As the newspapers and magazines thrill to the supposed glorious renaissance in Afghanistan wrought by the toppling of the Taliban, a Lexis-Nexis search returns a grand total of two "Major Papers" having reported that on August 18 the UN World Food Program announced that it was being forced, because promised funds have not been delivered, to cut back rations to the six million Afghans currently in need of food aid. Here is the entire text of the San Diego Union-Tribune's report: "Food shortage: Just seven months after Western nations pledged billions of dollars in aid to help rebuild Afghanistan, the UN's World Food Program is being forced to cut rations for millions of hungry and vulnerable Afghans because international donors have failed to provide the promised cash, officials said. Some six million Afghans will need food aid over the next year, according to UN figures. The WFP has appealed for $285 million this year but is short more than $90 million--or 200,000 tons of food." Apropos of nothing, the Bush Administration's Fiscal Year 2003 Budget requested a $48 billion increase in military spending.--Eddie Tews

This week has been a non-stop replay of post-9/11 agonizing. I can't turn on the radio, TV, or pick up the newspaper without every story being some sort of "my memories of September 11." All of this drowns out any real, meaningful examination of whether things are measurably better since then. Has the Bush administration made the US more safe from terrorism? No. Is Al Qaeda less of a threat to anyone? No--in fact, the UN just released a report saying that, as a result of the US/Afghanistan War, Al Qaeda is now stronger and more spread out all over the world, with many new links to new terrorist organizations. Is Osama bin Laden and his top cohorts dead or in prison? No. The FBI even admits that the guys in detention at Guantanamo Bay are all "little fish." Is Afghanistan safely on the road to democracy? No. Afghanistan still has religious police, armed warlords and bandits, and the unelected "President" Karzai just narrowly escaped an assassination attempt while on his first trip outside of Kabul--to his home city of Kandahar.

Is world opinion on our side and are other countries lining up to give us help in the "War on Terrorism"? No. In fact, within the past two years the Bush administration has managed to offend nearly every country in the world by abrogating the Kyoto Treaty on global warming, the UN Bioweapons Convention, the UN small arms treaty, the International Criminal Court, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and on and on. In addition, the US has undermined efforts to increase AIDs funding, threw a monkey wrench into family planning work in the Third World, and torpedoed the Earth Summit.

And we still ask ourselves "why do they hate us so much?" Answer: because we're clueless assholes. That will be my memory of Sept. 11: innocent people dying because of clueless assholes in the White House and their rich, selfish constituents.--Maria Tomchick

The currently fashionable conspiracy theories trying to tag Bush et al. with either foreknowledge or active planning of the tragedy miss the point. No conspiracy is needed. There's plenty of reasons for anti-American hatred that mushrooms into mass murder, and almost all of them are directly traceable to a government that, often without knowledge of its constituents, has meddled and brutalized and stolen throughout the world for decades. Terrorists hate our government, which has acted in our name without our knowledge, and they target us instead; it's lunacy to list factors that put us at risk for terror attacks without putting "the existence of our government" at or near the top of the list. Ironically, the people in the American political landscape who most hate government were the folks who, after 9/11, were readiest to excuse past abuses and embrace new ones. But the fact remains: no government, no 9/11. Period.--Geov Parrish

I'm pro-salmon, and I vote. Since the California energy crisis and last year's Pacific Northwest drought, one environmental issue has dropped off the radar: the removal of four Snake River dams to provide habitat for endangered salmon and steelhead. Now a new report from the Rand Corporation emphasizes what environmentalists have been saying all along: removing the four dams would have a minimal impact on the Pacific Northwest's economy and power supply. The report, released on September 4, verifies that the dams provide only five percent of the region's power. Furthermore, removing them could provide an estimated 15,000 jobs to Eastern Washington residents over 20 years, mainly in the recreation industry. The report also points out that removing the dams would help to diversify our energy supply, which relies too heavily on hydroelectric power.

Rep. Jim McDermott has sponsored a bill in the US House of Representatives to remove the dams, but no other Washington legislator has co-sponsored it. Our two senators, naturally, are shirking responsibility for salmon restoration. This is one concrete thing that could help to restore the environment of the Colombia River basin, and now there's a competent study showing that it will not negatively impact the growth of the Eastern Washington economy. Call Patty Murray's office at 1-202-224-2621 (http://murray.senate.gov) and Maria Cantwell's office at 1-202-224-3441 (http://cantwell.senate.gov). And, while you're at it, look up your local House Representative and call him or her, too. Special attention should be paid to the "liberal" Jay Inslee (1-202-225-6311 or http://www.house.gov/inslee). Show us your green side, Jay.--M.T.

It's day 10, call number 9, and Qwest employee number 11. I'm calling from a friend's cell phone trying to get phone service hooked up in my new apartment. My voice is even, firm, but polite. "Hi, I ordered phone service in my new apartment on August 29; it's now September 7, I've called you guys eight times, each time I'm told that my phone service will start the same day, and, well, I still don't have a dial tone. Can you pull up my account and see what's wrong or send a repair guy out?" I give my new phone number and the rep puts me on hold for 10 minutes. Finally, she comes back on the line. "Ma'am, I'm still trying to fix your account; I'm gonna have to work on it a while longer. Is there a number where I can call you back?" I'm reluctant to hang up, but what can I say? She sounds competent. I give her the cell phone number and hang up.

After 20 minutes, she calls back. "Ma'am, I think I've fixed it. There were so many complications on this order, it was like pulling teeth to get it fixed. Anyway, I've reprogrammed it and sent the order back to the central office. All they have to do is switch your service on from there." I ask her when that will happen. "Should be in the next half hour, ma'am. I put a due date of today on the order." I ask her who I should call if my phone isn't working in, say, the next two hours. I explain that I've heard all this before--"it should be working any minute now" is now a joke to me. She gives me an 800 number and tells me anyone at that number will be able to help me. I hang up, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry.

Saturday passes with no dial tone. Sunday dawns with no dial tone. As of this writing, I've been through too many emotions to count: frustration, anger, disbelief, hope, let-down, despair. I'm cut off, my e-mail unread, my relatives and friends unable to call me at home, and my bosses worried about all the time I'm spending on the phone at work just to get phone service installed at my home. I can't do research on the Internet; I have a dozen topics I want to read about and write about, but can't. The irony is that the old US West substation building is just seven blocks from where I live. That building is now largely vacant, windows covered with steel mesh and a metal door with a sign that says that no one on the premises can help you, you must dial 1-800-244-1111 for service. On Monday, I'm calling the Washington Public Utilities Commission, the Washington State Attorney General's office, and the Better Business Bureau to complain. Qwest is going to be damn sorry that they've messed up my phone service.--M.T.

It's like stealing candy from a baby to expose the State Department's justifications-du-jour for an invasion of Iraq to be bald-faced lies, and to demonstrate that such an operation would be illegal and incredibly immoral, and very possibly set off region-wide chaos. And of course, many dissenters, as well as nominal hawks, have been capably doing just this of late. But one wonders why nobody has touched upon the most basic, glaring flaw in El Shrubbo's logic. To wit, if Saddam is such a Menace To Society that failure to immediately remove him from power and replace him with a former oil-industry executive will result in him attacking the region (and the US itself, apparently) with chemical and biological weapons, why wasn't the threat as urgent one year ago? Or two years ago? Or at any time since the demise of UNSCOM in December of 1998? If one is to believe the Administration, Saddam has never been in compliance with UN Resolutions demanding the disarmament of Iraq. While untrue, this would mean that, by the Administration's own logic, Saddam has posed an ongoing, imminent threat to regional and world peace since the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Begging the question, when does the statute of limitations run out on this thing?--E.T.

Deer In The Headlights. Jr. has got to be feeling awfully gypped these days. Placed into office without even having been elected, and granted a License To Rampage by the events of September 11th, he suddenly finds his power constrained at seemingly every turn. While the Dow continues its free-fall, and corporate bankrupties reign, domestic labor unrest abounds. A shut-down of the West Coast ports could deliver a knockout blow to the ailing US economy. Meanwhile, as internal bickering over the planned Iraq Massacre II induces back-pedaling, stuttering, and stammering in our floral friend, the rest of the world is in outright uproar over the Administration's schemes. The headlines (helpfully arrayed at www.dack.com) tell the story: "Bush Struggles for Support on Iraq," "Chirac Speaks Out Against US War Plans," "Musharraf Warns Against Iraq Attack," "Labour In Open Revolt Over Iraq," "US Threats To Iraq Contested By Friend And Foe." As for the "War On Terror", it's an abysmal failure by its own standards, with bin Laden still at large and his followers regrouping in Afghanistan and Pakistan, nuclear tension in South Asia, and the Holy Land in flames. Oh yeah, and scientists are now warning that ecological catastrophe is just over the horizon, and the courts are starting to rebel against Ashcroft's Biblical Justice League.

The upshot? There's never been a better time to protest. The time is now to send letters to the editor; send letters to your representatives; send money to labor, environmental, and peace and justice organizations; talk it up among friends and family; leaflet sporting events; etc. The House Of Shrub is a house of cards, just waiting to be toppled.--E.T.