JUXTAPOSITION

Does anyone else see the irony here?

Story A: The United Nations has evacuated staff from Baghdad as Iraqis paid their last respects to a leading politician whose assassination plunged U.S. efforts to rebuild the country into further turmoil.

Story B: Three dozen Iraqi teachers and guidance counselors came to a hotel seminar here recently seeking tips on how to improve the nation's schools. They got balloons.

"Now I want you to take your balloon," an upbeat seminar instructor coaxed them soothingly, "and blow everything that makes you sad and everything that makes you mad into the balloon. Blow it all inside."

Unaccustomed to such touchy-feely seminars, several teachers shifted nervously in their seats. A few giggled, and others looked confused. But after some shoulder shrugs and smirks, they complied. Soon, several balloons were so over-inflated they threatened to pop.

Teachers say Saddam let Iraq's schools fall apart, even as praise for Saddam dominated the curriculum. Schools reopen Oct. 1. Bechtel is rehabbing more than 1,000 schools; the U.S. and British military are fixing another 230 and UNICEF is working on 180 schools.

At the hotel seminar, the teachers were given magic markers and asked to write on their balloons a list of the things that make them most mad and sad. War and devastation, they wrote. The loss of loved ones. The lack of electricity. Crime. Child labor.

But nobody could bring themselves to mention Saddam Hussein.

Fear of Saddam is too strong for balloon therapy.

The UN has bugged out, but the touchy feely types are in, and Baghdad teachers are blowing their troubles into balloons.

Who needs fiction?