Baithak World Jan 27: Israel-Iran, China-India, Poets on Prozac, George Carlin, What Poetry Demands, News & Views, Cartoons, RealNews

Although it is manifestly clear that Israel runs major risks for minor gains by planning to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, the tendency of Israeli politicians and pundits to underestimate the risks and the likelihood of success is growing by leaps and bounds. Following the argument that Israel does not want to wait for a new administration in the United States, to paraphrase one of Israel's voices in the US, CBS consultant Michael Oren, Israel's increasingly bellicose attitude against Iran actually has the adverse effect: it sets barricades in the path of Iranian politicians who want to reach a compromise with the "Iran Six" over Tehran's nuclear program. Tehran is considering a package of proposals presented by the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China. Israeli threats stiffen Iran's resolve


BANGALORE - India's frontier with China is bristling with tension. Barely two weeks after the two countries reaffirmed commitment to existing mechanisms for dispute settlement, and agreed to maintain peace and tranquility along their border, a major Chinese incursion has taken place into India's Sikkim state. On June 16, Chinese troops came more than a kilometer into Sikkim's northernmost point - a 2.1-km sliver of land called Finger Point. Only a month ago, Chinese soldiers had threatened to demolish stone structures in the area. That warning was subsequently echoed and endorsed by Chinese officials. China toys with India's border By Sudha Ramachandran

Sixteen poets, sixteen essays about mental illness and poetry. In this nicely produced book, editor Richard Berlin has brought together a diverse range of poets united by two common factors: mental illness and poetry. While each has his or her own story to tell the essays address some pertinent and challenging questions, not least of which is the effects of mental illness on the creative process. A related question is about the effects of pharmacological and psychological treatments. In discussing these and other issues the contributors come across, in Harry Stack Sullivan's words, as 'more simply human than otherwise'. Therein lies, perhaps, the enigma of the creative person with mental illness. In addition to whatever burdens mental illness imposes, for the artist there is an added dilemma, the expectation that art must flow from an uncontaminated mind, one that is free to explore where it will. Of course artists have traditionally altered their minds through the use of one psychoactive substance or another, but drugs prescribed for mental illness are another matter. Might they not reduce the artist to merely mortal status? Instead of 'better than well' as suggested by Peter Kramer, might the artist on Prozac not be 'less than luminous'? Review - Poets on Prozac Review by Tony O'Brien

George Carlin

The future scholar of comedy who sets out to publish The Complete Works of George Carlin had better be prepared for a multimedia endeavor. A truly comprehensive collection of the comedian's work would have to include his Grammy Award-winning albums, his best-selling books, and a transcript of his argument before the Supreme Court in defense of his immortal "Seven Words" routine. In the meantime, mourners of Carlin, who died of heart failure earlier this week, can make do with the recently released George Carlin: All My Stuff. The retrospective box set, weighing in at more than 800 minutes of material, is comprised of 12 HBO specials, beginning with a 1977 performance at USC and ending with 2005's Life Is Worth Losing. Carlin's assiduous touring schedule (he was sometimes on the road for nearly three-quarters of the calendar year) gave him a staging ground where he could hone his material. But it was the HBO specials that gave him a truly national audience and a chance to showcase his best stuff. Eight hundred minutes of George Carlin.

Christian Wiman is a poet and essayist and the author of three books, most recently Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet (Copper Canyon Press). His poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, and The New York Times Book Review. He is married and lives in Chicago, where he is the editor of Poetry magazine, a position The New York Sun describes as "the equivalent of a bishopric in the American poetry world." Wiman has taught at Stanford, Northwestern, Lynchburg College in Virginia, and the Prague School of Economics. The concluding essay of Ambition and Survival is forthcoming in 2008's Best American Spiritual Writing. The Poetry Foundation, the publisher of Poetry magazine, made news in 2003 when philanthropist Ruth Lilly gave $200 million to what is now one of the largest literary organizations in the world. This interview was conducted by email while Wiman was on a visit to Texas, his native state. What Poetry Demands

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So Obama holds quiet meetings with evangelicals like Billy Graham's son. That's too much for Dr. James Dobson, who launches into an attack on Obama's abortion stand, calling his position the result of a "fruitcake" interpretation of the Constitution. Could Dobson, who has said he'll never vote for McCain under any circumstances, be seeing a kindred spirit in Obama? I suspect that the fruitcake voting bloc must be huge! Brodner's Cartoon du Jour: James Dobson

Illustration by Kevin Kallaugher

KAL's cartoon

The Daily Szep: Caricature of Ben Bernanke

Doonesbury@SLATE

Paul Jay presents RealNews

Obama and McCain flip-flop on FISA Michael Ratner : New bill extends powers of president and grants immunity for past wrongs view Republican's China-Cuba oil drilling story false? Claims by Republicans that China is drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba are unfounded experts say view Afghanistan's other voices: the brick makers The Guardian: A group of brick makers struggle, confronted by rising food prices and insecurity view