Jazz owes a lot of its popularity to the phonograph, going back to the early days, when Thomas Edison invented the musical box that brought jazz to people who lived outside of the areas where jazz musicians played. Through phonograph records, they could hear the music of such people as "King" Joe Oliver. He was the first of the legendary great trumpet players to come out of New Orleans, the city where most experts in the field say that jazz originated. Jazz was played in the whorehouses in that city, and Louis Armstrong credits Oliver as being one person from whom he learned his style of playing trumpet.

The earliest phonographs I remember were the old type; you would wind the machine up in the same manner that one wound a clock or watch, until you could wind no longer. Then you placed the record on the turntable and turned on the switch, and the music would blare out of the megaphones. Most records sounded very tinny, but the volume could be raised or lowered by another switch.

The first electric phonographs made the music sound much better, and there was a constant improvement in the machines until the 1920s,

PRESIDENT BUSH: Let's get going, Gentlemen. I don't like what's going on.

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Calm down, George. Things are under control.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I don't think so. What's with that damn United Nations? China. France. Germany. Who the hell do they think they are?

KARL ROVE: Don't worry, sir. We've got answers for all of them.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Just nuke 'em, dammit. I want a war. God tells me we have to have a war. And they're standing in the way. The economy's tanking. Gas is going up. And Armageddon is long overdue.

KARL ROVE: Well, I'm not sure Colin's speech really did the trick. Polls here went up, of course. But he kindof laid an egg in the rest of the world.

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: First things first, Karl. I love how not a single talk show or TV commentator raised the least question about anything Colin said. And, of course, the polls fell right in line, even Oprah's. I was mighty impressed.

These days, it's a crucial ace up Uncle Sam's sleeve. "Terrorism" is George W. Bush's magic card.

For 17 months now, the word has worked like a political charm for the Bush administration. Ever since the terrible crime against humanity known as 9/11, the White House has exploited the specter of terrorism to move the GOP's doctrinaire agenda. Boosting the military budget, cutting social programs and shredding civil liberties are well underway.

Like the overwhelming majority of politicians on Capitol Hill, most journalists in Washington are too timid to do anything other than quibble about fine-tuning and get out of the way of rampaging elephants.

The word "terror" has become a linguistic staple in news media. For keeping the fearful pot stirred, it's better than the longer word "terrorism," which refers to an occasional event. The shortened word has an ongoing ring to it. At the end of February's first week, when Attorney General John Ashcroft announced an official hike in the warning code, the cable networks lost no time plastering "Terror Alert: High" signs on TV screens.

Events do rush by us in a blur, I know, but let's not abandon Secretary of State Colin Powell's Feb. 5 speech to the United Nations in the graveyard of history without one last backward glance. It was, after all, billed by the president as a conclusive intelligence briefing on exactly how Saddam Hussein has been concealing his weapons of mass destruction and how he's hand-in-glove with Al Qaeda.

Now, when the commander-in-chief states publicly that his secretary of state will deliver the goods, we can be safe in assuming that he's been assured that yes, the U.S. intelligence "community" has indeed got the goods. But barely more than a week after Powell's speech it now looks as though its major claims were at best speculative, and at worst outright distortions, some of them derided in advance by U.N. Chief Inspector Hans Blix.

Send a letter to the following decision maker(s):

Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge

President George W. Bush

Below is the sample letter:

What's At Stake:

President Bush's "clean" car policies will unfortunately do very little to curb our nation's voracious oil appetite, pollution and global warming. His proposed new hydrogen-powered "Freedom Car" will spend billions of taxpayer dollars on speculative technology over real policy action, while his proposed budget includes new tax breaks for gas guzzling SUVs. Meanwhile, the Department of Transportation has proposed new fuel economy standards for SUVs that are far weaker than technically possible and that are needed. Take action! Send a message to President Bush and the Department of Transportation supporting stronger measures to curb oil consumption and help stop global warming.

Campaign Expiration Date: February 28, 2003

Subject: Fuel Economy Standards for Light Trucks - docket 11419

Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here],