What Caught My Eye Today

Somalia - I don't want to throw you for a loop or anything, but this is actually good news. Polio has been officially wiped out in Somalia. Though torn by war and ravaged by poverty, the African nation has been polio-free for the last year, due in large part to a massive inoculation program administered by the World Health Organization. More than 10,000 volunteers helped vaccinated the population include a Somalian who, more than 30 years ago, was the last person in the world known to contract smallpox. I think it is important to celebrate accomplishments like this. In spite of all the anguish and suffering that this region of the world has had to endure, hope and the human spirit somehow manage to achieve great things.

Religion - The Vatican recently announced that Catholicism is no longer the world's largest religion. It said that Catholics accounted for 17.4% of the world population while Muslims were at 19.2%. By way of offering a possible explanation for this a Vatican spokesman said, "It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer." The figures on Muslims were put together by Muslim countries and then provided to the United Nations. The Vatican could only vouch for its own data. When considering all Christians and not just Catholics, Christians make up 33% of the world population. You would think that given the fact that Catholics advocate abstinence (or as I like to say, sheer dumb luck) as the only acceptable form of birth control, that the Catholic population would be bursting all over the place. Unless, and I hesitate to even suggest such a heretical thought, Catholics aren't actually relying solely on abstinence. I know, I know. Heaven forbid such a thought even enter my mind.

China - It would appear that Tibet is not the only region that China is accused of ruling with an iron fist. Far less attention is paid to the oppressed people who live just north of Tibet, in China's enormous Xinjiang province. They are the Uyghurs, a Muslim people who speak a Turkic language and are ethnically distinct from the Han Chinese. Twice in the last century, the Uyghurs had their own state, which they called East Turkestan. When the Communists took over China in 1949, Xinjiang was occupied and reabsorbed where it was used for nuclear testing up until the 1990s Not exactly the first method I would employ to get the native population to warm up to me, but then again, I'm not part of the Chinese government, so what do I know. Since then, China has snent millions of Han Chinese to settle there to overwhelm the native population--the same strategy it used in Tibet. Of course they did, seeing as they had so much success in Tibet. Why not try the same thing again. Uyghurs don't generate the sympathy that Tibetans do, in part because some radical Uyghurs responded to the Chinese influx by forming a militant separatist group. After September 11, the United States designated the group as terrorists and support for the Uyghur cause became a political non-starter. Hmm. a militant separatist group formed to fight back against an oppressive country trying to impose its will on the local population. Why does that sound so familiar? Gimme a second, it'll come to me...Oh that's right, we did the same thing in the United States about 240 years ago when the American colonies took up arms against the British, only we called ourselves something other than 'terrorists.' I believed the term we used was 'patriots.'

Potpourri - Here's a rather odd collection of items related to health care that I stumbled upon this past week that can best be described as 'so bizarre, they must be true.'

Pregnancy (Part I) - New mothers new expect an expensive "push present" from there husbands as compensation for the agony of childbirth. Inspired by lavish postpartum gifst of jewelry from celebrity dads like Ben Affleck and Pierce Brosnan, 55% of women say the deserve similar rewards from their husbands and the nation's high end retailers are scrambling to cash in on the trend. I'm speaking strictly for myself here, but if I have the choice between buying some bling and going through 18 hours of child labor, I'm going with the bling.

Pregnancy (Part II) - An Oregon man who used to be a woman revealed that he is pregnant. The man went through the early stages of a sex change but kept his female reproductive organs. When his wife found out she was infertile, he stopped taking male hormones and got pregnant. He is now 22 weeks along. Uh, yeah. Dude, I don't even know where to begin on this one. Perhaps I'll just wait for the Dateline NBC special to sort out all the details.

Medical Miracles - An Oklahoman man was declared brain-dead after an accident, but then began moving his foot and hand as doctors prepared to harvest his organs. He slowly regained consciousness and was sent home to continue his recovery. Tell me something--how is it that a misdiagnosis of this magnitude is possible? Don't medical professionals have a whole array of technological gizmos and gadgets to make sure things like this don't happen. One wonder when the doctors made this little discovery--before or after they cut open his chest?

College Basketball - History was made this weekend at the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. For the first time in the history of the tournament, the #1 seeds from all four regions made it to the Final Four. Which basically means that now instead of my brackets of just sucking, they've been completed annihilated.