For some reason my hit counter has doubled over the past two weeks. Does it mean that more people are reading this journal? It could also mean that spam spiders, programs that search the web for email addresses to spam, are out in full force.

Tonight I had dinner with Steven. He does remember the longshore-man from Vancouver.

Steven is going through a lot of stress. You can hear it in his tone-of-voice. He's less perky than he usually is.

We talked a bit about the war. I told him that the war hasn't really affected me. Yes people are fighting and dying. But that's always the case-- Rwanda, Columbia, Zimbabwe, Congo, North Korea. The only thing that's different now is that it's on TV. I hope that after the war, people won't think it's over. That once Iraq becomes a free place to live, that this sort of thing will slip from our minds. Two thirds of the world lives under terrible conditions, not in the peacful, easy society we have in the west. Iraq is only the tip of the iceburg.