Casualties of a war at home....

So, I wondered before I started out this morning, what are junkies like?

I should have known better. I've been over at R's when somebody's come looking to exchange used needles. Although he doesn't encourage junkies to show up at his house in an upscale San Diego neighborhood, R permits a few to drop by if they're in desperate need, the ones he's gotten to know over the 12 years he's performed needle-exchange and who are now almost friends.

Someone R knows wrote the grants and got the technically-illegal program off the ground. Politicians and law-enforcement officials who stumble across it tend to look the other way, and media attention has been focused elsewhere, on a new, officially-sanctioned program which has been making tentative baby steps and takes pains to distance itself from R's group.

A shame, considering the invaluable experience they've garnered during more than 12 years ministering to hundreds (thousands?) of addicts, providing them with clean needles, alcohol swabs, antibiotic ointment and other harm-reduction materials, thereby prolonging lives and preventing the spread of a host of blood-born illnesses to non-drug users.

Formerly once-a-week, now every other week, R or another volunteer drives the 4 to 5-hour route, stopping at designated homes. People know he's coming, news of the service spreads by word-of-mouth, and many junkies help out addicted friends, collecting and exchanging full sharps-containers for empties and requesting extra clean needles and syringes to hand out.

Nothing remarkable distinguishes the people I've previously encountered at R's, so much so that I've given up trying to figure out who is a volunteer, who a junkie and who just a friend when a new face appears at the door. Until they go back to the garage and the exchange occurs, I simply don't know.

Today was different, however, we were going to their homes, and a trend quickly became apparent. These are people who have seen better times. Harshly used by life, they have been rendered as worn and threadbare as the scuffed wall-to-wall carpet that invariably covered the floors of their tiny, shuttered and darkened homes.

The houses, sometimes ramshackle on the outside, were surprisingly neat and clean inside. Cheaply turned out with battered furnishings and sometimes cluttered, they were vacuumed and dusted and I never saw a single dirty dish in a sink.

Better times were evidenced, though, by framed photographs on walls and side-tables. In one, a young man in military uniform stared seriously at the camera. In several, young adults posed proudly in caps-and-gowns--children? Or the addicts themselves? I saw the occasional wedding picture, solemn or smiling, and framed slogans celebrating Black pride. In one apartment, a collection of framed rock-band playbills decorated two walls. I saw fresh fruit and delivered bottled water in several homes--suggestions of healthier habits, perhaps formed during happier days.

The junkies defied categories. They were white, black and brown--the latter a reflection of the U.S.A.-Mexico border just miles away--male and female, mostly middle-aged to older. Although determining a junkie's age is pure guesswork: poverty and addiction ravage a person's looks.

No matter how humble their circumstances, though, or compromised their health, people were polite and gracious. They asked after R's wife and toddler. Shook my hand and made sure they ended by saying how glad they were to have met me. And always, they thanked us profusely.

"They're so used to nobody caring," R said, "they're just grateful we come by."

Truly, the encounters had the quality of social visits. People often seemed as grateful for the effort R made to seek them out and interact with them--knowing they were junkies--as for the supplies he provided.

It didn't take too many homes before I found myself wondering if I wasn't witnessing the graphic results of 30 years of economic warfare against America's working classes. Yes, I know, they're junkies, addicted to physically-disabling (and illegal) substances--sometimes to the point of not being able to hold down jobs. But what jobs are available? Do any come with a living wage and benefits?

How different would these folks' circumstances look had they money in the bank and, say, guaranteed health and dental-care? Don't tell me the face of addiction is not determined by economics. I'll come back at you with Dennis Hopper, Drew Barrymore, Matthew Perry and Robert Downey, Jr.

The people we saw today aren't even enjoying their addiction. "They don't talk about getting high anymore," R told me. "They talk about getting well." They inject drugs regularly just to keep at bay heroin's devastating withdrawal symptoms.

All made an impression, of one sort or another.

First was a bone-thin, older black woman, whose tiny, low-to-the-ground pink-stucco bungalow could barely contain all her cheap furniture and belongings. She had forgotten we were coming. Still attired in a nightgown at 11:30, she swayed on her feet, teetering to one side like her cottage, and her hands shook as she handed over used needles and accepted clean ones.

"She has congenital heart failure," R told me once we were back in the car. "That never gets better, you know, it just keeps getting worse." Turns out, she was the woman I'd heard about for years, who looked out after the neighborhood's derelicts, suffering the wrath of the cops for it, frequent visitors to her bungalow.

Then there was the short, stocky, 40-something black man, whose belly hung out from under his T-shirt and over the waistband of his camouflage fatigues. His teeth were rotted completely away, when he smiled shyly, a few yellow stumps poked up. He gave us a twenty as a voluntary donation.

Next we saw a long-haired, large-breasted and slightly chubby prostitute. White and in her 30's, she lived in a small, cluttered trailer that had seen its last vacation, in a park replete with faded, crumbling, no-longer-mobile homes.

While a male acquaintance lounged on the unmade bed and surfed the Internet for porn, she quietly rummaged for her used needles, thanked us in a soft voice for coming and followed us outside to lock the gate as we left. Gesturing toward her coddled, well-groomed chow who lounged in the shade, "She keeps her eyes glued to the gate, never missing a chance to escape," the woman flashed us a sweet smile that dropped decades from her face.

One guy was a newbie. A rangy, weather-worn white man in his late 30's, he was working on an orange BMW in his driveway with a bare-chested, gray-bearded tattooed man when we drove up. He led us into the house, down a pitch dark hallway where he flipped on a light and opened a combination lock that secured a bedroom door. Tossing out the cat who tried to sneak in behind us, he closed the door and stood shyly in his T-shirt and Levis, fingers hooked into a belt with a large, Western buckle.

R asked how many clean needles he and his girlfriend would need. "Ahhh....fourteen?" he replied, shuffling his feet on the carpet. Then his eyes widened like a schoolboy at a comic-book convention as R scooped out a couple brimming handfuls of needles and syringes, placing the pile of sterilely sealed packages on the neatly-made bed.

"There are two of you, right?" R asked. "And it'll be two weeks 'til we're back. So take enough and only use each one once."

Toward the end, we saw a bubbling Latina, who rushed out and exchanged with us out of the trunk of her car in the parking lot of Marie Callender's, attired in her waitress' uniform. Then a slightly older woman who lives in a nice track home with her sister and aged mother. She delighted in her pet Chihuahua, excited by our arrival. "He doesn't usually like men," she said. She'd rescued the dog as a stray, battered and spitting up blood, and nursed him back to health.

The last guy we visited for the day was a Mexican-American man of indeterminate age, thin and lanky, with large, expressive hands. He almost seemed starved for contact, more interested in engaging us in conversation than in getting supplies. We made the exchange beside the car, parked in a dirt alleyway next to his house, under the constant watch of a loud group of neighbors across the street.

The man drew out the encounter, slowly transferring used needles into the proffered sharps-container, bent over the ground in front of the car and concealing his actions by placing everything within a large brown paper bag. He exchanged that bag for a new bag, containing clean needles and an empty sharps-container. All the while, he talked to R. How was the baby? What was new? Was this our last call for the day? He didn't seem to want to let us go.

As we drove toward home, I asked R about the scabs covering the man's hands. "He's collapsed all his veins," R said. "So he only skin-pops now." A particularly risky practice, R added, as infections are easy to catch and spread that way. Yet the man persistently refuses R's offers of antibiotic ointment.

"Junkies just don't take care of themselves," R said, sighing. "They've been told for so long that they don't deserve it, they've come to believe it."

Clean needles for junkies....

I'm off this morning to accompany one of my best friends as he does the weekly run on San Diego's underground needle-exchange program. More later....

Almost forgot: Ann Garrels....

NPR announced this past week that reporter Ann Garrels had returned to the U.S. from Baghdad--safe and sound, much to the relief of her family and loved-ones. Garrels, 52, said she had noticeably less stamina than her mostly younger media colleagues on the ground in Iraq, and that this would be the last war she would choose to cover. Welcome home...!

Why the silence...?

My favorite blogs (listed on this site) have been curiously silent to date on SARS, and I'm wondering why.

For my case, I've been reluctant to contribute to the gradual but steady buildup of hysteria, as the mainstream media beast turns its lumbering head from contemplating the war in Iraq to focusing on the mysterious illness.

At the same time, several facts concern me.

First, the scientific community has announced various SARS "breakthroughs," only to subsequently backpedal furiously when new cases and evidence fail to corroborate their original theories.

For example, health officials have been unable to detect the virus thought to cause SARS in a high percentage of the most recent fatalities.

Also, after touting that countries with well-established, modern public-health systems seem capable of containing outbreaks--allowing citizens in "developed nations" to breathe a sigh of relief and dismiss the illness as a "third world" problem-- the World Health Organization this week issued a health advisory against unnecessary travel to Toronto--provoking an emotional firestorm from Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman (unfortunate name, considering) and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. They and others are furiously lobbying WHO to reverse, or at least tone-down, the advisory, hoping to salvage mega tourist dollars hanging in the balance--a lost cause at this point, I'd wager.

More troubling, a N.Y. Times article on Tuesday states that the SARS death rate, while low, is climbing, rather than decreasing as typically occurs over time:

But as the number of cases has increased — to 3,861 yesterday — the death rate has also steadily risen, leaving health officials worried. Lacking a precise explanation for the rise, health officials have generated a number of theories.....

[...]

One theory for the rising SARS death rate is that the initial cases involved health care workers who were healthy 20-to-45-year-old adults and who had better access to health care than others. Then, as the infected health workers unintentionally spread the disease to family members and friends, and they, in turn, to others, SARS has infected an increasing number of older people with heart disease, diabetes and other chronic ailments.

A second theory is that many of the SARS deaths occurred among patients who became ill weeks ago but who died only recently, after extended hospital stays.

Still another, and more disputed, theory is that the SARS virus, a newly discovered member of the coronavirus family, has become more virulent as it infected new generations of cases....

[...]

If the death-rate trend continues, SARS will be unlike the first outbreaks of other newly discovered microbes where the initially high death rate substantially declined as the development of diagnostic tests and further epidemiologic investigation documented the existence of mild, even asymptomatic, cases.

A confusion among health experts over the cause SARS is most troubling.

On Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta posted on its Web site (www.cdc.gov) an advisory to doctors caring for SARS patients, saying the cause of the disease was unknown. The update came days after the W.H.O. had announced that the coronavirus was the cause of SARS and created some confusion as to whether the Americans and the W.H.O. disagreed on the matter. Although a C.D.C. spokesman said yesterday that the update was in error and would be corrected, the Saturday version remained on the Web site last [Monday] night.

And it is still there.

I sincerely want to be overreacting here. But I can't help flashing back to the early, early days of HIV. I was living in San Francisco and heard the first word-of-mouth rumors about a strange illness that was killing gay men. Granted, we are far from as naive now as then, in large part due to the AIDS epidemic. But the "fortunate" characteristic about HIV--and I use the word loosely, having lost far too many friends and acquaintances to AIDS--is that the virus is extremely hard to transmit. SARS, on the other hand, can be spread casually, from one person to another, by sharing an elevator or breathing the same air in a hallway.

According to the N.Y. Times, the current 5.6% death rate is much higher than the less than 1% rate for the influenza pandemic of 1918-19, which killed 20 million to 40 million people worldwide because it spread so quickly.

Entire story here.

Another way to accomplish regime change....

Impeach their asses...! The following great idea is from yesterday's dailyKOS.

We invaded Iraq SOLELY on the basis of its supposed WMD program. We damaged international institutions such as the UN and NATO. We wounded our relationships with several of our closest allies and Russia, spurring talk of global coalitions against US hegemony. We spent an $80 billion on the war and first 6 months of occupation, more to come later. We suffered over 600 dead and wounded. We killed untold thousands.

[...]

If in six months no such weapons are found, then start impeachment proceedings.

This war has been too costly, in both treasure and human life. To have based the war on nothing more than rumor is gross incompetence. Our country deserves better.

Remember that this was never about "freedom". The presence of Eritria, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Ethopia in our "Coalition of the Willing" proves that. It was about WMDs.

If we don't find them, the costs were all for naught, and Bush should pay the price.

Of course now, according to today's KOS, administration officials are spinning that they overstated the thread of Iraqi WMDs and invaded Iraq simply to "make a point." If Clinton can suffer impeachment proceedings for lying about a blowjob in the White House, how much more so should Bush for the travesty of bringing about this war through a campaign of willful misinformation and lies?!

Regime change in the U.S.A...!

MoveOn.org is starting a campaign to defeat Bush and the Republicans in 2004.

Sign up here.

As MoveOn points out, the Republicans are already gearing up for the campaign. Progressives need to get organized! MoveOn now has 1.3 million members. If you're not one of them, JOIN NOW. It's fast, it's easy. And grassroots action is the only way we're going to wrest control of the government from the hands of the oligarchy....

U.S. warns Iraqis....

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 23 — The American military moved today to strip Baghdad's self-appointed administrator of his authority and warned Iraqi factions not to take advantage of the confusion and the political void in the country by trying to grab power.

Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of ground forces in Iraq, issued a proclamation putting Iraq's politicians on notice, saying, "The coalition alone retains absolute authority within Iraq." He warned that anyone challenging the American-led authority would be subject to arrest.

Ooooh! I'll bet that really scares them!

Just what are we going to threaten to do if Iraqis don't behave? Starve them into submission? Cut off all power, water and food? Destroy their hospitals? Mow them down by the hundreds with our superior firepower, then bomb their cities to smithereens?

Uh-huh. Been there, done that and the natives are still gettin' uppity.

...Among those engaged in the rush for power were two longtime Iraqi exiles. American concern over the activities of these two men — Muhammad Mohsen Zobeidi and Ahmad Chalabi — has begun to grow, military officials said.

Wasn't Chalabi Bush's golden boy? ...How quickly the milk sours under the hot, Iraqi sun.

Zobeidi, whose qualifications for running Baghdad include participation in a "disaster control management course" arranged by the State Department--now there's a phrase that could describe Bush's reign in general--asserts that he was chosen to lead an executive council charged with administering Baghdad. He has allegedly moved to appoint a police chief, ignoring the police official installed by the Army's Third Infantry Division, while his supporters have been busy "appropriating" government vehicles.

Later, the article addresses the administration's about-face on Mr. Chalabi.

Some Bush administration officials, however, have been skeptical that Mr. Chalabi, who spent the past few decades in exile, would attract much of a following in iraq.[sic] And allied military officials have been concerned that Mr. Chalabi's men are throwing their weight around to build a political base for their leader.

Mr. Chalabi has about 700 fighters in his entourage who were flown to the Iraqi air base at Tallil several weeks ago by the American military at the request of Pentagon officials. American forces then scoured the country for arms and ammunition to equip the fighters so that they could participate in the campaign to oust Mr. Hussein.[Emphasis mine.]

American officials are now worried that some these men are being reorganized as a private security force for Mr. Chalabi and suspect they have been setting up their own checkpoints and even --gasp!-- detaining Iraqis.

Thus, mere weeks after establishing Mr. Chalabi's force, allied commanders are now planning to either demobilize it or place it formally under allied command. (Good luck!)

Up to now, we're lockstep with the familiar plan: appoint the puppet, uh, leader, set him up, arm him to the teeth, then sit back and wait. Until one day we realize--Ooops, we've created a monster! Then take him out. Although our reaction-time seems to be lightning quick in this instance.

Complete story here.

An alternative to....

I designed a business card today and, first draft, came up with a motto, "Blogging...an alternative to civil disobedience."

As I proceeded to write that phrase here, however, inspiration struck. Blogging, an alternative not to civil disobedience, but to jail-time. That's much closer to the truth.

I started to blog after making a decision to participate in civil disobedience against this second Iraq war. When I ran the idea of getting arrested by family and friends, though, not one of them was in favor. No surprise there: a transgendered person faces special risks in jail.

Enter blogging. I've been a fan for some time--Tom Tomorrow's fault. Not only that, since I graduated from journalism school, I've known that editorials and opinion pieces are my true loves. So, blogging it was, rather than jail.

But...blogging--putting what are in essence first drafts out there for public criticism--carries its own risks. Enter another inspiration, Arianna Huffington.

I remember when she first surfaced in the op-ed pages. "You ought to check her out," my father insisted, but I was a hard one to convince. How could this diva of the Far Right, ex-wife to failed Californian Republican Senate candidate, Michael Huffington, have anything to say that I'd want to read?

My first exposure was by accident. I found myself drawn in by an op-ed piece in the pages of the L.A. Times. I can't remember the topic--SUVs, cuts in education funding, corporate greed, something.... I read it all the way through and was thinking Right on! when I looked up at the author's name. Arianna Huffington? No way!

After that, I began watching for her name, regularly reading her columns--almost surreptitiously. Months went by and never encountering an opinion piece I didn't like, I had to admit: this woman could write and her keen wit and biting criticism were on-target!

And speaking of risks! Huffington evolved from Republican vamp, darling of Newt Gingrich's Revolution, to one of the hardest-hitting, progressive political pundits in the nation--all while in the public eye. What an inspiration.

I met Huffington this evening. She spoke and signed copies of her new book, Pigs at the Trough, at a local, independent bookstore. It was standing-room-only, even in conservative San Diego! And Huffington did not disappoint. She is as articulate and courageous in person, as she is on the printed page. (Not so me. Tongue-tied, brain-dead and shuffling my feet, I pushed a book across for her to sign. Along with one of my first-draft business cards. She's a big fan of blogs, it seems.)

She bills herself an unflagging optimist, confident that the groundswell of progressivism sweeping the country, if given 6-9 months to grow, will transform the upcoming presidential election. "We do not want a repeat of the 2000 campaign!" she said, to loud audience approval.

She will never run for public office, she stated in response to a question from the audience. "Eighty percent of the time is spent raising money. You have to be some sort of psychotic to do that!" Moreover, once elected, the system corrupts even the most idealistic and well-meaning of candidates.

"We've got to change the system. And systems in this country," she said, citing the Civil Rights Movement and Feminism, "are not changed by politicians, but by mass movements." She added that there are now two super-powers in the world: the U.S. and organized popular movements.

I especially appreciated her definition of fanatics. "They're impervious to evidence," which perfectly describes Bush, Wolfowitz, Perle and the other self-anointed millennium crusaders.

"I'm in the Army now, I'm not behind the plough...."

Oh well, what do we need teachers for anyway? Just enlist those kids in the armed services! The next NPR story identified San Diego as the "largest military complex in the world." Wow.... I knew that aircraft carriers operating in the Persian Gulf were home-ported here. We have a busy naval airfield, just east of where I work. And then there's the huge Marine Corps base in the north county, conveniently situated alongside a nuclear power plant, its telltale dome less than a couple hundred meters off the main highway leading to Los Angeles.

Which puts us right up there with NYC as a likely terrorist target, wouldn't you say? Al Qaeda even knows San Diego, having located a couple of the 9/11 hijackers here as they prepared for the infamous attack.

But fear not: we're protected by the CIA, Homeland Security and the FBI!

Ahhh...the same FBI that locally placed an informant as a roommate to one of the 9/11 hijackers, but still failed to uncover the plot? That's the one!

Aren't you glad Bush waged war in Afghanistan and Iraq to make us all safer from terrorism?


The "bloodbath" begins at home....

NPR also announced this morning that 400 jobs will be cut from the San Diego School District to recoup $52 million of an expected $148 million shortfall. Sounds like most of those cut will be teachers. With many more to come....

Why...?

Tell me again, why did we invade Iraq? 9/11...Weapons of mass destruction...Liberate the people from the horrible dictator. Yeah, yeah. Anything but oil. Well, NPR reported this morning that Baghdad is still without power, water and security, yet the oil is flowing once again from the Iraqi fields.

Actions speak lounder than words.

He won't take No for an answer....

Unless his brother says it....

WASHINGTON — Blocked by stiff congressional opposition to opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, the Bush administration is moving on its own to promote energy exploration in the icy waters off Alaska.

Government officials are inviting oil companies to bid later this year on the rights to drill in the Beaufort Sea off northern Alaska, an area unaffected by a moratorium on new offshore exploration in much of the rest of the country.

[...]

The Alaskan coast may be one of the best hopes left to President Bush to achieve his goal of developing more domestic energy production.

In response to objections from his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president reduced drilling opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico, and agreed to spend $235 million to cancel unused oil and gas leases elsewhere off Florida's coast and in the Everglades.

Add to that $235 million cancelation penalty, millions of dollars' worth of incentives to encourage bids on the high-risk Alaskan leases.

Yay! Another tax-payer debacle. Bush sells-out, we shell-out!

Complete story here, via Common Dreams.

Drink up...!

But not that cuppa joe....

WASHINGTON, April 21 (AP) —Tea increases the body's defenses against infection and contains a substance that may be turned into a drug to protect against disease, a study has found. Coffee does not have the same effect, the researchers say in an article today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A component in tea primes the immune system to attack invading bacteria, viruses and fungi, the study concluded.

An experiment showed that immune system blood cells of tea drinkers responded five times faster to germs than did the blood cells of coffee drinkers.

Darn! When are they going to discover something healthy about coffee?
Full story here.

Get one while you can...!

This in today's N.Y. Times:

ITALY: PIN-UP PRIESTS A calendar of handsome young priests posing in front of famous Rome landmarks has gone on sale. The priests are featured in "Calendario Romano 2004," intended to promote tourism in Rome. It is not affiliated with the Vatican, although January's picture, left, promotes St. Peter's Square. The black-and-white photographs were by Piero Pazzi. "I usually photograph gondoliers for Venetian calendars, but this time I wanted to do something Roman, and what better than priests?" he said. "The priests are young and good-looking, but that doesn't make them sex symbols. That depends on the imagination of the viewer." (Reuters)

Indeed it does...!

Let's give the photographer the benefit of the doubt that the priestly pedophile scandal, so unavoidable here, has yet to arouse widespread public condemnation in Italy. I still can't believe that the Vatican isn't going to come down on this calendar like a ton of moldy communion wafers.

As a lapsed Catholic, survivor of 5 years of Catholic grammar-school, I'd wager that otherwise, the calendar will sell better than papal dispensations at a bigamists' convention. All that Catholic guilt, you know.

It's not too late...!

Still nearly two hours left on the East Coast and a whopping five on the West Coast until Earth Day 2003 will be officially over in the U.S. of A. Go here and see what you can do to make a difference.

Or better yet, make every day Earth Day and change your life in big and little ways to tread a smaller footprint on our generous Mother. Ride your bike, sell your car. Become vegetarian. Recycle!

At the very least, as they say on the Earth Day Network site, Register to Vote! But only environmentalists....the rest of youse guys stay home on election day! (Can't imagine anyone out there still reading after all this time is anything but!)

Sobering....

This site has posted photos of many of the American soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq (along with British and French casulties).

An image is worth a thousand words....

Bush vacation daze....

The front page of today's N.Y. Times print-edition shows President Bush, wife, Laura, and family dog, Barney, disembarking Air Force One in D.C. after yet another a trip to Texas. Now, the caption doesn't say Bush was on vacation, but it was Easter, after all, so I'm going to make a leap here and assume the royal couple were kicking back at The Ranch.

What I'd like to know is, how many vacation days does this guy get? Americans, if we're lucky enough to have a permanent job, average 13 vacation days a year. That's 13...! We trail by nearly half the legendary workaholic Japanese, who enjoy 25 days of annual vacation. Not to mention the Europeans! They get a month off every year, give or take a week.

Now I don't know, maybe I should be glad G.W. would rather hit the jogging trail than burn the midnight oil over some confusing, complicated and boring peace treaty between Palestinians and Israelis. His reign has wrecked enough global havoc with him on light-duty; Lord knows if the planet could survive a full-time Bush presidency!

But the issue here is also parity. If our head civil servant gets a 3 or 4-day every-other-weekend, well, we should, too! Or at least a month off every summer.

Time warp....

A photo on the cover of today's L.A. Times web-edition. (it's been pulled...) prompted a double or triple take this morning. From a low camera angle, it showed a mid-shot of a crowd of chanting, bearded Shiite men, each attired in what looked like homespun-cloth robes knotted at the waist with cord. Each man was drenched in blood, faces and clothing soaked red, from self-inflicted scimitar wounds. Several crescent-shaped blades were visible, held high above the crowd in bloodied hands.

The image could have been a scene from the Crusades--in the Middle Ages, that is, not our modern version.

Viola, the people G.W. has spent (officially, to date) $74.7 billion of our tax money to liberate. And now they want an Islamic theocracy.

I've been struck by the preponderance of males in the news photos snapped since the "liberation." Of all the Islamic countries in the Middle East, Iraq had one of the most open societies for women. I suspect that is going to change.

Blog break....

I took a break to attend to other concerns. But I'm back! And, sadly, I find no shortage of troubling news to pique my righteous wrath.

Like this from today's L.A. Times:

PLAYA GRANDE, Costa Rica -- The leatherback sea turtle, the massive and mysterious reptile of the Pacific Ocean, has outlived the dinosaurs by 65 million years. It has survived fiery asteroid strikes and ice ages that chilled the globe.

But it doesn't look as if this prehistoric innocent will survive us.

Imagine...! And here's why:

Scientists, once focused on protecting turtle nests on shore, are shifting their attention to what they see as a greater menace: the drowning of turtles in fishing nets and on strings of baited hooks unfurled for 50 miles off the sterns of commercial long-line vessels.

Crowder [an oceanographer] calculates that long-line fishermen set 4.5 million hooks every night, stringing the ocean with the marine equivalent of 100,000 miles of barbed-wire fencing. [Emphasis mine.]

Are we crazy?!

These lines sound like the modern equivalent of driftnets, banned by the United Nations, the E.C., and, happily, the U.S.

Unfortunately, even driftnets continue to be deployed in the high seas and along the shores of the countries yet to ban them. Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the Republic of China are cited as repeat offenders. Driftnets, like the long-lines mentioned here, drown turtles, seabirds, dolphins, sharks, marlin and many other types of fish, many of which are then discarded.

I know I shouldn't be surprised at this, after all, look at the carnage we wrought against our own kind in Iraq. Still, the short-sightedness of these practices is utterly appalling.

The L.A. Times article ends by saying that we're pushing not only the turtles to extinction, we're depleting the entire Pacific Ocean, the world's largest ocean, something scientists once thought would be impossible.