While browsing through my local Northampton paper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette (which isn't completely a daily paper as it is published 6 out of 7 days of the week), I ran across an article on confluences. I had no idea what these were, or what people were doing with them. Turns out, a few years ago a guy started visiting places where confluences were located using the latest in handheld GPS technology. A confluence is where an integer degree of latitude and an integer degree of longitude intersect - where they meet with zero degrees. Since then, numerous people around the world have been visiting confluences. They take photos of where the confluence is located, write up their adventures in getting to the confluence, and submit it to the website started by Alex Jarrett at www.confluence.org. The web site is very cool to browse through seeing the photos and reading the stories. To date, 1,857 primary confluences have been visited and recorded. Its kind of wild to stumble across something like this, something people are just out there doing for fun, something that doesn't really ever make the news--except of course in a local paper like the one in Northampton. Searching for confluences seems like a great way to indulge hobbies of hiking, photography, and playing with a GPS...none of which are my hobbies, but its fun to read about them.

Okay I'll admit it, I'm stumped. I just can't quite figure out what our (the U.S.) actual position is in relation to China. Do we want to foster closer ties? Are we alarmed by them? What's the deal?

Sometimes when going through the news, I have to search around to find articles about what's going on in China, what we are doing in relation to China. I find this kind of amazing considering that they a) have quite a large population b) have nuclear weapons c) have no real love for the U.S. and in fact have a way of life that we don't even begin to understand politically, culturally, or militarily and d) have been spending billions to build up their military. In an article at the Washington Post, we learn that the U.S. is considering ways to strengthen military ties with China. At first I thought this was a fairly idiotic proposal, but there might be some merit to it. First because I think we probably don't have a clue to the Chinese mentality, the real politics of China, and contact between nations can mean better understanding of each other in times of crisis. Second, as Brent Scowcroft is quoted as saying, "...it is useful for us to invite them over and show them what a great military we have." The idea that we let them see our military expertise, thereby making them think twice before doing something militarily that might involve the U.S. makes some sense. It just seems like a rather crude way of trying to influence a nation-state.

Of course if you are going to look at our military ties with China, its only fitting to bring into the mix the confusing relations of the U.S. and Taiwan, and how that affects our relations with China. It has seemed almost bizarre to me that for years we have been in this kind of suspended animation place with regard to Taiwan. Its a balancing act, of not giving too much support or recognition to Taiwan, even though they have a democratically elected government, and on the other side trying not to anger China by anything we do with Taiwan. A recent article at MSNBC.com discusses how China is angry at a Pentagon study that reports China as spending $80 billion on defense (for things like short and long range missiles and more submarines) rather than the $20 billion China said it was spending. Okay, if $20 billion sounds like a lot to me, $80 billion just makes me very suspicious of their intentions. Then we have the fact that the U.S. has sold arms to Taiwan, but we never really come out and say that we see Taiwan as its own sovereign state. I come away from reading these things shaking my head and thinking that the guys in Washington are as muddled as I am about our relations with China.

Then today in several newspapers there are articles about how China is upset about the U.S. cancelling payment to the U.N. Population Fund. The State Department evidently wanted the U.S. to make the payment - the White House disagreed. Due to the extreme population control measures China has had in place for some time, the issues of forced abortions, forced sterilizations and the like have made this a hot-button issue here in the States. Does our denying the U.N. Population Fund $34 million actually have an impact on China's population control policies? I seriously doubt that it does. What the denial of payment probably does mean is that family planning clinics, in other countries as well as in China, will have less money to work with. However, when considering that women may be forcibly sterilized, or that children are still being killed to deal with overpopulation, that there are hundreds of thousands of little girls each year abandoned to either be adopted by U.S. citizens or perhaps left to die, that abortions are indeed forced upon women, in light of all that, how can we not speak out in some way against these policies? I think the denial of payment to the U.N. fund is probably the only way the administration could see to do that at this point. It does speak though to the need to find some way to offer help/suggestions/new programs to China to deal with the population problem in a humane manner. The problem I see with this action is that it doesn't really do all that much to stop policies we disapprove of in China. In fact, a NYTimes article discussing anger other countries are expressing over this decision, states that reports do not indicate the money would be used in the way the Bush administration has said, and that it denies these monies to countries other than China for reproductive health programs. I think it is much more likely that the Bush team saw this as a way to appease conservative groups here in the U.S. rather than as an actual solution to a problem in China.

Finally, I have to state that my own views on China are slanted toward suspicion. Have I been too influenced by the popular Tom Clancy book The Bear and the Dragon, where China ultimately invades Russia and the U.S. goes to war with the Chinese? Perhaps. It is a good book, but what it mostly did was get me more interested in China and what's up over there. The age-old mindset of "them" vs. "us" comes to the forefront when dealing with China. We are more different from them than say the Europeans, we don't have the same approaches to fundamental ideas. Whenever we are confronted by differences, our tendency as humans is to fear "the other" the ones who aren't like us. Should we as a country be making judgments about Chinese policies? I think we have to. Human rights are something we have to fight for as humans for all humans. Just because a country is big or has a large army or has nuclear weapons doesn't mean we should back away from saying something is morally wrong, in the human rights sense. (I think not speaking out and standing up for what is right is how 6 million Jews and 20 million Russians ended up dead in WWII.) We also can't impose the ideas of a few when it comes to saying what is right morally. We are known as a superpower. Perhaps the only one left around these days. Unfortunately that does not mean we have super powers. We don't have the ability to have perfect knowledge of another country. We can't predict what a country will do. We can't right every wrong that is out there. And we also can't impose our will on other peoples simply because their beliefs differ from ours. What we can do, and must do, is stand up for human rights, and this is where I think our relations with China will ultimately come to a crisis point in the future.

Today I caught up on all my news reading--reading news off all kinds of news sites--and got totally blown away by it all. This is what happens when you: a) get bogged down by life for whatever reason and don't really read the news on a daily basis and b) read too much news at once. I end up feeling like my brain got overloaded, my emotions got trampled, and I need to go searching on the web for some kind of kevlar armor to wear when reading the news. I need to find some way of approaching the news with distance...except if we all did that then bad things could happen more easily right? Don't we have to care? Aren't we supposed to care? Yet if you care at all, then you can get blown away. And nothing huge even happened this past week! I mean, not in any kind of catastrophic terrorist sense. There were, however, catastrophic events for some folks. So here are some of the things which made me either think harder, wonder about the state of the world, laugh, or just say "huh?" not in any particular order.

While reading about the arrest of the man whose DNA matches the murderer and rapist of Samantha Runnion, I found myself wondering how many other kids were kidnapped this month, this year, and never found, or who were found dead. There is a Newsweek article at MSNBC.com asking if the number of kidnappings are on the rise, but concludes that they aren't, that we still average about 200-300 a year--a number which is absolutely appalling--and that the reason there seem to be more of them is due to the media coverage. However, the article goes on to state that not all kidnappings get the same media coverage, that there were two other kidnappings of children in recent months that didn't get the same attention and that these children were both black as compared to the recent media blitz on the kidnappings of suburban white children. I don't find that surprising. What I do find surprising is that we can have 200-300 children missing each year and that we aren't up in arms over it. I cannot imagine the horror and sadness of the parents of all these missing and/or murdered children. And the Samantha Runnion case brings up lots of anger in me at how the suspect was acquitted previously of molesting two children who lived near the murdered girl. What is happening in the justice system that child molestors continue to be either let free due to crazy laws of evidence and testimony of children, or that they are never caught in the first place?? Our children are our most-prized national assets yet their rights in molestation cases are often, it seems to me, overlooked in favor of the rights of the defendants.

I found a new weblog that I like at MSNBC.com, from Michael Moran called World Agenda. Today he is talking about the ill-considered Department of Justice idea called "Operation Tips" which I believe got voted down Friday by a committee looking at Homeland Security options. The NYTimes Week in Review has a good article on all this called Citizen Snoops Wanted and brings up a lot of excellent points about how crazy this idea is, to use utility workers and fedex workers to spy on the homes of people they go in to for delivery of packages or fixing pipes. Yes, I do believe we all have to be more aware in this age of Al-Quaeda, but I think any terrorist worth his salt is not going to leave plans laying around out in the open, or bombs just sitting out on the table when a utility repair person comes to call. Plus, if we change our society so drastically to become one of suspicion and fear of our neighbors, then aren't we giving in to terrorism? For some laughs and a few chills, check out these two satires about TIPS at The Truth Laid Bear and All-The-Other-Names-Were-Taken.

I was again reminded of how much I don't know about the world-at-large when I ran across links today that eventually led me to an article at CNN on Suu Kyi, a dissident in Myanmar, previously known as Burma. Suu Kyi is a woman who led her party in fighting for a democratic government in Myanmar, ultimately resulting in elections in 1990 that gave her party, the NLD, an overwhelming win (80 percent majority) which was summarily rejected by the military regime. The military arrested thousands and placed Suu Kyi under house arrest, essentially for 12 years. She was released from house arrest in May of this year, and the article discusses her first visit to supporters. As I read this I wondered if those elections had been held today, instead of 1990, would the U.S. have simply let it go by, let the military go its own way against the obvious wishes of such a large majority? There are other links from the page of this article that are worth exploring, more about Suu Kyi who sounds like a very courageous lady, and other info on Myanmar. I was just astounded to discover that I knew essentially nothing about this country that borders India, Thailand, Laos and China. It may be a global village these days, but a lot of us villagers don't know all that much about our neighbors.

For all you diehard Star Wars fans, there is a cool article about Harrison Ford at the NYTimes. Nothing about Star Wars, but a nice profile of this excellent actor.

And for all of you who love Sex in the City, tonight is the premiere episode of the fifth season. NYTimes also has a very nice piece about the changes in the series since 9-11 and in the development of the characters. I am a total fan of this show.

In a bizarre story at CNN (actually the story isn't bizarre, the events are), I learned about a man who fired on a helicopter in Williamsburg, Va., saying that maybe he overreacted, but he felt this was "terrorism at its utmost" and that his was a "natural reaction" in the face of terrorism fears. Again, I think we have to be careful in the U.S. about inciting fears to the point of irrational actions by citizens, although this guy was clearly a bit over the top.

There was more news of course, there always is. But I find that just writing about this much of it is enough for me today. There's always tomorrow and its news after all.

What an up and down week it has been for us followers of the WNBA rookies from UConn: Sue Bird, Swin Cash, Asjha Jones, and Tamika Williams.

First we have the Seattle Storm playing the supposedly unbeatable LA Sparks--who made the big mistake of arrogantly trying to push Seattle off its own court at shoot-around. This behavior appeared to ignite the emotions of the Seattle players who, come game time, totally amazed everyone by tromping on the LA Sparks and beating them by 19 points, 79-60. It was a thrilling win for Seattle fans, and showed us what we've all been thinking, that this team led by Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson has the potential to be truly great. The fight between Byears and Marciniak was kind of wild, and I have to say that listening to it over the radio, it seemed to me that Marciniak should not have ended up suspended for a game and fined $500. (Byears was suspended for two games and fined $1,000.) I have the feeling that when Seattle goes to LA August 1st, the Storm had better look out, because LA will be out for blood--and as we saw in this game where Seattle won, LA can be a very physical team.

The brilliance shown by the Seattle Storm against LA faded the next day as they faced the Cleveland Rockers. It was like listening to a different team play. I agree with the announcers that this has to do with the Storm being such a young team, and just hope they get into a groove here at some point and play consistently well from game to game. The 62-58 loss was not pretty, and you have to wonder how the schedule, with so many games so close together, affects the playing. But the team is young and will hopefully bounce back after the all-star break. I think too that once they have more maturity it will help them, because it seemed like the Storm coming off such a huge win over LA, came into the Cleveland game without their spirit of team play and instead played mostly as individuals. Once they mature I think they'll be able to handle the big wins better, and realize that each game has to be played as if it were the only game.

The Detroit Shock vs. Minnesota Lynx game was tough for me because I couldn't decide who to root for. Even though I think ex-UConn players Svetlana Abrosimova and Tamika Williams are just terrific players, I ultimately ended up rooting for Detroit with Swin Cash. I can't believe Swin didn't get picked for at least the All-Star reserves! Yes, I know Detroit has only won 3 games this season, their last win coming in this game against the Lynx 72-69, but I think they have tremendous talent. With Swin Cash at Detroit I think this team will have a very different record next year, as new coach Bill Laimbeer gets their act together. By the way, Tamika Williams had 19 points in this game, playing 37 minutes, showing why she is so valuable to the Lynx.

Today I just finished watching the Washington Mystics on NBC, getting beaten by the New York Liberty 67-53. This game was almost painful to watch. First off, there are so few of my favorite teams' games televised that it totally bums me out when I get to see them on TV and they don't win! It was good to see Asjha Jones playing so many minutes, but it was difficult to see her missing shots, making only 2 of 10 attempts. I think I never saw her face look so mad when playing college ball as it did today, over some of the foul calls that went against her. Washington has a good record of 14-6, and they are currently playing without the injured Chamique Holdsclaw, but today they couldn't get the shots to fall. Stacey Dales-Schuman who has played so well as a rookie just couldn't seem to make a shot, ending with only 5 points. I think the Mystics should play Jones more--she is a good solid player, excellent on rebounding and (usually) making shots.

So all in all, it was a roller coaster of a week for my favorite WNBA teams. Hopefully they will all return after the All-Star break refreshed and ready to play.

One final note: the Minnesota Lynx played the Charlotte Sting today and that game just finished up a bit after 8 pm eastern. Even though they led through most of the game and played very well, the Lynx were beaten 63-60. Totally depressing for a fan; can't imagine how bad that feels for the players. Abrosimova had game-high 17 points, yet they still couldn't pull it out in the end.

Some quotes from new articles today that I found fun, interesting or disturbing:

"The flag business was once a quiet, predictable industry..."
From CNN.com, a flag retailer discussing continued high sales of U.S. flags since 9-11.
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"The CIA has found evidence in seized al-Qaeda documents that bin Laden's operatives watch action-adventure movies for ideas."
In a Time.com article on the Counterterroism Center at the CIA, explaining why agents have gone to Hollywood to get ideas on possible terrorist scenarios.

From the same article:
"The CIA's main cafeteria has expanded its hours to feed the center's workers at night and on weekends, so they no longer have to truck in pizzas..."
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"They've been told to look for something, but what that something is no one seems to know."
From the CNN.com article on just what is suspicious that regular Americans should be looking for in today's heightened alert status.
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"The Murrays' pigs are now trained to shower every time the device starts running."
From ABCNews.com, in article about a man who built a shower for his pigs to keep them cool in the heat wave.
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"Mr. Moussaoui,...has peppered the trial judge with several long motions in a sometimes illegible handwriting."
From NYTimes.com, in an article on Moussaoui, the alleged terrorist conspirator who is representing himself in court, and now wants to meet with reporters--for a fee.
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"Make sure that you are hydrated if you are outside. That is essential. And when I say hydrated, I don't mean drink alcohol."
From Washingtonpost.com, in an article on the heat wave.

With the latest semi-announced terror alerts for July 4th, I ran across a few articles today on preparing for a terrorist act, or better termed, preparing for a disaster.

Anyone who knows me knows that I've been a disaster novel reader for many many years. I even took a course in college on natural disasters, things like earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, and the like. So I'm sitting here reading an MSNBC.com article called The Last Safe Place in the World, a guide to home security in post 9-11 America, and I'm thinking I already know all this stuff. You can only read so many novels about asteroids hitting the earth, earthquakes of massive proportions, alien invasions, before you begin to think you are well-versed in how to survive anything.

Then it dawned on me, as I read through the recommended preparations for survival in the article, that I am not, in truth, prepared to meet ANY of these possible disasters, terrorist-induced or not.

I remember that all I did to prepare for Y2K was to store some bottles of water--I finally got around to dumping them out in mid-2001. Why not dump them out? What bad thing could really happen that would possibly affect me? Right. Then came 9-11 and all assumptions should have been thrown out the window.

Of course, I live in a small town, so my chances of being near a terrorist attack are probably small...although some of the anthrax cases would make me think where you live may not matter. But if someone is going to blow something up, it would most likely be in a large city, the better to make their statement, or cause the most fear.

Then again, we have the specter of the "dirty bomb" lurking out there now. Or stolen nuclear weapons. Radiation fallout probably wouldn't stop at the borders of my town just because it was small. (And now that I think of it, just where does the water come from that gushes out of the tap so nicely in my kitchen? What about contamination of the water supply? Is that water reservoir protected???)

But does that mean I should go out and get potassium iodide tablets like thousands of Americans are now doing? In an article from June 23, 2002 the Washington Post mentions that the pills can be obtained at Nukepills.com - something that I couldn't even believe due to the name, until sure enough, I went there and found it was possible to buy them direct and have them shipped to my home. Somehow the idea of doing this just bugs me.

For one thing, the iodide tablets only protect you from one kind of radiation. So even though you might not get thyroid cancer, you'd probably still be facing some major problems. Plus, there is a feeling of having given in to the fear. And that's what's so tricky these days. We all live with heightened anxiety since 9-11, more fear than we are used to having about our personal safety, the safety of country. How we cope with that fear is, to some extent, an indication of just how successful the terrorists have been. To terrorize us is their goal. If I start making all kinds of disaster plans, am I giving in to the terror?

Probably, like the article says, there are some common sense things I should be doing. And boy will I feel like an idiot if something major happens in my region and I'm suddenly in a worse fix because I didn't take basic steps. I guess the reason I haven't taken care of this is that its more comfortable to ignore it, to remain in denial that anything like what happened in NYC could happen in my little town. That there is still safety. We all like to think that if it happens it will happen to somebody else. Ignoring what might happen, however, is as nuts and damaging as becoming obsessed with it. Facing the fear, coming out of denial and dealing with the fear head-on, without succumbing to it, is ultimately the way to defeat the concept of terrorism.

Remember when you could just sit down to a meal and eat it and not have to worry about it? I know there was a time like that, I just can't recall it anymore. The term "comfort food" seems to be slipping fast from our vocabularies, morphing into "foods to be feared" - and this can't be a good thing.

In the past 5 days I've seen three articles that up the ante on eating. Maybe we should be trying to figure out a way to just not eat...take a pill for our meals...except that more and more research says we need to eat foods in their natural state to get the benefit of vitamins. Or maybe not. Read on.

Today in the New York Times there's a brief article on ground beef being recalled due to possible e. coli contamination. I have a mixed reaction to this report. On the one hand, I am tempted to go check the ground beef in my freezer to see if it has the number on it mentioned in the report. On the other hand, I think we've all gotten used to the feeling that eating ground beef in any form is a new way of playing Russian Roulette. We either have to cook the heck out of ground beef until it has no taste, or we get to think about e. coli, and mad cow disease, while munching on our burgers.

On June 27th there was a report on MSNBC.com and other places, about the concern over something called "acrylamides" (found in fried foods and starchy foods) which may cause cancer. This category covers everything from french fries (a staple in the American diet) to cereals to breads baked at high temperatures. There was actually a UN-sponsored meeting on this, which basically boiled down to the experts saying they didn't know how serious it was, but that it was in fact serious, and we should most likely be concerned, but they weren't sure exactly what foods we should be concerned about...and I'm left thinking "What?? So what do I do with this information?" I get fairly fed up with these kinds of reports. If they don't have any real info, then why report on it at all? I mean really, it can't help our digestion any to think that the potato chips we're eating in front of the TV may be causing cancer with every bite. That kind of stress can't be good for us. Why do they put out partial info like this? A warning isn't a real warning with so little information.

And then there was the MSNBC.com June 28th article on orange juice. For years there have been articles telling us how we need to eat foods in their natural state. So of course, when juice companies began packaging fresh orange juice in cartons, a lot of us starting buying it that way...because it had to be healthier, right? Wrong. Now they tell us that the frozen orange juice is waayyy healthier in terms of the amount of vitamin C you get from frozen juice. So I get to look back over my orange juice consumption for the past several years and think how dumb was I to fall for the "buy fresh not frozen" concept. All that orange juice I drank thinking I was getting the best vitamin-bang for the buck, and lo, I now discover I got much less than I thought.

All this to say that I am valiantly trying to refuse to see food as an object of fear. If we read and obeyed every food dictum that comes out these days, I'm not sure we could eat anything much at all. So I'll do my best to incorporate whatever seems prudent, but if a few extra french fries shorten my life span by a few days, I'll live with that danger in "comfort food" bliss.