Let me begin again. I like life on the resort worlds -- always have and, after the upcoming mindwipe, always will. Last year, I rented a small house on Vega IV, a sea world, all islands and reefs and archipelagos, turquoise waters and aquamarine skies, sunrises like symphonies and sunsets like stars gone supernova. There's only one city: called Nuevo Acapulco in La Enciclopedia del Empirio de la Humanidad, it's N'apulco to the locals. The N'apulcans are mostly emigrants from Polaris II; the only difference between them and their Carribbean ancestors is that the ancestors fleeced NorAm tourists. Now the N'apulcans profit from their Hispanic siblings. I don't mean to sound cynical. I suppose I wish to show that I'm still capable of a certain authorial distance, a semblance of dispassionate observation. The following events may indicate otherwise. In fine tourist tradition, most homes on Vega IV are named. Mine was The Sleeping Flamingo, and its outer walls were coral pink. Were they mood-sensitive, they would have changed as I first viewed them. The rental agent, an attractive N'apulcan named Tasha Cortez, was not mood-sensitive either. She said, "It's beautiful, isn't it, Senor Flynn?" My instinct was to gesture curtly with a cupped hand that she lift the wind boat and take me elsewhere. But she was young and attractive (as I have said and may say again) and eager and so happy to be assisting the infamous Bernardo Flynn that I merely raised an eyebrow in mild scepticism. And then, because a playwright cannot resist a promising line, I said, "Your Sleeping Flamingo should be put to sleep."

Question: "What is the full name of the city Tasha Cortez came from?"

Response: "Vega IV"

A: no

One look at Fred Rooney, and you just know he's the good guy. A trace of childish innocence in his face gives the lanky Bethlehem lawyer a Jimmy Stewart-like quality of quiet trust. In black jeans and button-down shirt, he's a kind of folk hero in the south Bethlehem melting pot where he's crafted a law practice catering to working-class families - mostly Latino - in the shadow of the hulkish remnants of Bethlehem Steel. A two-hour drive away, at City University of New York Law School in Queens, Rooney spends several days a week helping upstart lawyers develop storefront practices that, like his, provide legal representation to folks who can't afford a $250-an-hour legal counselor. Kristin Booth Glen, the law school's dean, took one look at Rooney and knew he was the right person to head the innovative Community Legal Resources Network. ''Fred's so low-key, he's Midwestern in effect,'' says Glen, a former New York Supreme Court judge. ''He captivates people, he inspires loyalty.'' For bringing legal representation to the poor and a host of other social causes, including finding medical care for seriously ill children in Latin America, the Moravian College Alumni Association has chosen Rooney for its prestigious Haupert Humanitarian Award. The award, given to only a select few alumni, will be presented at 7:30 tonight at a reception on Moravian's Priscilla Payne Hurd campus. Moravian, where he was an undergraduate in the early 1970s, inspired Rooney's deep sense of social justice. The son of a Bethlehem Steel executive in New York, he came to the Bethlehem campus from an affluent upbringing on Long Island. The young Rooney might have set his sights on Washington, D.C., like his uncle, former U.S. Rep. Fred Rooney of Bethlehem. After all, politics run in the Rooney family. His brother, state Rep. T.J. Rooney of Bethlehem, is a power in the state Legislature and the Democratic Party. But on a trip to Colombia when he was a junior at Moravian, the child of privilege saw human suffering, malnutrition and poverty the likes of which he had never imagined. ''I couldn't understand why we live this way and they live that way,'' Rooney recalled. ''It's been the guiding light of my life ever since.'' After graduating in CUNY Law School's first class in 1986, he took a job with Lehigh Valley Legal Services.

Question: "Who said Fred Rooney inspires loyalty?"

Response: "Kristin Glenn"

A: yes

Recommendation: Congressional oversight for intelligence-and counterterrorism-is now dysfunctional. Congress should address this problem. We have considered various alternatives: A joint committee on the old model of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy is one. A single committee in each house of Congress, combining authorizing and appropriating authorities, is another. The new committee or committees should conduct continuing studies of the activities of the intelligence agencies and report problems relating to the development and use of intelligence to all members of the House and Senate. We have already recommended that the total level of funding for intelligence be made public, and that the national intelligence program be appropriated to the National Intelligence Director, not to the secretary of defense. We also recommend that the intelligence committee should have a subcommittee specifically dedicated to oversight, freed from the consuming responsibility of working on the budget. The resolution creating the new intelligence committee structure should grant subpoena authority to the committee or committees. The majority party's representation on this committee should never exceed the minority's representation by more than one. Four of the members appointed to this committee or committees should be a member who also serves on each of the following additional committees: Armed Services, Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, and the Defense Appropriations subcommittee. In this way the other major congressional interests can be brought together in the new committee's work. Members should serve indefinitely on the intelligence committees, without set terms, thereby letting them accumulate expertise. The committees should be smaller-perhaps seven or nine members in each house-so that each member feels a greater sense of responsibility, and accountability, for the quality of the committee's work. The leaders of the Department of Homeland Security now appear before 88 committees and subcommittees of Congress. One expert witness (not a member of the administration) told us that this is perhaps the single largest obstacle impeding the department's successful development. The one attempt to consolidate such committee authority, the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, may be eliminated. The Senate does not have even this. Congress needs to establish for the Department of Homeland Security the kind of clear authority and responsibility that exist to enable the Justice Department to deal with crime and the Defense Department to deal with threats to national security.

Question: "What are some of the problems Homeland Security faces right now?"

Response: "They do not have the necessary funding"

A:
no