Two U.S. soldiers died in Iraq today.

Meanwhile, the American military is experiencing a desertion rate of 8,000 personnel since 2003.

I have no problem with military deserters simply because the Bush administration is shafting vets by cutting their benefits to the number of $10.3 billion over five years, mostly slashing health care. Furthermore, the Bush administration is not adequately compensating its current soldiers. Essentially, according to a survey by Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, military personnel are the lowest paid employees in America.

If the Bush administration endangers American citizens in not very well considered wars, there should be sufficient compensation for the military's trouble. To quote Sun Tzu's Art of War under the second chapter entitled Waging War: "There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare."

---Izzy

SATURDAY 3/11

Craig and Cindy Corrie, Rachel Corrie's parents, will give a presentation about their recent trip they took to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This will be followed by a theatre piece about Rachel Corrie called Daughter of Courage at Consolidated Works, 500 Boren Ave N, 633-1086, 3 pm, free.

THE WAR FROM HERE

Two Canadians died Sunday in Afghanistan.

As a Pacific Northwesterner from native stock, I am claiming the peragotive of critiquing the recent uproar about the cancellation of the Rachel Corrie play in New York.

Everyone take a deep breath and sit down. Valerian tea is under the cosy, if you need it. Hops and passionflower are optional. We all require a few good calming herbs, given the nature of the uproar but anything stronger would not be legal. Are all of you settled?

First, let's deal with Vanessa Redgrave urging a lawsuit against the theatre in question. Respectfully, I must ask Ms. Redgrave to sit in the corner and read Shakespeare's advice about lawyers in King Henry VI, Part II, Act IV, Scene II. There is no need to throw bad money after good. Your anger over the censorship is justified but the principles involved are already being tried in the court of public opinion. And she is a bitch to reckon with, "...a sovereign mistress of effects", to quote the Duke of Venice in Othello, Act I, Scene III. More so than any legal trial.

Next, we come to Mr. Nicola. Your excuse about scheduling is not acceptable. Dayplanners are good things. Barring that, Yahoo! has an online calendar and for the technically literate, you can get Google Desktop which has nifty plug-ins like its Calendar. Furthermore, simply talking to a few of your Jewish friends does not qualify as going to that community in question.

Katherine Viner's complaint in The Guardian was on target and understandable. Any artist hates to see their work shunned because of baseless and quisling fears.

The best for last. Alan Rickman's outrage over the cancellation was very eloquent. Yes, no artist or activist lives in someone else's pocket or cowardly behaviour. Radio Free Canada hopes that My Name is Rachel Corrie does make it to the American stage.

ADDED COMMENT ON 03/08/06:

However, I am writing this as a simple take on the nature of censorship. I do not claim to be proficient in Middle Eastern politics or to the circumstances of Ms.Corrie's unfortunate death of which I have read varying accounts. I think it is fair to write that the censoring of the play does a disservice to furthering the conversation about the Middle East or the conflicts between Jews and Palestinians.

---Izzy

IRAQ UPDATE


A senior Iraqi army general was shot dead in Western Baghdad.

Meanwhile, ethnic and religious loyalties are threatening to tear about the Iraqi security forces.

Dana Reeve, tireless champion for the disabled,of lung cancer at age 44.

BOB WOODRUFF PROGRESS

Bob Woodruff is speaking and walking according to ABC NEWS.

REPORTER DOWN/DEDICATION
Photojournalist Toby Morris, a reporter for Zuma Press was shot today in Iraq. The injuries are not life-threatening.

In other news: The doctor who cared for Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt, Dr. Richard Briggs, has returned home to his Tennessee home. Here's to all the dedicated medical personnel in the middle of the Iraqi and other conflicts.

Fifteen people killed in Iraq including US soldier .

Meanwhile, in disrespect to soldiers who have died in Iraq, a a t-shirt company Carry A Big Sticker is listing the fallen in protest of President Bush without any relatives's permission to list their deceased family members on the garments in question. This is rude and unfeeling to the grief that families have when their loved ones die so tragically. Radio Free Canada does not mention any soldier by name in consideration of the families left behind. Instead I aggregate the information to show sorrow and dismay at the current administration's foreign policy.

Izzy

HOLLYWOOD FLIPS THE BIRDIE

Well, I didn't come close to guessing the picks but the surprise to Middle America wasn't the gay themes of Capote, Brokeback Mountain, or the political themes of Good Night and Good Luck, nor even the award for best song about pimps. The greatest theme of the awards, and the one the Religious Right will miss in condemning Hollywood as being out of touch with most American morality was the celebration of imperfection in the human condition.

Look at the awards honoured. It was not a lack of ethics, instead it was an award for best actor, a man with a drinking problem who turned his life around. The best film and best song were about the racism that black people face everyday. The best director was for a man whose father fled to Taiwan after his paternal grandparents were executed by Communists.

In other words, the Oscars weren't about being white, male, and Protestant. The spectrum of human experience is what American culture should be. And what the 78th Oscars showed the world.

---Izzy

P.S. Bush's approval ratings are at an all time low.

IRAQ UPDATE

British and Australian troops are expected to be pulling out of Iraq in May and there are rumours that the United States will be withdrawing its troops in 2007. If the Iraqi security forces can maintain order, a dubious supposition since the Iraqi police are rag-tag, corrupt, and without proper equipment.

Meanwhile,another US soldier was shot dead north of Baghdad on Sunday.

---Izzy

GET THE MEDS

God is talking to Tony. At least that is what Prime Minister Blair has hinted in his recent interviews about Iraq and how he will be judged on his decisions regarding the conflict. Last year the PM said that history would judge him.

I think the term is called "grasping for straws" or to put it in Biblical language, he is messing with Leviticus 19:12, among other verses.

Personally, I would be worried about history because, once your mouth is shuttered by death, Clio the Muse of History is a harsh and fickle mistress.

---Izzy

Recently, the Alan Rickman/Katherine Viner play My Name is Rachel Corrie was cancelled by the New York Theatre Workshop. There are two versions of the story involving the cancellation. The first reason, according to the playwrite Katherine Viner, was the situation was too edgy with the recent elections of Hamas and Ariel Sharon's ill health to produce the play.

The second reason from the New York Theatre Workshop's artistic director James C. Nicola was that there was inadequete time to prepare for the staging of the play. If anyone has a definite take on this, please e-mail me so I can update my information. Thank you.

Meanwhile, Vermont Bread and Puppet Theatre is producing its own version of the Rachel Corrie drama through Seattle's Consolidated Works arts center March 8-11. If you are in the area, you may buy tickets here.

---Izzy

WOODRUFF UPDATE
Bob Woodruff is making good progress,according to a Newsday article. He is also sitting up and smiling after severe head injuries and broken ribs. This from the Detroit News.

We here in Canada are still rooting for him and cameraman Doug Vogt.

---Izzy

PROGRAM NOTE

When Radio Free Canada writes about casualities in Iraq, I am deliberately leaving out Iraqi dead and wounded because I cannot keep pace with the amount of local mortality and injured. This is just an acknowledgement of all the tradegy.I feel the same sorrow for the Iraqis as I do those from Commonwealth nations.

---Izzy

MY OSCAR PICKS

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Capote” (UA/Sony Pictures Classics)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
George Clooney in “Syriana” (Warner Bros.)

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Reese Witherspoon in “Walk the Line” (20th Century Fox)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Catherine Keener in “Capote” (UA/Sony Pictures Classics)

Best animated feature film of the year
“Howl’s Moving Castle” (Buena Vista)

Achievement in directing
“Brokeback Mountain” (Focus Features)
Ang Lee

Best documentary feature
Alex Gibney and Jason Kliot
“March of the Penguins” (Warner Independent Pictures)

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
“Brokeback Mountain” (Focus Features) Gustavo Santaolalla


Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
“Travelin’ Thru” from “Transamerica” (The Weinstein Company and IFC Films)
Music and Lyric by Dolly Parton

Best motion picture of the year
“Capote” (UA/Sony Pictures Classics)
An A-Line Pictures/Cooper’s Town/ Infinity Media Production
Caroline Baron, William Vince and Michael Ohoven, Producers


Adapted screenplay
“Capote” (UA/Sony Pictures Classics)
Screenplay by Dan Futterman

Original screenplay
“Crash” (Lions Gate)
Screenplay by Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco
Story by Paul Haggis

We'll see what happens. Notez bien, I'm just doing the big awards.

---Izzy

BRING THEM HOME

Four British soldiers die from a roadside bomb attack.

Meanwhile,a third of all returning U.S. soldiers are seeking mental health care for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.


The war on terror isn't being won. In Iraq, it is descending toward civil war. The conflict is also being brought back in the hearts and minds of returning vets whose health care the Bush administration is slashing veteran benefits. America owes better to its brave veterans. It's time to pull the plug on this farce of a war.

^___Izzy

THE OTHER WAR

One GI dies in Afghanistan fighting and two are wounded.

The death toll for American troops in Afghanistan is 266 since the invasion of the country and numerous others have been wounded in both conflicts.

There are an estimated 765 American troops wounded from Afghanistan.

Izzy

TRAGIC UPDATE

Two British Soldiers Die From A Roadside Bomb In Iraq which puts the tally at 103 for that country.

There have been more than 1300 Iraqi deathssince the Golden mosque bombing in Samarra.

From one article I read (and I barely got through it without losing dinner),morgues have the dead piled in cages where the bodies wait until claimed. The process is basically automated with the deceased being photographed and the pictures identified through a computer base regardless of the state of the corpse.

There is no, in the midst of this civil war between Sunnis and Shiites, any exit strategy now for the United States except one that involves turning tail and running like the nation's whipped dog of its foriegn policy.

---Izzy

NO SURPRISE

In more setbacks for the Bush administration,another U.S. soldiers dies, and some Sunnis and Shiites make friendly overtures to one another against the American and British occupation. But you could see this one coming for a long time. Before anything else, a foreign power that has invaded a country and is building four super bases is a threat to a nation's identity.

The United States is not a liberator to the Iraqis, but a conqueror that is increasingly a target for homegrown insurgence. This war will end in a shameful end for America because there is no love for the country in the Middle East. Even the arch conservative, William F. Buckley has conceded the Iraq war has failed miserably and there is no honourable way to disengage from the morass.

---Izzy