Quote of the Week: The winner, despite intense competition, is senior International Olympic Committee official Arne Ljungqvist, who said the deadly air pollution in Beijing is "mist," not a "major risk" and blamed the media for hyping the non-problem.

"The mist in the air that we see . . . is not a feature of pollution primarily, but a feature of evaporation and humidity," Ljungqvist, chairman of the IOC's medical commission, told reporters Tuesday. "We do have a communication problem here," he added, which was the "exaggeration of the problem that has been seen in the media."

We apologize. It turns out the local readings for pollution that day were only 91, a whopping nine points below the level considered harmful to sensitive groups, such as children and the elderly. Yesterday, the Associated Press reported a reading of only 96 for Beijing, still under the key threshold, although anything over 50 is moderate pollution.

The worst pollutant, tiny dust particles -- they doubtless mix very nicely with that mist -- were at 373, more than seven times what the World Health Organization considers the level for healthy air.

What about all those athletes who are wearing face masks to protect from contaminants, and the talk about moving or re-scheduling events -- marathons, for example -- if the air gets worse?

"I would not discourage athletes from wearing" masks, Ljungqvist said, "but I do not think it is necessary. . . . I would not wear one whether I was an athlete or not."

So that scary pea-soup gray haze is no big deal? Those brown clouds you fly over as you leave the city -- they don't turn white for at least an hour or so -- are not a concern? The State Department's guidance that "respiratory and heart diseases related to air pollution are the leading cause of death in China" is not a problem?

Only if you live there, Ljungqvist said. That's the key. "Temporary visitors" should not worry about "long-term effects," he said.

Maybe a little eye irritation, wheezing, maybe trouble seeing the soccer ball coming at you, that's all. If you stay too long, you may get that scary hacking cough you hear among folks at the U.S. Embassy, so just make sure you're gone when the Games end in a couple weeks.

Don't want to stay too long in the workers' paradise.

Great Expectations

Runner-Up Quote of the Week:

"I did not expect this indictment," Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) told the Ketchikan Daily News on Tuesday. "This is an indictment for failure to disclose gifts that are controversial in terms of whether they were or were not gifts. It's not bribery; it's not some corruption; it's not some extreme felony."

Okay, so it's not a triple murder. But it is a felony, nonetheless. Actually, seven alleged felonies in all.

Back in Print

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller made quite a name for herself a few years back with her reporting on the dangers from all those weapons of mass destruction amassed by Saddam Hussein. The Times later apologized for her reporting, and she retired in 2005.

She became even more famous when she spent 85 days in jail for contempt of court for refusing to give up Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, as the person who told her Valerie Plame, wife of former diplomat and administration critic Joseph C. Wilson IV, was a CIA officer.

Now, after a couple of years in a much lower profile at the conservative Manhattan Institute, Miller's back on Iraq and back in big-circulation print. In the July Reader's Digest, she reports how great things are in U.S.-run detention facilities, now managed by a vastly more competent leadership.

It's not just that the horrific abuses of Abu Ghraib are no longer, which would be a significant accomplishment in itself. But Miller reports that life in two detention camps housing nearly 23,000 suspected insurgents is much improved.

"Rather, thousands of once illiterate detainees have learned how to read and write. Hundreds more are now studying math, science, geography, civics, Arabic and English and learning carpentry, bricklaying and other skills that may enable them to feed their families after their release. They play soccer and ping-pong, visit their families, pray, and debate how to accurately interpret the Koran they can now read for themselves."

ICE Wants Nice

Julie L. Myers, assistant homeland security secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is going to ask Congress to discipline Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.), vice chairman of the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee, for referring to "the Gestapo agents at Homeland Security," Congressional Quarterly reported yesterday on its Web site.

Gutierrez, in a column for the Politico, made the comparison while commenting on ICE's recent raid on a meatpacking plant in Iowa. Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) made a similar reference at a hearing in February.

Get Thee to a . . .

Working for seven years on the Hill for GOP Sens. Judd Gregg (N.H), Sam Brownback (Kans.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) can have a curious effect on some people, it seems. It might drive some aides to lucrative careers on K Street.

But it drove Katy French, minority staff director for a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee, right into a nunnery.

"I will be joining a religious order," she told colleagues in her goodbye e-mail, "I think we can all agree that nothing but the nunnery would cure my potty-mouth and Diet Coke habit." She noted: "I know this is a crazy, unusual path." For the next three years, she'll be studying at local convents as a member of the order of Servidoras Novitiate, starting in Upper Marlboro.

Unusual, but maybe predictable. French, 35, worked in AIDS and substance abuse programs for a university and private organizations before heading to the Hill. She was raised an evangelical Protestant but, like then-boss Brownback, converted to Catholicism four years ago.

French credited Pope Benedict XVI's words last year in New York that people should have courage as what "pushed me over the cliff." Or at least off the Hill, where her last day is today.

And how did her colleagues react? One "couldn't talk for five minutes," she said. "I'm not known as the most loving, gentle soul" on the Hill, she added, but more of a "trench warfare" type.

Well, that'll be handy in some of the urban neighborhoods where she expects to be serving.

What You Don't Know

And now, some things you might not know about St. Paul, Minn., host of the 2008 Republican National Convention, courtesy of an e-mail we got the other day from Mike Zipko, part of the city's media relations team for the event.

"Next time you bag your groceries or wrap a birthday gift, think of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Saint Paul is the birthplace of the paper shopping bag (Walter H. Deubner) and Scotch® tape (3M), along with the "super computer" (Seymour Cray) and numerous nationally known figures. Beloved cartoonist Charles M. Schulz (Peanuts), author F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), pro baseball player Joe Mauer (Minnesota Twins), and late Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger are just a few of Saint Paul's famous natives."

Thanks.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/07/AR2008080703085_pf.html