I've been too ashamed to loudly admit that I'm addicted to The Week magazine, but Wash. Post reviewer Peter Carlson makes me feel better by pointing out that The Week, in addition to its trivia, is better on foreign news than the mainstream newsmags. It's even a little self-deprecating; its slogan is "All You Need To Know About Everything That Matters:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52628-2002Jan28.html

Powers, Austin Powers. Trilogy's third installment battles Bond over the right to spoof:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0201290031jan29.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed

You shouldn't really read the I Have A Dream speech if you have the chance to hear it. The rhythm of the delivery, the music of the voice, the soul of the words are what evoke Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream in listeners almost 40 years after the March on Washington. This year, realizing that civil rights leaders sometimes turn more minor issues into dramatic crusades, clinging stubbornly to the narrative of victimization, I'm thinking less about how far Dr. King's dream has come in the eyes of social scientists; instead I'm pondering whatever happened to rhetoric this rich. This is spiritual and passionate, unlike the empty sales pitches that dominate our discourse today. It's also interesting to note that for as much as segregation may have stemmed from a warped notion of Christian order, "I Have A Dream" is a very biblical oration, steeped in allusions and metaphors from the pages of the Bible. Today, the secular left mostly avoids this kind of explicit biblical vocabulary. Always worth a read, especially on King Day:
http://web66.coled.umn.edu/new/MLK/MLK.html

Today is one of the toughest days to be gone from Chicago. Michael Jordan is returning to his ex-realm before the Bears play their first playoff game in 8 years a few miles away. Today would be a great day to ride the El and roam Rush Street. At least I’ll be watching from the couch. They say the weirdest thing for Jordan will be pulling in to the United Center parking lot and seeing his statue.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0201190251jan19.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed
http://www.suntimes.com/output/mariotti/cst-spt-jay19.html
http://espn.go.com/nba/news/2002/0118/1313775.html
http://espn.go.com/talent/danpatrick/s/2002/0118/1313539.html

Urgent concern of the federal government: President Clinton's dog Buddy is hit by a car:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59412-2002Jan3.html

I've been comparing introductions to books and articles lately, looking at both the gradual and the dramatic. This would fall in the dramatic category; no subtlety here. The first sentence of The Biotech Century by Jeremy Rifkin:

"Never before in history has humanity been so unprepared for the new technologies and economic opportunities, challenges, and risks that lie on the horizon."

My story on the Harlem Globetrotters that ran today in the Grand Rapids Press:
http://gr.mlive.com/sports/index.ssf?/sports/stories/20020103gtrotters112307.frm

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune is sure to run an AP story on cold weather in the Deep South:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1524/1006385.html

Train transit enlists 1988 presidential nominee Michael Dukakis as its spokesman, while an uninspiring Democratic logjam of challengers to Massachusetts acting governor Jane Swift may make it time to get his old job back:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/53010_mcgrory03.shtml

Bad day for the pound against the euro, from the Times of London:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-2002001589,00.html