Friday night was another six-hour marathon Coast to Coast, featuring three different guests plus open lines. Raymond Tanter, a scholar of The Washington Institute and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, kicked off the early feed. Tanter speculates that a US victory in Iraq will "send shivers down the spine of other rogue leaders." He believes a subsequent war with Iran may be avoided as "the seeds of democracy spread across the border."

Next up was Jay H. Lehr, an environmental science expert who served as the Executive Director of the National Ground Water Association for 25 years. He said that luckily the environmental impact of burning oil wells in Iraq will be minimal due to a "huge inversion of air" in that region that keeps gases from rising.

Linda Moulton Howe, Earthfiles investigator, appeared on the first hour of the regular broadcast with a report on SARS Pneumonia. She said that the death count was up to 10 worldwide for the mysterious illness which appears to be caused by a contagious virus that may have jumped from animals to humans.

Linda played portions of her interviews with David Heymann, M.D. of the World Health Organization and Dr. Larry Anderson of the C.D.C. Antibiotics and antiviral medications have proven ineffective, while treatment on hospital respirators so far appears to provide the only relief. For more details read Linda's Earthfiles report.

Open Lines

After such a turbulent week, listeners could take refuge in the always fun Friday Night Open Lines. The Special Topic lines was for making Predictions. "I woke up to the sound of my own voice," said one caller who had the curious experience of hearing her previous call to the show coming out of her clock radio on a Best of Coast replay.

A caller from Missouri encountered a small silver creature, the likes of which he had never seen before. It had two black dots for eyes and though it had no apparent legs, it rapidly crawled away into a rock formation and disappeared.