There is probably no more divisive time in America than an election season. So I thought it appropriate to tell a personal story of reconciliation that is very important to me, and one that I have never told before. It is about my relationship with a
Columns
Rose Marie Berger 9-01-2004
Don't 'whistle while you work'; just whistle because it makes you happy.
Jim Wallis 7-01-2004
Events in Iraq dramatically reveal that the U.S. occupation is out of control. In April, U.S. Marines began a siege of the city of Falluja following the deaths and mutilation of four American private contractors. Intense battles ensued, including street-to-street fighting between Marines and Iraqi insurgents during the day, followed by attacks from U.S. gunships and jets at night. During the lulls in fighting, casualties were collected and the dead buried in the soccer stadium.
The U.S. was planning a final all-out assault, but at the last minute backed off and placed a former Iraqi Army general in charge of security. Heavy fighting and intense bombing throughout Iraq killed nearly 140 American troops and 10 times that many Iraqi civilians in April, with unknown hundreds more wounded.
One of the first journalists into Falluja after the lifting of the siege, London Observer reporter Patrick Graham, quoted Dr. Mohammed Samarae's descriptions of the casualties treated at his hospital. "Ninety percent of the injured were civilians - children, old people, women." The characteristics of the wounds show they were American inflicted, said the doctor. "We have had a lot of experience of U.S. weapons." Mustafa Hamid, a 22-year-old student, said, "All these people were killed because of four dead American soldiers…. The Americans are killing people who had nothing to do with the death of those four soldiers."
I was in London the first week of May. The lead story in the British media (and the U.S. press) was the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American and British soldiers. The painful irony escaped nobody - after going to war to liberate the Iraqi people from the brutality of Saddam Hussein and his torture chambers, some of the liberators are now accused of brutalizing and torturing Iraqi detainees - in the same Abu Ghraib prison used by Saddam.
Ed Spivey Jr. 7-01-2004
Being a resident of our country's last colony, Washington, D.C. ("Doesn't Count"), it's hard to approach this political season with anything but a jaded, albeit cynical, pessimism. Like most Iraqis, I am waiting for self-rule to be established in my hometown, and to experience "democracy," this new thing I keep hearing about where citizens have, like, a vote.
Fortunately, there are other benefits to living in the nation's capital, although I can't think of any right now because I'm too busy not drinking the water, which you shouldn't, on account of the lead, which there's too much of. (Of all the things I've taught my children, it's irony that I'm most proud of. For example, my youngest just came home from Central America, and when she got back to D.C. I had to warn her not to drink the water here.)
To compensate for an absence of meaningful political participation, I have for years taken an interest in the congressional district of my youth in Indiana (motto: One Man, One Gun). I watch with jealousy as voters in my former district, after first receiving instructions from the Republican Party, exercise their right to vote. Hoosiers, as they are called - there's a story to that name, but it's really boring - are a devoutly conservative lot who, for example, believe the only foreign aid we give should be shipments of bootstraps so recipients can...well, you know.
The 8th District of Indiana, where I spent my formative years, is currently represented by Rep. John Hostettler, a fine Republican who was recently detained at an airport. Details are sketchy, so I'm not sure whether it was his laptop computer, his cell phone, or the loaded 9 mm semiautomatic handgun in his briefcase that caused concern among the security personnel.
David Batstone 6-01-2004
No magic elixir will solve our energy dilemma, short of radically changing our consumption.
Ed Spivey Jr. 6-01-2004
Having recently been diagnosed with a rare and troubling medical conditionlate-onset maturityit has become unavoidable that I begin to take the world and its woes more seriously.
Ed Spivey Jr. 5-01-2004
I pulled dramatically into the office parking lot, turned off the ignition and coasted to a stop, the powerful engine reluctantly emitting its final throaty rumble.