Janet Phelan

"It wasn't so hard,"

he said

taking a long, deep drag on his cigar.

"She was all bluff.

When you got beneath her skin,

she was just bravado, spit and string.

I snapped her like a twig."

They sat in silence on the bench

in Central Park

breathing in the power of dark suits

and expensive cigars

and blowing small, frail rings

which hung in the air

for as long as it would take

for them to appear as if they were actually

substantial

and then they dissolved

into the anonymous grey afternoon.

A small black squirrel

darted from behind a cedar

sniffed the air

then began to burrow under

the stiff, crimson-veined leaves.

Winter's coming.

Save what you can.

FIRST, THEY CAME FOR BRADLEY MANNING

While the country responds with growing alarm over  torture policies first instigated against prisoners in Guantánamo, policies  which now appear to be levied against at least one American citizen, Bradley Manning, another policy violation has been overlooked by the guardians of our freedom. The U.S. press has been mum, at least up until now, on the violation of the Biological Weapons Convention by none other than the United States government.

In the rush to pass protective legislation into law following the attacks of 911, the authors of the U.S. Patriot Act amended the previous legislation regarding biological weapons. Section 817 of the U.S. Patriot Act, otherwise known as the "Expansion of the Biological Weapons Statute," has violated the Biological Weapons Convention, an international treaty which the U.S. signed in 1974.

The Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention, also known as the BWC, was the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning the production of an entire category of weapons. It was largely considered to be a result of  prolonged efforts by the international community to supplement the 1925 Geneva Protocol.

PICK YOUR POISON

The language of 817 closely mirrors that of the BWC, which bans the development, stockpiling and transport of biological weapons. The violation has occured in a final caveat, which nullifies the prohibitions contained in the BWC and prior U.S. bioweapons legislation.