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# Posted 11:28 AM by Patrick Belton

SAPPAGE (THAT'S ETONIAN SLANG, OR SO I'M TOLD, FOR INTENSIVE STUDYING) Yet another day passes in hiding for me, as I put myself to the task of writing my way back into the good graces of both an advisor and an editor. However, a few items which nonetheless I couldn't help but briefly comment on:

* Jim Hoagland writes a piece in this morning's Post on the sad travails of the Arab press. The principled, reformist editor Jamal Khashoggi of Saudi's al-Watan was canned recently for denouncing local causes of extremism and intolerance in the kingdom. And after being hit with far worse allegations than the Times (in its case, vending of coverage to Iraqi intelligence), al-Jazeera for its part has launched no public review, and provided no public explanation for the allegations which led to the sacking of the Qatari station's director, Mohammed Jasim al-Ali.

* Elsewhere on editorial pages this morning, the Times calls the recent cycle of violence by Hamas and allied Palestinian militant organizations inevitable at a moment when a real alternative to their absolutist Islamist vision is nearly tangible under the guise of the road maps's two-state solution - but says that strengthening Abu Mazen rather than undermining him is the best way for Israel to battle terror in the occupied territories.

* And he was, by all reports, a decent and clever man, and a good politician. But when Plaid Cymru politician Phil Williams met his end Tuesday night in a massage parlor, there was something novellish about the event. (By contrast, for an instance of true class, witness the New York Yankees franchise's sending of six bottles of champagne to the lockers of the Houston Astros after the latter's no-hitter against them, in which six pitchers had participated. Even in defeat, the Bronx Bombers find ways to make one proud....)

* But finally, a truly important item - which is our heartiest congratulations to our Oxford (and my Trinity) classmate Greg Behrman, for signing his book deal with Simon & Schuster! Greg will be writing on the global response to AIDS on the African continent; we for our part will be impatiently waiting in the bookstores....

That said, there's someone in New York who for her part is impatiently waiting to read something about American mosques...so off I go to think up something to say. Ma’assalama!

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