After the Triumph, the Tribulations

KAREN TUMULTY

Actually running Congress may make winning it look like the easy part.

Herding cats. Pushing a string. Making yourself heard in a preschool where no one has had a nap. The analogies that have been used to describe what it's like to be in charge of Congress have always suggested that the titles Speaker of the House and Senate majority leader were someone's idea of a joke. But now that the high fives and jubilant photo ops are behind them, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have to run the place. Whether anything is actually accomplished on Capitol Hill over the next two years will depend largely on the skills these two leaders develop in maneuvering through the tricky challenges ahead.

Pelosi is known for her steel; no one crosses her without paying a price for it. And she will need every bit of that toughness to manage a caucus that promises to grow more fractious. Much has been made of the relatively conservative bent of the incoming freshman class of House Democrats, many of whom were recruited to run because they fit so well in districts that have been sending Republicans to Washington for years. Once they arrive, however, they will be working under a set of committee chairs who proudly and tenaciously represent the farthest-left edges of their party--and who have been chafing under the past dozen years of G.O.P. rule. Most of the rest of the Democratic caucus also tilts to the left and is just as anxious to reassert itself.

Filling the exceedingly sensitive post of House Intelligence Committee chairman will be a good test of how Pelosi works. Her fellow Californian Jane Harman, its ranking member, wants the job, but Pelosi doesn't particularly like Harman, so speculation is that Pelosi could go to the next in line, Florida's Alcee Hastings. That would please the black caucus, but there's no small political problem in the fact that in 1989 Hastings was impeached by the (Democratic) House and removed by the (Democratic) Senate from his federal judgeship for conspiring to take a $150,000 bribe (although he had been acquitted in court). Pelosi must also deal with a potentially bitter and ideological race for the majority leader's job, which is the No. 2 post in the Democratic leadership.

For all the internal intrigue, Pelosi's job at least gives her a tight command of the House floor and requires her to pull together only a simple majority to get things done. Reid must surely envy that. It takes the support of 60 Senators--enough to get past a filibuster--to get anything controversial passed in the Senate; he's nine short of that. And while the majority leader has power over the schedule, the Senate's arcane rules give any individual Senator the power to bollix up the works.

A person to watch will be incoming minority leader Mitch McConnell, one of the Senate's canniest operators. After wrangling with McConnell for years over campaign-finance reform, Senator John McCain declared, "There are few things more daunting in politics than the determined opposition of Senator McConnell." President Bush does not want to spend his last two years in office vetoing one Democratic measure after another. So McConnell will play a position much like the goalie in a hockey game, blocking legislation from ever reaching Bush's desk.

And finally there is the reality that the 2008 presidential campaign will be under way, and Reid oversees a chamber that is brimming with potential contenders of both parties. Primary politics in both parties rewards grandstanding and ideological purity, not compromise and teamwork. That's hardly a formula for compromise-- or for getting much of anything done.

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Gulf War - Searching For a Strategy?

The departure of Donald Rumsfeld heralds the return of some old Bush family friends. Here's how they plan to get the U.S. out of Iraq.

In the heady days after the first Gulf War, Robert Gates liked to tell a story about his boss, George Herbert Walker Bush. As Bush 41 was preparing to invade Kuwait in 1990 and free that nation from the clutches of Saddam Hussein, Pentagon generals came up with what they thought was a clever scheme that might prevent the President from going to war. Gates was in the Oval Office when the generals brought in maps, charts and pointers and told Bush that Kuwait could be liberated only if he was willing to spend six months deploying half a million troops halfway round the globe. The reluctant generals were betting, Gates explained, that no U.S. President would agree to such a crazy and expensive adventure. But what made Gates smile when he told the story was the cool and determined way Bush responded to the uniforms' rush job. "Sounds right," said the old Navy pilot. "Do it." The generals left the Oval Office looking pale and drawn. And the biggest and most successful U.S. military operation since World War II got under way.

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Gulf War - Searching For a Strategy?

MICHAEL DUFFY

The departure of Donald Rumsfeld heralds the return of some old Bush family friends. Here's how they plan to get the U.S. out of Iraq.

In the heady days after the first Gulf War, Robert Gates liked to tell a story about his boss, George Herbert Walker Bush. As Bush 41 was preparing to invade Kuwait in 1990 and free that nation from the clutches of Saddam Hussein, Pentagon generals came up with what they thought was a clever scheme that might prevent the President from going to war. Gates was in the Oval Office when the generals brought in maps, charts and pointers and told Bush that Kuwait could be liberated only if he was willing to spend six months deploying half a million troops halfway round the globe. The reluctant generals were betting, Gates explained, that no U.S. President would agree to such a crazy and expensive adventure. But what made Gates smile when he told the story was the cool and determined way Bush responded to the uniforms' rush job. "Sounds right," said the old Navy pilot. "Do it." The generals left the Oval Office looking pale and drawn. And the biggest and most successful U.S. military operation since World War II got under way.

Soon it will be Gates' job to go into the Oval Office with his own set of pointers, maps and charts, and run a very different briefing for a very different member of the Bush family about a very different conflict in Iraq. This time, Gates will be advising George W. Bush on how to get out of--not into--a war, even though the President still believes, in the face of a humbling electoral repudiation and a U.S. death toll approaching 3,000, that the invasion of Iraq was wise, worthy and well planned. Gates' task as the new Defense Secretary is to preach change to a leader who has stuck to his line--despite all kinds of evidence to the contrary--for years now.

The Greeks believed that the gods visit the sins of the fathers upon their sons. But when it comes to the Bush family and Iraq, the tragedy runs from stem to root. And so over the next few weeks, key members of Bush's father's vaunted foreign policy team--the real A-team of the Republican foreign policy establishment--will step in and conduct what amounts to a family intervention. Led by former CIA Director Gates and former Secretary of State James Baker, who co-heads a commission on Iraq, Dad's former aides will present the son with a plan for saving his presidency and, with it, some remnant of the family's brand name. None of those involved will call it an intervention, but it's fair to say the nation's future is at stake. Although Gates and Baker will be out front, others who worked for the patriarch are helping behind the scenes. Dynasties don't get to be dynasties by neglecting the line.

The task facing the Old Guard is to fashion an exit strategy from Iraq that can salvage U.S. prestige and avoid turning the civil war into an even wider and more violent catastrophe. There are only a few known knowns here: it surely pains the father that it has come to this. It is just as galling to the son that he had to invite his father's most trusted consiglieres to step in and help clean up his mess overseas. Neither man appreciates the chortling sounds coming from the vast Bush 41 crowd, which has long harbored grave doubts about the soundness of 43's foreign policy team. The biggest question is how the object of the intervention will react. As one senior official in the 41 White House says of the President, "He can fight this and turn into a constantly warring figure, or he can turn back into the friendly wise guy who gets along with everyone. The latter will serve him much better."

It does help Bush that the return of the realists comes at the very moment when both parties are looking for political cover on the war that went wrong. Although the leaders of the new Democratic majority in Congress say they plan to hold the Administration accountable for the spiraling costs, mismanagement and graft associated with the war, the reality is that the party remains divided over what kind of military strategy to pursue now. Democrats who voted for the war and have been on the defensive with the party's antiwar base are anxious to get behind any sign that points to an exit. Those who voted against the war but who don't have a clue about how to stabilize Iraq want to find a program they can get behind without looking like silly skedaddlers. The Republicans are equally torn, between realists furious at the Administration for refusing to change course sooner and true believers who fret that the White House is about to abandon the neoconservative project to bring democracy to the Middle East.

Given all those diverging views, it's understandable that Bush talks about the commission headed by Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton the way a child who can't wait for Christmas talks about Santa Claus. Bush mentioned the commission four times in his press conference last week. The President opposed the creation of the panel last fall but eventually came around, in part at the urging of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Worried about whether the White House believed in the commission from the start, Baker insisted on meeting with the President before taking the job and insisted that Bush personally ask him to take it on. Baker told Bush in his private session that he was likely to come up with recommendations that Bush might not favor. Asked by Baker whether he truly backed an approach that would lead to a strategic change, Bush said he did.

Since then, relations between the White House and the study group haven't always been perfect. When a White House official made skeptical statements in early fall about the group's direction, angry Democrats on the panel warned Baker that they would not be part of a charade. Baker in turn went on TV and reported that the White House was still on board, while privately informing the West Wing to shut down the skeptics for good. Baker has been strict about stressing the bipartisan nature of the group--which includes Clinton advisers like Leon Panetta and William Perry as well as former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson and Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese--and he told TIME it will act only by consensus. Still, everyone agrees that Baker is the first among equals.

So far, the Baker group has convened a number of listening sessions; its deliberations as a group begin this week. It is already evident that the panel is not laboring under illusions about the grim outlook for the U.S. enterprise in Iraq. The commission returned from its brief trip to Baghdad in September collectively stunned by the chaos--which is interesting, since they barely got to see it. They apparently saw enough: the donning of the body armor, the corkscrew approach in the Air Force cargo plane, the harrowing treetop chopper flight into the Green Zone--it all left the commissioners shaken, according to an adviser to one member. There are no plans to go back.

Instead, something akin to a shadow State Department has sprung up to figure out how to extricate the U.S. from Iraq. Baker and Hamilton reached deep into the government's foreign policy ranks--active and retired--and plucked their favorite generals, spooks and analysts to work in complete secrecy, installing some in a nondescript building that houses the U.S. Institute of Peace. Some 50 advisers, both here and in Iraq, have kicked in reports and working papers; Baker and his team have fired questions back at those who are the most promising. Baker has been in touch with representatives from Iran and Syria, countries the U.S. isn't keen to cozy up to. And about a dozen longtime aides and diplomatic wizards, including Brent Scowcroft, the grand master of the foreign policy establishment, are in communication with Baker and Hamilton as they go down to the wire. The bipartisan pragmatism encouraged by the Baker-Hamilton group, says Clinton U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, marks an end to the era when U.S. foreign policy was crafted by people who looked at the world as they wanted it to be, not the world as it was. Says Holbrooke: "Now there is a tremendous wedge between the neoconservatives and the rest of the national-security community."

Getting out of Iraq will require the sort of hard choices between interests and ideals that the Bush Administration has been historically reluctant to make. The Baker group is considering a series of proposals that will include calling for intensive regional diplomacy, such as direct, high-level talks with Iran and Syria--something the Bush team has resisted for months. Most significant, the commission plans to outline a plan for redeploying--that is to say, pulling out--some U.S. troops over the next year. The group is also considering telling the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad that U.S. troops will stay and help steady the country only if the government puts an end to sectarian violence. If the killings continue, the U.S. will pull out quickly. "If these things don't happen," said Les Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, "we're going to have to move out faster."

Baker has been talking to the President directly for months. The two men have a long history. It was Bush who installed himself in Washington in 1986 to keep an eye on his father's presidential campaign, then being run by Baker. And it was Baker who led the legal fight in Florida that handed W. his presidency in 2001. But if Baker is now laying the groundwork for another bailout of the man he once referred to as Junior, he can also thank Bush for bringing him back to center stage at a time of genuine national crisis. Baker has held three Cabinet posts, overseen a fourth agency and run five presidential campaigns. Untying the Gordian knot that is Iraq would cement his reputation as one of the nation's premier wise men of the past 30 years.

It is tantalizing to imagine that Baker, who plans to issue his report next month, pushed Bush to dump Rumsfeld for Gates. A former Baker aide last week called the coincidence of timing "painfully obvious" and noted the appointment of Gates to the Baker commission last year. There is also the fact that Rumsfeld has long been resented by many Bush 41 loyalists, who recall the way Rumsfeld schemed to get Bush appointed director of the CIA in 1976 to prevent him from becoming Gerald Ford's running mate that year. But there were more pressing reasons for Rumsfeld to go--and quickly. "Baker wasn't going to let his report come out," says a Gates aide, "so that Rummy could stomp all over it." As for Bush 41, he is staying above the nitty-gritty of the takeover, says one of 41's former aides, but "he's definitely in the loop."

It will fall to Gates to execute the Baker plan. Bush first approached Gates about joining his team more than a year ago, when he was looking for a new director of national intelligence. As a former CIA director, Gates found the offer tempting but declined after he decided that the job amounted to little more than overseeing a vast bureaucracy rather than running a real intelligence operation. Bush didn't offer the Pentagon job to Gates until early last week. A little cloak-and-dagger was used to sneak Gates onto the President's ranch for his job interview: he was instructed to meet White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and his deputy, Joe Hagin, at a supermarket parking lot in nearby McGregor, Texas, for the drive to Crawford. The President slipped out to meet Gates at the new office that opened on the ranch in 2004.

Having worked at the White House and run the CIA, Gates will manage the budgets, bureaucrats, jargon and generals on the Pentagon's E-Ring easily enough. But he will be judged by only one rule: whether he can organize what a Baker aide calls "the orderly transition and exit from Iraq." Someone who has worked with him describes Gates as "serious, subtle, reflective, never curt or abrupt." Departing CIA directors are flooded with offers of corporate jobs and strategic intelligence posts. Instead, when Gates left government in early 1993, he fled to Washington State, where he spent the next few years in a library working on his memoirs.

That was, in many ways, a return to where he started. He rose through the CIA's analysis directorate as a Russia scholar during the 1970s until plucked for stardom by Reagan spymaster William Casey. Gates had a reputation as a tough-nosed hard-liner; in fact, Gates was never a mirror image of the shrewdly moderate Baker. During the first Bush Administration, Gates was far more skeptical of Mikhail Gorbachev and his perestroika program than was either Baker or the President. Gates' closest ally in that minor crusade was none other than then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. Gates' nickname in the first Bush White House was Eyeore: no matter the topic, he always seemed to worry about the worst-case scenario. Gates, who has a healthy sense of humor, was usually the first to admit he was the in-house pessimist.

He has also seen his share of controversy. Partly because he worked for Casey, Gates was a minor player in the Iran-contra scandal and was criticized for skewing intelligence analysis on the Soviets to suit hard-liners in the Reagan White House. More than 30 Democrats--10 of whom are still in the Senate--opposed his nomination to be CIA director in 1991. Gates went into his confirmation that year carrying a small, white oblong stone in his pocket, a memento of a hike he had taken in the Olympic mountains the summer before. He wanted a reminder of what he had to look forward to in case his nomination failed. He may want to dig that stone out of his closet. Given the current Administration's record of laundering intelligence, Gates is sure to endure another round of questions about his past in his confirmation hearings next month.

But Bob Gates is probably under no illusions about the limitations he faces. He once told TIME that people who go to work at the White House pass through two distinct stages of astonishment. At first, they are amazed at what the place can do. But then they are quickly disillusioned by what it cannot accomplish. Putting an Iraqi exit plan in front of the President will be relatively simple. Winning Bush's full support may be harder. And executing it in a country where strategic planning is almost an oxymoron may prove beyond any man's--or any White House's--capability.

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Iraq's Secret Death Chambers

BRIAN BENNETT

Saddam could face the gallows by year's end. But Iraqi executioners are already busy.

Before he is put to death, Saddam Hussein will be allowed one last phone call. He will be given a glass of water, a moment to pray and an opportunity to make a statement about his life and crimes. The entire event will be recorded on video to be stored in the Iraqi government archives. Then his neck will be slipped into the noose of a 2-in.-thick hemp rope. A few moments later, his life will end.

That's how recent executions have proceeded in Iraq--at least when the equipment works. Since the Iraqi government reintroduced capital punishment in 2004, several executions have been beset by glitches and logistical snafus. At first, executioners used an old rope left over from Saddam's regime that stretched too much to break the condemned's neck; it sometimes took as long as eight minutes for the hanged to die. New ropes brought in for later executions jerked harder on the convicted person's spine, but executioners soon noticed the cords fraying on the bend of the reinforced steel installed in the cement ceiling of the gallows. During a recent round of executions, on Sept. 6, the rope snapped after 12 hangings, sending a condemned man plummeting 15 ft. through the trap door onto the hard concrete floor below. Miraculously, he survived. "Allah saved me!" he shouted. "Allah saved me!" For 40 minutes, prison guards, officials and witnesses engaged in heated arguments over whether or not to interpret the broken rope as divine intervention.

It may not be an efficient process, but the death penalty is back in vogue in Iraq. After the U.S. invasion, capital punishment was suspended by L. Paul Bremer, head of the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, but interim Prime Minster Iyad Allawi reinstated it a year later. Since September 2005, when three men were hanged in the southwestern city of Kut after being convicted of running a murder-and-kidnapping ring, the Iraqi government has executed 50 prisoners convicted of murder or kidnapping, says spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says the government plans to execute "two or three more batches of 14 or 15 each" in the coming months. Al-Maliki told the BBC last week that Saddam too could be hanged "before the end of the year." For the beleaguered Iraqi government, the practice of executions plays a political role as well as a legal one: amid the inescapable violence on Iraq's streets, the death penalty plays well with Iraqis tired of seeing gangs commit murder with impunity. "From the Iraqi point of view," says al-Maliki's adviser, "they don't like to see a lot of people get killed every day and have a low number of executions."

And yet an examination of the way the death penalty is administered in Iraq casts doubt on the government's candor about the frequency of executions, and that raises questions about whether justice is being flouted in Iraq's rush to execute. According to an Iraqi official involved in coordinating executions, the hanging rope has been used more extensively than has been publicly acknowledged by the Iraqi government. Three days of secret executions took place between December 2005 and March 2006, says the official, who attended all three sets of hangings. When the additional executions are taken into account, according to an official in the Prime Minister's office who declined to give an exact number, approximately 90 have been executed, almost double the officially declared tally.

The government's underreporting of executions reflects a general lack of transparency in the process. Hangings are conducted in secret, at a heavily fortified location in Baghdad built by an American contractor. Only a few officials are notified beforehand, and the vast majority of the names of those executed are never made public. Human Rights Watch, which monitors the fairness of judicial systems around the world, is concerned about the ability of defendants in Iraq to get a fair trial and access to a thorough appeals process. Iraq has repeatedly rebuffed requests from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights for statistics on the country's death-penalty cases, leading the high commissioner to request that Iraq commute all death sentences. The government has refused. In a written response to the U.N., the government said that suspending capital punishment would "undermine our policy on crime," citing capital punishment as a "public deterrence."

That was the objective when the Iraqi government announced in March that they had executed an infamous psychopath and insurgent hit man named Shukair Farid, "the butcher of Mosul," whose gang slaughtered more than 200 during a yearlong rampage in the northern city. Farid, a police lieutenant, had gained fame after appearing on the hit reality-TV interrogation show Terrorism in the Hands of Justice, on which he told in gruesome detail of the scores of Iraqi lives he took, often using his uniform to trap victims. Farid didn't go easily. On the morning the convoy of Iraqi officials drove out to oversee the execution, 30 cars ambushed them with gunmen firing PKC automatic weapons. After fighting their way through to the gallows, the executioners were surprised at how defiant Farid was as he faced his own death. When asked to verify his identity before they put the rope around his neck, Farid said, "That's me, so what." "That guy was ready to go to hell, I guess," says a government official.

But there are many others on death row who continue to profess their innocence. Women doing time for murder in Baghdad live in a single 10-bunk cell in Khadamiyah Women's Prison in the northern part of town near the Tigris River. There waits Zayneb, a brown-haired woman in her late 20s wearing a black head scarf, convicted in September of conspiring with her husband to murder three relatives. The judge gave her three death sentences, one for each relative who was murdered. She says she didn't have anything to do with their deaths. She has only one chance to appeal the ruling before she faces the noose. The reality of her predicament sinks in as Zayneb looks at the empty bunk across the room, until recently occupied by a friend of hers who has been transferred to another jail to wait for her own execution. "We spent a long time together here," Zayneb says, tears welling up in her copper-colored eyes. "They took her two days ago." She sees little hope for herself. "I am convicted of three crimes. If one is waived, what about the other two? For sure I will be hanged."

The saving grace for defendants like Zayneb is that Iraq's judicial system operates at a crawl. It's a "lethargic process," says Basam Ridha, an adviser who has been tasked by al-Maliki to hasten the punishment. Some cases, says Ridha, have taken a year or more just to be heard by the investigative judge, who decides if the case needs to go to trial or not. Other prisoners short-circuit the process and find ways to get out of prison, either by paying their jailers or, in some instances, bribing the judge to dismiss their case.

Saddam, though, is almost out of time. If his sentence is upheld by the appeals court, Iraqi and U.S. officials say the plan is for him to be hanged from the same gallows used for common criminals. That could change for security reasons, says a U.S. lawyer working closely with the court, but even a technical snafu probably won't be enough to save him now. Remember the man who slipped the noose, believing Allah had saved him? His reprieve didn't last long. "We hanged him," says an Iraqi official who watched as prison guards took down his body and wheeled it into the adjacent refrigerated morgue. "We followed the law."

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Today in history - Nov. 13

The Associated Press

Today is Monday, Nov. 13, the 317th day of 2006. There are 48 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

Fifty years ago, on Nov. 13, 1956, the Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public city and state buses, almost a year after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus to a white man, sparking a boycott by blacks.

On this date:

In 1775, during the American Revolution, U.S. forces captured Montreal.

In 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter to a friend, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

In 1856, Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis was born in Louisville, Ky.

In 1927, the Holland Tunnel opened to the public, providing access between New York City and New Jersey beneath the Hudson River.

In 1942, the minimum draft age in the United States was lowered from 21 to 18.

In 1971, the U.S. space probe Mariner 9 went into orbit around Mars.

In 1974, Karen Silkwood, a technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Okla., died in a car crash while on her way to meet a reporter.

In 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington.

In 1985, some 23,000 residents of Armero, Colombia, died when a gigantic mudslide buried the city.

In 1986, President Reagan publicly acknowledged that the U.S. had sent "defensive weapons and spare parts" to Iran in an attempt to improve relations, but denied the shipments were part of a deal aimed at freeing hostages in Lebanon.

Ten years ago: A grand jury in St. Petersburg, Fla., declined to indict police officer Jim Knight, who had fatally shot black motorist TyRon Lewis; the decision prompted angry mobs to return to the streets. A jury in Pittsburgh acquitted a suburban police officer, John Vojtas, in the death of black motorist Jonny Gammage. Sgt. Loren B. Taylor, a drill sergeant who'd had sex with three female recruits at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., was given five months in prison and a bad-conduct discharge in the first sentencing of the burgeoning Army sex scandal.

Five years ago: Afghan opposition fighters rolled into Kabul after Taliban troops slipped away under cover of darkness. Eight foreign aid workers — two Americans, two Australians and four Germans — held captive in Afghanistan for three months were freed by anti-Taliban fighters. President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin met at the White House. Bishop Wilton Gregory was elected the first black president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

One year ago: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Jerusalem, strongly rebuked Iran's leadership, saying "no civilized nation" can call for the annihilation of another — a reference to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remark that Israel should be "wiped off the map." An Iraqi woman arrested by Jordanian authorities confessed on television to trying to blow herself up with her husband in one of the three Nov. 9 suicide attacks in Amman. American Indian historian and activist Vine Deloria Jr. died at age 72.

Today's Birthdays: Actress Madeleine Sherwood is 84. Producer-director Garry Marshall is 72. Country singer-songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard is 60. Actor Joe Mantegna is 59. Actress Sheila Frazier is 58. Actress Frances Conroy is 53. Musician Andrew Ranken (The Pogues) is 53. Actress-comedian Whoopi Goldberg is 51. Actor Chris Noth is 50. Actor Rex Linn ("CSI: Miami") is 50. Actress Caroline Goodall is 47. Actor Neil Flynn ("Scrubs") is 46. Rock musician Walter Kibby (Fishbone) is 42. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel is 39. Actor Steve Zahn is 38. Rock musician Nikolai Fraiture is 28.

Thought for Today: "If we like a man's dream, we call him a reformer; if we don't like his dream, we call him a crank." — William Dean Howells, American author (1837-1920).

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The world's most dangerous road

Mark Whittaker
BBC News, Bolivia

It seems perverse that one of the main roads out of one of the highest cities on Earth should actually climb as it leaves town.

But climb it does - just short of a lung-sapping five kilometres (three miles) above sea level, where even the internal combustion engine is forced to toil and splutter.

Then it pauses for a while on the snow-flecked crest of the Andes before pitching - like a giant white knuckle ride - into the abyss.

The road from Bolivia's main city, La Paz, to a region known as the Yungas was built by Paraguayan prisoners of war back in the 1930s.

Many of them perished in the effort. Now it is mainly Bolivians who die on the road - in their thousands.

In 1995, the Inter American Development Bank christened it the most dangerous road in the world. And, as you start your descent, and your driver whispers a prayer, you begin to see why.

The bird's eye view is on the left, on the front seat passenger's side, where the Earth itself seems to open up.

A gigantic vertical crack appears. Way below, more than half a mile beneath your passenger window, you can see - cradled between canyon walls - a thin silver thread: the Coroico River rushing to join the Amazon.

On the driver's side there is a sheer rock wall rising to the heavens. There is no margin of error. The road itself is barely three metres wide. That is if you can call it a road.

After the initial stretch to the top of the mountain it is just dirt track. And yet - incredibly - it is a major route for trucks and buses.

Hairpin bends

Drivers stop to pour libations of beer into the earth - to beseech the goddess Pachamama for safe passage.

Then, chewing coca leaves to keep themselves awake, they are off at break-neck speeds in vehicles which should not be on any road, let alone this one.

Perched on hairpin bends over dizzying precipices, crosses and stone cairns mark the places where travellers' prayers went unheeded. Where, for someone - the road ended.

But even these stark warnings are all too often ignored. As first one - and then a second impatient motorist - overtook our car on the ravine side of the road, my own driver - who hardly ever spoke a word and only then in his native Aymara - intoned loudly, eerily and in perfect English..."You will die."

It is not a rash prediction to make.

Every year it is estimated 200 to 300 people die on a stretch of road less than 50 miles long. In one year alone, 25 vehicles plunged off the road and into the ravine. That is one every two weeks.

It is the end of the dry season in Bolivia. Soon the rains will come - cascading down the walls of the chasm. Huge waterfalls will drench the road - turning its surface to slime.

Then will come those heart-stopping moments when wheels skid and brakes fail to grip. There are stories told of truckers too tired - or too afraid - to continue, who pull over for the night, hoping to see out an Andean storm. But they have parked too close to the edge. And as they sleep in their cabs, the road is washed away around them.

This is not the place to drop off.

Cliff edge

But for now the road is a ribbon of dust. Every vehicle passing along it churns up a sandstorm in its wake.

Choking, blinding clouds obscure the way ahead. Around one hairpin, a cloud of debris was beginning to clear.

Further down the road we passed a spot where a set of fresh tyre tracks headed out into the void

As it did, I could see people milling around in the road. Passengers from one of the overloaded and decrepit buses which run the gauntlet of this road.

It seemed at first that they had got off to stretch their legs, while their driver argued with another vehicle coming in the other direction about who should give way. (Reversing is not something you undertake lightly on a cliff edge.)

It transpired instead though, that the bus driver was dying. Blinded by the dust, he had run into the back of a truck. The bus's steering column had gone through him - severing his legs.

There was nothing anyone could do. Mobile phones do not work here. In any case, who would you call? There are no emergency services.

And no way of getting help through, even if any were to be found. The bus driver bled to death.

We edged past the crumpled bus, and headed on.

Further down the road we passed a spot where a set of fresh tyre tracks headed out into the void. They told their own story.

High in the Andes, they are building a new road. A by-pass, to replace the old one. But this is Bolivia, and already it has been 20 years in the making.

Who knows when it will be complete? Until it is, people will have to continue offering up their prayers, and taking their lives in their hands on the most dangerous road in the world.

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Sexual abuse rampant in Indian hospitals

Kounteya Sinha

Sexual harassment in hospitals, of women doctors and nurses, seems to have become a common practice in India. In a shocking study carried out by international NGO Population Council, 77 of the 135 women doctors and nurses, working in four hospitals in Kolkata, admitted sexual harassment.

However, over 50 of them did not complain. The reason: many feared they will be blamed for provoking sexual harassment. Others worried about loss of reputation after complaining. As many as 45 reported psychological harassment, 41 verbal harassment, 27 unwanted touch and 16 sexual gestures and exhibitionism.

The study also revealed that just 20 of the 135 women interviewed over a period of 11 months by Population Council researcher Paramita Chaudhuri were aware of the Supreme Court guidelines on sexual harassment. What's worse, none of them had heard of a complaints committee for redressal of their grievances.

Several of the respondents also expressed their scepticism about the grievances committee's effectiveness. The study "Sexual harassment in work place experiences of women in the health sector", says victims were sexually harassed by not only their co-workers but also by patients and their relatives.

Doctors and nurses alike agree that sexual harassment is an occupational hazard for working women.

A 30-year-old government doctor said "We have accepted this and this is how things will continue." A 35-year-old nurse added, "Saying bad things when they see a woman is natural.

It doesn't matter if the man is a doctor or a non-medical staffer." The study also found that in a large number of cases the victims were reluctant to go public on this issue. Of the 135 women interviewed, 45 were doctors. Nearly 24 of them had been harassed. Of the 50 nurses, 31 were victims of sexual harassment.

The study said, "By and large, doctors and nurses in government hospitals are permanent employees and those in private hospitals tend to work as consultants. Nurses in private hospitals, although confirmed after 3 months of employment, can be dismissed at any time and therefore have less job security than those in government hospitals.

Health care attendants are employed by patients on a temporary basis and have the least job security. Reluctant to discuss sexual harassment stems from the fear of those on daily wage employment or on contracts that they will lose their job if they go public."

Shockingly, the biggest perpetrators of abuse were patients and their families followed by doctors and non-medical staff. Nurses are the only group harassed by everyone doctors, non-medical staff, patients and their relatives and outsiders the study said.

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Sexual abuse rampant in Indian hospitals

Sexual harassment in hospitals, of women doctors and nurses, seems to have become a common practice in India. In a shocking study carried out by international NGO Population Council, 77 of the 135 women doctors and nurses, working in four hospitals in Kolkata, admitted sexual harassment.

However, over 50 of them did not complain. The reason: many feared they will be blamed for provoking sexual harassment. Others worried about loss of reputation after complaining. As many as 45 reported psychological harassment, 41 verbal harassment, 27 unwanted touch and 16 sexual gestures and exhibitionism.

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Malaysian newspaper gets slapped for sex story

Malaysian government leaders have rebuked a local newspaper for publishing a frank expose of sexual attitudes among the country's youth.

The Weekend Mail gave detailed descriptions of favorite sex positions from its survey -- including "spooning, galloping and tea bag positions" -- in three pages of stories that delivered on its front-page promise: "You'll be shocked."

"I received endless calls and SMS over the articles," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak told a ruling-party meeting Sunday.

"The media going overboard in exploiting sex will only worsen our social problems," he was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times, a pro-government daily in the same stable as the Mail.

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Malaysian newspaper gets slapped for sex story

Malaysian government leaders have rebuked a local newspaper for publishing a frank expose of sexual attitudes among the country's youth.

The Weekend Mail gave detailed descriptions of favorite sex positions from its survey -- including "spooning, galloping and tea bag positions" -- in three pages of stories that delivered on its front-page promise: "You'll be shocked."

"I received endless calls and SMS over the articles," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak told a ruling-party meeting Sunday.

"The media going overboard in exploiting sex will only worsen our social problems," he was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times, a pro-government daily in the same stable as the Mail.

"The feature spoke of this and that position -- and I am not talking about positions during a football game or the Middle East position," he quipped.

The minister for women, family and community development called the feature irresponsible and "downright vulgar."

The New Straits Times Press Bhd, which prints the Weekend Mail and The Malay Mail daily, apologized unreservedly for the stories and said it would question the editors.

"The articles were offensive and distasteful," the publisher's chief executive, Syed Faisal Albar, said in the apology displayed on the front page of The Malay Mail on Monday.

Mainstream media outlets, many of them controlled or partly owned by ruling-coalition interests, have traditionally followed a conservative moral line in this mainly Muslim nation.

They remain pro-government in reporting political issues, but have begun to experiment with more tabloid-style reporting since Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi came to power three years ago and encouraged more lively debate on non-political issues.

After its romp through free speech, which would also have landed mainstream Western media in trouble, The Weekend Mail said its survey respondents only held one position in common: "One point everyone agreed on was that sex and sex-related issues should be discussed openly to avoid any negative perceptions."

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China's Comrade Condoms

Comrade Lei Feng once sold Mao to the masses. Now he helps them suit up for safe sex. In his unremarkable 22-year life, which ended ingloriously in 1962 when a PLA comrade accidentally backed a truck into a power pole that fell and crushed him, Lei Feng wanted to be nothing more than a selfless "revolutionary screw that never rusts."

The Fengster, a man celebrated as a revolutionary icon of Maoist China for his selfless devotion to the people and even darned his own socks in order to save money to give to others, has realized his dream thanks to Wan Pi Tao Tao, a condom company near Shanghai in Ningbo, Zhejiang province.

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Top Malaysian Political Figure Held in Gruesome Slaying of "Stunning" Mongolian Model

One of Malaysia's most prominent political analysts has been remanded to custody by police in connection with the gruesome slaying of a Mongolian fashion model who claimed that he was her husband and the father of her 16-month old child.

The saga began when Altantuya "Anna" Shaaribuu, a woman described as "stunning" in press reports, arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Mongolia on Oct. 6 intent on seeing Abdullah Razak Baginda, a well known political figure with close ties to the ruling party. The woman reportedly wanted him to acknowledge his role as the baby's father. The woman's body was later found after being shot twice and blown to bits, either with hand grenades or C4 explosives.

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China's Comrade Condoms

Justin Mitchell

Comrade Lei Feng once sold Mao to the masses. Now he helps them suit up for safe sex. In his unremarkable 22-year life, which ended ingloriously in 1962 when a PLA comrade accidentally backed a truck into a power pole that fell and crushed him, Lei Feng wanted to be nothing more than a selfless "revolutionary screw that never rusts."

The Fengster, a man celebrated as a revolutionary icon of Maoist China for his selfless devotion to the people and even darned his own socks in order to save money to give to others, has realized his dream thanks to Wan Pi Tao Tao, a condom company near Shanghai in Ningbo, Zhejiang province.


Emblazoned with the familiar "Learn from Comrade Lei Feng" slogan, the price to keep your screw clean is 18 yuan for three condoms in a designer cigarette-style box that features two versions black and white and color of a revolutionary style image of the humble Lei wielding a rifle.

There's also a "Chairman Mao Leads Us Forward" edition, with a portrait of the Great Helmsman, for 15 yuan, but it's the Lei Feng icon that has drawn the most attention for sexualizing the closest thing China has to a national saint, Boy Scout -- and presumed virgin.

Unknown to the western world, Lei Feng was, until Mao declared the "Learn from Lei Feng Campaign" on March 5, 1963, a nobody, a cheerful everyman and orphan who made the People's Liberation Army and the Communist Party his family, as recorded in books assembled after his death supposedly from his diary, statements and deeds - "After Liberation I Had a Home"; "My Mother was the Party" and "Bitter Recollections and Sweet Thoughts."

Though some doubt that Lei Feng ever existed, or if he did, still marvel at how so many photographs and documents could exist of a nonentity, his selfless, striving example has served as a lesson for generations of Chinese schoolchildren and it's been conveniently retooled through the decades for myriad social changes. Even in the bold new China of money and stock market IPOs, he continues to serve as in a 2006 an online Lei Feng video game (players collect gold tokens for performing good deeds and darning socks in order to "visit" Chairman Mao) and a navel gazing Lei Feng blog in which he writes about his own legend.

"In March of each year, lots of people start to study me. This kind of thing has gone on for years and years. Sometimes, when I'm helping other people, I'll unconsciously think to myself, 'I'm learning from Lei Feng,' and feel a sincere joy. Sometimes I'll forget that Lei Feng is really me. Me, learning from an even higher me. Sometimes this problem baffles me."

Unlike, say, more celebrated contemporary Chinese bloggers such as Mu Zi Mei who drew international press exposure for her adventurous online sexual escapades and essays, Lei Feng was essentially sexless, a man who eschewed carnal knowledge and contemplation in favor of shoveling shit as detailed in this extract from his diary:

"I've studied all of the documents from the 8th Plenary Session of the CCP 8th Central Committee, and I thought to myself, what can I do for the People's Commune? If I collect manure for fertilizer, I can collect more than 500 pounds in a month and send it to the commune. If the commune wants to figure the money, I'll say that I don't have any gift to give to the commune; this manure is my gift.''

So it was with some shock and surprise that, according to a recent edition of Southern Metropolitan Daily in Guangzhou, a mother in Ningbo was digging through her teenage son's backpack and found an "Official Horndog" certificate and an "Internet Marriage License" in an (unused) tin of "Learn from Lei Feng" condoms.

"It drew attention from all levels," the newspaper reported without specifying what levels those might have been. Nonetheless, the mother's ire reportedly reached the Ningbo Industrial and Commercial Bureau which investigated Wan Pi Tao Tao and, according to Zhang Zhiwen, a spokesman for the condom company, fined the firm 5,000 yuan for using "erotic content."

"Our company has 300 different products and many novelty certificates," Zhang told Asia Sentinel. "But only two broke the 'erotic content' regulation: Official Horndog and a Male Virgin Certificate and that was because we used United Nations and State Security Bureau logos on the certificates without permission. We have removed the logos and paid the fine."

As for using Lei Feng and Mao's images to promote sexual products, he said the Ningbo Industrial and Commercial Bureau did not object. "They are both dead and (the images) have been used for cigarette packages before," he said.

(Indeed, legal regulations involving celebrities, living or dead, as shills for condoms or anything else seem vague at best. In 2003 Beijing Nabeitong Company succeeded in registering 'Mu Zi Mei' as a brand name for condoms. In 2005, the Guangzhou Haojian Bioscience Company began marketing "Clinton" and "Lewinsky" condoms and George W. Bush might become the name of a diaper brand in the near future. According to Danwei.org, a blog about China media and advertising, a man from Henan Province has applied to register the Chinese rendering of 'Bush' (bu shi) as a trademark for diapers, because it is a pun on the words 'not wet'.

And more recently the Beijing Times reported the Guilin Latex Factory is developing Super Girls and 12 Girls Orchestra "oral sex" condoms, named after the popular singers and musicians. Though the Super Girl organization has objected and the condoms are not yet available on the market, a factory spokesman, Tao Ran said the names were inspired by the images of a Super Girls contestants singing into the microphone and a female flute player. Both, he said, are "highly reminiscent of the act that this condom is intended for.")

When pressed about the logic of using Lei Feng's virginal visage to sell rubbers destined for carnal use, Zhang had a prompt reply. "Lei Feng would have supported safe sexual conduct and responsible family planning, I believe. And our condoms are stronger than his socks. He would not need to repair them."

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Top Malaysian Political Figure Held in Gruesome Slaying of "Stunning" Mongolian Model

One of Malaysia's most prominent political analysts has been remanded to custody by police in connection with the gruesome slaying of a Mongolian fashion model who claimed that he was her husband and the father of her 16-month old child.

The saga began when Altantuya "Anna" Shaaribuu, a woman described as "stunning" in press reports, arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Mongolia on Oct. 6 intent on seeing Abdullah Razak Baginda, a well known political figure with close ties to the ruling party. The woman reportedly wanted him to acknowledge his role as the baby's father. The woman's body was later found after being shot twice and blown to bits, either with hand grenades or C4 explosives.

Shaaribuu, accompanied by her sister and a cousin, charged that the baby was the product of a relationship she had with Baginda, when he visited Mongolia two years ago. The model, who may also have gone by the name Anna Ana Ang or Aminah, according to the Bernama News Agency, even claimed the analyst was her husband. Baginda is divorced.

Baginda is now described as "assisting the police in their investigation" along with three Malaysian police personnel including a corporal and a woman detective from the Special Action Force or SAF, who is part of a pool used to guard VIPs and other dignitaries. All have been remanded to custody.

One of the most accessible and quotable of local analysts, Baginda is a frequent source for journalists because of his ties to Najib Abdul Razak, the deputy prime minister and long time defense minister. Razak even wrote the forward to "Malaysia and the Islamic World" a book edited by Baginda and published in 2004. For more than a decade Baginda has been the executive director of the Malaysia Strategic Research Institute, which is technically a private think-tank but has close connections to the Malaysian armed forces and the United Malays National Organisation, the largest party in the ruling coalition.

According to news reports, Shaaribuu found out where Baginda lived, but she never got to see him. Police say she did receive a phone call to meet him on Oct. 29. But according to news reports she was seized by several individuals, pushed into a car and driven away, never to be seen again.

When she did not return to her hotel, the sister and cousin lodged reports with the police, and eventually with the Mongolian honorary consul. Ultimately, a task force of 40 police officers was assembled to put together the circumstances that led the woman to visit Baginda's house, and whether he had summoned the three police officers to take her away.

Local news reports also indicated that police are investigating where the model and Baginda first met and whether they had had a sexual relationship. Musa Hassan, the inspector general of police, said he is asking for a thorough investigation and promised that there will be no cover-up.

"Whoever is involved will be brought to book regardless of his stature," Musa told reporters. "I am also going to find out how and who authorized the issuance of the explosives used in the murder."

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Woman who threw three kids in SF bay goes on trial for murder

A woman accused of throwing her three children into San Francisco Bay is set to go on trial this week for their murders.

Twenty-four-year-old LaShuan Harris' family says she's mentally ill, and she's pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.But prosecutors say she knew what she was doing when she dropped her young sons into the water last fall off a pier. They were 16 months, two and six.Harris later told psychiatrists that God had commanded her to sacrifice the three boys, her most precious possessions. Her attorney says Harris believes her children are in heaven and sends God postcards written in crayon.Her mother says, "She was very strung out on God."Jury selection begins Tuesday.

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Today in history - Nov. 12

The Associated Press

Today is Sunday, Nov. 12, the 316th day of 2006. There are 49 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 12, 1942, the World War II naval Battle of Guadalcanal began. (The Allies ended up winning a major victory over the Japanese.)

On this date:

In 1815, American suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born in Johnstown, N.Y.

In 1920, Major League Baseball got its first "czar" as Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was elected commissioner.

In 1927, Josef Stalin became the undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union as Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party.

In 1929, Grace Kelly — the future movie star and Princess of Monaco — was born in Philadelphia.

In 1948, former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and several other World War II Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by a war crimes tribunal.

In 1977, the city of New Orleans elected its first black mayor, Ernest "Dutch" Morial.

In 1982, Yuri V. Andropov was elected to succeed the late Leonid I. Brezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee.

In 1985, Xavier Suarez was elected Miami's first Cuban-American mayor.

In 1990, Japanese Emperor Akihito formally assumed the Chrysanthemum Throne.

In 2004, a jury in Redwood City, Calif., convicted Scott Peterson of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and dumping her body in San Francisco Bay. (Peterson, who maintains his innocence, was later sentenced to death.)

Ten years ago: A Saudi Boeing 747 jetliner collided shortly after takeoff from New Delhi, India, with a Kazak Ilyushin-76 cargo plane, killing 349 people. In Pontiac, Mich., Jonathan Schmitz, a guest on "The Jenny Jones Show," was convicted of second-degree murder for shooting Scott Amedure, a gay man who'd revealed a crush on Schmitz during a taping of the program. (Schmitz was later sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison.)

Five years ago: An American Airlines Airbus A300-600, en route from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to the Dominican Republic, crashed after takeoff, killing 265 people. Afghan opposition forces broke through Taliban lines outside Kabul. Fashion editor Carrie Donovan died in New York at age 73.

One year ago: A U.S.-backed summit in Bahrain meant to promote political freedom and economic change in the Middle East ended without agreement, a blow to President Bush's goals for the troubled region. Jordan acknowledged for the first time that al-Qaida in Iraq had used three foreign suicide bombers to attack Amman hotels three days earlier, killing 60 victims.

Today's Birthdays: Rhythm-and-blues singer Ruby Nash Curtis (Ruby and the Romantics) is 67. Actor-playwright Wallace Shawn is 63. Singer Brian Hyland is 63. Rhythm-and-blues singer Jimmy Hayes (Persuasions) is 63. Rock musician Booker T. Jones (Booker T. & the MGs) is 62. Singer-songwriter Neil Young is 61. Rock musician Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser (Blue Oyster Cult) is 59. Country singer Barbara Fairchild is 56. Actress-talk show host Megan Mullally is 48. Olympic gold medal gymnast Nadia Comaneci is 45. Rock musician David Ellefson is 42. Actor Sam Lloyd is 39. Figure skater Tonya Harding is 36. Actress Radha Mitchell is 33. Actress Tamala Jones is 32. Actress Angela Watson is 32. Singer Tevin Campbell is 30. Actress Ashley Williams is 28. Actor Ryan Gosling is 26. Actress Anne Hathaway is 24. Pop singer Omarion is 21. Actress Macey Cruthird ("Hope and Faith") is 14.

Thought for Today: "It's all right to have a train of thoughts, if you have a terminal." — Richard R. Bowker, American publisher (1848-1933).

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Hit-and-run driver hits stroller; mom, 2 kids killed

A hit-and-run driver struck a couple crossing a street with a stroller, killing a woman and her two young children and injuring the youngsters' father, police said.

Two men were arrested early Saturday.

Wreckage from the stroller was strewn across the busy intersection Friday night in the popular LoDo district of restaurants, clubs, stores and sports venues.

"I went down there and it was a well-lit street," said police spokesman Sonny Jackson. "There was no excuse for it. It is one of the most horrific accidents we've had."

The father was in stable condition Saturday at Denver Health Medical Center.

The license plate of the red pickup was knocked off in the crash, leading police to the vehicle's owner and to the arrests in neighboring Westminster, authorities said.

The parents were walking with their 4-year-old and 2-year-old children, crossing lawfully at a lighted intersection, Jackson said.

He said police didn't know how fast the truck was going, but witness Alice Maynard told the Rocky Mountain News it appeared to be going about 50 mph.

"It was really fast, and it hit this family and didn't even stop and didn't even slow down," Maynard told KUSA-TV.

Lawrence Trujillo, 36, was arrested on three counts of investigation of vehicular homicide, as well as leaving the scene of an accident and resisting arrest, police said. Eric Phil Snell, 35, was arrested on three counts of investigation of accessory to a crime.

Jail officials said they didn't know whether the suspects had lawyers.

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Hit-and-run driver hits stroller; mom, 2 kids killed

AP

A hit-and-run driver struck a couple crossing a street with a stroller, killing a woman and her two young children and injuring the youngsters' father, police said.

Two men were arrested early Saturday.

Wreckage from the stroller was strewn across the busy intersection Friday night in the popular LoDo district of restaurants, clubs, stores and sports venues.

"I went down there and it was a well-lit street," said police spokesman Sonny Jackson. "There was no excuse for it. It is one of the most horrific accidents we've had."

The father was in stable condition Saturday at Denver Health Medical Center.

The license plate of the red pickup was knocked off in the crash, leading police to the vehicle's owner and to the arrests in neighboring Westminster, authorities said.

The parents were walking with their 4-year-old and 2-year-old children, crossing lawfully at a lighted intersection, Jackson said.

He said police didn't know how fast the truck was going, but witness Alice Maynard told the Rocky Mountain News it appeared to be going about 50 mph.

"It was really fast, and it hit this family and didn't even stop and didn't even slow down," Maynard told KUSA-TV.

Lawrence Trujillo, 36, was arrested on three counts of investigation of vehicular homicide, as well as leaving the scene of an accident and resisting arrest, police said. Eric Phil Snell, 35, was arrested on three counts of investigation of accessory to a crime.

Jail officials said they didn't know whether the suspects had lawyers.

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Rare stamp may be sealed in Florida ballot box

An absentee ballot was mailed with what may have been a rare stamp worth as much as $200,000 -- the famous Inverted Jenny -- but the envelope is in a box that by law can't be opened.

Broward County Commissioner John Rodstrom discovered the stamp while reviewing absentee ballots. There was no name on the envelope, so the vote didn't count.

What looked like a small stamp collection on one envelope caught Rodstrom's eye about 8 p.m. Tuesday. At least one was from 1936, Rodstrom said. Then he noticed one had an upside-down World War I-era airplane -- the hallmark of an Inverted Jenny.

"I was a stamp collector when I was little," Rodstrom told The Miami Herald. "I recognized it."

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Woman shot six times in head lives

A Brazilian woman who was shot six times in the head after an altercation with her ex-husband was out of the hospital and talking to the media on Saturday.

"I know this was a miracle," 21-year-old housewife Patricia Goncalves Pereira told Globo TV. "Now I just want to extract the bullets and live my life."

Pereira was shot Friday in the small city of Monte Claros, about 900 kilometers (560 miles) north of Sao Paulo, after quarreling with her former husband, who was reportedly upset because she refused to get back together with him. She was also shot once in the hand.

Doctors could not explain why the .32-caliber bullets did not penetrate Pereira's skull and didn't even need to be extracted immediately.

"I can't explain how something like this happened," surgeon Adriano Teixeira said, adding that the bullets were lodged under the woman's scalp.

The ex-husband was still at large.

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