Iconoclast

Should Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani have the misfortune to win his lawsuit to evict the trustees from the Brooklyn Museum of Art, he would have to leave town. And not for the Senate, either.The city owns the building but the trustees own the 1.5 million works of art therein. If the trustees go, their stuff goes with them. All museums would fight to take in the orphan collection. No one in Brooklyn would forgive that guy.The mayor despises what he has heard about one painting in a temporary loan show of contemporary art. Well he might.

The cliche view of the high-level public officeholder who would auction off his grandmother to keep his job has taken a severe setback with the announcement by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia that he won't seek reelection next year. What makes the decision so noteworthy is that Mr. Webb is a first-termer, elected in 2006 in one of the most widely publicized upsets of that year, when he beat incumbent and then-Republican presidential hopeful George Allen. It is one thing when veteran senators such as Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut announce they are throwing in the towel.

ROSS PEROT's Reform Party has already performed a useful function by giving Richard D. Lamm a chance to proclaim himself a presidential candidate. The former governor of Colorado takes great delight in telling the American people what they don't want to hear.He accuses the present generation of a "self-indulgence" that endangers its progeny. He warns that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are going broke unless the affluent elderly are denied benefits they don't need. He questions costly medical procedures to prolong the lives of the terminally ill. And he is even for higher taxes, including a 50-cent gasoline tax.Mr.

Who would have thought a month ago that a half-hour version of Saturday Night Live would be a red-hot TV ticket on Thursday, one the biggest nights for regular series? But that's the case with SNL's Thursday edition, which finished in fifth place among all shows with the key demographic of young adult viewers 18 to 49 last week. And there is another special edition tonight focusing on the presidential election with "Weekend Update" anchors Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers. Poehler is the nearest thing to Tina Fey in comedy these days - and that is saying a lot about her talent.

Lecture Mencken bio Tonight at 7:30, author Marion Rodgers will discuss her biography Mencken: The American Iconoclast. The program is at Haebler Memorial Chapel at Goucher College, 1021 Dulaney Valley Road, Towson. Admission is free. Call 410-337-6000 for more information.

George Morgan He wrote the following obituary before he died. "Obit for a Slient Key" "George has been seduced by his Blue Water Siren to embark on a voyage into eternity. Rather than morn his passing, pause to remember an Iconoclast who decried the machinations of windbags making false claims and offering empty promises. His free spirit joins his siren without accepting the specious myth of Heaven's Glory nor fear of Tophet's Flare. AR=-SK"

OUR FRIEND, the Curmudgeonly Iconoclast, stormed into th office spluttering and harrumphing as usual. Fixing us with a stentorian stare, he offered his judgment of the day: "I am sick and tired of all those people who said the presidential campaign was too long."Since we were one of the miscreants, we just asked for elucidation."Well, it's the bloody Brits," old C.I. declared. "They have brainwashed us poor colonials into thinking that their parliamentary democracy with its nice short six-week campaigns vastly superior to our presidential republic and its year-long gasathons.

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush might be leading in the national polls, but yesterday he awoke at his ranch in conservative central Texas to find the hometown newspaper had endorsed his Democratic challenger, John Kerry. Never mind that a huge sign on the five grain silos that loom over the center of town declares this "Bush Country," or that it is Bush-Cheney signs that adorn the Yellow Rose gift shop. Ignore the fact that the same paper endorsing Kerry also proclaims in blue and red: "Crawford, Texas ... Hometown of the President of the United States!"

Who would have thought a month ago that a half-hour version of Saturday Night Live would be a red-hot TV ticket on Thursday, one the biggest nights for regular series? But that's the case with SNL's Thursday edition, which finished in fifth place among all shows with the key demographic of young adult viewers 18 to 49 last week. And there is another special edition tonight focusing on the presidential election with "Weekend Update" anchors Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers. Poehler is the nearest thing to Tina Fey in comedy these days - and that is saying a lot about her talent.

For those who love newspapers - to read them, write them and rail at them - these are somber times. Metropolitan dailies face rising costs, falling share prices and declining circulation - 2.6 percent in the last six months alone. American papers have shed more than 1,900 jobs since the beginning of the year, industry publication Editor & Publisher reports. The mammoth Knight Ridder Corp., which owns the Philadelphia Inquirer and 31 other newspapers, is on the auction block, and there might be no bidders.

George Morgan He wrote the following obituary before he died. "Obit for a Slient Key" "George has been seduced by his Blue Water Siren to embark on a voyage into eternity. Rather than morn his passing, pause to remember an Iconoclast who decried the machinations of windbags making false claims and offering empty promises. His free spirit joins his siren without accepting the specious myth of Heaven's Glory nor fear of Tophet's Flare. AR=-SK"

Lecture Mencken bio Tonight at 7:30, author Marion Rodgers will discuss her biography Mencken: The American Iconoclast. The program is at Haebler Memorial Chapel at Goucher College, 1021 Dulaney Valley Road, Towson. Admission is free. Call 410-337-6000 for more information.

Tom and Kate Chappell left corporate jobs in Philadelphia in 1968 to move to the woods of Kennebunk, Maine, where they made their own soap and other natural care products. Their enterprise evolved into Tom's of Maine, a natural products company the couple started in 1970 that grew into, among other things, the nation's largest producer of natural toothpaste. The company reveled in thumbing its nose at much larger competitors that used additives in their toothpaste. But this week, Tom's crossed enemy lines, so to speak, when it announced its sale to toothpaste giant Colgate-Palmolive Co. for $100 million.

For those who love newspapers - to read them, write them and rail at them - these are somber times. Metropolitan dailies face rising costs, falling share prices and declining circulation - 2.6 percent in the last six months alone. American papers have shed more than 1,900 jobs since the beginning of the year, industry publication Editor & Publisher reports. The mammoth Knight Ridder Corp., which owns the Philadelphia Inquirer and 31 other newspapers, is on the auction block, and there might be no bidders.

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush might be leading in the national polls, but yesterday he awoke at his ranch in conservative central Texas to find the hometown newspaper had endorsed his Democratic challenger, John Kerry. Never mind that a huge sign on the five grain silos that loom over the center of town declares this "Bush Country," or that it is Bush-Cheney signs that adorn the Yellow Rose gift shop. Ignore the fact that the same paper endorsing Kerry also proclaims in blue and red: "Crawford, Texas ... Hometown of the President of the United States!"

Wendy Wasserstein has been described as one of the voices of her generation, so it's not surprising that, in middle age, this Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright is creating protagonists who are bright, accomplished, middle-aged women - the type of characters other writers often relegate to supporting-role status. It is surprising, however, not to mention impressive, that a small professional Washington theater, Theater J, has landed the world premiere of a pair of Wasserstein one-acts: Welcome to My Rash, which received developmental readings at two major Washington theaters (Arena Stage and the Kennedy Center)

Wendy Wasserstein has been described as one of the voices of her generation, so it's not surprising that, in middle age, this Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright is creating protagonists who are bright, accomplished, middle-aged women - the type of characters other writers often relegate to supporting-role status. It is surprising, however, not to mention impressive, that a small professional Washington theater, Theater J, has landed the world premiere of a pair of Wasserstein one-acts: Welcome to My Rash, which received developmental readings at two major Washington theaters (Arena Stage and the Kennedy Center)

When President Clinton was on the campaign trail in 1992, he promised to curb the influence of lobbyists and campaign contributors. Once in office, though, Mr. Clinton discovered that it wasn't such an easy task.Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, for instance, was recently forced to resign after a series of press revelations about gifts and favors that he and his girlfriend accepted from companies that his department oversees. The Clinton administration also has nominated five wealthy campaign contributors to be ambassadors -- just one less than the Bush administration did. And, while Mr. Clinton called reforming campaign finance laws a major priority, his lack of aggressive support helped to sink a reform bill this year -- at the same time the Democrats have been setting new party fund-raising records.

THE TALIBAN rulers of Afghanistan, on retaking Bamiyan province from rebels, rounded up 500 men and boys from the town of Yakaolang and shot them dead. The world barely noticed. Some 2 million Afghani refugees live in camps in Pakistan, more inside Afghanistan. About 600,000 were uprooted by drought, conflict and crop destruction in recent months. Pope John Paul II and the United Nations called on the international community to provide more aid. Few heard. But when Mullah Mohammed Omar, head of the Taliban, ordered destruction of two giant Buddhas carved into a cliffside in Bamiyan more than 1,500 years ago, and then of all statues, the world was shocked.

Should Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani have the misfortune to win his lawsuit to evict the trustees from the Brooklyn Museum of Art, he would have to leave town. And not for the Senate, either.The city owns the building but the trustees own the 1.5 million works of art therein. If the trustees go, their stuff goes with them. All museums would fight to take in the orphan collection. No one in Brooklyn would forgive that guy.The mayor despises what he has heard about one painting in a temporary loan show of contemporary art. Well he might.