How the face of the sky changes,
when the darkness roared with tanks in Beslan,
and with a premonition of the end
in that school, in that basketball hoop
trembled explosives, hung by Stalin.

Extract from Yevgeny Yevtushenko's School in Beslan, which appeared in today's Guardian.

Whew. Corey Patterson smashed two home runs on Tuesday night as the Cubs beat the Pirates 3-2. In twelve innings. Corey's second homer finished the game.

The Cubs are now 78-64 with two wins so far in their home series against Pittsburgh, but they are still half a game behind the Giants. San Francisco beat Milwaukee 3-2. Bonds is still on 699.

Oakland beat GWB's former plaything, the Texas Rangers, in a ten-inning thriller on Monday night. But it was Frank Francisco's chair-throwing antics that captured all the headlines.

Irrefutable proof of the linkage between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden on Friday, when The Don, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, repeatedly got the two mixed up during a National Press Club luncheon in Washington.

Here's a couple of quotes from the transcript published by the US Department of Defence on their website. Exhibit A:

Barry Bonds hit career homerun number 699 on Sunday as the Giants beat the Diamondbacks 5-2 in Phoenix. He's now 15 behind George Herman Ruth and 56 behind Henry Aaron. For those who care, it was also his 100th home run scored in the month of September. Another centennial in the game: Arizona's 100th loss of this season.

No, I'm not having delusions. I realise that Essendon are out of the 2004 AFL premiership after their appalling effort against Geelong on Saturday night.

But as we commemorate the anniversary of 9/11, let's remember that almost as many people are still dying in Darfur every week as died in the World Trade Center attack.
- Nicholas D.Kristof, New York Times, 11 September 2004

It's been three years since the most audacious act of international aggression in the last half century. Now, for the first time, I am putting into writing my views about that day.

WBUR Boston's weekly "Only A Game" radio program is doing a feature on Pro Cricket on Saturday September 11. That should be available to hear live at 7am EST (1100 GMT, 9pm in Sydney) and archived later for listening on-demand.

The audio link is on the WBUR home page, and there is more information on WBUR's Only A Game site.

I think I'm finally coming back to earth following Australia's silver-medal performance in the Olympic baseball. And with Boston @ Seattle in progress on the tele, it's time to catch up on some baseball items over the past fortnight.

Human rights groups in Australia proclaimed Thursday, September 9, 2004 as a National Day of Shame. The following is a press release from Rural Australians for Refugees:

No crime but life imprisonment

Peter Qasim and Eidriess Abdulrahman Al Salih are two of 13 stateless asylum seekers who face indefinite detention in Australia. They are currently in Baxter Detention Centre.