The James Logan Courier

By Paul Salopek
Chicago Tribune (MCT)

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Abdulrahman Habeb was a man with problems, the most pressing of which involved a barrel of tranquilizer pills.

The barrel — containing 50,000 capsules of fluphenazine hydrochloride, a potent anti-psychotic drug ordered from America — was boosting his patients' appetites. This was not good. Patients at the Habeb Public Mental Hospital were scaling the facility's mud walls to scavenge for food outside, in the war-pocked streets of Mogadishu. One had been shot.

"They don't stop when sentries say `Halt!'" said Habeb, the director of the only mental health clinic in Somalia's capital. "How could they? They are mentally ill."

By Edward M. Eveld
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

Freerice.com is this "great, addictive" Web site, said the e-mail from a friend and expatriate all the way from the United Arab Emirates.

Log on to freerice.com, and what appears is a multiple-choice vocabulary game. Up pops a word followed by four definitions. The task is to pick the right definition. After three correct answers, the player graduates to a higher vocabulary level.

Addictive, yes. But here's the "free rice" part. Each correct answer results in the donation of 10 grains of rice to help feed the hungry around the globe. Perhaps that qualifies the game as a good addiction.

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT)

"Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Ninja Pro-Am"
For: PlayStation 2
From: Creat Studios/Midway
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, language, mature humor, drug reference, cartoon violence, suggestive themes)

The good news about "Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Ninja Pro-Am" is that, at $30, it's affordably priced by video game standards. That allows fans of the hilariously funny "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" cartoon to purchase it on impulse and play through it to see some exclusive new content, including a brand-new episode.

The attractive price also is, for many of the same reasons, bad news. What "Pro-Am" doesn't do to your wallet, it most certainly will do to your patience and will, regardless of how deep your "Aqua Teen Hunger Force " fandom goes.

From wikipedia:
Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf (November 20, 1858 – March 16, 1940) was a Swedish author and the first woman writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Known internationally for Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige (a story for children, in translation The Wonderful Adventures of Nils), she was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909 "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings."

Read The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlöf, one of five of her works available free from Project Gutenberg.