BritCat In The USA

On Trash, safety and the environment

2005-08-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

We recently returned from vacation in Canada that took us from our entry-point in Windsor, Ontario, to Tadoussac, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, in Quebec and, just as last time, I was overcome with the difference that drawing a line on a map can make to the way people perceive themselves, their communities and their environment.

Before crossing into Canada, we stayed a couple of days with a friend in Detroit. What a sad city that is. The roads are in such bad condition that I'd recommend a trip to the dentist before venturing out on them, to make sure there are no loose fillings. Granted, the powers that be are finally trying to do something about the state of the streets, but I don't expect they'll have decent roads during my lifetime. The city is a perfect model of American urban decay, looking to all the world like a God-forsaken war zone that no-one bothered to rebuild.

Windsor isn't exactly a shining example of a Canadian city. It looks a lot like America, but gone is most of the trash and gone is that sense of gloom that followed us all around Detroit. That was a long day since we wanted to get as far east as we could, until we finally stopped for the night in Trenton, in eastern Ontario. We had enjoyed travelling the well-maintained roads and taking our breaks at rest-stops where there were full services, just as in Europe. We hadn't enjoyed driving past Toronto, where the traffic was horrendous and confusing to tired newcomers, but a night's sleep in a friendly hotel took care of any stress and the next day we continued to Montreal to be shown round the city by a friend, for the next couple of days. The night we arrived, we dined with our friend's parents and were treated to a Lebanese feast by a hostess who pressed one treat after another onto us until we could eat no more. And yes, Michael Moore was right. People don't lock their doors, even in the cities. How safe we felt, regardless of where we went.

We visited St Joseph's Oratory, on Mont-Royale, walked the streets of Old Montreal, with its street entertainers and small boutiques. We stopped in to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Montreal where we were awed by its magnificent altar. But if we loved Montreal, we were in for a real treat when we went to Quebec City. If someone had simply set us down there, we wouldn't have been able to tell you where we were. France, yes, but then we would pass a street that put us in mind of an English fishing village. And the atmosphere! Open air cafes and restaurants, people sitting out and eating until late into the night and walking back to their cars or hotels, or taking buses home without the slightest concern for their safety, because safety is taken for granted. It's a year since I walked back to a hotel through narrow, deserted streets, after midnight. That last happened in Germany. I would never do it in the United States.

A highlight of our trip was a whale-watching boat-trip that left me feeling as if I had been on holy ground. The surroundings are stunningly beautiful, the water quiet and cool. We set of slowly but picked up speed when a large whale had been sighted. It was a blue and the excitement on our boat was tangible. We also saw some finbacks and a lot of belugas, but seeing a blue whale was a real blessing. I asked my American husband what he thought people would do with these waters if they were in the United States. "Shoot the whales and turn the entire area into a resort", was his cynical reply and while I don't agree that they would set out to kill these magnificent creatures, I do believe that the almighty dollar would demand that the coastline be developed, littered with hotels, condominiums and the homes of the seriously rich, just as has happened in Florida and other places, and that yachts and boats would drive the whales from their Summer feeding-ground, until there was no reason for the rest of us to go there any more.

We spent the last week of our vacation in and around Niagara Falls, with family. We were definitely back into the American culture, with people rushing and doing things all the time, but at least the trash hadn't made it across the border. If I have a complaint about that region, it is that it's flat, a tourist trap and the prices are high.

Finally - and sadly - we had to come home. We crossed the border from Niagara and were immediately struck by the same sort of urban decay we had left behind in Detroit. We were back to locking the door of our car when we went to pay for gas, or when I sat in it, waiting for my husband to come out of the gas station. We were back to littered streets, people who don't bother passing the time of day with strangers and a long, long drive home to where the news is filled with propaganda and where neither of us really feel we belong any more.

After Gall Bladder Surgery

2005-06-10T11:59:00.000-07:00

I've scoured the internet for information on gall bladder surgery, to no real avail. There are umpteen sites giving a basic outline and there are a couple of forums supposedly dealing with this very thing but in which the questions of those in pain are simply ignored. I'd kept a few notes in another place on the internet and now, four days after surgery, thought I would share them, lest there is anyone else reading this who is wondering what to expect or whether their pain is unusual...

On the 8th of this month, I wrote:

I don't know which was harder, the doing without a cup of tea when I woke up on Monday morning, or the anticipation of the afternoon's surgery. Whichever it was, I was eager to just get to the hospital and get on with it. We arrived just ahead of a thunderstorm, the sky opening as soon as we got through the sliding doors, making our way to the elevator.

There was a woman sitting in the corner of the corridor, taking the names of new arrivals. She told me to sit. I told her I would prefer to stand. She scowled, while I hoped the rest of the staff would be a bit more welcoming. Within minutes, I was led to a room, where someone checked my insurance, while I wondered what would happen if they found I wasn't covered. Then a woman asked if I had or wanted to make an advance directive, lest something should go awry, while I wondered why they left this sort of thing to the last minute. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long before being taken to yet another room, where we parked ourselves for close to an hour, before a smiling nurse called me in, telling my husband he would be able to see me shortly.

This nurse was one of those rare, gifted women for whom nursing was clearly a vocation and not just a job. She breathed kindness and confidence. I felt I was in good hands with her. Before long, my stats were checked, I was wearing one of those hospital gowns that are the same all over the world and was lying in bed, a drip dripping into my arm, warm blankets around my shoulders and covering my body, and feeling like a small, well nurtured child. My spirits were high, my husband was at my side and I felt confidant. That was the best I would feel all day.

There wasn't time to get bored. Nurses buzzed about doing this and that. Then the anaesthetist popped his head round my curtain, checked that I was who he thought I should be, then asked a list of questions to which the answer was always "No", not necessarily because I was in the best of health, but because he was a heavily-accented Chinese man whose words failed to translate into anything my mind was willing to understand. So I just said No to everything. Then the surgeon arrived, all gowned up and looking very different, in his business gear than he had when wearing a white coat in his office. Did I have any questions? By then, I was on some sedative medication that had turned my high spirits into positive drunkenness. I knew I wouldn't remember the answers, even if I could remember the questions, so again, my reply was "no". Then another anaesthetist arrived, questionned me and left. My husband said he hadn't liked the look in his eyes, whatever that meant.

"Are you ready?"

It was a nurse coming to take me to the O.R. She grabbed some blankets, telling me I would be glad of them, then wheeled me down a corridor and through a door into a green, green room. Green tiles, green everything. I looked around. I'd never seen the inside of an Operating Room before. In previous surgeries in Britain, I had been anaesthetised before going into the O.R. Green? Why green? Later, I thought it might help to make blood look less red. It certainly couldn't have been to soothe the nerves of the staff, could it? I mean, that much green!

I had to clamber across to the operating table, then someone strapped my arms down. I joked that I felt as if I was being prepared for a lethal injection. Someone laughed, but I realised it wasn't funny. I remembered that I am adamantly opposed to the death penalty. A man spoke, over my left shoulder....

And I woked up in the recovery room, a nurse sitting by my side, monitoring me. I hurt. I reminded myself that I wouldn't always hurt. A woman was retching in a nearby bed. Poor woman. I prayed for her. The nurse spoke. Had an hour really passed since I opened my eyes? I looked at the clock in what felt like a dark and unpleasant room. The nurse spoke again. Still more time had passed. She was calling to say I was being moved upstairs, wherever that was. The poor woman had stopped retching. Where was she? Had so much time really passed?

I don't remember the journey "upstairs" but found myself in a room, being told to ease over into another bed, a modern contraption which moved every which way but comfortable at the press of a button. This nurse was nice, too. I liked the staff. I hurt. I received morphine but fought to remain awake. I went to the bathroom, ate some food, walked some yards and decided to come home, knowing that there was no way to sleep in that thing that passed for a bed. I hurt.

That was then, and this is two days later. It seems there was one rather large stone, which is now gone with the bladder that gave birth to it, but my middle feels so, so heavy. Whoever called this surgery a "piece of cake" has to be a lousy baker.

Today, I wrote:

And here I am, four days in and feeling as if I swallowed cement. Still, I'm moving better and finally remembered to post what I'd written earlier and held back as drafts.

I talked to my daughter, who reminded me that if I lived in Britain, I might still be waiting for my operation a year from now. That's true, unless of course things turned nasty. Yet this American system leaves a lot to be desired. It is so insurance-driven that people are discharged from hospital far too soon, IMHO. Britain could probably see more people through surgery if they were not allowed time to recuperate under supervision, so it looks like a massive trade-off. More patients can be operated on, but only if they don't receive aftercare. And then, only if their insurance covers the surgery. Little wonder then that the French refused the European Constitution, if they perceived it as removing some of their hard-won civil programmes.

How do I really feel today? Just as I said, as if I've swallowed cement, and at the same time, I have a bee in my proverbial bonnet, which is about the way others talk about surgeries and illnesses in general.

So many times I heard gall bladder surgery described as "a piece of cake", as if it was nothing worse than having a tooth filled. I searched the internet to see what experiences others had had, and found plenty who felt just as bad as I do at this moment ... or worse. I wondered if they were wondering, as I have wondered, whether or not they are simply whimps who can't take the pain, because there was no-one answering their questions, even in forums supposedly dealing with this very topic. Yesterday, as the post-anaesthesia depression set in, I sobbed my heart out for about half an hour, unable to reason that, since I don't have a history of whimpishness, then perhaps this really does hurt, really does make a person feel as if they have been thumped in the gut, and really does take a bit more time to recover from that we've been led to believe by those whose memories have been veneered by the gentleness of time, that tells us we dealt a lot better with life than we really did. And once I'd had my cry and spent 24 sorry-for-myself hours, I decided to write how it really feels ... so that those thousands who don't find laparoscopic gall bladder surgery a day out in the park might be able to read and know that they are not whimps either.

And now I rest.

Gall Bladders, Quacks and PJs

2005-04-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

Last Monday, I had my abdominal ultrasound, which was my first experience with one of these wonders of modern science since they hadn't been invented when I had my children. The technician invited me to climb onto one of those uncomfortable beds they reserve for sick people and pregnant women, then smeared some sort of warm gel on my mid-section before starting the scan. I asked the rather grumpy technician to explain what we were looking at, thinking I was in for an entertaining journey around my abdomen, but mostly it all looked like smeared white noise punctuated by the occasional black streak.

"You can get down," the technician barked, ten minutes or so later.

"I thought it would take longer", I looked at her, as if to read something in her expression.

"You were easy to scan." Then she pointed towards the exit. "You should hear in a couple of days."

And that was it.

Next morning, I awoke to the sound of Rule Britannia, which was my cell-phone's way of announcing that my doctor was calling. No, I didn't select that tune out of some sort of patriotic fervour but so that my phone can set itself apart from the hundreds of other phones within hearing distance, whenever I go out. Anyway, back to the doctor's call.

"Just as I thought" were his first words, then he went on to explain that the tests revealed cholecystitis and an infection. I would need antibiotics, he explained. I would need surgery, he said. His tone changed to a combination of stern and sympathetic in equal measure "...I'm just afraid that if you don't, you could get very ill very quickly." An appointment was made to see a surgeon next morning.

"Do I detect a northern accent?"

The surgeon had done part of his residency in Cambridge and knew England well. I found this oddly reassuring, although if I'd been in England, attended by a British surgeon, I'd have probably found someone familiar with the USA equally reassuring, as if having been somewhere else makes a person more competent. He explained how he would prefer to delay surgery until the infection has been treated, told me what to expect from the operation, then thrust a booklet into my hand which, he promised, would explain more. It didn't. But I was feeling better about things. More blood tests will be run in a week, then surgery will be scheduled.

After my appointment, I looked for helpful articles on the internet, which was easier said than done. While there is a dearth of sound information about gall bladder problems and options, there is a super-abundance of quacks who would be funny if they were not dangerous. The most disturbing articles were about something called a gall bladder flush, supposedly to help a person pass their gallstones. I even read a Q&A where some charlatan was telling a woman that if it hadn't flushed out any stones, that was because she didn't have any to start with. If anyone reading this is tempted to try this so-called flush, I'd recommend them to take a look at this article first. Sellers of snake-oil "cures" really anger me, preying as they do on those who are sick and suffering and either too afraid or too poor to obtain proper treatment for their ailments.

Anyway, on with my personal saga....

"I need new PJs", I told my husband. My old ones are very comfortably worn and not fit for public viewing and, while I hope that surgery will be laproscopic, I'm aware that they sometimes switch, mid-op, to open surgery, necessitating a longer stay in hospital. With this in mind, the quest to find PJs and/or nighties was on. When we set out, I knew what I wanted, but as we saw what was in the shops, my expectations lowered until I finally grabbed two nearly identical JC Penney nighties, one in baby pink and the other in baby blue. This was sheer desperation. The shops were stocked to the hilt with things that would cover very little, things that would fit four of me, things with cartoons and slogans on and things with so many frills and bows that anyone wearing them would resemble a birthday cake, when all I wanted was a couple of pairs of plain pyjamas, in my size and with short pants. And if that was bad, trying to find a pair of slippers was even worse. Huge fake fur things were all that was available. Put those on and I'd fall off them. Whatever happened to plain, simple bedroom slippers? Whatever happened to plain and simple anything??? By the time we returned from our shopping expedition, I was growing quite fond of my JC Penney nighties.

Since then, I've been watching my diet. Well, really I've been watching my husband's diet since I didn't feel up to eating more than the odd slice of toast and a bit of cottage cheese until last night, so my dinnertime pleasure is cooking something really nice and then watching my husband enjoy it. Vicarious eating isn't too bad.

And now to catch up on the news....

The next pope

2005-04-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

I've enjoyed reading the media speculation on the next pope's essential qualities and have managed to build a profile of the man we really need.

The next pope must be a charismatic communicator who is media savvy and can connect with the people. Preferably, he needs to speak several foreign languages, although unless he is a member of CCR, he need not speak them all at the same time.

He needs to be black, brown and white, but preferably with some Italian ancestry. He must be somewhere between 65 and 72, although a younger man would be acceptable if he promised not to live too long and an older man would do as long as he looks young and tries not to die for a while.

He needs to be a conservative who opposes the ordination of women, even while he ordains them. He needs to uphold the Church's teaching on abortion and contraception, except in circumstances where people might want to abort or contracept. He must permit the bishops to run their own regions but must interfere in the bishops' running of their own regions, especially when it comes to sex-scandals. He must bring together Muslims and Jews, not to mention uniting all Christians. He must be a man of peace who doesn't let his convictions interfere with national politics. He must confront globalisation without upsetting the wealthier nations. He must tighten up the Liturgy while allowing more regional innovation to the liturgy. He must allow gay marriage, embryonic stem-cell research and not oppose "mercy killing". But at the same time, he must lovingly teach gays not to get married, must oppose the use of embryonic cells and must stand for the right to life at all its stages ... except when it comes to wars and the death penalty, when he should remember that he is a spiritual leader without the competence to judge on political matters.

He must also find a cure for AIDS, because it's obvious to everyone that its spread is entirely the fault of his predecessor.

If anyone has seen a man answering to the above description, please would you ask him to report to the Vatican immediately?

Wrapped in thought

2005-04-03T04:31:00.000-07:00

When I got up this morning, I was almost surprised to find that I had emails on topics other than what was happening in Rome. These last few days, I've been so wrapped up in my own thoughts and prayers that I almost forgot that there is a world outside that continues to function, in spite of the pope being on his death-bed. I snatched about three hours sleep yesterday, then last night ... or more accurately, this morning ... went to be after Joachin Navarro-Valls issued an update on Pope John Paul II's health, and immediately turned on the news when I awoke. In my absolute focus, I'd assumed everyone else was doing the same and later wondered what non-Catholics are making of all this coverage, of all our traditions and ceremonies and, indeed, of our love for our pontiff, and resolved to try and walk readers through the events of the coming weeks, to try and explain what and why things are happening as they do.

How to explain all this emotion might be harder. I have just been watching and joining in the prayer service that started at midnight, Rome time, where people are expressing what so many of us are feeling ... an emotion that I once heard described in a song by Mikis Theodorakis as bitter-honey, a sense of joy within the sorrow, and sorrow within the joy. Towards the end of the service, the crowd of countless thousands, packed into St. Peter's Square, began to applaud and to call out "Johannes Paulus". The Catholic world is filled with great joy, knowing that our beloved pope is now free of all suffering and enjoying the Beatific Vision, that ecstasy of looking into the face of God to which we all attain. Yet we are sad for ourselves.

As with millions of non-Catholics around the world, we recognise in Pope John Paul II one of the most consistent and compassionate defenders of human life. As with all who have read the pope's words, we recognise that the world has lost one of the great philosophers of our times. But there is more for us. We have lost our spiritual father. "Peter" has left us.

To understand this, it's necessary to realise that we believe that there is an unbroken chain of popes dating all the way back to Peter, in whom Jesus vested authority to lead the Church. But the papal succession is more than simply the election of a person to fulfill an office. We believe that the Holy Spirit invests in Peter's successor the same charisms, or gifts that He granted to Peter, so that he may lead with Peter's authority, according to God's will. For us, today, the seat of Peter is vacant and we feel the loss.

So our grief is on many levels, both emotional and spiritual. Over the coming nine days, we will grieve and we will reflect, we will rejoice and we will celebrate the life of John Paul The Great, and all the time, even as we are wrapped up in our thoughts and our memories, we will know, deep-down, that God's will is being done and that we are not left abandoned.

Stay tuned.

The right to die

2005-03-23T11:24:00.000-08:00

If you have been following the Terri Schiavo case as closely as I have, you will know by now that her parents' quest to have her feeding-tube reinserted as failed and that they are not taking the case to the Supreme Court. There isn't much hope of success but they have to try, not only for Terri's sake but for the sake of all of us.

No-one in their right mind would willingly choose to live on life-support. Blessed with health and the freedom that brings, we find it unimaginable to think of ourselves confined to bed for a long period, much less tied to machinery, and we can easily say that we would not want to live that way. An easy statement to make, but we'd better be sure, when we say it, that we know what we mean and that we mean what we say, because life has a habit of throwing us some curves and we cannot possibly know how we will feel, should some future hypothetical situation become our reality.

Most US states have laws that permit doctors to withhold nutrition. In fact, George Bush signed one such Bill into law when he was governor of Texas, so no-one should imagine that Republicans would save them from their own folly, or the whiles or a less-than-loving decision-maker, should they not be as ready to die as they imagined but can no longer communicate this to others.

Much of the Media has tried to portray the Terri Schiavo case as a "right to die" issue when nothing could be further from the truth. People are arguing for her right not to be killed. There is a world of difference.

We all have the right to die. In fact, this is the one and only right that no-one can refuse us. They could pass all the laws against dying that they wanted to pass, but not one single person would obey! What these people really mean is that a person should have the right to choose when they die, or even the right to choose when another person should die, and people on both sides of the Terri Shiavo debate have managed to display a remarkable degree of inconsistency in their arguments, given that almost all support the killing of other human beings, under circumstances that they, personally, deem valid.

Thus it is that a person can argue passionately for the life of the most wicked of muderers, yet deny life to an unborn child for no other reason than its mother doesn't want it. Thus it is that people can keep vigil outside Terri Schiavo's hospital, calling for her feeding-tubes to be reinserted, while denying life to children suffering obscenely from terrible diseases, for no other reason than they don't want to pay an additional cent in taxation, to provide healthcare for every American. Thus it is that people can keep up the good fight against starvation of children in under-developed countries, yet seek to starve to death a woman in their own land. Thus it is that people can support the right of every unborn child to be born, but then refuse it the means by which it can continue to live in health and dignity. Thus it is that people can be rightly appalled at the murder of a few thousand people in the World Trade Center, yet turn a blind eye to the killing of tens of thousands, either through US bombs and bullets, or at the hands of those the US has supported.

The hypocrisy astounds me. Very few people I have met in the United States, and even fewer in government, hold a consistent view on the sanctity of life and its dignity at all stages, so it seems that in modern America, you don't have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of anything. You only have the right to die. How depends on who is in power.

Support Terri Schiavo

2005-03-18T10:07:00.000-08:00

"An unconscious person would feel it (dehydration) just as you or I would. They will go into seizures. Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of their mucous membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining. They will feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water. Death by dehydration takes 10 to 14 days. It is an extremely agonizing death." St. Louis neurologist William Burke

Frenzied attempts have been made today to prevent the removal of feeding tubes of brain-injured woman, Terri Schiavo, while equally frenzied attempts have been made by her husband's lawyers to ensure those tubes would be removed. News is that they have, in fact, been removed... a situation that should concern every single one of us, regardless of our religious beliefs.

The argument stems around her husband's claim that Terri had told him that she would not want to be kept alive artificially, should she become severely disabled. It seems that in the early days - 1991 - shortly after the collapse that left her deprived of oxygen and subsequently brain-damaged, her husband Michael did not consider this alleged desire on Terri's part, but instead persued legal claims for compensation, against two doctors whom he accused of misdiagnosing his wife's condition, stating that he needed to be financially compensated so that he could take care of her for the rest of his life. Read that again. On oath, in a court of law, Michael Schiavo swore that he needed financial compensation so that he could take care of his wife for the rest of his life. This begs several questions:

- Why, at that time, did he not remember that Terri had said she wouldn't want to be taken care of, in such circumstances as subsequently arose?

- What was a man who swore, on oath, to take his marriage views seriously, doing having an affair even while the case was being heard?

- Why did Schiavo suddenly "remember" his wife's alleged statement, once the compensation awards had been made?

To quote one of my favourite T.V. characters, Sam McCoy of Law And Order, was he lying then or is he lying now? But whether then or now, it matters not one jot. He has already proven himself to be a liar, amid allegations that he may well have also been a violent liar.

So, there are two aspects that trouble me. The first is, of course, Terri Schiavo's right to life, and the second is that there are outstanding allegations of criminal violence that need to be investigated.

First, the issue of life.

Almost twenty years ago, a friend asked me if I would go to the local hospital to visit the wife of a man who was in what they described as a "permanent vegetative state". The young man had been involved in an auto accident in which he received head injuries. His wife of just a couple of years wouldn't leave his bedside, staying at the hospital every waking moment, convinced that her hsuband would return to her. Her health was deteriorating. She had all but given up on life without him.

I did go, and I managed to persuade her to leave her husband's side for an hour, to have a cup of coffee with me. We talked about her insistence that the hospital should keep treating her husband's many recurring infections, with threats of lawsuits should he be allowed to die. This was a clear case of extreme measures being taken to keep alive a man whose body was giving up and, over time and in consultation with her family and his, together with our local priest, the young woman was persuaded that he needed to be allowed to go. He died later that year.

Granted, I've not seen Terri Schiavo personally, but from what I have seen in photos and film, as well as have read, her case is not even remotely like that of the young man I became involved with. He flinched from every touch. Terri appears to respond pleasurably. He did not respond to sounds around him. Terri appears to respond well. He was physically sick. Terri appears to be well, other than her brain injury. He would clearly die without repeated medical intervention. Terri will only die if she is starved to death. In other words, Terri is like you and me, except that she has a brain injury. That young man could never improve. Several doctors have testified that Terri would improve, given therapy. This case is not about the right of a dying person to die. Michael Schiavo may have his own motives, but for the rest of us, this is about the fear each of us has about becoming vulnerable and dependent, as if life would have less meaning than it does today.

A friend of ours has a daughter who was brain-damaged after having a fit, following vaccination. Her daughter is now in her thirties, as are my daughters, but has the comprehension of a five-year-old. Does that make her less happy than my girls? Not at all! If anything, she spends her days far more happily than those of us who are weighed down by the cares of the world. Does her happiness in her current state make her life less meaningful than the life of someone of high intellect? Of course not! She lives her life not as someone wishing for a higher level of comprehension or for greater intellectual abilities, but with the trust and carefree existence of a small child. What if the damage had been greater and she could never have progressed beyong the capacity of a one-year-old? Would her delight in playing with building bricks have meant her life was less important, less meaningful ... especially to her? Of course it wouldn't. Such a tragedy would have thwarted her parents plans for her and would have put an end to their dreams for her life, but to her, life would be no less meaningful than if she had grown to be a world-renowned scientist, or cello-player, or poet. She would have been the best she could be, and no less happy for it, whether her developmental level was six months old, a year old, five years old, ten years old, or whether she had developed to normal adulthood. So it is with Terri Schiavo and when people argue that Terri's life lacks meaning, they are projecting their own fears into her situation rather than accepting the reality that she can be happily cared-for just as she is.

My second concern is precisly because there are questions surrounding how Terri came to be in the condition she is now in. Should Terri be forced to die because it is the will of the same man whom some have accused of abuse towards her, the precedent this would set would forever favour the perpetrator of crimes against their spouse. Whether or not Schiavo is guilty of having harmed his wife, the message the judge in this case sends is that all a person needs to do is to cause sufficient injury as to render their spouse unable to testify, cover their tracks, then sit back and let the courts finish the murder for them.

I hope that whatever your views on euthanasia, you will realise that this is not a case of allowing an end to suffering a terminal illness, but is the wilfull killing of a person who could have a natural lifespan, as long as she is fed. Ending Terri's life this way is exactly the same as starving handicapped children or adults of low IQ. That it is happening in a modern hospital in the America of 2005 does not make it different from what happened in the Germany of the first half of the 20th century. That it is ordered by a judge does not make it different from the deliberate abandonment and starvation of female babies born to Chinese couples of the latter half of the 20th century.

And I hope that when you have thought about it, you will act on it, and contact your legislators and demand their support for Terri Schiavo before it's too late.

Iraqi history versus American hubris

2005-02-02T23:42:00.000-08:00

Recently-liberated Iraqis went to the polls to participate in a vote that would put an end to uprisings and insurrection, and unite Iraq under a popular leader who would see an end to occupation and lead the nation to full independence, able to fend for itself, with a fully-trained and capable army. At least, that was the theory.

The year was 1921 and the British were trying to find an exit strategy from an occupation that had proven costlier, in both money and manpower, than they had anticipated. The previous year had seen a Shia-led insurgency and people at home were beginning to demand an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, yet the British government felt they needed to protect their oil and strategic interests. Thus it was that at the Cairo Conference of 1921, decisions were made that would set the scene for what would become an ongoing struggle for independence, lasting until this day. What is really tragic though is not that the British made mistakes, but that the USA has not only exacerbated the problems caused by those mistakes of the first half of the 20th Century, by meddling in the region in the second half, but that it is hell-bent on repeating them in in the 21st Century, in the hope of a different outcome.

Everyone must be familiar by now with maps of the region and realise that Iraq lies in ancient Mesopotamia, with its rich tapestry of civilisations whose names trip off the tongue of anyone even vaguely familiar with the Bible and whose cultures and learning gave rise to Western civilisation. Beyond reading about Abraham and about the Babylonians carrying the Israelites off into captivity, my introduction to Mesopotamia came at the age of eleven, via a now out-of-print textbook called From Ur To Rome, through which in just one year we skimmed over several millennia of history to get ourselves as far as the Roman Empire, so that we could start British history, the following year. About all I could remember from that book was a picture of the "sun god" Ra. I think I must have been as bored to tears by a condensed history of civilisation as I was by Latin. But years later, as I studied modern history (I prefer to work backwards from where I am) I was to learn that Mesopotamia was far more intertwined with the history of my own country than simply that it predated the Romans, who then came, saw and conquered the Brits, and that if I was to have a hope of understanding why Britain did what it did and when, then I had better get a grasp of why and how the countries of the Middle East arrived at where we found them. Let's backtrack and gain some context....

In the Seventh Century, the newly-created Muslim empire spread into what would later become Iraq, conquering the Persians and founding two cities: Kufah, which would be the regional capital, and the port city of Basra, on the Persian Gulf. Just over a hundred years later, the
Abbasid dynasty took control of the Muslim Empire and moved their capital to another city - Baghdad - which, for the next five centuries would be a thriving centre of commerce, culture, learning and science. Europe was still ambling through the Dark Ages when Baghdad was at its height of learning, but over time it became embroiled in rivalries between Sunni and Shia Muslims, so that by the time of the Mongol invasion of 1258 AD, it had already lost a lot of its lustre. The destruction wrought by the Mongols sealed Baghdad's fate and it languised in relative obscurity until the the Ottoman invasion of 1534.

The Ottoman Turks divided their empire into provinces, creating within each region administrative capitals through which they could govern the lands they conquered and, in Mesopotamia, they created three provinces that would form the basis of modern-day Iraq. Mosul, in the north, is mainly Kurdish, while the other two provinces - Baghdad in the east and Basra in the south - were peopled by Arabs. But the Ottomans mismanaged their empire just as surely as would all who followed them. The Turks were Sunni Muslims. They made Baghdad the new capital of Mesopotamia and placed Sunnis in positions of power over the Shia majority, leading to numerous Shia uprisings and building up resentments that would plague the region until today. As if that were not enough to keep them busy, the Ottomans continually squabbled with the Persians over who should govern Basra province, while the Kurds periodically engaged in their own uprisings in an attempt to gain independence. This is how things continued for four-hundred years, until the First World War.

Western technology was becoming increasingly dependent on petroleum, and while Britain had been showing some interest in the Middle East by the late 19th Century, it was not until the Ottomans sided with Germany in 1914 that Britain began to cast a serious colonial eye in Mesopotamia's direction. Fearing loss of the oil that fueled its navy, Britain drew up plans to invade, raising an army of British and Indian soldiers and entering with ease through the port of Basra. Spurred on by the initial success of easy victories, the British determined to press on to Baghdad, only to be completely overwhelmed and defeated at Kut-al-Amarra, where they finally surrendered, in April 1916. It would be almost another year before the British could capture Baghdad , and two years before they could take control of the oilfields of Mosul.

With the d emise of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the Allies were left making decisions about the future of formerly-occupied lands. No-one was in any doubt that they needed to be governed, but the precise method needed to be hashed out. Britain aspired to absorbing Mesopotamia into its own Empire but, fearing an Arab backlash, finally settled on the US notion of creating a "protectorate", under the sanction of the newly-created League of Nations, by which they would remain to ensure the security of the the region (sound familiar?) with the promise of a future total independence. The British would be granted a mandate to "protect" the three provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. They hadn't a clue what a hornet's nest they were stirring up!

“The Wahhabi sect is at feud with the Sunni. Is it also at feud with the Shia? What are the principal doctrinal and ritualistic differences involved between the Shia, the Sunni and the Shabi Mohammedans? A very brief answer will suffice.”

This was Winston Churchill's baffled question of his advisors, betraying his utter lack of comprehension of the age-old feud between Shia and Sunni, a rift that dated back to the 7th Century, and was not about to be put aside on the say-so of arrogant outsiders. Still less did he seem (or care) to grasp Kurdish aspirations for an independent Kurdish state.

In her book Paris 1919 : Six Months That Changed the World, Margaret MacMillan noted:

In 1919 there was no Iraqi people; history, religion, geography pulled the people apart, not together. Basra looked south, toward India and the Gulf; Baghdad had strong links with Persia; and Mosul had closer ties with Turkey and Syria. Putting together the three Ottoman provinces and expecting to create a nation was, in European terms, like hoping to have Bosnian Muslims, Croats, and Serbs make one country.

But Churchill did precicely that, creating out of the three provinces what he hoped would become one new nation - Iraq - which have an interim government in Baghdad, led by the Sunnis, just as government had been under the Ottomans. The inhabitants saw this move as a thinly-veiled colonialism and began a series of attacks.
In early June 1920, Gertrude Bell, who helped run Iraq for Britain, wrote a letter to her father in which she said

[The extremists] have adopted a line difficult in itself to combat, the union of the Shi'ah and Sunni, the unity of Islam. And they are running it for all it's worth ... There's a lot of semi-religious semi-political preaching ... and the underlying thought is out with the infidel. My belief is that the weightier people are against it–I know some of them are bitterly disgusted–but it's very difficult to stand out against the Islamic cry and the longer it goes on the more difficult it gets.

She was most certainly speaking prophetically, not just for her time but also for ours. Not long after she had written those words, the population rose up in a Kurdish-initiated but mainly Shia-led revolt that would see 10,000 Iraqis and about 600 British soldiers dead, and which would cost the British at least 50 million Pounds Sterling to put down, pretty much draining the purse. Britain had used air-power and had engaged help from India and Iran, in a brutal repression of the uprising lasting three months, which only served to further increase Arab and Kurdish hostility towards the British.

At the same time, T.E. Lawrence was voicing his disgust at the way the Arabs had been so thoroughly let down, in a letter-writing campaign, and in 1920 wrote a letter to The Times that could just as easily have been written after the invasion of Iraq some eighty-three years later, as he accused the British of referring to freedom-fighters as terrorists.

In Britain, the debate raged over what should be done. Liberal and Labour benches in Parliament wanted an immediate withdrawal of troops and British personnel, to allow the local people to make their own way to complete autonomy as they saw fit, but others wanted to maintain control of the oil-fields and to retain their strategic advantages in the Middle East. But something else was at play. Sheer arrogance. The same arrogance we hear today from the Bush administration. Churchill argued against an unconditional withdrawal with these sentiments, which would be echoed over eighty years later from the American side of the Atlantic:

We marched into Mesopotamia during the war and uprooted the Turkish government which was the only stable form of government . . . We accepted before all the world a mandate for the country and undertook to introduce much better methods of government in the place of those we had overthrown. If, following upon this, we now ignominiously scuttle for the coast, leaving sheer anarchy behind us and historic cities to be plundered by the wild bedouin of the desert, an event will have occurred not at all in accordance with what has usually been the reputation of Britain.

The British Commissioner in Baghdad, Arnold Wilson, was even more convinced that Britain need to export Western-style government to the region, seeing Britain as a civilising influence in a land of turmoil, but the 1920 uprising saw Britain scrambling for a solution that would be heavily-weighted in favour of protecting its interests, while giving the appearance of an autonomous nation under Arab governance. The answer came in the form of of an Arab prince who, out of expediency had permitted T. E. Lawrence to lead an Arab army to overthrow the Turks in echange for a promise of a crown, in Syria. A promise Lawrence couldn't keep, since the French had no intentions of handing that country over to the Arabs. After a hastily-convened conference in Cairo, Britain smoothed the path for the installation of a monarch in Mesopotamia, friendly to the UK yet acceptable to the Arabs. Thus, King Faisal I

ascended to the throne, following a rigged plebiscite in which he supposedly gained the support of 96% of the people, and the new nation of Iraq was born. Despite his irregular beginning, his rule over an artificially-created nation, and his awareness of his role as a British puppet, King Faisal attempted to modernise Iraq and to work towards its independence. What he failed to do, however, was to unite the three main factions in Iraqi society.

The Kurds still did not regard themselves as part of Iraq but aspired to an independent Kurdistan, the Sunnis still regarded themselves as the ruling-class, after being used as such by both the Ottomans and the British - and now by the King - while the Shias resented being governed from Baghdad.

By 1930, the British had had enough and, feeling that their interests were secure in a relatively stable country, prepared to leave, but not before they had ensure oil rights, had established British military bases there and had an agreement by which they would train the Iraqi army, so that even as Iraq gained its full independence, Iraq remained a satellite of Britain, creating more resentment over the following decades.

Following Britain's nominal departure, unrest grew. Massaces of those who had been seen as collaborators with the British were common-place, leaving Britain seriously worried for the future of Iraq, while King Faisal despaired of there ever being peace.

Faisal died in 1933 and was succeeded by his son, Ghazi. During the reign of King Ghazi, there were seven military coups in Iraq, orchestrated by nationalists seeking complete independence from foreign rule, supported in large part by Ghazi himself, a fierce nationalist who shared his people's desire to be free of foreign meddling, but in 1939, his reign came to an end when he was killed in a car accident which some believe was orchestrated by the British.

During this period, the Communist Party began to increase in numbers, while at the same time, the government was drifting towards the fascism, in the hope of defeating British influence in and over Iraq and, in 1941, Britain reoccupied Iraq in order to put down a pro-Nazi coup attempt, led by Rashid Ali Gailani and counting amongst its members, Khayrallah Tulfah, the uncle of Saddam Hussein. 3,000 Iraqi troops were killed and the army was purged of a futher 3,000 officers, after which the British installed a friendly prime-minister and remained to support the monarchy.

In 1958, a popular coup, led by fiercely nationalist Abdel Karim Qassim, saw the end of the monarchy and the establishment of an independent government, but Qassim was storing up trouble for himself and his much-beleagured country. He tried to claim Kuwait, following its independence from Britain, prompting a British mobilisation that forced him to back off, leaving unresolved claims that would surface again sixty years later, that oil-rich Kuwait should be included in any modern-day Iraqi nation. But perhaps more importantly, Qassim's increased dependence on communist support, combined with his nationalisation of Iraqi oil was earning him an even greater enemy than Britain. The United States.

With the help of a young Ba'athist named Saddam Hussein, the CIA orchestrated a coup that would see the Ba'athists come to power for the first time. In 1959, Saddam had been engaged to carry out an attempt to assassinate Qassim but had failed and had fled the country. A second coup attempt in 1963 succeeded, followed by a purge that saw the torture and murder of thousands of Iraqi men and women whose names were supplied to the Ba'athists by the CIA.

Following the coup, Abdul Salam Arif became president ony to turn against the Ba'ath Party extremists, imprisoning its leader and forcing Saddam to flee the country once again.

It wasn't until 1968 that the Ba'athists would regain control.

For almost a quarter of a century, the Ba'athists, at first with Saddam Hussein in a subordinate role, and finally with him as leader, would control Iraq with an iron fist, removing all dissenters with precision-brutality and all-out terror. In that quarter of a century, the Kurds remained a thorn in Iraq's flesh, as did the issue of Kuwait, but those were issues that could be kept on the proverbial "back-burner". Following the Islamic Revolution, the USA was seeking allies against the new Iranian government, while Saddam had seen his dreams of uniting ancient Mesopotamia under him go up in smoke.

Saddam and Ronald Reagan were made for each other. Donald Rumsfeld was dispatched to Iraq to reinstate relations between the two nations, Saddam gained the support of one of the most powerful nations on earth, while the USA gained the support of a ruthless tyrant who would do its dirty-work in a symbiotic relationship that would ensure Iraq's continued oppression.

With the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam had outlived his usefulness but would probably have been able to retain his position had he not stepped out of his box and challenged US interests by invading Kuwait. Even while outwardly condemning his use of WMDs against the Iranians and the Kurds, the US had continued to prop up his regime through its most brutal period without the least regard for the Iraqi people of for the Kurds, whose US-supported uprising had been so brutally repressed when the US lost interest in them and abandoned them to their fate. It was Saddam's misjudgment over Kuwait that ultimately led to his destruction, but even then, not before Iraq had suffered a slow strangulation through sanctions before being invaded following of a series of deliberate lies and deceptions.

Last weekend, Iraq went to the polls for the third time in less than a century, to elect a provisional government that would give the appearance of Iraqi autonomy, just as it had over eighty years before. Just as then, its government has no real power. Just as then, a foreign force will place military bases on its soil and will continue to control its future. Just as then, that insatiable human quest for true freedom will spur fighters to resist occupation and these will be called terrorists, just as they were then.

But just as then, the occupying force will ultimately pay a heavy price. It might not be this year or next, but it will come. Empires, even those who prefer to think of themselves as bringing a superior method of government, ultimately fail and Iraq, with its long and proud history, has the patience to await the time when the USA follows the Ottoman and the British Empires into collapse and failure.

Real cause of my malaise

2005-02-01T13:16:00.000-08:00

Last week, my husband came home from work and told me he'd finally received a flu shot.

"You lucky dog!" I blurted out ... but that was last week.

Only a couple of weeks before, our locality still had no vaccine, but suddenly it seemed there was enough to offer to people of all ages and in every state of health so, yesterday, hubbie called our doctor's office to see if I, too, could join the ranks of the The Immunised. I didn't call myself because (a) the doctor's receptionist still doesn't understand my British accent, after all these years, and I stood as much chance of being given an enema as being given a flu shot (b)I was feeling a tad under the weather.

Now, I know that the worse time to get a flu shot is when you're feeling under the weather, but it is at those times that I tend to become childlishly irrational and will aquiesce to my husband's decisions, even if my fevered brain does think they are really, really dumb. So it was that yesterday afternoon, I found myself being meekly driven to the doctor's office. Not only did they have vaccine, but they wanted to give it to me right away!

We duly arrived at the doctor's, I filled out the requisite consent-form that basically signs away all my rights, should the vaccine harm me then, right on schedule, a nurse called me in. She stabbed me. I mean really, she stabbed that thing into me as if skewering a piece of meat. After fifty-something years of being prodded, poked, stuck with needles, infused, transfused and generally maltreated by people who claim to be doing me good, I do know the difference between a jab and a stab. And she stabbed me!

It was several hours later that I finally rolled up my sleeve to take a look at the painful lump on an arm that had never swollen quite so much from a flu-shot before. I felt generally achy all over, definitely under the weather and in need of some TLC, so was hoping my sore arm would look as bad as it felt, so I could show my husband what a sorry condition I was in, then bask in sympathy. Yesterday evening was definitely a "chocolate night", if ever there was one, and I intended to milk it for all it was worth.

Slowly, carefully, I rolled up the sleeve. Then let out a scream that brought my husband and dog running. There was the cause of my malaise. It hadn't been the stabs from a demented nurse who looked as if she had stepped right out the movie Misery. It wasn't that I'd already come down with some variant of this year's flu and had received my shot too late. It was that.....

THE NURSE STUCK A BANDAID WITH THE STARS AND STRIPES ON MY ARM!

LAWSUIT!!!!!!!!