Police State

The president looks pale. No, he's quite robust. He appears weak. No, he's very strong. So goes a summer of speculation and chatter over the health of President Hosni Mubarak. The man who has ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years dominates the nation's consciousness like a patriarch in a novel written long ago. There are whispers and asides, but few really know how the president is faring or what is unfolding behind the palace gates. It is the not knowing that wears on Egyptians, turning every sighting of Mubarak into a national parlor game over how he looks, speaks, walks and smiles.

Police radios crackled with panic the day President Hosni Mubarak's grip on the nation was shattered. Reinforcements didn't arrive. Tear gas ran out. Arms grew weary from swinging batons. And so it was with a rush and a push on that last Friday in January that tens of thousands of protesters advanced and the momentum, like a tide pulled unexpectedly in another direction, changed. The miscalculations and crossed signals of Jan. 28, a day that one police captain calls "Black Friday," marked the unthinkable: Mubarak's 30-year-long reviled police state was overrun by Egyptians no longer intimidated by the sound of boots and the glare of shields.

" There are two sides to every issue: One side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. " - Ayn Rand's hero John Galt speaking in "Atlas Shrugged" Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" has polarized opinion for more than 50 years. Its fans - including, until recently, vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan - applaud the book's celebration of rugged individualism and no-holds-barred capitalism. Its critics dismiss it as heartless, simplistic and elitist. In the novel, many of the nation's most brilliant and innovative entrepreneurs and business leaders have disappeared, leaving the nation in chaos.

It seems that Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan will be attending the World Cup final and closing ceremony on June 30 in Yokohama. Knowing the predilection of emperors--in fable, if not in fact--one presumes the emperor will be wearing some clothes. It's difficult to be certain, however, because dress is becoming quite the topic of debate as the World Cup approaches. Take Nigeria, for instance. Last week fans of the Super Eagles were in an uproar over the new look of their national team--not the players who make up the team, but the jerseys those players wear.

Long before the Rodney G. King beating case and its graphic videotape focused national attention on alleged police brutality, Douglas and Jeanne Botts and a group of residents in a quiet Cerritos neighborhood challenged what they said was an example of police injustice and brutality against a minority family. Doug Botts, a 57-year-old Douglas Aircraft Co.

An Orange County businessman has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of defrauding dozens of doctors and dentists out of money to fund his own powerboats, luxury cars and stock in the Green Bay Packers. David Rose, 56, of Coto de Caza, was indicted Wednesday in Santa Ana on multiple counts of mail and wire fraud. A federal warrant for his arrest was issued. FBI spokesman Laura Eimiller said the agency has been informed that he is traveling in Asia. Rose is accused of running two schemes beginning in March 2005, using companies called M.D. Venture Partners LP and Technology Innovation Partners LP. He solicited physicians to invest in MDVP and falsely represented lucrative investment opportunities in emerging medical technologies, according to the indictment.

It's a Thursday evening, and the landing lights of incoming LAX flights glow like torches from Westchester to the San Gabriels. Torch one, 200 lives suspended in air. Torch two, 500. Torch three, 350 awaiting their return to loved ones, bosses, business meetings, auditions and, for many, the soul-saving comfort of their own pillows. This high-wire act is more than just symbolic of the seventh-busiest airport in the world. It speaks to the risks involved, the importance of procedure, the crushing, timed-to-the-minute routine.

Your Dec. 2 editorial, "Questioning Secrecy," is absolutely on target. Congress indeed must ask some hard questions about President Bush's sudden and sweeping erosion of civil liberties in the name of combating terrorism. Assuming dictatorial powers, Bush has now in effect declared the Bill of Rights null and void, with secret tribunals, trashing of the attorney-client privilege, racial profiling and other encroachments on civil liberties. Bush also is imposing secrecy in government on issues that have nothing at all to do with the terrorist attacks.

It's axiomatic that a lie repeated often enough becomes truth. It was Josef Stalin who said, "Paper will take anything that's written on it." Lately the opinion pages of newspapers have been littered with statements about the alleged irresponsibility of the gay community in stopping the spread of AIDS. This would be funny if it were not so tragic.