AlterNet: Drug War Corruption in Colombia and Mexico
US anti-drug money is being squandered in Mexico and Columbia - and stolen there, too, by supposed "anti-narcotics police."

i like AlterNet.org, because it assures me that i am not insane. the world is, the president may be, but i am not. that old self-referral ... gets lost, or is in danger of getting lost, if i cannot touch base with people of like minds or hop over to AlterNet.org. Obviously the mainstream media is being directed like a play by the powers that be.

Vive la alternative media

i love this picture of bekah and her brother andy, and i'll never forget that day. the same day i took this picture, i brushed bekah's never-cut hair til it shone all the way to her waist and took a picture of it from the back. good thing, since within days it would be cut off after their day care informed me that andy had head lice.

I had dealt with it before, with John, even Bekah and I had it when she was a baby. grrrrrrrrrrrrr. When i was told that andy had it, i went straight to get Bekah and when i said "Andy has head lice," she barely took a breath before admitting, "I think I do, too."

Oh why oh why hadn't she told me her head was itching unbearably?! The infestation revealed when we got home was so extensive she must have been miserable; but not a word of complaint until it was identified by her brother's caregiver. [this was typical of Bekah: when she was 4 she had repeated ear infections, but never complained, never ran a fever...instead she went deaf. It was only at the specialist's office while arranging to have tubes put in her ears that we learned of the presence of infection]

I put Bekah in the shower and lice were falling out of her hair. There was simply no way to save it. I treated her, washed her hair, combed through as well as i could in the waning hours of the evening, swallowed, and took Bekah to a
Fantastic Sam's for her first haircut.

Okay i'm ashamed to admit this. But i was afraid if i told them Bekah had a hellacious case of head lice they would refuse to cut her hair. The person cutting her hair did not identify them - not immediately, any way. She could tell it was Bekah's first haircut and generously offered to save some of Bekah's hair for me as a memento. I declined, with thanks.

By and by, she said, "Mom? can you come here?" and discreetly notified me that my daughter had head lice. I admitted that i knew already and hadn't been forthright because i was afraid they would not cut her hair, and was assured that they prefer to be told so that the proper procedures can be followed.

I never had head lice once growing up, but in manhattan beach, my children were subject to it repeatedly. what an exhausting bitch of a scourge...anyhow. that's how bekah ended up with short hair at the age of 7 when her silly mother thought she'd just let it grow until the girl was 18 and old enough to make up her own mind about how long she wanted it....
- posted by barbara @ 11/06/2002 02:28:00 AM