From Rush Limbaugh to Lindsay Lohan, celebrities across the spectrum of entertainment venues have found themselves in rehab for their painkillers, alcohol, and drug addiction issues. Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, Drew Barrymore and Lindsay Lohan went for check on alcohol and multiple drugs abuse. John Belushi, Robin Williams, Elton John, Ozzy Osbourne and Robert Downey, Jr. have had their rehab stints for cocaine abuse and alcoholism. To cure prescription painkiller addiction, Michael Jackson, Kelly Osbourne, Winona Ryder and Eminem paid expensive tabs for their stay at rehab clinics. At the age of 60, Steven Tyler sought the safe environment of rehab to recover from more than just surgery. He admitted that he was fighting a dependency on pain and sleep medication.

Still, some celebrities opt to enter rehab to avoid prison. Courtney Love would have been facing three criminal cases at one time, but she struck a deal to spend 18 months in court-ordered rehab instead. Drug and psychological counseling constituted much of Winona Ryder’s ‘sentence.’ Attending alcohol rehabilitation classes was meted out to Mel Gibson when he pleaded no contest to a charge of drunken driving.

But there are other celebrities who are said to check into rehab for anxiety or depression – but not for curing addiction to drugs or alcohol. Heather Locklear entered rehab for psychological treatment. Kirsten Dunst was said to be suffering from depression.

With these cases shrouded in mystery as publicists only offer succinct explanations, ending in denial that their clients are drug or alcohol dependents, Hollywood is cynical as the word ‘rehab’ has become a euphemism.

Hollywood has a serious drug problem according to Dr. Drew Pinsky, host of radio’s “Love Line” and VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab.” After studying what draws stars to drugs, he concludes that there is an addiction epidemic in the celebrity world.

"Not only are substances plentiful and socially acceptable in most celebrity circles, but stars who seek treatment often opt for abbreviated programs in exclusive environments."

She was young, blond, and pretty – married in 2005. Corporal Sarah Bryant was a highly educated Pashtu-speaking member of the British Intelligence Corps. The female soldier was part of a team working with Afghan police 10 miles east of Lashkar Gar. She analyzed intercepts of enemy radio communications, coordinated with local people, and searched women for weapons. She had served in Iraq.

Sarah Bryant is also the first woman to die in the British Armed Forces in Afghanistan.

On her third tour of duty in a conflict zone, she and her three comrades died, with a fifth injured, when a device exploded and blew up her Land Rover in Helmand province near their base at Lashkar Gar, as they returned from an operation.

The number of British servicewomen killed in Afghanistan and Iraq now stands at seven. Of the nearly 8,000 British forces in Afghanistan, about 700 are female. A number of those serving in Helmand and Kandahar are members of the Intelligence Corps and fluent in Pashtu, while others are based in Kabul with a proficiency in Dari, the language of the Tajiks and Uzbeks.

In total, there are 187,060 members of the British armed forces. 9.4 percent of them, or 17,620, are female. Of those women, 3,760 are officers.

Corporal Sarah Bryant’s death revives the old arguments about whether women are suited to the battlefield. It also affirms that gone are the days when women at war were nurses, cooks, or drivers.

To summarize this article, I dared to enumerate the scenes that will most possibly play out in the world drama that is Zimbabwe today. After the voting day of the single-candidate sham of an election, these reality and possibilities are of the here and now:

Mugabe rules until 2014. He will be 90 years old by then and will have ruled his country for 34 years. That is a long time to pay for the heroic deed he did in the past.

State intimidation will continue in the months ahead. Authorities say that, after the poll, we will see a more cohesive control by the military junta of the organs of state – since, they have seized the state. The army, police, and government-sponsored militias continue to kill, beat, and displace opposition supporters, take control of the media, and suppress electoral bodies and the judiciary.

Of course, people will retaliate and a civil uprising ensues. All this junta control will not stop civil unrest. The ire of the people cannot be capped. The opposition MDC will also not fade away. It will surely fortify itself with the help of the West. The West will play a major role in this drama. With world outrage targeting Mugabe’s party and his junta, plus world sympathy for the Zimbabwean people, stringent economic and diplomatic sanctions will be leveled against the country’s government. This puts the situation on an even bigger world stage, with a more complicated plot and longer drawn efforts.

According to relief agencies, close to half the resident population now supplement their diets with food aid. This will not abate since the country’s economy has collapsed.

Latest figures from the Central Statistical Offices (CSO) show that annual inflation rose by 7 336 000 percentage points to 9 030 000% by June 20 2008, and is set to end the month at well above 10 500 000%. The Zimbabwean dollar now trades at US$1:$17 billion on the parallel market. On electronic transfers the rate was as high as US$1:$45 billion depending on volumes. Analysts said the Zimbabwean dollar is going to continue weakening.

With their current situation of hunger and violence, people of Zimbabwe might not even see another 6 years of harsh dictatorial rule, hyper-inflation, mass unemployment, and brutal repression. Millions more Zimbabweans are expected to flee their homeland. From an original population of 13 million, more than 3 million have already gone on exodus and are now refugees. Displacement offers an even more grim existence ahead.

In the meantime, Harare has the world’s second largest deposits of platinum, which bolsters Mugabe’s friendship with China.  

Zimbabwe has enormous platinum reserves which, at the present rate of extraction, would take over 4,000 years to exhaust. The Chinese are widely reported to covet a stake in Zimbabwe’s platinum mines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mugabe’s 25-bedroom palace is covered with midnight-blue Chinese roof tiles. His air force trains on Chinese jets. His subjects wear Chinese shoes, ride Chinese buses, and zip around the country in Chinese propjets. He has even urged his countrymen to learn Mandarin and nurture a taste for Chinese cuisine.

Zimbabweans complain that their new Chinese buses break down regularly and that the Chinese goods that flood stores and roadside stalls are shoddy. They have coined a term for the phenomenon: zhing-zhong.

China and Zimbabwe signed a letter of intent to cooperate in law enforcement and the judiciary. Atop the list is a plan for China to train Zimbabweans in managing prisons.

As with tragic flaw, the disadvantaged hero must not deserve his misfortune, but he caused it by making a fatal mistake, an error of judgment, and a wrong decision at a moment of crisis that is the inevitable outcome of his character.

In Zimbabwe’s story today, there is a gallery of heroes that could have reversed the whims of fate: Movement for Democratic Change, the United Nations, Thabo Mbeki, other African leaders, Nelson Mandela, the reputedly-coercive West, the people of Zimbabwe themselves, even the entire world.

Zimbabwe’s tragic flaw is that it hoped for heroes, when there are none.