Oh, please. Yet another Christian idiot is trying to ban books without reading them.

Earlier, this month a fundie woman in Georgia attempted to ban Harry Potter books from the local schools.Of course, she didn't read them but did you expect those hooked-on-phonics types to have that level of literacy? Fortunately, the school board shot her down and Harry can remain to enlighten those savages in the deep South.

Recently a hausfrau, Leslie Pinney, on an Illinois school board is attempting to ban such books as Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner for being pornographic.

Now, The Awakening may have been pornographic ---say in the late nineteenth century--- but girlfriend, no one reads that now but Lit majors (like me) and middle-aged English profs (not me...I still look hot in fishnet stockings). Like many of the other books, Ms. Pinney has as not read Chopin and the author is not smutty by contemporary standards. In anyone's imagination, Mrs. Pontellier would not be a Playmate of the Year. It is ridiculous to ban something that has gathered the dusty name of "a classic". Oy, just don't show Leslie Pinney anything by the Brontes or (and this is being very racy) Djuna Barnes...

Four U.S. Marines killed in Baghdad.

I honestly do not want to hear the Religious Right whine about Christians being persecuted in the U.S. when soldiers are dying in Iraq for Amercian corporations who are bilking taxpayers as well as the government they are supposedly helping; and defending pious churchgoers who can (barely) fit their candy arses in gas guzzling SUVS so they can indulge in their yearly necrophilia worship at an environment killing megachurch. Wah. Grow up.

A British soldier,Lieutenant Richard Palmer aged 27, of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards died yesterday from an IED in Iraq.

Vigilante militia are patrolling the Canadian border in hopes of keeping out terrorists and illegal immigrants.The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps plans to watch along the Washington state border to stop refugees fleeing Canada.

There's something wrong with this picture. Why anyone would flee to the United States when Canadian businesses are welcoming immigrants. It is a mystery to me. Canada, compared to America, isn't bogged down in a no win war and their dollar is rising against the U.S. currency. Furthermore, in Canada there is more tolerance for diversity and immigration because this country is sparsely populated and has a birth dearth. America can't attract tourists from Canada. So why are these whiners playing soldier at the border? Probably because their white tushes are in wedgies over America becoming a land of brown skinned people. The militias do not realize the anti-immigrant trend is futile. Eventually, diverse ethnic groups will outnumber Caucasians. And then where will the militias be? They will have a lot of explaining to do.

Three soldiers died in Iraq yesterday bringing April's total to a stunning 32 dead this month.

Meanwhile, Bob Woodruff is recovering as an outpatient. Prayers for the family of the dead soldiers. Speedy recovery for Mr. Woodruff.

The Republican Party has descended to new lows in its quest for power.

Police arrested a Homeland Security press aide on charges of sexually preying on a detective posing as a 14-year-old girl in an Internet chat room. Brian J. Doyle, 55 is being held without bail in Maryland pending extradition to Florida.

Meanwhile, Republican Curt Weldon is attacking 4-year-olds with brain cancer. The GOP candidate from the 7th district in Pennsylvania has bashed his opponent Joe Sestak for renting a house in Pittsburgh while his 4-year-old daughter receives treatment for brain cancer in Washington D.C.

Essentially, Curt Weldon is bashing Mr. Sestak for not being politically committed to the 7th district despite the Sestak's heroic commute between Pittsburgh and Washington D.C. to give their ailing daughter the best pediatric care. Once again, the GOP has shown itself to be disgusting filth both in its preying on teenagers and in its hypocritical trashing of those who, like the Sestaks caring for their ill daughter, show true parental family values.

Well, I said I wouldn't post anything more about Bob Woodruff but I have to note that he won the David Bloom Award for excellence in enterprise reporting. Here's to the continued best for Mr. Woodruff and his family.

Radio Free Canada is in hiatus on Bob Woodruff's condition. While there has been no more recent news, we can certainly hope he is progressing in his recovery.

The play My Name is Rachel Corrie is being put on by the Seattle Repertory Theatre in its new season.
And it should be like this. After all, she wasn't a New Yorker. She was a PNWer, one of ours.

---Izzy

Rachel Corrie reading at the Riverside Church, in New York on Wednesday, March 22, 2006.

The Bush administration is attempting to implement regulations that would permit pesticide testing on aborted human fetuses despite the White House's proclamations about the sanctity of human life. It seems, to the Bush government, fetal life is sacred until pesticide companies need a convenient sacrifice for profit. Where the hell is the Religious Right or pro-lifers about this issue, that aborted fetuses can be used for corporate profit but not stem cell research? Why are the voices of the pro-life movement silent?

Too, why is there no outcry that the Bush administration would permit pesticide testing on orphaned, mentally handicapped, and abused children because they cannot give legal refusal to any experiments ? Such experiments include tricking people into thinking that they are taking vitamins while the testers are in fact feeding the test subjects massive doses of pesticides. This disregard for vulnerable populations, the mentally handicapped and abandoned children, is similar to Hitler's T-4 programmes where the Nazis murdered thousands of handicapped (babies, children, and adults) and orphaned children in gas chambers such as the Hartheim Castle.

After reading all that I did about the pesticides being possibly tested on children, I wanted to throw up and crawl into a fetal position. Here in Canada, the mayor of Vancouver, Sam Sullivan, is a quad in a wheelchair and the University of British Columbia is thinking of offering college courses for Down's adults---basically auditing classes for people with LDs (learning disabilities). Unlike America, Canada walks the walk on the sanctity of life.

It is grotesque and morbid but not surprising that the Bush administration is following the same path as the Third Reich in targeting abandoned children, and the handicapped for experimentation and execution in the name of corporate profit. The world should turn and spit on the current American government for its callous disregard for the lives of the most sacred --- the children and the handicapped --- among us.

---Izzy

Please sign this petition about the play My Name is Rachel Corrie. Let James C. Nicola, artistic director of the New York Theatre Workshop know that censorship is wrong. Thank you.

---Izzy

Vietnam war deserter Allen Abney has been released from a Marine prison with a discharge so he does not have a tarnished record. He will be back in Canada in time for his brother's funeral.

Today is the third anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death.

Meanwhile, in Palestine the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine kidnapped Mark Budzanowski and held him until they realized that he had a Canadian passport. They released him, saying "We love Canada!" while giving him a business card for the PFLP. Mr. Budzanowski has returned to doing humanitarian work in Palestine.

Bob Woodruff is now in New York and recovering in a health facility. Here's the best to him and his family.

Two U.S. soldiers killed along with twenty other people including young children.

Two more soldiers died in Iraq on Monday
.
Meanwhile, more American troops, 700 soldiers are being brought in from Kuwait to "temporarily" deploy in Iraq for the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion and for the Shiite holy pilgramge of Arbeen which commorates the death of Husayn ibn Ali.

Vietnam War deserter Allen Abney might be released later this week with an other than honourable discharge from the military. However, due to the time it takes to process the order, seven days, he may not make it home in time for his brother Gerry's funeral. Let's hope the American government expedites the discharge and sends Mr. Abney home soon.

A Canadian arrested for deserting the Marines in 1968 will probably be released next week.

I suspect the Bush government finally realised what a hot potato they had on their hands with this one (okay, the administration is a little slow...). and they should not use Mr. Abney as an example to present and future deserters when Bush's ratings are not only in the toilet but flushed.