WINNING PIECE (Feature Writing) of the NSPC 1999

Come to me, Mama. Come, touch me and feel my pain. Dont be afraid now,Mama. You
werent when you killed me.
Here, touch this.can you feel it now, Mama? The excruciating pain
that consumed my helpless body? You inflicted that, remember?
Look at my body, now a mass of rotting flesh and coagulated blood. The dregs
of what was a tiny human body. A body that was soft with a tiny head matted with
asheen of baby hair. A tiny body with a tiny heart that pulsated in time with
yours.These were my fingers and ohh!heres my thumb which I sucked while
snugly tucked inside you.
You see, I had long lashes like dads. My sensitive mouth was just like yours. And
here are my ears which heard your quickening heartbeat when youre afraid.
I could have been a wonderful child if youve let me live.
I couldve been a baby boy. Just what Daddy wanted. A strong, healthy
and bubbly bundle in your arms. My hypersensitiveness would have exasperated you.
Daddy? Hmmmmhe could have coached me in playing softball. Hell be
the pitcher and I the batter. I could have grown into a writer. You would be proud of me
cause Im gonna join contests.
Mama, see I was alive but not anymore. So, please let baby brother live. Hecould
also be as wonderful as me. His life wouldnt be like mine. A life that never was.
 Who is the 'Merchant of Death?'
He's known as the "Merchant of Death" and the "Lord of War," -- an alleged international arms dealer
straight out of a cloak-and-dagger spy novel who eluded authorities for years and inspired Hollywood
villains.
But in reality, according to those who have seen or met Viktor Bout, he is a somber man, sometimes
nattily dressed, a wheeler-dealer who has insisted he is innocent of the allegations leveled against him.
Bout, a Russian citizen and former military officer, speaks six languages "and I could see him
bargaining in all six at the same time," wrote CNN's Jill Dougherty in 2008, recalling her meeting with Bout
in 2002 in Moscow, Russia.
Bout arrived in New York late Tuesday after being extradited from Thailand. He faces charges in the
United States of conspiring to kill U.S. nationals, conspiring to kill U.S. officers or employees,
conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile and conspiring to provide material support or
resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. American law enforcement officers have
spent years pursuing him, and the extradition process from Thailand was an arduous one for them.
Bout is accused of supplying weapons to war zones around the world, from Sierra Leone to Afghanistan.
Before his 2008 arrest, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents led a sting operation by posing as
members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), officials said.

"His early days are a mystery," said Douglas Farah, a senior fellow at the International Assessment
and Strategy Center who co-authored a book on Bout. Farah told Mother Jones magazine in 2007 that
according to his multiple passports, Bout was born in 1967 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the son of a
bookkeeper and an auto mechanic.
A pro-Bout website -- Farah said Bout put it up himself -- says he was born into an "average home and an
average family" and that his parents were employees in the "administrative and accounting fields."
But, Farah said, some reports are that Bout's parents were involved in intelligence. "His mother
was supposedly very high in the KGB," Farah said, adding that Bout has consistently denied that.
"He graduated from the Military Institute on Foreign Languages, a well-known feeder school for Russian
military intelligence, and is known to have a true gift for languages," Farah told Mother Jones.
Bout has said that he worked as a military officer in Mozambique. Others have said it was actually Angola
-- which would make sense, as Russia had a large military presence there at the time, Farah told CNN.
He said Bout's rise stemmed from the end of Communism and the rise of capitalism in the early
1990s in the former Soviet bloc.
"He was a Soviet officer, most likely a lieutenant, who simply saw the opportunities presented by
three factors that came with the collapse of the USSR and the state sponsorship that entailed: abandoned
aircraft on the runways from Moscow to Kiev, no longer able to fly because of the lack of money for fuel or
maintenance; huge stores of surplus weapons that were guarded by guards suddenly receiving little or no
salary; and the booming demand for those weapons from traditional Soviet clients and newly emerging
armed groups from Africa to the Philippines," Farah told the magazine.
"He simply wedded the three things, taking aircraft for almost nothing, filling them with cheaply
purchased weapons from the arsenals, and flying them to clients who could pay."
"He knew the African market," Farah said Wednesday. "He was clearly aware of who [Russia's]
past clients had been ... I think he had foresight, and I think he understood the world changes much more
than the average Soviet bloc person."
He first became known when the United Nations began investigating him in the early-to-mid 1990s and
the United States began to get involved, Farah told CNN.
 Bout's website, which spells his name Victor, says he became notorious because of a smear
campaign, "fictitious tales and stories which were generated from one source -- a corrupt United Nations
contractor who was generously paid for the U.N. contracts he arranged with the help of others for Victor's
companies, and then became mad for vengeance when Victor refused to continue paying him."
The site said the United States case against him is based on "lies" and paid informants.
Attempts by CNN to contact Bout's wife were unsuccessful Wednesday.
Ironically, the United States is also among Bout's clients, even indirectly, Farah said Wednesday. Bout
companies were used to fly for government contractors in Iraq. Most of those flights -- estimated in the
hundreds -- occurred after then-President George W. Bush had signed an executive order making it illegal
to do business with Bout because he represented a security threat to the United States, Farah told Mother
Jones.
"The State Department, under a congressional inquiry initiated by Sen. Russell Feingold, found it
had used Bout companies, acknowledged it, and stopped," Farah told the magazine. "...Despite the public
revelation, the congressional inquiry, the executive order and a subsequent Treasury Department order
freezing the assets of Bout and his closest associates, the flights continued for many months, at least until
the end of 2005."
The United States did not have the airlift capacity to go in at the time, Farah said Wednesday. But
Bout had planes close by, in the United Arab Emirates, and "he was willing to fly without insurance. He
paid pilots a flat rate."
At one point, the State and Treasury departments were going after Bout while the Department of Defense
continued to pay him. "It was one of those contradictory situations," Farah said.
Farah told CNN he believes the trial against Bout will be quick, as he doesn't believe anyone wants
Bout to tell what he knows -- because he knows a lot. His knowledge could potentially embarrass not only
Russia, but the United Nations, the United States and Britain, among others, he said. "I don't think they're
going to have a wide-ranging free-for-all."
And so far, "he's apparently been a stand-up guy to the Russians," and hasn't threatened to turn
on them, Farah said. For one thing, they have his family, which is "considerable leverage" -- Bout is widely
known to be a family man, Farah wrote in August in Foreign Policy magazine.
"He endured more than two years in a Thai prison, losing more than 70 pounds and never showing
any signs of doubting he would ultimately walk away," Farah wrote in the article. "He has been, so far, a
soldier's soldier."
That's largely in line with how Bout views himself, Farah said Wednesday -- as a soldier and a
businessman.
"I think everyone agrees on a personal level, he's very charming. He's very articulate, very sort of well-
mannered and obviously a very smart guy," he said, adding Bout has never considered himself as a
"trigger-puller or bad guy."
"I don't think he views himself as having any blood on his hands," he said.
In addition, Bout approached the CIA and the FBI through an intermediary just after the September 11,
2001 attacks on New York and Washington, offering to help oust the Taliban if paid tens of millions, Farah
told Mother Jones. "Negotiations were serious and lasted several months, but we do not know what, if
any, parts of the deal he offered were accepted."
But in 2002, when he met with Dougherty, Bout was interested in setting the record straight. He
traveled with a bodyguard and a female aide, Dougherty said, and was "dressed in a well-cut dark jacket
with gold buttons, grey trousers, white shirt and basket-weave-patterned silk tie." He also sported a wool
topcoat.
"His English was quite good," Dougherty recalled. "He seemed intelligent, canny; serious but nervous."
 She said he was "tall, heavy-set, a bit rough around the edges, but he acted like a man who has
been wronged."
She asked him about allegations against him -- did he sell arms to the Taliban? To al Qaeda? Did he
supply rebels in Africa and get paid in blood diamonds? -- and he denied each one.
"It's a false allegation and it's a lie," he said. "I've never touched diamonds in my life and I'm not a
diamond guy and I don't want that business."
"I'm not afraid," he told Dougherty. "I didn't do anything in my life I should be afraid of. And all this looks to
me like a witch hunt. Look, I'm coming to your office, I have no problem. And I said, 'Hey, who's looking for
me?' I'm here. I'm not hiding from nobody. And I don't want this story going on."
Dougherty asked him if he had ever met Osama bin Laden, and he said no, adding that if he had,
he might have helped prevent the 9/11 attacks.
Farah believes Bout's downfall was insisting on closing the supposed "deal" with FARC himself. "He was
more than happy to say he knew the weapons would be used to kill Americans," he said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Bout himself -- who reportedly has used names including "Victor Anatoliyevich Bout,"
"Victor But," "Viktor Butt," "Viktor Bulakin" and "Vadim Markovich Aminov" -- is thought to have been the
inspiration for the arms-dealer character played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 movie "Lord of War."
"Someone will undoubtedly write a book about this case some day, and I can tell you that it will
read like the very best work of Tom Clancy, only in this case it won't be fiction," Michael Braun, then
assistant administrator and chief of operations for the DEA, told CNN in 2008.
Much of what Bout is alleged to have done is morally reprehensible, but not illegal, Farah said, noting
there are no penalties for violating UN weapons sanctions.
"Our book ends saying, 'They'll never catch him,'" he said.
Myth 1: The flu shot causes the flu.

The viruses in the flu shot are dead, so they can't give people the flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Its most common side effect is soreness in the arm.

FluMist nasal spray contains weakened viruses, so they don't cause severe, flu-like symptoms, either. Side effects in
children can include a runny nose, wheezing and headache.

So why do some people swear that they got sick right after getting a flu shot? Flu shots tend to be given at a time of year
when respiratory viruses are beginning to circulate, doctors say. So it's only natural that some people will catch a
respiratory bug shortly after getting a vaccine. And since it takes about two weeks after getting a vaccine for the body to
develop immunity, some of those bugs could be the flu. But the vaccine itself isn't causing disease.

Myth 2: The flu is just a bad cold.

While some people develop worse symptoms than others, flu symptoms tend to be much more severe than and come
on much more suddenly than a cold. Many who got H1N1 (swine flu) last year were out of work or school for a week
with fever, body aches, sore throat, fatigue, headaches and a runny or congested nose, according to the CDC.

And unlike a cold, which generally goes away on its own after five days or so, the flu can cause life-threatening
complications, mostly by causing secondary bacterial infections such as pneumonia.

The flu sends 200,000 people to the hospital and kills 30,000 in a typical year, the CDC says.

California obstetrician-gynecologist Jennifer Gunter says her 7-year-old son, Oliver, who was born prematurely, has been
hospitalized for the flu twice. Both times, he came home from the hospital with an oxygen machine. Gunter caught H1N1
last year, before the vaccine was available.

"It was horrible," Gunter says. "I was off work for six days until I was no longer infectious."

In developed countries, influenza kills more people than any other vaccine-preventable disease, says pediatrician Jon
Abramson of Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Families Fighting Flu, a non-profit health group.

Myth 3: This year's shot which protects against both H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines is riskier than earlier
versions.

Actually, the new flu shot was made the same way as every other flu shot, says Randy Bergen of Kaiser Permanente in
Walnut Creek, Calif.

Every year, vaccine makers include circulating viral strains that are most likely to cause illness. Typically, these include
two influenza A strains an H1N1 and an H3N2 and a strain of influenza B, Abramson says.

This year, manufacturers included the H1N1 strain that caused pandemic last year, Abramson says.

All drugs, including "natural" supplements and vitamins, have side effects. But the safety of vaccines is actually tracked
more closely than just about any other drug. Unlike most medicines, "we have more hard facts when it comes to the flu
shot," Gunter says.

Through the National Adverse Event Reporting System, investigators check out every serious side effect that people
experience after getting a flu shot. Most aren't related to the flu vaccine. In fact, there were no deaths attributed to the
H1N1 vaccine last year, Gunter says.

Myth 4: Only sick people need a flu shot.

While older people and newborns are usually at greatest risk for complications, swine flu is actually most threatening to
the young.

Typically, about 90% of flu deaths are in people over 65. Last year, however, about 90% of flu deaths were in people
under 30. About 10% of flu deaths last year were in children, according to the CDC.

When healthy people get vaccinated, it can help protect the weak, including cancer patients, anyone with a compromised
immune system and newborns too young to get the shot, says Paul Offit, chief of infectious disease at Children's Hospital
of Philadelphia.
Because babies can't be vaccinated until they're 6 months old, they depend on those around them parents,
grandparents, siblings, babysitters, hospital employees to get the flu shot, creating a "cocoon" of protection, Bergen
says.

Myth 5: Flu shots contain methyl mercury and other toxic chemicals.

Although there's no evidence that the ethyl mercury-based preservative thimerosal causes harm, vaccine makers
responded to public concerns in 2001 and stopped using it in most vaccines.

Neither flu shots in individual-dose containers or the FluMist nasal spray contain thimerosal. Flu vaccine kept in multi-dose
vials do use thimerosal as a preservative, to prevent the growth of fungus or other potentially dangerous germs, Bergen
says. Patients can ask for the thimerosal-free versions.

But scientists note that all mercury is not the same.

Thimerosal contains ethyl mercury, which has not been shown to cause harm, rather than methyl mercury, the type that
can cause brain damage, Offit says. While most laypeople don't pay attention to such differences, they're important.
Consider the huge difference between ethyl alcohol or drinking alcohol, found in wine and beer and methyl alcohol,
or wood alcohol, which can cause blindness.

There's also no data to prove that thimerosal causes autism, Offit says. In fact, seven studies now refute that idea.

Gunter notes that flu shots don't use aluminum, which is used in other vaccines as an "adjuvant" to stimulate a stronger
immune response.

While many medications and consumer products have trace levels of chemicals, so do our bodies, Offit says. Breast milk
has more mercury contamination than vaccines. So does infant formula. But vaccines, like breast milk, play a vital role in
keeping infants healthy.

"If you have zero tolerance for mercury, you have to move to another planet," Offit says. "We all have mercury and
formaldehyde and aluminum in our bodies. Vaccines don't add to what we normally encounter every day."
9. Black in Dallas: The May issue of D featured this story about why young African-American professionals are
reluctant to move to Dallaseven when it could be a great career move.

"At a time of striking growth among the black population in the Dallas area, the city still suffers from an image
problem among black professionals who perceive other citiesAtlanta; Chicago; or Washington, D.C.as being
more friendly to blacks.

'Dallas is a tough sell,' says April Allen, executive director of KIPP Dallas-Fort Worth, a nonprofit charter school
organization that has had trouble recruiting education reformers to the area. 'There is definitely the perception
that Dallas isnt as progressive as other cities for African-Americans.'"