Three newsmakers share those initials:

Hillary Rodham Clinton

the Human Rights Campaign

and the UN’s Human Rights Council, about which the New York Sun’s Benny Avni has got something to say:

Secretary-General Ban challenged the U.N. Human Rights Council yesterday to “live up to its promise,” but diplomats and observers in Geneva predicted the rights body would fail once more to condemn violations in any country except Israel.

In its fourth session, which opened yesterday, members of the council are expected to reject adverse findings from a fact-finding mission to Sudan. The council has yet to decide whether any human rights violations have occurred in Darfur, although Washington has called the violence in the Sudanese region genocide.

The 47-member Geneva-based body has already singled out Israel for condemnation in eight resolutions and is preparing four new resolutions against the Jewish state in its current session.

Last week, America decided not to seek a seat on the council, a move seen in Geneva as a diplomatic slight intended to discredit the top human rights organ of the United Nations.

Thomas Mallon wonders aloud what today’s intellectual climate bodes for the future. Here are a few of his musings:

How can American professors learn to write about literature in language that isn’t a crude, pseudo-technical insult to the text it’s supposedly explicating?

[A]re owners of intellectual property willing to realize that longer and longer copyright terms are doing more to inhibit than promote creativity?

Are American writers, artists, and thinkers truly prepared to admit that Islamofascism is a real, and even imminent, threat to everything they are accustomed to thinking, saying, and creating?

That last one is what caught my eye on Andrew Sullivan’s blog. But this one is my personal favorite, because it addresses the question that came up after 9/11 that was never addressed honestly: why “they” hate us.

Are we also willing to admit that the universalization of English is more apparent than real? And that our general failure to know foreign languages is an act of both laziness and arrogance — one that threatens America’s legitimate claims to leadership in the world?

One reason “they” hate us is that we don’t even care enough about any of “them” to even learn their goddam languages or custums. As a nation, we are dangerously self-involved—and smug about it to boot. That has got to change.

As of 4:40 p.m. March 14, fully two days after the kidnapping of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston in Gaza, here’s the latest from Google News:

BBC kidnapping blamed on Mideast gangs
United Press International - 35 minutes ago
… Authority officials have determined that the parties responsible for the recent kidnapping of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston were criminal gangs. …

Note that we are once more back on the theory that it was criminals (”Mideast gangs”)—i.e., not a political faction—who abducted Johnston.

Also, I’m very short on time, so I haven’t had time to search and Google and report thoroughly, but it looks like not even Fox News has reported this story on the air. Obviously, no media organization wants to get in the way of whatever negotiations may be ongoing for Johnston’s release. Still: you’d think some American news organization would care enough about this to mention it.

I’m on the story, as promised. Here are the latest headlines from Google News about the status of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped in Gaza on Monday, March 12:

SNP predicts big win in May election
Times Online, UK - 14 minutes ago
Rival Palestinian factions held a joint rally yesterday to condemn the kidnapping of the BBC’s Gaza correspondent, Alan Johnston. …

Search goes on for kidnapped BBC reporter in Gaza Middle East Times, Egypt - 19 minutes ago Alan Johnston, 44, was forced from his car by gunmen Monday while driving home from his Gaza office, the latest in a spate of abductions foreigners in the …

Hunt continues for Gaza reporter
BBC News, UK - 1 hour ago
Efforts continue in the Gaza Strip to find BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who has been missing since Monday afternoon and is feared kidnapped. …

Gaza officials claim to know who is responsible for the abduction …
New Criminologist, UK - 1 hour ago
The Hamas-led administration said it identified the abductors of Alan Johnston and hoped to locate him soon. Security officials said four masked gunmen in a …

DEBKAfile Exclusive: The Sword of Islam (al Qaeda) kidnapped and …
DEBKA file, Israel - 1 hour ago
Our counter-terror sources report that Johnston, 44, was snatched Monday, March 12, in Gaza City, by the same group which together with Hamas kidnapped the …

Hamas government acts to free kidnapped BBC man
Mail & Guardian Online, South Africa - 2 hours ago
The Hamas-run Palestinian government said on Tuesday that it was working to release Alan Johnston, the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) Gaza …

As I write, at 8:30 a.m. on March 14, some 48 hours after the abduction, CNN’s American Morning is airing a clip from its Middle East correspondent Ben Wedeman. It’s about the Jesus tomb story. Wedeman also appears live and talks to Miles O’Brien about his canned piece.

Nada—nada—about his fellow journalist, who was kidnapped in Gaza. I guess it’s not on CNN’s “news” menu for the day.

For what it’s worth, in direct contradiction to yesterday’s narrative, in which it was said that “criminals” kidnapped Johnston, Debka (linked above and notoriously tendentious but often enough knowledgeable) writes the following:

The Sword of Islam (al Qaeda) kidnapped and is holding BBC reporter Alan Johnston

Our counter-terror sources report that Johnston, 44, was snatched Monday, March 12, in Gaza City, by the same group which together with Hamas kidnapped the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit in June 2006. It is led by the brothers Mumtaz and Muetaz Durmush.

Palestinian security units have been going through the motions of hunting for the missing journalist, throwing up roadblocks and searching vehicles. In actual fact, they know exactly who is holding him. Although it is an open secret, the Palestinian authorities, like the British, who maintain a broad intelligence presence in the Gaza Strip, and Israel all feign ignorance about the party behind the kidnap.

The BBC is counting on a private deal for freeing Johnston, thereby giving the Durmush brothers another boost. Every few weeks the al Qaeda group they head targets a Westerner as a hostage. All of them, excepting the Israeli soldier, have been ransomed for hundreds of thousands of dollars, a supply of weapons and guarantees of safety for the Durmishes and their Sword of Islam gang.

Here comes the tendentious part:

DEBKA file’s counter-terror sources see this process, which repeats itself periodically, as abject surrender by the United States, Britain, other European governments and Israel to a virulent form of al Qaeda terror instead of fighting it.

Indeed, this story isn’t being reported on American television, as far as I can tell. Should we call this an “abject surrender” or mere suppression of the news?