Weeks before the 20th century ended, the pundit Michael Kinsley was uncommonly direct in a Time essay that defended the virtues of the World Trade Organization with these closing words: "But really, the WTO is OK. Do the math. Or take it on faith." Delivered by the flagship magazine of the Time Warner conglomerate (soon to merge with AOL), the message was more overt than usual: We should devoutly accept certain pronouncements as conclusive.

Such rigid faith is dangerous. It undermines critical thinking. And it's wide open for manipulation -- by mainstream news outlets as well as by some who present themselves as anti-establishment.

Many decades before the invention of television, the American historian Henry Adams was essentially correct when he wrote about the dominant media of the day: "The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved." In substance, there is much truth to that observation in 2002.

But those who, with good reason, refuse to trust the corporate media are scarcely better off when they lower their standards to buy

LINCOLN -- This nicely rehabbed little place about 160 miles south by southeast from Santa Fe, N.M., is the wellspring of the Billy the Kid saga. He hung out here, was jailed here, escaped from jail here, and so forth. In this same saga, two of the eternal verities, military procurement and insurance, were the primal forces at work, along with the third verity, tardy authors.

In 1850, with the exception of coastal California and east Texas, there was barely a cow or steer west of the Mississippi. There were more cattle, nearly a million, in New York State than anywhere else. By 1870, the total was up to 15 million, and by 1900, that had doubled again to 35 million. Texas alone had 6.5 million. Industrial meat-eating had come of age.

U.S. army units needed beef to sustain them in their campaigns against Indians watching their protein disappear as cattle replaced bison. Based in Lincoln, N.M., Irish good old boys known as The House had the local meat contract stitched up with friendly U.S. Army officers in Fort Stanton. They rustled the cows from John Chisum's vast herds further south, grazed

AUSTIN, Texas -- When in the course of the usual reasoned, civil debate on public affairs -- conducted always with courtesy and good cheer -- one finds one's self snarling, "Oh, shut up!" one has, I fear, been reading too much George Will.

Being instructed what to think by the peerlessly pompous Mr. Will, perched upon his superiority and apparently in a permanent state of dudgeon over everybody else's stupidity, is reminiscent of being bullied by a snotty teacher. One is tempted to respond with the classic, frozen-faced Texas inquiry, "No bull?"

Will is often worth reading if only so you can figure out why you disagree with him. Lately, he has been leading an entire phalanx of right-wing commentators in full cry over President Bush's loss of "moral clarity" in the Middle East. The sheer implausibility of finding moral clarity in the Middle East does not deter them. Better minds than Bush's are defeated by that challenge, but the moral-certainty crowd admits no shades of gray.

Since Bush himself is fond of moral certainty -- it's good-doers

of all the words i've read about our current military adventure, none have spoken as strongly as the pictures i have seen.
the pictures that the western media monopolies refuse to even allow out of Iraq.
you find them other places.
like al-jazeera.

oh, no,
am i an enemy sympathizer?
if the children who have been decapitated by u.s. cluster bombs are the enemy,
then yes, the enemy has my sympathy.
because, pathetically, that's the most i can muster.

last night i learned,
through a photograph,
that 3 iraqi children
can fit in one wooden coffin,
especially when one is missing half of her head.

it seems that only those who don't need to hear of this, (my fellow sympathizers),
will.

wouldn't want to darken a birthday party
being held for a lovely american child
attended by her pro-war relatives
and 3 young cousins
whom we wouldn't dream of placing in one coffin.
that would be barbaric.

A triumphant story about National Public Radio appeared in late March on the front page of Current, the main newspaper of the public-broadcasting industry. "NPR Lands Most Listeners Ever," the headline announced, over a summary of the latest Arbitron figures: "NPR programs reached 19.5 million listeners a week last fall, and member stations drew a record 28.7 million listeners. One in seven Americans age 25 or older listens to an NPR member station each week."

Network officials are exultant about the impressive numbers. "This demonstrates that NPR is a leading source for news, information and entertainment in America," says Ken Stern, executive vice president. By far, the biggest audiences have been tuning into NPR's two weekday drive-time news programs -- with an average of 1.87 million people listening during any 15-minute period of "Morning Edition" and a 2.22 million average for "All Things Considered."

For a pair of shows with combined airtime of 20 hours between Monday and Friday, that's a very wide reach to a whole lot of ears. "The data seem to validate a systemwide trend toward adding more news and