Please Don't Spank or Slap Your Children

My brother Wally, age 3, and me, age 10

My reaction to a Reuters story today [or read it here] was Well, of course! But then I realized that a lot of Americans might see things differently. Those are the 90% of Americans who, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians, think that spanking is an appropriate method for disciplining children.

As someone who was slapped across the face, spanked on the buttocks with a hand, and whipped on the buttocks with leather belts as a child, I'm appalled that any percentage of Americans believes that children should be spanked. The story from Reuters says that spanking can fuel aggression and anxiety in children and can cause other behavior problems:

Children who are spanked when they misbehave are more likely to be anxious and aggressive than children who are disciplined in nonphysical ways, research shows. This is true even if spanking is the "cultural norm."

Whether parents should spank their children or use other forms of physical discipline is controversial. Some experts argue that children should not be spanked when they act out, citing evidence that it leads to more, rather than fewer, behavior problems and it could escalate into physical abuse. There are data to support this argument.

Anxiety? Well, of course. But they left out other effects: low self-esteem, fear of adults, a sense of powerlessness, destroyed parent–child relationships, social difficulties in childhood, difficulty forming normal intimate relationships in adulthood, and the potential to pass this destructive way of relating on to future generations.

My brother and sister and I all have major psychic scars from the physical and emotional abuse our parents meted out. I'm on my second marriage (I had self-esteem too poor to allow me to pick someone the first time around who was good for me), my sister's on her third marriage, and my brother (who had the added burden of being gay in a homophobic family) has a hard time seeing himself as worthy of anyone's love.

I remember being 7 years old and being on vacation at my maternal grandparents' home with my siblings and parents, and watching as my father slapped my infant brother's thighs, as my brother lay crying in an infant seat, and then said, "I'll give you something to cry about." What kind of person slaps a child, much less one younger than a year old?

Years of abuse like that are why, when my first marriage ended and I had a chance to take back my birth surname, I decided to instead take the surname O'Moore, the birth name of my maternal grandmother, a sweet woman who had never hit me. I did not want to be associated by name with people who hit children—with the people who had hit me.

What are you teaching your children when you hit them?

• That it's okay to hit someone smaller and weaker than they are
• That their feelings don't matter
• That their bodies are not their own
• That adults can't control their own anger
• That love equals hitting
• That adults aren't to be trusted; one time they'll show affection, and the next time they'll hit

Are those the lessons you really want them to learn? Do you want them to grow up harboring vast stores of anger toward—and even hatred for—you? Do you want to contribute to American society's tendency to violence?

There are ways to teach children good behavior and self-control that don't involve hitting:

1. The goal of discipline is to teach children acceptable behavior. Whenever possible, teach children what you want to see rather than punishing them.
   
 
2. View children's misbehavior as a mistake in judgment. It will be easier to think of ways to teach more acceptable behavior.
   
 
3. Never hit or shake infants. They do not know right and wrong. They do not misbehave on purpose. They need love and protection, not punishment.
   
 
4. Create a safe environment for children. Baby-proof the house. Distract or remove infants and toddlers when they are doing something they shouldn't be doing.
   
 
5. Provide order and consistency. Whenever possible have regular times for meals, studying and bedtime.
   
 
6. Give toddlers and preschoolers age-appropriate choices and consequences.
   
 
7. Establish family rules that are appropriate for children's ages. Keep them few in number with clear and reasonable consequences for not obeying.
   
 
8. Develop a trusting relationship with children by protecting them from harm, by being honest and trustworthy, and by exhibiting predictable and mature behavior.
   
 
9. Children need to hear more good things about themselves than bad things. Offer praise for appropriate behavior. Praise will increase that behavior.
   
 
10. Adopt a "no-hitting" attitude. No one has a right to hit anyone else in the household ... that includes hitting children for misbehavior.

Please stop using violence against your children. They will be more whole people, and the world will be a better place. Thank you.

Take 2

corporal punishment violence children parenting discipline misbehavior EditorMom

U.S. Officials' Waffling Raises UN Concern about White Phosphorus

In not getting its story straight about the use of white phosphorus (WP) against insurgents in Iraq, the U.S. government has shot itself in the foot. Reports the New York Times:

On Nov. 8, Italian public television showed a documentary renewing persistent charges that the United States had used white phosphorus rounds, incendiary munitions that the film incorrectly called chemical weapons, against Iraqis in Falluja last year. Many civilians died of burns, the report said.

The half-hour film was riddled with errors and exaggerations, according to United States officials and independent military experts. But the State Department and Pentagon have so bungled their response—making and then withdrawing incorrect statements about what American troops really did when they fought a pitched battle against insurgents in the rebellious city—that the charges have produced dozens of stories in the foreign news media and on Web sites suggesting that the Americans used banned weapons and tried to cover it up.

The Iraqi government has announced an investigation, and a United Nations spokeswoman has expressed concern.

"It's discredited the American military without any basis in fact," said John E. Pike, an expert on weapons who runs GlobalSecurity.org, an independent clearinghouse for military information. He said the "stupidity and incompetence" of official comments had fueled suspicions of a cover-up.

"The story most people around the world have is that the Americans are up to their old tricks—committing atrocities and lying about it," Mr. Pike said. "And that's completely incorrect."

Daryl G. Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, a nonprofit organization that researches nuclear issues, was more cautious. In light of the issues raised since the film was shown, he said, the Defense Department, and perhaps an independent body, should review whether American use of white phosphorus had been consistent with international weapons conventions.

"There are legitimate questions that need to be asked," Mr. Kimball said. Given the history of Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons in Iraq, he said, "we have to be extremely careful" to comply with treaties and the rules of war.

At a time when opposition to the war is growing, the white phosphorus issue has reinforced the worst suspicions about American actions.

The documentary was quickly posted as a video file on Web sites worldwide. Bloggers trumpeted its allegations. Foreign newspapers and television reported the charges and rebuttals, with headlines like "The Big White Lie" in The Independent of London.

Officials now acknowledge that the government's initial response was sluggish and misinformed.

"There's so much inaccurate information out there now that I'm not sure we can unscrew it," Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Defense Department spokesman who has handled many inquiries about white phosphorus, said Friday.

The State Department declined to comment for the record, but an official there said privately that the episode was a public relations failure.

The Italian documentary, titled "Falluja: The Hidden Massacre," included gruesome images of victims of the fierce fighting in the city in November 2004. American and Iraqi troops recaptured the city from insurgents, in battles that destroyed an estimated 60 percent of the buildings.

Opening with prolonged shots of Vietnamese children and villages burned by American use of napalm in 1972, the film suggested an equivalence between Mr. Hussein's use of chemical weapons in the 1980's and the use of white phosphorus by the American-led forces.

It incorrectly referred to white phosphorus shells—a munition of nearly every military commonly used to create smoke screens or fires—as banned chemical weapons.

The film showed disfigured bodies and suggested that hot-burning white phosphorus had melted the flesh while leaving clothing intact. Sigfrido Ranucci, the television correspondent who made the documentary, said in an interview this month that he had received the photographs from an Iraqi doctor. "We are not talking about corpses like the normal deaths in war," he said.

Military veterans familiar with white phosphorus, known to soldiers as "W. P." or "Willie Pete," said it could deliver terrible burns, since an exploding round scatters bits of the compound that burst into flames on exposure to air and can burn into flesh, penetrating to the bone.

But they said white phosphorus would have burned victims' clothing. The bodies in the film appeared to be decomposed, they said.

In their first comments after the Nov. 8 broadcast, American officials made some of those points. But they relied on an inaccurate State Department fact sheet first posted on the Web last December, when similar accusations first surfaced.

The fact sheet said American forces had used white phosphorus shells "very sparingly in Falluja, for illumination purposes, and were fired "to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters."

The Americans stuck to that position last spring after Iraq's Health Ministry claimed it had proof of civilian casualties from the weapons.

After the Italian documentary was broadcast, the American ambassadors to Italy, Ronald P. Spogli, and to Britain, Robert H. Tuttle, echoed the stock defense, denying that white phosphorus munitions had been used against enemy fighters, let alone civilians. At home, on the public radio program "Democracy Now," Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, an American military spokesman, said, "I know of no cases where people were deliberately targeted by the use of white phosphorus."

But those statements were incorrect. Firsthand accounts by American officers in two military journals note that white phosphorus munitions had been aimed directly at insurgents in Falluja to flush them out. War critics and journalists soon discovered those articles.

In the face of such evidence, the Bush administration made an embarrassing public reversal last week. Pentagon spokesmen admitted that white phosphorus had been used directly against Iraqi insurgents. "It's perfectly legitimate to use this stuff against enemy combatants," Colonel Venable said Friday.

While he said he could not rule out that white phosphorus hit some civilians, "U.S. and coalition forces took extraordinary measures to prevent civilian casualties in Falluja."

white phosporus Fallujah Iraq torture Pentagon military Bush impeach EditorMom

DuPont Hid Risks of Teflon Chemical

DuPont Co. is not your friend. It is its stockholders' friend, because it hid the findings of studies showing that a Teflon-related chemical breaks down into toxic chemicals that likely cause cancer. Says the Associated Press, via MSBC:

DuPont Co. hid studies showing the risks of a Teflon-related chemical used to line candy wrappers, pizza boxes, microwave popcorn bags and hundreds of other food containers, according to internal company documents and a former employee.

The chemical Zonyl can rub off the liner and get into food. Once in a person’s body, it can break down into perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts, known as PFOA, a related chemical used in the making of Teflon-coated cookware.

The Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to decide whether to classify PFOA as a “likely” human carcinogen. The Food and Drug Administration, in a letter released Wednesday evening by DuPont, said it was continuing to monitor the safety of PFOA chemicals in food.

The DuPont documents were made public Wednesday by the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization.


Engineer: ‘In every one of you’
At the same time, a former DuPont chemical engineer, Glenn Evers, told reporters at a news conference at EWG’s office that the company long suppressed its studies on the chemical. “They are toxic,” Evers said of the PFOA chemicals. “They get into human blood. And they are also in every one of you. Your loved ones, your fellow citizens.”

From 1981 to 2002, Evers helped DuPont develop new products. He lost his job in 2002 in what DuPont described as a company restructuring.

Evers had a different view: “It is my belief DuPont pushed me out of the company” because he started raising concerns about the chemicals’ safety.

Evers said he decided to talk publicly about the PFOA problem after filing a civil suit against DuPont this month in a Delaware court. Evers’ aim is mainly to “set the record straight” about the chemical and his own career, said Herb Feuerhake, Evers’ lawyer.

But Evers said he also hoped to influence the outcome of an EPA hearing later this month on whether DuPont had withheld from EPA the study on PFOA and possible birth defects. The company could be fined millions of dollars.

After EWG tracked down Evers—who had provided expert,unpaid testimony in two lawsuits against DuPont—the 47-year-old Delaware resident said he talked it over with his priest, who told him, " 'You can’t dance with the devil.' "


Company’s response
DuPont denied allegations that PFOA posed a health risk, saying the Food and Drug Administration had approved the products for consumers.

“These products are safe for consumer use,” the company said in a statement. “FDA has approved these materials for consumer use since the late 1960s, and DuPont has always complied with all FDA regulations and standards regarding these products.”

The company said Evers “had little if any direct involvement in PFOA issues while employed at DuPont. ... Evers expressed a wide range of personal opinions that are inaccurate, counter to FDA’s findings, and which DuPont strongly disputes.”

The environmental group on Wednesday gave the FDA and the EPA copies of DuPont-sponsored internal studies indicating higher dangers from Zonyl than the government knew, including its ability to migrate into the food.

One of the documents, a 1987 memo, cites laboratory tests showing the chemical came off paper coating and leached into foods at levels three times higher than the FDA limit set in 1967. Another document, a 1973 Dupont study in which rats and dogs were fed Zonyl for 90 days, said both types of animals had anemia and damage to their kidneys and livers; the dogs had higher cholesterol levels.


Activists: Fetuses at risk
“What makes this worse is that DuPont knew at that time that Zonyl breakdown-products, such as PFOA, in food were very persistent in the environment and were contaminating human blood, including the fetal cord blood of babies born to DuPont female employees,” EWG Senior Vice President Richard Wiles wrote to FDA and EPA officials.

Wiles asked the agencies to determine whether DuPont should be penalized for withholding the studies. Last year, based on another DuPont document that the environmental group obtained, EPA alleged the company had repeatedly failed over a 20-year period to submit required data about PFOA. The document referred to a study that suggested possible links between PFOA and birth defects in infants.

EPA spokeswoman Eryn Witcher said Wednesday the agency “has an extensive effort under way to determine the sources of PFOA, how the public is being exposed, and whether these exposures pose a potential health risk.”


Earlier dioxin case
Evers’ decision to go public with his concerns may have already had an impact.

In August, he told a Mississippi court that all three of DuPont’s U.S. plants were releasing “massive amounts” of dioxin—a class of organic chemicals that EPA studies have shown pose a possible cancer risk in humans. In that case, an oyster fisherman who claimed dioxin from a DuPont plant caused his rare blood cancer was awarded $14 million in actual damages and his wife received $1.5 million.

He also testified last year in a West Virginia case in which DuPont agreed to a $107.6 million settlement of a class-action suit. Residents around a plant near Parkersburg, W.Va., had said that PFOA contaminated their drinking water supplies. DuPont also remains the target of another class-action suit over PFOA seeking $5 billion.

The Zonyl documents are online at ewg.org/issues/pfcs/20051116/documents.php.

If you own Teflon-coated cookware, throw it out immediately and replace it with cast-iron cookware. Cast iron is easy to clean and adds a little iron to your diet, which is a good thing.


Teflon perfluorooctanoic acid PFOA carcinogen cancer toxin DuPont environment pollution EPA EditorMom

Senior Dem Rep, a Viet Vet, Calls for End to Iraq War

Senior Democratic Representative John Murtha (Pennsylvania), a hawk who voted for the war in Iraq, now says it must end because it's "not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion."

Because he's a decorated Vietnam War veteran and former Marine, perhaps those politicos and citizens still wearing blinders will begin to take them off. The Associated Press, via CNN, reports that as Murtha spoke to reporters, he was choking back tears:

"It is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region," Murtha said.

Murtha, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, has earned bipartisan respect for his grasp of military issues over three decades in Congress.

He said announcing a U.S. withdrawal would provide the Iraqi government with an added incentive to have their own security forces take control of the conflict.

Murtha is a close adviser to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California. For months, Pelosi has pushed for the Bush administration to outline an exit strategy, although she has stopped short of calling for an immediate troop pullout.

Some Senate Democrats have called for immediate or phased withdrawal.

Murtha's comments came just two days after the Senate voted to approve a statement that 2006 "should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty" to create the conditions for the phased withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Murtha voted to give the president authority to use force against Saddam Hussein in 2002. In recent months, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee defense panel has grown increasingly troubled with the direction of the war and with the Bush administration's handling of it, particularly following reports of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe.

It's become clear that the Iraq war is really about Bush's vendetta against Arabs and big oil's desire to make huge profits. It's time to stop the insanity. Murtha knows this.

Updated 2:15 p.m.:

The Associated Press, via MSNBC, also reported:

Vice President Dick Cheney jumped into the fray Wednesday by assailing Democrats who contend the Bush administration manipulated intelligence on Iraq, calling their criticism “one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.”

Murtha, a Marine intelligence officer in Vietnam, angrily shot back at Cheney: “I like guys who’ve never been there that criticize us who’ve been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don’t like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done.”

The top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Murtha has earned bipartisan respect for his grasp of military issues over three decades in Congress. He planned to introduce a resolution Thursday that, if passed by both the House and the Senate, would force the president to withdraw U.S. troops.

Updated 2:40 p.m.:

The full text of Murtha's speech and the resolution that he will introduce to the House of Representatives tomorrow can be found here.


Iraq Bush impeach Murtha EditorMom

Double Standard

Apparently, some in the British government have brains and souls, unlike those in the American administration. After the Pentagon confirmed that U.S. troops use white phosporus in Iraq, Britain confirmed that it does also but is reconsidering the practice:

... former armed forces minister Doug Henderson said the admission by the Pentagon that it was used to flush out insurgents in the assault on Fallujah raised serious questions for the coalition allies.

"It exposes the fact that double standards have applied," he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One.

"You cannot say you are going to invade a country to find chemical weapons and prevent them being used and then admit that you have used chemical weapons yourself in carrying out your endeavours."

The chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Labour MP Mike Gapes, said that the international conventions on chemical weapons may now have to be strengthened to cover white phosphorus.

white phosporus Fallujah Iraq torture Pentagon military Bush impeach Blair Britain EditorMom

Surprise, Surprise! Bid-Rigging in Iraq Restoration

How many times can a person say, "Don't do it!" and not get anyone to listen? Since before Bush got into office, I was telling everyone I knew that the man was a Texas good ol' boy, which is Southwestern code for "corrupt as all get-out." I grew up in Texas, and I know a snake-oil salesman when I see one. And a bunch of thick-headed people still voted for the weasel ... twice!

Now comes a report of "a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Washington [alleging] a web of corruption and bid rigging in Iraq by officials who worked with the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led agency that ran Iraq for more than a year after the 2003 invasion [of that country]." And who ran the coalition government? L. Paul Bremer III, a former U.S. State Department official appointed by Bush. These Bushies have their dirty hands in everything that'll make them loads of bucks:

The complaint accuses an American-Romanian businessman, Philip H. Bloom, of paying officials from the coalition’s south-central region "bribes, kickbacks and gratuities, amounting to at least $200,000 per month," in order to obtain reconstruction contracts through a bid-rigging scam.

According to the complaint, Bloom "conspired with United States government contract employees and military officials to obtain fraudulently government contracts."

A government affidavit alleges that in one instance, the officials rigged bids for contracts in Hillah and Karbala, two cities 50 to 60 miles south of Baghdad. In some cases, Bloom’s companies performed no work, Patrick McKenna Jr., an investigator for the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq, said in the affidavit.

Efforts to reach representatives for Bloom were unsuccessful.

Bloom or companies he controls made bank deposits of $353,000 on behalf of at least two CPA officials and bought them real estate in North Carolina as well as vehicles and jewelry worth more than $280,000 in 2004 and 2005, McKenna said.

The complaint says one of the U.S. officials was the comptroller for the region in Iraq based in Hillah and controlled $82 million in cash.


One official said to admit involvement
Another coalition official, who worked with the first, has been cooperating with investigators and has admitted he "unlawfully received cash and goods" from Bloom, according to the complaint.

Bloom, according to the complaint, ran several companies in Iraq and Romania, including one called GBG Logistics.

According to a biography of Philip Bloom on the Web site of one of his companies, he is an "expatriate America with a war chest of experiences” operating a variety of firms overseas since the 1970s, including Haitian and Puerto Rican airlines. The biography says that "Bloom is possessed off an uncanny knack for finding business, almost psychic in nature."

GBG Logistics says on its Web site that it has worked on a variety of Iraq reconstruction projects. "As one of the first private firms to enter the Iraqi market in April 2003, GBG Logistics is primarily devoted to identifying and developing new business opportunities in the reconstruction effort," it says.

There have been allegations and suspicions of corruption under the coalition government, which ran Iraq from just after the invasion in March 2003 until June 2004 and was headed by former Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, and during the Iraq reconstruction process, but this is the first criminal case to be brought in U.S. courts alleging wrongdoing by coalition officials.

Previously, the Hillah region came under scrutiny after the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction reported in an audit that $100 million in seized Iraqi funds could not be accounted for.

The war in Iraq is to protect Americans' freedom? Bush-shit. It's to protect big business's freedom to steal as much as possible from anyone and everyone.

You gonna listen to me next time?


corruption Bremer coalition government Iraq Bush impeach EditorMom

Iraq Human Rights Team Investigates U.S. Use of Phosphorus

As is often the case when it comes to reporting on U.S. human-rights violations in Iraq, the foreign media have once again beaten the U.S. media to the punch. The BBC reports that a human-rights team from Iraq is in Fallujah to investigate the use of white phosporus by the U.S. military against Iraqis:

Iraq probes US phosphorus weapons

An Iraqi human rights team has gone to the city of Falluja to investigate the use of white phosphorus as a weapon by US forces, a minister has told the BBC.

Acting Human Rights Minister Narmin Uthman said her staff would examine the possible effects on civilians.

The US has now admitted using white phosphorus as a weapon in Falluja last year, after earlier denying it.

The substance can cause burning of the flesh but is not illegal and is not classified as a chemical weapon.

The BBC's Caroline Hawley in Baghdad says it will be some time before the human rights team reports back.

In other developments in Iraq:

• Sunni parties demand an international inquiry into the alleged abuse of more than 170 detainees by Iraqi forces in Baghdad.
• Three US soldiers are killed in a roadside bomb near Baghdad.
• A car bomb kills a US marine in Karmah, 80km (50 miles) west of Baghdad.

Italian TV station Rai alleged last week that the US had used phosphorus against built-up areas, and that civilians were killed.

The report sparked fury among Italian anti-war protesters, who demonstrated outside the US embassy in Rome.

The US initially said white phosphorus had been used only to illuminate enemy positions, but now admits it was used as a weapon.

BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood says having to retract that denial is a public relations disaster for the US.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt Col Barry Venable, confirmed to the BBC the US had used white phosphorus "as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants"—though not against civilians, he said.

He said earlier denials had been based on "poor information".

Washington is not a signatory to an international treaty restricting the use of the substance against civilians.

The US-led assault in November 2004 on Falluja—a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency west of Baghdad—displaced most of the city's 300,000 population and left many of its buildings destroyed.


'Particularly nasty'

San Diego journalist Darrin Mortenson, who was embedded with US marines during the assault on Falluja, told the BBC's Today radio programme he had seen white phosphorous used "as an incendiary weapon" against insurgents.

However, he "never saw anybody intentionally use any weapon against civilians", he said.

White phosphorus is highly flammable and ignites on contact with oxygen. If the substance hits a person's body, it will burn until deprived of oxygen.

Globalsecurity.org, a defence website, says: "Phosphorus burns on the skin are deep and painful... These weapons are particularly nasty because white phosphorus continues to burn until it disappears... it could burn right down to the bone."

Britain's Defence Secretary John Reid said UK forces had used white phosphorus in Iraq, but not as "anything other than a smokescreen to protect our troops when in action".

The UK Ministry of Defence said its use was permitted in battle in cases where there were no civilians near the target area.

But Professor Paul Rogers, of the University of Bradford's department of peace studies, said white phosphorus could be considered a chemical weapon if deliberately aimed at civilians.

He told the BBC: "It is not counted under the chemical weapons convention in its normal use but, although it is a matter of legal niceties, it probably does fall into the category of chemical weapons if it is used for this kind of purpose directly against people."

white phosporus Fallujah Iraq torture Pentagon military Bush impeach EditorMom

Deeply Irresponsible Bush Wants Servile Citizens

President Bush says those who criticize the way he made the case for the Iraq war are "deeply irresponsible," rewriting the history of how the war began.

Theodore Roosevelt, the twenty-sixth president, would likely disagree with him. In an editorial for the Kansas City Star published on May 7, 1918, during World War I, he wrote:

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

Iraq Bush impeach EditorMom

U.S. Military Admits to Using Skin-Melting WP as a Weapon

At first the U.S. Department of State denied that the American military used white phosphorus (WP) as a weapon against Iraqis in Fallujah. But now the Pentagon says the State Department was wrong; the military does use WP, but only against insurgents, not civilians. And the Pentagon says the military used it as only an incendiary weapon, not a chemical weapon:

U.S. denies using phosphorous against civilians
Military says incendiary powder used against Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah

The Associated Press
Updated: 7:18 a.m. ET Nov. 16, 2005

WASHINGTON—Pentagon officials say white phosphorous was used as a weapon against insurgent strongholds during the battle of Fallujah last November, but deny an Italian television news report that it was used against civilians.

Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday that while white phosphorous is most frequently used to mark targets or obscure a position, it was used at times in Fallujah as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants.

White phosphorous is a colorless-to-yellow translucent wax-like substance with a pungent, garlic-like smell. The form used by the military ignites once it is exposed to oxygen, producing such heat that it bursts into a yellow flame and produces a dense white smoke. It can cause painful burn injuries to exposed human flesh.

“It was not used against civilians,” Venable said.

The spokesman referred reporters to an article in the March–April 2005 edition of the Army’s Field Artillery magazine, an official publication, in which veterans of the Fallujah fight spelled out their use of white phosphorous and other weapons. The authors used the shorthand “WP” in referring to white phosphorous.

“WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition,” the authors wrote. “We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE (high explosive)” munitions.

“We fired ‘shake and bake’ missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out.”

The authors added, in citing lessons for future urban battles, that fire-support teams should have used another type of smoke bomb for screening missions in Fallujah “and saved our WP for lethal missions.”

The battle for Fallujah was the most intense and deadly fight of the war, after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. The city, about 35 miles west of Baghdad on the Euphrates River, was a key insurgent stronghold. The authors of the “after action” report said they encountered few civilians in their area of operations.


Italian communists protest
Italian communists held a sit-in Monday in front of the U.S. Embassy in Rome to protest the reported use by American troops of white phosphorous.

Italy’s state-run RAI24 news television aired a documentary last week alleging the U.S. used white phosphorous shells in a “massive and indiscriminate way” against civilians during the Fallujah offensive.

The State Department, in response, initially denied that U.S. troops had used white phosphorous against enemy forces. “They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters.”

The department later said its statement had been incorrect.

“There is a great deal of misinformation feeding on itself about U.S. forces allegedly using ‘outlawed’ weapons in Fallujah,” the department said. “The facts are that U.S. forces are not using any illegal weapons in Fallujah or anywhere else in Iraq.”

Venable said white phosphorous shells are a standard weapon used by field artillery units and are not banned by any international weapons convention to which the U.S. is a signatory.

I don't believe the Pentagon any more than I believed the State Department. Of course the military's using WP as a chemical weapon. Does any sane person expect the truth from the Machiavellian, black-souled American government and its military?


white phosporus napalm Fallujah Iraq torture Pentagon military Bush impeach EditorMom

An Unrecognizable Country

I've said to my husband, because our political stance is far to the left of mainstream America's, that I sometimes feel as if we're aliens who crash-landed on this planet and can't escape because there aren't any replacement parts for our spaceship. Former President Jimmy Carter expressed this sentiment very well yesterday in a piece in the Los Angeles Times (also found at Common Dreams):

This isn't the real America

In recent years, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.

These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.

Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.

At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organizations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements—including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.

Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive war," an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes.

Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by top U.S. leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world.

These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be internationally constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and America facing the threat of additional terrorist attacks, our declaration of "You are either with us or against us!" has replaced the forming of alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests, including the threat of terrorism.

Another disturbing realization is that, unlike during other times of national crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively on the few heroic men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the quagmire of Iraq. The rest of our nation has not been asked to make any sacrifice, and every effort has been made to conceal or minimize public awareness of casualties.

Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under some extreme provisions of the Patriot Act.

Of even greater concern is that the U.S. has repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition program. It is embarrassing to see the president and vice president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment" on people in U.S. custody.

Instead of reducing America's reliance on nuclear weapons and their further proliferation, we have insisted on our right (and that of others) to retain our arsenals, expand them, and therefore abrogate or derogate almost all nuclear arms control greements negotiated during the last 50 years. We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation. America also has abandoned the prohibition of "first use" of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear nations, and is contemplating the previously condemned deployment of weapons in space.

Protection of the environment has fallen by the wayside because of government subservience to political pressure from the oil industry and other powerful lobbying groups. The last five years have brought continued lowering of pollution standards at home and almost universal condemnation of our nation's global environmental policies.

Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by unprecedented favors to the rich, while neglecting America's working families. Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $30,000 per year since freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the lowest among industrialized nations).

I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in many houses of worship and in government, as church and state have become increasingly intertwined in ways previously thought unimaginable.

As the world's only superpower, America should be seen as the unswerving champion of peace, freedom and human rights. Our country should be the focal point around which other nations can gather to combat threats to international security and to enhance the quality of our common environment. We should be in the forefront of providing human assistance to people in need.

It is time for the deep and disturbing political divisions within our country to be substantially healed, with Americans united in a common commitment to revive and nourish the historic political and moral values that we have espoused during the last 230 years.

civil liberties Iraq war terrorism minimum wage oil fundamentalism torture
free speech dissent Bush Patriot Act environment Jimmy Carter EditorMom

Burning the Skin Off Iraqis in Fallujah

Near the beginning of the illegal war against Iraq, reports that U.S. soldiers had used napalm on Iraqis surfaced and then quickly disappeared. I e-mailed links to those stories to friends, some of whom, though they think the war is wrong, refused to believe that American soldiers would do such a thing and that Bush and the Pentagon would ever order such an action.

But we were using a substance that has effects similar to that of napalm, though, called white phosphorus (see this also [in Italian]). It burns the skin on contact, sometimes to the bone. If you can stomach it, view the video (about 30 minutes long and in English) of Italian RAI News 24's investigative story, "Fallujah, the Concealed Massacre."

The U.S. military has, of course, denied that it uses white phosphorus as weapon. The military instead uses it "to conceal troop movements with smoke, mark targets or light up combat areas," reported MSNBC. "The use of incendiary weapons against civilians has been banned by the Geneva Convention since 1980. The United States did not sign the relevant protocol to the convention, a U.N. official in New York said." And Newsweek's international November 22 issue, already online, also reports that white phosphorus is used for illumination.

The military can give such bogus reasons all it wants. Once you get past the question of why in hell we're in Iraq, there's the question of why in hell we're burning the skin off human beings. I guess it goes hand in hand with torture.

Update

white phosporus napalm Fallujah Iraq torture Pentagon military Bush impeach EditorMom

Inside the Hell of Express Scripts

Remember the extreme lengths I've had to go to to get AD/HD meds for my husband and one of our sons from Express Scripts (ESI)? If not, this, this, and this will refresh your memory.

Tonight I heard from Rachel bat Avraham,* a courageous Express Scripts employee who's been following my Express Scripts saga here:

Hi, Katharine.

I've been reading your blog, especially your Express Scripts posts. I'm glad you got some help finally.

Keep hounding those newspapers, and magazines, and government officials.

And yes, we slaves on the phones at Express Scripts give our real names; at least I do. And, for [the] record, I always try to do my best to help every person I talk to during the day, even if I end up helping so many people I can't remember names or details.

Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, even if I know ESI is at fault, there's usually nothing I can do about it, because there's no way to get around the rules. Trust me—the folks higher up on the totem pole (as well as most of the agents) don't give a damn about the folks on the outside getting the short end of the stick from ESI.

I know it's probably hard to believe that anyone's sincere at ESI, and I can't blame you. But I can say that there are a few of us who are sincere and will even take the responsibility for ESI's screwups in the name of helping the caller. Admittedly, it's very exhausting trying to correct unnecessary problems all day, along with being yelled at by supervisors who have been promoted to the level of their incompetence, as well as being cussed out and threatened by [customers], but I for one will not do a half-assed job.

I would advise any of you out there who are fed up with Express Scripts to continue to hound the media and turn it into a public affair, because I promise you, the higher-ups won't like the bad press. And if you do it, you don't risk being tossed out on your can without any unemployment.

I'm glad to know that Rachel cares and is doing her best in a no-win situation. It's too bad that she's not a supervisor. But having ethics and being competent probably disqualify her from being promoted. She wrote me later tonight about being a cog in the Express Scripts wheel: "Usually nobody gives a damn about us [customer service representatives]. We're just 'you people!' Today, though, I got upgraded to "you G-d damned people!"

You can contact her here or peruse her blog to read about what her days at work are like.

_____________________
*This is an alias I've used for the employee's protection. You can bet that if Express Scripts knew her true identity, she'd be out of a job immediately.

Updated 12:45 a.m., November 10: Read about other consumers' Express Scripts nightmares here and here. There are plenty more such stories out there, but I don't want to sit here and insert hyperlinks all night.

_________________________

Fighting for the Little Guy, Part 1

Fighting for the Little Guy, Part 2

AD/HD ADHD Ritalin ADD prescriptions mail-order drugs pharmacies Express Scripts fraud EditorMom

Shameful Vote

I'm ashamed to say that I grew up in Texas. Hell, sometimes I'm ashamed to say that I grew up in the United States.

Not only did Texas produce the idiot currently residing in the White House but it also has passed an amendment to its constitution banning same-sex marriage.

Now, the state already had a law to the same effect, but uptight Bible-thumping heterosexuals wanted the amendment because they said it would prevent judges from overturning the law. That's a lot of fear.

I'll bet most of those folks have never gotten to know anyone who's gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered.

My brother, Wally, is gay, and he's not the least bit frightening. He's a talented IT professional at a Texas-based satellite communications company. He pays his taxes. He's kind and generous. He has an infectious laugh.

My friends who are part of the New Century Singers are all talented vocalists. They're short, tall, thin, round, male, female, introverts, extroverts, conservative, liberal, religious, agnostic, pale, dark, single, in new relationships, and in long-term relationships. They sound just like everyone else in the country, don't they? I went to their tenth-anniversary dinner dance this last Saturday and had a blast. There was one woman there who was obviously in love with her escort; there were two couples celebrating at least 40 years together. But wait—they're straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender. In this country, that means that most of them shouldn't be allowed to marry.

Shame on Texas for denying Wally a basic human right. Shame on New York State for denying the New Century Singers a basic human right. Shame on Americans for denying their fellow citizens a basic human right.



GLBT human rights civil rights gay rights prejudice Texas EditorMom

It's a Medical Miracle!

Amazing what miracles a few e‑mails to the right folks can produce.

Remember how, in our November 1 episode, Express Scripts first told me they put aside the prescription for my husband Ed's AD/HD medication and then told me they'd never received the prescription from us, despite UPS proof to the contrary? It seems my e-mails to Newsday, Newsweek, and the New York Times, cc'd to Express Scripts, have produced a medical miracle.

A half hour ago, I got a phone call from an Express Scripts supervisor who says her name is Connie (do customer service reps ever give their real names?), who told me that Express Scripts' pharmacists have found Ed's prescription, are filling it now, and will ship the medication out by express mail today.

This miraculous find couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that Express Scripts knows that I know that 19 state attorney generals think they're crooks, could it? Of course not.

Still, I'll believe in miracles when I sign for receipt of the medication package.

Updated 2:48 p.m., November 3: Ed's medication was delivered this morning, having been shipped by FedEx for Saturday delivery. Express Scripts never has Ed's or our son's meds delivered on a Saturday. But they know they're in deep quicksand this time. And here's a portion of a cheering letter from New York State Attorney General Eliot Spizter that he wrote to us on November 1 and that we received today:

Thank you for your recent e-mail and for expressing your support for my efforts as Attorney General. Your kind words mean a great deal to me.

In addition, I appreciate you making me aware of your difficulties with Express Scripts. I have forwarded your message to the appropriate members of my staff. I am sure that it will be of interest to them. We will keep your comments in mind during any discussions we may have on this issue.

_________________________

Fighting for the Little Guy, Part 1

Fighting for the Little Guy, Part 2


AD/HD ADHD Ritalin ADD prescriptions mail-order drugs pharmacies Express Scripts fraud EditorMom

Destroying Lives to Maintain Prejudice

Irene "Beth" Stroud, right, pauses during a news conference, Monday, Oct. 31, 2005, in Philadelphia, as her partner Chris Paige looks on. (AP)

My wise friend Barbara Merchant, a fellow copyeditor and Presbyterian who lives in Georgia, e‑mailed me in distress that the Rev. Irene "Beth" Stroud, a Methodist minister, has been defrocked for being a lesbian:

It makes me ill. I slightly know one of the women who wrote a statement saying she felt bad about doing this. If she felt so bad about this, why did she go through with it? Who did Jesus call to be his disciples? It wasn't the straight, celibate, economically sound folks. It was those he believed could best spread his message. How can Methodists sing "In Christ There Is No East or West" and defrock someone on the basis of sexual preference? Merely because someone is gay doesn't mean they are unworthy. A pedophile is a different matter. Look at the priests who preyed on those children. They were unworthy to serve. I hate this. I want to say to the committee, "Look at John 8:7–9": [7] And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." [8] And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. [9] But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. [10] Jesus looked up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" Who is in a position to condemn? Not the members of that committee. If you defrock the good albeit different from you, then congregations all over receive the message that God's word should only be proclaimed by a certain kind of person. What if we defrocked elderly ministers, saying only the young should preach? What kind of message does that send out? God calls straights, gays, Jamaicans, Koreans, bow-legged, knock-kneed, hairy-chested, barely chested—all kinds of people—to share the important news that we are all loved and wanted by God. If that committee truly believed the words of the Gospel, the words in that hymn, then it would stand back and say, "Maybe it's time we made some changes in our rule book so that the minister standing behind the pulpit truly reflects who is in our congregation." We all belong. Not just the straight ones. Everyone. Jesus said so.

Barbara, I couldn't have said it any better.


Updated 1:25 a.m., November 3, 2005: You can read the Rev. Stroud's coming-out sermon, preached to her congregation at First United Methodist Church of Germantown in Philadelphia on April 27, 2003, here.

GLBT human rights civil rights gay rights prejudice religion Methodist Beth Stroud Presbyterian acceptance EditorMom

Held Hostage by Mail-Order Drug Suppliers

My husband and I are fed up with the requirement by GHI, through which we have health insurance, that "maintenance" prescription medications—any medications taken on a regular basis—be filled by mail order through Express Scripts. We're likely not the only ones who can't take it anymore.

Ed (my husband) and our middle child have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD), and they both take two forms of methylphenidate for it. Several times, Express Scripts has delayed filling their prescriptions for the drug beyond a reasonable amount of time. Last March and currently, Express Scripts claims to have lost or never received the prescriptions for this drug. For both times, we have proof from UPS that someone at Express Scripts signed for the next-day air or second-day air packages containing the prescriptions; we also have photocopies of the allegedly lost prescriptions. Last March, it was our son's prescription; now, it's Ed's prescription.

Because the drug, which works quite well for both of them, is a class II controlled substance, we can't just have our health care provider call in a new prescription to Express Scripts. She has to write a new prescription, which we have to then ship to Express Scripts; we use UPS because we don't like sending prescriptions through the U.S. mail.

Last March, our son went without medication for a while because of Express Scripts' mismanagement; this affected his academic performance and his relationship with us and with children his age. This time around, it looks as if Ed will miss a few days of medication because of this latest snafu, which means that he will have great difficulty focusing at work and at home, when parenting; at home, this affects his relationship with our children and his relationship with me. For a look at what life is like for our family when the three members with AD/HD are not treated, see this.

When I spoke with an Express Scripts customer service representative on the phone today, he first told me that Ed's prescription had been put aside because it was too early to fill it, because Ed's current bottle of medication runs out on November 7. Later in the conversation, the representative said that there was no record that Express Scripts ever received the prescription. Which version is the truth?

It is ridiculous that Express Scripts is our only option for filling maintenance-drug prescriptions, especially when its staff is apparently incompetent ... or worse. Who knows? Maybe they're filling the prescriptions themselves and selling the medication on the black market.

And what are the frail or elderly to do? Do they have the stamina to spend hours on the phone with Express Scripts fighting just to get their life-prolonging medications on time? Why are we all forced to go this route? It's likely that lobbyists bought the right to abuse customers through mail-order services from legislators with open pockets. Why else have legislators not created and passed legislation that would require health-care plans to allow subscribers to fill prescriptions, maintenance or not, at a local pharmacy if they wish? If we could fill our prescriptions at a pharmacy, we could watch a human being handle our prescriptions to see that they are not lost or misappropriated.

Updated 12:20 p.m., November 2, 2005: I sent this post, in modified form, to the editors of Newsday and Newsweek and to a New York Times reporter, with a carbon copy to Express Scripts. I've also sent it to New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a bulldog of a public servant who took Express Scripts to court in 2004, accusing the company of fraud.

1:30 p.m. update:

Express Scripts owes my county $845,000.00 "for failing to pass along discounts on drugs required in [its] contract [as the county's drug benefits administrator], according to a new county audit," reported Newsday on October 28, 2005:

Currently under investigation in 19 states for improperly keeping rebates and discounts, Express Scripts could face a legal challenge if county officials decide to join a state lawsuit against the company.

The audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers prompted a strategy meeting Monday by top county fiscal and union officials on how to recover the money.

"We have solid numbers which put Suffolk County in a very strong position to sue or negotiate with ESI [Express Scripts, Inc.]," said Comptroller Joseph Sawicki.

Express Scripts had promised to offer the county savings on prescriptions for employees.

Auditors say the county contract required a savings of 50 percent on each claim. However, the firm maintained that the promised savings were achieved if all claims were taken together. St. Louis-based Express Scripts maintained the county owed them $160,000.

But auditors, who originally found the county was owed $955,000, lowered their finding to $845,000 based on company explanations of other costs.

County officials also say Express Scripts made an informal settlement offer to repay the county, if Suffolk agreed not to join the state suit.

Rita Holmes-Bobo, an Express Scripts spokeswoman, declined to comment.

County Executive Steve Levy said County Attorney Christine Malafi has had direct talks with Express Scripts about the audit and other issues, but he said it is "premature" to talk about a settlement without more legal analysis.

"We don't want to necessarily jump at the first offer to come in front of us if there is an opportunity to recover more for the taxpayer," Levy said.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer last year sued the company, the nation's third largest prescription administrator, charging it may have improperly kept as much as $100 million; the company claims it saved the state $2 billion.

The audit, which covers 2003 and 2004, comes at a time when the county is reviewing the proposals from three firms, including Express Scripts, to administer the prescription plan after the current contract runs out at year's end.

Association of Municipal Employees president Cheryl Felice, co-chairwoman of the labor-management committee that oversees the county health plan, expressed confidence the issue will soon be resolved. "The committee is looking for some closure since this audit has been pending for a year and a half," she said.

_________________________

Fighting for the Little Guy, Part 1

Fighting for the Little Guy, Part 2

AD/HD ADHD Ritalin ADD prescriptions mail-order drugs pharmacies
Express Scripts fraud EditorMom