… Czeslaw Milosz remembers friends killed at Katyn:

Crimes against human rights, never confessed and never publicly denounced, are a poison which destroys the possibility of a friendship between nations. Anthologies of Polish poetry publish poems of my late friends – Wladyslaw Sebyla and Lech Piwowar, and give the date of their deaths: 1940. It is absurd not to be able to write how they perished, though everybody in Poland knows the truth: they shared the fate of several thousand Polish officers disarmed and interned by the then accomplices of Hitler, and they repose in a mass grave.

A plane carrying the president and other important officials has crashed in Russia. Mr UD tells UD that it was part of a delegation on its way to commemorate Katyn.

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Before he was president, Lech Kaczynski was a professor of law in Warsaw.

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“I fear,” said Mr UD just now, “a lot of historians may have been on board.” He’s having trouble getting to Polish news sites — too much traffic.

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Among those on board, former Deputy Prime Minister Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka:

For her opinions, she has been constantly attacked by right-wing parties and populists. The most spectacular offense, however, came from Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek. In 2002, he called her “a feminist block of concrete that will not change even by means of HCl acid.” The words were repeated by [everyone in the] media. “It did not discourage me at all. Women’s rights issues happily became crucial in EU politics, and more and more Polish politicians see that they are important. If there is a little of my input, I am glad. For sure, I am not going to back off.”

She was trained as an anthropologist, specializing in Mongolian cultures.

NEW FINNEGANS WAKE TO BE MORE COHERENT

Headline in the Kalamazoo Gazette:

SEARCH TEAM FORMED TO FIND
WMU MEDICAL SCHOOL DEAN

SEXUAL SATISFACTION IS A COMPLEX PROCESS
THAT VEXES MANY WOMEN AND THEIR DOCTORS

Headline, Washington Post

Boston’s Crappy Law Schools
Oppose Crappy State Law School

The man who killed four members of the Lakewood police force might be on or near the campus.

Mussolini an anti-Semite.

… has killed himself.

The Chicago Sun-Times seems so far to have the best coverage. A breaking story.

The little pisher won’t be running La Défense.

Brainy old hippies can be spies too. Nozette, recently retired from a long career as a high-security government scientist, was arrested today on charges of spying for Israel in exchange for lots of money.

When he worked for NASA, he told an interviewer for one of their newsletters that he enjoys “listening to The Grateful Dead Channel on Sirius satellite radio.” In this YouTube, he looks very casual-wear — not at all the sort who’d sell defense secrets for moolah.

But. You know. Live and learn.

One of Raj’s insider trading associates — the man on the left, Mark Kurland — sports an elegant sweater for his perp walk.

UD finds the detail on Kurland’s sweater of the little man playing golf strangely moving, in a Great Gatsby sort of way… This guy’s saying goodbye to his world… The world he’s wearing on his sleeve…

Ave atque vale, Calusa Pines.

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UPDATE: This photo, from

the LA Times, suggests

that the sweater

in fact features three

golfers, each representing

different part of the swing.

NEW UPTE MEDIA CAMPAIGN ASKS CALIFORNIANS:
WHO’S UNIVERSITY?

… where a scientist, Malcolm Casadaban, has died after exposure to a weak strain of the plague.

University of Chicago molecular genetics professor studying the origins of harmful bacteria died last weekend after contracting an infection linked to the plague, officials said today.

University hospital officials said there “does not appear to be a threat to the public” following the death of Malcolm J. Casadaban, 60, at the campus’ Bernard Mitchell Hospital on Sept. 13.

None of the people the researcher had contact with has reported illness and symptoms typically develop within 2 to 10 days, officials said.

The researcher was studying a weakened laboratory strain of Yersinia pestis that lacked the plague bacteria’s harmful components, officials said.

… University officials said the weakened strain of the bacteria is used as a vaccine to protect against the plague.

According to university officials, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has approved the weakened strain for laboratory studies. It does not require special safety precautions required for work with more virulent strains, according to the release.

Once the lab strain was identified Friday, officials contacted the Chicago Department of Public Health…