“This novel will become world famous and will be a source of satisfaction for the author, after the false accusations levelled against him.”

— Miroslav Toholj, publisher of the forthcoming book by Radovan Karadzi, a former Bosnian Serb leader who is one of the most wanted men in the world and who has been accused by the United Nations of various charges, including genocide and crimes against humanity.

The book, which will be titled Miraculous Chronicles of the Night, is a semi-autobiographical historical novel. Radovan Karadzi, who has evaded the United Nations and has been in hiding for the past eight years, has been indicted twice of war crimes by the UN tribunal in The Hague, and he is charged with massacring Bosnian Muslims and Croats in the former Yugoslavia.  Karadzi has been charged by the UN of organizing the slaughter of up to 6,000 Muslims in Srebrenica in July of 1995 “in order to kill, terrorise and demoralise the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat population.”

Miroslav Toholj was previously a Bosnian Serb information minister and an associate of Radovan Karadzi.

Mimi Hanaoka

According to an article by MSNBC’s chief economic correspondent Martin Wolk, the rising price of oil now surpasses terrorism as the primary concern of economic forecasters. That’s ironic, given the frequency of oil spills in general, and the immediate environmental disaster discovered last Thursday in the Pacific Northwest’s Puget Sound.

Eric Nalder and Phuong Catle’s piece in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer provides a partial list of oil spills occurring along the West Coast of the United States over the past 20 years. They report that these mishaps occur at a rate of about once a month. Forensic chemists working to determine the source of these spills face not only the challenge of pinpointing suspects who may be unaware of ship leaks, but must also take into account the possibility that guilty parties may be leading them astray by tampering with evidence. In the article, Jim Bruya, a fingerprinting chemist in Seattle, noted:

“There have been cases where a ship’s crew, knowing it will be asked for a sample, has mixed fuels from two tanks filled at different locations to permanently contaminate evidence.”

In Puget Sound, oil cleanup crews are working 12-hour shifts “until they’re finished,” said Jake McLean, a supervisor for the Seattle-based National Response Corporation. The “Dalco Passage Mystery Spill” was reported on the morning of October 15, but weather conditions prevented cleanup crews from slowing the damage for several hours. “…We don’t know how big it is, where it came from, or where it’s headed,” State Department of Ecology spokeswoman Mary Ellen Voss said late Thursday. As of Monday evening, according to Department of Ecology spokesman Larry Altose, the list of suspects has been narrowed down from a dozen to two.

Environmental activists are angered by the slow response of government agencies to contain the damage.

“We know quite a lot about currents and tides in Puget Sound. And so even though it’s dark … knowing the approximate location of a spill could alert the agencies to the possibility of oil coming to shore in certain areas,” explained Kathy Fletcher, executive director of the environmental group People for Puget Sound.

Who needs terrorists? Fellow Americans, we can ruin the environment ourselves, by contributing to the latest fad: the philosophy of apathy.

“Slutty,” isn’t the first word that springs to my mind when thinking of the Islamic hijab — the headscarf worn by some Muslim women both as a sign of Islam and of womanhood — but that’s how Tissa Hami describes it.  And people love her for it.  

Iranian-American Tissa Hami, who performs wearing the traditional Islamic hijab, has been invited to perform as a guest comic on the Boston leg of the Allah Made Me Funny “Official Muslim comedy tour,” the purpose of which is “to make a comprehensive effort to provide effective, significant, and appropriate comedy with an Islamic perspective, which is both mainstream and cross-cultural.”

Preacher Mos, who has written for Saturday Night Life and for the comedian Damon Wayans, is the master of ceremonies of the tour, and he explains that “the purpose of my comedy reflects my Islamic beliefs that say we, as Muslims, cannot be isolationist. My choice of dialogue is laughter, with a message of overall commitment to improving society as a whole.”

Likewise, Hami’s aim seems to be education wrapped in the palatable form of stand-up comedy — she wants to show that “we’re not all terrorists, we’re not all fanatics. That not all Muslim women are oppressed and voiceless.” Hami (whose pre-comedy resume is littered with the Ivy League schools and Wall Street firms) absorbs the religious intolerance and cultural mistrust that has blossomed in post 9/11 America, reconfigures it, and ultimately forces her audience to confront both the humor and tragedy of the current socio-political climate. Her website warns: “People who  disapprove of her act will be taken hostage.”

Mimi Hanaoka

“Yesterday we refused to go on a convoy to Taji. We had broken-down trucks, nonarmored vehicles. We were carrying contaminated fuel.”

—Specialist Amber McClenny, 21, on her mother’s answering machine

“My message to our troops is, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing. We’re standing with you strong. We’ll give you all the equipment you need. And we’ll get you home as soon as the mission’s done, because this is a vital mission.’”

—President George W. Bush, September 30, 2004, Presidential Debate

As The New York Times reports this morning, members of an Army reserve unit who refused to deliver a fuel and provisions shipment to troops north of Baghdad are currently under investigation for insubordination. Reports that 18 soldiers have been held at gunpoint for two days remain unconfirmed by the Pentagon, but relatives insist that the soldiers acted out of conviction as they felt they were being ordered to undertake a suicide mission.

The troops claim their trucks were deadlined — unsafe and unsuitable for combat operations.  Despite Pentagon claims that this remains an “isolated incident,” these claims echo concerned rumbles heard earlier in the war: American soldiers  are ill-equipped and insufficiently prepared for their duties. As John Kerry pointed out in the first debate, parents shouldn’t have to purchase body armor for their enlisted children as a birthday present.  

The gap between the President’s rhetoric and the reality American troops face grows ever wider.

llouison

If 99 percent of public schools in California will fail to meet the academic targets stipulated by the No Child Left Behind program, could the underlying principles of No Child Left Behind be fundamentally flawed?

According to a study referenced in today’s LA Times, a staggering number of schools — 1,200 campuses, or 13 percent of the state’s public schools — may be classified as “failures” by the end of this academic year. By 2013-2014, 99 percent of the state’s schools may be classified as failures.  

No Child Left Behind is one of President Bush’s pet programs, and its aim is to revitalize schools by threatening to punish them with the ousting of principals and teachers and the importation of external managers if the schools fail to achieve designated levels of math and English proficiency. The law, enacted nation-wide two years ago, requires all public schools to have every student to test as proficient in English and math by 2013-2014. President Bush insisted that the status quo in public schools perpetuates the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” and that, through his program, no child would be left behind. But if fully 99 percent of California’s public schools will be failures by 2013-2014, could it be that there is something flawed with the program itself? With the perennial lack of funds and stringent testing requirements, every child, it seems, is being left behind. President Bush may well just be replacing the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” with a belligerent refusal to realistically consider — and thereby improve — the status quo.

Mimi Hanaoka

For many, the Internet truly has come to feel as necessary as clocks or cell phones. This seems to be more so for young people acclimated to the amenities of the modern world. The Japanese already have a word for those who cloister themselves away from the world, only to interact with it through the Internet. They call them “hikikomori.”

Japanese police found two cars yesterday with nine people in all who are believed to have committed suicide. And they believe they met and coordinated their deaths online.

It’s a sad story, knowing that a group of young people, in their teens and early 20s, felt so hopeless that they carried out their deaths. Some critics of the Internet will say it’s dangerous, that it enables this kind of group self-killing. The organizers of a website where suicide is discussed say they offer a compassionate service to those who need it.

Maybe we shouldn’t blame the tools for the actions of the user. Still, maybe what’s missing is some human, tangible, offline compassion so the hikikomori around the world no longer choose to be stranded.

Vinnee Tong

Christopher Reeve’s death Sunday came as a tragic surprise to many, not simply because the world lost the actor best know for portraying Superman in the movies, but because we lost one of the rare, real-life superheroes.  

A real-life superhero gives hope to the seemingly hopeless, strength to the powerless, and a voice to the voiceless. Although Reeve’s outspokenness on the topic of stem cell research was controversial, his message of triumph over the most challenging obstacles continues to be a source of hope for the community of people with disabilities, and the way he lived his life is inspirational beyond the borders of any one community or group.

An activist who chose to do and not just to debate, Christopher Reeve will long be remembered as Superman. But he’ll forever be remembered as a real-life superhero.

Emily Raij

While President Bush has spent the summer insisting that “the American people are safer,” it seems that America and the world are still free falling down the rabbit hole of terror.

Juan Cole, a professor of history with an expertise in Middle Eastern history and Shiite Islam at the University of Michigan, has roundly condemned the war that President Bush has been waging on terror. Writing on the series of bombs that, on Thursday, October 7th, rocked the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad, a meeting of radical Sunni Muslims in the Pakistani city of Multan, and the Hilton Hotel — packed with Israelis — in the Egyptian resort town of Taba, Juan Cole asserts:

If we analyze these violent, destabilizing attacks, one thing becomes abundantly clear: The Bush administration is losing the war on terror. If, 3 years after September 11, Ayman al-Zawahiri can arrange for al-Qaeda to blow up yet another building, this time in Egypt, killing scores, that is a sign of failure. If an al-Qaeda-aligned group like the Army of the Prophet’s Companions is permitted by the Pakistani state to gather freely in Multan, to blow up Shiite mosques, and to incur a violent Shiite counter-strike, that is a sign of failure. If radical Sunni groups, or ex-Baathists aligned with them, are able at will to fire Katyusha rockets into the Baghdad Sheraton at a time when the US has militarily occupied Iraq, that is a sign of failure.

If a certain brand of belligerent and pig-headed optimism is failing to see us through, perhaps, Mr. Bush, it is time for a change of strategy.  

Mimi Hanaoka

Maybe the time has come for the president to give George Lucas a call. It seems the United States has tried just about everything to increase its military manpower, short of commissioning Industrial Light & Magic to create some more troops using CGI.

An article on www.indybay.org, titled “US Soldiers Forced Into Service By The Military: The Unofficial Draft,” lists several actions our military has taken in hopes of plumping up its forces. The article does not mention the military’s more amusing offers to help recruits get a career in the music industry or pay for their breast implants, but it does note the recent advent of the stop-loss order, Individual Ready Reserve, and the latest claims by currently serving U.S. soldiers that they are being coerced to re-enlist.

According to the Global Security website, we currently have over 100,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq. The Friends Committee on National Legislation states:

“In November 2003, a Congressional Budget Office analysis indicated that ‘the active Army would be unable to sustain an occupation force of the present size [150,000] beyond about March 2004, if it chose not to keep individual units deployed to Iraq for longer than one year without relief — an assumption consistent with the Department of Defense’s (DOD) current planning.’”

The FCNL website indicates the discrepancy between the claims government officials are making about the feasibility of continuing the American occupation of Iraq with a minimal number of troops and the reality that American troops who are preparing to come home will be increasingly difficult to replace.

How, and from where, are the extra soldiers going to come?

The race to poison the ear of Denmark is drawing to a close. A front page article in last Friday’s Los Angeles Times called attention to the “witchcraft of wit” our presidential candidates decided to use during their first debate Thursday night.

“Candidates Call Facts as They See Them,” boomed the caption. “Rivals take turns putting their spin on the data related to war on terror and national security.”

“Some facts were oversimplified, others were exaggerated and still others dropped from sight entirely,” staff writer Paul Richter reported. Topics whose facades were shaded Thursday night ranged from the war in Iraq to homeland security and the development of nuclear weapons in North Korea.

In an age when great orators have either been booed off stage or become extinct, and at a time when truth is not a priority, what do these debates mean to the American public?

The judgments cited in a related article in the same paper by reporters Lianne Hart and Zeke Minaya make the American public sound like film directors or casting agents.  “With Kerry, I don’t feel any sincerity or conviction,” commented Sharon Toney, an interior decorator. Another Republican, Jack Swickard, remarked, “My biggest fear was that Bush would make a gaffe, and he didn’t.”

What is the magic ingredient that will provoke Americans to go out of their way to vote?

If the television show American Idol succeeds in drawing in twenty million votes a week, doing so without eloquence or truth, maybe the spice of the televised debates will do the same for the presidential election this November.

“To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two.”

— Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s response to a question posed about the relationship between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Mr. Rumsfeld was speaking today at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.  

In contrast, Mr. Rumsfeld declared in November of 2002 that “there is no question but that there have been interactions between the Iraqi government, Iraqi officials and Al Qaeda operatives.”

It looks like the boy who cried “flip-flop!” might be getting his comeuppance.  

Mimi Hanaoka