Since I first wrote this post, the death toll from the Indonesia earthquake and ensuing tsunami has climbed to more than 117,000. The Red Cross fears widespread death from disease is not far off.

It is even more important now than it was before that individuals step up and donate whatever they can—whether that is $1 or $1,000—to relief organizations. (See the comments on this post for additional options to which to send donations.) Remember how the world came to our aid after September 11, which exacted a human toll that was but a fraction of what south Asia is now suffering. Now it's our turn to reciprocate.

Originally posted December 27, 2004

Yesterday's Indonesian earthquake was bad enough. 9.0 on the Richter Scale, they're saying now. The Richter Scale is a logarithmic scale, not a linear scale, which means that each point is ten times bigger than the previous point. 9 is ten times bigger than 8, and 100 times bigger than 7. (Actually, that is a gross oversimplification; the magnitude pertains to the amplitude of a wave as measured on a seismogram, which is the extent of my understanding of the mechanics of an earthquake, but you get the idea.) The Kobe, Japan, earthquake of 1995 was a magnitude 7.2. The great San Francisco quake of 1906 was somewhere around 7.8. Alaska's Easter Sunday earthquake in 1964 came in at 9.2. And do you remember the recent TV mini-series, "10.5"? Experts say such an earthquake would be virtually unsurvivable–if it could even happen, which it can't.

But as I was saying, the earthquake was just the start. What killed most of the 22,000 or more victims in coastal areas of the Indian Ocean was the resulting tsunami, commonly known as a tidal wave even though it has nothing to do with tides. The mechanics of a tsunami are similar to those of other non-wind generated waves; it's the magnitude of the tremors setting them in motion that make them so ferocious. They say that just before the wave hits, the water is actually sucked away from the shoreline. Then the wall of water, which can be up to 60 feet high, hits land and washes away everything in its path. Yesterday's tsunami reportedly traveled up to 2 miles inland in some places.

If you need a benchmark against which to measure the extent of this tragedy, this event killed more than 7 times as many people as died on September 11, and left infinitely more injured and homeless. A number of U.S. based organizations will gladly accept donations that they will for food, fresh water, shelter, and medical care for those affected. Another worthwhile organization which you won't find at that link is Oxfam America which also needs funds to assist in the relief effort.

One of my most vivid recollections from the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks was the precipitous drop in crime in New York city in the wake of the devastation. Looting, the mainstay of opportunistic criminals everywhere, was virtually non-existent. Even the thieves, evidently, were moved to civility by our collective loss.

Not so, unfortunately, in some areas affected by last weekend's monstrous earthquake and tsunami. In Thailand, the culprits are taking advantage of the proliferation of emergency personnel and posing as police:

"We've been hit by both natural disaster and thugs," said the owner of one of the dozens of resorts and hotels on the [Khao Lak] beach. "Some pretended to be police and walked inside some hotels and broke open safeboxes for guests.

"Money was taken from tourists' bags and their baggage was left open with nothing inside."

It doesn't get much lower than that. Yet even sadder are the stories of looting by survivors stealing not money and valuables, but the very basics of survival:

The Indonesian military officers were busy arresting looters who ran amuck in local [Jakarta] markets Thursday to get food as relief supplies still didn't reach most ofrefugees [sic] in the tsunami-hit Aceh Province.

At least 12 people were caught in hand stealing rice, sugar, coffee and chicken eggs from several shops in Banda Aceh.

The challenge is no longer simply gathering sufficient food and materials to meet the needs of all affected; worldwide response in this arena has been tremendous. What is becoming critical are the logistics of getting supplies and services to the people who need them, most of whom are now isolated because local roads, airfields, and communication networks have been destroyed. The U.S. military is stepping up to help:

U.S. Pacific Command is sending a forward command element (FCE) to Utapao, Thailand, to establish the command, control and communication structure for Joint Task Force 536 (JTF 536).

Thailand's decision to allow use of this Thai military facility is welcomed. The U.S. intends to use, with Thailand's cooperation, this military facility as a regional support center for emergency and medical personnel providing assistance throughout the region as well as a staging area for U.S. military and rescue aircraft, forensic experts, and other relief assistance.

The task facing them–and the non-governmental engaged in a race against time–is enormous.

That's what Norway's Jan Egeland, emergency relief coordinator for the United Nations, said yesterday and reiterated on CNN last night.

Monday, Egeland called for a major international response to the tsunami disaster—and went so far as to call the U.S. government and others "stingy" on foreign aid in general.

"If, actually, the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of the gross national income, I think that is stingy, really," he said. "I don't think that is very generous."

In an interview Monday night with CNN, Egeland reiterated his view: "It bothers me that we—the rich nations—are not becoming more generous the more rich we become."

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell begged to differ.

"The United States is not stingy. We are the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world," [Powell] said.

Egeland, naturally, is now backpedalling.

"I have been misinterpreted when I yesterday said that my belief that rich countries in general can be more generous. This has nothing to do with any particular country or the response to this emergency. We're in early days and the response has so far been overwhelmingly positive," he added.

Powell is right, by the way, and not just in terms of aid from the United States government. As private citizens, Americans also fund through their individual donations the many non-profit organizations that are now providing immediate and critical supplies and assistance in the regions ravaged by the Indonesian earthquake and resulting tsunami. So Americans, more so than citizens of other countries, pay twice: first with our private donations, and again with our tax dollars.

But if Mr. Egeland is still not satisfied, I have an idea. The U.S. can take back its United Nations dues—$283,100,000 annually, representing a full 22% of the U.N. operating budget—and send it straight to the countries that suffered quake and tsunami damage, where it will be put to much better use and won't be subject to embezzlement by members of Kofi Annan's family.

Last week I watched my all-time favorite Christmas television special, "A Charlie Brown Christmas". What makes it my favorite is not just the music (the inimitable jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi) or the adorable characters (who doesn't love Peanuts?) but the fact that it is the only children's Christmas program that actually talks about Christmas. Not Santa Claus and reindeer and snowmen and the Grinch, but the birth of Jesus. I still get chills when, in response to Charlie Brown's please, "Doesn't anyone know what Christmas really means?" Linus tells the Gospel story.

For the eighth consecutive year, I have posted a Christmas page for those who want to stop and remember the real meaning of Christmas. (It also includes a link to a little craft project I did several years ago for my parents, also Christmas-themed.) Stop by and visit if you have a minute.

Wherever you are today, whatever you are doing, and whomever you are with, I wish you a wonderful Christmas day.

Brandon Moon spent nearly 17 years in prison for his conviction on three sexual assault counts, but he claimed all along that he was innocent. Now it turns out he really was, and DNA analysis proved it.

According to the CNN report, standard blood-typing was used to convict Moon even though other physical evidence pointed to someone else. But the victim identified him, and apparently that was enough to remove whatever doubt the jury might have had.

Such is the danger of relying too heavily on eyewitnesses when objective evidence points in a different direction. Identifications made by people subjected to high-stress conditions can be unreliable, according to at least one study. Such errors are understandable, since physical or mental trauma can skew perception. (One of my personal examples involved a car accident in which I was rear-ended, sending my vehicle to rest on the sidewalk on the other side of the road and facing the opposite direction. To this day, I swear the car spun around 1 1/2 times, but skid marks indicated it made a half turn before coming to rest across the street.)

But I digress. Brandon Moon was ultimately exonerated not because of questions about the reliability of the evidence originally used to convict him, but rather because of evidence not obtainable at the time: DNA. While the semen from the crime scene matched Moon's blood type (and the blood type of 15 percent of the population who were not convicted for the crime), it did not contain his unique DNA.

Moon has the Innocence Project to thank for saving him from the remainder of his 75-year sentence. The non-profit legal resource center "only handles cases where postconviction DNA testing can yield conclusive proof of innocence," according to their web site. One can only wonder how many other innocent people sit in prison but will never have the conclusive evidence to prove it.

Anyone who works in or with the mental health field will appreciate these Christmas carols that have been going around the internet. (Please note that I am NOT making light of mental illness, having suffered from it myself and working as I do with people disabled due to psychiatric disorders. But sometimes laughing at things makes them more bearable.)

• Criminally Insane – Deck the Halls with Parts of Molly
• Schizophrenia – Do You Hear What I Hear?
• Multiple Personality Disorder – We Three Queens Disoriented Are
• Amnesia – I Don't Know if I'll Be Home for Christmas
• Narcissism – Hark the Herald Angels Sing about Me
• Mania – Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and Fire Hydrants and...
• Paranoia – Santa Claus Is Coming to Get Me
• Borderline Personality Disorder – Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire
• Personality Disorder – You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll Tell You Why
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells...
• Agoraphobia – I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day but Wouldn't Leave My House
• Autism – Jingle Bell Rock and Rock and Rock and Rock...
• Senile Dementia – Walking in a Winter Wonderland Miles from My House in My Slippers and Robe
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder – I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus So I Burned Down the House
• Social Anxiety Disorder – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas While I Sit Here and Hyperventilate

If you need a break from winter weather and Christmas preparations, the Den Mother recommends that you take a minute to decorate this house for Christmas. Add decorations by moving the ornament at the bottom (do it slowly so you can see all the changes). Then click on the other icons at the bottom and enjoy a relaxing Christmas scene.

This sounds like legitimate, researched, tested, dosed, medical marijuana. This doesn't.

Incidentally, if you want to weed out (no pun intended) those people who are truly interested in the medicinal uses of cannabis from those who just want an excuse to get high, ask them if they would be satisfied with controlled-dose, non-intoxicating pharmaceutical forms of the drug.

Something in this article about last night's Patriots game really ticked me off:

"They got cocky today," [Miami free safety Arturo] Freeman said. "They felt they were the defending champions and could make plays all over the field. We are the only team, if you check history, that New England has a problem playing against."

Well, Arturo, you're 3 out of 4. Yes, the Pats ARE the defending champions. Yes, they CAN make plays all over the field. And yes, for some obscure reason like solar winds or maybe Romeo Crennel's tummy ache, they DO have trouble against the Dolphins, even when said opponent sucks, as they do this year. But it doesn't sound as if the Patriots players are the cocky ones, even though they have much more reason to be than your bunch does. Just remember who is 3-11 this season.

Ted Kennedy hasn't yet issued a statement on it, but give him time. Hot on the heels of warnings about the safety of arthritis drugs Vioxx and Celebrex (approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration during the Clinton Administration but used by Kennedy as examples of how the Bush Administration is endangering patient health), the FDA is now warning consumers that Naproxen (known by prescription as Naprosyn and Anaprox, and over-the-counter as Aleve) may be risky as well.

Expect to be absent from Kennedy's inevitable statement the fact that Naproxen was approved for non-prescription use on January 11, 1994—well into the first Clinton term.

I wanted to bring to your attention some updates to my post from a couple weeks ago about government censorship of independent libraries in Cuba. The updated information, provided by Bob Kent of the Friends of Cuban Libraries, gives some additional details as well as credit to other writers and academics who have spoken out on this issue.

As I was reading an article about a recent symposium on feminist action in Iraq, I was struck by how very basic the demands of these women are. One could easily have substituted male names for female names, and talked about men instead of women, and the article would have made perfect sense. So what makes two profiled women, Iraqis now working to secure women's rights in a new Iraqi government and society, feminists?

The women at last month's symposium at Harvard University were Zainab Al-Suwaij and Ala Talabani, activists who share the common goal of a democratic and independent Iraqi government and society in which women are equal to men. Iraqi women have long enjoyed much less restriction on behavior, dress, and employment than women in other Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and especially Taliban-era Afghanistan. Yet now they see a chance for true freedom and equality, which means standing up against repressive Sharia, or Islamic law, in the new government and working for an ultimately peaceful society. Women in Iraq want to work, be educated, vote, own property, have marriage rights, be safe in their homes and communities, and live in a democratic society free from totalitarian dictatorial rule. The very same things men want. No quibbling about ancillary radical issues like whether women should wear make-up or watch pornography or engage in the patriarchal world of organized sports. It's really mich simpler than all that.

As was once seen on a bumper sticker, feminism is the radical notion that women are people. When you get down to it, when even basic human rights have so long been denied to both women and men, feminism is the movement seeking to ensure that women don't get lost in the shuffle.

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card's comments praising the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have provided a fresh excuse for Democrats to criticize the Bush Administration. In the midst of safety concerns about two leading prescription arthritis drugs, Vioxx and Celebrex, which may have serious adverse effects on patients, Card defended the agency. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) disagrees and places the blame (for what, his statement doesn't really say) squarely on the Bush Administration:

This morning, the White House Chief of Staff said that he supports the FDA. He said, "They do a spectacular job." I know that this is the Administration that never admits a mistake, but its record on protecting us from harmful prescription drugs is a catastrophic failure. We need an FDA that looks out for the health of patients and not just the health of the pharmaceutical industry. Lives are at stake, and the President should put an FDA leadership team in place right away, with no ties to the industry it regulates, and that's committed to reform. Early action on bipartisan FDA reforms is possible in Congress, and I hope that the White House and congressional leadership will not stand in the way.

Vioxx, which was recently withdrawn from the market by its manufacturer, was approved by the FDA on May 21, 1999. Celebrex was approved on December 31, 1998, and remains available. Both FDA actions occurred under the Clinton Administration. The drugs are being re-evaluated for safety under the Bush Administration. Obviously, Kennedy is confused. I'm guessing it was his liquid breakfast.

Curmudgeon alert: I have a bug up my butt and must vent. I've had it with those lame radio ads for Outback Steakhouse. You know the ones, voiced and sung by non-Australians doing really bad Aussie accents analogous to actors attemping a Kennedy accent in a made-for-television movie.

The restaurant chain was started in 1988 to cash in on the Aussie-mania sparked by Crocodile Dundee, a hilarious movie produced by and starring an actual Australian actor. Outback Steakhouse's own web site confirm that they have capitalized on the subsequent interest in Australian culture:

An Australian steakhouse concept open for dinner only. Although beef and steak items make up a good portion of the menu, the concept offers a variety of chicken, ribs, seafood, and pasta dishes. The Company’s strategy is to differentiate its restaurants by emphasizing consistently high-quality food and service, generous portions at moderate prices and a casual atmosphere suggestive of the Australian Outback.

That may have been the goal, but Outback Steakhouse is more suggestive of, well, of American restaurant chains than of anything remotely Australian. The company isn't Australian. The staff are not aborigines or even non-aboriginal Aussies. The food isn't Australian; no Vegemite or kangaroo tail soup on the menu. As a restaurant reviewer from the Washington Times put it:

Outback is a Yank in Aussie clothing. Take away its prints of koalas and kangaroos and the boomerangs decorating its walls, and it could pass as a rough-hewn American saloon.

At least one Australian finds it all amusing, though not the least bit Australian:

The Outback is basically your typical American franchise restaurant overlaid with an Australiana theme. [ . . . ] I will say, the Australiana aspect is very inventive, and executed with attention to detail, although predictably they often miss the mark. Just as plagiarism can be construed as the highest form of compliment, so can the bastardisation of one's native culture be taken in stride and much enjoyed.

At least they can laugh about it. Meanwhile, if you want to learn something about the real Australian outback, start here.

There is a trend in radio and television newscasting of reading news stories almost entirely in headlines. It makes me crazy. Some of you may be equally bothered by it; others have probably heard it but either didn't notice anything was amiss or just didn't care.

The two offenders who come immediately to my mind are Gary LaPierre of WBZ radio in Boston and Shephard Smith of cable's Fox News Channel, though I've heard others whose names escape me. What these otherwise talented people do is avoid verbs as much as possible in reading a story. As an example, let's take a paragraph from an online story of the day, then re-write it in headlinese:

Computer forensics and an anonymous tipster led police to an infant girl who was taken from her dead mother's womb -- and to the arrest of a suspect.

Lisa Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, Kansas, confessed to strangling a pregnant woman -- Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23 -- in her Skidmore, Missouri, home and then cutting the baby from her womb, according to an FBI affidavit released Friday.

Here's how it might be read on today's radio or television news:

Computer forensics and an anonymous tipster leading police to an infant girl who was taken from her dead mother's womb -- and to the arrest of a suspect.

Lisa Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, Kansas, confessing to strangling a pregnant woman -- Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23 -- in her Skidmore, Missouri, home and then cutting the baby from her womb, according to an FBI affidavit released Friday.

Those fluent in English and knowledgable about grammar will notice that while the first excerpt contained two complete sentences, the second contained no sentences. Why do I call this "headlinese"? Well, think of how newspaper headlines are written.

Sentence: "A communist sympathizer assassinated President Kennedy yesterday in Dallas, Texas."

Headline: KENNEDY KILLED BY COMMUNIST

There is a reason, of course, why headlines aren't written in complete sentences. Editors have limited space in which to encapsulate an entire story into a few attention-getting words. So instead of saying that "Kennedy was killed by a communist", deleting "was" and "a" saves space. Think of all the headlines on a newspaper page, and you can see that the space savings adds up to more room available for story text or pictures.

As recently as just a few years ago, a legitimate on-air journalist wouldn't be caught dead massacring the language by which they made their living. Why, then, do broadcasters now feel the need to do the same thing? It takes just as long (slightly less, actually) to say, "Lisa Montgomery confessed to murder" as it does to say "Lisa Montgomery confessing to murder". But this technique seems to be used most often by news operations, anchors, or reporters who try to add excitement to their stories. Telling someone in everyday language what happened sounds far more mundane than proclaiming it in headline fashion. It's right up there with those annoying "WHOOOOSSSSSHHHH" sound effects and busy graphics that now accompany even local newscasts. It's all part of the show.

Presumably, these people all went to school for English, journalism, or something similar. If they didn't, certainly their editors must have. But the skills they once learned are being abandoned in favor of fluff. Style trumps substance. I realize that the broadcast and cable news business is more competitive than ever before. It would be nice, however, if the powers that be demanded that the language be used properly.

Did you hear about the town in Florida that displays some religious holiday symbols and bans others? The symbol permitted on public property in the town of Bay Harbor Islands is a Chanukah Menorah. One guess which religion's holiday symbol depicting the birth of a certain historical figure is excluded.

[Resident Sandra Snowden] complained the town's public holiday display, which contains a Menorah, has no Christian symbols. Her suit seeks the court's permission to place a Nativity scene alongside the other holiday decorations.

[ . . . ]

The town maintains that the Menorah is not a religious symbol.

Observant Jews would disagree. Chanukah itself is a religious observance commemorating a miraculous event:

[W]hen the Greeks entered the Sanctuary, they defiled all the oils, and when the Hasmoneans (the Maccabees) defeated them, they searched and found only one remaining jar of oil with the seal of the Kohen Gadol (the High Priest). Although it contained only enough oil to burn for one day, a miracle occurred, and the oil burned eight days. (Emphasis added)

The eight candles of the Menorah (the ninth candle is used to light the others) represent the eight days of the miracle. Each candle is lit, one per night, after recitation of three blessings:

Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments, and has commanded us to Kindle the Chanukah light.

Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, Who has wrought miracles for our forefathers, in those days at this season.

Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, Who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season. (Emphasis added)

It doesn't get more religious than that, folks. The religious and cultural ignorance betrayed by claims to the contrary is an embarassment in a country whose citizens enjoy the greatest degree of religious freedom known to humanity. Perhaps if the offended few were more tolerant, they would bother to actually become informed about the religions they see fit to judge—both those they want expressed in public and those they want to ban.

A: After s/he is born. So why does the headline on this story call a (probably) living infant a "fetus"?

I have no answer. I'm just posing the question for anyone who would like to venture a guess.

Not since some farmer ages ago discovered that his crops grew better where the cattle did their business has a waste product been put to such good use. In the itty-bitty town of Benson, Minnesota, they're building a power plant to be fueled mostly by turkey droppings. It is expected to power 55,000 homes, which isn't bad considering that the town itself has a population of less than 3,500.

As fascinating as this is, inquiring minds want to know why they aren't using other animal manure, like the cow dung that has proven so useful as fertilizer.

"Poultry litter is drier material, so it burns better, and there's a lot of it," said Charles Grecco, of HH Media, LLC, an investment bank that helped arrange $202 million in financing for the plant.

Now, I'll bet you never knew about the superior flammability of turkey poo. I didn't. But seriously...

The 55-megawatt plant will burn 700,000 tons of dung a year and produce fertilizer as a by-product, a process that will keep phosphorus and nitrates found in the raw litter from seeping into water supplies, said Grecco.

Well, thank goodness the water is safe. I wouldn't even want to think about drinking water contaminated with... like I said, I don't even want to think about it. But perhaps someone needs to think about the air:

No extra amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide would be emitted than would be naturally emitted as the dung decomposes, said Grecco.

Now having never raised turkeys, I readily admit ignorance on this issue. But I'm pretty sure that no turkey farm ever generated 700,000 tons of ca-ca nor subjected its neighbors to the odor associated with the decomposition thereof. So at the risk of soliciting an answer I really do not want to hear, does this mean the poor town of Benson will soon smell like a giant turkey toilet?

A deal is a deal—unless, apparently, money and politicians are involved.

The planned move of baseball's Montreal Expos to Washington, DC, is coming apart, thanks to the DC city council's last-minute amendment to the agreement to host the newly named Washington Nationals. The council voted to require that half of the cost of a new ballpark for the Nationals (they would play temporarily at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium) be financed privately. Officials from Major League Baseball are crying foul, saying that the council's actions is not consistent with the agreement MLB signed with the city.

The author of the amendment apparently disagrees and is unapologetic:

[Council Chairman Linda W.] Cropp reiterated today that she offered her amendment because she was not satisfied with a letter from Major League Baseball that was intended to allay her concerns about potential cost overruns. The letter agreed to cap at $19 million per year the amount of compensatory damages the city would be forced to pay if the stadium is not completed by March 2008.

But, Cropp said, baseball officials did not agree to share the responsibility of paying any cost overruns.

Mayor Anthony Williams and stadium proponent Councilor Jack Evans are vowing to work something out to keep the deal from dying. Whether they can fight City Hall—even from inside City Hall—remains to be seen.

So the story isn't quite as interesting when you find out that they were born by Caesarean sections, but what a freaky coincidence that a set of twins each gave birth to a set of twins on the same day. The article mentions that twins run in the sisters' family as well as the families of their partners, so I presume all involved are fraternal twins (two eggs), as identical twinning is an apparently random event during early embryonic development.

Just stumbled upon an amusing column, one of those ubiquitous end-of-year "award" lists (I use the quotes because it's a slam, not an honor): Oblivion of the Year. I haven't figured out what the title means; the nominees aren't exactly people expected to slip into, er, oblivion. But as I was saying, I was especially amused by the following entry, which only made runner-up status but it my personal pick for the winner:

Grrr! reader Rob in Vermont, who sent this e-mail regarding Left Lane Vigilantism: I gotta tell you, I take great pleasure in being a so-called "Left Lane Vigilante." All these idiots on the roads these days who feel like the speed limit doesn't apply to them? What a bunch of morons. When I am out for the weekly Sunday drive with my beloved, the last thing I need is a heart attack from the #$@^ who comes roaring up behind us at 90 miles an hour. Gimme a break. I understand that he is probably chief of thoracic medicine on his way to do a transplant for the president of the United States, but getting behind me when I am already going 10 miles over the limit and flashing your lights at me is not the way to get me to move over. It's the way to get me to match speeds with the guy I am passing and sit right next to him for the next 50 miles and watch you blow a gasket.

OK, so maybe I find this funny just because I do it all the time. My attitude is that these pea-brains have a lesson to learn and I figured I'm just the one to teach it. And if they don't learn from the experience, well, at least I had fun pissing them off.

The jury in California v. Peterson has voted unanimously to recommend the death penalty.

Long-time readers and friends know that the Den Mother is a strong opponent of capital punishment, so this is demoralizing news. It isn't that Scott Peterson doesn't deserve a very severe punishment for the brutal double homicide of which he has been convicted. He certainly does. He may even, on some karmic level, deserve to die. But do 12 jurors (and a judge, who can but is not obligated to impose the sentence recommended by the jury) have a right to kill him? And just as importantly, do they have a right to do to his family what Peterson did to his wife's family?

That's the dirty little secret of capital punishment. Advocates are fond of zealous proclamations about executing killers to bring comfort to victims' families, but they are conspicuously—and deliberately"silent when it comes to the perpetrators' families. It's an uncomfortable conundrum, so best to ignore it, right?

If Scott Peterson does end up being put to death, prosecutor David Harris, Judge Alfred Delucchi, and 12 citizens called to perform their civic duty will feel that they did a good thing for society. Meanwhile, the victims' family will continue to mourn their loved ones whom no sentence will ever bring back, the perpetrators' family will suffer for a crime they neither committed nor condoned, and the people who made it all happen will have the dubious distinction of having done to the Petersons exactly what Scott Peterson did to the Rochas.

Thirty years ago the issue was abortion. For millennia, abortion was not legally restricted—until the advent of modern medicine shed light on human reproduction and gestational development. Naturally, there remained people who were uncomfortable with that new knowledge and wanted to go back to less enlightened days. Such efforts came to a head in the 1960s, when abortion advocates tried in any way they could think of to strike down abortion laws. Naturally, those who supported the laws didn't trust them or their claims. Abortion defenders said abortion should be legal so it could be better regulated, but their opponents feared that regulation was a smokescreen. Sure enough, after the Roe v. Wade decision, all pretense about regulation was dropped; the National Abortion Federation now routinely fights against any regulations on abortion providers, even those that apply to outpatient surgi-centers that perform other kinds of procedures. Similarly, abortion defenders talked about abortion as a way to protect unwanted children, but their opponents warned that legalization would lead inevitably to infanticide. Sure enough, thirty-one years after Roe, a few of the more forthright abortion defenders are open about their support for early infanticide, and the rest insist on taking abortion as close to infanticide as they can get away with.

Fast forward to today and the issue of same-sex marriage, where the instead of the left chipping away at fetal rights, the right is trying to chip away at recent successes in establishing certain domestic rights for gay and lesbian couples. Opponents of same-sex marriage keep insisting that their various initiatives to "preserve" marriage are not intended to, and indeed will not, in any way affect other benefits afforded to gay couples. Evidently they have taken a page from the book of 1970s abortion advocacy.

Remember this past election day, when eleven states passed ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriage? Eight of those states also banned civil unions, a sort of separate-but-equal form of same-sex partnership. Even more recently, the state of Michigan decided to renege on a negotiated same-sex benefits provision in the state employees' contract. And then there's the Alabama state legislator who wants to ban books that portray homosexuality or homosexual characters in a favorable light. Even the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment goes much farther than to ban same-sex marriage:

Neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups. (Emphasis added)

The question I would pose to the bait-and-switchers is this: If you are so sure of what you are advocating, if you are so convinced that your desired end result is right, why try to hide it? Why couch your intentions in vacuous rhetoric like "freedom of choice" and "family values"? Why go to such lengths to sugar-coat your positions—unless you know them to be unpalatable?

The trouble with wing-nuts is that if you give them an inch, they take a mile. And the trouble with moderates is that they naively believe what the wing-nuts tell them. Of course abortion will only be used in the most serious circumstances. Of course gay and lesbian couples won't be stripped of all privileges of partnership. Unfortunately, by the time people figure out what they've been suckered into, they're sliding so fast down the slope that they can't possibly stop.

My busy holiday season began the day before Thanksgiving and promises not to end until the New Year is upon us. So far it has been a mix of activities and events that, fortunately, have been mostly lots of fun. To date:

• Wednesday, November 24 — Took the day off to run assorted errands for Mom the Thanksgiving Dinner Cook, including but not limited to picking up the fresh turkey. No, I didn't have to pluck it. Also baked a pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving dessert that was absolutely to die for. Thanks, Larry, for finding this recipe. I'll write you into the will.
• Thursday, November 25 — Assisted with the last-minute dinner preparations. Ate, drank, and made merry. Took the obligatory post-dinner nap. Visited a sick neighbor and delivered an assortment of delectable leftovers.
• Friday, November 26 — Traveled to West Hartford, Connecticut, for the annual post-Thanksgiving visit to my sick old grandmother in the nursing home and, this year, my sick young uncle in the hospital. One is nearing the reasonable end of her long and full life; the other was threatening to leave this earth much too prematurely. Bummer.
• Sunday, November 27 — Traveled back to Connecticut for another visit to said grandmother and said uncle, the latter of whom was substantially improved after the doctors finally figured out which antibiotic to use. Ordinarily I wouldn't make two post-Thanksgiving visits, but I had to attend my great-aunt's wake a few towns away and while I was in the vicinity, what the heck.
• Tuesday, November 30 — Attended rehearsal for my church's annual "Festival Choir", which is a fancy name for a pick-up choir that rehearses four times before singing Midnight Mass. So far, I like this year's music.
• Saturday, December 4 — Brought Young Nephew to the Pawtucket (AAA) Red Sox annual children's holiday party. He was feeling under the weather and didn't have a very good time, but we got free tickets to a game next April. That evening, took Mom, Dad, and Chris to the Worcester Chorus' annual performance of Handel's Messiah. It was good, damn good.
• Tuesday, December 7 — Attended the annual Dessert Party and Angel Gift Swap of the Bostonian Alumnae Club of my college sorority, Pi Beta Phi. Brought an angel snow globe that plays "Angels We Have Heard on High"; left with a beautiful recycled glass hand lotion dispenser with angels hand-painted on it. Blew off choir practice because, after all, I have my priorities.

I should have gone to my company's annual "Employee Recognition Event", which this year had a casino theme, but I was tired and went home for a nap instead. This really doesn't count as holiday-related except that it used to be called the "Employee Holiday Party" before someone got all PC about it and turned it into something that really could take place at any other time of year.

The revelry continues this weekend:

• Saturday, December 11 — Will participate by telephone in the Hunk Hunk Sistahhood's annual Red Sox gift swap. Sent my gift up in advance. Would be there in person if not for another commitment to attend Michelle and Brian's annual Christmas bash beginning late Saturday afternoon. After making an appearance there, I'll join the Hunk Hunk Sistahs for eating, drinking, and merry-making through the evening and overnight.
• Sunday, December 12 — Family Christmas decorating at Mom and Dad's house. My parents put up two Christmas trees, so we'll do one Sunday and put up the other decorations, such as window candles, creche, ceramic candy village, and of course Mom's famous Santa collection which every December threatens to take over the house. The best egg nog there is will be enjoyed by all. If we finish early enough, there is a Messiah Sing featuring the Assabet Valley Mastersingers that I'd like to check out.
• Tuesday, December 14 — The Prodigal Alto returns to choir practice. Did I mention that Son's girlfriend is singing with us this year?
• Wednesday, December 15 — Brown Bag Concert featuring the choir of Worcester's St. Paul's Cathedral performing a Christmas program. The concerts are free and last an hour at lunch time.
• Friday, December 17 — Christmas party at Rick and Jim's house. Rick is the music director and organist at church as well as a fabulous cook, so I will starve myself all day in preparation for an evening of gluttony.
• Sunday, December 19 — Had planned to attend the annual Choral Evensong at Worcester's First Baptist Church–a co-worker sings in the choir–but have to miss it in favor of a pre-Christmas party with Grandma at the nursing home. She's on an "I'm going to die so I want my whole family together" kick, which isn't entirely unreasonable since she is 93 and in increasingly frail health.
• Tuesday, December 21 — Final choir rehearsal, at which the director traditionally assures us that we'll do just fine even though we still know only half the music. The thing is, he's always right.
• Thursday, December 23 — Taking another day off, to make a four-day weekend along with Friday, when my company is closed. At the rate I'm going with Christmas shopping, I will probably spend the day in the mall.
• Friday, December 24 — Christmas Eve! Put up Mom and Dad's second tree. This is a tradition from my father's youth, in which Santa decorated the tree when he brought the gifts on Christmas Eve. As the kids grew, the family decorated the tree, but they still did it on Christmas Eve. Early evening nap in preparation for early arrival with the choir for Midnight Mass.
• Friday, December 25 — Merry Christmas! Mass at midnight, followed by a private reception with shrimp and champagne for choir members and our families. An abbreviated night of sleep, gift exchange with the fam, and dinner at Brother and Sister-in-law's house.
• Friday, December 31 — Another day off. I'm trying to talk Chris into a New Year's Eve concert in Cambridge.
• Saturday, January 1 — Happy 2005! Hoping for an invitation to Maggie and Brian's annual New Year's Day party. Would it be rude to call and gently remind them?
• TBA — Have floated to Joe the idea of checking out the gazillions of Christmas lights at the LaSalette Shrine in Attleboro. If he bags out, I may have to find someone else to go with. I've been before and it is so worth it.

May I just say that I love the Christmas season because it gives me so many opportunities to do so many fun things, as you can see. I hope you are finding time for some fun too.

Before attending a recent performance of Handel's Messiah, I got thinking about norms of behavior at various music events—not just what's expected, but what is required. For example, it is customary for the audience to stand for the duration of the famous "Hallelujah" chorus, a practice said to have begun when a king in attendance at a particular performance stood in awe of the beautiful piece and was mimicked by his subjects. I really don't know if that story is more history or legend, but it has become the standard of proper behavior at Messiah performances.

Standards of behavior vary with different musical genres, however. The appropriate way to express enjoyment at a rock concert is to cheer, dance, and sing along; not doing so is a sure sign that the performance isn't that good. But similar actions will get you booted from a symphony performance, where a patron won't even be seated in the middle of a movement. Maybe bringing rock concerts into the conversation is a bit like bringing up the Mafia in a discussion about professional loyalty. But even considering only more, um, civilized sorts of musical performances, the good manners factor is far from constant.

Take jazz. The first time a took a friend and jazz neophyte to a free lunchtime jazz concert, she asked why people kept clapping when the song wasn't over yet. I explained that it is common for each musician in a jazz ensemble to get his or her own solo in a particular song, and it is considered polite to applaud each one in turn. At a similar performance just recently, at which the audience clearly were not seasoned jazz listeners, solo applause was rare. I felt quite bad about that; the musicians were outstanding and deserved more individual recognitin than they got.

This is quite different from a work of classical music, such as a symphony, concerto, or oratorio, in which applause is verboten until the end of the work or a scheduled intermission, whichever comes first. There is nothing more embarassing than starting to clap at the end of a concerto movement and quickly realizing you're the only one doing so. Such is not the case in opera, where applause at the end of each scene, or even after an exceptional aria in the middle of a scene, is considered appropriate.

The standards for musicals, on the other hand, are much less stringent. Applause after each musical number is virtually expected and spontaneous laughter in the middle of a comic number not at all unwelcome. Nor is it considered rude if an especially appreciative audience delays resumption of the performance by several seconds with extended applause. Just after the September 11 attacks, I read about an audience at Les Misérables that burst into tears and emotional applause after "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables".

As much as deviation from audience etiquette in a given setting is considered rude, I must say that I consider it more rude to react to someone who obviously doesn't know any better. At a performance of a Beethoven symphony several years ago, a young man sitting near me in the balcony began to applaud after the first movement. He quickly realized his error (see the fourth paragraph above) and blushed somewhat. Unfortunately, another patron, evidently feeling more superior than she had a right to, turned to him and said, "Stupid." Which only proves that there is much more to being polite at a concert than simply knowing when to clap.

Why the differences in what is expected and tolerated? Tradition, most likely, as it is traditional for a man in a church to remove his hat while in a synagogue he should leave it on. But not all traditions are absolute: W.A. Mozart was said to have directed operatic performances for common folk and delighted in their spontaneous expressions of enjoyment, even though such behavior would have horrified a more cultured person. A good rule is when in Rome, do as the Romans—unless you want them to think you are an inconsiderate cad. In an unfamiliar concert setting, it's best to follow the lead of those around you, most of whom will know what is expected of them and of you.

Boston radio talk show host David Brudnoy died last night after a more than 10-year battle with HIV/AIDS and cancer.

Brudnoy was a conservative/libertarian who was markedly less flamboyant than his better-known counterparts like Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity, and far more reasonable than loose cannons like Jay Severin.

His positions were a mixed bag from my perspective, and within the course of an hour I could be incensed by his strong support of capital punishment, moved by his deeply concern about the prevalence of abortion-on-demand, and inspired by his vocal opposed to efforts to withhold marriage rights from same-sex couples.

I don't recall his ever coming out as a gay man—perhaps he was simply always out—but his public acknowledgement of his infection with HIV catapulted him onto the national stage, and he handled it with dignified openness. During his first show after the public announcement of his illness, he graciously accepted good wishes from many callers, calmly listened to attacks from a few others, and answered every question posed to him regardless of how personal. One caller asked, without a hint of mean-spiritedness, how Brudnoy had contracted HIV; Brudnoy's polite and forthright reply was that he presumed he was infected through oral sex as he did not engage in anal intercourse. I doubt it occurred to him to not answer.

Brudnoy was perhaps the most intelligent man in opinion media today, not only in the sense of being naturally knowledgeable and educationally accomplished, but in terms of being able to express himself with conviction and reason. There were, of course, times when I heard him fly off the handle a bit&151;like when he proclaimed that people who blast their car stereos should be executed&151;but for the most part I found it hard to feel insulted by anything he said. What a stark contrast to the crassness that infests political and social punditry on radio and television (think Boston's Howie Carr and talking head James Carville).

WBZ radio's Jay McQuaide, a long-time colleague of Brudnoy, gave a poignant tribute to his friend. Here in Boston, at least, we expect many more to follow.

There is an organization called No Draft, No Way! whose purpose it is to "[build] a movement Now to stop" reinstatement of a U.S. military draft, which they state is "likely sometime after the November elections, regardless of who wins." They have an adorable little graphic under the banner, "DRAFT THREAT ADVISORY" that states the threat is "ELEVATED" (yellow) for a "Significant Risk of Conscription".

Color-coded warnings notwithstanding, the Den Mother's careful search of No Draft, No Way!'s (don't you just love that exclamation mark?) web site turns up no references to information supporting the contention that a draft is likely or explaining why something that is not going to happen needs to be stopped. But inquiring minds want to know what's driving their efforts, so I sent the following inquiry to their contact e-mail address:

As I'm sure you know, the movement to reinstate the draft was initiated by a group of anti-war legislators and took the form of federal bills (H.R.163 and S.89) sponsored by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-SC) and co-sponsored by the following:

     Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI)
     Del. Donna M. Christensen (D-VI)
     Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI)
     Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL)
     Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX)
     Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA)
     Rep. Fortney Pete Stark (D-CA)
     Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL)
     Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay (D-MO)
     Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD)
     Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
     Rep. John Lewis (D-GA)
     Rep. James P. Moran (D-VA)
     Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez (D-NY)

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) also signed on as a co-sponsor but withdrew her sponsorship a year and a half later.

The Senate never voted on this. The House voted on 05-Oct-2004. Dels. Christensen and Holmes Norton have no vote; co-sponsor Stark and Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) voted in favor; 29 members, including co-sponsor Brown, did not vote; and all other members, including the bill's primary sponsor and the remaining 12 co-sponsors voted against. It is unclear why a group of legislators who were against the draft--Democrats all--tried to get it reinstated, but in any event there is no support for a draft and has been no movement outside anti-war circles to bring it back.

So what exactly are you trying to stop? Or is this merely an example of, "If you don't have something to be against, make something up"?

Perhaps I can form an organization whose purpose is to stop members of NoDraftNoWay.org from, say, burglarizing my house and killing my child.

[The Den Mother]
An exceptionall well-informed, but nonetheless perplexed, citizen

I'll be sure to post their response if/when it comes.

Censorship and free expression are important causes to liberal Americans. Special interest groups fighting attempts by the religious right to remove certain books from school libraries are numerous. Protesters on the left decry so-called protest zones that limit access to conservative politicians. They even consider conservative boycotts to be infringements on the right to dissent.

And about censorship by the left or their allies... well, there is little self-criticism to be found. Nowhere is their silence more deafening than where Cuba is concerned. While leftist/marxist organizations wax hysterical about how the American trade embargo is hurting Cubans, they care little about how the Cuban government is hurting Cubans. They support Cuban "sovereignty" but remain mute about Cubans' freedom. In order to hear anything at all about how dissent is squashed and censorship thrives under the current Cuban government, you have to go to conservative columnists like Jeff Jacoby.

Which isn't to say that major human rights organizations don't understand what's going on or neglect to take action. Human Rights Watch's scathing 2003 report on Cuba minces no words:

Cuba's legal and institutional structures were at the root of rights violations. The rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, movement, and the press were strictly limited under Cuban law. By criminalizing enemy propaganda, the spreading of "unauthorized news," and insult to patriotic symbols, the government curbed freedom of speech under the guise of protecting state security. The government also imprisoned or ordered the surveillance of individuals who had committed no illegal act, relying upon laws penalizing "dangerousness" (estado peligroso) and allowing for "official warning" (advertencia oficial). The government-controlled courts undermined the right to fair trial by restricting the right to a defense, and frequently failed to observe the few due process rights available to defendants under domestic law.

Human Rights Watch is hardly a conservative organization; it exposes rights violations by left-wing and right-wing governments alike. So you'd think their say in the matter would mean something to liberal activists, right? In a one-hour internet search, I found no left-leaning organizations that had any harsh words for such repression. Among well-known liberal activists, I found only Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice to have spoken out. [UPDATE: See below for clarification.] Where, then, does a liberal or moderate go to engage in grass-roots practical activity with others liberals and moderates in support of freedom of expression in Cuba?

One excellent option is the Friends of Cuban Libraries, an independent non-partisan organization that supports intellectual freedom in Cuba by supporting and stocking independent libraries run by Cuban citizens. The group includes people of many political/ideological persuasions, but they don't get into all that; they simply agree to work together to help Cubans fight censorship and attacks on freedom of ideas.

We are an organization concerned exclusively with defending intellectual freedom. We oppose censorship and all other violations of intellectual freedom, as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, regardless of what administration may be in office in Cuba. Although our members hold a range of opinions on many other issues, we are united in believing it cannot be a crime to read a book, to oppose censorship, or to open a library, in Cuba or any other country.

It's a simple premise, really, one that ought to be a the forefront of liberal activism in the 21st century. Here's hoping that other liberals don't take too much longer to figure that out.

UPDATE: Thanks to Bob Kent, Co-chair of The Friends of Cuban Libraries, who recently wrote me with information about some other writers and academics who have spoken on this issue:

While Nat Hentoff is the most prominent journalist to have spoken out on this matter, it is not well-known that a broad range of public figures have expressed support for Cuba's brave independent librarians. For example, Ariel Dorfman, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and Naomi Klein are among the well-known persons on the left who have signed petitions calling for the release of the librarians imprisoned in Cuba.

Mr. Kent also points out that the so-called "information blockade" decried by the Cuban government is of their own making:

There is another important point which may be of interest to your readers. Citing the U.S. trade embargo, the Cuban government and its supporters often try to claim that an "information blockade" has been imposed on Cuba. In actual fact, informational materials such as books, newspapers, magazines, films and broadcasts are specifically exempt from the U.S. trade embargo. Books are sent without impediment from Cuba to other nations, including the U.S., but uncensored books sent from all over the world to Cuba's independent librarians are often confiscated and burned by the Cuban authorities. So the only "information blockade" in Cuba is the one imposed by the Cuban regime on its own people.

Five years ago today, six members of the Worcester (MA) Fire Department died in a warehouse fire. Two firefighters entered the burning building to locate and rescue a homeless couple reported to be living in the abandoned structure. When those two became disoriented and couldn't find their way out, four of their colleagues went in after them. None came out alive. The homeless couple were not in the building.

The six lost firefighers were:

• Paul A. Brotherton
• Timothy P. Jackson
• Jeremiah M. Lucey
• James F. Lyons
• Joseph T. McGuirk
• Thomas E. Spencer

Impromptu memorials sprang up at the fire site as soon as it was safe for the public to get close enough, and have continued every year around the anniversary. The city is planning a permanent memorial, over which there was some controversy but ultimate endorsement by the families.

Monuments are fine and do help ensure that we don't forget. But ultimately the greatest tribute to fallen firefighters is to learn from the mistakes that got them killed. Let's hope such tragedies don't continue to be compounded by further mistakes like this.

I just received the following e-mail from an activist friend. The preface was written by someone who had passed the message on at some point.

Greetings,

You may know someone who has been affected by breast cancer...this is the time to make your voices heard...this is another example that big business is running the government...we know life is driven by choices: DARE TO BE DIFFERENT.

Peace and blessings!

T_____ M. M____
H______ University
School of Pharmacy
B_____ P______ Coordinator
Office: 757-xxx-xxxx
Fax: 757-xxx-xxxx
E-mail: txxxxx.xxxxx@hxxxxxxu.edu
A small way that each of us can make a big difference!

Subject: Mastectomy Bill in Congress

NOTE : WHEN YOU SIGN-UP, PLEASE GIVE YOUR NAME AND ZIP CODE ONLY.....Other info is OPTIONAL....please pass this on to all your friends and family....

Breast Cancer Hospitalization Bill - Important legislation for all women.

Please send this to everyone in your address book. If there was ever a time when our voices and choices should be heard, this is one of those times. If you are receiving this it's because I think you will take the 30 seconds to go and vote on this issue...and send it on to others you know who will do the same.

There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the "drive-through mastectomy" where women are forced to go home hours after surgery against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached.

Lifetime Television has put this bill on their web page with a petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on. PLEASE!!!! Sign the petition by clicking on the web site below. You need not give more than your name and zip code number.

http://www.lifetimetv.com/reallife/bc/pledges/bc_mast_pledge.html

This takes about 2 seconds. PLEASE PASS THIS ON. THANKS!

There is indeed such legislation before Congress. It is Senate #1684, House #1886, Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act of 2003. The National Cancer Institute has a few words about it on the health policy legislation web site (but nothing in the way of follow-up):

• Introduced in the Senate by Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) on September 30, 2003
• A companion bill introduced by Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and referred to House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 30, 2003
• A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act and Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to require that group and individual health insurance coverage and group health plans provide coverage for a minimum hospital stay for mastectomies and lymph node dissections performed for the treatment of breast cancer
• Referred to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on September 30, 2003

So called "drive-through" surgery is, unfortunately, not restricted to mastectomies. Insurance for hospital stays pays for an ever-decreasing length of admission, with many procedures being done as day surgery. After my mother had a cardiac catheterization procedure done at a well-known Boston hospital last year, she was sent home the same day, only to begin hemorrhaging at the entry site the next day. Instead of paying for an overnight admission, her insurance provider paid for emergency room visit, ambulance transport, multiple ultrasound and other imaging tests, multiple follow-up office visits to the doctor, and finally an aneurysm repair procedure done, you guessed it, back at the same hospital where the initial procedure was done.

Penny wise and pound foolish? In that case, you bet. But insurance companies play the odds, which say that the rare complications following early discharges are far less costly than keeping every patient overnight. It isn't a comforting prospect for patients who worry that they might be the rare complication resulting in further illness, injury, or even death.

Some people think national health care, a.k.a. "socialized medicine" because of its foundation on socialist principles, is the answer. But we have to pay for that too, in the form of taxes. Even after it's paid for, there is little to no guarantee that the federal government, a bureaucracy that dwarfs even the largest medical insurance company, would do any better. The danger is that we'll get less, not more, for our money under a federally administered insurance plan.

Frankly, a big part of the problem with health care costs is that everyone wants the very best health care available in a wealthy nation such as ours. They want the latest diagnostic tests, the most effective treatments, the newest drugs. And they want it all for a low premium.

Years ago, my grandparents' generation didn't have any such thing as health insurance. If someone got sick, he or she paid the doctor bill out of pocket. Payment for hospitalizations were made at the accounting department before discharge, or a payment arrangement made. Prescription drugs, when necessary and available, were paid for in full by the patient. Even when adjusted for inflation, it was all much less expensive than it is today.

But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. Medical treatment was cheaper because it was less. An x-ray was considered a major diagnostic test; MRIs and CT scans and ultrasound studies were nowhere on the horizon. A hospital stay meant that you had a bed on a ward and you were most certainly not hooked up to any monitoring equipment; if you needed it you had an IV in your arm. Surgery was basic, the anesthesia made you as sick as the disease, and the availability of none but the most rudimentary and relatively ineffective antibiotics made it must riskier. You stayed in the hospital longer because it took you longer to recover because the treatment was far less effective than what we have today.

If we understood the value of 21st century medicine, perhaps we wouldn't demand the best available today—the latest and greatest brand new drugs, the most high-tech tests to diagnose our every ailment, treatment by the finest surgeons at the finest hospitals—for the price of yesterday. And just maybe the insurance companies wouldn't have to scrimp on hospital stays for mastectomy or cardiac cath patients in order to make up the difference.

I try to be understanding and non-judgmental about Islam, I really do. The Islamo-fascist terrorists are a minority, I keep telling myself, and other Muslims shouldn't be vilified because of them. Islam is a religion of peace and equality, I keep hearing, and I want to believe it.

Then I read about yet another travesty of justice and trampling of rights in yet another Islamic country. This time, it's the physical abuse of women in Egypt at the hands of their husbands (hat tip: Andrew):

Violent husbands can generally avoid prosecution on religious grounds, because the Egyptian penal code excludes acts committed "in good faith, pursuant to a right determined by virtue of the Shari'a" (Islamic law).

Egyptian law also allows men – literally – to get away with murder. If a husband kills his wife in the act of committing adultery, it's only a misdemeanour but if a wife kills her husband for the same reason, then of course that's murder.

Adultery, incidentally, is defined in Egyptian law to the husband's advantage. For a man, it doesn't count as adultery unless he does it in the marital home. For a woman, it's adultery no matter where she does it.

A stunning few Egyptian women actually object to such repression, if in fact they responded truthfully to the survey conducted by the Egyptian government:

Almost 86% of the women surveyed thought husbands were justified in hitting their wives sometimes, and a large majority said a refusal to have sex was sufficient grounds for beating.

The survey also showed the percentage of women aged 20-29 who thought beating was justified for a range of other domestic "offences":
"Talking back" to a husband: 70%
Talking to another man: 65%
Spending too much money: 42%
Burning the dinner: 26%

The fault, of course, lies in the religious and governmental (for in most Muslim countries, they are one and the same) mysogyny has become a hallmark of Islam in spite of legislation to the contrary:

The Egyptian legal system – like others in the Arab world – is designed by men, for the benefit of men, and almost entirely operated by men.

"Regardless of which type of divorce a woman chooses, male officials largely still control every step of the process. Egypt has only one female judge on the bench, and the prosecutors who provide advisory opinions in divorce cases are overwhelmingly male. In divorce cases, women themselves are left with little decision-making power," the report says.

There is nothing in the law (religious or secular) to say that women can't become judges and, indeed, the constitution guarantees "equality of opportunity to all Egyptians", but the supreme council of judges continues to reject applications from women. With some failed applications it has explicitly stated that the person's gender was the reason for the rejection.

It is mind-boggling that such attitudes remain prevalent, not to mention legal, in the 21st century—until you consider that today's middle eastern Muslim leaders want to move back in time, not forward. Now if Muslim women in the United States chose to observe their faith's teaching about modest dress by wearing head coverings, that's fine (as it should be in France, by the way, but that's another topic). But to be believe that they deserve to be treated as property or worse is an indictment of the worst sort against Islam the religion as it has come to be widely practiced and preached. Whether it should be so practiced is irrelevant; Islam is what it has become, not what its practitioners want us to believe it is.

Since September 11, President Bush has repeatedly said that the war on terror is not a war against Islam. That, too, I have wanted to believe. But more and more, I find myself thinking that a war against Islam is exactly what's necessary for a just world.