As a former USAF Nurse who served in the Vietnam Era and cared for many of our troops newly arrived back in the States, wounded and in pain, both mental and physical, I am sad this evening.

Today the news was confirmed. Another several months in the sand for our troops in Iraq who have already served the promised year. In the sand, in extreme danger and in the line of fire because of what the president tells us is "democratization." I think several extra centuries might be needed for that. How about a peaceful political turnover and get the heck out of there.

No Western political perspective can be injected into the region, but we can expect to leave the impression already set a long time ago of the empire building of the West. Try reading up on the history of the region in the 20th century. Europeans who now hold themselves up as paragons of peaceful non-intervention (like France) were involved with Great Britain in a carving up of the region into the "countries" we see today.

Tediously enough, we are inheriting the same job - defending our oil interests as well as trying to set up a better governmental form. Both of these efforts are worthwhile until the death toll mounts to a level that brings horrible chills of remembrance of the days of the early period of Vietnam buildups - first "advisors", then "a few troops to help" and then all out involvement and thousands of deaths and injuries leading to thousands of veterans living out their lives in hospitals - forgotten by the general public, and remembered only by families, and by those who cared for them and still care.

As I write, planes are bringing the dead home from Iraq but the press is forbidden to cover this story - forbidden to photograph this story. Our men and women are on the lines. You won't find the old men who sent them there in the trenches. The ancient Greeks took war seriously. If the occasion warranted it, they voted to go to war or not to go. each man who voted knew he himself would go if the vote was yes. believe me this made the process a bit more up close and personal. A bit more responsible.

Our troops deserve more. They deserve to have had a Plan B in place when they were deployed back in 2003 under Plan A. They got rid of Saddam, and they deserve to come home with that job well done. One promise broken leads to many more promises broken, and morale cannot but reflect this. Keeping faith goes both ways.

iTunes works so well. I redeemed my Pepsi caps for four Michael Feinstein tunes, and of course I added a few others as well. Hopefully so have many others, making the iTunes promotion a huge success?

Michael Feinstein, what a voice, but even more than that, a style that epitomizes Manhattan Glamourous, remembrance of things passed, my memories of the piano bar music, the shows, the twinkling glitter of Broadway, even visible in the early 1960s, my time in the Big Apple. I remember seeing Rosemary Clooney with Michael on his PBS special, Michael Feinstein and Friends in 1991. What a wonderful show that was. I loved Rosemary, and I met her once. She was a warm and compassionate human being. I watched the Feinstein special to see her perform and ended up a fan of Michael Feinstein.

MacJournal deserves a donation, as noted before, so donate I did.

The iTunes Music Store freebie with Pepsi caps is over this month. 4/30/04 is the deadline for redemption, so go for it. I have three caps in my desk drawer, and keep meaning to get those downloaded. So hard to pick from so many fine tunes!

My eyes were treated to the sight, and my hands held and touched the sweet little iPod Mini only last week. In gold, it was a sight to behold. As gadgets of technomania go, this one is easily the classiest, while also proving fun and useful. Did we really use those clumpy tape players? (Oh, I still have one at work, my own personal tape cassette player with earphone. After all, I still have my personal tapes.) I don't think I've used that since the XP box hit my desk with the capacity for my own playlists. And of course at home, the luxury of iTunes, and the wonder of my iPod (not mini).

Altogether different topic with a rush back to the literate world of books. I realize the incongruity of my present circumstance. My reading life has taken a crazy yaw and landed in a pile of books in progress. I have at the moment undertaken the following titles: From Rags to Bitches by Mr. Blackwell; Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis; Deaf Like Me, by Thomas and James Spradley; and still working on Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence. Assuredly an eclectic jumble. Time will have passed before any reviews of these titles are forthcoming, except for my previous words on T.E. Lawrence. Seven Pillars is truly a marvelous and fascinating journey.

Uploading to Blogger from MacJournal worked flawlessly. I am tickled pink. YEEHAW. It is always so great when something really does what it promises. And when you get the something FREE, it really does add the ginger to the spices of life for that little bit of techie time. Blogging could take the place of the website very easily, probably because it is easier. Perhaps a donation to the developer of MacJournal is in order.

The web interface for Blogger is terrific though, and I especially like that you can edit the templates in Blogger, thus enabling blurbs on the right side of my chosen template as well as the blog entry area.