Right till the end of January, Dita Sari, an Indonesian in her late twenties, was preparing to fly from her home near Jakarta, Indonesia, to Salt Lake City. She would bask Feb. 7 in the admiration of assorted do-gooders and celebrities mustered by the public relations department of Reebok for the thirteenth annual Human Rights Awards, overseen by a board including Jimmy Carter and Kerry Kennedy Cuomo. Reebok is a company that dukes it out each year with Adidas and New Balance for second place, far behind the behemoth of the business, Nike, in the world of sports shoes and apparel.

Make no mistake, the folk -- usually somewhere between four and six recipients -- getting these annual Reebok awards have all been fine organizers and activists, committed to working for minorities, the disenfranchised, the disabled, the underdogs in our wicked world.

Dita Sari's plan was to accept the ticket from Reebok, proceed to the podium in the Capitol Theater in downtown Salt Lake City, where the world's winter athletes are now assembled, and then, when offered the human

There has always been a fundamental struggle for the "soul" of hip hop culture, represented by the deep tension between politically-conscious and "positivity" rap artists versus the powerful and reactionary impulses toward misogyny, homophobia, corporate greed, and crude commodification.

The most recent example of this struggle for hip hop's "soul" was vividly expressed at the recent West Coast hip hop conference. Respected rappers such as Mike Concepcion and the D.O.C., and Def Jam founder and conference leader Russell Simmons, emphasized the need to mobilize artists around progressive goals, such as supporting voter education and registration campaigns. Solidarity was expressed for progressive feminist poet/artist Sarah Jones, who is suing over the Federal Communications Commission's fine imposed against an Oregon radio station's playing of her song, "Your Revolution." Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, in his keynote address, urged the hip hop community to renounce lyrics promoting violence and social divisiveness. "From the suffering of our people came rap," Farrakhan observed. "That should make you a servant of those that produced you."

The politics of hip hop culture took an important step forward recently with the Russell Simmons-founded Hip Hop Summit Action Network's hosting of the historic West Coast Hip-Hop Summit. Organized by Summit President Minister Benjamin Muhammad, hundreds of influential performance artists, music executives, grassroots activists, public leaders, and others gathered to address key issues and to establish a progressive political agenda. Prominent participants included rappers Kurupt, DJ Quik, the Outlawz, Mack 10, Boo-Yaa Tribe, Mike Concepcion and the D.O.C., and radio personality/comedian Steve Harvey. Significantly, the keynote address was delivered by the leader of the Nation of Islam, Minister Louis Farrakhan, who also keynoted the first national hip-hop summit, staged last summer in New York City.

This latest Hip-Hop Summit Action Network followed closely after two recent New York-based events connected with the effort to build a progressive hip hop political agenda. On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (January 21), the first hip hop youth summit was held at York College in Queens. Featuring

Dear Editor,

It was heartening to read that our government is pledging almost $300 million to aid in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. This is a large number but it hardly compares with the amount of money that we are spending to make war. The war in Afghanistan costs US taxpayers $1 to $2 billion per month, and since Sept. 11 the defense budget has been increased by $50 billion to fund weapons programs (like the F22 fighter and the Crusader artillery system) that the Pentagon doesn't want because they are outmoded. This looks to me like war profiteering pure and simple. I'm opposed to terrorism, but I pay taxes too!

p.s. the spending figures come from an article in The Nation (Jan 28, 2002) "Making Money on Terror" by William D. Hartung, a senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute at the New School University.

AUSTIN -- The seminal historic event always affects the language. Already we can see that Enron is of this shattering magnitude. A stick-up artist goes into the Jiffy Mart to pull a heist. He whips his heater and says to the clerk, "Put 'em up, this is an aggressive accounting practice."

Or, you take your car to Ralph's Rip-Off Garage to get a 50 buck problem fixed and, sure enough, he bills you $600. You say, "What an aggressive accounting practice!"

Euphemism of the Year, and not even February yet.

The single most distinguishing feature of the Enron collapse is that no one is yet sure the company did anything illegal. (Aside from destroying documents, which arguably falls in the "seriously ill-advised" category.) As we gyre and gimble in the wabe of Enron, we run across such delightful items. Did you know that Enron's board twice voted to suspend its own ethics code in order to create private partnerships? But how thoughtful of them to suspend the ethics code first! Otherwise, they might have violated it.