SAVE FOR A FEW ISOLATED PATCHES OF SNOW, NOT TO MENTION ON THE BLUFFLANDS, snow has basically melted here in the Minnwissippi--or is starting to.

And is likely to be all the more so with milder weather, not to mention rain, making its presence felt as March prepares to segue into April.

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YOUR CORRESPONDENT COULDN'T HELP BUT BE AMUSED @ THE NEWS OUT OF WAUSAU, WISCONSIN about police being called to what neighbours claimed was an underage drinking party, replete with the inevitable pony kegs and red plastic cups.

Only it emerged that the pony keg was full of 1919 Draft Root Beer, never mind that police were called to conduct breathalyser tests on all participants--all negative.

You may have heard about it on the news--and heard about (let alone) seen the video of the police raid on YouTube (which you can see below):

So who says teens have to drink beer or take illicit drugs to have a good time? (The above disproving this contention.)

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IT LOOKS AS IF THE WORLD'S SMALLEST SOVERIGN ENTITY, THE STATE OF VATICAN CITY (A/K/A THE HOLY SEE), may be about to become the world's first smoke-free soverign state.

Expect pretty much all the other vest-pocket soverign entities the world over to follow suit quickly--as in:

• Andorra
• Ellan Vannin (the Isle of Man)
• Gibraltar
• States of Guernsey and Dependencies
• States of Jersey
• Principality of Liechtenstein
• Principality of Monaco
• Republic of San Marino

But then again, you have to wonder how these same entities will compensate for loss of revenue from tobacco taxes, never mind in particular Andorra and Monaco being centres for black-market cigarette sales (Andorra especially, what with their having no GST yet embracing the Euro as legal coin of the realm, so making the tiny state rather popular among Euroshopping types looking for amazing values in top-of-the-line consumer goods).

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DOWN ZIMBABWE WAY, GENERAL ELECTIONS ARE BEING HELD TODAY--ELECTIONS WHICH COULD BE TAINTED, AS SEEMS TO BE USUAL, by corruption, vote-rigging and wholesale manipulation on the part of President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, widely blamed for all manner of corruption, socioeconomic mismanagement and creation of a climate for to breed social disorder and the old ultraviolence.

Never mind where Mugabe, who's seeking his sixth term in office since suceeding in ending white-minority rule under name and stylee of Rhodesia in 1980, is now 84 years of age and may be dropping hints of senility or lapses of memory ... let alone the fact of Zimbabwe's Central Election Commission banning foreign observers seen to be "meddling in [Zimbabwe's] internal affairs" as much as their "antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity," thereby raising further fears of said elections being neither free nor fair.

Certain to be of interest to the GOP and their Religiopolitical Right droogs as are probably looking for new and innovative ways for which to manipulate and pervert Indecision 2008; seems they must be acting as unofficial observers, howbeit incognito and keeping a low profile to avoid arousing suspicions with Zimbabwean police and/or immigration officials.

Is it any wonder that these elements weird and unwholesome must be having such an especial interest in the Zimbabwean Presidential elections, particularly from the standpoint of tactics and strategems for to pervert the electoral process (and excuse such as being for G-d, Country and Family Values)?

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PATRIOTIC FANATICISM TAKEN TO A NEW AND POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS LOW IN THE MAKING: In the waning days of World War II in the Pacific, the Japanese military recruited young men to act as suicide pilots who could be easily trained and manipulated to crash-dive their bomb-laden aircraft into American naval vessels, hoping their sacrifice in the name of their super-divine Showa Emperor would save Japan from imminent American "annhilation."

Otherwise known as kamikaze ("divine wind"), such goes down in history as perhaps one of the crudest attempts @ patriotic fanaticism based on taking one's life to save others from further misery and hardship.

Your Correspondent had this fantasy the other day about where certain overzealously "patriot" types might prostate themselves before Old Glory in an attempt @ self-abasement before the Greater Collective Good of the Nation, seeing in Old Glory something akin to a Fiery Cross or the Nazis' swastika (i.e., a symbol of National Salvation and Honour) ... only to have the whole result in an episode of emotional hysteria not unlike the Old Testament prophet Job lamenting his own lot resulting in suicide, hoping such an exercise would be seen as one with "saving America from herself" ahead of a "New World Order" "takeover of American soverignty and soverign identity."

Especially so among "patriot" elements tending to attract vulnerable and easily-influenced elements of society by exploiting their easily-influenced patriotic feelings and sentiments--same tending all the more to jingoism and xenophobia.

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AND ONE THING MORE, as Paul Harvey is fond of closing out his radio news bulletins absent a "For What It's Worth" item, by way of the BBC World Service programme From Our Own Correspondent, which had this interesting item about troops from the United Arab Emirates serving alongside NATO forces in Afghanistan (and actually gaining some confidence and trust among Afghani Muslims who are otherwise resentful of especially American Occupation Troops, never mind their mostly serving a humanitarian role):

This week the BBC's Frank Gardner revealed that a contingent of Arab troops from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been secretly operating alongside the Americans in Afghanistan. But getting access to them took months and was fraught with hurdles, especially as our correspondent is in a wheelchair.

Out on the tarmac at an Abu Dhabi airbase, in the slowly-building heat of the Gulf, my heart sank.

The UAE Airforce Hercules transport plane that was supposed to fly us up to Bagram base had its engines running, the pilot was in his cockpit, but I could not see how I was supposed to wheel myself up into it.

"No ramp!" shouted a crewman above the roar of the engines, "all full with cargo!"

So the crew had to lift me bodily out of my wheelchair and carry me through a tiny hatchway like a baby.

Four hours after take-off the first snow appeared, dusting the mountaintops and filling the north-facing ravines of Waziristan, home to those elusive pockets of Taleban and al-Qaeda insurgents.

"Thirty minutes to landing," shouted the airforce crew.

Hospitable reception

We flew low over the foothills of the Hindu Kush, then the green crops and dusty villages gave way to what looked like a purpose-built new town, a clean and tidy place where the buildings were all in neat lines.

It was Bagram airbase, home to 11,000 coalition troops.

A reception committee of beaming Emirati officers had driven out to greet us, led by the Taskforce Commander, a slight man from Sharjah with a quiet intelligence and a twinkle in his eye.

"Welcome back to Afghanistan, Mr Frank," he said, extending his hand.

To my embarrassment, the ever-hospitable Emiratis had insisted on allocating me the VIP hut, a sort of miniature villa with faux columns amid rows of sandbags.

They had even got their Afghan carpenters to construct a wooden ramp so I could wheel up to the raised doorway and I could see it had been freshly painted.

That evening the Emiratis gave us a presentation on the humanitarian projects they were undertaking: a mosque here, a school there, wells dug in this village, a clinic set up in that one.

It did not seem vastly different from what other countries were doing but we were soon to see for ourselves that as Muslims, the UAE soldiers were welcomed and trusted in places where the rest of the US-led coalition frankly was not.

Knowing how important Islam was to most Afghan villagers, the Emiratis would address their religious needs first, either by building them a small mosque or just by distributing freshly-printed Korans.

Only then, said the Emiratis, could they discuss other secular projects like building a school or a hospital.

Frustration

Of course in an ideal world I would get out and see all this with my own eyes but safety concerns meant I had to stay behind on-base - "in the rear, with the gear, where there is no fear" - while our crew went off to film.

To say this was frustrating was an understatement.

In the village of Qalat Baland, my companions watched as boxes of sweet, sticky dates were handed out to grey-bearded elders, and children were given school notebooks while a tall, charismatic Emirati army officer sat cross-legged in a courtyard, listening as a young boy chanted verses from the Koran by memory.

From the pictures they brought back it all looked a vision of harmony, but then I could see it began to go wrong - word spread that there was not enough to go round

Suddenly the crowd surged, pushing and elbowing their way past the uniformed troops to get at the plastic-wrapped goodies.

The Afghan police, who had now turned up, weighed in with unrestrained brutality and it took all the Emiratis' diplomacy to restore calm before the scene descended into a riot.

Back in the Emiratis' camp I had not been completely idle.

Part of the plan was that they brought in a succession of prominent Afghans for me to interview, all people who had worked with these fellow Muslims from the Gulf on humanitarian projects.

In their smart grey business suits the Afghan officials looked quite out of place here in this dusty, sandbagged camp.

There was the chancellor of Khost University and a junior minister for orphans, widows and the disabled. There was also an elderly but energetic member of President Karzai's government who had some outspoken views about his fellow governors.

No respect

"They are drug runners," declared Meraj Uddin Patan flatly, as he reeled off a list of provincial governors he said were all up to their necks in the opium poppy trade.

"How can people respect our government when you have people like these in charge of them?" he said, swatting away a fly that had emerged into the early spring sunshine.

"When I took over as governor of Khost in 2004," he continued, "I started a campaign against the sort of thugs who intimidated the population and do you know how?"

"No I didn't," I said. By now he was in full flow and a small group of Emirati soldiers had gathered to listen.

"When we caught a Taleban insurgent," said governor Meraj, "we would shave his head and put him on a donkey facing backwards and parade him round the city. But now," he paused, a look of genuine sadness on his face, "now it has gone back to being a very bad situation".

I asked him why the Taleban had been so successful in making a comeback since they were defeated here in 2001.

"There are three reasons" replied Meraj "weak government, no unity among the police, national army and the coalition allies, and, the Taleban has unrestricted freedom of movement in their rear area in Waziristan. Solve these problems," he said "and Afghanistan has a bright future."

Satisfied, ye Zealots and True Believers in ur-RAHOWA Against International Terrorism and "healthy [and] patriotic" Islamophobia?

Besides, "it's a small world, after all...."