Even in this area near Fort Bragg, where serving in uniform is a family tradition, the drop in Army enlistment by blacks from 2000 to 2005 matches the national average.

Kashonda Leycock is the daughter of a soldier, and the 17-year-old has been a member of the Junior ROTC at Westover High School for more than two years.

She joined to prove to her parents and herself she could do it -- not because she wants to join the military. She doesn't. Her primary objection is the war in Iraq.

"Why are we fighting?" Leycock asked. "Nobody has really said why the war is still going on. I don't think it should be going on because it's not solving anything. ... None of my people want to go there."

The lack of support for the war by blacks -- in uniform or not -- is striking. A poll of Cumberland County residents, commissioned last year by The Fayetteville Observer, showed that 69 percent of whites said the war in Iraq was worth the costs. Only 19 percent of blacks agreed.

The survey, conducted between March 31 and April 18, found that 71 percent of whites with military ties believed the Iraq war was worth fighting, but only 21 percent of blacks with military ties.

Curtis Gilroy, who works on recruiting issues for the Department of Defense, said that sentiment has been noticed nationwide -- and with concern.

"We want to make sure all recruits see the military as a viable career option. But we also understand the reservations that individuals might have," he said.

He noted the influence of adults such as parents, teachers and ministers on young people -- and how their opposition to the war would make them less likely to recommend a military career.

"Mothers, in particular within the black community, play a more prominent role and are far less likely to recommend military service," Gilroy said.

Despite the declines, the percentage of blacks in the military continues to exceed the percentage in the U.S. population. Nineteen percent of the military's active-duty enlisted force is black, compared to 13 percent of the country's population.

And there are young black people who do see that career option, despite or even because of the Iraq war.

Tyrell Rembert, a Westover senior, is a private in the North Carolina Army National Guard. He joined in April 2004 at the age of 17, picking the Guard over active duty so he could begin training before graduation.

He said he joined because he knows people who have served and are serving in Iraq.

"I wanted to be able to help them out, I guess you'd say," he said.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press,

The pizza magnate is bankrolling the project with at least $250 million and calls it "God's will." Civil libertarians say the plan is unconstitutional and are threatening to sue. The town of Ave Maria is being constructed around Ave Maria University, the first Catholic university to be built in the United States in about 40 . . . During a speech last year at a Catholic men's gathering in Boston, Mr. Monaghan said that in his community, stores will not sell pornographic magazines, pharmacies will not carry condoms or birth-control pills, and cable television will have no X-rated channels. . . Gov. Jeb Bush, at the site's groundbreaking earlier this month, lauded the development as a new kind of town where faith and freedom will merge to create a community of like-minded citizens

However, water ice on the Moon is far from being a slam dunk deduction. There is ongoing dispute about whether or not such frozen caches of water reside in sunshine-deprived lunar craters.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2008 will dive into the issue. Future robotic Moon landers are expected to plop down at polar regions for a spot check too. In the interim, space lawyers are at the ready to voice legal opinions on tapping into any water ice found.

Unique illumination conditions

There is "intriguing evidence" that, potentially, water ice on the Moon exists in fairly significant amounts, said Ben Bussey, a lunar expert at the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.

NASA's Lunar Prospector clearly identified an enhanced signal of hydrogen--an indication that nobody has any qualms with, Bussey told SPACE.com. "But there's the argument ... is it hydrogen or is the hydrogen in a form of water ice?"

The Pentagon's Clementine lunar orbiter yielded data that, some scientists contend, gave a positive indication for ice inside Schackleton crater, situated at the Moon's south pole.

Yet there is controversy about that interpretation, Bussey noted, adding that Earth-based radar of that area, some argue, reflect more a signal of rocks and not ice.

"The [lunar] poles represent the biggest unknowns," Bussey said, leaving the scientific community hungry for new information. "We definitely know that the poles have unique illumination conditions with the potential for permanent sunshine. We know that there's lots of permanent shadow which could contain ice."

In the big scheme of things, looking for ice does not, in itself, merit going back to the Moon.

"But if it's there ... and it is there in enough quantity to be extractable and usable, then I can see there's a potential where you want to use it. It makes your life easier," Bussey said. On the other hand, he questioned, if it is there, is it in a form that makes it viable to be used?

Cometary frost

Apollo 17 moonwalker and geologist Harrison Schmitt questions the availability of water ice at the lunar poles.

For one, NASA's Lunar Prospector detected what must be largely solar wind hydrogen, Schmitt told SPACE.com. The only areas where water ice might be contributing to that signal are places where permanent shadowing exists near the poles, he said.

"Indeed, cometary volatiles--including water ice--probably precipitate as frost in permanent shadow at the lunar poles," Schmitt said, something that has been shown theoretically by a number of researchers. The longevity of this frost, however, is subject to the rate of micrometeorite and solar wind erosion, he noted.

"Unless the cometary frost, including water ice, is buried quickly by fortuitous impact ejecta or is partially protected in a very deep crater with permanent shadow, it will probably disappear in a geologically short time," Schmitt advised.

No doubt, finding cometary frosts in deep, permanently shadowed craters will be scientifically very interesting, the moonwalker said. "However, I would not yet count on finding economically significant water ice deposits."

Schmitt said that potentially substantial amounts of solar wind hydrogen are present everywhere on the Moon along with helium-4, helium-3, carbon and nitrogen. Hydrogen and helium concentrations are clearly higher in polar regions independent of whether there is cometary water ice.

"So those of us interested in lunar helium-3 fusion power are very interested in more precise mapping of hydrogen distribution as a surrogate for helium-3. We hope that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will provide such information," Schmitt said.

Touch the water

The prospect of finding water ice at the Moon's poles is indeed arguable, said Larry Taylor, Director of the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Taylor, like other lunar experts, said it's imperative that we "touch the water." Doing so is the only way to know if water ice is there in the first place. And if truly present and accounted for, then other questions follow: How much, what quality, and how hard to process?

"The only way to solve this major question" of water ice on the Moon, Taylor emphasized, is not from orbit.

"There does not appear to be any instruments that are completely definitive, even from 'near' remote sensing, such as on a simple lander," Taylor told SPACE.com. "It is not only necessary to determine that there might be water ice, but the quantities and composition."

The makeup of any lunar water ice, coupled with some oxygen isotopes, would go a long way toward assigning an origin to the water, Taylor added, be it hydrous meteorites, comets, or water vapor yielded through the interaction between solar wind and impact-melted lunar surface material.

Customary law

Let's say that, indeed, water ice is on hand at the Moon. Use of that material from a legal point of view is seen by some space law experts as contentious.

For instance, could the amount of water ice be extremely limited? So much so that one nation sucking up all of this precious resource could be viewed by other nations as tantamount to a land grab?

"There will be legal implications when the time comes if and when water ice is finally extracted," said Harold Bashor, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Diplomatic Language for the American Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy in Paris, France. He is author of "The Moon Treaty Paradox" (Xlibris Corporation, 2004).

"According to international law found in the well-ratified
United Nations Outer Space Treaty of 1967, celestial bodies such as the Moon may be used and exploited, but they cannot be appropriated by any country," Bashor said. "Although the subsequent Moon Treaty has only been ratified by eleven nations, (the United States is not a signatory) it cannot be overlooked since it embodies many of the provisions of the comprehensive Outer Space Treaty and customary law as well."

Peaceful purposes

Bashor said that if a country should decide to utilize lunar water ice--or any other resource--on Earth's celestial neighbor, it would be necessary to inform the United Nations of the activities concerned with such exploitation. Secondly, any use of the Moon must be for peaceful purposes, he said.

"For scientific purposes, as example, a country could use water, minerals and other substances in quantities appropriate for the support of their missions as long as the existing balance of the lunar environment would not be disrupted," Bashor advised.

Furthermore, since the Moon is to be explored and exploited for peaceful uses, Bashor said, countries may not interfere with the activities of any other countries on the Moon, and any conflict must be reported to the United Nations.

No rights of ownership Activities on the Moon may be pursued freely without any discrimination of any kind, and countries can place vehicles, personnel, stations, and facilities anywhere on or below the surface.

"However, neither the surface nor the subsurface of the Moon can become the property of any country or its citizens. Also, there are no rights of ownership for any natural resources in place," Bashor told SPACE.com. "This is generally interpreted to mean that a country may not claim ownership of any resources until they have been extracted. Yet, any extraction is required to be for the benefit of mankind according to the Common Heritage of Mankind principle." Additionally, the Moon Treaty of 1979 provides that an international regime should be established when any exploitation of the Moon is "about to become feasible," Bashor observed. "The purpose of this regime would be the orderly and safe development, management, and sharing of the natural resources of the Moon," he said.

While the use of water ice would be permitted in order to support any mission on the Moon, "any further use would be scrutinized especially if it was for military or other illegal uses," Bashor concluded.

Without protest

"Whether lunar ice exists or not, its legal status can be a good intellectual exercise," suggested Virgiliu Pop, a PhD candidate at Glasgow University in Scotland and a specialist in space law focused on property rights in outer space.

Pop is author of Unreal Estate: The Men who Sold the Moon (Exposure Publishing, 2006).

Interestingly enough, Pop pointed out, the legal status of ice right here on Earth is not completely settled. There is no set answer to the question who owns Earth's South Pole, he advised.

In Antarctica, there is a small sliver, reaching down to the South Pole, claimed at the same time by the United Kingdom, Chile, and Argentina. The 1959 Antarctic Treaty may have frozen territorial claims, but that document did not clarify who owns what in Antarctica, Pop said.

"Nonetheless, ice is used by scientific expeditions. Yet, in Antarctica, ice is abundant. At the same time, while Antarctic icebergs have no clear legal status either, several icebergs have been mined for ice without any protests," Pop explained.

Free for all or free-for-all?

The principal sources of ice in the solar system are the comets. It's the view of Pop that comets and smaller asteroids should not be considered celestial bodies proper. Thus, they would not be subject to national appropriation. They would be treated as floating ore bodies, he suggested, "like icebergs on Earth."

Regarding lunar ice, the Outer Space Treaty provides that the Moon is free for use by all States, Pop added, who are granted free access to all of its areas. At the same time, States Parties are to conduct all their lunar activities with due regard to the corresponding interests of all other States Parties to the Treaty.

"It is of my opinion that astronauts will not encounter any legal troubles when using the native materials of the Moon--ice included--to support their exploration," Pop told SPACE.com. "My own interpretation is that anybody is allowed to use lunar ice, provided there is enough for others to use."

David Deluna, 18, Matt Rivera, 19, and a 16-year-old were charged with grand theft and burglary charges Monday. Another four suspects were taken into custody and charged on Friday, Local 6 News partner Florida Today reported.

"When these three realized that we were looking for them on Friday, they left together and went to the beach," said Jesse Suelter, a Palm Bay detective working on the case. "We arrested one on Saturday and found the other two sleeping at their residences today."

Police said the seven teens knew each other from work and school. All came from upper middle class homes but told authorities they carried out the crimes for "an adrenaline rush," Suelter told Florida Today.

The teens randomly picked homes to break into during the day and early evening, Suelter said. In one home they stole a gun. In others, cash, electronics and jewelry were taken.

He also said the teens would ring doorbells and if they did not get an answer they would kick in the doors.

"The suspects were very arrogant and the attitude they had was unbelievable. I explained the possibility that one of them could get hurt or shot. One of them told us that he was a big boy and that 'I think I could take 'em,'" Suelter said.

"I wouldn't feel safe nowhere on this compound as an officer," former guard Derrick Daniels told The Associated Press. Daniels was employed until last fall by Wackenhut Services Inc., the private firm that protects a Homeland Security complex that includes sensitive, classified information.

An envelope with suspicious powder was opened last fall at the headquarters. Daniels and other current and former guards said they were shocked when superiors carried it past the office of Secretary Michael Chertoff, took it outside and then shook it outside Chertoff's window without evacuating people nearby.

The scare, caused by white powder that proved to be harmless, "stands as one glaring example" of the agency's security problems, Daniels said. "I had never previously been given training ... describing how to respond to a possible chemical attack."

"If the allegations brought forward by the whistleblowers are correct, they represent both a security threat and a waste of taxpayer dollars," Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote to the agency's inspector general, seeking an investigation.

"It would be ironic, to say the least, if DHS were unable to secure its own headquarters," they wrote.

The IG's office had no immediate response to the request.

Homeland Security spokesman Brian Doyle said Wackenhut guards are still operating under a contract signed with the Navy, and the agency has little control over their training. A soon-to-be-implemented replacement contract will impose new requirements on security guards, he said.

Daniels, saying he was among the first guards to respond to the white powder incident, said the area where the powder was found wasn't evacuated for more than an hour. Available biohazard face shields went unused. When a belated order was given to evacuate the area, employees had already gone to lunch and had to be rounded up and quarantined.

Doyle, the Homeland spokesman, said the concerns were overblown because all mail going to the Homeland Security complex is irradiated to kill anthrax. "The incident was resolved before anything was moved," he said.

Daniels now works security for another company at another federal building. He is among 14 current and former Wackenhut employees - mostly guards - who were interviewed by The Associated Press or submitted written statements to Congress that were obtained by AP.

Wackenhut President Dave Foley disputed the allegations, saying officers have a minimum of one year's security experience, proper security clearances and training in vehicle screening, identification of personnel, handling of suspicious items and emergency response.

"In short, we believe our security personnel have been properly trained, have responded correctly to the various incidents that have occurred ... and that this facility is secure," Foley said. He declined, however, to discuss any of the current or former employees who have become whistleblowers.

A litany of problems were listed by the guards, whose pay ranges from $15.60 to $23 an hour based on their position and level of security clearance. Among their examples of lax security:

- They have no training in responding to attacks with weapons of mass destruction.

- Chemical-sniffing dogs have been replaced with ineffective equipment that falsely indicates the presence of explosives.

- Vehicle entrances to Homeland Security's complex are lightly guarded.

- Guards with radios have trouble hearing each other, or have no radios, no batons and no pepper spray, leaving them with few options beyond lethal force with their handguns.

Wackenhut is no stranger to criticism.

Over the last two years, the Energy Department inspector general concluded that Wackenhut guards had thwarted simulated terrorist attacks at a nuclear lab only after they were tipped off to the test; and that guards had improperly handled the transport of nuclear and conventional weapons.

Homeland Security is based at a gated, former Navy campus near American University - several miles from the heavily trafficked streets that house the FBI, Capitol, Treasury Department and White House.

Former guard Bryan Adams recognized his inadequate training one day last August, when an employee reported a suspicious bag in the parking lot.

"I didn't have a clue about what to do," he said.

Adams said he closed the vehicle checkpoint with a cone, walked over to the bag and called superiors. Nobody cordoned off the area. Eventually, someone called a federal bomb squad, which arrived more than an hour after the discovery.

"If the bag had, in fact, contained the explosive device that was anticipated, the bomb could have detonated several times over in the hour that the bag sat there," Adams said.

The bag, it turned out, contained gym clothes.

Doyle, the Homeland spokesman, responded to several allegations raised by the guards. He said dogs were replaced because "if you overuse them, their effectiveness drops." The detection equipment that substitutes for the dogs is a better method for detecting explosives, he said.

Guards who used the equipment said it was no match for the reliability of the dogs.

The AP videotaped two vehicle entrances at Homeland headquarters with light security.

One is guarded only during morning and evening rush hours. Movable metal barriers and an unmanned security vehicle only partially blocked the driveway, leaving enough room for a small car or motorcycle to drive through.

Another entrance was guarded with a manned vehicle with two guards but no other barriers.

Doyle said the vehicle entrances were adequate because, in all cases, a 10-foot fence topped with barbed wire separates vehicles from all buildings.

Some guards who continue to work at Homeland, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because of fear of losing their jobs, said they knew of two instances in which individuals without identification got into the sensitive complex.

Another described how guards flunked a test by the
Secret Service, which sent vehicles into the compound with dummy government identification tags hanging from inside mirrors. Guards cleared such vehicles through on two occasions, this guard said, and one officer even copied down the false information without realizing it was supposed to match information on the employee's government badge.

Doyle, the agency spokesman, said such tests are conducted routinely. "I can assure you that if people fail the test they are let go," he said.

Marixa Farrar, a former guard, said two guards always should have been stationed inside the main building where Chertoff had his office, but she often was on duty alone.

One day last fall a fire alarm rang. As employees walked by Farrar, they asked if this was a fire or a test.

"There were no radios, so I couldn't figure out if it was a serious alarm," she said.

There was no fire.

Like most spy services, its leaders prefer to stay silent, letting government spokesmen do the denying for them.

Occasionally, a former chief will defend the agency from more lurid accusations. But for the most part Israel is willing to let the wheat be packed with the chaff, knowing that even apocryphal tales help to reinforce the Mossad legend.

Many Israeli officials were therefore surprised recently to discover a detailed account of the most sensitive side of Mossad's activities, its assassinations of enemies of the Jewish state -- a policy that stemmed from the 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and has continued ever since.

What has raised most eyebrows is that the account was put together with the co-operation of almost 50 former and current intelligence agents, including the hitmen, all of whom have talked at length to author Aaron Klein on precisely how the hit squads go about their business.

For the first time in Mossad's furtive history, some of its tradecraft is now out in the open.

Those who fear they may be in Mossad's sights would surely be interested to learn that a hit squad's getaway car is always waiting two 90-degree turns to the right. If they were to be knocked off, it would be done by a unit within Mossad known as Caesarea, which would have received its orders only after senior ministers, military intelligence and spy chiefs held a mock trial, during which a defence and a prosecution case is argued before the prime minister.

The modus operandi, started post-Munich, has since extended to Israel's domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, which now regularly carries out assassinations, with the help of the military, of Palestinian suspects in Gaza and the West Bank.

In his book, Striking Back, Klein, a former military intelligence officer lays bare Israel's 25-year campaign to kill the Munich assassins, revealing that only three still live -- among them Abu Daoud, leader of the Black September terror group that carried out the attack.

The book was released on the back of the Steven Spielberg movie Munich, which has been lauded as a work of drama, but also condemned for its lack of historical rigour.

Successive Mossad chiefs who directed the almost three-decade hunt for the Black September terrorists have complained they were not consulted. Klein's account of the hunt is sharply different in key aspects. But he is not a critic of the film, asking' "Why would I shoot the horse I'm riding?"

Striking Back exposes what Mossad has become good at. But it also breaks down the myth of the agency's infallibility, pointing out its many missed opportunities, the times it has gone after soft targets with dubious terrorism connections, and its catastrophic blunders, such as the slaying of an innocent man in Lillehammer, in the belief he was a Black September militant.

The blunders have continued in recent years -- two Mossad agents were caught in New Zealand in 2004 trying to steal identities, another two were caught carrying bogus Canadian passports, and the head of the Hamas group, Khaled Meshaal, is still alive because a Mossad plot to poison him in Jordan in 1997 was bungled.

Across the Middle East, the myth lingers, fuelled by distrust, with many believing Mossad fingers are in every pie. Politicians spoken to in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt are convinced Israeli agents are stirring the sectarian unrest in Iraq and Lebanon.

Jordanian district MP Mahmoud Abbadi last week laid the blame for the bombing of the Shia shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra squarely with Mossad.

"I don't think that bombing is either an attempt by the Sunnis or the Shi'ites," he said.

"It is from other infiltrators who want to make sectarian strife. Those who bombed the Ali Hadi mosque and those who bombed Sunni mosques are agents for Mossad in the first place, and for the Americans in second place."

Asked this week who killed Hariri on February 14 last year, a spokesman for the Hezbollah group said: "Lebanon has a lot of enemies. It is likely he was killed by one of them."

Pressed on what Israel stood to gain from the assassination, he said: "We have a scorpion living next door to us. You are trying to get into the minds of those who have no rhyme or reason for what they do."

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that military recruiters must have the same kind of access as other employers coming onto campus to give out information and conduct job interviews, if the campus receives federal money. Most campuses rely on some share of the $35 billion the government channels each year to higher education.

An association of law schools and professors, the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR), filed suit against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to challenge the law that ties recruiters' access to federal funding - known as the Solomon Amendment. FAIR argued that campuses should be free to extend their own philosophy of nondiscrimination by requiring recruiters to sign pledges that they would not discriminate before being allowed the use of campus facilities. Under the Pentagon's policy, gay men and women can serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientation to themselves.

"A military recruiter's mere presence on campus does not violate a law school's right to associate, regardless of how repugnant the law school considers the recruiter's message," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts. "The Solomon Amendment neither limits what law schools may say nor requires them to say anything."

Supporters of the law schools' position were undeterred. "We're disappointed with the legal outcome of the case ... but this unanimous opinion is a call to arms to the law school administrations across the country," says Chai Feldblum, a law professor at Georgetown University and a board member of FAIR. The organization hopes "to see every single law school helping students to organize protests" against military recruiters on campus, "because the Supreme Court has told us that the way to exercise our First Amendment beliefs is by speaking out more."

The decision will come as welcome news for the armed services, which have worked diligently to overcome shortfalls in recruiting nationwide. In the last recruiting year, which ended in September, the Army missed its year-long goal for the first time since 1999, falling short of its target by 6,627 recruits. It represented the largest deficit since 1979.

At a time when the Pentagon is relying heavily on the Army in Iraq, recruiting is a matter of crucial importance to the military. Though higher-than-expected reenlistment rates have forestalled fears of a "broken Army," the Pentagon has made recruiting a top priority in recent months, approving enlistment bonuses of up to $40,000 and additional bonuses of $1,000 for soldiers who refer new recruits. It has also added more recruiters to the beat.

But with only a tiny fraction of recruits coming from law schools, some see the case as having a more symbolic significance.

"This was a very challenging case in some ways because, as the opinion makes clear, if you go too far in saying that allowing recruitment efforts you don't like violates your First Amendment rights, that might allow employment agencies to refuse to provide services on the basis of race, or religion, or national origin. There has to be some limit there," says Jon Davidson, legal director at Lambda Legal, a gay-rights advocacy group. Despite those intricate issues, the organization joined an amicus brief with the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of FAIR.

Now that the campus-recruitment issue has been resolved, "the next real piece of the fight will go directly to 'don't ask, don't tell' itself," Ms. Feldblum says. She adds that cases challenging the military policy are already under way in Massachusetts and California, and a bill has been proposed in the US Congress to replace the policy with a nondiscrimination clause that includes sexual orientation.

The frenzy got worse and worse until she finally realized that she would have to get off all the prescription drugs if she wanted it to end.

Susan was first prescribed the SSRI antidepressant, Paxil for anxiety. She began experiencing side effects from Paxil immediately and two weeks after she began taking the drug her doctor put her on Klonopin.

Klonopin is used for treating seizure disorders and panic attacks. The package insert says "less serious side effects" that may be likely to occur include drowsiness or dizziness, poor coordination, nervousness, and depression.

It also says, Klonopin may increase the effects of other drugs that cause drowsiness or dizziness, including alcohol, sedatives, other seizure medicines, pain relievers, antidepressants, anxiety medicines, muscle relaxants, antihistamines, and others.

So now Susan has Paxil, an antidepressant, and Klonopin an anticonvulsant, all mixed together in her system even though she never had depression or a seizure disorder.

In 2001, Dr Stefan Kruszewski, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist working for the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, began documenting cases of what he refers to as "insane polypharmacy," the widespread off-label prescribing of drugs for uses not approved by the FDA.

He found Neurontin, a drug with FDA approval for controlling seizures, "was being massively prescribed for anxiety, social phobia, PTSD, social anxiety, mood instability, sleep, oppositional defiant behavior, and attention deficit disorder."

"There's almost no evidence to support these uses," Dr Kruszewski says.

There was no evidence to support placing Susan on an anti-seizure drug and doing so led to more side effects. "Between the Paxil and especially the Klonopin," she said, "I became more sedate than I wanted to be."

Mentioning this side effect, prompted the doctor to add another drug to Susan's regiment. Next, he prescribed Provigil, "as an antidote to psychotropics that had me over-sedated," she explains.

"I think it's supposed to be for narcolepsy," Susan added.

But here again lies the problem. Susan says she never had narcolepsy. "I was just sluggish-feeling," she says, "I didn't feel sleepy at all."

Provigil was approved to treat narcolepsy. According to the August 4, 2005 Wall Street Journal, Provigil was approved by the FDA in 1998, to treat excessive sleepiness and in 2003, it was approved to for the treatment of "shift-work sleep disorder."

The drug was certainly never approved for use in treating adverse reactions caused by the combination of Paxil and Klonopin.

As it turns out, when it comes to off-label use, Provigil is a legend. SG Cowen & Co analyst Eric T Schmidt figures more than 50% of the drug's sales are for unapproved uses, according to Business Week Online on November 4, 2004. "Doctors now prescribe it to treat everything from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to fatigue associated with multiple sclerosis and depression."

The WSJ says doctors wrote 1.9 million prescriptions for Provigil in 2004, generating $414 million in sales for its maker Cephalon, almost half of the company's total revenues.

Susan's case is a perfect example of the vicious cycle that develops when doctors prescribe drugs for unapproved uses. She was given Provigil to counter the sedating effects of Klonopin, which was prescribed to counter the side effects of Paxil.

The adverse reaction that Susan experienced when Provigil was added to the mix was terrifying. "I took one pill and I thought I was coming out of my skin," she says. "It was one of the worst experiences of my life."

"I felt as if someone had climbed inside me," Susan recalls.

"I moved more agitatedly, more stuccato in rhythm; I had trouble concentrating; I couldn't find focus," she said, "and I kept forgetting what I was thinking a second earlier."

"It was nightmarish, because I didn't feel like me," Susan continued, "I didn't think like me, everything felt off."

Twenty minutes after she took the first pill, she called her doctor and told him that she had never felt so depersonalized in her life. "I remember saying that word," Susan recalls.

The doctor explained that the sense of "not being me" was called depersonalization.

Her experience after taking one pill was so horrible that Susan says, "you'd have had to tie me down, hold my nose and open my mouth with pliers to get another one in me."

But was her reaction really due to the Provigil? Its hard to see how anyone could say yes with absolute certainty. Its important to remember that Susan was given Paxil for anxiety.

The latest FDA warnings say SSRI drugs like Paxil can cause anxiety, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness and impulsiveness. Certain behaviors are "known to be associated with these drugs," including "anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathisia (severe restlessness)," according to Proven Dangers of Antidepressants by psychiatrist Dr Peter Breggin.

"Akathisia makes people profoundly agitated, uncomfortable in their own skin, jittery, impulsive," says Dr Joseph Glenmullen, author of Prozac Blacklash.

Akathisia sounds pretty much like what Susan described to me. So was it a reaction to Paxil or Provigil or both?

And Susan's story did not end with Provigil. The mad chemist was not through with her yet.

After reporting the reaction she experienced after taking Provigil, the doctor told her to quit taking the drug. He then prescribed Tenuate, a diet pill that has since been pulled off the market. Tenuate comes with the warning that it may cause dizziness, blurred vision, or restlessness, and that it may hide the symptoms of extreme tiredness.

According to Susan, through it all, she stressed to her doctor that she did not want to take any drug that could be addictive.

Well, on Drugs.com, Tenuate is listed as habit forming. In fact, you can become physically and psychologically dependent on this medication, and withdrawal effects may occur if you stop taking it suddenly after several weeks of continuous use, according to the warnings accessed on March 2, 2006.

Drugs.com says Tenuate is similar to an amphetamine and stimulates the central nervous system. Instructions for use say before taking this medication, tell your doctor if you have an anxiety disorder.

Which means Susan went full circle and was back at square one being the whole nightmare began when she was prescribed Paxil for anxiety.

*************

More information for injured parties can be found at Lawyers and Settlements.com

By Evelyn Pringle evelyn.pringle@sbcglobal.net

The required intensity can only be achieved by very short, powerful laser pulses – each plasma dot, or "flashpoint", lasts for only about a nanosecond. But the resulting image appears to last longer due to persistence of vision. As with film and television, the impression of a continuous image is maintained by refreshing the flashpoints.

The demonstration system uses an infra-red laser that creates a hundred flashpoints per second. Currently, these can be projected between two and three metres from the apparatus, in a space of about a cubic metre. Each flashpoint generates a popping sound, resulting in a constant crackling when the display is in operation.

Previous systems used galvanometric mirrors to control the focal point of the beam in two dimensions, to create only 2D images. But the new system adds a high-speed linear motor moving a lens to also control the focal point of the laser in a third dimension, allowing solid shapes to be sketched out.

The researchers behind the demonstration system plan to upgrade it to a higher pulsing rate, which should produce more dots and so smoother images. Future versions should also include moving pictures and AIST claims it should be possible to scale the system up to produce displays of any size. However, only white flashpoints can be created so a colour display will not be possible.

Now, at long last, the world is about to see the contents. The National Geographic Society last week reported it will publish a translation this spring, when "The Da Vinci Code" film is sure to rekindle interest in gnostic artifacts.

But the saga may be just beginning. That's because thieves apparently lifted the manuscript from the Egyptian desert, kicking off decades of illicit trafficking - and an ethical dilemma: Is it right to pay for and publish stolen documents for the purpose of spreading knowledge?

"The present owners can't sell it because they don't have, in international law, a legal title to something that was stolen," says James Robinson, one of the world's foremost experts on gnostic texts and author of a forthcoming book about the gospel, "The Secrets of Judas: The Story of the Misunderstood Disciple and His Lost Gospel." "They're trying to sell the sensationalism of the Gospel of Judas to get as much back as they can from whatever they paid for it."

National Geographic doesn't deny Dr. Robinson's allegation that the text left Egypt without that country's required authorization. Still, the organization stands by its decision.

"Everyone involved believes the materials should be given to Egypt" after scholars finish translating them, says spokeswoman Mary Jeanne Jacobsen. "National Geographic has done its due diligence, and is working with an international team of experts on this artifact to save the manuscript before it turns to dust and is lost forever."

But others worry that those who publish "hot" manuscripts create a tragic incentive. "When you publish material that's the result of recent looting ... you're adding to the value of other pieces similar to it," says Patty Gerstenblith, an expert in culture heritage law at DePaul University Law School in Chicago. That entices others to hunt for treasure, she says, with hopes that even something later branded contraband could still yield a nice windfall.

When an Arabic-speaking Egyptian and his Greek agent first offered the Gospel of Judas to buyers, they sold it as a package with other ancient texts for $3 million - well above the budget of Robinson and other scholars who tried to buy it.

So far, only a handful of inner-circle scholars are familiar with the contents of the Gospel of Judas. Despite the enticing name, experts say it was written at least a century after Judas Iscariot died, so it's apt to be most interesting to academics who concentrate on second-century gnosticism, Robinson says. Gnosticism is a belief system, deemed heretical by early Christian leaders, that preaches salvation via self-knowledge. Some of its followers lionized biblical figures of disrepute.

Though ancient writing was once a bargain compared to art, Professor Gerstenblith says, prices are climbing as a growing pool of middle-class collectors smells an opportunity to make a profit. In this climate, libraries with potentially valuable pieces have in the past decade experienced what she terms a "rash" of thievery. Example: in August 2005, a map dealer got arrested for trying to sneak a pilfered page out of Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Other fields with similar quandaries are actively raising their ethical standards in the wake of demands by Italy and Peru this past year that pieces held in American institutions be returned. Last week, the American Association of Museum Directors issued guidelines saying museums shouldn't borrow or lend pieces known to have been stolen or unlawfully moved after 1970, when international standards took effect. But the American Institute of Archaeology faulted those directors for not going far enough in their guidelines to defend against future looting.

By contrast, the American Philological Association (APA), whose 3,000 members study ancient Greek and Roman texts, doesn't address acquisitions issues in its ethics policy, last updated in 1989.

If host nations "want no one to read [an ancient manuscript], that's wrong," says APA Executive Director Adam Blistein. "The world's entitled to know. You want to understand cultures as much as you can, and that means disclosure."

But some researchers say emphasis on disclosure is short-sighted. The dissemination of inadequately documented contents makes scholars increasingly vulnerable to forgeries and threatens to undermine archaeology, says Christopher Rollston, a Semitic studies expert at Emmanuel School of Religion in Johnson City, Tenn. "It is indubitable that collecting precipitates illicit pillaging of archaeological sites," Dr. Rollston says.

Custodians of rare books and epigraphy wonder if the high-profile case might be a sign of a dawning era of new acquisition standards in their field. One example: libraries with books tracing to Soviet or Nazi incursions increasingly must defend the legitimacy of their ownership.

"All of this is a series of attitudes [toward ownership] that are really very, very recent" and still developing in case law, says Daniel Traister, curator of the Annenberg Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Pennsylvania. "In [the art] field, we're used to it. In books and manuscripts, it's still somewhat new."

Collectors and scholars of written material are apt to keep resisting for a while, Gerstenblith says. The reason: their fields have traditionally emphasized the universal value of writings, whereas other archaeological finds are understood to be virtually meaningless when divorced from their place of origin. But as disciplines collaborate, she suggests, those with the most demanding ethical standards will influence the others.

"To say, 'I can study this [written material]. I don't care that it was looted' is an attitude that will become the dinosaur, and it will change," Gerstenblith says. "They're definitely behind where the archaeologists are, and that's going to take time" to close the gap.