What Caught My Eye Today

Political Appointments - Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested today after prosecutors said he was caught on wiretaps audaciously scheming to sell Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat for cash or a plum job for himself in the new administration. Oh come on. No one could be that stupid. "I've got this thing and it's (expletive) golden," the 51-year-old Democrat said of his authority to appoint Obama's replacement, "and I'm just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing. I'm not gonna do it." Or maybe they can. One should never underestimate the seduction of power make someone do things beyond imbecilic. The FBI said in court papers that the governor was overheard conspiring to sell the Senate seat for campaign cash or lucrative jobs for himself or his wife. He spoke of using the Senate appointment to land a job with a nonprofit foundation or a union-affiliated group, and even held out hope of getting appointed as Obama's secretary of health and human services or an ambassador. Scratch that. This guy isn't stupid...he's complete leave of his senses. Just out of curiosity, Governor, why settle for secretary of health and human services? I hear that Secretary of Fantasyland is still up for grabs.

Greece - Masked youths and looters marauded through Greek cities for a fourth night in an explosion of rage triggered by the police shooting of a teenager that has unleashed the most violent riots in a quarter century. These poor Greeks just cannot catch a break. Last year, the country was literally going up in flames when hundreds of fires were deliberately set. The nightly scenes of burning street barricades, looted stores and overturned cars have threatened to topple the country's increasingly unpopular conservative government, which faces mounting calls for Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis to resign. Well, heck, it worked in Thailand, why not try the same thing here? The government is already facing public discontent over the state of the economy, the poor job prospects of students and a series of financial scandals that have badly rattled public confidence. Greece is heavily dependent on tourism, which could decline as a result of the global economic crisis. Yeah, that also happened in Thailand. Thailand's economic outlook was life support before the political turmoil; now it's flatlined. Of course, Greece does have those righteous beaches and smokin' hot co-eds, some maybe tourism will survive this mess the same way it did after the wildfires of last year.

Cancer - Cancer will overtake heart disease as the world's top killer by 2010, part of a trend that should more than double global cancer cases and deaths by 2030. Rising tobacco use in developing countries is believed to be a huge reason for the shift, particularly in China and India, where 40% of the world's smokers now live. Well, that does make sense. After all, 40% of the world's population do live in China and India. An annual rise of 1 percent in cases and deaths is expected — with even larger increases in China, Russia and India. That means new cancer cases will likely mushroom to 27 million annually by 2030, with deaths hitting 17 million. By 2030, there could be 75 million people living with cancer around the world, a number that many health care systems are not equipped to handle. That also doesn't come as much of a surprise. Health care systems are already overwhelmed by the number of cancer cases that exist today. I'm thinking that adding fuel to a raging inferno isn't likely to help the situation.

Russia - In a somber service that echoed with ancient chants, Russia paid final tribute Tuesday to Patriarch Alexy II, who rebuilt the dominant Orthodox Church after 70 years of Communist repression but was sometimes criticized for forging close ties to the Kremlin. Chosen as patriarch in 1990, a year before the Soviet breakup, Alexy turned his church into the world's largest and richest Orthodox denomination — a remarkably successful effort to revive the enormous power the institution wielded before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Alexy also renewed the church's historically close ties with the Kremlin, earning the church considerable financial support as well as privileges beyond those granted Russia's other officially recognized faiths. Since when has the separation of church and state, religion and politics not had a fair measure of gray area within which both found ways to influence the other? I'm sure that while the Kremlin got its back scratched, Alexy didn't exactly come out of the arrangement any worse off. Under Alexy, the church claimed about two-thirds of Russia's 142 million people as members of its flock and also controlled Orthodox churches in Ukraine and other ex-Soviet republics. The number of monasteries increased from 18 in 1988 to more than 700 today, and the number of churches reaches nearly 30,000. See what I mean? Liberals and leaders of other faiths expressed concern that the Orthodox Church sought too much influence over secular life and was too close to the state. Some criticized the Church's growing number of commercial ventures. Alexy's death left unresolved disputes with the Roman Catholic Church, reflecting both age-old and recent tensions between Russia and the West. I'm not so sure that things would have been much improved had Alexy remained in good health. Seriously, it's not like Pope Benedict XVI is known for his willingness to acknowledge that other faiths may be just as good as Catholicism.

Zimbabwe - As if things were bad enough for these poor slobs. Up to 60,000 people in Zimbabwe could be infected with cholera if the epidemic worsens, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today. This is based on Zimbabwe having a population of 12 million. Half of the population could be at risk and of that half, there is a one percent cholera attack rate. One percent doesn't sound so bad, until you see that translates to 60,000 deaths. The cholera outbreak is part of a larger humanitarian crisis and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe, in which half the population is in dire need of food and water. The crisis has sparked outrage in the international community, and leaders have blamed President Robert Mugabe for the problem. Mugabe is blamed for the economic collapse of the country, where the official rate of inflation is 231 million percent and the highest in the world. 231 million percent--how do you manage that? Heck, the U.S. Federal Reserve starts flipping out whenever our inflation rate nudges up around 3 or 4%. 231 million percent would likely make the Fed spontaneously combust.