Woman Born With No Arms Becomes First Pilot to Fly Airplane With Feet

Jessica Cox, of Tucson, Ariz., was born without arms, but that has only stopped her from doing one thing: using the word "can't."

Her latest flight into the seemingly impossible is becoming the first pilot licensed to fly using only her feet.

Click here for photos of Jessica.

With one foot manning the controls and the other delicately guiding the steering column, Cox, 25, soared to achieve a Sport Pilot certificate. Her certificate qualifies her to fly a light-sport aircraft to altitudes of 10,000 feet.

"She's a good pilot. She's rock solid," said Parrish Traweek, 42, the flying instructor at San Manuel's Ray Blair Airport.

He runs PC Aircraft Maintenance and Flight Services and has trained many pilots, some of whom didn't come close to Cox's abilities.

"When she came up here driving a car," Traweek recalled, "I knew she'd have no problem flying a plane."

Finding a plane that was compatible with her abilities was a task within itself. She found it in the Ercoupe, a plane manufactured in the mid-1940s. Locating one took her to Florida and California, although she finally find one less than 70 miles away in San Manuel.

Flight lessons usually run more than $100 per hour, but Cox was able to get her 40-plus hours of training through an Able Flight Scholarship.

"Once you're with Jessica for about 20 minutes, you don't even notice she doesn't have arms," Traweek said from the one of the airport's hangars.

Cox, unwrapping a piece of chewing gum with her toes nearby, was clad in a yellow T-shirt sporting a stick figure with truncated arms beneath the phrase: "Look Ma, No Hands."

"Jessica's showing people there are no limits," he said. "Jessica's incredible. She really is."

Most who meet her, especially on her motivational speaking circuit, agree. She's spoken at hundreds of gigs, from Wisconsin to Phoenix, where she shares her upbeat philosophy and incredible story.

Doctors never learned why she was born without arms, but she figured out early on that she didn't want to use prosthetic devices.

"Instead of investing so much time in being normal," she said, "I realized it was more important to celebrate my difference."

She gave up the prosthetic arms for good when she turned 14 and her family moved to Tucson from their hometown of Sierra Vista.

"They handicapped me," she said of the prosethetic arms, which she keeps shoved in the back of her closet.

"When we moved to Tucson, I had a fresh slate," she said.

That slate is now covered with achievements from a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Arizona to two black belts in tae kwon do. She's also seeking a publisher for her life story.

She keeps even more active with swimming and walking.

"It's critical to maintain strength and flexibility in my legs for any kind of activity," she said.

Her feet have become so agile, she said. that a recent X-ray showed her toe joints looked more like fingers.

"The toes were curled in more like a hand would be," she said. "I had to ask the doctor, 'Does everyone's feet look like that?' "

Cox credits much of her success to her supportive family: mom Inez, 58; dad William, 68; brother Jason, 28; and sister Jackie, 23.

She is grateful for her ability to motivate others, and not only when she's speaking on stage.

"I realized when I go to the grocery store to get a gallon of milk and wheel the cart up to the cashier, I really don't have to say anything," she said.

(from FoxNews.com)

A Plea for Peace From a Bereaved Palestinian Father

(Below is a heart-felt account of a bereaved Palestinian father -- Bassam Aramin -- that always haunts me. I believe its high time to come together, to unite, and to stop the needless bloodshed)

I fought with my daughter on the day she was shot.

On her way out the door to school, Abir announced, in that way children have of doing, that she would be playing with a friend that afternoon rather than coming straight home to study for an exam scheduled for the next day. She was 10 years old, smart, dedicated to her schoolwork and still a little girl.

She wanted to play. I told her to not even think about it.

If I could tell her anything now, it would be: Go. Do whatever you want. Play.

Because now, she never will. She will never laugh again, never hear her friends calling her name, never feel the love of her family wrapped around her at night like a warm blanket.

Abir, the third of my six children, was shot in the head as she left school January 16, caught in an altercation between Israel Border Guard troops and older kids who may or may not have been throwing rocks. She died two days later.

I know what the Israeli army has said about the incident, and I know what Abir’s older sister Arin saw with her own two eyes: Abir was running away from the troops when she suddenly stopped and fell, and blood splattered onto the ground. An independent autopsy confirms the most likely cause of death: a rubber bullet, through the back of Abir’s head. I have that bullet in my house, because poor Arin, watching her sister get shot, picked up the bullet and brought it home. I was not surprised when the Israeli army tried to blame Abir for her own death. First we were told that she was among the rock throwers; then we were told that “something” blew up in her hands — though her hands remained miraculously in tact— before she could toss it at the Border Guard jeep.

I was not surprised, but the anguish that such fabrications cause my wife and me is hard to express. Our baby was killed — must her name and innocence be desecrated, as well?

It would be easy, so easy, to hate. To seek revenge, find my own rifle, and kill three or four soldiers, in my daughter’s name. That’s the way Israelis and Palestinians have run things for a long time. Every dead child — and everyone is someone’s child — is another reason to keep killing.

I know. I used to be part of the cycle. I once spent seven years in an Israeli jail for helping to plan an armed attack against Israeli soldiers. At the time, I was disappointed that none of the soldiers was hurt.

But as I served out my sentence, I talked with many of my guards. I learned about the Jewish people’s history. I learned about the Holocaust.

And eventually I came to understand: On both sides, we have been made instruments of war. On both sides, there is pain, and grieving, and endless loss.

And the only way to make it stop is to stop it ourselves.

Many people came to support and comfort us as Abir lay dying, her small face chalk white, her eyes forever closed. Among those who never left my side were a number of men I have recently come to love as brothers, men who know my past, and who share it. Men who, like me, were trained to hate and to kill, but who now also believe that we must find a way to live with our former enemies.

Israeli men. Every one of them, a former combat soldier.

These men and I are members of Combatants for Peace. Each of us, 300 Palestinians and Israelis, was once on the front lines of the conflict. We shot, bombed, tortured and killed. We believed it was the only way to serve our people.

Now we know this not to be true. We know that to serve our people, we must fight not each other but the hatred between us. We must find a way to share this land each people holds in the depths of its soul, to build two states side by side. Only then will the mourning end.

I will not rest until the soldier responsible for my daughter’s death is put on trial, and made to face what he has done. I will see to it that the world does not forget my daughter, my lovely Abir.

But I will not seek vengeance. No, I will continue the work I have undertaken with my Israeli brothers. I will fight with all I have within me to see that Abir’s name, Abir’s blood, becomes the bridge that finally closes the gap between us, the bridge that allows Israelis and Palestinians to finally, Inshallah, live in peace.

If I could tell my daughter anything, I would make her that promise. And I would tell her that I love her very, very much.

Bassam Aramin lives in Anata, just outside of Jerusalem.

I Weep For Them All

Damned be the rich!

Damned be the system!

Damned be the world!

Over whom shall we weep first?

Over the burned ones?

Over those beyond recognition?

Over those who have been crippled?

Or driven senseless?

Or smashed?

I weep for them all.

Now let us light the holy candles

And mark the sorrow.

This is our funeral,

These our graves,

Our children,

The beautiful, beautiful flowers destroyed,

Our lovely ones burned,

Their ashes buried under a mountain of caskets.

(The above is part of a poem "The Triangle Fire" written by Morris Rosenfeld in the Jewish Daily Forward after the New York City Factory fire in 1911. And below is what I feel about the attack on Gaza Strip)

The way the media covered the Mumbai terror attacks was awesome; live coverage 24/7. But this was so, because it was an untoward incident, which happens once in a while, not so often.

On the other hand, the conflict in Palestine, and the terrorism that they are undergoing is hardly if ever highlighted and brought into focus by the main stream media. This terrorism that has been going on since May 1949, needs to be stopped; people need to be sensitized toward it.

I fail to understand how a people whose ancestors have gone through the world's worst Holocaust can themselves inflict so much misery and pain on others? Is it because "violence breeds violence"?

Isn't it time to stop, learn from the past, and step toward a brighter future? A future where someone's land is not snatched away, a future where someone's house is not shelled, a future where you do not destroy someone's farms, someone's livelihoods. A place where children jump and run freely, a place where one is free to go about one's daily chores without fear, a place filled with hope and trust.

It pains me to hear about the "Iron Wall", it pains me to see the difference between the map of Palestine in 1947 and the map of Palestine today, it pains me to see so many people living as refugees, it pains me to see death and destruction everywhere.

-- Behrooz K Y Avari

There Was No One Left To Speak Up For Me

Who Was Martin Niemoller?


First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

A few weeks ago, someone on alt.activism asked who said these words and what had happened to him. First, the version above is taken from an article on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of WW II that appeared in TIME Magazine, Aug 28, 1989. There are many versions of this poem floating around… by no means is this the authorative one. Similarly, the author of the poem is often not mentioned. On one level, that is not important. Indeed, Martin Niemoller was an outspoken advocate for accepting the burden of collective guilt for WW II as a means of atonement for the suffering that the German nation (through the Nazis) had caused before and during WW II.

On the other hand, I think that something is missed if one doesn’t understand that the words come from a man who also declared that he “would rather burn his church to the ground, than to preach the Nazi trinity of ‘race, blood, and soil.’”

Niemoller was tainted. He had been a U-boat captain in WW I prior to becoming a pastor. And he supported Hitler prior to his taking power. Indeed, initially the Nazi press held him up as a model… for his service in WW I. [Newsweek, July 10, 1937, pg 32]

But Niemoller broke very early with the Nazis. In 1933, he organized the Pastor’s Emergency League to protect Lutheran pastors from the police. In 1934, he was one of the leading organizers at the Barmen Synod, which produced the theological basis for the Confessing Church, which despite its persecution became an enduring symbol of German resistance to Hitler.

From 1933 to 1937, Niemoller consistantly trashed everything the Nazis stood for. At one point he declared that it was impossible to “point to the German [Luther] without pointing to the Jew [Christ] to which he pointed to.” [from Charles Colson, Kingdoms in Conflict]

He rejected the Nazi distortion of “Positive Christianity” (postulating the ‘special virtue’ of the German people), as opposed to “Negative Chistianity” which held that all people regardless of race were guilty of sin and in need of repentance. An excerpt from a sermon of his printed in TIME Magazine [Feb 21, 1938, pg 25-27]:

“I cannot help saying quite harshly and bluntly that the Jewish people came to grief and disgrace because of its own ‘Positive Christianity!’ It [the Jewish people] bears a curse throughout the history of the world because it was ready to approve of its Messiah just as long and as far as it thought it could gain some advantage for its own plans and its own aims for Him, His words and His deeds. It bears a curse, because it rejected Him and resisted Him to the death when it became clear that Jesus of Nazareth would not cease calling [the Jews] to repentance and faith, despite their insistence that they were free, strong and proud men and belonged to a pure-blooded, race-concious nation!

“‘Positive Christianity,’ which the Jewish people wanted, clashed with ‘Negative Christianity’ as Jesus himself represented it!… Friends, can we risk going with our nation without forgiveness of sins, without that so-called ‘Negative Christianity’ which, when all is said and done, clings in repentence and faith to Jesus as the Savior of sinners? I cannot and you cannot and our nation cannot! ‘Come let us return to the Lord!’”

And in a celebrated manifesto, produced and smuggled out of the country in classic Charter-77 style, and reprinted in the foreign press just prior to the 1936 Olympics, he along with 9 other pastors wrote to Hitler:

“Our people are trying to break the bond set by God. That is human conceit rising against God. In this connection we must warn the Führer, that the adoration frequently bestowed on him is only due to God. Some years ago the Führer objected to having his picture placed on Protestant altars. Today his thoughts are used as a basis not only for political decisions but also for morality and law. He himself is surrounded with the dignity of a priest and even of an intermediary between God and man… We ask that liberty be given to our people to go their way in the future under the sign of the Cross of Christ, in order that our grandsons may not curse their elders on the ground that their elders left them a state on earth that closed to them the Kingdom of God.” [from TIME Magazine July 27, 1936]

Rev. Martin Niemoller was protected until 1937 by both the foreign press and influential friends in the up-scale Berlin suburb where he preached. Eventually, he was arrested for treason. Perhaps due to foreign pressure, he was found guilty, but initially given only a suspended sentence. He was however then almost immediately re-arrested on Hitler’s direct orders. From then on until the end of WW II, he was held at the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. Near the end of the war, he narrowly escaped execution. [from Charles Colson’s Kingdoms in Conflict]

After the war, Niemoller emerged from prison to preach the words that began this post, that all of us know… He was instrumental in producing the “Stuttgart Confession of Guilt”, in which the German Protestant churches formally accepted guilt for their complicity in allowing the suffering which Hitler’s reign caused to occur. In 1961, he was elected as one of the six presidents of the World Council of Churches, the ecumenical body of the Protestant faiths.

Niemoller emerged also as an adamant pacifist and advocate of reconciliation. He actively sought out contacts in Eastern Europe, and traveled to Moscow in 1952 and North Vietnam in 1967. He received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1967, and the West German Grand Cross of Merit in 1971. Martin Niemoller died in Wiesbaden, West Germany on Mar 6, 1984, at the age of 92. [from the Encyclopedia Britannica].

Is Patriotic Journalism different from Real Journalism?

Hamid Mir, Editor of Islamabad based Geo TV Channel of Pakistan who had confirmed the fact that Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured in Mumbai during the terrorists attacks on November 26, was indeed from Pakistan, was asked a question by the students of journalism in Lahore to explain the difference between patriotic journalism and real journalism?

This is one question that is being raised in India as well following the manner in which reporting of Mumbai mayhem was handled by the Indian Media.

India Media allegedly went overboard in reporting the happenings in Mumbai live and round the clock for three days continuously. To keep the viewers glued to the screens the reporting had to have a good mix of emotion. The terrorists and their country - Pakistan-had to be bashed.

After the coverage was almost over, question was asked as to whether live reporting helped the terrorists to achieve their objectives? Did the security forces suffer because of the live telecast?

To many it seemed that whatever way one called it, "patriotic journalism" or "real journalism", the coverage during the crucial three days helped the terrorists. Did plain and simple journalism become a casualty?

One has to accept that the proliferation of Media globally has led to severe cut throat competition, particularly among the 24 hour TV News Channels. Everyone wants to be first to break the news. And to stay first they need to remain live

The events in Mumbai put a severe strain on the news channels. Each channel had to deploy all its reporters irrespective of the fact whether they were trained for such assignments. The seniors in the newsrooms had to depend on young reporters and cameramen. For many of them the Mumbai mayhem was too overwhelming.

My mind went back to the manner in which the American Channels had reported 9/11 events and the British channels the 7/7 attacks in London. I was in London when the events 7/7 attacks occurred. Both in the United States and London, the TV Channels reported the events live, but they were restrained. In London no one came in the way of the police and waited for a proper briefing by the Metropolitan Police Chief in the late afternoon after he had gathered the facts.

In Mumbai it seemed every one was on his own. You could get any person on the street to comment and push a mike in the face of any policeman or the nearest officer. Media was not to blame for all this. The police had failed to place a forensic cordon and even when it was put, the reason given out was that the authorities wanted to keep the Media away from the harm's way!

The spokesman of the Government, both Central and State, were nowhere is the scene to guide the media during the events in Mumbai. Where was the Spokesman of the Mumbai Police? The Commanders of the Naval commandoes, the area commander of the Army, told their side of the story as the operations were continuing. The head of the National Security Guard briefed the press when the whole operations were over. . Over the years these press departments of the state government have learnt to work more for their Ministers than the government of the state. No wonder they were absent and not liasing with the Media at all.

It was evident to one and all in the very first hour of Mumbai terror attack that it was going to be a long haul. Why did the Press Information Bureau of the Government of India fail to get there first thing in the morning to help the media to report events that had impact worldwide? What was the Defence Press Relations doing both in Mumbai and Delhi when they were aware that army and Navy had moved into the area?

We saw the " parachute journalists" arrive in Mumbai from all over the world overnight to cover the events. Very rightly so; after all many nationalities were targets of the terrorist commandos. One expected some body from the Foreign Office to be present in Mumbai. One heard in dismay the BBC reporting the mayhem by terrorists being called the "militant attack" on Mumbai!

The Chief Minister and his Home Minister of Maharashtra sat in their offices to pronounce that "such incidents do happen in big cities".

Thus, in the absence of any authoritative briefing what we had from Mumbai was neither "patriotic journalism" nor "real journalism", but a lot of breast beating by emotionally charged individuals and reporters.

Pakistan is being monitored by world powers, and the information gathered has indicated the involvement of Pakistani forces - what President Zardari called 'non-state actors' in the Mumbai mayhem. The military - jehadi nexus in Pakistan has been in existence for nearly two decades now. The Mumbai attacks took over a year for planning and execution, which was not in the knowledge of the civilian government there. A repetition of Kargil.

Truth about who carried out the terrorist attacks in Mumbai would not have been known had it not been for the capture of Ajmal Amir Kasab. Pakistan's military -jehadi nexus is a threat not just to nascent civilian rule in Pakistan but to the whole world.

The question of "patriotic journalism" has been raised in Pakistan because the army and jehadi elements in that country want to equate the attack on Mumbai as a war like issue between India and Pakistan. . Therefore Pakistani patriots must stand against India and the media toe the national line in defence of the country.

If any journalist attempts to bring out the truth as was done by Hamid Mir, then according to the protagonists of "patriotic journalism" in Pakistan he should be ready for 'retribution' - and treated as a traitor in a nation at war

There is no place for "real journalism" in Pakistan as propounded by Hamid Mir. The real rulers in Pakistan forget that journalism simply requires honest presentation of the facts as known to a reporter or as captured by a cameraman.

Here in India we need to watch that the very high reputation of Indian journalism is not sullied by enthusiastic youngsters or high-pitched emotional commentators. Get your facts and present them in a sober manner so that the people of India are helped in understanding an issue and making up their mind.

As a fellow commentator wrote recently whether India and Pakistan go to war or not, the Media of the two countries are perhaps already at war. Is this the situation that the Media of the two countries should be in? It is time that serious practitioners of the profession move in and take charge. (ANI)

(The author of this article is Chairman of ANI, was active field journalist, member of the Central Press Accreditation Committee for several years, among the founders of National Union of Journalists and President of the TV Programme Producers Guild of India) By Prem Prakash(ANI)

A German’s point of view on Islamic Fanaticism

Dr. Emanuel Tanay

(A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.)


'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'

We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectra of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.
It is the fanatics who march.
It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.
It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter people throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent.
It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor- kill.
It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.
It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

The hard quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

China 's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And, who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our posers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans,Indians, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

-- Dr. Emanuel Tanay, psychiatrist

Lessons learned about lead -- Professor Jeffrey Weidenhamer

Professor Weidenhamer, Ashland University, OH

I was privileged to be in Professor Weidenhamer's "Lead & Civilization" class. We did a number of tests on various products from the United States, Mexico, India & China, and found almost 98% of them conatined more than the permissible (600 ppm) amount of lead in them. Moreover, we learnt how over the ages pollution has kept rising, and how scientists are proving it by testing ice which has been dug from deep within ice-sheets in Antartica (amazing isn't it?). Also, we got to know how lead-based paints (banned in 1970's in the US) are still causing various illnesses in people who continue to inhabit old houses. (Behrooz K Y Avari)

Read the article (taken from a blog) below to know more about Professor Weidenhamer's crusade and how the CPSC functions --


When the Consumer Product Safety Commission recently recalled a lead-laden key-chain sold at Wal-Mart for three years, Ashland University Professor Jeffrey Weidenhamer was pleased but puzzled. Pleased that the CPSC had acted to remove the key chain from the market but puzzled that it had taken them so long to do so. After all, Weidenhamer had found high lead levels in a similar key chain when he tested it in 2006 and reported his results to the CPSC that December. What prompted the April recall was not Weidenhamer's testing but reports that a nine-month-old child who had mouthed one had elevated levels of lead in her blood.

"You shouldn't have to wait a year or 16 months to recall a product," Weidenhamer told a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Until recently, Weidenhamer’s research specialty had been chemical compounds produced by plants. Now he is more widely known for the research that he and his students at the Ohio college have done on lead in children’s toys. His findings may have resulted in at least 11 recalls by the Consumer Product Safety Commission involving more than 1.4 million individual items. That’s an impressive track record—although Weidenhamer is hesitant about touting it. As he wrote in Ashland's alumni magazine, “It is unfortunate that someone can become well known for drawing attention to lead contamination issues. It certainly would be far better for the kids if there were no story at all about lead contamination in these products.”

Weidenhamer’s fame all started with a chemistry class, Lead and Civilization, that he taught for non-majors and that focused on the chemistry and toxicity of lead. Then in the spring semester of 2006, he learned that a four-year-old Minnesota boy had died of lead poisoning after swallowing a lead-laden charm given away with a pair of shoes by Reebok International. (Earlier this year, Reebok agreed to pay a record $1 million penalty for distributing the charm bracelet).

Knowing that the analysis of metal samples for lead was not too involved, Weidenhamer thought his class would be able to conduct tests in the lab to see if similar items were on store shelves in his Ohio city. “I was not prepared for what my students found,” he said. “In the first set of 20 inexpensive jewelry items, 14 were heavily leaded, in two cases as high as 100 percent lead by weight.” CPSC guidelines for lead in children’s jewelry items sets a maximum level of 0.06 percent lead by weight.

Weidenhamer and his students have done repeated testing since the spring of 2006, including some tests of Halloween toys completed at the request of Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. Weidenhamer says he tested more than 50 different items and found lead contamination in six of them, including plastic teeth. That, he says “seemed like the worst since they were clearly designed to go into a child’s mouth.” (The teeth were recalled by the CPSC.)

This spring, Weidenhamer found lead in several Easter products, two of which were recalled by the CPSC the Friday before Easter. “It is a surprise that after all the publicity about toy recalls of last year ... you can still find items on the shelves with lead in them.” He said he will continue to test products. “Hopefully by Halloween this year, we won’t be finding lead in paint in these products,” he said. “It shouldn’t be remotely possible for me or anyone to go out to American stores and pull products from shelves, test them and find levels of lead in them.”

Let's hope he's right but as long as it is possible, we are thankful for Weidenhamer’s efforts. And for that, he becomes one of our safety crusaders.

CPSC recalls related to complaints filed by Weidenhamer

• 86,400 children's "Ultra Gear" bracelets (DM Merchandising) Feb. 7, 2007
• 115,000 "Claudia Jublot" children's rings (Big Lots) Feb. 23, 2007
• 396,000 metal key chains (Dollar General) April 3, 2007
• 63,000 Frankenstein tumblers (Dollar General) Oct. 4, 2007
• 55,000 Halloween skull pails (Albert’s) Oct. 17, 2007
• 142,000 purple Halloween pails with witch decorations (Family Dollar Store) Oct. 25, 2007
• 43,000 “Ugly teeth” party favors (Amscan Inc.) Oct. 31, 2007
• 10,000 Halloween-themed baskets (Hobby Lobby) Nov. 16, 2007
• 205,000 pieces assorted Rachel Rose jewelry (Family Dollar Store) Nov. 21, 2007
• 13,000 camouflage eggs and spinning egg top toys (Hobby Lobby) Mar. 21, 2008
• 310,000 seasonal writing pads (Michaels Stores)

Babylon's history swept away in US army sandbags

(Ishtar Gate)

Fragments of bricks, engraved with cuneiform characters thousands of years old, lie mixed with the rubble and sandbags left by the US military on the ancient site of Babylon in Iraq.

In this place, one of the cradles of civilisation, US troops in 2003-2004 built embankments, dug ditches and spread gravel to hold the fuel reservoirs needed to supply the heliport of Camp Alpha.

Today, archaeologists say a year of terracing work and 18 months of military presence, with tanks and helicopters, have caused irreparable damage. The Americans remained five months in Babylon and then handed over to the Poles who pulled out 16 months later.


Hands on hips, and wearing a seemingly permanent air of dismay, Maithem Hamza, director of the -- totally empty -- museum on the site, points to the soil: "Look at this land, it is packed with remnants. They filled their bags with them."

He pushes with his foot a fragment of raw brick, with cuneiform inscriptions plainly visible. To one side of it, on soil filthy with fuel oil, lies the broken door of a Hummer, the US army's light vehicle.

Undoubtedly the palace built on the site and on an artificial hill in 1993 by then-president Saddam Hussein drew the US military to Babylon during its invasion in March 2003.

The palace, like elsewhere in Iraq, was requisitioned as a military headquarters.

On one wall, near the door of the monumental entrance, a black stencil proclaims: "Building No.1". Further on, adorning a warehouse wall, graffiti reads: "Miss you, Smoothy!."

From April 2003 to June 2004, huge gravelled avenues were gouged out around the ruins of the palaces of Nebuchadnezzer in order to set up prefabricated buildings which became home to up to 2,000 troops.

The heliport is only some 300 metres (yards) from the remains of the north palace, and according to Maithem Hamza, vibration from the aircraft caused the base of the temple of Ninmah -- rebuilt by Saddam in the 1980s -- to collapse.

In a report published in 2005, experts from the British Museum confirmed that damage visible on nine of the dragon casts on the temple's Door of Ishtar, and those on the cobbles of the processional way, were due to vibration caused by the passage of heavy machinery.

"That which is broken is broken... We will try to repair what we can," said Maryam Omran Mussa, director of the site, speaking in her office near the entrance to the site which has been closed to the public since 2003.

"Many of the relics were buried near the surface. Vibration from tanks and lorries caused irreversible damage, that's for real... From the start, we told the Americans (their actions) were a mistake. I wrote letters...

"They finally understood, and left, but it took time."

British Museum curator John Curtis was one of the first to sound the alarm over the ancient site.

"They understood when photographs started to be published on the World Wide Web, particularly aerial photographs showing the extent of the military camp there," he said.

"It's only because of that that the military authorities of the coalition started to be very nervous and decided that they had to leave."

In the face of the protests, terracing and building work was interrupted in June 2004, six months before the troops left.

In its defence, the US military argued that if its presence there certainly had caused damage, it had also protected the site from looters who were running riot during the first weeks of the occupation.

Questioned in 2006 in a programme on the BBC, Marine Colonel John Coleman accepted the principle of an apology to the director of the Iraqi antiquities department.

"If it makes him feel good, I can certainly give him one," he said.

But he added: "Is there a price for the presence? Sure. I'll just say that the price had the presence not been there would have been far greater."

For Curtis, however, the price of the military presence was extremely high.

"A lot of the damage done is permanent. For example digging these long trenches: 170 metres long and more than two metres deep, this is not reversible, this is permanent damage that will last forever."

Another problem arrived in the earth brought from outside the site to fill sandbags. "It contaminates the record of Babylon for the next generations of archeologists," said Curtis.

"Moving the gravel can be done, but it's a very long and very expensive job. And in the process, more damage would be done."

Despite the damage to such an historic site, Curtis accepted that the US military believed that "building a base there wouldn't actually cause any damage."

He commented: "I don't think it's malicious: it comes from ignorance and stupidity, definitely."

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