Reporters on the Job

• Lawrence of Arabia Returns: Staff writer Dan Murphy was prompted to write about the lessons of T.E. Lawrence (page 1) after analysts quoted the famous British traveler to Iraq in three straight interviews a few weeks ago. A particular quote from Louis Cantori, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, stayed with Dan. He was addressing the perspective of the insurgents in Iraq: "You know you have won when the only territory the occupier controls is directly beneath his boots."

Dan says, "That seemed to be about as succinct a summation of the difficulties of the war in Iraq as any I have heard."

But he didn't use it in his story Wednesday because he was unable to confirm if those were Lawrence of Arabia's exact words or a paraphrasing of his work.

• Carnival in Kiev: Correspondent Fred Weir says that the pro-Yushchenko crowd in Kiev has dwindled. "There's still a tent village of several thousand students. The village is behind wooden barricades and there are flags with the names of the towns they're from outside the tents," he says. Beyond the encampment is Independence Square, where the crowds gather daily and a stage where Viktor Yushchenko speaks most evenings. "Wednesday morning, before I filed my story (this page), there was a Ukrainian band playing and a small crowd of about 1,000 or so. The spirit of the protest continues, albeit in reduced numbers," Fred says.

"In Kiev, they seem more passionate than people in the pro-Yanykovich eastern city of Donetsk, where they have daily rallies that last about an hour. There, they sneered at the people in Kiev as being 'idlers' who just sit in streets and don't work. In Dontesk, they say they're too busy working to stage a revolution."

David Clark Scott
World editor