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Sons, brothers, sisters, husbands, friends and loversJuly 2, 2003 -- that was when President Bush issued his challenge to Iraqi insurgents "Bring them on". They did; they certainly did. Latest figure from Iraq Coalition Casualties is 3017. That means 2810 American soldiers have died after the president's bluster. Richard Cohen in the Post compares the president's support of death penalty with his position on Iraq: "Irrational is as Irrational doesI bring up Bush's appalling record of executions not because I have once again mounted my anti-capital-punishment hobbyhorse but because his record offers an insight into why the United States will stay in Iraq and with even more troops than before.Let me explain. In Iowa, during the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush answered a question about why he so ardently supported capital punishment. He offered a number of reasons, but one -- deterrence -- prompted me to raise my hand and ask a follow-up: But, sir, there is absolutely no evidence that capital punishment is a deterrent. To my astonishment, Bush conceded my point: "You're right. I can't prove it. But neither can the other side prove it's not."Ponder that answer for a while. What it means is not just that Bush embraced a famously irrational way of thinking -- the logical fallacy often called "proving a negative" -- but in this case he used it to overwhelm all evidence to the contrary. Once you know this, you can appreciate what Bush means when he calls himself The Decider. It means that evidence, arguments, proof and logic cannot be conclusive when, as is often the case, the president proceeds on what can be called a matter of faith. I am not referring here just to religion -- although surely that is paramount to Bush -- but to supremely secular matters of state: when to go to war, why go to war and when to remain at war. In Bush's mind, the bad guys will lose and the good guys will win and Iraq will become a democracy. This will happen not because Bush can prove that it will but because nobody can prove it won't.Across the Atlantic, Steve Bell of The Guardian, expressed his view in a cartoon.© Steve Bell 2006 - Guardian Co.UKSally Quinn wrote in the Post about her memory of soldiers wounded in the Korean war.The soldiers in the litters above and below me both died, blood dripping from their wounds. Many other soldiers died while we were in the air. We had to stop in Hawaii overnight to refuel and to leave the bodies.I hope that when President Bush discusses sending more troops to Iraq, knowing that we will have to pull out sooner rather than later, that the conversation comes around to the human suffering. Does anyone at the table ask about the personal anguish, the long-term effects, emotional, psychological and financial, on the families of those killed, wounded or permanently disabled?When I hear about the surge, all I can think of is those young soldiers on the plane to Texas. We have already lost more than 3,000 soldiers, and many more have been wounded and disabled.We have three choices here. All three are immoral. We can keep the status quo and gradually pull out; we can surge; or we can pull out now. When I think about those young soldiers on that plane coming back from Japan years ago, I believe pulling out now is the least immoral choice.Link: Glenn Kutler's audio report in Newsweek

Deaf, blind, arrogant. The president's utter disregard of facts and figures has raised comments from various quarters. For some, it took a while. They fell under the campaign of fear -- red herrings, terorists lurking around the corner, the non-existent WMD in Iraq -- including the patriotism thing. Anyone critical of the administration's war in Iraq was branded as unpatriotic.While majority of Americans are now aware of being duped and have seen through the hollow man, the president continues to charge ahead.The Washington Post and NY Times both ran editorials on January 6th and 7th about the unreal world of G.W. Bush. Scary to have such a man as head of the most powerful nation on earth. Members of Congress who rolled over and let him bamboozle them in the fall of 2002 must not allow it to happen again when he asks for support in increase of troop level for his pet war.Washington PostA Heckuva ClaimMr. Bush is oblivious to the consequences of his tax cuts.PRESIDENT BUSH wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday that "it is also a fact that our tax cuts have fueled robust economic growth and record revenues." The claim about fueling record revenue is flat wrong, and it is shocking that the president should persist in making such errors. After all, tax cuts are the central plank of his domestic policy. How can he fail to understand the basic facts about them?This is not just our opinion. Harvard's N. Gregory Mankiw, an economic conservative who served as chairman of Mr. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, has tested the hypothesis on which Mr. Bush's claim is based: He looked at the extent to which tax cuts stimulate extra growth and the extent to which that growth generates extra tax revenue that offsets the initial loss of revenue from the tax cut. Mr. Mankiw's conclusion: Even over the long term, once you've allowed all of the extra growth to feed through into extra revenue, cuts in capital taxes juice the economy enough to recoup half of the lost revenue, and cuts in income taxes deliver a boost that recoups 17 percent of the lost revenue. So a $100 billion cut in taxes on capital widens the budget deficit by $50 billion, and a $100 billion cut in income taxes widens the budget deficit by $83 billion.NY TimesThe Imperial Presidency 2.0Published: January 7, 2007Observing President Bush in action lately, we have to wonder if he actually watched the election returns in November, or if he was just rerunning the 2002 vote on his TiVo.That year, the White House used the fear of terrorism to scare American voters into cementing the Republican domination of Congress. Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney then embarked on an expansion of presidential power chilling both in its sweep and in the damage it did to the constitutional system of checks and balances.In 2006, the voters sent Mr. Bush a powerful message that it was time to rein in his imperial ambitions. But we have yet to see any sign that Mr. Bush understands that — or even realizes that the Democrats are now in control of the Congress. Indeed, he seems to have interpreted his party’s drubbing as a mandate to keep pursuing his fantasy of victory in Iraq and to press ahead undaunted with his assault on civil liberties and the judicial system. Just before the Christmas break, the Justice Department served notice to Senator Patrick Leahy — the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee — that it intended to keep stonewalling Congressional inquiries into Mr. Bush’s inhumane and unconstitutional treatment of prisoners taken in anti-terrorist campaigns. It refused to hand over two documents, including one in which Mr. Bush authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to establish secret prisons beyond the reach of American law or international treaties. The other set forth the interrogation methods authorized in these prisons — which we now know ranged from abuse to outright torture.Also last month, Mr. Bush issued another of his infamous “presidential signing statements,” which he has used scores of times to make clear he does not intend to respect the requirements of a particular law — in this case a little-noticed Postal Service bill. The statement suggested that Mr. Bush does not believe the government must obtain a court order before opening Americans’ first-class mail. It said the administration had the right to “conduct searches in exigent circumstances,” which include not only protecting lives, but also unspecified “foreign intelligence collection.”The law is clear on this. A warrant is required to open Americans’ mail under a statute that was passed to stop just this sort of abuse using just this sort of pretext. But then again, the law is also clear on the need to obtain a warrant before intercepting Americans’ telephone calls and e-mail. Mr. Bush began openly defying that law after Sept. 11, 2001, authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a court order on calls and e-mail between the United States and other countries.News accounts have also reminded us of the shameful state of American military prisons, where supposed terrorist suspects are kept without respect for civil or human rights, and on the basis of evidence so deeply tainted by abuse, hearsay or secrecy that it is essentially worthless.Deborah Sontag wrote in The Times last week about the sorry excuse for a criminal case that the administration whipped up against Jose Padilla, who was once — but no longer is — accused of plotting to explode a radioactive “dirty bomb” in the United States. Mr. Padilla was held for two years without charges or access to a lawyer. Then, to avoid having the Supreme Court review Mr. Bush’s power grab, the administration dropped those accusations and charged Mr. Padilla in a criminal court on hazy counts of lending financial support to terrorists.But just as the government abandoned the “dirty bomb” case against Mr. Padilla, it quietly charged an Ethiopian-born man, Binyam Mohamed, with conspiring with Mr. Padilla to commit that very crime. Unlike Mr. Padilla, Mr. Mohamed is not a United States citizen, so the administration threw him into Guantánamo. Now 28, he is still being held there as an “illegal enemy combatant” under the anti-constitutional military tribunals act that was rushed through the Republican-controlled Congress just before last November’s elections.Mr. Mohamed was a target of another favorite Bush administration practice: “extraordinary rendition,” in which foreign citizens are snatched off the streets of their hometowns and secretly shipped to countries where they can be abused and tortured on behalf of the American government. Mr. Mohamed — whose name appears nowhere in either of the cases against Mr. Padilla — has said he was tortured in Morocco until he signed a confession that he conspired with Mr. Padilla. The Bush administration clearly has no intention of answering that claim, and plans to keep Mr. Mohamed in extralegal detention indefinitely.The Democratic majority in Congress has a moral responsibility to address all these issues: fixing the profound flaws in the military tribunals act, restoring the rule of law over Mr. Bush’s rogue intelligence operations and restoring the balance of powers between Congress and the executive branch. So far, key Democrats, including Mr. Leahy and Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, chairman of a new subcommittee on human rights, have said these issues are high priorities for them.We would lend such efforts our enthusiastic backing and hope Mr. Leahy, Mr. Durbin and other Democratic leaders are not swayed by the absurd notion circulating in Washington that the Democrats should now “look ahead” rather than use their new majority to right the dangerous wrongs of the last six years of Mr. Bush’s one-party rule.This is a false choice. Dealing with these issues is not about the past. The administration’s assault on some of the nation’s founding principles continues unabated. If the Democrats were to shirk their responsibility to stop it, that would make them no better than the Republicans who formed and enabled these policies in the first place.

Invasion of PrivacyWho will watch the watchers?"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who will watch the watchers?)"-- Juvenal Decimus Junius Juvenalis, Roman rhetorician and satirical poet (1st to 2nd cent. A.D.)As he did many times in the past, on December 20, 2006, President Bush resorted to a signing statement to subvert the constitutional rights of citizens: "......asserting the authority to open U.S. mail without judicial warrants in emergencies or foreign intelligence cases, prompting warnings yesterday from Democrats and privacy advocates that the administration is attempting to circumvent legal restrictions on its powers."Washington PostA "signing statement" attached to a postal reform bill on Dec. 20 says the Bush administration "shall construe" a section of that law to allow the opening of sealed mail to protect life, guard against hazardous materials or conduct "physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection." *This is an issue which cries out for Democrats to take a stand on. It is time to end the usurping of of power by President Bush. A small ruckus isn't enough. What is needed is a loud outcry.The latest statement caused a small ruckus on Capitol Hill yesterday just as Democrats were taking control of Congress. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the statement a "last-minute, irregular and unauthorized reinterpretation of a duly passed law."Sharp limits have been placed on the government's power to open mail since the 1970s, when a congressional committee investigating abuses found that, for three decades, the CIA and FBI had illegally opened hundreds of thousands of pieces of U.S. mail. Among the targets were "large numbers of American dissidents, including those who challenged the condition of racial minorities and those who opposed the war in Vietnam," according to a report by the Senate panel, known as the Church committee. Also surveilled was "the mail of Senators, Congressmen, journalists, businessmen, and even a Presidential candidate," the report said.During his tenure, Bush has made plentiful use of signing statements, which are issued along with a president's signature on legislation. Although previous presidents used them as guidance for the executive branch, Bush has offered revised interpretations of laws on constitutional or national security grounds in some of his statements.See: (1) Report by Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe "Examples of the president's signing statements", April 30, 2006.(2) Wikipedia : Signing Statement(3) FindLaw: The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements: Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration

110th CongressIt felt good when San Francisco's Nancy Pelosi became the first woman to be sworn in as the Speaker of the House. Her speech on January 4th was not strident. She exuded confidence. There was a feeling of excitement and hope that things would be different.We have been disappointed too often in the past when elected representatives failed to deliver. They proved to be no match against the system; venality took over and peoples' business fell by the wayside. It is to be seen what the 110th Congress actually succeeds in accomplishing. If it lives up to the beginning then there is reason to expect that it will do much better than the 109th.Eugene Robinson is skeptical. "With all due respect to the chamber that calls itself the "world's greatest deliberative body," I wouldn't expect much initiative from the new Senate -- the Democrats' one-vote majority isn't enough to get much of anything done, especially with several senators moonlighting as presidential hopefuls. The action is in the House. And that's where the "interesting" part comes in. Pelosi's plan for a blitzkrieg of legislation in the first 100 hours of the new Congress is fine -- most Americans are in favor of a higher minimum wage, expanded stem-cell research, wider availability of student loans and fewer lobbyist-paid golfing trips to Scotland for our elected representatives. Pelosi could toss in a couple of bills supporting motherhood and apple pie while she's at it."Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) : "If there is one lesson that stands out from our party's time in the majority, it is this: A congressional majority is simply a means to an end. The value of a majority lies not in the chance to wield great power but in the chance to do great things."Lindsey Layton in the Post:The role model herself stood on the dais to swear in the entire House amid a clutch of children, including several of her own grandchildren. She was calm enough to let one of the younger girls hold the newest grandbaby, and she was focused enough to do her work amid their antics, a talent she perfected years ago as a mother of five and grass-roots political activist.It is Pelosi's time in the sun. There will be turbulent days ahead but, as they say: "You Go Girl".

Poem, HaikusFound some good ones that fit the mood of the day.I wish I had a poem for a rainy daywhen the raindrops pelt against the metalof the AC and the hum of a car's engine isthe only sound breaking the day's silence.I should be dreaming of sleep or sleeping withdreams or writing to Olga wondering what typesof stuffed animals she collects.Maybe rainy days are only wistful things for dreamersand poets? Maybe I need a Diner in my life and a highwayto leave it near. Life can be mysterious like a sudden phonecallwhen you're thinking if Russia is closer than Mars and if parts ofCanada are really south of the United States?I wish I had a poem that was as blue as your eyesor as quiet as a raindropIf not I'm going to have to invent one.© William P Haynesmorning rainlingering in the curlof a fiddlehead fern© Cindy ZakowitzNot even a hat--And cold rain falling on me?Tut-tut! Think of that!--Basho (translated by Harold Henderson) *

Reverend Pat Robertson has a penchant for predictions. Some of his predictions are similar to what you see in the checkout counter rags (National Enquirer and others like it). The sensational headlines in the National Enquirer are there to sell more copies and make money; the reverend's predictions are to draw attention to himself ....and make his disciples contribute more in the hope of saving themselves. Don't know if those who write in the checkout counter rags make any claims about getting messages from God but the reverend does.His latest: God told him that a terrorist attack of massive scale would take place in America in the second-half of 2007. The Boston Globe: "The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."Interesting that God didn't tell him exactly where and when it would take place. The almighty is certainly aware of the details. So, he told the reverend only half.....maybe a quarter of what he knows. Odd isn't it. There could be an explanation -- that the reverend made the whole thing up. His photographs give the impression that he is not too far from being a candidate for looney bin. Just think, this man campaigned for the Republican party's nomination in the 1988 presidential election!Also odd that President Bush didn't hear from God. He reportedly received God's guidance in going to war against Iraq. One would think that he would be warned about the attack and get Homeland Security on a red alert. It might pay some political dividend too. He needs it. Perhaps God will speak to him tomorrow or he has already heard from God and keeping it up his sleeve.San Francisco Chronicle - October 7, 2005"God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ...' And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God I'm gonna do it," Shaath quotes the president as saying in the three-part series.The worst vice of the fanatic is his sincerity.-- Oscar Wilde

Beginning of the End of Bush 43 * In Praise of LewinskySmirk has turned into grimace. Like Archie Bunker, for G.W. Bush the theme song could be "Those were the days". His next two years are going to be different, quite different than the past six. A subservient Congress no longer under his command, the president will have to work hard; eat humble pie. And he will not be able to push his legislative agenda through Congress. His new strategy for Iraq is yet to be announced but deployment of additional soldiers will face scrutiny and questions. Democratic legislators who meekly fell in line to support his war will not make the same mistake again. In face, even some Republican lawmakers are inclined to oppose him on Iraq.For us, it is just the opposite. Suzanne Goldberg's report in The Guardian warmed the cockles of my heart.Democratic strategists say they plan to use their new power as a committee chairs to look ahead, and that a primary focus will be the financing of the war. Aides are now exploring ways to attach conditions to future funding for the war as well as investigations into past misuse."There is a great deal of concern about how the money is being spent, what the costs are to the military and to our readiness in the future," said Peter Fenn, a Democratic strategist. "I think what the Democrats are going to say is that we are not passing this in the dead of night. We want to see where the money is going and how it is going to be spent."*Monica LewinskyIt was time someone applauded Ms Lewinsky and stated that her public persona -- negative perception by the public -- was largely a creation of the media. Richard Cohen's column in the Post ought to receive the attention it deserves.Fairness for LewinskyBy Richard CohenTuesday, January 2, 2007In the various books I've read about the Bill Clinton impeachment scandal -- a scandal because of what was done and a scandal because the president was impeached for it -- the same story is told over and over again. When the prosecutors or lawyers or whoever finally got to meet the storied Monica Lewinsky, they were floored by her. She was smart, personable and -- as the record makes clear -- dignified. This is more than can be said about some of the people who write about her.I will not name names. But in recent days, Lewinsky has been back in the news. In December she graduated with a master's degree in social psychology from the London School of Economics. Her thesis was titled "In Search of the Impartial Juror: An Exploration of the Third Person Effect and Pre-Trial Publicity." Her thesis might well have been called "In Search of the Impartial Journalist," because she was immediately the subject of more poke-in-the-ribs stories about you know what. The Post, a better paper than it was that day, called her "dumb-but-smart." It was more than could be said for that piece.It does not take a Freudian to appreciate why Lewinsky chose the topic she did. She is a victim of publicity, and her life has been a trial -- enough to floor almost anyone. But in Lewinsky's case, she took a bad situation and made something good of it. That hardly makes her "dumb-but-smart," but rather once young -- and now older and incomparably wiser. An approximation of this befalls us all, but before we got to become wise and prudent in all things we were probably irresponsible, outrageous and wild -- in other words, young.Fortunately for me -- and probably this applies to you as well -- my outrageous deeds are known to only a few, and some of those people, after a lifetime of bad marriages and poor investments, have probably forgotten them. In Lewinsky's case, her youthful indiscretion has been forgotten by no one. On the contrary, it's recorded for the ages, in House and Senate proceedings, in the files of the creepy special prosecutor, in the databases of newspapers, in presidential histories and the musty joke files of second-rate comics.She is a branded woman, not an adulterer but something even worse -- a girl toy, a trivial thing, a punch line. Yet she did what so many women at that age would do. She seduced (or so she thought) an older man. She fantasized that he would leave his wife for her. Here was her crime: She was a girl besotted. It happens even to Republicans.But she is now a woman with a master's degree from a prestigious school and is going to be 34 come July. Her clock ticks, her life ebbs. Where is the man for her? Where is the guy brave enough, strong enough, admirable enough to take her as his wife, to suffer the slings and arrows of her outrageous fortune -- to say to the world (for it would be the entire world) that he loves this woman who will always be an asterisk in American history. I hope there is such a guy out there. It would be nice. It would be fair.It would be nice, too, and fair, also, if Lewinsky were treated by the media as it would treat a man. What's astounding is the level of sexism applied to her, as if the wave of the women's movement broke over a new generation of journalists and not a drop fell on any of them. Where, pray tell, is the man who is remembered just for sex? Where is the guy who is the constant joke for something he did in his sexually wanton youth? Maybe here and there some preacher, but in those cases the real subject matter is not sex but hypocrisy. Other than those, no names come to mind.This is the year 2007, brand new and full of promise. It would be nice if my colleagues in the media would resolve to treat Monica Lewinsky as a lady, to think of her as they would themselves, to remember their own youth and the things they did and to understand that from this day forward anyone who takes a cheap shot at Lewinsky has a moral and professional obligation to look in the mirror. To proceed otherwise is to miss the joke entirely. No longer is it Monica Lewinsky. It is now the people who write about her.cohenr@washpost.com

A sign of the times. As the 210th Congress begins its session under Democratic majority, there is concern among lobbyists about new rules of the game. Democratic lawmakers did not sell themselves lock, stock and barrel to the lobbyists as the Republicans did but they did not remain impervious. It is too early to tell how far the Democrats will go, or succeed, in curbing the insidious influence of K-Street.Now, one of the powerful lobbying organizations has launched an attack against legislators it considers as enemies of guns.Jeffrey Birnbaum in the Post:In lobbying, a threat is good for business, whether it's genuine or not."The new leadership could be one of the most unfriendly to the National Rifle Association," declared Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the NRA. "If there's an effort to pursue gun control, we will mount an active defense."The famously combative lobby, with 4 million members, is displeased with the voting histories of Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and other top Democrats in the House and is putting them on notice that it won't tolerate passage of anti-gun measures.The only problem: No one expects gun legislation this year.True, a few Democrats would love to take a potshot at the NRA. But its $20 million in political firepower has long discouraged any such effort. It helped to snuff out the presidential hopes of Democrat Al Gore in 2000 and to elect dozens, mostly Republicans, to Congress.Besides, one of the NRA's biggest backers is a Democrat, Rep. John D. Dingell (Mich.), who was instrumental in blocking the last major attempt at gun control in 1999 and will reclaim the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week.No matter. The NRA is on high alert, and its latest weapon is a pamphlet designed to send its members into fits of paranoid rage and to inspire them to open their wallets.A draft of the 27-page document, which was provided to The Washington Post by a source outside the NRA, lashes out at such icons of the left as investor George Soros, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Pelosi. They are depicted as part of "a marching axis of adversaries far darker and more dangerous than gun owners have ever known."

Iraq dominated the headlines in 2006 and it will remain an issue that will shape American politics in the year which has just begun. Indications are that the president's yet to be announced new strategy isn't going to win much support at home and there are serious doubts -- even among Republicans -- that it would do any good. The strategy is expected to be based primarily on deployment of additional troops.As we entered 2007, the death toll for American soldiers reached 3000. The Bush Administration took the expected line about the number being meaningless. But how many more must die ? The President will not be able to shake off the gorilla on his back. Iraq will continue to plague him....and trouble us for being duped by the president and his cabal of neocons.

Weird Republicans in Kansas. Think of Oz, as in The Wizard of Oz. This one stood out among the headlines in the Washington Post: "Party Puts Ousted Official In His Opponent's Old Post"."Statewide, Kline got barely 4 in 10 votes. In Johnson County, the state's most populous county, his loss was more dramatic. That made it especially shocking after the election when Republican precinct leaders in the county chose Kline to finish the final two years of Morrison's term as prosecutor.""The moment Phill Kline got the nomination, half the room got up and walked out," said Scott Schwab, the county GOP chairman. "It wasn't so much yelling or cussing. They threw up their arms and said, 'What do we do now?' " * When it comes to bad news, for Americans, Iraq takes the top spot. There are other areas in the world where people are suffering -- Darfur and Somalia to name a few -- the scourge of AIDS is spreading in Asia. We have a dominant role in what is happening in Iraq and our soldiers are paying with their lives for Bush's folly. Number of Iraqi deads is staggering as is the cost in financial terms. * Good things happened. On November 7, 2006, President Bush had his comeuppance and lost his smirk. What the Democrats will achieve with the power they have regained is to be seen but, from environmental issues to Iraq, things will not continue to go downhill unchecked as they had since G.W. Bush became president."Boogie Nights"Kate Faithful writes in The Guardian about her search for the best dance floor in London. She found it at the neighborhood kebab shop!When I jump down from the table and skip on to the street, well after midnight, hunger drives me into a modest-looking kebab shop, Marathon. Fluorescent light, elephant foot in the window, counter down the left wall - reckon you've been there before? Well, Marathon is a one-off: through an archway at the back there's a pair of pensioners playing sax. A bubbling band of pub stragglers eat kebabs and ketchup-slathered chips on tiny wooden tables. Praise be, there's also cider - pounds 2 a can. And then we get up and spin around the tiny space. I've discovered a Twenties speakeasy and I can't help feeling cool. I would never have planned the climax of a seven-day danceathon to take place in the narrow back room of a kebab shop. Now I realise why overpriced, overhyped nightclubs exist - it's so the pretentious attitudes within stay behind their velvet ropes and away from my favourite places. If they gatecrash Marathon it will stop being cool. Anyway, somehow time has jumped to 4am and I haven't even thought to check if my feet hurt.There Is Always Hope©friskypics.com/photos/hope.jpgThe year has been mostly good for the people I know. That is something to feel cheerful about. Stay well, be involved. It is a small world, "what happens in other countries affect us".