The lead is one of the hardest, yet most essential, elements to a news story.  It sets the tone for the article and captures the reader’s interest by using a minimum number of words.  And speaking of minimum, the good lead offers, at minimum, the meat of the story: the who, the what, the when, and the where.  The why and the how come later.

Journalists learn lead writing in Journalism 101 classes.  They hone their skill through class assignments.  They perfect the art with the help of editors or producers.

So what happened at the Houston Chronicle last week?  Someone either (1) forgot how to write a lead or (2) the Chronicle, once again, demonstrated its penchant for shoddy writing and agenda journalism.  Of course, neither alternative is mutually exclusive.

Here’s what readers gleaned from the first three paragraphs of the front-page story of the city/state section under the headline, “Teen’s hanging in jail fuels many questions”:  17-year-old Arturo Chavez sat dead in solitary confinement in the Galveston County, Texas, jail after twisting a blanket into a noose around his neck within 48 hours of his arrest on an initial charge of making an illegal left turn.

Three paragraphs to tell us a 17-year-old may have committed suicide in the county jail after a traffic stop.

By the end of the fourth paragraph, the reader gets the idea this will not be a story about an apparent jail suicide, but rather a sob-sister account of an illegal alien from Guatemala who spent much of his time improving his English and working to send money to the folks back home.

The fifth graph introduces his older brother who says Chavez killed himself because he was “so beaten down he couldn’t take the pain.”  And then, if the reader had any doubts of the paper’s agenda, the sixth paragraph tosses them out by explaining that Chavez’s life was similar to those untold others who “live in the shadows” because of their immigration status.

Reading on in the eighth graph, we learn his parents filed a federal lawsuit against the police department, the county, and the county sheriff alleging authorities didn’t do enough to prevent the suicide.

The paper devotes the next 16 (count them, 16) paragraphs on Chavez’s dissatisfaction with his tips from loading baggage at a Guatemalan bus station; the 15 days he spent sneaking into Mexico and the U.S.; the $3,500 he and his family and friends forked over to coyotes; his rise from busboy to waiter at an unnamed restaurant owned by Mario Garcia (yes, the story named the owner, but not the restaurant); the $100 a week Chavez sent home; his classes to learn English; his pride of Guatemala, the U.S., and his Mayan heritage, his happiness with his 15-year-old girl friend; and his traffic stop.

Not until paragraph 25, more than halfway into the story, do we learn Chavez was in the U.S. illegally with no driver’s license or auto insurance, and in possession of a fake identification card.  And then, the paper takes two more paragraphs before describing how Chavez escaped from jail, scrambled up a wire-topped fence that cut his hands as he resisted arrest, and how police had to zap him twice with a taser and thwack him several times in the head with a baton before he gave up.

The remaining 16 paragraphs reflect the tone of the first 24 by painting an illegal immigrant who escaped from jail and resisted capture, who endangered lives and property, and who carried what may have been someone’s stolen identity as a hard worker whose poor family had to raise the cash to return his body to Guatemala.

There is nothing wrong with telling Chavez’s story to explain why the young man chose to kill himself rather than wait for the court to release him so he could continue his voluntary life in the shadows.  The Houston Chronicle, however, did a great disservice to its readers and to all legal immigrants and naturalized citizens by burying Chavez’s criminal activities and by portraying him as an innocent victim of a racist and uncaring society that beat him down until suicide was the only way to stop his pain.

I don’t have a problem with well-written, sob-sister, agenda journalism.  Just don’t put tripas on a plate and serve it as tournedos.

Out in Thousand Oaks, Calif., earlier this month, some residents scored a small victory by effectively closing down for a day a city-sponsored day-labor center. Last year Judicial Watch wrote the mayor about the organization’s concerns that the city was violating federal immigration laws by spending more than $133,000 of public funds between 2001 and 2007 to subsidize what amounts to city-sanctioned criminal activity, since mostly illegal aliens hang out at the center. 

A small group of residents gathered on the sidewalk to wave placards and US flags at passing motorists. They also used video cameras to tape folks trying to hire illegals, which considerably cut down on business for the day. 

Out in Aurora, Colo., city council members this month will take up a proposal to change the definition of a temporary employment agency after citizens and business owners complained about people gathered at an intersection looking for temporary work. Some of the job seekers reportedly jump in front of vehicles or urinate behind the buildings. The proposal would force day laborers to stand 1,500 feet from the newly defined employment agencies. 

Lou Barletta, the three-term mayor of Hazelton, Pa., wants businesses there to work with a company that uses a federal data base to check on employees’ immigration status. Illegal immigration is the cornerstone of his campaign to oust a 12-term member of Congress. He also convinced the city council in 2006 to approve an ordinance denying business permits to companies that employ illegals. The ordinance also allowed for fines against landlords who rent to illegals, and it required tenants to register and pay for a rental permit. A federal judge said “No, no, no.”  

Federal courts around the nation struck down other attempts by cities to staunch the flow of illegals into their communities. Up in Farmers Branch, Texas, a federal judge this month quashed the city’s ban on renting apartments to illegals. Now, the city is thinking about following Hazelton’s plan.

The Fremont, Neb., city council is considering a proposal to ban the harboring or hiring of illegals or renting to them. And, officials in Escondido, Calif., want to enact ordinances that outlaw picking up day laborers from along some streets. They also want to discourage multiple families from sharing houses by requiring a permit for overnight parking.  

Opponents of the Fremont and Escondido plans say the cities’ attempts are unconstitutional. And, they’re probably right. Cities and states can’t enact laws governing immigration. That’s the job of the federal government. Plenty of laws exist to control immigration; they just need to be enforced.  

We’re starting to see some that enforcement. A few days ago, feds in Rhode Island raided six courthouses and arrested 31 illegals from Mexico, Guatamala, Honduras, and Brazil hired by contractors for the state court system. Then there’s Mack Associates, Inc., owner of eleven McDonald’s restaurants in Nevada, fined $1 million this past week after admitting to hiring 58 illegal immigrants. In Morgan City, La., Lenny Dartez, a former member of the state’s Democratic Party central committee and husband of former state representative Carla Dartez, faces up to five years in the pokey and up to $250,000 in fines for employing illegals from Trinidad at one of his companies. Citizen tips led to the arrests in all three of these cases. 

And, there is the answer. The illegal immigration issue may be a national concern, but it’s really an issue that can be addressed only on the individual level. 

Here’s what I mean. A couple of years ago, my mother-in-law nearly died after an illegal immigrant made an unlawful u-turn and rammed into her vehicle. My mother-in-law wanted to talk with her city council member and write letters to her state representatives about passing stricter immigration legislation until I pointed out that neither the city nor the state has jurisdiction. 

It’s up to you and your friends to do something about it, and that something is simply shunning those who purposely hire illegal workers, I said. Folks concerned about crime in their neighborhood establish neighborhood watches to keep out miscreants. Residents fed up with prostitution chase away the customers from the street corners. Citizens tired of drugs run off the dealers. They don’t wait for the government to enforce laws already on the books. 

Her preacher frequented the Mexican restaurant that hired the woman who hit her, so I suggested she tell the preacher to either stop going there or else they’d find a new minister. She didn’t like the idea.  

Shunning is not easy. She lives in a small Arkansas town. Shunning business owners and neighbors she’s known for decades would make it uncomfortable for her whenever she went to the country club or attended a Kiwanis meeting, she admitted. 

Some places encourage illegals to settle in their communities. But folks living in other cities, like the one’s mentioned earlier, want the illegals to go away. They can’t pass city ordinances, but they can take individual action. 

One person becomes two, who become four, which then becomes a movement. When the government won’t enforce its laws, the individual must turn his or her back on those who hire and harbor illegals. Non-violent community pressure in the form of economic and social shunning, also known as boycotts, may be the only solution.

Here’s what happened. Members of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, a merry band of political pranksters, were downing some brews when they came up with the idea to rename their city’s award-winning Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant in honor of George W. Bush. They want the name change to take effect Jan. 20, 2009, which is Inauguration Day. 

Supporters of the idea suggest San Franciscans participate in a synchronized flush to christen the renamed plant just as the new president takes the oath of office.

They have more than 8,500 signatures on a petition to put the question on the November ballot. One of the organizers admits the petition drive is a silly idea to some people, but adds that their grassroots campaign is the democratic process at work.

No argument there. In fact, we need more grassroots efforts, just not at the expense of hard-working folks, such as those who operate our sewage treatment plants.

I’ve never worked in a treatment plant, but I spent a couple of summers at the bottom of sewer mains in my hometown shoveling, well, stuff. Here’s a pop quiz: Do you know what a honey dipper is, and have you ever used one?

New York City describes what new sewage treatment employees can expect for their $30,000-a-year salary: working outdoors in all kinds of weather; working under high levels of noise; working in areas that may be damp, dark, dusty, dirty and/or acrid; using a respirator; and using equipment for fecal testing.

The wastewater treatment occupation is one of our nation’s most hazardous jobs. A 1997 study at Cornell University pointed out the primary route of chemically related health problems among sewage treatment workers came from inhalation, because many plants are not designed to prevent aerial dispersion of wastewater during the treatment process.  

Treating our sewage exposes these workers to chlorinated organic solvents and pesticides, PCBs, asbestos, dioxins, polycyclic aromatics, petroleum hydrocarbons, flame retardants, heavy metals, and radioactive materials that may increase the risk of cancer or abnormal births for the workers or their families.

Earlier this month, six workers at a sewage treatment plant in Sicily died from breathing poisonous fumes.

San Francisco (where some residents apparently believe their sewage don’t stink) has nearly 900 miles of sewers, three treatment plants, 36 overflow points, four outfalls, and 17 pump stations, according to the city’s official sewage site. The proposed George W. Bush Sewage Treatment Plant treats an average dry-weather flow of about 17 million gallons a day and has a total capacity of 65 million gallons during wet weather. 

In 2002, a National Public Radio reporter and his producer went into Cincinnati’s sewers as part of NPR’s series on dirty work. They descended 25-feet below the streets and, in hip waders, walked into a 20-foot-diameter pipe, part of a collection site, which spews what the reporter called “an unsavory mix of storm-water runoff and brown sewage.”

Cincinnati sewer workers told the NPR team they saw themselves as “environmentalists improving the quality of peoples’ lives,” even though others may find the work distasteful.

No. What’s distasteful here is the adolescent glee in which the petition organizers and fellow Bush haters in San Francisco and around the country revel.

One organizer, ignoring the obvious irony, said he believes most politicians are narcissistic and egomaniacs, and that it’s important for “satirists” like himself and the petition-drive organizers not let politicians define their own history.

A member of a Democratic online discussion board put it another way. If Bush had any sense of remorse, the member wrote, “he would die of humiliation and shame,” at having a sewage treatment plant named after him.

Is this arrogance based in ignorance or mean spiritedness, or both?

The White House refuses to comment on the petition drive, but who would blame the president for saying he is honored to be associated with folks who feel no humiliation and shame in their work? 

The humiliation and shame rests on those promoting the petition.

Here we are with a new week and another round of posturing, politicking, and punditry regarding the price of petroleum.  As happens when folks do a lot of talking, very little is said.

I hang around educated and talented people.  Each individual has at least one university degree.  Most read, watch, or listen to more than one news source every day.  They span generations with ages ranging from the 20s to the 70s. 

Yet, not a single person among them knew the answers to some basic questions pertinent to the growing discourse regarding the rising price of oil.  A few knew some of the answers, and some knew a few of the answers.  To be fair, I had to look up the answers, or else I would have been among the shoulder shruggers.

For instance, how big is a barrel?  Answer: 42 gallons.  So, now you know that when the price for a barrel of crude oil hits $140, that’s the same as $3.33 a gallon.

What nation supplies the most crude oil and petroleum products to the United States?  Answer: The United States.  According to the Energy Information Agency (www.eia.doe.gov), our country supplied 41 percent of the oil we consumed in March of this year. 

What nation, other than the U.S. , supplies the most crude oil and petroleum products to our country?  Answer:  Canada .  Our northern neighbor accounts for 12 percent of our nation’s oil and 20 percent of all the oil we import.  The rest of the top five include Saudi Arabia (7 percent and 13 percent); Venezuela (6 percent and 11 percent); Nigeria (6 percent and 10 percent); and Mexico (5 percent and 8 percent).

How much oil do we import from Persian Gulf countries?  I’m glad you asked.  Persian Gulf countries accounted for only 16 percent of our foreign oil imports each year from 2005 to 2007.  In fact, our Persian Gulf imports declined most of this decade, from a 15-year high of a little more than 1 billion barrels in 2001 to 791.9 million barrels in 2007.

What’s the difference between crude oil and petroleum products?  Answer: Crude oil provides, among other products, gasoline, diesel and jet fuels, heating oil, liquefied petroleum gas, lubricants, asphalt, plastics, synthetic fibers, detergents, fertilizers, ink, crayons, bubble gum, deodorant, tires, and heart valves.

One barrel of crude oil (which is 42 gallons, remember?), yields about 19.6 gallons of gasoline.  The other 22.4 gallons go into the products just mentioned.

How much of the cost of oil goes into the price of gasoline.  Answer:  A bunch.  We consumed about 390 million gallons of gas a day last year in our cars, trucks, recreational vehicles, boats, farm implements, and construction and landscaping equipment.  Back when crude was $68 a barrel (that was just last year), it accounted for about 58 percent of the price of a gallon of gasoline.  The rest of the price came from refining costs (17 percent), federal and state taxes (15 percent), and distribution and marketing (10 percent). 

By the way, the price of crude accounts for about 77 percent of the cost of gas at $4 a gallon.

Here’s a little something you may not have considered.  What products that you buy on a regular basis are sold with tax included?  Answer:  Gasoline.  For everything else, you add the tax at checkout.

The folks in California pay 63.9 cents a gallon in state and federal fuel taxes, the most in the nation.  That’s just the base, though.  Motorists there also pay an additional 6-percent state sales tax, with some paying another 1.25-percent county sales tax plus applicable local sales taxes.  Same in Illinois , where Chicago motorists pay 12.75 cents per gallon on top of the 57.9 cents per gallon in state and federal taxes.  Some Illinois motorists also pay a 6.25-percent sales tax.

Politicians, pundits, and other TV talking heads don’t like to provide these answers, because facts get in the way of positions that pander to the mob.  We don’t point fingers at Canada , because it’s de rigueur to paint the Saudis with the broad brush of blame.  Folks float the idea of a moratorium on state and federal gasoline taxes without explaining its minimal impact on gas prices, or without mentioning the $3 sales tax some motorists pay on top of a $50 fill up.  Policymakers don’t explain that oil trades in the dollar, which is weak vis-à-vis the Euro, because that would require solutions for strengthening the greenback.

And, it’s easier for simple minds to convince simpler minds to impose windfall-profit taxes on pension funds and owners of Individual Retirement Accounts who invest in oil companies than to take on credit card issuers charging double- and triple-digit interest rates to the millions of people using plastic to pay for food and fuel.  Talk about irony.

And, we sure wouldn’t want to impose a windfall-profit tax on someone who goes from making $56,000 a year as, say, an Illinois legislator, to $165,000 a year as, say, a U.S. senator, an increase of nearly 200 percent (not counting book deals or real-estate related loans).

Mundus vult decipi (and as my magician friends add: decipiatur)

Although Memorial Day is a national holiday, it is not a federally mandated observance. At least not in the sense that states or public entities run the risk of losing federal funding or getting a wagging finger from Uncle Sam if they choose not to close shop on that day.
 
Here’s the weird thing. The schools that stayed open on Memorial Day closed their doors on Labor Day, Thanksgiving, that period at the end of December and the first couple of days of January that used to be Christmas Break, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents Day, and Spring Break.  

Houston County, Tenn., schools took off ten days in October for Fall Break and another two weeks in March for Spring Break. Lancaster County, S.C., schools took two, four-day Spring Breaks: one in March and the other in April. 

And the kids in Seguin, Texas, got out to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, something kids in Mexico don’t do. Go figure. 

School officials say they had to keep their doors open. The guy speaking for Taylor County (Fla.) High School blamed it on the state legislature that changed the academic calendar for Florida’s public schools. 

The spokesperson for Lancaster County, S.C., schools (the ones that took two Spring Breaks this year) also blamed his state’s legislature, which he’ll have to do again next year, because the school board in February approved the 2008-09 calendar that also does not include a Memorial Day holiday. 

While driving in from the ranch the other day, I listened to a local talk-radio guy in Houston lambaste school officials down in McAllen for not observing Memorial Day. He failed to point out, though, that McAllen kids almost never get out of school. They don’t get Labor Day, MLK Day, Presidents Day, Fall Break, Cinco de Mayo, or a student/staff holiday the week after returning from Spring Break like the kids up in Austin get. All the McAllen kids get are a couple of days at Thanksgiving, those days at the end of December and the first couple of days of January that used to be Christmas Break, and a week in March for Spring Break. 

There is a point to all of this. Maybe holidays are too important or too personal for legislatures, school boards, and bosses to decide. Oh, they can set aside a finite number of days that their employees can take off, but maybe they should let their employees decide which days to stay home. 

An example is Christmas. There was a time when Christmas was the day set aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, you know, the Messiah, the Son of God. So, who would observe such a day? Certainly not Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists. Yet they all got Christmas off. Of course, today we don’t have Christmas. We have Winter Break, those days at the end of December and the first couple of days of January that used to be Christmas Break. 

Why not let local folks decide for themselves when to work and when to celebrate whatever it is they wish to celebrate? It’s a state rights thing, only on the local level. 

Here in Texas, we have several holidays that other states probably would celebrate if they put aside their Lone Star envy. San Jacinto Day on April 21 commemorates the capture of Santa Anna and more than 700 of his troops at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, but it’s just another work day for most Texans. We also have to work on Texas Independence Day (March 2), Emancipation Day (June 19), and Lyndon Baines Johnson Day (Aug. 27). 

I’d like to visit Hawaii some day. Until then, I might like to stay home every June 11, eat some pineapple, get lei-ed, and celebrate King Kamehameha Day. But I can’t, because someone else decided what holidays I can have.

Those said, it’s time to get to the business at hand, which is the insensitive and incomplete reporting this week by National Public Radio that had a team in the People’s Republic of China preparing a series of reports in anticipation of this summer’s Olympic Games when the earthquake struck. 

The story in question aired on the May 19 broadcast of “All Things Considered”. The reporter led the feature on the start of the official three-day mourning period by calling the May 12 quake “China’s 9/11.”  My first thought, and the first thoughts of the folks I talked with who heard it, was unbelief that a major U.S. news organization, heard by millions of listeners each day, would insult the victims of the worst terrorist attack on our nation’s soil by comparing the events of Sept. 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Flight 93 over Shanksville, Pa., to a natural disaster.

A former colleague from back in my television news days wrote in an e-mail: “I heard it on NPR while driving to work past the U.S. Capitol and nearly ran off the road.  China's 9-11?????  Unbelievable.”

If the NPR producers back home wanted to label the quake, why not call it “China’s 5/12”? Better yet, why use any hype or hyperbole? The death and destruction speak for themselves.

A woman I know took great umbrage, because it brought back painful memories of some of the condolences offered following her sister’s murder. “People meant well, I know that, but I was offended every time someone came up to me and told me they knew how I felt, because they had a close family member die of cancer,” she said. “Murder and death by natural causes are nowhere near the same. Why do people always try to trivialize things?”

Indeed.

The second problem with the story was NPR’s failure to put in historical perspective the loss of life from the disaster. One week after the quake, officials placed the death count at about 32,000, a number that goes up each day. Again, at the risk of sounding callous, and appreciating that even one death is grief beyond comprehension for a family, the May 12 quake did not approach the loss of life of other China quakes.

A quick online search by an intern back in the newsroom would have shown NPR’s producers and editors that three earthquakes alone in the 20^th century killed as many as one million Chinese: 180,000 in Kansu on Dec. 16, 1920; 200,000 in Nanshan on May 22, 1927; and between 242,000 and 655,000 in Tangshan on July 28, 1976. The toll from the Tangshan quake is the equivalent of the death of nearly the entire population of Plano, Texas, on the low end, or more than everyone living in Fort Worth, Texas, on the high end.

And then, there is the Jan 23, 1556, quake in Shansi that killed 830,000, which would be akin to everyone living in and around Indianapolis, Ind.

In fact, even at this writing, the May 12 earthquake would not rank as the 21^st century’s deadliest in a single country. That distinction belongs to northern Pakistan, when at least 86,000 (about the population of Denton or Tyler, Texas) died on Oct. 8, 2005. The century’s deadliest occurred on Dec. 26, 2004, when the Indian Ocean quake created a tsunami that resulted in 228,000 dead or missing in 14 nations.

NPR’s producers and editors, and all who gather and disseminate news and information, should make a greater effort to put the events of the day in their proper or historical perspective, without histrionics and exaggeration.  Their audiences deserve it.

OK, now that those do-gooders have moved on elsewhere, I can impart some important information for all of you deviant wastes of skin. If the idea of spending a decade or more passed around in the prison shower is the only thing that keeps you from raping or sexually assaulting children, then I have some good news for you. Pack up your bags and move to Paris. Illinois, that is. 

Here’s why. Back about a year ago, Anthony J. Boyer of Paris faced one count of predatory criminal assault of a child, which carries a mandatory prison term, and one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, which does not, each having to do with an 11-year-old girl. Last November, Boyer entered a guilty plea to the second charge, thereby avoiding the mandatory sentence. Still, Boyer could have landed his temptingly chubby behind behind prison walls for up to fourteen years.  

Then, on April 21, Illinois Fifth Judicial Circuit Court judge James R. Glenn sentenced Boyer to four years’ probation, along with 364 days and work release in the county jail, successful completion of a sex offender treatment program, and $5,000 in fines and costs. The judge also made Boyer pay for any counseling for the child victim, and told him to keep away from anyone under the age of 18, except for his own child, and only then with supervision. 

Now, before you pervs flinch at the thought of doing a year in the Edgar County Jail, look on the bright side. You can get out during the day and move around the community as part of your work release, stretch your legs, say “hi” to your friends, breathe clean, country air, and maybe see some little kids walking around the town square to give you something to think about when you’re in your bunk at night. Then, after a year, all you gotta do is report to your probation officer. Any other county in the country would have you dropping the soap for guys named Bubba for a very long and painful time. 

Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s that doofus judge out in Maryland who sentenced a father to four months in jail for having sex with his 1-year-old daughter for seven straight years. And, there’s that nitwit judge in Nebraska who refused to send a man to prison for raping a 13-year-old girl because she felt he was not tall enough. Then there’s the moron in Boston who gave probation to a transgendered man who raped an 11-year-old boy. Oh, yeah, that idiot judge in Alabama who gave probation to a man who admitted sodomizing his three adopted sons. 

Anyway, once you’ve done your soft time, you can mingle with others of your ilk living in Paris. Folks like Edgar Dulaney who was 62 when he assaulted a 12-year-old; Jerald Henness who was 60 years older than his 5-year-old victim; Michael Jay Howard whose victim was 6-years-old; Charles Melvin Loveless who was 41 and his victim 8; Rodney Lynn Tingley whose victim was 9 at the time of his abuse, as was Debra Toothman’s prey. A real beauty with a bad-*ss photo is Daniel Eugene Nail who was 39 when he sexually assaulted his 12-year-old victim. 

There are plenty more, such as Daniel James Barley who was 47-years-old when he lured a 10-year-old into his vehicle; and Christopher Dwayne Kennedy who was 17 when he committed two acts of sexual abuse on an 8-year-old. 

In all, Paris has 44 child-sex criminals registered with the state (www.isp.state.il.us/sor) out of a population of a bit more than 9,000. They gotta live somewhere, and in a small town, folks can keep an eye on them easier, I guess. 

Not far from the ranch is Galveston, Texas, where more than 100 of your kind walk the streets along with the other 57,400 residents. There could be a whole lot more pedophiles and sex criminals on the island, but the Texas Department of Public Safety site (https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/DPS_WEB/Sor/index.aspx) returns only the first 100 hits.  

Getting back to Paris, though, one wonders what the good folks of my hometown think about some judge putting another one of you on the streets, even if Boyer will be on a short leash for a year. One would think a small-town judge would consider the community impact of the light sentence, its affect on economic development, and the message it sends to the town’s children. 

But, maybe he doesn’t care. Justice is supposed to blind. In this case, he’s an out-of-towner from over in Charleston.

Presidential campaigns have never been confused with genteel afternoon teas.  Political campaigns, by their nature, are nasty and unavoidable beasts.  But this year, more than any other, the battles among candidates, Democrats and Republicans, call to mind the bloody gladiatorial combats and savage-beasts fights staged in Rome’s Coliseum for the entertainment of the emperor and the citizenry.  The victor was the last man or beast standing.

Today, presidential primary campaigns play out on the television screen, the twenty-first century version of the Coliseum.  One does not need to stretch the imagination to draw a comparison between these contests and some weird hybrid of American Idol and Last Man Standing, which could carry the title of “The Last American Idol Standing.”

Each week, we parade the contestants in front of the nation’s citizens and require the combatants to draw political blood from their opponents.  Most participants survive to fight the next round.  In the meantime, a small segment of the nation decides which candidate provided the best entertainment and inflicted the greatest damage.  If the voters of a particular early-primary state cannot make up their minds, well-coifed and smooth-talking media stars tell them which candidate delivered the most damaging blows and which candidates cannot answer the bell.

And this is the model of democracy we encourage citizens of other nations to embrace.

The answer to why we subject ourselves to this political insanity is found, in part, in state bragging rights.  When addressing the question about why New Hampshire should be the first state to hold primaries, the Manchester Union Leader responded with, “We’ve earned it.”  Indeed.
 
Another part of the answer is money (doesn’t it always come down to that?).  Estimates show this year’s Iowa caucuses generated as much as $100 million for the state, with a fourth of that spent in Des Moines, according to the Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau.  For New Hampshire, the “We Earned It” state, campaign-related economic benefits could surpass $250 million.

Millions of dollars in free publicity is another factor in the race to degrade our political process.  A study of the 2000 New Hampshire primary, conducted by the Library and Archives of New Hampshire Political Tradition and the New Hampshire Department of State, found that an estimated 20 million people heard positive messages about the state from the national media.  An estimated 14 million people were exposed to stories that touted the state as a place to visit or to do business.  The overall value of this media exposure, in terms of tourism promotion and economic development, came to $264 million.

In 2000, then-senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) and then-Democrat Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), introduced the Regional Presidential Selection Act in response to what they called an arbitrary and confusing process that gives a handful of states a disproportionate influence.

In testimony before the Committee on Rules and Administration, Gorton cited a review by the Congressional Research Service that concluded that almost 80 percent of the delegates needed to claim the nomination for either party in the 2000 primaries were allocated by March 7, which prompted the media to declare the nomination process was finished.

This front-loading phenomenon on the part of nearly half of the states effectively denied the electorate in the remaining states the chance to cast meaningful votes for the candidates of their choice.  This disenfranchisement of voters was not based on race, gender, or national origin.  Front-loading states silenced these voters for the sake of tourism promotion and economic development. 

The media are willing partners in the grab for economic gains.  Nearly five million viewers watched the Jan. 21 Democratic debate on CNN, making that event the highest-rated political debate in cable TV history.

The Gorton-Lieberman bill would have created a rotating, regional system with all states in a region holding primaries or caucuses on the same date, in March, April, May, or June.  The bill died in committee, however.

And so the question now may be, “How does this affect me?”  If, for instance, you supported Rudy Giuliani or John Edwards on Jan. 29, and you lived in a state other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina, or Florida, then you had to find another candidate on Jan. 30.

On Nov. 4, we all get a chance to decide between the last candidates standing.  Only, at this rate, they may not be the most-qualified candidates, just the least bloodied.

It is time for the voters to give the proverbial thumbs-down to the current primary practice and retake control of the process.  The opportunity of a citizen in one state to cast a meaningful vote for the candidate of his or her choice should not be a function of another state’s economic development strategy.

The question always comes up, and the answer always irritates members of my family. 

Their question:  What do you want for Christmas?

My answer:  I dunno.  I haven’t thought about it.

Their response:  Why are you always so difficult?

My answer this year was different.  Let me explain.

Three years ago, as shared in a column at the time, my marriage came to a sudden and tragic end.  As I wrote, my wife’s announcement that she was filing for divorce and moving to Utah came “like an awful telephone call in the middle of the night with a voice on the other end of the line saying that your reckless child has died in a senseless automobile accident.  Shock followed by incomprehensible grief, emptiness, and despair.

“The causes for my wife's decision trail back to our childhoods. They stuffed themselves into our psychological bags and soiled three decades of our lives together. In the end, my internal dark demons became tangible to her. She could see them standing beside me, which frightened her into action she could have taken years ago.  The only way each of us will get better is for us to be apart, she reasoned. A clean break will allow us time and opportunity to heal our inner wounds, to discard our soiled baggage and maybe, years from now, remarry.”

She didn’t file, but moved to Salt Lake City anyway, because her company was there.  She had been working from the ranch here in Texas during her stint with 3M Health Information System and then with Ingenix, a division of United Healthcare, both of which had offices in SLC.  Telecommuting , which once sounded like a good idea, was taking its tolls on her health and on our relationship. 

About a year after she moved out there, she found a specialist who diagnosed her as having temporal lobe epilepsy, or TLE.  And, she may have had it since childhood.  Lots of folks have it, but don’t know they have it.  Two examples are Lewis Carroll and Joan of Arc.  Want to know what it’s like to have TLE?  Think of Carroll’s Alice and her journeys in Wonderland.  We now know Carroll was describing things he saw, not the things he imagined.  And Joan got burned at the stake, which surely must be some kind of metaphor for our pre-diagnosis relationship.

Among many things, TLE distorts reality, causes extreme head and body pains, and is just a nasty thing to have, especially if you and the people you live with don’t know you have it.  Now we know, and now we try to control it through various means that include medication, therapy, and rest. 

The corporate environment is not good for anyone with TLE, and life with her last employer finally got to the point that she consulted an attorney to see what legal remedies were possible to keep management from violating the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and triggering her TLE. 

Finally, after much discussion, she agreed it was time to quit her job, sell her condo, pack up her cats, and move back to Texas.  A major part of the discussion centered on the fact that we both knew we couldn’t live much longer without each other, and that this seemed like the time to be together again. 

Can we blame TLE, 3M, and Ingenix on our marital problems?  Not entirely, but a condition such as hers is diabolical and destructive to relationships unless those involved understand the importance of communication, patience, and physical limitations.  Some days are not as good as others, but knowing the reasons keeps both of us from misreading the signs and acting inappropriately, again.

As I told her three years ago, at the start of our unhappy separation, our chances for success are much greater if we stay together.  We survived events beyond the abilities of most individuals because we met those challenges together.  Two hands connected by intertwining fingers.  Or, two people connected by Velcro hearts, as I used to describe it.

And so, my answer this year to the question of what I want for Christmas is simply this:  My Sharon is home, and that’s all that I need.

To each of you, we send our best wishes for a wonderful Christmas and an even better new year.

“You want us to be like you, the Land of the Free,” they must have said.  “Yet you falsely imprison your black children and you try to muzzle the freely elected leader of a great and ancient nation.”

Indeed.

We in this country, at least those of us with access to some form of medium, can explore the backstory to these front-page events, and then decide for ourselves what to believe and how to respond.  Others around the world, particularly folks in the Middle East, see the same pictures but hear a different narration.  They do not have the opportunity to decide what to believe or how to respond.

The New York Times ran a story in October 2001 with the prophetic headline: “U.S. appears to be losing public relations war so far.”  The inability of the Bush administration to convince doubters at the time that the war in Afghanistan was justified and that U.S. Middle East policy is evenhanded was the gist of the story.  A Western diplomat pointed out that talking heads cannot compete with the powerful images of wounded Afghan children and Israeli tanks rolling into Palestinian villages.

The war on terror, the story explained, has an image problem outside of these United States, in part because no sense of immediacy exists in those countries, not like here.  Stories of anthrax attacks and the hunt for Osama bin Laden led our newscasts, while Middle Eastern news outlets repeatedly aired images of bombed-out buildings and the funerals of children and grandparents.  Images provided by Western news agencies.

The message they receive, not necessarily the message we send, is that our righteous indignation over the death of innocent civilians does not extend beyond our borders, and particularly does not apply to Muslims.

And so it is with Jena and Mahmoud.

While we condemn the treatment of Muslim women and abhor the violence between members of different Islamic sects, the Muslim world sees images of massive protests in a small Louisiana town described by some as the example of the rampant racism that plagues our nation.

Middle Eastern media do not explain that well-intentioned souls and publicity-addicted agitators may have overplayed a debatably racial situation.  In fact, not until the buses unloaded their well-meaning passengers hoping to relive the heady days of Selma and Birmingham did the mainstream media report the backstory of this sordid affair:  white youths sent to an alternative school for almost a month and given in-school suspensions for two weeks, instead of the minor three-day suspension as earlier reported; an all-white jury that resulted from African-Americans refusing to report for jury duty and not from the machinations of a racist judicial system; nooses hung from an old shade tree that was not the exclusive shelter for white students as frequently described; and black students playing with the nooses instead of running from them in fear and trepidation.

Then there was the brilliantly played public-relations hand of Ahmadinejad.  U.S. media told their audiences that the president of Columbia University invited the Iranian president to speak during his visit to the United States in a move that appeared to be an ill-conceived attempt to capitalize on the moment.  The reality, however, as described after the fact by Newsweek magazine, is that Ahmadinejad was invited to speak last year by a former Columbia dean.  Security concerns prevented that appearance.

A few weeks ago, according to Newsweek, the new Iranian ambassador to the United Nations asked if Columbia still wanted Ahmadinejad to speak, under certain ground rules.

These things do not happen overnight, especially at a university.  The accusatorial and, as some would say, rude introduction of Ahmadinejad by Columbia president Lee Bollinger was worked out in advance, according to Newsweek.  Nothing was left to chance by Ahmadinejad and the Iranians, who used our righteous indignation against us by making Ahmadinejad appear to the folks back home as the innocent victim of another American outrage.

“How dare you invite someone to your house, then insult him and the people he represents,” they said.

Indeed, the chancellors of six Iranian universities and academic centers sent a protest letter to Bollinger.  The first of the ten questions they asked was why did the university and the U.S. media violate Ahmadinejad’s freedom of expression, a right guaranteed by the First Amendment of our Constitution.  We, in this country, know Ahmadinejad received more than his share of face time with the American public, but the folks back home saw only the poorly conceived attempts to restrict his message to the American people.

It boggles the mind that a nation that can sell millions of disposable diapers and bright, shiny diamonds, which do not contribute to the advancement of civilization or to peace in any region of the world, cannot sell the simple concept of a friendly and helpful Uncle Sam.

Mundus vult decipi

Every now and then, one has the opportunity to read the original story from one newspaper and the edited version carried by another newspaper.  This can lead to responses ranging from amusement to outrage.  Such was the case with a story that originally appeared in The New York Times (“Mexican Migrants Carry H.I.V. Home [www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/world/americas/17mexico.html?hp]) and which the Houston Chronicle (“Researchers fear AIDS crisis as migrants return to Mexico) extensively edited for its print edition.

Cutting a thousand words from a 1,300-word story is not easy if one tries to retain the original sense and credibility.  The Chronicle did poorly.  Here are some examples:

The Times story said, “As sweeping proposals for immigration-law changes founder in the United States, the expanding AIDS crisis among the migrants is largely overlooked on both sides of the border.”  The Chronicle edited the sentence to read, “As immigration reform founders, the expanding AIDS crisis among the migrants goes virtually unaddressed on both sides of the border.”

The terms “largely overlooked” and “virtually unaddressed” are not synonymous.  The Times piece tells us government and health officials have not given much thought to the significance of AIDS among Mexicans working illegally in the U.S., while the Chronicle’s edited version implies policy makers know about the situation and refuse to do anything about it.

The next sentences in the Times story point out that, “Particularly in Mexico, AIDS is still shrouded by stigma and denial.  In the United States, it is often assumed that immigrants bring diseases into the country, not take them away.”  The Chronicle story says simply, “In Mexico, AIDS is shrouded by denial.”  The paper cut the rest of the paragraph.

The word “particularly” in the Times story is of particular importance, as is the word “stigma” that the Chronicle editors deleted.  This is because the Times story refers later to studies that show one in ten Mexicans working illegally in Los Angeles and hanging around job-pickup sites are so desperate for money that they perform oral and anal sex for cash.  The Chronicle deliberately deleted all references to homosexuality and its “stigma” among Mexicans, thereby eliminating gay sex as one reason for the spread of AIDS in Mexico.  The Chronicle also removed the sentence regarding the assumption that “immigrants bring diseases” into the U.S.  By now, one suspects the Houston paper is pushing a political agenda.

The Times story goes on to note that a new study found the greatest risk of contracting AIDS faced by rural Mexican women having sex with their returning husbands is the refusal of their spouses to use condoms.  The Chronicle rewrite, however, placed the blame on “the women’s inability to insist that their husbands use condoms.”

The Times story points out that “AIDS has not yet exploded in Mexico and is focused mostly among prostitutes and their clients, and drug users and gay men.”  The Chronicle turned “prostitutes” into “sex workers” and edited out their customers.

The Chronicle also left out some additional relevant information, such as the percentage of Mexicans with HIV who used to live in the U.S. fluctuated between 41 percent and 79 percent in the 1980s and early 1990s; the percentage of illegal workers from Mexico in Los Angeles who take money to participate in gay sex; and that Mexico’s northern and southern borders are magnets for prostitutes and drug dealers drawn by migrating illegal workers entering and leaving the country.

The Times put its warm and fuzzy spin on the story by using the term “migrant workers” when referring to illegal immigrants.  It further attempted to evoke sympathy for these individuals by telling us they are “displaced” from their homes.  Victims of natural disasters or wars are displaced from their homes; these folks left of their own volition.

Probably the most tortured phrases came when the Times quoted a researcher who tried to explain why these workers do who they do.  According to the researcher, they are vulnerable, isolated, exposed to different sexual practices, hampered by language barriers, depressed, lonely, and abused.

But the worst aspect of both articles is the subtle implication that illegal immigrants come to the U.S. disease free and return to Mexico with AIDS and HIV without infecting anyone in this country.  It is ludicrous to believe they have sex only with prostitutes who give them AIDS or, in some cases, become prostitutes for men who give them AIDS.

In the end, a story giving the sad and disturbing truth about the spread of HIV/AIDS among the returning illegal immigrants and their families turned into a justification for their philandering and an indictment against our nation for not having the programs in place to make them less vulnerable, less isolated, and less likely to hook up with a hooker or to bend over for a buck.

Yes, it is a horrible problem, but it is not our fault.

Mundus vult decipi

You would be hard-pressed to find news stories referring to the birthplace of Jesus Christ, THE SON OF GOD, as “the holy city of Bethlehem.”  Journalists would never describe as Christian holy cities the ancient patriarchates of Constantinople, Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria.

Constantinople is now Istanbul, but at one time, it was the seat of the Byzantine Empire and the ecumenical center of the Christian world.  Rome, Jerusalem Antioch, and Alexandria are still around, but journalists and their editors back home go out of their way to avoid the hint of Judeo-Christian bias.

This is why you won’t read about the 22-year-old man arrested for swimming nekked in the “historic” Baraccia fountain in the holy city of Rome, as happened this week and reported by Reuters.

Nor will you read about responses from the holy city of Vatican City about a proposal for Roman Catholic pope Benedict XVI and Russian Orthodox patriarch Alexy II to chew the holy fat in Cyprus sometime during the year, as reported this week by the Associated Press.

Anglicans won’t read about controversial housing development plans accepted by the holy city of Canterbury’s city council this week, as reported in The Times of London.

Folks in Japan and China never see their capital cities referred to as holy cities or former holy cities, even though the emperors of both countries claimed divine status.  Maybe the lack of a recognized holy city led the Chinese to take control of Tibet, home to the holy city of Lhasa.

Latter-Day Saints never hear the Mormon mecca called the holy city of Salt Lake City.

Gays, however, can read the Agence France Presse story about an ultra-Orthodox Jew arrested last week for trying to blow up a Gay Pride parade route in the holy city of Jerusalem.  In case the reader starts feeling distressed about the use of the term, and experiences an overriding desire to apologize for religious insensitivity, the writer included the following disclaimer:  “Jerusalem (is) revered as a holy city by millions of Christians, Jews, and Muslims all over the world.”

Maybe the title of holy city doesn’t mean what it used to mean.  Think of a holy city and you may think of a peaceful place populated by people filled with some kind of holy spirit.  The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines holy city as a city that is the center of religious worship and traditions.

These days, though, a holy city may find itself as the center of a story about a natural or political upheaval.  “Another quake jolts holy city of Qom in Iran,” read a Payvand News headline on the last day of spring.  Historians of the twentieth century know the Punjab holy city of Amritsar for the martyrdom of 206 Sikhs in 1984.  In February, officers from Saudi Arabia’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice set out to protect the rectitude of the holy city of Mecca by arresting more than 200 Saint Valentine’s Day observers from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Even though western journalists try hard to play up the religion-of-peace aspect of Islam, they find themselves writing stories of gunmen killing six people riding a minibus near the holy city of Karbala, or of soldiers guarding the funeral of a police officer in the holy city of Najaf.

Samarra, also in Iraq, may not be a holy city, but it has a revered mosque bombed by al-Qaeda earlier this month.  (Please note that western journalists only use the word revered with Islamic places of worship.  God forbid, so to speak, that the reporter for an Irish newspaper describe the “ancient” Basilica of Saint John and Saint Paul in the [holy city] of Rome as revered, even though it is the administrative headquarters for the Passionist order to which the newly canonized Charles of Mount Argus belonged.)

Pity the poor United States.  We’re not old enough to have anything that’s ancient.  We reserve revered for really old actors or professors who just died.

But we do have Charleston, S.C., named after King Charles II of England, and a self-proclaimed Holy City, because of the abundances of places of worship.

Charleston also is the home to Sammie Smalls, the inspiration for the Porgy character in “Porgy and Bess” and a guy who used to ride around James Island on a goat cart.  Charleston will be a mecca this weekend for people attending the “Comin’ Home to Porgy” celebration, a Lowcountry version of a haj.

Others can have their holy cities and revered places.  We have our own holy city, complete with a revered goat cart rider.

We’re doomed.

As I explained to those who wrote, the column did not say all Albanians are terrorists.  In past columns, I compared today’s war with terrorists with our war with Germany and Japan.  Not all Germans and Japanese were evil during the Second World War; only those who tried to kill us.  The same is true in this instance.  Not all Albanians are terrorists, and not all Muslims are terrorists; just those who maintain ties with terrorists, and who try to kill us. 

I also pointed out that it was gratifying to see the quick response from leaders within the Albanian community in this country who condemned the alleged plans of the Fort Dix Six.  The actions of those arrested damaged their families, friends, and community; however, I find it difficult to believe that no one in their families and in their Albanian community knew about their plans.  The question becomes then: Why did those who knew remain silent?

In the spirit of fairness, I’ve included excerpts from some of the email.

 “Shame on you, shame on your false career, constructed by lies.  Albanian are the most friendly people toward USA, and your disastrous article is not capable to show anything, except increasing Serbians hopes for nothing.”

“The whole story is a big propaganda!  Nothing in there is really true, most of the story is taken or written by some Serbian and reposted by you.  Shame on YOU! "

“You are so disgusting, when you write so much bulls**t against Albanian.  Who has paid you to write those lies . . . Come in Albania, have a visit here, and than you will learn that we have more real Christians that serbs (sic) have, we have more tolerance that serbs (sic) have.  We are proud to be Albanian, and we can not let are (sic) more bulls**t emitted in internet, without saying to you, F**k you, your family and all your paying contributors.”

“I read your analysis ‘Albanian Terror and the Fort Dix Six’ and have to tell you that I am impressed by your knowledge of the Balkan situation.  Your knowledge and arguments are a great surprise for me, since I have been following what others have been writing about the area for years now.  The lack of knowledge and twisting of facts in many of the commentaries I read brought me, at times, to the point of desperation.”

“He does not know or pretends not to know the long drawn-out struggle of the Albanians in Kosova against their suppressors, the Serbs who seized Albanian land when they came to the Balkans in the 6th-7th centuries, destroyed the Albanian Catholic churches and other religious sites and on their foundations built their own Orthodox churches and monasteries, turning Kosova into ‘their cradle of Serb civilization’ . . . The author has the audacity to accuse the Clinton administration of ‘turning a blind eye to the activities’ of the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) ‘designed to lure the Serbian government into armed conflict, thereby forcing the West to jump in under the pretext of preventing the slaughter of Muslims by Serbian Christians.’ With this statement, the author questions the real mission of the West headed by the United States, which was to save the Albanian civilians from the atrocities of the Serbian army . . . By supporting Miloshevic’s Serbia, he also becomes a champion of Panslavism, which has been used to justify and motivate the suppression of the Albanians in the Balkans . . . With his accusations against Albanians in general, the author of the article joins the anti-Albanian chorus of the most rabid anti-Americans in Europe, who are the Serbs, the Greeks and the Russians.”

“Thank you for your excellent article.  It is time that we recognize that the Serbs are Christian just like you and I.  The trio that led the attack in 1998 against the Serbs (our alley in both World Wars) were Albright, Cohen and Sandy Berger--none of whom are Christian.”

“I see in that region, an ethnic group such as Albanians, out of whom more than 90% supports U.S.A. and not just because of the war in Kosovo . . . I see in that region, a group of people trying so hard to survive and make it to the path of a civilized society . . . I see in that region a group of people with a lot of religious differences, whom still tried at various parts of history to live in peace, and will always . . . I see in that region a group of people who see a brighter future ahead  . . . It is the time Europe plays a role on that.”

“Of course, the US media is apologetic about this pointing out that these simply some odd and misguided group.  One report had interviews with their Albanian family and friends explaining how grateful and pro-America they are in order to soften the image of Kosovo Albanians.”

 “As you know in Kosovo where I come from there are three different religions and they are all getting along with each other.  To tell you the truth Albanians are one of the most non believers in religions.  Most of us say that Albanian religon is Albanism . . . I love this country so do my people.  We stand by USA in good and worst day.  Please do not let people think that Albanians are terrorists.”

And the fourth, according to authorities, was a sniper in Kosovo.

The arrests came after several months of surveillance, according to FBI director Robert Mueller.  The feds became interested in the men after viewing a video of ten men shooting rifles at a remote Pennsylvania firing range while shouting about jihad.  The FBI knows the identity of the other four, but doesn’t believe they pose a threat.

Mueller told reporters the FBI chose to arrest the six after they bragged about buying more weapons, including a Yugoslavian SKS assault rifle.

Geometry teaches that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  If the charges against the Fort Dix Six stick, then that line leads from ethnic Albanians in the U.S. directly to their terrorist counterparts in Albania and Kosovo.

One does not need a stretch of the imagination to draw the line.  Law enforcement agencies in this country and in Europe have known for decades about the Albanian contributions to international terrorism.  And sometimes, the good guys used the bad guys to promote shared political agendas, as happened in Serbia and Kosovo.

Nearly twenty years ago, The New York Times ran a story about the rising ethnic strife in Yugoslavia.  The Nov. 1, 1987, story recounted how an ethnic Albanian soldier in the Yugoslav army killed four Slavic soldiers as they slept in their bunks.  The army later found hundreds of ethnic Albanian cells within its ranks, according to the story.

The story also told of ethnic Albanians attacking Orthodox churches, poisoning wells, and burning crops.

The Kosovo Liberation Army, which the U.S. State Department no longer lists among the world’s terrorist organizations, was an ethnic Albanian guerilla group that led the battle for Kosovo’s secession from Yugoslavia in the late 1990s.  The Clinton administration turned a blind eye to their activities designed to lure the Serbian government into armed conflict, thereby forcing the West to jump in under the pretext of preventing the slaughter of Muslims by Serbian Christians.

In early April of 1999, American officials and KLA leaders held secret talks about supplying the terrorists with heavy weapons and other support, according to the April 26, 1999, issue of U.S. News & World Report.  Defense Secretary William Cohen later told Republican senators the KLA was no “choirboy circle,” according to the magazine.

Stories about the Balkan Connection have been around for more than twenty years.  The Wall Street Journal reported on September 9, 1985, on heroin trafficking by a loosely organized group of ethnic Albanians centered in New York.  U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officials claimed the Balkan Connection moved as much as forty percent of the U.S. heroin supply, according to the WSJ.

The Observatire Geopolitique Des Drogues, a Paris-based narcotics-monitoring group, released a report in June 1994 that claimed Albanian groups in Kosovo were trading heroin for weapons for use in a brewing conflict.  On June 9, 1998, Agence France-Presse reported that Italian police staged a nation-wide anti-drug operation and arrested a group of ethnic Albanians smuggling arms back to Kosovo to use in their battle against the Serbs.

Independence was not the only goal of the KLA and the drug traffickers, according to an unnamed Italian Special Operations Section source quoted in the Oct. 15, 1998, edition of Milan’s Corriere della Sera.  “On the basis of phone calls that we have intercepted, we have discovered that the drugs are not only a source of wealth, but also a tool in the struggle to weaken Christendom,”  the source said.     

On March 24, 1999, just before the start of NATO’s air campaign against Serbia, The Times of London reported that Europol, the European police authority, was preparing a report for interior and justice ministers on a connection between the KLA and Albanian drug gangs.     

According to The Washington Times of June 4, 1999, a secret intelligence report by NATO’s Office of Security said the KLA had received smuggled weapons paid for by money raised through the sale of drugs and sex.  The 24-page report apparently included the United States among five countries that believed the KLA participated with an organized crime network to smuggle heroin into Western Europe and the U.S.

Jump now to Dec. 9, 2006.  Serbian television reported that the director of the government’s media relations office asked the UN special envoy to Kosovo to condemn ethnic Albanian separatists and their bombing of the Zvecan-Kosovo Polje rail line.  A week later, a Montenegrin newspaper reported that the FBI and the Albanian special prosecutor’s office issued wanted circulars for a terrorist group suspected of transporting 170 kilograms of radioactive material, enough to make a dirty bomb, to Albania from Montenegro.

On Jan. 12 of this year, a Greek terrorist group called the Revolutionary Struggle launched a rocket attack on the U.S. embassy in Athens.  An embassy spokesperson said the war in Iraq and other conflicts, such as those in Kosovo, served as catalysts for the attack.  And, the rocket launcher, according to investigators, almost certainly came from the Balkans or Albania.

Inter Pres Service reported in February on a study published by the International Strategic Studies Association that suggests a link between the KLA and the Revolutionary Struggle.  It also predicts an increase in anti-U.S. activity in Greece led by proponents of an independent Kosovo.

The Fort Dix Six may be home-grown terrorists with no connection to any organized group, as the FBI says.  It just may be a coincidence that four of them are ethnic Albanians and that one of them was a sniper in Kosovo.  But then, a line comes to mind from the movie “Guys and Dolls,” the one where Sky Masterson says:

“One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken.  Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear.  But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you're going to wind up with an ear full of cider.”

Here’s what happened as reported by London’s Daily Mail.  Hardline relious leaders and male family members of Du’a Khalil Aswad condemned the 17-year-old girl to death by stoning because of her relationship with a Sunni Muslim boy.  Aswad’s family belongs to Yezidi, a Kurdish religious group in Iraq.  The religious leaders and family members claimed she dishonored the family by failing to return home one night.  Other reports suggest the “honor killing” had a lot to do with her apparent conversion to Islam.

Regardless of the reason, on or about April 7 of this year, eight or nine men dragged the girl into the street and stoned her for half an hour until she died, as a large crowd stood around and watched in the predominately Kurdish town near Mosul.

Reports say the boyfriend is in hiding for fear he will meet the same cold, hard fate.

The British arm of Amnesty International condemned the murder and called for the arrest of those responsible (http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17351).

This is not the first time someone filmed or videotaped a stoning.  Below is an excerpt from a column from this writer carried by various online sites in June of 2003.

 + + +

The May 5 edition of New Zealand's Timaru Herald carried a story of the stoning to death of four ducks by four boys the previous weekend.  The newspaper quoted an unidentified man who said that when he tried to stop the boys, one of them responded, “But we're only killing them with rocks.”

These boys are not like the boys I knew while growing up in a small Illinois town where the worst thing one did with stones was to toss them through greenhouse windows or at streetlights . . .

Nigeria is one of seven countries, all Muslim, that either engages in state-sponsored stoning or allows it as part of shariah law.  The others include Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Sudan.  As late as February of this year, a 13-year-old Pakistani girl was mutilated and stoned for dancing at a wedding (www.pakistanlink.com/Opinion/2003/Jan/03/11.html).  

U.S. lawmakers agree that these people are not like us.  The House of Representatives in March, by a 416-0 vote, passed a resolution sponsored by Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn, that denounces stoning as a gross violation of human rights.  
 
This issue is not new to Capitol Hill.  On Feb. 25, 1998, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., and Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-NY, showed a smuggled video of a public stoning in Iran (www.house.gov/ackerman/press/iran2.html).  A copy of the 15-minute tape is online at www.apostatesofislam.com/media/stoning.htm.  It is a gruesome account, and should not be viewed by the merely curious or those easily sickened by terrifying images of torture.  

About five minutes into the tape we see a group of men carrying an individual in a sheet to the center of the plaza, and we watch as they transform the sheet into a death shroud.  They carefully place the mummy-like figure into a hole as if transplanting a tree in someone’s yard.  

At about seven minutes into the tape, handlers place a second person into another hole. This raw video shows us the backs of people as the photographer walks around looking for a clear view of the gruesome scene of death.  About 30 seconds later, hundreds of men, mostly members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, crowd into a circle around the condemned.  Then the stoning begins, seemingly spontaneously.  

We watch the eerie site of two white figures writhing as stones hit them.  A man walks up to one shroud and pelts it with rocks.  The camera zooms in on the bloodied lump surrounded by stones.  The camera pans to the other individual.  The cover is knocked off, he is face down, his head is bathed in blood.  

The tape jumps to the scene of a third person brought in, shrouded.  He stands stock still as ghastly gardeners plant him in the hole.  

Dirt is shoveled into the hole around the fourth individual, who bends at the waist. Feet tamp the dirt around him, making sure all is snug.  

The circle of death reforms as the man with the shovel makes his final tamps.  The crowd chants in agitated anticipation.  

The stoning begins with lusty yells.  It is a frenzied scene devoid of humanity.  Scores of stones fly quickly and strike horribly.  The shroud around one head explodes into red.  The two ghostly figures totter.  One falls forward only to be pelted backward.  

The camera zooms in.  The man on the right writhes as his shroud comes loose.  We see his bloody torso struck by stones.  We see him struggle as the pile of stones grows around him. We see the circle contract slowly until fewer than five feet separate the murderous men from the objects of their execution.  

Stone throwers stand close enough to caress their victims.  But they do not.  Instead, they pick up more stones and fling them with all their might.  
 
The condemned continue to writhe, to fall over, to sit back up, to fall back over.  One goes suddenly still. The other rises, almost defiantly in the face of hard death.  

Now the crowd stands within inches.  Men pick up rocks as quickly as they can, in some macabre competition to see who will cast the last stone in the deliverance of Allah's justice.  

Both figures are still.  The crowd disperses.  I recall the New Zealand boys who justified their actions by saying they only killed them with rocks.  These Muslim men would appreciate the sentiments, because they are not like us.  

Mundus vult decipi