Today, riffling through a pile of accumulated mail, I come upon a terse letter from someone who works for the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). It reads as follows:"I am in receipt of your application for Optional Death Benefits. I regret to inform you that you do not meet the medical underwriting requirements and are, therefore, ineligible for participation in the program at this time. This decision was based on the information provided on your medical statement."
So, I've been rejected for supplementary term life insurance. I can't say I'm terribly surprised, but it is disappointing. I'd been hopeful that my in-remission status, combined with the power of the relatively healthy group that are my colleagues in ministry, could put me over the top.
Evidently, it was not to be. The medical underwriters took one look at the words "Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma" on my application, and concluded they don't like the odds of my living another ten or fifteen years.
I suppose that makes me, officially, a statistic.
Usually, when we hear that someone has "become a statistic," it means they've already bought the farm. The car's wrapped around the telephone pole, upping the county's annual death-by-auto total by one. It's an oddly dehumanizing negation of a life, that expression.
The teenage driver laid out in the casket in the funeral home is obviously so much more than a statistic. The teary-eyed family members – eager to reminisce, as though spinning tales would bring their loved one back to life – know that very well. Yet, to some anonymous actuary running his or her finger down a long column of numbers, that makes little difference. Do the numbers breathe? Do they laugh? Do they cry?Oh, come on. They're just numbers...
Exactly.
Oh, well. I'll just have to prove the underwriters wrong, I guess.
(Just to spite them, of course...)
MOGADISHU (AFP) - Somalia's Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi returned in an armed convoy one day after government forces and Ethiopian troops had forced Islamist leaders to abandon the coastal capital they had controlled for six months.
The invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian forces, despite claims of invitation by the weak Baidoa-based Transitional Federal Government, only leads to more suffering and instability in the Horn of Africa region. United Nations Security Council resolution 1725 clearly stated that "all Member States, in particular those in the region, should refrain from any action in contravention of the arms embargo and related measures."
And reasons for that failure are our friends in Kaliti. In the eyes of the public, the imprisoned CUD still holds legitimacy. It is the mayor of Addis Abeba in jail at the Addis Abeba Penitentiary, not an arrogant rebel group, not corrupt businessmen, and definitely not Islamists.
Mogadishu 28, Dec.06 - With Islamists entirely withdrew from the capital Mogadishu, looters could be seen stealing Islamist reserved arms in their main headquarters in the northern part of the capital Mogadishu.
The Ethiopian government is quite possibly manipulating intelligence to fool the United States into thinking the threat from the Somali Islamists to be bigger than it actually is.
Addis Abeba, 27 Dec. (AKI) - The African Union (AU) and the Arab League on Wednesday issued calls for Ethiopia - whose troops are currently advancing on the Somali capital, Mogadishu - to withdraw from the conflict-scarred country. Both bodies urged Ethopia not to attack Mogadishu and to begin peace talks with the Islamist Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Somalia's Islamists are in full retreat after Ethiopian airstrikes and a ground offensive that have killed up to 1,000 of the religious movement's fighters, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Tuesday. 
Mogadishu 26, Dec.06 ( Sh.M.Network) In a press conference held in the capital Mogadishu, Islamic Courts chairman Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed told reporters that the war between the ICU and the Ethiopian troops backing the Somali government will be long and unending.
Authorities of Islamic Courts Union in Somalia capital Mogadishu claimed on Thursday that its fighters had gained victories over the latest skirmishes with the Ethiopian forces near Baidoa city, the base of thetransitional federal government. 
BAIDOA, Somalia (Reuters) - Ethiopian tanks rolled to the battlefront on Friday as Somali Islamists and Somalia's pro-government troops pounded each other with artillery and rockets in a fourth day of clashes edging closer to all-out war.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: Ethiopia's government media barrages the public with justifications for war with an Islamic movement in neighboring Somalia. Many in Ethiopia's capital, though, don't buy it.
Mogadishu - A leader of Somalia's Islamists has called fighting near the government's base 'a full scale war,' blaming neighbouring Ethiopia for starting the violence.
"There are two pillars to every dictatorship - secret police and propaganda. The Internet companies that comply with these regimes enable dictatorships to impose both pillars by allowing them to spread lies and find people whose only crime is wanting freedom and democracy,"Chris Smith
(Iraqi Rocker or "Meemo" is a 19 year old man living in Baghdad): "Good Bye Blue Sky:
