My friend Steve often asks me, "What's up?" That seems to be one of the more difficult questions to answer.

Did Colin Powell know what was up when he spoke to the U.N. about the war? I've seen him on TV talking about it and he said that it was something he would have to live for the rest of his life. Notice he got out of this administration.

What's up in Iraq? Only 32 % of the Iraqi population has access to clean drinking water, compared to 50% before the war; 19% have sewerage compared to 24% before. The current reconstruction money is not going for schools, water treatment, or electricity. Of 150 planned medical centers, only 15 have been built. The only money going for construction is for prisons. Why no oil production, etc., etc.? Because construction workers were being kidnapped and killed. You can't reconstruct in a zone that has no law or order. The mission is not accomplished.

War is the antithesis of humanity. The best of humanity is art. I wandered through the Metropolitan Museum of Art this week. What a breathtaking place. The American wing was full of ornate furniture. There were portraits that looked like photographs, still life that breathed still. Marble statues of indescribeable beauty. How do they do that stuff (obviously, very carefully)?

We made art at St. Paul's Chapel. It hung in the air for a few minutes for those who were there to hear. They are still thinking about it, wondering how we did it.

The Metropolitan Opera's production of Don Pasquale was flawless. The ensembles were so perfectly matched and every note so finely turned out. Intonation was amazing. There were no wobbling vibratos that one often hears in operatic productions. The singers were all phenoms.

Switch gears again to another artistic field. Wicked was amazing. And Wicked was what I started off thinking about today when considering this blog. The story takes the Wizard of Oz and turns it on its head. Nothing it seems was what Frank Baum told you it was. There was evil, but not in the places you thought it was.

There is evil in our country. But it is not in the places that the president and his men say it is. The evil is in them. It's time for change. We must throw out the wizard.