Hi again,
 
Well, we have two weeks under our belts now in February and we still haven't seen a single article on page one of the Arizona Republic about the war in Iraq.
 
Wayne Gretzky, Janet Jones and the gambling allegations that have swirled around the Phoenix Coyotes have made page A1 a couple of times this past week.  We’ve also had urgent, pressing stories about a weight-loss medication that hasn’t yet been approved, a quarter that hasn’t yet been designed, and fraternity houses that will temporarily not be allowed to have alcohol.  We even had the front page news that the word “cool” is still cool.
 
It must not be “cool” however, to provide any kind of prominent acknowledgement that we are still fighting a war that has taken 2269 American lives, nine more in the week since I last wrote.  This month alone, 27 U.S. soldiers and 56 Iraqi police and military personnel have been killed.  47 U.S. soldiers have been wounded and 141 Iraqi civilians have been killed in civil unrest that we seem unable to control.
 
Even when another Arizonan died, Corporal Brandon Schuck, of Safford, it couldn’t squeeze onto A1.  Apparently we needed that space for a review of Janet Jones’ film career.
 
Is it possible that if the entire 20 member editorial board of the Arizona Republic, plus seven other top writers died in the course of two weeks that it would be scarcely mentioned in the paper?  If it happened and it were covered prominently, would it be because those 27 lives are somehow worth more than the 27 lives given for the American military effort? 
 
If there is truly any rationale for the lack of coverage of this war, I’d love to hear what it is.  
 
Until next week,