we see it" but also to "support the administration and its policies in our work."
"As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies," Mr. Goss said in that memorandum, saying that he was seeking "to clarify beyond doubt the rules of the road." The memorandum urged intelligence employees to "let the facts alone speak to the policy maker."
Mr. Goss himself made his first foreign trip as the intelligence director last week, with stops that included several days in Britain and a day in Afghanistan, but he did not visit Iraq, the government officials said.
At the White House on Monday, President Bush himself offered no hint of pessimism as he met with Iraq's president, Sheik Ghazi al-Yawar. Despite the security challenges, Mr. Bush said, the United States continues to favor the voting scheduled for Iraq on Jan. 30 to "send the clear message to the few people in Iraq that are trying to stop the march toward democracy that they cannot stop elections."
"The American people must understand that democracy just doesn't happen overnight," he said. "It is a process. It is an evolution. After all, look at our own history. We had great principles enunciated in our Declarations of Independence and our Constitution, yet, we had slavery for a hundred years. It takes a while for democracy to take hold. And this is a major first step in a society which enables people to express their beliefs and their opinions."
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December 7, 2004
Towers' Insurers Must Pay DoubleBy CHARLES V. BAGLI
federal jury said yesterday that the destruction of the World Trade Center constituted two separate attacks, entitling the developer Larry A. Silverstein to collect up to $2.2 billion, or double the insurance coverage provided by nine insurers at the complex.
The jury's decision, which came at the end of 11 days of deliberation and represented a major development in the rebuilding effort, almost certainly ensures that the proposed $1.5 billion, 1,776-foot Freedom Tower will be constructed at the trade center site, although appeals are likely and it may be some time before all the insurance money is paid out. It also ensures that Mr. Silverstein, who leased the trade center only six weeks before it was destroyed, will remain in control of the rebuilding effort for some time.
Insurance experts predicted yesterday that the verdict would send ripples through the insurance industry, with premiums for property coverage almost guaranteed to rise substantially.
Mr. Silverstein, who plans to use the money to rebuild the trade center, issued a statement yesterday saying he was thrilled with the verdict. It will "ensure a timely and complete rebuild of the World Trade Center," he said, adding that the insurers "had an obligation to pay their fair share to help make Lower Manhattan whole again."
Mr. Silverstein has argued that because two jets slammed into two towers at the trade center on Sept. 11, he was entitled to a double payment of the $3.55 billion policy, or $7 billion. The jury's decision yesterday related to nine insurance companies, which provided $1.1 billion of the $3.55 billion worth of coverage. If the verdict stands, the nine companies will have to pay $2.2 billion.
It was Mr. Silverstein's first legal victory during the 38-month legal battle he has waged against two dozen insurers at the trade center. Last spring, a jury decided that Swiss Re and eight other insurers had provided coverage based on a policy devised by Mr. Silverstein's brokers. The court had already ruled that that policy entitled Mr. Silverstein to only a single payment. The developer also settled with five other insurers. That cut Mr. Silverstein's quest for $7 billion to a maximum of $4.65 billion, if he won the second trial.
The extra $1.1 billion is needed downtown, where officials estimate that it will cost more than $9 billion to rebuild the trade center, a complex that is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and once included 10 million square feet of office space for investment banks and insurance companies, a retail mall, a hotel and a major rail station.
"It's a tremendous victory for Larry and for everyone else who has an interest in Lower Manhattan," said Kevin M. Rampe, president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. "The funds are going to ensure that Lower Manhattan recovers in the amount of time we've laid out."
But just as Mr. Silverstein is appealing the verdict in the first trial, the nine insurance companies are expected to appeal the decision.
John Novaria, a spokesman for Industrial Risk Insurers, one of the nine companies involved in the verdict, said his company still believed that the attack on the trade center was "one occurrence." Asked whether Industrial Risk would file an appeal, he said the company was "examining its options."
In a separate element of the dispute, the final amount of insurance money is under review by a court-approved panel of three appraisers, who will determine the extent of the damages at the trade center and how much each company must pay.
Nevertheless, Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a private planning group, said that yesterday's decision ensures that the Freedom Tower, the first of four or five office towers planned for the site, will be built. But, Mr. Yaro said, the time has come for a public accounting.
"There needs to be a sorting out between Larry and the Port Authority about what needs to be built and who's going to pay for it," Mr. Yaro said.
Gov. George E. Pataki has promoted the Freedom Tower as a symbol of downtown rejuvenation. But some critics have questioned the wisdom of building a huge and costly skyscraper when there are no potential tenants in sight and the vacancy rate in Lower Manhattan is high. Some executives at the Port Authority say privately that the money would be better spent on an estimated $1.5 billion to bring the site up to grade as it is rebuilt to ground level, so that it is ready when the real estate market improves.
According to Newmark & Company Real Estate, the vacancy rate downtown climbed to 15.9 percent in November, and could hit a nine-year high this month with the introduction of 7 World Trade Center, an office tower Mr. Silverstein is building nearby.
So far, the insurance companies paid out $2.03 billion, and $1.55 billion has been spent. If yesterday's verdict survives the appeal process, that would leave about $4 billion for a reconstruction effort that might cost $9 billion. Mr. Silverstein's legal battles have cost an estimated $125 million, according to Port Authority commissioners.
Experts were already debating the effect of the verdict on the insurance industry. Robert P. Hartwig, chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group, said he doubted there would be a larger precedent growing out of the case.
For example, the four recent hurricanes in Florida were treated by insurers as four occurrences because each was separated by a standard interval exceeding 72 hours, he said. If they had all struck within 72 hours, they would likely have been treated as one occurrence, he said.
Mr. Silverstein's lawyers succeeded in persuading jurors that there was some doubt about the definition of occurrence, Mr. Hartwig said, because all of the policies had not been fully negotiated.
Andy Barile, an insurance executive and litigation consultant based in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., said the decision would "dramatically change the industry."
Agents, reinsurers and consumers will have to scrutinize their policies and some property owners may face premium increases when they renew their policies in January, he said, adding, "With companies being forced to pay out twice their policy limits, it's going to have a dramatic effect on increasing premiums."
David W. Dunlap and Anthony Ramirez contributed reporting for this article.
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December 6, 2004TOKYO JOURNAL
At 35, a Princess Decides the Time Is Right to MarryBy NORIMITSU ONISHI
OKYO - Still single at age 35, Princess Sayako was an icon for the generation of young Japanese women who, despite being ignominiously cast into the "loser" category, have not married.
But next year, Princess Sayako, the daughter of Emperor Akihito, will marry Yoshiki Kuroda, a 39-year-old employee in the Tokyo government's city planning department. When news of the engagement was leaked recently, it brought cheers from Japanese who had watched her reply, on her birthday every April 18, that, no, she was not getting married yet.
Her engagement reflected the choices Japanese women are increasingly making, but it also underlined enduring social restrictions. After her wedding, the princess, unlike her older brothers, will have to leave the royal family and become a commoner, in keeping with the tradition of brides joining their husbands' households. Her children will have no rights of succession to the Japanese throne.
Still, her choice was applauded by women here.
"She's wonderful because she has waited until she became 35 years old and then found the best person at the best time for her," said Yuko Matsumoto, an author who writes about social and gender issues. "I assume that she had been pressured to marry when she was 25 or 30 years old."
Indeed, the princess, back in her 20's, was presented with many potential candidates, according to the Japanese news media. But nothing clicked. She chose instead to lead the unusual life of a bachelorette princess, engaging in her official duties and pursuing her interests in ornithology. (The kingfisher was of particular interest.)
On her birthday every year, following a custom established by the Imperial Household Agency, she answered questions from reporters, who invariably asked her about her marriage plans. In 1997, a year after saying that she "would like to refrain from further talking about the issue," the princess, then 28, was, of course, queried about her marriage plans.
"Since it is also a matter of concern for my long-term future," she answered in writing, "I am hoping to think about it carefully and not simply make a hasty decision."
In the years that followed, no decision was made in haste. Meanwhile, Japanese women kept postponing marriage, and Japan's marriage rate and birthrate kept declining. Japanese women have been increasingly able to lead fulfilling single lives, but continue to bear tremendous pressure from Japanese society to settle down.
The resulting feelings of frustration were captured last year in a best seller, "Howl of the Loser Dogs," by Junko Sakai. Ms. Sakai, herself in her late 30's and single, wrote about how single women in their 30's, no matter how successful, beautiful or popular, are considered "losers." In Japanese society, winners are still women who, as the Japanese expression says, "succeed" in marrying.
Ms. Sakai considers Princess Sayako the leading symbol for the single women described in her book. "I could not help seeing myself in Sayako whenever I saw a picture of the imperial family," Ms. Sakai wrote. "While Sayako's two brothers stand right next to their wives and children, she stands alone near the end. On some occasions, her brothers' wives stand before her. I can't help but recall my own situation when I can't sit still at family meetings."
And so when the princess turned 35 in April, the media showed officially approved images of her, holding a pair of binoculars as she engaged in bird-watching, smiling, standing alone. If the subtext was not clear enough, one reporter asked for her opinions on unmarried women in their 30's.
"There are people around me who devote themselves mainly to their families, women who balance the demands of work and family, and single women who continue to pursue work or study," the princess said. "They all work hard and sometimes go through difficult times, and when I have the opportunity to see how they live their lives or talk with them, I share and empathize with each of them and am often greatly encouraged by them."
By then, however, she was already in courtship with Mr. Kuroda, an acquaintance from childhood and a friend of her brother, Prince Akishino, according to the news media here. (E-mail messages were reportedly exchanged 10 times a day.) The news of their engagement seemed to provide hope for Japanese in their 30's, and their parents, that being single and in one's 30's was not necessarily a one-way street to the Loser Doghouse.
"When to get married? When to have a baby?" Naoki Inose, a well-known author, wrote in the weekly Shukan Bunshun. "The news of the engagement of Princess Sayako, at 35, and Yoshiki Kuroda, at 39, has offered one norm to members of the young generation wondering when is the deadline for them."
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December 7, 2004
Saudi Raid Survivors Say Human Shields Were UsedBy NEIL MacFARQUHAR
IDDA, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 7 - One young man deployed as a human shield during the armed assault against the American consulate here said from his hospital bed today that the most vivid moment came when the gunman who had been firing over the man's shoulder ordered him to raise his hands and scream "God is Great!"
The cry is one of the last things a good Muslim hopes to utter before dying, and Abdel Jabar Nirous, a 27-year-old supply clerk from Sri Lanka, was convinced his life was at an end. He struggled to wrench himself away from the man before passing out.
When he regained consciousness, he said, "I saw my two friends lying dead in front of me and blood everywhere."
Eight men were used as human shields for one to two hours on Monday, survivors in King Fahd hospital said. They were gathered outside by the attackers who breached the security surrounding the heavily fortified compound and were gradually picked off during a gunbattle involving both Saudi security forces and United States Marines.
The most senior American officials in the kingdom, Ambassador James C. Oberwetter and Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, the consul general in Jidda, tried to put the most positive spin possible on the outcome of the attack during a news conference today by asserting that security measures had largely worked.
"It's not good to hear gunfire outside your office, but I did have complete faith in the security of the building," Ms. Abercrombie-Winstanley said. The consulate's American staff was working in the main chancery building at the time of the attack and was taken to a secure area within the building by marines. Security measures like magnetic doors and gunfire from the marines managed to fend off an assault by the gunmen, who were unable to enter the building. No Americans died and two suffered superficial injuries.
The ambassador sidestepped a question as to who was to blame for the security breach that allowed four of the five gunmen - the fifth was shot down in the initial fight at the gate - to run in through a gate slowly closing automatically behind a consular vehicle that had just entered.
"I think using the word blame is the wrong way to go," he said. "Obviously the events of yesterday show a need for an improvement. We will be examining what additional steps need to be taken."
He said the immediate step asked for was additional security from the Saudi government and he was sure the Saudis would provide it. The Saudi Cabinet issued a formal condemnation of the attack, but other than that there was only a brief official statement listing the names of three of the four dead attackers. The fourth was still being identified, it said.
Mr. Oberwetter said the way the attack unfolded clearly indicated that the gunmen had studied at least the outer workings of the consulate - a sprawling, walled compound of several acres near Jidda's waterfront. Reporters were not allowed onto the scene - the news conference was held in a hotel used for guests of the Saudi government.
Just as one barrier was lowered and the hydraulically powered gate was opened to let in a consular vehicle, the armed men in a car veered across a couple lanes of traffic and tried to dart into the compound. A heavy barrier raised out of the ground stopped them.
"They clearly understood how our cars entered the compound and in my view they had scoped it out," the ambassador said, noting that the barrier had worked the way it was supposed to. The gunmen shot at the vehicle that had passed inside, wounding two of the three passengers, and then stormed into the compound before the gate closed.
The fact that the American consulate had been breached sent a tremor through the expatriate community here, already heavily depleted after a series of attacks against foreign compounds since May 2003 left more than 75 people dead.
"If anyone can break into the U.S. Consulate, which is the most heavily guarded compound in this city, then we are all vulnerable," said Georgene S. Wade, the director of the American International School. She said the school with an enrollment of 600 this year has already lost scores of students as private American companies followed the lead of the State Department and ordered spouses and dependents to leave the country.
"Anyone willing to risk their lives for the cause, we have no defense against that," she added.
The description of what happened inside the compound contradicts statements by officials in the State Department and the Saudi Embassy in Washington that no hostages were taken during the three-hour attack.
Mr. Nirous said he was with three others in the general services office when he saw a bearded man with a gun wearing a track suit run by outside the window. At the same moment the alarm system began emitting a serious of rapid squawks. They had been trained to lock all the doors and lie on the floor in the event of such an attack, which they did, he said.
About 20 minutes later the gunmen shot through both doors and started shouting at them "Where are the Americans?" When they professed ignorance they were told to hand over their cellphones and their money and go outside.
Once outside, they were taken to a dirt area near the middle of the compound where four other local employees joined them. Each gunman surrounded himself with at least two employees.
"They used us as a barricade," said Latif Aboulhosn, a 62-year Lebanese electrician shot in the chest in the leg. Breathing heavily in his hospital bed, with an intravenous line dripping into him, he said he could not be sure who shot him as he tried to run away from the gunfire. He was asked repeatedly where the Americans were.
Salah Abdel Qawi, a bearded Yemeni dispatcher who also suffered a gunshot wound, said that for the most part the Saudi special forces shooting at the attackers seemed to be trying to pick them off.
When the gunfire intensified, the attackers were all screaming "God is Great!" and the human shields took the opportunity to fling themselves to the ground. He remembers trying to shove his face down into the dirt. The line between life and death proved a thin one, with five employees killed.
A Sudanese colleague lying next to him raised his head to try to figure out what was happening.
"He got shot," Mr. Qawi said.
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting for this article.
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The top 10 books of the yearMagic is afoot in England, white slaves are held captive in the Sahara, sisters are haunted by a lost sibling -- and more literary feasts.
- - - - - - - - - - - -By Laura Miller

Dec. 7, 2004 This year, nonfiction books captured the bestseller lists and the headlines, but a particular kind of nonfiction. As urgent and necessary as those political titles felt -- and often were -- at the time, it's hard to imagine them seeming quite so important in a year or two. In the meantime, almost underground, publishers big and small continued to put out books that we eagerly recommend to you, even if you happen to be reading these words months or years from now, at the end of a meandering Web search.
The 10 books listed here were chosen from lists recommended by Salon staffers and friends, stumbled over in teetering stacks of review copies or pressed into our hands by persons with motives unknown. What we do know is that once we started reading them, the real world tended to fall away, the phone went unanswered, magazines and newspapers piled up and our TiVo queues overflowed. That's our first criterion for selection: These books made us want to put everything else on hold.
Though we read some splendid polemics (Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter With Kansas" springs to mind), we were more taken with books whose authors were willing to tell us things we, and even they, might not want to hear. "The 9/11 Commission Report," surely among the best-written government documents in American history, is as riveting as they say, but in the end its official status gave it strengths (and weaknesses) that made it impossible to compare to other nonfiction books -- if we had a special awards category, that's where we'd put it. Instead, we found ourselves taken with the work of an innovative, independent scholar who shed new light on a much-documented crime and a historian who unearthed a forgotten courtroom drama, among others.
It was not a particularly strong year for American fiction -- some of the most celebrated titles didn't make our list. Fortunately, Brits and other foreigners helped pick up the slack, in novels that leap over boundaries of genre and nationality as well as more intimate divides. The ostensibly serious books on this list are more fun than we anticipated, and the fun ones turned out to rest on unexpected reservoirs of wisdom and emotion. We couldn't ask for anything more, and hope that you'll agree. Happy reading.
Best Books, 2004: Fiction

"Case Histories" By Kate Atkinson Little, Brown Order from Powells.com
One difference between genre crime fiction and literary fiction is that the first kind of book is usually concerned with what happens to the people who commit crimes while the second cares more about the people they hurt. Although Kate Atkinson's addictive "Case Histories" has three murders and a detective in it, it's really an exploration of the loss, grief and misplaced guilt that torment three clients who hire Jackson Brodie, an irresistibly grumpy divorced father working as a private investigator in Cambridge, England. Two middle-aged sisters who can't forget the toddler sibling who disappeared decades ago; a father haunted by the possibility that the maniac who killed his daughter might have been after him; a woman in search of the niece she adopted after the girl's mother went to jail for killing her father -- all three case histories are heartbreaking, and sometimes Atkinson's novel is, too. Then, a few pages later, some very funny observation about contemporary life or an expertly drawn (and entirely believable) minor character will make you laugh. Atkinson writes such fluid, sparkling prose that an ingenious plot almost seems too much to ask, but we get it anyway. If Lorrie Moore decided to write a genre-busting detective novel it might resemble "Case Histories," a book in which people take precedence over puzzles and there's no greater mystery than the resurrection of hope.

"Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" By Susanna Clarke Bloomsbury Order from Powells.com
Susanna Clarke's capacious, digressive, amply footnoted and very original "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" is a classic historical novel -- only the history it's based on just happens to be entirely fantastic. Set in the early 19th century, it describes a Britain where magic was once a fairly common practice and is still the subject of serious scholarly study. The two eponymous master magicians start out as conservative teacher and dashing pupil intent on reviving English magic, but eventually they become rivals. They meddle in politics and the Napoleonic Wars, run afoul of a high-spirited "gentleman" with sinister powers and quarrel over the reputation of a mysterious Medieval monarch, the Raven King, who was either the fountainhead of English magic (says Jonathan Strange) or the cause of its downfall (according to Mr. Norrell). Unlike most fantasy novels, this isn't about a quest, and it's not really a love story, either. "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell," like all good epics is really about the psyche of a nation. Though Clarke has been compared to Jane Austen, the inspiration for her elegant, imperturbable wit is clearly several centuries of superb English historians and biographers, from Gibbon to Lytton Strachey. As for her wondrous, image-rich depictions of her heroes' spells (ships made of rain, a twilight land accessible only through mirrors), that's nothing less than pure sorcery.

"Happy Baby" By Stephen Elliott McSweeney's/MacAdam Cage Order from Powells.com
Most fiction about petty criminals, lowlifes, drug users and sexual deviants is so pleased with itself for depicting such people that it never gets around to saying anything interesting about them. Stephen Elliott's "Happy Baby" brings a rare degree of intelligence and literary accomplishment to the story of Theo, a veteran of brutal Chicago group homes, hopelessly mangled relationships and random violence. When we first meet him, he's sporting cigarette burns on his hands courtesy of a sadomasochistic relationship with a married woman, and he briefly entertains fantasies of killing an ex-girlfriend's coddled infant son out of sheer envy. Each subsequent chapter jumps backward in time, depicting a raw, often sexually explicit sliver of Theo's life by way of showing us how this essentially sympathetic man wound up in such a wretched state. "Happy Baby," though fiction, is told in the lean, emotionally terse language of the contemporary trauma memoir, but there's not a speck of self-pity here, just a wincing, dogged search for the truth. What's brave about Theo isn't his willingness to examine and detail his own sufferings; it's his determination to understand how they have shaped him and his refusal to allow them to define him.

"The Line of Beauty" By Alan Hollinghurst Bloomsbury Order from Powells.com
Although it's about a gay man living in Margaret Thatcher's England, Alan Hollinghurst's "The Line of Beauty" is an old-fashioned psychological novel of manners in the best sense of the term. Of this year's several novels preoccupied with Henry James, Hollinghurst's is the only one that attempts the Master's literary specialty: the dissection of the layered ironies that result when people of exquisite sensibility harbor desires in direct conflict with their cherished morals. The novel is the story of middle-class Nick Guest, the epitome of the young man from the provinces, who attaches himself to the upper-class family of a Tory politician. Nick is infatuated with the Feddens' easy, aristocratic style, their beautiful old houses and their ready access to power and glamour. He's also on a path of sexual discovery that will eventually lead him into direct conflict with the coldblooded ideology and social policies of Thatcherism. The encroaching tragedy of the AIDS crisis, a distant menace at first, but one that eventually swells to blot out the novel's horizon, ups the stakes to an almost unbearable degree. The pursuit of the beautiful and the fine often exacts an ugly price, but readers of Hollinghurst's novel will find that with this book, at least, magnificence is here for the taking.

"Snow" By Orhan Pamuk Knopf Order from Powells.com
What's it like for a disillusioned secular idealist to witness his nation losing faith in the future and sliding back into the rigidity of religious fundamentalism? American readers with a new appreciation for such quandaries will find a kindred spirit in Turkey’s most celebrated novelist, Orhan Pamuk. In "Snow," perhaps Pamuk's most accessible book to date, a Turkish poet returns to his homeland after over a decade of living in Germany. (He fled fearing government reprisals for his leftist activism). Ka (the poet's pen name -- and the Ancient Egyptian word for the soul) visits a mountain town near the Russian border, ostensibly to cover the mayoral election and a rash of suicides by young girls, but mostly to persuade a long-lost love to marry him. In this snowed-in backwater, Ka encounters a microcosm of Turkey's social malaise: separatist Kurds, homicidal jihadists, paralyzed intellectuals, conflicted secular authorities, cronyism, corruption and a kind of free-floating despair. Most of the town's residents ransack their lives in an increasingly frenzied search for meaning. Others just succumb to the snow. For a novel full of sadness and wisdom, "Snow" has a remarkable amount of energy. If Pamuk can't supply his countrymen with a purpose, he brings a great novelist's enthusiasm to describing their struggle, and to letting the world see just how universal it is.
Best Books of 2004: Nonfiction

"Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age" By Kevin Boyle Holt Order from Powells.com
The case of Ossian Sweet -- an African-American physician who moved into a house in a white neighborhood in Detroit in 1925, and found himself fighting for his life and property against a mob of locals -- had been nearly forgotten before historian Kevin Boyle unearthed it to write "Arc of Justice," a masterly narrative history. This despite the fact that Sweet, his wife and the friends who took up arms to help protect his home became the center of a sensational trial and were defended by America's most famous and eloquent lawyer, Clarence Darrow. Perhaps that obscurity is deplorable, but it's a boon to the readers of "Arc of Justice," who will find themselves awaiting the verdict just as breathlessly as those who followed the trial at the time. Would Darrow, capable of bringing grown men -- even judges -- to tears, persuade the white jury to confront the manifest cruelty and injustice of their own social order? Sweet's daring in confronting those inequities, Boyle explains, arose from his difficult history; the grandson of a slave and a member of W.E.B. Du Bois' "talented tenth," the African-American elite, he had seen the advance of civil rights ebb and flow in his 30 years. His story reminds us that even before the famous activism of the '50s and '60s, blacks were battling fiercely for their place at the table, but as to whether Sweet won his own battle, you'll have to read the book to find out.

"Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale" By Gillian Gill Ballantine Order from Powells.com
Florence Nightingale usually gets depicted as a secular saint (in biographies written for children) or a proto-feminist rebeling against her stultifying Victorian family. Gillian Gill gives us a more complicated, prickly and mysterious woman, and a more fascinating, iconoclastic family. She argues that Florence, far from springing fully formed and utterly original from the frowning brow of bourgeois small-mindedness, was really one in a long line of English radicals, freethinkers and even bohemians -- the same world-changing crowd that produced Virginia Woolf and Charles Darwin. "Nightingales" supplies most of the satisfactions you expect to get from the great 19th century novels, beginning with a troublesome inheritance problem (right out of "Pride and Prejudice"), a teeming clan of minor characters including a wayward uncle with a brood of illegitimate children, a tyrannical governess and several spurned marriage proposals. And this is all before Gill gets around to the Tolstoyan horrors of the Crimean War, where Nightingale essentially invented modern nursing while tangling with the army brass. Best of all, Gill is no slavering Anglophile (she grew up in Wales and knows better), so the whole saga is delivered with a mercilessly skeptical eye to the pettiness and absurdities of the English class system.

"American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies" By Michael W. Kauffman Random House Order from Powells.com
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in a crowded theater in a Washington, D.C. still thronged and giddy after the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox. The shooting, and the soon-discovered simultaneous stabbing of Secretary of State William H. Seward, threw the city into temporary chaos. Mobs swarmed the Ford Theater and the house where Lincoln lay mortally wounded, searching for souvenirs and suspects, and threatening to lynch several key witnesses. Evidence was lost, or found and then lost later on. Eyewitnesses contradicted each other, rumors spread, myths were hatched and misconceptions spawned. It was a detective's nightmare, even in the low-tech days before "CSI"-style forensics. The truth about who was involved in the assassination conspiracy and why became the mother of endless confusion. Michael W. Kauffman's "American Brutus" is several unlikely combinations rolled into one: a meticulous history with propulsive narrative power, a fresh take on one of the most examined events in American history, and the eminently rational and convincing product of a raging obsession. Kauffman is an independent scholar who designed an unusual database to sort, search and reorganize the vast amount of contradictory and often dubious data about the Lincoln conspiracies. The new light this information shed on the lives and schemes of John Wilkes Booth and his cronies showed him a Booth who was far more cunning, manipulative and talented than conventional wisdom would have us believe. It also helped him write an astonishingly lucid re-creation of the night of the assassination, and the subsequent hunt for the culprits is as suspenseful as it is enlightening.

"Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival" By Dean King Little, Brown Order from Powells.com
Just when you think the true adventure story is an exhausted genre, Dean King comes along to prove that all it needs is a little sand. Well, make that a lot of sand, and a whole lot of sun to go with it. In 1815, the crew of a Connecticut-based merchant ship were stranded on the very inhospitable northwestern coast of Africa. Near-death in a long boat is followed by near-death on a shore that's really just the edge of the Sahara Desert. Then the men are captured and enslaved by nomads. They survive nightmarish ordeals: days of forced marches on bleeding bare feet under the scorching sun (naked), starvation, thirst, beatings, sandstorms, even plagues of locusts. They see fabled cities and try to fathom their captors' language and customs. One Muslim trader even seems to sympathize with the emaciated infidels, and a scheme involving ransom money, treachery and escape takes form. Based on the written accounts of survivors, "Skeletons on the Zahara" is a little bit H. Rider Haggard, a little bit Jon Krakauer, a little bit Nathaniel Philbrick and a whole lot of gruesome fun.

"The Working Poor: Invisible in America" By David K. Shipler Knopf Order from Powells.com
This year was ripe with books about what's wrong with America, most of them one-sided polemics with a limited shelf life. By comparison, David K. Shipler's "The Working Poor" has an old-fashioned commitment to telling the whole story -- in this case the reality that millions of Americans who work hard, full-time if not more, can't keep their heads above water. Shipler, a former New York Times reporter, includes some statistics and some exposés (H & R Block's exploitative "rapid refund" offers, for example, designed to siphon off a whopping portion of poor workers' tax refunds), but the heart and soul of the book are the stories of the people Shipler met. They are trapped in the kind of life Barbara Ehrenreich visited in her bestseller "Nickel and Dimed." Shipler freely admits that few of the poor people he met while researching this book are victims, pure and simple; the great strength of "The Working Poor" is that, while sympathetic, it refuses to sentimentalize or idealize its subjects. But he also demonstrates how one mistake can land an otherwise well-intentioned person in an inescapable swamp of debt and dead-end jobs: Crappy dental work costs one woman all her teeth and, unable to wear Medicaid dentures or to afford better ones, she is continually passed over again and again for a job promotion, no matter how diligently she works. It's impossible not to root for these folks, to want to shake the ones who sabotage their own chances, or to cheer on the few who gain a foothold against all the odds.
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About the writerLaura Miller is a senior writer for Salon. Sound OffSend us a Letter to the Editor
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Salon.com >> Books

December 7, 2004
Towers' Insurers Must Pay DoubleBy CHARLES V. BAGLI
federal jury said yesterday that the destruction of the World Trade Center constituted two separate attacks, entitling the developer Larry A. Silverstein to collect up to $2.2 billion, or double the insurance coverage provided by nine insurers at the complex.
The jury's decision, which came at the end of 11 days of deliberation and represented a major development in the rebuilding effort, almost certainly ensures that the proposed $1.5 billion, 1,776-foot Freedom Tower will be constructed at the trade center site, although appeals are likely and it may be some time before all the insurance money is paid out. It also ensures that Mr. Silverstein, who leased the trade center only six weeks before it was destroyed, will remain in control of the rebuilding effort for some time.
Insurance experts predicted yesterday that the verdict would send ripples through the insurance industry, with premiums for property coverage almost guaranteed to rise substantially.
Mr. Silverstein, who plans to use the money to rebuild the trade center, issued a statement yesterday saying he was thrilled with the verdict. It will "ensure a timely and complete rebuild of the World Trade Center," he said, adding that the insurers "had an obligation to pay their fair share to help make Lower Manhattan whole again."
Mr. Silverstein has argued that because two jets slammed into two towers at the trade center on Sept. 11, he was entitled to a double payment of the $3.55 billion policy, or $7 billion. The jury's decision yesterday related to nine insurance companies, which provided $1.1 billion of the $3.55 billion worth of coverage. If the verdict stands, the nine companies will have to pay $2.2 billion.
It was Mr. Silverstein's first legal victory during the 38-month legal battle he has waged against two dozen insurers at the trade center. Last spring, a jury decided that Swiss Re and eight other insurers had provided coverage based on a policy devised by Mr. Silverstein's brokers. The court had already ruled that that policy entitled Mr. Silverstein to only a single payment. The developer also settled with five other insurers. That cut Mr. Silverstein's quest for $7 billion to a maximum of $4.65 billion, if he won the second trial.
The extra $1.1 billion is needed downtown, where officials estimate that it will cost more than $9 billion to rebuild the trade center, a complex that is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and once included 10 million square feet of office space for investment banks and insurance companies, a retail mall, a hotel and a major rail station.
"It's a tremendous victory for Larry and for everyone else who has an interest in Lower Manhattan," said Kevin M. Rampe, president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. "The funds are going to ensure that Lower Manhattan recovers in the amount of time we've laid out."
But just as Mr. Silverstein is appealing the verdict in the first trial, the nine insurance companies are expected to appeal the decision.
John Novaria, a spokesman for Industrial Risk Insurers, one of the nine companies involved in the verdict, said his company still believed that the attack on the trade center was "one occurrence." Asked whether Industrial Risk would file an appeal, he said the company was "examining its options."
In a separate element of the dispute, the final amount of insurance money is under review by a court-approved panel of three appraisers, who will determine the extent of the damages at the trade center and how much each company must pay.
Nevertheless, Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a private planning group, said that yesterday's decision ensures that the Freedom Tower, the first of four or five office towers planned for the site, will be built. But, Mr. Yaro said, the time has come for a public accounting.
"There needs to be a sorting out between Larry and the Port Authority about what needs to be built and who's going to pay for it," Mr. Yaro said.
Gov. George E. Pataki has promoted the Freedom Tower as a symbol of downtown rejuvenation. But some critics have questioned the wisdom of building a huge and costly skyscraper when there are no potential tenants in sight and the vacancy rate in Lower Manhattan is high. Some executives at the Port Authority say privately that the money would be better spent on an estimated $1.5 billion to bring the site up to grade as it is rebuilt to ground level, so that it is ready when the real estate market improves.
According to Newmark & Company Real Estate, the vacancy rate downtown climbed to 15.9 percent in November, and could hit a nine-year high this month with the introduction of 7 World Trade Center, an office tower Mr. Silverstein is building nearby.
So far, the insurance companies paid out $2.03 billion, and $1.55 billion has been spent. If yesterday's verdict survives the appeal process, that would leave about $4 billion for a reconstruction effort that might cost $9 billion. Mr. Silverstein's legal battles have cost an estimated $125 million, according to Port Authority commissioners.
Experts were already debating the effect of the verdict on the insurance industry. Robert P. Hartwig, chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group, said he doubted there would be a larger precedent growing out of the case.
For example, the four recent hurricanes in Florida were treated by insurers as four occurrences because each was separated by a standard interval exceeding 72 hours, he said. If they had all struck within 72 hours, they would likely have been treated as one occurrence, he said.
Mr. Silverstein's lawyers succeeded in persuading jurors that there was some doubt about the definition of occurrence, Mr. Hartwig said, because all of the policies had not been fully negotiated.
Andy Barile, an insurance executive and litigation consultant based in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., said the decision would "dramatically change the industry."
Agents, reinsurers and consumers will have to scrutinize their policies and some property owners may face premium increases when they renew their policies in January, he said, adding, "With companies being forced to pay out twice their policy limits, it's going to have a dramatic effect on increasing premiums."
David W. Dunlap and Anthony Ramirez contributed reporting for this article.
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Infamous Day Tuesday December 07, 2004 4:00AM PT
Pearl Harbor Few dates in American history rival December 7, 1941 -- a date then-president Franklin D. Roosevelt (+80%) accurately predicted would "live in infamy." The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor (+75%) resulted in a death toll in the thousands and propelled a previously divided United States into World War II. Now 63 years later, Americans still commemorate Pearl Harbor Day with an official White House declaration and ceremonies to honor veterans of Pearl Harbor. This year's many tributes include one for the men who went down with the USS Oklahoma, which had the second-highest number of casualties behind the more well-known USS Arizona. While Hollywood produced a blockbuster based on the attack, history produces more search appeal for once. Most of our top 10 "Pearl Harbor" searches have nothing to do with Ben Affleck or Kate Beckinsale.
Pearl Harbor Attack
Pearl Harbor Pictures
Pearl Harbor Movie
Pearl Harbor Day
Pearl Harbor History
Pearl Harbor Soundtrack
Pearl Harbor Memorial
Pearl Harbor Tours
Pearl Harbor Conspiracy
Pearl Harbor Quotes