Is there something about this time of year that makes stories featuring children more poignant? Or is it just that as we get closer to the holidays, we naturally hear more about the plight of children who have to make do with less in a can’t-get-enough world?

I have to confess that this has been something that has puzzled me for years. The first seasonal column I wrote for my high school newspaper, The Prophet (we were nothing if not overconfident), contrasted the disparity between stories of desperate children wedged between the flash and glam ads for Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue in the pages of The New York Times. It has been a theme of mine since. (more…)

So, at first I was going to give you some more inside scoop on what’s happening over here at KIRO, and how someone stole a bunch of my books from my desk (news scavengers)….but then we had an amazing guest on the show today, and I was touched so I have to tell you about that first…

Today we talked with Cole Miller on the Dave Ross Show today during our 11:00am hour. (You can hear that interview on our pod cast page). If you’ve read the other blogs I’ve posted you know that I am often humbled (and quite honestly jealous and guilt ridden) by the selfless acts of others (you can read a little about that on my Rachel Corrie blog). (more…)

At the time of this writing, 2,157 Americans have died since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The number of Iraqis dead and injured, though undoubtedly much higher, is unknown. In fact, although President Bush recently offered an estimate of 30,000, both U.S. and Iraqi authorities have gone to considerable lengths to keep the precise number a mystery. In December of 2004, the Iraqi Health Ministry announced that it would no longer keep a tally of civilian deaths or injuries.

Iraq Body Count, a London-based organization that bases its count on confirmed online media and eyewitness accounts, estimates between 27,500 and 31,000 dead, “resulting directly from military action by the USA and its allies.” The IBC also acknowledges, however, that its count is by definition low, since only confirmed and reported casualties are included. Although IBC doesn’t have the resources to know for certain, the organization gave an estimate of 42,000 wounded in a report issued last summer. Late last year, British medical journal The Lancet published a study broadly estimating 100,000 excess Iraqi deaths since the war began in 2003, most of those attributable to the U.S. air war. (See “The Iraqi Toll,” p.29.) About one in 10 casualties is a child under the age of 18.

“We’re very sheltered over here from the real consequences of what’s going on,” says Austin-based documentary photographer Alan Pogue, who has traveled to Iraq several times, before and after the invasion. Pogue is co-founder, along with L.A.-based freelance writer Cole Miller, of No More Victims, a nonprofit project which aims, quite literally, to bring the consequences of the war home. Since March 2003, Pogue and Miller have brought three Iraqi children harmed by U.S. military activity back to the United States for medical care. They hope soon to be bringing more. “The American public is odd,” Pogue says. “They seem to lack the imagination to know that you can’t indiscriminately bomb civilian areas without hurting civilians. I would like people to be confronted with the consequences of what’s going on.” (more…)