ISI - Circles within Circles, FoOtball, Taliban, Pinsky on Poetry,

The ISI, Pakistan's notorious and feared spy agency, comes in from the cold. In its own land the agency is viewed with awe and dread. Now it is opening up – a little – to western journalists. circles within circles


‘If the house unanimously brings a resolution, we will implement it. I am with the parliament.’
Resolution against Musharraf to be implemented: Gilani (fat chance of that happening~t)

Sotomayor nomination approved by U.S. Senate

U-turn puts Hezbollah in the driving seat

Israel Seeks Ways To Silence Human Rights Groups

Oil Supplies Are Running Out Fast

'Muhammad Knows Nothing About Football': Muslims Angered by Verse in German Soccer Club Song

Situation Worsens in Northern Afghanistan: Taliban Makes Blitz Comeback Near Kunduz

Life is not all grand passions, high spiritual aspirations, profound questions, and tormented inner feelings. Some of the time, our feelings are petty rather than grand, our aspirations worldly rather than spiritual, our questions trivial. Sometimes, our inner feelings—or is it just mine?—are irritable, even bored, rather than tormented. One looks a little sour; one hums a little tune. One plays with one's spoon or keeps checking the clock. Artists have noticed this. As a supreme example, Nikolai Gogol's novel Dead Souls is a great work about how petty we can be. It's not an empty paradox to say that Gogol explores the profound sadness of shallowness. Same-Old, Same-OldAlexander Pope's "Epistle" and the art of making poetry from normal, banal, petty life. By Robert Pinsky