Carl Levin has passed away. He was a US Senator. He was opposed to the Iraq War. I don't really have a lot more to say. I liked Carl but, as I noted a long time ago here, I'm not going to be mining my life to do obits. In other words, my friends can rest easy, I'm not Jackson Browne about to turn their deaths into a song. (That joke will only resonate with a select few, most likely.)
There are deaths that we have to note and there are deaths that we don't. I'm sad that Carl's passed away. I'm glad that he wasn't an idiot like Nancy Pelosi or Dianne Feinstein. Carl died at the age of 87. Dianne's 88, Nancy's 81. Both remain in office -- because, honestly, they're both so pathetic that they have no life to live and they also know that no one would speak to them if they weren't in public office. I believe Carl was 80 when he left office. I know -- I know -- he never worried about filling his days after stepping down. He knew he would have a busy life Because he bothered to create a real life.
My only regret is that cancer took him so soon because he had enough passion and enough people loved him for him to go on to his late 90s easily. Thoughts and prayers with Barbara, their children and his many, many friends.
Violence continues in Iraq. XINHUA reports:
Four people were killed and six others wounded in twin attacks by militants of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group in western and eastern Iraq, security sources said on Saturday.
In the western province of Anbar, the militants attacked a policeman's house outside the town of Heet, some 160 km west of Baghdad at about 2:00 a.m. local time (2300 GMT), Maj. Abdul-Sattar al-Dulaimi of the provincial police told Xinhua.
The attack resulted in the death of the policeman, his father and brother, al-Dulaimi said, adding that security forces have launched an operation to track down the attackers.
On Friday night, IS militants opened fire at an Iraqi army position at a residential area outside the town of Jalawlaa in the eastern province of Diyala, Abbas al-Nadawi of the provincial police told Xinhua.
A soldier was killed and six people were wounded in the attack, al-Nadawi added.
That's the not the only violence. An attack also took place Friday night on a funeral tent in Albu village.
In other news, Friday's snapshot noted the talk, in Baghdad, of a new COVID 19 variant (not Delta). COVID continues to plague the entire world and Iraq is no exception. The numbers continue to rise in Iraq with SPA reporting:
Iraq reported as many as 10,215 new Coronavirus cases, in the last 24-hour, putting the toll at 1,626,599.
Another 62 deaths raised the total fatalities to 18,675, while extra 8,614 recoveries made the overall recoveries 1,464,273.
On the political front, ASHAR AL-AWSAT notes:
An announcement made by Moqtada al-Sadr that he won’t run in Iraq’s parliamentary elections has increased the chances of those seeking to postpone the early polls scheduled for Oct. 10 to their constitutional date in April 2022.
Read on only if you want laughs. I think "Biggest Lie" of the week is contained in the article shortly after the excerpt above ends. Not in the mood, will take it to THIRD as an idea for an editorial. On THIRD, Ava and I are about to start working on the conclusion of our piece. There's a part, early on, about EGOT that may get dropped. It's poorly written. If we can improve it, will include it, otherwise will drop it. But it goes to how the documentary can't even get the basics right. That really is an indictment of PBS -- whose AMERICAN MASTERS FILMS made the bad movie. They really do owe it to the audiences to be factual but they've never felt that obligation, have they?
Elaine's "Marlon Bradno, Rita Moreno and C.I." went up a little while ago and the e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
