Got your attention, didn’t that? Nearly a decade ago Jeffrey Eugenides wrote The Virgin Suicides, a strangely warm novel about five teenage sisters who kill themselves, and the neighborhood boys who try to understand them. Sophia Coppola (yes, daughter of) turned it into a surprisingly good movie. This week’s New Yorker has an excerpt from an upcoming book by Eugenides, Middlesex, which is just as unusual as its predecessor and, if the excerpt is an indication, just as brilliant. It’s the story of a hermaphrodite. The excerpt is delicate, sensual, funny, evocative.

If we can spend billions of dollars (estimated) invading Iraq, might we spend a few million dollars teaching useful foreign languages to our diplomats and students? The New York Times has a brilliant story about a shortage of diplomats willing to work in edgy countries and a paucity of language skills among the few who are ready to forego Paris for, say, Pakistan. “While newly minted diplomats are more eager than ever to serve their country and even express interest in hardship assignments, they are quick to say they would avoid places that might pose a risk to their families,” the Times reports. “As the State Department scrambles to fill the holes, it is turning to employees who do not have adequate language skills. In China, 62 percent of the Foreign Service officers did not meet the language proficiency requirements for their positions, the G.A.O. found. In Russia, 41 percent of the officers do not speak Russian…Even diplomats whose chief duty is to explain American policy to foreign populations are often unable to speak the language. In Pakistan, five public diplomacy positions in three cities were held by employees with insufficient language skills, the G.A.O. found. In Saudi Arabia, the head of public outreach for an American consulate spoke no Arabic.”

The State Department is not to blame; America’s educational system is at fault. How many high schools teach Arabic? Or Urdu or Mandarin? And how many teach French? Unfortunately, America needs people who understand the language of bin Laden, not Voltaire. Every college student who is taking a year off in Paris (as I did many years ago), or who is studying in any Western European capital, should be offered a free ticket to Cairo or Amman or, for that matter, Beijing or Jakarta. These days, it’s much better, and more interesting, to study in the Third World than on the Left Bank.

Their name is Gogol Bordello and they are a gypsy punk band/cabaret. Seeing is believing.

The ideas of Gilles Kepel, a French academic who has written a counter-intuitive book on Islamic extremism, deserve more attention than they are receiving. In a new essay, he crystallizes his message that Al Qaeda is a failed movement. The following extract, which is a bit lengthy, is worth reading because it calls into question much of what we read in the mainstream media, and it isn’t nonsense.

“The Islamic movement continues to exist, but it is deeply divided and militarily defeated…It seems clear that al-Qaida’s aim was to engineer a very spectacular attack, which would prove that the enemy was weak and not worthy of being feared. The masses they wanted to reach out to, it was hoped, would join in the jihad against the West to liberate themselves. But the problem is that such a closely-knit conspiratorial movement is both the basis of their success and, at the same time, the reason for their ultimate failure. They have no way to reach out to the masses. They have no charities. They do not spread the word. They have no way to deal with grassroots politics. So, they cannot mobilise. They can only use the exemplarity of symbols, and the media, to convey a message to the masses. Bin Laden became a mastermind in using the media—particularly after he singled out the new Arab media, such as the al-Jazeera channel, as the main medium of his political message.

“This led to a striking phenomenon. I have travelled widely in the Middle East since 11 September, and I have frequently noticed a widespread enthusiasm for Osama bin Laden—the man who ‘stood for us’—particularly among the youth, in (for example) Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and the Emirates. They were not sure about the massacre of civilians at the World Trade Center; it could not be him, ‘it must have been Mossad, probably’. The suicide attacks against Israel were a different matter, because Israel is a country that has invaded Muslim lands. But what is crucial is that they were not convinced by the ‘violence argument’ as such. They did not go for that.

“In my view, this is a sign that in spite of the appearance of strength in the violent events of 11 September, with many people massacred, and the very visible threat to the West of these Islamist movements—in spite of this, the very violence of these movements is not a symbol of strength, but precisely shows that they cannot reach out to the constituencies they need to mobilise, in order to seize power.”

It sounds like a bad joke, but what happens when you put, on a flight into New York City, a famous Indian actress, singer and comedian—and an American who suspects they might be terrorists? The answer was provided yesterday, when the Indians were arrested upon their arrival at LaGuardia airport, after their flight had picked up an escort of two fighter jets. The actress, Samyuktha Verma, who is described by the New York Times as the Julia Roberts of southern India, was brilliant in contextualizing the experience: “America is a good country, and I understand people are afraid of people who look different.”

The conviction of Ahmed Omar Sheikh for the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl reminds me of an interview I conducted in Karachi in May with the police investigator who led the manhunt for Sheikh. As the police closed in, the investigator obtained Sheikh’s cellphone number and called him up. It was early February, and what followed, as recounted by the investigator, was one of the odder moments in the probe—the hunter talking with the hunted.

“Sheikh, your game is over,” the investigator said. “Where is Daniel Pearl?”

“Who are you?” Sheikh asked.

The investigator identified himself (as a condition of my interview with the investigator, he asked that I not publish his name).

“Don’t cause any harm to him, and surrender,” the investigator warned. “Otherwise you will pay the consequences. We know that you are the one who kidnapped him. There is no option for you but to surrender.”

Sheikh did not say yes or no; he responded with brief, noncommittal words. The investigator passed the phone to one of Sheikh’s captured accomplices, who confirmed that the police were, indeed, on his trail. The phone call ended. Sheikh surrendered a few days later. Pearl, it turned out, had been killed before the investigator’s phone call.

Michael Kinsley has a point: “It was amazing to read the Pentagon’s detailed plans for an invasion of Iraq in the New York Times last week. The general reaction of Americans to this news was even more amazing: Basically, there was no reaction. We seem to be distant observers of our own nation’s preparation for war, watching with horror or approval or indifference a process we have nothing to do with and cannot affect. Which is just about the case.”

That’s a quote from the legendary Robert Capa, and it appears at the beginning of “War Photographer,” which is a documentary about Jim Nachtwey, whose life and ideas are no less stunning than the beautifully grim pictures that have made him famous in the world of news photography. The film uses, to great advantage, footage from micro-cameras attached to Nachtwey’s cameras, so that you see what he was seeing in the field, and you see him as he was seeing these things. It’s a hall-of-mirrors effect that is remarkable, as are the first 15 minutes of the movie, in which you watch Nachtwey but don’t hear a word from him, and it doesn’t matter, because the editing is so sharp. For portfolios of Nachtwey’s work, click here for his WTC photos and here for his international photos. And for a short essay I wrote about his latest book, click here.

My newest story, an opinion piece in today’s New York Times, can be found here.

One of the pleasures of summer in New York is the Shakespeare festival at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, where the plays are performed outdoors, free of charge. A few nights ago I went with a friend to see “Twelfth Night,” in which Oliver Platt was brilliant, Jimmy Smits was fine and Julia Stiles was disappointing. The evening began with an announcement, as customary as the national anthem before a baseball game, that all cellphones must be switched off. Midway through the second act a phone rang behind me; instead of turning it off in an embarrassed rush, a woman began chatting with, it seemed, her babysitter. She ignored the shushes of everyone around her and disturbed the play. Tragedy turned to farce as she loudly threatened to summon security if the attempts to silence her continued; this was odd, because we wanted to scramble security against her. But Shakespeare might not have minded the interruption, which was a reminder, like the play before us, of the perseverence of human folly.

If the World Cup final had been played between the nations with the best soccer writers, England would have faced Brazil. I haven’t been reading the Brazilian press, but I assume the scribes from Rio are as entertaining as their players and fans. There’s no doubt about the quality of the English press. The Observer’s wrapup of the best and worst of the World Cup tournament is fun throughout.

In the category of “Best Moment,” John Carlin nominates the assault, by Spanish midfielder Ivan Helguera, on an Egyptian referee after Spain lost its quarter-final match against South Korea. “In an age when the game has become so asphyxiatingly commercial, Helguera’s unfettered Corinthianism was refreshing,” Carlin writes. “Somewhere in his mind the most intelligent player on the Spain team will have understood that he was risking the end of his international career; possibly even the end of his professional career and the vast riches, as a Real Madrid player, that entails. He didn’t care. The impulse to beat the crap out of the referee, guilty together with his Trinidadian linesman of the fiasco of the tournament, revealed Helguera as a man of flawless moral instincts.”

In the category of “Best Coach,” Paul Wilson proposes Bruce Arena, of the U.S. squad: “Not only did this guy have the best name and preside over the most impressive turnaround since the last World Cup, he came out with my all-time favourite football line: ‘On paper we don’t have a chance against Germany, but this game is played on grass.’”

Finally, Guillem Balague recalls the accommodations in Ulsan, Korea. “I booked a hotel in a place that I was told was near enough to Ulsan, where I was going to see Spain play Slovenia. In fact, it was 30 kilometres away, but the fact that it was a love hotel made up for the disappointment. A love hotel is a place where you take a person of the opposite sex for an evening. The owners offer a stimulating video collection on each floor and chambermaids leave two different tapes next to the television in every room each morning. They’re great for getting in the mood for a hard day of World Cup coverage, apparently. On my last day there I received one with a chubby woman waggling herself to music and another with a different chubby woman who had designs on her female friend. I wondered how they knew about my very secret tastes. But, I must stress, I didn’t watch any.”

I occasionally practice Bikram yoga, which is done in a studio heated to 100 degrees. Yes, it sounds insane, but it’s not, as long as you don’t mind the heat. Yoga studios strive to be peaceful places, with everyone pretending to be kind and gentle, and saying, at the end of class, “Namaste,” which is a Sanskrit word that means, “I bow to the divine in you.” So I was amused by an abrupt sign that has appeared in my studio. Apparently some people felt the temperature was too hot or not hot enough, and they had taken to turning on or off the heaters, or opening or closing the windows. Not a good idea. The new sign, which is in the waiting room, states that although the temperature may vary, noone is to touch the windows or heaters, because “life is not perfect” and you have to accept things the way they are, and in case you are tempted to disobey the rules, management and teachers reserve the right to expel anyone indulging in “rude or disruptive behavior.” The bottom of the notice says, in classic corporate-speak, “EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY—THE MANAGEMENT.” Then, because this is a yoga studio, it says, “Namaste.”

UPDATE: I was out with some friends last night, and one of them lit his cigarette from a pack of matches that said “Fuck Yoga”. The backlash has begun.

War between the two rivals was avoided when Gen. Musharraf promised to stop, permanently, the infiltration of Pakistani-sponsored guerrillas into Kashmir. As The Washington Post explains, Musharraf made his vow in a June 6 meeting with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage:

A veteran diplomat with a blunt manner, Armitage spent the next two hours gently probing Musharraf, asking, “What can I tell the Indians?” Musharraf had already pledged to halt terrorist infiltrations in the Indian-held part of Kashmir. Armitage wanted to go a step further: Would Musharraf now promise a “permanent end” to the terrorist activity long encouraged by Pakistan? “Yes,” Musharraf replied.

It was nearly 4:00 a.m. and the English soccer fan standing next to me at the Coffee Shop in Union Square knew the final score, even though ten minutes or so remained in the World Cup match between Brazil and England, which Brazil was leading 2-1. “England always break your heart,” she said, and indeed they did, failing to equalize before the final whistle. The Brazilians at the bar were, as you’d expect, ecstatic and beautiful.

I was rooting for Brazil, because I’m partial to Third World countries that need something to cheer about, and if the country in question happens to turn soccer into a form of ballet, all the better. But the team I’d most like to see go all the way is Senegal, an underdog from a continent of underdogs. A World Cup victory, which is nearly unthinkable, would bring pride and happiness to everyone in Africa, which the IMF and World Bank will never do.

A fantastic soccer match is underway between South Korea and Italy. The score is tied 1-1, the second half of overtime is about to begin; Italy just lost a player to a red card on a horrible call by the referee. World Cup at its best. Watch it if you can.

UPDATE: South Korea wins 2-1. Amazing.

Modafinil is a little-known drug that staves off sleep without the side effects of amphetamines; it may join Prozac and Viagra in the lineup of pharmacological adjustments to the modern life. As The Washington Post explains in an article that reads like an extract from Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections,” Modafinil may help the Pentagon create a “metabolically dominant soldier.” It may, for that matter, create a metabolically dominant office worker, a metabolically dominant defense secretary or—and wouldn’t this be sweet—a metabolically dominant magazine writer. More from the Post:

Originally aimed at narcoleptics, who fall asleep frequently and uncontrollably, modafinil works without the jitter, buzz, euphoria, crash, addictive characteristics or potential for paranoid delusion of stimulants like amphetamines or cocaine or even caffeine, researchers say. As with an increasing number of the so-called superhuman, posthuman or trans-human drugs or genetic manipulations rapidly entering our lives, modafinil thus calls into question some fundamental underpinnings of hundreds of thousands of years of thought regarding what are normal human capabilities.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is searching for ways to create the “metabolically dominant soldier.” Among the projects it is pursuing is the creation of a warrior who can fight 24 hours a day, seven days straight. “Eliminating the need for sleep while maintaining the high level of both cognitive and physical performance of the individual will create a fundamental change in war-fighting,” says the Defense Sciences Office on its Web site. As usual, DARPA did not comment directly for this report.

Kamran Khan, who is the Washington Post’s correspondent in Karachi, was in the U.S. consulate when a car bomb exploded outside it yesterday, killing 10 Pakistanis. His first-person story in today’s Post is riveting. Khan may have spoken, as he approached the consulate, with one of the bombers; the man asked suspicious questions about the building. Khan had just gotten inside when the bomb went off: “I was standing at the receptionist’s desk, watching her tell my host I had arrived, when the phone blew out of her hand. In the same instant, the bulletproof glass of the reception door crashed a few inches to my left. The deafening roar of the explosion, perhaps 100 feet away, was followed by the screech of tires on Abdullah Haroon Road. Over the noise outside, you could hardly hear the screams of the receptionist, who was now under her desk.”

Flashy events grab our attention, or at least the media’s attention; terrorist bombs, nuclear threats, elections, political scandals, etc. Yet the events of greatest import, in terms of the change they cause, often have no flash and hardly draw our notice. What was the most significant event in India in the 1990s? Most likely, the opening of its domestic markets, which set off a wave of economic development, the rise of a powerful middle class, the emergence of Bangalore as a technology hub, and so on.

Most headlines from Pakistan these days revolve around war—the war on terrorism, the war against India, the war in Kashmir. So it wasn’t surprising that the most interesting story I’ve read about the country in some time was buried this week in the distant precincts of the world business section of The New York Times. The story outlined the privatization program that’s underway and noted that “the sales, by the army generals running Pakistan, promise to reshape an economy that has been burdened since the 1960’s with a huge, highly inefficient and sometimes corrupt collection of state-owned companies that soak up government subsidies.” Pakistan is a backward country because, in part, it has a backward economy. If that changes, the country changes. Boring but vital.

UPDATE: The Guardian has a story today about a campaign by Islamic hardliners to create an interest-free banking system in Pakistan. If your economic model is Taliban-era Afghanistan, it’s an excellent idea.

The collapse of communist East Germany began, informally speaking, when thousands of East Germans sought asylum at the West German embassies in Budapest and Prague in 1989. That was the East German regime’s emperor-has-no-clothes moment, and five months later the Berlin Wall was opened. Is the same process underway for North Korea’s Stalinist regime? Probably not, but a stream of gate-crashings in Beijing, where North Koreans are finding their way past increased security to seek asylum at foreign embassies, is an intriguing development and not good news for “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il. I was based in Seoul from 1987-1990 and heard, every week or two, a new theory about the imminent collapse of North Korea, so I’m not holding my breath, but at some point, hopefully soon, that prison/country will disappear.

Two ironic novels, related to America and Eastern Europe, that I hope to read one day soon:

Everything Is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer.

The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, by Gary Shteyngart.