Inside the Beltway

D.C. screening

Mike McCurry, who was a press secretary to President Clinton, will introduce a panel discussion next Wednesday evening after a special Washington screening of Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” to be shown in the amphitheater of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

The panel will address “Lessons of Munich: How Should Free Societies Deal with Terrorism?” pertaining to the aftermath of the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Hosts of the screening — the movie is not rated, but is said to be gripping — are Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures, Foreign Policy magazine, and Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Kyoto conspiracy

It’s a difficult week for officials in Washington to get too worked up over global warming when — two weeks before the official start of winter — they’re shoveling snow from sidewalks and shivering in subfreezing temperatures.

Nevertheless, representatives from 189 countries are gathered this week in Montreal for the 11th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties, wishing no doubt that President Bush — who prefers to hibernate in the winter — would join them in finding ways to curb global warming.

Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, Maine Republican, even called on Mr. Bush this week to “engage” in the climate change discussions, reminding him that, by treaty, the United States is obligated to join constructively in the dialogue.

“The United States has a legal obligation … to participate in a substantive way to combat global climate change,” she scolded. “With global temperatures rising at an alarming rate, we must address this issue immediately.”

Meanwhile, Inside the Beltway’s insider at the talks, Christopher C. Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says the Montreal gaggle has attracted virtually every type of activist, including the environmental clearinghouse IndyMedia, which has announced a bizarre twist to Mr. Bush’s opposition to the Kyoto Protocol.

The group is drawing attention to “The Truth About 9/11,” which relates to lies surrounding the “official” story of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Several videos it cites “attest to the illegal government of George Bush, who did conspire to murder 3,000 American citizens.”

“Can you count to three?” it asks. “Then you might like to explain how only two planes hit the Twin Towers of [New York’s World Trade Center], and yet a third building collapsed without the benefit of a plane.”

Mr. Horner says the “revelation” dovetails nicely with last month’s word by the same bunch that terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden has endorsed Kyoto.

Men warm globe

Our favorite headline from the U.N. climate convention in Montreal is compliments of Marc Morano, the Washington-based senior writer for Cybercast News Service, who says the debate over climate change has evolved into a battle of the sexes.

A spokeswoman for a German-based feminist group, he reveals, leaves no doubt as to which sex she thinks is the chief culprit in emitting greenhouse gasses — men.

“Women and men are differently affected by climate change and they contribute differently to climate change,” said Ulrike Rohr, who calls for “climate gender justice.”

“To give you an example from Germany, it is mostly men who are going by car. Women are going by public transport mostly,” she said.

Longing for Sara

Before answering machines with recorded menus, before voice mail, before call waiting, there was the operator.

On Friday, at the National Archives Building in Washington, a little-known chapter in American history — female telephone operators’ central place in the development of global communications — will be relived in “The Phantom of the Operator.”

The Guggenheim Center for the Documentary Film at the National Archives will present “wry and delightful found-footage” produced in North America beginning in 1903 by Bell and Western Electric.

Filmmaker Caroline Martel, who will be on hand at the William G. McGowan Theater to introduce the documentary, put together in montage from more than 100 rarely seen film clips — some serious, some humorous, some quirky. Showtime is 7 p.m.

• John McCaslin, whose column is nationally syndicated, can be reached at 202/636-3284 or jmccaslin@washingtontimes.com.