Told You I Was Behind On My Reading

From Zay N. Smith Quick Takes - Chicago Sun Times Monday through today.

News Headline: Pentagon still suffers from shortage of Arab linguists.

News Headline: Army dismisses gay Arabic translator.

These are tough calls to make.

But the Family Values voter base has to be kept happy.

You know. Even if it costs you your life.

and this:

"U.S. heat wave. . . ."

News Headline: "Record heat wave . . ."

News Headline: "Emergency declared as heat wave . . ."

Then again, the current five-day forecast for the predicted highs our soldiers will know in Baghdad: 111, 114, 116, 114, 114.

QT, for one, is ready to stop whining.

and this:

Heads up

News Item: "In fewer than three weeks, local supporters of Operation Helmet have raised almost $6,000 toward helmet liners to better protect Marines and airmen in combat zones from blast forces . . ."

The problem is this: Many of our soldiers in Iraq are wearing inadequate combat helmets.

It has to do with liners to protect from the concussive effects of bomb blasts.

The old-style helmets don't have them.

The Pentagon knows about it -- and says it will do something about it one of these days.

The Air Force even has the matter "under study."

Operation Helmet at operation-helmet.org, meanwhile, is taking donations and getting the right kind of protection to our soldiers.

We keep hearing that we should support our troops.

This is an actual way to do it.

Even if the Pentagon won't.

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When I mentioned deleting and unsubscribing publications yesterday, I kept the Chicago Sun-Times and three other mainstream papers plus my local paper and the San Francisco Chronicle which I read online.

Along with Alternet, Media Matters, Truthout and a few others. Between them and the blogs I read which are listed on bloglines I should be able to keep up.

500 emails in my yahoo box was about 400 too many.