Like many Americans, Pam Bottaro reacted to the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington with a mixture of horror and utter incomprehension. Although well educated and politically engaged, nothing she had read or seen on television had prepared her for an anti-American backlash. "Why do these people hate us so much?" was the question she kept hearing all around her. As Americans wake up to the need to better understand the world around us, "teach-ins" have come roaring back into fashion.

In the wake of the government's multi-billion-dollar bailout of the airline industry, Public Citizen has compiled a report showing how airlines used aggressive lobbying and campaign contributions to turn the Federal Aviation Administration into its accomplice as it fought for years to stall, scale back and ignore specific security recommendations made by a 1996 presidential commission.

"US lawmakers are finally moving the return of the three-martini lunch ... to the front of the national agenda," PR Week reports with considerable satisfaction. "Unsure whether the best way to help their country is to offer pro bono work or to send hefty checks to relief agencies, flacks may put themselves to good use by revisiting their glory days, and by being the first to the trough," it states.