Of all those who protested Terri Schiavo's wrongful death...

...how many support the war in Iraq? Let's see a show of hands.



CNN reports on its War In Iraq site:

There have been 1,702 coalition troop deaths, 1,528 Americans, 86 Britons, eight Bulgarians, one Dane, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Hungarian, 21 Italians, one Kazakh, one Latvian, 17 Poles, one Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 17 Ukrainians in the war in Iraq as of March 29, 2005.

The site also lists, alphabetically and chronologically, the American soldiers who have died in the war. Did Terri Schiavo's protestors also protest the deaths of Cpl. Roberto Abad, Cmdr. Joseph Acevedo, Sgt. Michael D. Acklin II, Spc. Genaro Acosta, Pfc. Steven Acosta, Capt. James F. Adamouski, Pvt. Algernon Adams, Sgt. Brandon E. Adams, Sgt. Leonard W. Adams, 1st Lt. Michael R. Adams, Pfc. Michael S. Adams, Lt. Thomas Mullen Adams, Spc. Jamaal R. Addison, Lance Cpl. Patrick R. Adle, Pfc. Christopher S. Adlesperger, Lance Cpl. Jeramy A. Ailes, Capt. Tristan N. Aitken, Spc. Segun Frederick Akintade, Capt. Paul C. Alaniz, Lance Cpl. Nickalous N. Aldrich, Spc. Azhar Ali, Cpl. Stephen John Allbutt, Spc. Ronald D. Allen Jr., Sgt. Glenn R. Allison, Spc. Jeremy O. Allmon, Lance Cpl. Michael J. Allred, Sapper Luke Allsopp, Capt. Eric. L. Allton, Cpl. Nicanor Alvarez, Cpl. Daniel R. Amaya...

Great new name, same old Earth

Bob Schindler's supporters, Rick Warren's readers, Tom DeLay's voters, Karl Rove's defenders, Rush Limbaugh's audience, Muslim extremists, Zionists, the Pope's followers. All completely convinced they're doing good, fighting the good fight, aiding the helpless, ridding the world of evil.

Dumb is dumb, no matter how good the heart.

Heaven's Gate 2: The Sheraton Portal

What is with Christians who are fascinated with predicting the future? I remember as a kid in a Baptist church being really interested in the stories about the antichrist and the mark of the beast. I remember an elaborate chalk-talk in church that ended with a tape of war sound effects and colored lights and blacklights seeming to animate the final drawing of Armageddon. I thought it was scary and really cool.

But that was when I was a kid.

Grown-ups (the Living Church of God, which emphasizes end-time prophesies) are still obsessing about these stories that are pretty much on the level of graphic novels with vast armies and superheroes? Somehow...I don't know how...we have to find a way for it to become okay for adults to outgrow these stories. It's time to move on to more difficult books, like Stephen Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell.

Evocative memorials to the fallen in the Iraq War

AP Photo/Denis PoroyThe Eyes Wide Open memorial at Grape Day Park in Escondido, California, Thursday, March 10, 2005. More information can be found at the Eyes Wide Open


Photo by the authorThe Arlington West memorial at the pier in Santa Monica, California, in 2004. More information can be found at the Veterans for Peace website.

The war we could not stop, the reign we could not end

A message from Ramsey Clark:

IMPEACHMENT MORE URGENT THAN EVER

Dear VoteToImpeach / ImpeachBush.org Members,

We are urging all of those who are part of the impeachment movement to participate and bring the message of impeachment with signs and banners to the hundreds of local demonstrations that will be taking place on March 19/20, the second anniversary of the beginning of the criminal war against Iraq.

Between March 19 and April 3, Congressional representatives are scheduled to be back in their home district. It has never been more important for all people of conscience to hold demonstrations and rallies, and to lobby those representatives in their home districts during the March 19 - April 3 period. We are certain that impeachment activists from around the country will join us in organizing activities in the March 19 - April 3 period. Please notify the VoteToImpeach / ImpeachBush.org campaign about your local activity, and send in a report and photos, to ImpeachBush@VotetoImpeach.org.

The duty of the American People to compel the Impeachment of George W. Bush and his principal aides becomes ever more urgent as his mounting crimes take more lives daily, and threaten irreparable injury to Constitutional government, irreconcilable division within the nation and isolation of the U.S. in the community of nations.
Two years after the commencement of his War of Aggression, judged to be the "Supreme International Crime" at Nuremberg, the flow of blood in Iraq continues to rise and the threat of death is omnipresent.

The criminal policies of the Bush Administration which violate fundamental human rights are etched in memory worldwide in names like:

Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as symbols of torture;

Falluja and Najaf as symbols of the indiscriminate destruction of civilian life;

Nicola Calipari, the Italian officer killed shielding the Italian reporter, Giuliana Sgrena, with his body, and scores of Iraqi families gunned down on highways as symbols of summary execution;

Unknown numbers of persons seized in the U.S., Canada, anywhere in the world and victimized by "Rendition" to abuse by foreign police as symbols of kidnapping.

A year after democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide of Haiti was told by President Bush he "has to go" and was forced on to a U.S. plane and flown to Central African Republic, violence continues to grow in Haiti and deaths rise into the thousands as Aristide supporters are systematically targeted and no relief is in sight for the people of Haiti.

Today President Bush threatens Iran ("all options" are available), North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, among others. He tells Syria it must completely withdraw its troops from Lebanon even as 500,000 Lebanese, 12 percent of the entire population, take to the streets to protest U.S. intervention and a pro-Syrian Lebanese leader is reelected Prime Minister by the Parliament of Lebanon, which fears a U.S.-Israel occupation and wants Syria to stay and maintain stability finally established after years of Civil War and bedlam.

For those who doubt President Bush's determination to continue his criminal enterprise consider only his three most important recent appointments: John Negroponte as director for all foreign intelligence where he can control information about foreign weapons of mass destruction and terrorist threats to the U.S.; John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations to assure U.S. commitment to unilateral aggression and weaken UN opposition to U.S. aggression; and Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General to validate violations of international human rights, the rule of law and the Constitution of the United States.

In his determination to be above all law, President Bush insists on U.S. power to continue violations of fundamental human rights in his war on terrorism; to violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by developing a new generation of extremely dangerous and usable tactical nuclear weapons while threatening to attack Iran, North Korea and others based on unverified claims that they are developing nuclear weapons; by direct obstruction of justice through bilateral agreements to refuse cooperation with the International Criminal Court; and by the U.S. withdrawal in March 2005 from International Court of Justice jurisdiction following a decision by that Court that State Courts in the U.S. must individually review the death sentences of 51 Mexican citizens following trials in which the U.S. violated rights of the accused under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

The continuing boastful commitment of the Bush Administration to criminal aggression is a clear and present danger to the Constitution of the United States and the security of its peoples. The highest duty of the American people is to demand faithful performance of Constitutional duty by their elected representatives to assure that they uphold Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution which states "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

We must organize and act for the impeachment of George W. Bush and his principal aides by the House of Representatives and their trial by the Senate.

Vote to Impeach Now. Contribute to this national campaign. Organize meetings with your representative and present petitions from voters in your Congressional District demanding impeachment.

Action Now is Essential.

Ramsey Clark
March 10, 2005

TV's dirty little gay secret

RON TOM/ABC

Desperate Housewives, Nip/Tuck and Sex and the City were created by gay writers?

Who knew?

An article in Time examines the irony of gay writers like Marc Cherry, Ryan Murphy and Darren Star being responsible for the success of popular straight shows in an increasingly anti-gay America. The straight audience just didn't know? And now that Time has let them in on the secret, will they abandon the shows? And if they know and don't abandon the shows, why not?

Whoever said the audience was logical? Not me.

Another interesting discovery is that Marc Cherry is 42 and Darren Star is 43. There's hope for me yet! (Although not much. I'm 48.) In an industry that discards writers as soon as they turn 30, those writers' ages are significant.

A TV show by any other name

Thinking that the title of my drama series Life Doesn't Always may come across as too philosophical and/or wishy-washy, I came up with the above alternatives.

I continue to wait patiently to hear from here! Networks regarding the status of my series.