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Fallujah, a Year Later

It was a year ago this week that the Marines and Army went into Fallujah to kill off the insurgency there. Since the fighting ended, Fallujah has mostly disappeared from the news. There was some fitful coverage of the resettlement and rebuilding effort after the battle. Every once in a while, the city’s name shows up in a casualty report when an insurgent bomb goes off there.

One attention-getting episode of the Fallujah offensive involved journalist/blogger Kevin Sites. Shooting video for NBC, he got footage of a Marine killing an apparently helpless and perhaps already mortally wounded insurgent (Navy investigators later found the Marine acted in self-defense and within the rules of war when he shot the Iraqi). Many on the right denounced Sites as a traitor. He soon left Iraq.

Where is Sites today? Well, he’s got a fancy new blog site on Yahoo! called Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone. A tad on the Geraldo side, title-wise, maybe, but I always found Sites to be painstakingly honest in his attempt to balance his own personal reactions to what he sees against his duty to report what’s happening and letting his subjects — especially the U.S. troops he spends time with — say their piece.

This week, he’s back in Fallujah, taking stock of the city a year after the battle. Upon entering the city, the Marine unit he’s with is warned of a possible bomb nearby:

“The threat of a roadside bomb seems to reinforce the memories I have of the city, and so do the many shattered facades of buildings neither demolished nor rebuilt an entire year later.

“Yet while many signs of the battle’s ferocity remain, I also notice something else: the streets are filled with people.

“Shops are open, some operating out of buildings with just three walls or partial roofs. Cars and trucks travel the road alongside children coming from school. There is here a sense of normalcy as well.

“The Marines cannot provide precise figures on how many people returned to their homes in Fallujah after last year’s battle, but some estimates have it as high as two-thirds of the population.”

It’s a glimpse, anyway, of what the rebuilding of Iraq looks like.

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Still Life, with Guy

Kate left for a teachers’ conference at a very nice hotel near Portland. Thom’s in Eugene. Eamon’s in Japan. I’m home alone. With the cat.

So I came home after a part-day freelancing for a high-end home furnishings retailer that shall remain nameless. I let the cat in. I checked the mail. Our cellphone bill was stated as being triple what it actually was. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with the cellphone company, which vary graciously corrected the bill.

I polished off the end of a bag of tortilla chips. Had a beer. Then an ice cream bar. No one’s here to tell me not to.

Then I started semi-obsessively checking the election returns. The more conservative counties in Southern California reported first, and for the first couple of hours after the polls closed, two of Conan‘s four propositions — one that would require unions to get annual permission from members to spend their dues on political causes, one that would require public school teachers to serve five years to get tenure, instead of the current two — were leading. But none of the ultraliberal Bay Area counties was in yet. Neither was L.A.

I finally persuaded myself to stop hitting reload on the election returns page. I went out for a walk in the hills. Stopped at the store. Came back. Now all of Conan’s propositions are losing.

Can I get a yee-haw?

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Voting No

Conan
Conan the Governor forced an election on the state to give De Peepull of Kollyfawnya a chance to enact his "reform" agenda.  I’ve struggled with whether to give in to my utter dislike for Conan and simply vote against anything and everything he proposes — the "Whatever It Is, I’m Against It" approach — or to soberly weigh my responsibilities as a citizen and vote on the measures according to their merits.

I’d like to say I’m taking the high road. But I’m not. It’s mostly because I think that at best, Schwarzenegger has appropriated the language of latter-day populism to bully opponents; at worst, he’s a demagogue. There’s a fundamental dishonesty in his carping crusade against "politics as usual" and "special interests" — the catch-all term for anyone who opposes him, whether it’s Democrats, teachers, other working people, their unions, or union leaders — while he curries favor and raises funds from the state’s corporations and business interests. There’s a fundamental dishonesty in the way he calls for fixing the state’s finances while refusing to even discuss the tax side of the equation. There’s a fundamental dishonesty in his positioning himself as a moderate Republican who stands apart from the party’s conservatives; true, he’s pro-choice, and he straddles the fence on the gay marriage question. But just remember that during the last few days of last year’s presidential campaign, he went to Ohio to campaign for Bush. 

So, even having thought about some of the propositions and whether one or two  might deserve support (I’m thinking of Proposition 77, which would set up a less-partisan reapportionment scheme), I’m voting no on Conan’s whole list.

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My Leader

Bushdoll

Found on Target’s website during actual work-related activities (I have a sworn affidavit to prove it). What I like about this $29.95 beauty — sold on the Web only to avoid in-store rioting — is the lifelike querulousness of the chief executive’s expression.

Target lists some of the doll’s finer attributes:

  • Talking Action Figure has a 2 min. audio chip allowing it to speak 25 different phrases in the Presidents own Voice!
  • Figures are limited in production and include an individually numbered certificate of authenticity
  • Figures also include a biographical pamphlet that includes rare photos and a comprehensive timeline specific to each figure.
  • Figures come dressed in period correct clothing that has been hand tailored to suit the figure
  • Figure come in an attractive display box however, the figures also include a fully adjustable doll stand for displaying the figure outside of thebox

Of course, as soon as you have the brilliant impulse to post something like this on the strength of the fact you haven’t seen it before, you discover other members of the species:

—The Top Gun Bush

—The Unintentionally Butt-Ugly Talking Bush

—The Farting Bush

—The Turkey Dinner Bush

Who can doubt there are many, many more?

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The Cornwalls Come Calling

Edibleschoolyard

Once upon a time, King Middle School, the local junior high school, had an overgrown, scrubby patch of broken asphalt at the eastern edge of its roughly 16-acre campus. In the early ’90s, the widely renowned Berkeley chef and food philosopher Alice Waters approached King about clearing the lot and planting an organic garden there. The project happened, and became known as The Edible Schoolyard (pictured above). All the kids at school get a chance to work in the garden as part of King’s curriculum, and the program is a widely lauded public school success story.

But the The Edible Schoolyard has become something else, too: a magnet for Class B (or maybe B+) celebrities. Maria Shriver, mate of Conan, was there last year. Senator Barbara Boxer stopped by once. So did Fred (Mister) Rogers (OK — he’s on my A celebrity list).

Kate and I noticed while we were out walking this morning that the streets around the school are off-limits to parking between 6 a.m. and midnight on Monday. Aloud, I wondered why. Kate remembered that Prince Charles, who reportedly has a deep interest in organic gardening, is dropping by the school tomorrow along with his comrade in arms Camilla. The duke and duchess of Cornwall within spitting distance (just an expression) of Holly Street. I’ve never gone out of my way to see a royal before — neither the hereditary ruler kind nor the pop culturish kind — but since they’re dropping in, I’m tempted to go look the Cornwalls over.

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Cipro: The Sequel

So, my doctor prescribed Cipro for a relatively mild but persistent gastrointestinal something or other I reported. Before I took one, I noted the rather alarming-sounding list of possible side effects. Maybe at that point I should have said, gee, I don’t really feel that bad, and I’ll wait before I take this stuff. But I took the first of the 10 pills in the five-day course prescribed, and the second. And then I googled “quinolone” — the class of antibiotics of which Cipro is part.

Even factoring in the fear-and-panic-amplification effect of the Web, what I found was kind of unnerving. The first hit you get is to the Quinolone Antibiotics Adverse Reaction Forum; on the top level, that’s just a bunch of links, including many that no longer work. One that does work is to the alarmist-sounding DrugVictims.org. More links. One that caught my eye was an October 2001 article from the Wall Street Journal: “Surge in Cipro Use Spurs Concern About Side Effects.” It starts:

“After anthrax fears spurred everyone from New York’s governor to hundreds of postal workers to take the antibiotic Cipro, drug-safety experts are now predicting a rash of health problems caused by the drug itself.

“Most troubling is the fact that three similar drugs, all chemical cousins of Cipro, already have been pulled off the market after being linked with severe side effects and even death.

“Cipro, or ciprofloxacin, is one of several fluoroquinolones, a controversial class of antibiotics that can cause a range of bizarre side effects: from psychological problems and seizures to ruptured Achilles tendons.”

I was already feeling uncomfortable taking this drug. Now I felt like I didn’t want to take another dose of Cipro. So, even imagining the warnings about starting an antibiotic and not finishing it, I stopped taking the stuff (how much harm could one day’s worth do? I guess I’ll be finding out). Of course, to be a perfectly responsible health consumer, I probably should have conferred with my Kaiser physician first. What I did instead was send him an email just now telling him about my uneasiness with taking this medicine and what I decided to do. It’ll be interesting to hear what he has to say about it.

I’m also thinking about where you draw the line on this kind of concern. Very few medical treatments are without risks, from aspirin to flu shots to childhood immunization. Sometimes the risks are serious. I guess I’m thinking about the benefits of taking Cipro versus the potential cost. The benefit is that this antibiotic will make good and sure any potentially harmful bacteria in my digestive tract (as well as all the other flora down there) are good and dead. The potential cost I’m most worried about is suffering some sort of traumatic muscle or tendon injury somewhere down the line brought on by the drug.

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Favorite Lyrics (Continuing Series)

What romance is all about:

Stop wasting my time

You know what I want

You know what I need

Or maybe you don’t

Do I have to come right

Flat out and tell you everything?

Gimme some money

Gimme some money

— Spinal Tap

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Drug Post

We belong to Kaiser Permanente, the big California-based HMO that’s an outgrowth, I believe, of the private health-care system set up to take care of Kaiser shipyard workers during World War II. It’s got a wildly mixed reputation, though our experience has been better than OK. I called the advice line last night because of what I’ll term persistent gastrointestinal distress. Once they could tell I wasn’t hemorrhaging or making the call while balled up in the fetal position on the floor, they said they’d have my personal doctor call back today.

At 6:58 a.m., the doctor called. He’s a young guy and so confident and so seemingly happy to be doing what he’s doing that you can’t help but like him. Even at 6:58 a.m. He went over my symptoms and said just in case I had picked up an E. coli infection, he wanted me to take an antibiotic called Cipro for the next five days. I’ve heard of Cipro (ciprofloxacin); t’s strong stuff, and among other things is used to combat anthrax.

I went to the Kaiser pharmacy, picked up the stuff, and brought it home. Then I started to read the cautions. It can cause sun sensitivity, and you need to avoid prolonged exposure to direct sunlight. It can make you drowsy, especially if you have a beer while you’re on it. It can jack you up if you’re drinking caffeine or on theophylline (an ingredient in some asthma drugs and a component of some strains of green tea). Pretty average stuff, though more potential effects than I would have expected for an antiobiotic.

Then I read the Kaiser “Patient Information Leaflet” on Ciprofloxacin (sip-row-FLOX-ah-sin, the leaflet instructs). Under side effects, it lists the usual portmanteau of symptoms (including many of the things you might be taking Cipro for in the first place). It runs through “serious” but “unlikely” effects — just one, the sun sensitivity. Then it continues:

“Tell your doctor immediately if any of these highly unlikely but very serious side effects occur: seizures, mental/mood changes (including rare thoughts of suicide), numbness/tingling of the hands/feet, hearing loss, easy bruising or bleeding, persistent sore throat or fever, irregular heartbeat, chest pain, stomach pain, yellowing eyes and skin, dark urine, unusual change in the amount of urine, unusual fatigue.”

Also, Cipro can cause tendon damage. All of that was enough, honestly, to make me ask myself how bad I really felt. Did I want to have to deal with the effects of a very heavy-duty drug when I wasn’t incapacitated? I sort of dithered until Kate came home. I talked to her about it, and her take was, “Listen to what the doctor said.” So — I took the first of the 10 tablets prescribed.

No seizures or suicidal thoughts. Yet. I’ll keep you posted.

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‘Anything I Need to Tweak?’

My brother John points out the latest chapter in the saga of former FEMA chief Michael “Superdome” Brown. A Louisiana congressman has released some of Brown’s emails (obtained from the Department of Homeland Security) written during the Hurricane Katrina crisis. Brown’s Bartlett’s-worthy response to a dispatch from a deputy in New Orleans who reported the situation was “past critical”:

“Anything specific I need to do or tweak?”

That could be the motto for the entire Bush administration, from 9/11 to Iraq to this thing. I remember talking to Dad before all this Katrina stuff happened about the pure incompetence of these people. They are simply bad at what they do. They are bumblers. Their behavior isn’t grounded in actions-consequences reality (think back to Ron Susskind’s New York Times Magazine piece from last fall and the unnamed administration guy who dismissed “the reality-based community”). They mistake the competence to accomplish discrete tasks — “the CIA can generate intelligence reports” or “the Marines can kick Saddam’s ass” — for a magic wand that will allow them to accomplish whatever they’ve dreamed up. All they need to do is think up a project — “Let’s build a new house!” — invoke some high-sounding principles — “I want it to look like the Taj Mahal!” — then sketch the thing on a napkin and tell the guys with the shovels, cement mixers and hammers to make it happen. What a big surprise that they wind up with a swampy hole in the ground and a half-built foundation with rebar sticking out at crazy angles.

But these folks are optimists: Everyone’s invited to the house warming. And they’re hard working. Just like the emails say: “Even the president has his sleeves rolled up, to just below the elbow.”

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Keywords Without a Post

California special election next week. No.

Alito, or Scalito, or whatever his name is, nominated to the court. Let’s go back to our understanding of the courts and the Constitution c. 1789.

Democrats demand answers on Iraq (yo — where were you three years ago?).

Iraq. Every day.

Libby, Rove, Cheney, special prosecutor. McClellan. Bush — a year ago today.

Bush, bird flu.

For whatever reason: All on my mind. All feel too big right now to get my arms around.