Burma

The official merchandise Web site for President Bush's re-election campaign has sold clothing made in Burma, whose goods were banned by him from the United States last year to punish its military dictatorship. The merchandise sold on the Web site georgebushstore.com includes a $49.95 fleece pullover, embroidered with the Bush-Cheney '04 logo and bearing a label stating it was made in Burma, now Myanmar. The jacket was sent to Newsday as part of an order that included a shirt made in Mexico and a hat not bearing a country-of-origin label.

The Cold War and the 20th century are over; new fears and quandaries beset us. George Orwell, however, is still with us. To think of politics in Great Britain and the United States is to recall his legacy. His belief that writing is giving one's word, that politics requires truthfulness, attests to his inexpungable Protestantism. He bore witness to democracy's torments, intellectuals' responsibilities and history's disappointments. Five years as a British policeman in occupied Burma gave Orwell experience of empire.

OXFORD - Fletcher "Christy" Hanks is back, safe and sound in his Eastern Shore hometown. He is not admitting failure, mind you. But he is all in one piece. At age 86, after a grueling trek to the other side of the world, three or four days traveling over primitive roads and hiking with a 20-pound pack across his gaunt shoulders through thick jungle in the mountains of northern Myanmar, that's a lot to be thankful for. Nearly two weeks after he left on an expedition to pinpoint the wrecks of World War II cargo planes like those he and other civilian pilots flew over the "the Hump" - a remote corner of the Himalayas where China, Myanmar (then called Burma)

OXFORD - Fletcher "Christy" Hanks is 86 years old, but he is as excited as a child about what will likely be the last, great adventure of a life that already reads like fiction. Hanks is on a 30- to 90-day expedition to "the Hump," a remote and inhospitable triangle of the Himalayas bordered by China, India and Burma where he and other U.S. civilian pilots played out a daring and often unsung chapter of World War II. The Eastern Shore native flew 347 runs for the China National Aviation Corp.

Carl F. Eifler, who commanded the first Office of Strategic Services covert operations unit during World War II and was dubbed "the deadliest colonel" for his daring exploits and planning of operations behind enemy lines, has died. He was 95. Mr. Eifler died April 8 of natural causes in a medical rehabilitation center in Salinas, Calif. According to his biographer, he devised top-secret plans (that were later canceled) to assassinate Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek and to kidnap Adolf Hitler's top atomic scientist.

As Paul, our dive guide, drifted over a head of coral, his body stiffened. Wheeling around wide-eyed, he put an open hand on top of his head like a fin -- the universal signal for "shark." Inside a coral crevice on the sandy bottom lay a pair of gray nurse sharks, the longer of which appeared to be more than 6 feet. I was relieved. Nurse sharks are bottom feeders and don't attack. These were big ones, so I dived down for a better look. The hail of bubbles and flailing limbs proved too much for the timid fish.

The Art of Advertising Advertising is as American as apple pie. Why is that so? The Eisner Museum of Advertising and Design, opening in Milwaukee Oct. 21, offers some explanations as it explores the science and art behind great ad campaigns and the impact they have on the national psyche. The museum's inaugural exhibits include: * "Profiles: Who We Are, What We Buy, How They Know." This interactive exhibit focuses on how advertisers target people based on personality, lifestyle and values.

George Orwell's contribution to human liberty, I will contend for the sake of argument, is greater than that of any other single man or woman in the 20th century. There is no remotely conclusive way to prove that. But his "Animal Farm" and "1984" are among the century's most widely read volumes. Their epiphanic truth did more to alert the reading population of the world to the innate perfidy of utopian totalitarianism - Left and Right - than any other argument, act, party or platform. When I was a college kid, the majority of my acquaintances were New York "progressives" -proudly "Red diaper babies."

WASHINGTON - A unanimous Supreme Court sharply restricted the authority of state and local governments yesterday to use their purchasing power to try to influence the human rights policies of foreign nations. The court struck down a 1996 Massachusetts law aimed at promoting democracy in Burma, saying it intruded heavily on the power of the president to conduct foreign policy. The state law, affecting about $2 billion a year of purchases by state agencies, barred those agencies from buying goods or services from companies - American or overseas - that do business with or in Burma.

From the 1920s until their demise in 1963, the red and white Burma-Shave signs that lined American roadways and advertised in doggerel a brushless shaving cream were as much a fixture of an automobile trip as backseat combat with siblings. The product they advertised through such verses as THIS CREAM/ MAKES THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER/ PLANT HER TU-LIPS/ WHERE SHE OUGHTER/ BURMA-SHAVE was a brushless shaving cream invented by the Odell family in Minneapolis in the early 1920s. Earlier, at the turn of the century, their grandfather had invented a liniment he named Burma-Vita.