Toledo -- More than seventy-five local, state, and national organizations sent a letter today to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and the Congressional oversight and appropriations committees for the Department of Defense (DOD), seeking an end to a data collecting project called the Joint Advertising and Market Research Studies (JAMRS) Recruiting Database.

Toledo's Student and Family Rights and Privacy Committee, the group now pressuring Toledo Public Schools to restrict military recruiters, is in full support of this effort to end the JAMRS recruitment database because it violates the Privacy Act while collecting data on 30 million people ages 16 to 25 from a vast array of sources such as drivers license or selective service registrations. Other organizations from the Toledo area that have joined this nationwide effort include the Northwest Ohio Peace Coalition, Sylvania Franciscan Sisters, the Interfaith Justice and Peace Center, and the Toledo League of Pissed Off Voters.

Thank God somebody is calling the left, or more specifically the Democratic Party, on its refusal to even consider let alone protest, the stolen elections of '04, '06 (Cleland), and '00. Yes, I agree with Fitrakis and Wasserman that it is going to keep happening unless the stolen election issue is addressed head-on.

Thank you for investigative journalism. I only regret that not even the "progresive media" is attempting to address this issue.

Liam Rooney
Fort Collins CO

Desperate People are Dangerous People

AUSTIN, Texas -- You can only sit around wringing your hands and moaning about what a mess the Bushies have made of America for so long. Sooner or later, even the gloomiest doom-meisters are bound to get beaned by an acorn on the noggin, leading to the startling and productive thought, "So, what could we do that would make things better?" Quel concept, eh?

For those mired in loathing the Bush administration, the program would start with a long, long list of things that need to be undone: repeal the bankruptcy bill, repeal the tax breaks for the rich, and fix the farm bill, the transportation bill, the energy bill, etc. Or you could start with a list of gentle suggestions, such as:

-- Making a rude jerk with a bad temper ambassador to the United Nations, probably not a good idea
-- Putting a veterinarian in charge of women's health policy, maybe not.
-- Making someone with a background in Arabian horses the disaster-relief czar, possibly needs reconsideration.
-- Invading a Middle Eastern country with no provocation, a country that posed no threat and had no connection to 9-11 ... hmmm, perhaps not a shrewdie.

Once again, an old song acts as muse for Daniel Patrick Welch. Repopularized by a current Volkswagen ad, the Donovan lyric tweaks Welch’s sense of the futility of resistance in the quagmire that is today’s American political landscape. From a personal perspective, the writer describes watching as all his European friends flee one by one, a sort of metaphor for the international rejection of the would-be Pax Americana.

To understand fully the nature of the American dilemma, one has only to view it from slightly outside the bubble. My wife and I have been restricted from foreign travel for various bureaucratic and financial reasons; but our sanity depends on hundreds of connections around the globe for perspective and comfort. The sea change in this perspective from without reveals the utter hopelessness of the U.S. position, and underscores a grave warning to those still willing or able to listen at home.