Messes in various places

Kind of a short night last night. Caleigh had a concert and while April, Dee, and Lenore were relaxing in our basement and enjoying a glass of wine and the afterglow of a job well done we heard strange noises coming from James' room. We headed upstairs and discovered that he had thrown-up all over the bed and himself. By the time we got him cleaned up and the bed remade it was after midnight. With the epidemic of influenza fear (and, perhaps, even of the the flu itself) sweeping the country we then called the Blue Cross Helpline and that stretched the evening another half an hour so it was almost 1 am by the time we got to bed. James seems to be feeling OK today so hopefully that will be the extent of flu season on America Avenue.

Unfortunately (for me!), Lenore doesn't really handle vomit cleanup well so I got that nasty task (with no apparent ill effects at least so far). Fortunately, my white count stayed up pretty good this around time but I am still a liitle paranoid after my earlier hospital stay. This coming Thursday and Friday my own body will get 'messed up' one more time with my final round of chemotherapy. Because it is the last round I am actually looking forward to it -- eager to get it over with! -- although I am of course dreading the unavoidable side effects. We are still planning to go to Otter Tail Lake next Saturday for the Siems family Christmas so I am crossing my fingers that the relief from having the chemo behind me will be sufficient to offset effects of the poisons that will be pumped into my body -- a necessary evil I suppose.

Speaking of evil, this morning we got the news from Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL -- aka 'Mess in Potamia')* that US Forces had captured Saddam Hussein. I suppose we must regard that that as "good news" since he clearly has a heinous history -- most of which we should remember occurred during the Reagan-Bush years while he was our designated thug in the region -- an enemy (Iraq) of my enemy (Iran) is my friend after all. At the same time, the euphoria over his capture seems more than a little delusional since the situation on the ground remains essentially unchanged. Moreover, independent news reports coming over shortwave from a variety of non-aligned countries indicate that the tide of broad public sentiment in Iraq (as well as Afghanistan) has turned against US occupation. One can't help but wonder if the capture of Saddam will only intensify the resistance since it seems clear that he wasn't in charge any way. "Hmmmm, no weapons of mass destruction, regime changed accomplished, Saddam in custody and his sons dead -- why are they still here? Could it have anything to do with our oil resources?" I am reminded of a quote from Shakti Gawain that came up in my church a few months back: "Evil is like a shadow. It has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamping on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear you must shine a light on it." Our current leadership is far too reluctant to shine any light on the real evil haunting the Middle East which is a willingness to treat people as means to an end -- the control of rapidly depleting global oil resources -- rather than as autonomous ends in themselves. To do this is evil whether it is done by Saddam Hussein or George Bush and his Halliburton/Big Oil cronies. /dps (* from "Name that War" by NYTimes columnist Nicholas Kristof via John Shores and my mom).