Advance, Recede

The cloning news is disturbing. Advanced Cell Technology, the biotechnology company that carried out the experiments, seems more concerned with promoting a miniscule accomplishment than producing actual ground-breaking science. The embryos they cloned quickly died, and the laboratory methods used -- delicate maneuvering of microscopic cells -- are more about manual dexterity than medical destiny. Announcing their feat at this point is like tuning a clarinet and declaring it a symphony.

The cloning news vied for attention in a day of American and Northern Alliance military advances in Afghanistan, and a pronouncement by the National Bureau of Economic Research:

Recession is officially here. The longest economic expansion in U.S. history ended as a consequence of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Advance and recede. This week, the Afghan factions are meeting to try and create a stable political future for their country. They are gathering in the former "West Germany" capital of Bonn -- a testament to the ability of bitterly divided cousins to rejoin and prosper.

But meanwhile the guns still fire and the bombs still blast, and in nations all over the world armament contracts are still being signed and the missiles and machine guns are still being built.

Monday, the Israeli government pulled out of the last of the West Bank towns it occupied in October. On the same day, the Israeli government announced plans to expand Jewish housing within the predominantly-Arab city of Hebron.

Advance and recede, advance and recede.

American school children are finding ways to give books and money to New York-area kids as well as their peers in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, retailers report that this holiday season parents are now buying toy weapons for their children in greater and greater numbers.

Pretend guns are selling briskly, along with police and firefighter action figures.

Meanwhile on Monday, just 40 miles away from that Worcester, Mass., cloning lab, three teenagers were charged with plotting to plant explosives at their high school, detonate them and then shoot their classmates.

Advance and recede.