ON THE ROAD AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN. Marstonalia will be off line until January 16th.

Read also the article in the Tuscon Citizen on the six-day detention of University of Arizona professor Jamal Tabatabai.

These detentions are a big issue. I can't see how we could want the government rounding up men based on nationality and keeping an unknown number of them in prison for days, weeks, and months, without any additional information as to the questions of why, how many, and how long. The question of "why" is especially critical.

Today the San Jose Mercury News has a rather chilling piece on INS detentions following the agency's "Special Call In Registrations." As far as I can see, the agency has not given a sufficient reason for the secrecy in which it has shrouded the detentions of foreign nationals who were law-abiding enough to seek to comply with the registration procedure.

With respect to the policy as a whole, the serious question is the extent to which foreign nationality (and a corresponding existing link with the INS) is likely to be correlated with increased probability of being an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist. I'm skeptical, but surely more openness on the part the INS would only help the public in forming a judgment as to the effectiveness of the policy of the "Special Registrations."

You can read the INS's own information regarding the Special Registrations here.

BACK FROM HAWAII (ALAS!). Oahu is probably the most beautiful place on earth. We stayed in Waikiki. Look here at a cool black-and-white aerial map from the University of Texas Library Online Map site. One day we walked up the Diamond Head crater, visible in the lower right hand corner of the map, and had a 360 degree view of city, mountain, beach, ocean, and rainbow. Wow.