read it and weep

New York based Judith Karpova risks losing everything she has, or going to jail for a long time. Her crime? She went to Iraq in February 2003 as a Human Shield. She was prepared to risk her life to attempt to avert an illegal war, invasion and illegal occupation.

'The charges (are) that I violated the travel ban against Iraq,' states Ms Karpova: 'No hearing was ever held. The strangest part of the decision involves the fact that the Director of OFAC changed between 2004 and 2005. Most oddly, the court resolves the issue of whether OFAC violated impartiality, by both bringing the charges and finding me guilty.'

The charge was not alone violation of the travel ban, but boosting the Iraqi economy. It is shocking to read of the plight of Ms Karpova at the hands of the U.S. 'Justice' system. I was in Iraq and Baghdad at the same time as the Human Shields. Did they break the US/UK driven UN embargo (which was to force Saddam to give up the weapons of mass destruction they knew he did not have) did they aid Iraq financially?

Well, if you call going to the local soukh to buy local produce, aiding Iraq, yes. If you call giving a few Dinars to children as young as five, forced out of school to sell cigarettes, clean shoes, as a result of the embargo (in a country which valued education above all and with Palestine had the highest PhD's per capita on earth) yes, they put a little extra food on a family table, a miniscule amount more money circulated in the soukh, in a country where many families often ate in rota - courtesy USA and Britain.

When they visited the hospitals and held grief stricken parents, watching their children die, for want of often the simplest medications, vetoed by the US and UK and gave them another few Dinars to try and find that life saver, on the black market, did they re-charge the Iraqi economy? With the equivalent of usually about $5? No they re-charged, a small life, if they were in time. Don't forget, all Iraq's bank accounts were frozen, state and private.

Did they aid Iraq by the few dollars a night, they paid the family owned hotels, they stayed at near Firdos Square, where Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled? If you count giving a small living to a family, who had somehow kept the hotels going, from love and pride, through the thirteen grinding embargo years, in an outward looking country, which welcomed visitors with open arms, who now barely ever came, yes. And they gave them their pride back.

Did they aid Iraq by buying the occasional meal in the small hotel restaraunts? Yes, as above and they gave the Chef his pride back. Inventive meals were produced again, when even hotels could afford only most basic ingredients. Imagination was challenged and wonders were produced from little, in gratitude also to those who came in solidarity, in a country where 'embargo related causes' (U.N.) were estimated to have killed one and a half million people (majority the under fives, the sick and the elderly) in thirteen years.

Did they aid Iraq by their presence? Yes. The people, the children (broadly, half the population is under fifteen) had known nothing but thirteen years of deprivation (Iraq imported seventy percent of almost everything prior to the embargo) and thirteen years of illegal US and UK bombings. Iraq's children were diagnosed by child psychiatrists from the West as 'the most traumatised child population on earth', as a result. These children who had known nothing but fear and deprivation from the West, suddenly learned, either first hand, or from the media, that not all westerners were George W. Bush and Tony Blair, but there were those who were prepared to risk their lives, with them, as they waited again for the bombs to fall. They learned of the 'greater love that no man (or woman) has' than to be prepared to suffer, even die, for another.

Lastly, Ms Karpova and those who travelled to Iraq, acted explicitly in the true spirit of that which the United Nations was meant to stand, declared in San Francisco on the 26th June 1945, betrayed by the U.S. and U.K. from Hiroshima Day 1990 (the date of the imposition of the embargo) to now (there was no U.N, mandate for the invasion of Iraq):

'We the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save successive generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind - and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small - and to establish conditions under which justice and respect arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.'

Further: 'And to these ends, to practice tolerance and live together as good neighbors and unite our strength to maintain international peace and security and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used .....' And to: ' ... take effective, collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to peace and to bring about by peaceful means ... justice and international law, adjustment or settlement or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace'.

Ms Karpova and those prepared to risk so much in travelling to Iraq on the eve of war, uniquely embody the wondrous aspiration of the San Francisco declaration, so shamefully trashed, broken and ignored by Washington and Whitehall. It is the architects of the Iraq disaster in the latter who should be in Court. Ms Karpova and those prepared to stand for right in a far away place, should be honored by their countries, the United Nations and be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Barrington High School football team took another step in the right direction as the Eagles prepare for the upcoming Division One season with a thorough, 21-0 victory over Tolman, Sept. 8, in a non-league contest in town at Victory Field.

The game was originally scheduled for Friday night, but the recent discovery of EEE-infected mosquitoes in the area forced the game, and subsequent night contests for all BHS fall teams, to be moved to daylight hours.

"Our kids are getting better every week. They work really hard in practice. We got on this team early. We had a great game, a great gameplan," said Barrington head coach Bill McCagney, in his 18th season at the helm of the Eagles.

Mike Read made an impressive 48-minute debut for Barrington as the sophomore scored all three of the Eagles' touchdowns and rushed for 137 yards on 19 carries.

Read, who led the BHS freshmen to the state title last fall, scored on a 63-yard screen pass from quarterback R.J. Shea early in the second quarter then added a three-yard burst midway through the period and capped his afternoon with a nifty 24-yard jaunt with six minutes remaining in the contest. The latter was impressive due to Read's breaking of about three arm-tackle attempts by Tiger defenders.

"(Read's) a good player. He's tough. He's just a sophomore," said McCagney. "We've got about four or five sophomore starting both ways, and they get better fast. There's an army of sophomores. Right now, they're down in the depths and the trenches of the depth chart, but they're starting to rise up and push the upperclassmen. They can play. They're not big kids, but they're tough as nails."

Last season, a physical Division Two Tolman toppled Barrington in the teams' non-league season opener in Pawtucket, 28-13, knocking out a couple of key players and sending the locals into a tailspin from which they would never recover.

This time around, however, the Eagles made sure from the outset the result would be different.

Barrington's defense smothered the Tigers' talented skill position players ― quarterbacks Jordan Johnson and David Bedard and running backs Justin Ferrante and Jay LaRose ― all afternoon, not allowing the speedy Tolman ballcarriers to get around the edge. Junior linebacker Stephen Goniprow and senior linebacker Luke Skrobish were among the more noteworthy Barrington defenders.

"We were just emotionally up," said McCagney. "We wanted to avenge last year's debacle. They ended our season last year, really. We didn't make a big deal out of it because we think Tolman is a class act, their coach (former BHS standout Dave Caito) is a class act, but we wanted to avenge last year.

While the Barrington defenders stymied the Tigers, the Eagles offense took flight with Read leading the way. He corralled Shea's middle screen pass, set up the blocks in front of him then burst into the clear to the endzone. The first of Ben Towne's three kicks for point made 7-0 Barrington with just a minute and three seconds gone by in the second period.

The Eagles defense followed with a forced punt after just five Tolman offensive plays in the latter's ensuing series, eventually giving the Barrington offense the ball back at the 50. Read did most of the rest carrying five times, including runs of 18 and 22 yards, to set up his short tumble to touch with 5:18 showing on the clock.

The Tigers showed fight out of intermission, twice forging the ball deep into Barrington territory in the third, though both times being rebuffed by the Eagles ― the first at 14-yard-line and the second at the 19.

In the fourth, Barrington's special teams added to mix with a blocked punt from Alex Graves. Al Farina recovered at the Tolman 24 and three plays later Read was brushing off would Tiger tacklers en route to his 24-yard score.

Although the win was well in hand, the Eagles' defense likely offered up its most impressive stop right after Read's third score. Bedard raced 66 yards on Tolman's first play from scrimmage following the Barrington kickoff, stepping out of bounds at the seven. An Eagle penalty on first down put the ball just outside the three. From there, Barrington stiffened, nearly forcing a fumble, stopping Ferrante for a two-yard loss and LaRose for a five-yard setback before Johnson's deparation fourth-down heave fell incomplete.

"Our guys rose up and played a great emotional football game. We shut them down. We played great defense," said McCagney.

The Eagles get another chance to cut their teeth on a non-league opponent next weekend when they travel to Providence for a Saturday afternoon date against D-Two Moses Brown, Sept. 15. Barrington then hosts state title contender Bishop Hendricken, Sept. 22, in its D-One league opener.

"Build them up, one game at a time. Next week's Moses Brown. That's all we're thinking about," said McCagney. "I'm very happy with what I see right now. We just have to keep getting better."

By Mike Rego

Joanne Coombs, who was found dead yesterday at the same stretch of railway that her daughter Natasha died, wrote a moving poem just days before she took her own life.
Here is the poem in full:

The house without you seems empty and bare,

The smell of your fragrance no longer fills the air.

Your face, your smile the touch of your skin,

The forthcoming plans you'd aimed to begin.

The years of your life were not in vain,

As your time with us precious memories will always remain.

We know our hearts will never mend,

We'll ache and weep until our lives end. Here at Vulture, we've spoken to our fair share of famous people, but that doesn't mean we don't still get nervous sometimes. Last night at Soho's Violet Ray Gallery, at the release party for Joni Mitchell's first album in ten years, Shine (out via Starbucks' Hear Music), we'll admit we were a little anxious before our interview with the legend herself. Luckily Rosie O'Donnell was on hand to calm us down. "It's hard not to be starstruck by the breadth and scope of her work," Rosie told us. "She can articulate feelings you didn't even know you had in six or seven words that can make you weep. She's really the best artist around." True that! A few minutes later, a kindly publicist ushered us into a back room where Mitchell sat chain-smoking and quaffing bottled water.

When you were a teen, did you have a Joni Mitchell, an artist who…
That touched me? No. Chuck Berry, but he just made me happy. Music wasn't that touching back then ― it was happy music.

Not Patsy Cline or Edith Piaf?
Edith Piaf knocked my socks off when I was 8, but I didn't know what she was singing about.

So where have you been these past ten years? We haven't heard much from you.
I was angry at the politics.

At Bush?
Especially. Angry at the American people. At Christians. At theology ― the ignorance of it. And I didn't want to write about it. I removed myself from society and painted. It was a method of avoiding the anger, not addressing it.

And with the album…
I confronted a lot of it and worked it out to a point. I read the Koran, I started Genesis, Augustine, did a lot of theological research.

Are you religious?
I'm a Buddhist. It's not theological. You have to work on yourself ― you don't have a savior. It's self-study. The God of the Old Testament is the depiction of evil. Original Gnostic Christianity is very compatible with Buddhism, very smart.

Is there anybody else's music you're really enjoying right now?
No. [Laughs.] I couldn't listen to music for ten years, I hated it all. It all pissed me off.

One artist in particular?
No. Music just became grotesquely egocentric and made for money. It wasn't music ― there was no muse. Music requires a muse. The producer is not a muse. He's a manufacturer. Contemporary music made me want to punch people. I couldn't stand any of it. The whoring, the drive-by shooting of it all. I don't care how well crafted it is. America is in a runaway-train position and dragging all the world with it. It's grotesquely mentally ill.

Switching gears, do you get recognized on the street much?
I can't believe how often people recognize me. They're cool; they're really nice about it.

What's the right way to approach a famous person?
I don't think there is such a thing. Sometimes I have to hug people if they get emotional. I've had amazing experiences. A young mother with a baby came up to me, and she was very emotional. She was trying to express gratitude, I guess, but she couldn't articulate it. I'm always curious ― like, what song? But she didn't get a chance because her mother came out of the drugstore and sees her daughter kind of emotional. And mother says, "For God's sake, get yourself together." Girl looked like she was going to cry, so I grabbed her hand and said, "No, she's entirely appropriate, the music has been very moving to her." And then the mother, who was hard as nails, started to quiver. So I had to jump up and hug them both. It was beautiful.