Our roommate spent the last seven years in Africa working with MSF (Doctors Without Borders). I recently helped her scan in photos for a presentation she made at school about violent cures for violence. Many of the photos were of the countless victims of the war, young boys and girls with missing limbs. They were asked, our roommate told us, whether they'd like "short sleeves" or "long sleeves" by the "sobels." Soldiers and rebels, both the same, they told her, and therefore called "sobels."

The Ultimate Explorer show gives a description of the war, the diamond mining that funded the war (the "blood diamonds" traded by Taylor and others to European and American diamond dealers for money to purchase guns), and the triumphant removal of Charles Taylor from power.

Just now, a Halliburton commercial aired. They presented themselves as a humanitarian organization, giving clothing and food to our troops and others. I guess they decided to skip the part about exploiting the natural resources of poor countries, the hiring of mercenaries to protect those resources, and all of the politicking they do (including doing business with tyrants) to fatten up their pockets. Watching television is nothing but surreal.

Oswald's house on Magazine Street. He and his wife and child lived on the right side of this double shotgun for five months in 1962. I imagine the place looks no different than it did 40 years ago -- perhaps a cosmetic change or two, the trim painted in blue. It is as nondescript as other double shotguns in the city.

The lizard full-size. 600% growth in less than 72 hours. It's already begun to shrunk, as the water evaporates. S thinks it's made of some kind of live polymer. I'm trying to convince him to write a bit about it when he gets a chance (he has a funny story from a class he taught in chemistry graduate school); he's busy writing a paper on the sacred landscape of a small village in Oaxaca. Perhaps he will write a thing or two about that too.

The lizard straight out of the package. We used a quarter to give a sense of the size.

It's instructive, I think, to read about Anna Mae Pictou Aquash during these times, to see what an out of control FBI is capable of. Even if the FBI was not directly responsible for her murder (the men arrested this year were both AIM members), they were responsible for others and indirectly responsible for hers. By creating an environment of distrust and intrigue they set AIM members against each other, all in their efforts to limit dissent and protect the mining companies' interests on reservation lands. Countelpro, the FBI's American CIA project, was dismantled in the 70s only to be reinstated with a new name last year as part of Homeland Security. Ashcroft, our nutcase Attorney General, is no different from J. Edgar Hoover (though I don't know for sure he wears tutus on his nights off). He has his political enemies and they are all on the Countelpro list. Funny how that works.

If you'd like to learn more about Anna Mae, a good place to start is The Spirit of Annie Mae, a documentary about her short life produced by the National Film Board of Canada. It's a personal piece that follows Anna Mae's two daughters on their search for their mother's history. They were young when she died, and her death came after a somewhat lengthy separation from them -- she had been on the lam for a number of months, all the while being followed by the FBI. The film shows her as a warrior and activist with human flaws. It's quite moving.

I've heard people say they don't care if some of their rights are taken away if it makes them "safe" (which means "feel safe," really). I ask myself, safe from whom? And who is "safe" when the rights of some are sacrificed for the perceived safety of others? Anna Mae speaks to us in times like these. It's interesting, I think, that the trial for her murder is happening right now, in this time of bellicose nationalism when our government is being run by the corporate political right. She's telling us, I think, to hear her story and learn from it.