Bear Left!

Fact of the Week

**Fact of the Week**
When we wrote in October 2001 about the lunacy of having children send cash in the mail to the White House for the Fund for Afghan Children, we worried about how quickly that money would get to Afghanistan, given justified concerns about anthrax in the mail. We also worried about sending cash in the mail, period. Sometimes, we hate being right. Last month, two Philadelphia men who worked for a company that is decontaminating a huge amount of White House mail were arrested for mail theft. Among the mail they had stolen were thousands of letters with money for the Fund for Afghan Children. Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, 7 August 2002.

**This week's columns**
Paul Corrigan is not writing this week.	Labor Day Follies Tim Francis-Wright The Boston media spent a huge amount of time and space on the recently averted baseball strike, but has mostly missed a more important battle. Read Labor Day Follies!

When US Turned a Blind Eye to Poison Gas: From 1983 to 1988, the United States found it convenient to ignore Iraq's use of chemical weapons (Dilip Hrio, The Observer).
An American Abdication: America risks losing its stature as a world leader by ignoring the environment (Norbert Walker, New York Times).
Now Every Jew Must Decide: Britain's chief rabbi thinks that Israel is corrupting its culture by its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian).
Investor Tax Cut Becomes Campaign Tactic: The Bush administration admits that its new tax cut proposal is political, not fiscal, in nature (Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post).
Bad Meat: The recall of 19 million pounds of beef spotlights both our food safety rules and the USDA's competence to enforce them (Eric Schlosser, The Nation).
Laser Defenses: What if They Work?: Some of the missile defenses under active development would simply kill different victims (Geoffrey Forden, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).
George W. Bush, Principal Agent of Osama bin Laden: The Bush administration is doing what Osama bin Laden could not do on his own (Immanuel Wallerstein, SUNY Binghamton).
Summit Agreement is Struck, but US Blocks Deal on Clean Energy: Japan, OPEC, and the US have scuttled hopes to increase renewable energy use (Geoffrey Lean, The Independent).

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