The Federal Paper reports that the proposed Homeland Security Department has drawn up a shortlist of possible locations for its headquarters. One of the sites is St. Elizabeth's Hospital, which would relocate in order to make room for the new agency. St. Elizabeth's is an insane asylum that was once the home to Mussolini fan Ezra Pound and is now the home to Jodie Foster fan John Hinckley, Jr. So it's probably a fitting choice for a redundant agency with a nutty name.

Today in San Francisco there is a demonstration to support Saddam Hussein, his kleptocratic police state, and his program to develop weapons of mass destruction. Maureen Dowd would probably approve.

I couldn't go and protest against the pro-Saddam festival this afternoon because we went to see a concert of the Redwood Symphony, where my wife's sister is a violinist. They did terrific renditions of the Beethoven Violin Concerto and the long version of the Wilhelm Tell Overture. They also performed a modern piece, Daugherty's Metropolis Symphony, which was inspired by the Superman comics (the program describes the fourth movement, titled "Oh, Lois!", as having a tempo that is 'faster than a speeding bullet'). The Metropolis Symphony had its moments, but for the most part I would describe it as being "innovative and challenging", which is a polite way of saying that it was "strange and unlistenable". Call me a Philistine, but I'll stick with Rossini and Beethoven, and especially Dvorak.