Updated Iraq Dead Count

This was very overlooked in mainstream media, (for some reason-- gee, can't figger out why) but is extremely important.

While Iraq Body Count lists around 50,000 Iraqis dead (garnered from newspapers and other published lists), a recent study sponsored by Johns Hopkins and local Iraqi scholars found more than ten times that number have actually died.

As many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in Iraq in March 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions, according to a survey conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. The deaths from all causes—violent and non-violent—are over and above the estimated 143,000 deaths per year that occurred from all causes prior to the March 2003 invasion. That's more than the city of Oakland (and about 16 times the size of Normal), and almost the entire population of the city of San Francisco.

And the US dead? Just over 3,000.

there is a there, there

i loved the time and in between,
the calm inside me.
in the space where i can breathe
i believe there is a distance i have
wandered, to touch upon the years
reaching out and reaching in
holding out and holding in

i believe this is heaven to noone else but me
and i'll defend it long as i can be
left here to linger in silence
if i choose to would you
try to understand.

~sarah mclaughlin~


that space is conjured in
the fall-smelling crevices of my
mind of my
spirit (of my).

and the space that this brings is
il venti settembre, the stradale where
sarah walks with me
dark walk with shadows
and only i am silence.

something about the fall, something about this fall,
hit refresh on the pictures
uploaded There(there) unloaded
memory corroded

something about the Kriskindlmrkt, something
about Berlin in December,
something about the wursters, the
weiners, the gluhwein

you in salzburg you in vienna you
in the fall
you in the falling into
winter.

here? there is no here, here.