Mary Anne,

When I was an aeronautical engineering graduate student at Stanford University (1977-1984), half of my classmates were from foreign countries. Aeronautical engineers are essentially military engineers (we design the fighter planes, guns, bombs, nukes, you name it). A significant fraction of my foreign classmates were from the Middle East, i.e. Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Israel, Egypt. In one classroom we had Turks, Greeks, Israelis, Iranians, Iraqis living together in harmony as fine professional colleagues while learning how to kill each other's populations.

Here's the really funny thing. If I talked to one of these guys one-on-one and kept the subject professional, they came across as very sharp and well educated. If we then talked about local politics or Western European politics then still everything was very calm and rational. However if the conversation drifted into the politics of their home region or (heaven forbid) their religion then something bizarre happened. Their eyes would glaze over, they'd start to foam at the mouth and one could hear this strange "thwick" sound from inside their skull as their frontal lobes disconnected from the rest of their brain. They'd become totally irrational (just like your Palestinian girl). However these guys had no excuse. They were the cream-of-the-crop (the best their society could produce). They should have had better self control. This is the essential contradiction of our age: We're handing 21st century technology to people with an 8th century mentality. The September 11th catastrophy was an disaster waiting to happen.

Gary