Books reviews, current events, and other musings

The US military won't provide adequate medical care for its own troops after they return to the US (from BookNotes).

Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait -- sometimes for months -- to see doctors.

The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers' living conditions are so substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe the Army is trying push them out with reduced benefits for their ailments. One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day.
...
The Reserve and National Guard soldiers are on what the Army calls "medical hold," while the Army decides how sick or disabled they are and what benefits -- if any -- they should get as a result.

Some of the soldiers said they have waited six hours a day for an appointment without seeing a doctor. Others described waiting weeks or months without getting a diagnosis or proper treatment.

This is one of the most revolting things I've read about for a while. When you think about everything that our soldiers have been through, the least that the government can do is care for their wounds. Sure, there's plenty of money for tax cuts, missile defense, and pre-emptive wars. But caring for wounded soldiers isn't a priority. The Bush administration just doesn't care about the well being of the men in uniform, any more than they care about anyone else.

As comic relief, here's something that Bush does care about (from This Modern World).

Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he "didn't want to see any stories" quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used.

posted by Julian at 4:50PM

Here's the scummiest activity to occur during the recall campaign.

Lawyer Gloria Allred tells the story this way. She got a call from Miller, a 53-year-old stunt double who worked on two of Schwarzenegger's films. Miller told Allred that Schwarzenegger had pulled up her shirt and snapped a photo of her breasts and had groped her during the filming of two of his movies.

Last Monday, Allred parked Miller before a bank of television cameras. Miller read a statement, refused all questions and fled the room.

Then came the payback.

Schwarzenegger's campaign, frantic to deflect the latest sexual harassment allegation on the eve of last week's recall election, issued a memorandum to select California media outlets. Signed by Schwarzenegger spokesman Sean Walsh, the memo read:

"It has come to our attention from the media that you can access court documents from the following web site: www.lasuperiorcourt.org/Criminal. You will have to pay a $4.75 online charge to access/search the site. Once you have accessed, the site, type 'Rhonda' in the 'first name' field, and 'Miller' in 'last name' field."

In went Miller's name and out came the record: prostitution, narcotics, forgery. John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, two LA radio talkers whose commitment to fair play has extended to hosting a Schwarzenegger rally, read from the Miller "record."
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Through it all, there was a plaintive refrain from a single person on the FreeRepublic site: "Are we sure this is the same Rhonda Miller?"

It was not.

The Rhonda Miller who accused Schwarzenegger was born in 1950. I entered her birthday into the same LA court computers and found her clean, at least in the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles.

Let's hope that Schwarzenegger has the decency to fire Sean Walsh.

Meanwhile, here's the latest development in Operation Iraqi Freedom (from BookNotes).

US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.

It sound like an echo of the Vietnam War theme We had to destroy the village to save it.

posted by Julian at 8:20PM

For a change, I read all of the non-recall stories in the morning paper. Here's the most obnoxious one.

The Rev. Fred Phelps plans to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Matthew Shepard's murder in his own unique style.

The 73-year-old Topeka, Kan., pastor has designed a granite monument engraved with Shepard's face followed by these words chiseled in the stone: ``Matthew Shepard entered hell Oct. 12, 1998, at age 21 in defiance of God's warning: `Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.' Leviticus 18:22.''

Shepard, a freshman at the University of Wyoming at Laramie, was tied to a fence and beaten into a coma, allegedly because he was gay.

Also, I didn't realize that the Netherlands had gangsters.

The queen's middle child, Prince Johan Friso, 35, admitted Friday that he and Smit had been less than forthcoming about her ties to Klaas Bruinsma, a gangster and drug baron who had been executed, gangland style, in 1991.

In Iraq, the Marsh Arabs are finally getting their marsh back.

A dozen years after Saddam Hussein ordered the vast marshes of southeastern Iraq drained, transforming idyllic wetlands into a barren moonscape to eliminate a hiding place for Shiite Muslim political opponents, Iraqi engineers have turned on the spigot again.

Unfortunately, in a clear sign that the Iraqi situation isn't stabilizing, charities from overseas are withdrawing from Iraq.

The great majority of foreign aid workers in Iraq, fearing they have become targets of the postwar violence, have quietly pulled out of the country in the past month, leaving essential relief work to their Iraqi colleagues and slowing much of the reconstruction effort.

posted by Julian at 12:30PM