Details of the planning and execution of the raid will surely come out. One fascinating detail is that, to fool FARC, some of the rescuers wore Che Guevara t-shirts. That makes perfect sense. In the US and elsewhere, nothing says, "I'm down with the progressives" more than wearing a shirt with a picture of the Motorcycle Diarist on it.

The shirt, however, is the just the beginning of the Che lifestyle. Visitors to Cuba can indulge in the entire Che weltanshaaung of clothing, CDs, books, postcards, carved statuary, posters and even cellphone holders -- so I'm told. For those who want a 3-D experience, the Museum of the Revolution in Havana even offers Che: The Diorama. Below you see Che on the right, advancing toward the socialist future with companero Camilo Cienfuegos.

Might Hillary return to Chappaqua declaring, "Vulneratus non victus" -- "Wounded but not conquered"?

And for BHO, how about this sentence from the Odes of Horace:

Integer vitae scelerisque purus non eget mauris iaculis neque areu. -- An upright man, free of guilt, needs no weapon to defend himself.

That could be meant ironically, as we peruse the connections with Rezko, et. al. but I will let the gods decide that matter.

In her video comments in Washington, Christian lets it all hang out on the Democrats' not seating Florida and Michigan delegates, and declares that McCain will be the next president.

What really grabs me is her name -- Christian. The opportunities for creative headline-writing are huge: "Christians go to war over Obama." "Christian wants to throw Obama to the lions." Can you imagine the shrieks of rage if she were Jewish and saying what she says? What would Jews For Obama have to say?

Fortunately, she has a Telfon-coated name that completely severs any links to the Jews. Thanks, Harriet! (The check from ZOG is in the mail.)

From the literary side, I got a big dose of the darling of the revolution in the novel Killing Che, which is a very high quality spy novel complete with hot gringo-y-Latina shtupping, cattle-prod torture and double-crosses galore, grim stuff with flashes of humor and truly great writing by Chuck Pfarrer on every page. A sample, in which burned-out CIA contractor Paul Hoyle surveys the scene at a gala ball in La Paz, Bolivia, 1967:

Hoyle drank a second champagne without the slightest sensation of irony. There were a million places in the world where the rich danced while the poor starved. Hoyle had been around the world, and it had beaten sense into him. He knew that injustice was a phenomenon as irresistible and inescapable as gravity. The privileged always danced and drank champagne. They did so in Saigon, in Johannesburg, in Havana; it could not be different here.

Hoyle was not cruel, but he was not an empathetic man. He looked at the crowd with narrowed eyes and thought, It’s coming for you. It did not matter that Hoyle was here to stop that day of reckoning, or at least forestall it. In that mission, he took no joy beyond a certain dark pride in his work. His was an assignment, not a personal aspiration. There remained the very real possibility that Bolivia would succumb to revolution. If it came, the people around him would be swept away, perhaps even liquidated as a class. Hoyle did not pity them. In plain truth, he hardly cared for them at all.

It just doesn't get any better than that.

What surprised me more than the crowd was who else Broza "attracted." Heading back to my car, who was there waving signs and being annoying but a crew from Neturei Karta -- the last people I would expect to be fans of secular Israeli music.

While they had to listen, the NK nudniks really just wanted to do their little bit to ruin the anniversary celebrations. Fortunately, penned outside the concert area, they were barely visible in the nutmeg darkness. I saw a few people stop to argue with them, and that was the extent of their impact.

Still, the cognitive dissonance of Keturei Karta running amok in bucolic Fairfield County is enough to make my head spin. A shot of Slivovitz set me straight.

I think Hillary needs to up the ante. Forget about polite harrumping about health care and Iraq and Rev. Wright. Let's settle this once and for all with a genuine slammin' TLC match to see who claims the nomination, no holds barred.

What's TLC? you might ask. As well you should. TLC refers not to how Hillary treats overseas campaign donors, but rather Tables-Ladders-Chairs, a wrestling format in which contestants use the props to grab a championship belt suspended above the ring.

That would be political theater of the highest order and the greatest pay-per-view event ever, to see Hillary "Bill Crusher" Clinton battle Barack "The Hawaiian Weatherman" Obama in for the Democratic nomination. Let's stop playing nice and get out the heavy equipment so they can really pummel each other in glee.

First, some history.

Lena and I were classmates at Mission High School in Texas, Class of 1976. She was the student council president, I was the newspaper editor -- teen-age obsessions that immediately pegged our career arcs. She had a great political astuteness and drive from a very young age, and attended American Legion Auxiliary's Girls State and Girls Nation program, quite an honor. The photo belows shows her in action leading a Student Council meeting.

If only Pope Benedict XVI had been around to see it! Perhaps Chabad is planning a repeat performance to get in on the excitement already building at Park East Synagogue, where the Pope will drop by for some Abrahamic shmoozing on Friday.

The Times turned down the ad for various moronic reasons, which Harris explains here:

Here’s the written explanation from Tom Bartunek, president of New York Times Radio and general manager of WQXR:

”In my judgement several elements of this spot are outside our bounds of acceptability. First, the opening line— `Imagine you had fifteen seconds to find shelter from an oncoming missile’—does not make clear that the potential target of the missile is not our listening area, and as a consequence, runs the risk of raising anxiety in a misleading way. Second, the description of the missiles as arriving `day or night’ and `daily’ is also subject to challenge as being misleading, at least to the degree that reasonable people might be troubled by the absence of any acknowledgement of reciprocal Israeli military actions. Finally, in my judgement the `countdown’ device and the general tone of the message do not meet our guidelines for decorum.”

WQXR joins Ms. Magazine in the proud ranks of principled, progressive media outlets that refuse to demean themselves by accepting certain types of filthy Jewish advertising. As I wrote during the Ms. dustup in January, I'm happy to offer the AJC alternative media outlets for its thoughtful ads. If the AJC moves them to another outlet, I will be sure to offer that station (and its many fine, upscale advertisers) my support. So, David Harris, here's your new radio schedule:

'SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!!"

Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. I feel better now.

Of the three, The Omega Man had the biggest impact on me when I saw it as a 13 year old in 1971 at the venerable Border Theatre in Mission, Texas. Everything in the movie dazzled me, from the eerie, empty streets of Los Angeles to the extreme irony of Heston, as sole survivor scientist Robert Neville mouthing the words to "Woodstock" as he watches it in a theater. What really gripped my imagination? Hint: what would most appeal to a 13 year old curious about the many-splendored possibilities between a man and woman?

Jackson plays the farmer Lazarus (more than a little symbolism in that name), embittered by the end of his marriage, who finally gets back to his true calling of blues musician through his friendship with trailer-park strumpet Ricci. In watching Jackson play and the plot unfold against the background of sinners trying to get right with God, I was struck by the movie's spiritual connection to Robert Duvall's Oscar winning Tender Mercies, from 1983. While Tender Mercies got great reviews and rewards, Black Snake Moan was considered exploitative dreck by some reviewers.

But it's not. I'll tell you why.

Hillary Clinton walked into a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review conference room last Tuesday to meet with some of the newspaper's editors and reporters and declared, "It was so counterintuitive, I just thought it would be fun to do."

The room erupted in laughter. Her remark defused what could have been a confrontational meeting.

More than that, it said something about the New York senator and former first lady who hopes to be America's next president.

Maybe I'll take another look at Hillary. If Scaife can, I can, too.

It's obvious to me: McCain is going to go for a fusion ticket with Lieberman as VP. Unless he decides to go really innovative with Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana or some other innovative choice, McCain has made his choice. Get ready for an old-fashioned White House seder with all the fixins!

Also spracht Kesher Talk.

Now, Meir Soloveichik has a long and riveting article in Commentary on the image and use of the menorah. He writes,

But if the menorah has indeed been returned, and if the defeat wrought by Titus has been reversed, why then do observant Jews continue to mourn what Titus brought about? Why does the ninth of Av, which embodies the twin ideas of exile and dispersion, need to be observed at all?

In answering this question we need to examine the enigmatic image of the menorah more closely, and revisit a mystery that has confounded many over the centuries.

It's well worth printing and reading.