editorials and opinion

By THOMAS P.M. BARNETT
Scripps Howard News Service
Friday, May 11, 2007

I'm not shy about criticizing President Bush's foreign policy, but all this talk about Iraq being America's worst foreign policy disaster ever is pure hyperbole. Portraying Iraq as another Vietnam is a tough sell, but it's one our boomer leaders can't help but make, since they are sad products of their upbringing.

Because America faces no superpower rival today, it's hard to see how our current difficulties in Iraq, no matter how we exit or stay, portend an irreversible loss of respect for U.S. military power globally. All we've proven is that: 1) America alone can't stabilize or rebuild a country of Iraq's size following regime change, and 2) providing more than 90 percent of the postwar ground forces inevitably cripples our military.

But think back a mere decade to America's successful participation in the dismantling of Yugoslavia, to include positive regime change in malevolent Serbia. There we waged war and then peace in a near-casualty-free environment, leaving both Bosnia and Kosovo more stable and internationally connected than we found them.

The difference? President Bill Clinton took the time to build a significant international coalition, allowing the United States to lead in war but largely follow in the peace, providing less than 10 percent of the peacekeeping force left behind.

Now, NATO actually sends into former Yugoslavia fewer peacekeeping troops than the surviving countries provide NATO in post-conflict situations elsewhere, making these states de facto security "exporters."

Imagine how long it will take before we see Iraqi peacekeepers serving alongside Americans outside of the Persian Gulf.

So, sure, Iraq may define the "floor" of our capabilities for post-conflict reconstruction and stability operations, but it hardly sets the ceiling.

Another reason why the Vietnam comparison doesn't work is that neither our losses nor our continuing military burden in Southwest Asia come anywhere close to our national sacrifice in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s.

To match our casualties in Vietnam, we'd need to continue our current effort in Iraq for several decades. Likewise, to match our per capita service burden, we would have to quadruple our military. In 1968, at the peak of the Vietnam War, approximately one out of 200 Americans was in uniform, serving abroad. Today, that burden has dropped to approximately one out of 800 Americans.

As for precipitous withdrawal, Americans are less interested in pulling out of Iraq than they are in reducing casualties, which most view as prohibitively high given our lack of progress to date. Get casualties down and Americans are no more likely to demand "cut and run" from Iraq than they are from South Korea.

As Kurdistan has enjoyed significant peace and growing prosperity since Saddam's fall, it seems natural to shift the bulk of our in-country presence there. Doing so would provide us a safe haven from which to conduct whatever stabilization and counter-terrorist operations still make sense amidst the rising sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shiia, a fight we cannot stop without becoming the central target for fighters on both sides.

As for any U.S. pullback from combat signaling al Qaeda's "victory," that argument has been overtaken by events. Defeating the Sunni-based insurgency, to which al Qaeda elements contribute, is no longer the long pole in Iraq's tent. Instead, the Sunni-Shiia conflict dominates.

Want to test Tehran's and Riyadh's support to their co-religionists? Then backing out of this clash either calls the bluffs, getting them to the peace negotiations pronto, or speeds the killing that was slated to happen all along. Either way, better to take our troops out of harm's way and live to intervene another day.

Since all front-running presidential candidates profess commitment to the region's stability, the question isn't about reducing America's military presence there, but rather, How should it be used and where should it be deployed? Remember, the U.S. didn't withdraw from Asia after Vietnam, we simply re-concentrated our presence in those venues that made the most sense, especially our historic role as off-shore regional balancer.

Now, as we watch Vietnam turn increasingly capitalistic in response to rising China's embrace of markets, a reverse domino effect ensues, reminding us that success in long wars, such as the one we now wage against radical Islamic extremism, logically unfolds over decades and not within one president's rule.

Remember that the next time Chicken Little tells you the sky is falling.

Thomas P.M. Barnett is a distinguished strategist at the Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies and the senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC. Contact him at tom(at)thomaspmbarnett.com. To comment or for more stories visit scrippsnews.com

By GARY CHAISON
The Providence Journal
Friday, May 11, 2007

Unions are losing members at a rapid rate. To see firsthand the decline that has been happening for years one has only to look as far as the membership survey published annually by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Recently released figures reveal that unions lost 326,000 members last year, and the percentage of the workforce in unions dropped from 12.5 percent to 12 percent. Although the figures for 2006 were disheartening and surprising, they were not unlike those in any other recent year. Since 1980, the unions have lost nearly 5 million members. This is equivalent to having six big unions, each roughly the size of the United Automobile Workers, disappear.

In private industry, where low-cost nonunion firms grow most quickly and unionized firms often transfer work overseas, the portion of the workforce in unions is now 7.4 percent. This means that unionization has returned to the level of the 1920s, before the huge organizing drives in the mass-production industries (e.g., autos and steel).

Gone are the traditional strongholds of unionism; the unionization rate is now only 13 percent in construction, 11.7 percent in manufacturing and 7.5 percent in mining. And there are few union members in the growth sectors of the economy; the unionization rate is now only 8.3 percent in education and health services and 3.1 percent in the leisure and hospitality industries. Only 6.3 percent of the large and growing part-time workforce is union-affiliated.

Unions are caught in a cycle of decline. As membership falls, the dues payments from members _ the main source of union income _ also falls. Union members rarely opt to have their dues increased.

Union officers must make a difficult choice: Should the scarce union funds be used to provide services to the present members or allocated to recruiting new members? Union officers, who naturally want to be re-elected, know that the rank-and-file will vote against them if union funds are shifted from members' services (e.g., helping members in negotiations and enforcing collective agreements) to recruit new members. Officers are keenly aware that they are elected by present members who are already organized -- not potential members who have yet to be organized _ so they give a low priority to organizing. It seems every year the cycle of decline continues -- membership sinks further, fewer dues are collected, and organizing is again neglected.

Surveys show that about one-third of non-union workers would agree to be represented by unions if they were asked. The problem is that they are not being asked.

Because employers oppose unionization and the law of organizing is complex and cumbersome (it calls for lengthy hearings and secret ballot elections to determine if unions will win bargaining rights), it costs about $1,500 to organize each new union member. Most unions believe organizing is too difficult and too expensive, and they allocate less than 5 percent of their operating budgets to it. In essence, they have retreated from the organizing field.

If the unions are going to break the cycle of decline, they must first admit that they have not grown because they lack the will to organize. Union leaders must have the courage to try to persuade their members to increase dues as well as devote a larger share of the union budget to organizing. This will be especially challenging given that many union workers are fixated on the present. They are understandably concerned about keeping their jobs and employee benefits in these times of intense international competition and massive lay-offs. They want to see their unions spend time and energy protecting jobs.

Union leaders must persuade their members first that organizing, though tough and expensive, is an investment in their union's future, and second, if the cycle of decline is not broken soon their union may have no future.

Gary Chaison is a professor of Industrial Relations at Clark University in Worcester, R.I., and the author of "Unions in America." For more stories visit scrippsnews.com

By JAY AMBROSE
Scripps Howard News Service
Friday, May 11, 2007

The Internet is a powerful tool, and we may get some inkling of just how powerful when May 15 rolls around. That's when there's supposed to be a nationwide boycott of gas stations. If it comes off -- if millions and millions steer clear of the pumps -- we'll know that an organizing effort via e-mail, Web sites and chat groups produced extraordinarily successful results.

But because the premise of this boycott is that U.S. oil companies are greedy, exploitative and conspiratorial, we will also know that these millions of our fellow citizens haven't the slightest notion of economic reality.

The thesis of the boycott organizers, or at least those I have encountered, is that the oil companies can set just about any price they want and are now getting unbelievably rich at the expense of all us poor slobs who either have to pony up what's demanded or walk to our various destinations.

It's a narrative that just about anybody can grasp because it makes the world oh so simple. You see, there are bad guys and good guys, and if the good guys will just stand up for themselves, they can bring the bad guys to their knees.

Now there are in fact some known, open conspirators, the OPEC nations that attempt to control the flow of oil to also control the prices so vital to their own economies, but after that, it gets more complicated. These nations have a powerful influence on supply, and that is crucially important to prices. Also important is demand, not just here, but around the world and especially in China's emerging economy.

The U.S. companies have virtually nothing to say about this. Especially since they are cut off from vast fields of oil in Alaska and offshore, they have a meager impact on total supply, but do have to adjust to world prices because if they don't make something quite a bit higher than their costs, they grow ever punier and risk going out of business.

If you look at what they are making in absolute dollars, it may make you cringe, but if you look at their 10 percent profit margins -- the difference between all their costs and their revenues -- you will find they are making a lot less than many other industries, such as chemicals and computers.

Could they get by with something less than that? They could try, but they desperately need to make money to attract investors and to undertake their expensive, risky operations when they can because they so often make far less profit and put much back into their operations. Over a period of two decades, columnist George F. Will has pointed out, ExxonMobil invested more than it earned.

If the planned boycott really reduced demand significantly over a prolonged period of time, it could bring prices down, but it won't. Most people who participate will likely make up their one-day avoidance of gas stations by buying more on previous or later days. The less dramatic but more certain way of bringing prices down is to alter driving habits significantly over the long haul, cutting out much of what is nonessential. The fact that this isn't happening more than it appears to be is a signal that as high as oil prices have climbed, they haven't climbed higher than what many people feel they can afford.

Of course, the oil companies could get scared at public anger and damage themselves and the prospects of further price-reducing discovery of new oil resources by intentionally lowering their profit margins. This would serve the nation poorly. It could ultimately have the opposite effect of what the boycotters seek.

What the Internet organizers should focus on instead is persuading environmental groups to drop their opposition to drilling in places where it is now inexcusably prohibited. They could also demand lower gas taxes and an end of mandated use of costly ethanol. Not everything gets solved that way, and you can argue the gas taxes are needed, but all this would make more sense than the goofy tactic of a gas-station boycott.

(Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay(at)aol.com.)

An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Scripps Howard News Service
Friday, May 11, 2007

House Democrats are planning to slow, by cutting back funding, the Bush administration's plans to build a missile defense system in Europe. It might not be a bad idea. The haste with which the administration wants to push ahead with the system raises questions about just how well thought out it is, but the system is already causing us problems.

The threat is problematic _ a presumed Iranian long-range missile capacity by 2012. The missile interceptors are intended to protect U.S. and NATO troops in Europe, but the threat assessment has to be made: Under what circumstances would the Iranians do something so stupid and shortsighted as to launch a handful of missiles against Western Europe and invite massive and destructive retaliation?

However, the possibility of a U.S. missile defense system has thoroughly rattled the always-suspicious Russians. They are unmoved by administration arguments that the system is not aimed at them and is incapable of stopping Russian missiles in any case. The Russians, who seem to have more faith in our technical capabilities than we do, undoubtedly see it as the first step toward a full-scale "Star Wars" system down the road.

Further, Russia is sensitive to the fact that the sites of the silos and the radar, Poland and Czech Republic, are two former Soviet satellites and may need some time to get used to the idea.

The cost, $3.5 billion, is modest considering what we've spent on the Iraq war but the fact is, there are more pressing military needs for the money.

Further, there is no proof that the system will work as planned. Tests of the interceptor to date have not been encouraging and government auditors say there have been too few of them to assess how well the system will perform.

A little delay won't hurt matters, and it may even help.

an editorial/The Providence Journal
Friday, May 11, 2007

It's not only tourism that makes Savannah, Ga., so prosperous, though plenty of tourists are attracted to the city's oak-shaded squares and beautiful old houses. Savannah's preservation movement got going in the early 1960s, when a study showed that the squares and the houses that surround them -- largely derelict then but elegant now -- could be a "gold mine" for tourism.

But it took far more than a tourism-based economy to make Savannah's schools the beautifully landscaped and maintained edifices that they are, or to make the city's public services so efficient -- or to cause a townhouse in the city to fetch an eye-popping $7 million.

It also took the 25 cranes at the container port a mile upriver from the city. Last year they moved 2.2 million containers, to make Savannah's 1,200-acre port the fourth-largest in the United States, and second-largest on the East and Gulf coasts.

According to the Georgia Ports Authority, Georgia's deepwater ports and inland barge terminals in 2006 supported more than 275,968 jobs throughout the state and contributed $10.8 billion in income, $35.4 billion in revenue and some $1.4 billion in state and local taxes.

The port gives Savannah -- much of Georgia, really -- a solid economy. Because it is based on highly diversified international trade, this new economy is fairly recession-resistant. Rhode Island is still searching for a new economy. It has invested heavily in tourism but has discovered that tourism by itself is not enough. Despite high taxes, the state's public infrastructure is far from impressive. Somewhere along the way, the Ocean State forgot that it's essential to make money -- lots of it -- as it used to when it was a manufacturing, and before that, international trading center.

Savannah hasn't forgotten. One of Savannahians' favorite places for lunch is the Westin Hotel, from which they can look at their gracious old city on the opposite bluff across the Savannah River and, if they're lucky, happily watch a loaded container ship pass by.

An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Scripps Howard News Service
Friday, May 11, 2007

Surely no one is sorrier than the Bush White House that Tony Blair is stepping down next month, just over 10 years since being elected British prime minister. Blair is by far Bush's closest ally among world leaders and, at great political and personal cost, a supporter of the war in Iraq.

The war is deeply unpopular in Great Britain and it is likely that Blair's successor, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, will begin drawing down British troops later this year.

At any other time, Blair would be hailed as one of his country's greatest prime ministers. On his watch, the economy has boomed and London now rivals New York as a world financial center and even surpasses it as an expensive place to live. Blair was an effective peacemaker in the Balkans and even the perennial problem of Northern Ireland now seems susceptible to solution. The voters rewarded his Labour Party by sweeping it into office in three national elections.

But like Bush, Blair's legacy will be defined by Iraq, however that turns out. In announcing his decision to leave Downing Street, the prime minister said, "Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right."

Americans will remember that after 9/11 he immediately pledged that Britain would stand by the United States "without hesitation" and then sat with first lady Laura Bush in the House chamber as the president addressed a somber joint session of Congress.

Bush and Blair were unlikely friends. Blair comes from the political left and he is, unlike Bush, a graceful and articulate speaker. It was often remarked at the two leaders' joint press conferences that Blair explained Bush's policies better than the president.

Blair is only 54 and may, now that he's out of politics, take up one of his favorite causes, fighting Third World poverty. Whatever he decides to do, we hope he is a frequent visitor to these shores.

By ANN MCFEATTERS
Scripps Howard News Service
Friday, May 11, 2007

Recent votes in Congress show widespread disaffection with President Bush among Republicans as well as Democrats and bode ill for the nation for the next 20 months.

Bush has tasked his already overworked chief of staff, Josh Bolten, with the Herculean job of finding agreement on war spending while Congress tries futilely to change Iraq policy, a constitutional crisis if there ever was one. But the president is finding he has a lot to worry about on many other fronts.

The House vote, by a staggering 413-3, to increase federal regulation of student-loan companies is an indictment of the administration's weak oversight of the $85 billion student-loan industry. There have been widespread reports of gifts by student-loan companies to colleges and universities to steer students to them for huge loans, which the administration knew about and ignored. A similar slap against the administration by the Senate is a given.

For its part, the Senate went first to pass a bill to force the Food and Drug Administration to monitor drug safety after a drug is approved because some highly popular drugs, once called safe by the government, have turned out to have dangerous side effects and have had to be pulled from the market. The bill was passed, 93-1. This was a sharp warning to the administration that the Senate is unhappy with the scandals and weak management at the FDA. The House will pass a similar version, although the administration has protested, weakly, that the agency has all the regulatory power it needs.

Meanwhile, Bush sent Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who really has her hands full, to try to plead for Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's embattled choice to continue running the World Bank, despite giving his girlfriend a huge pay increase and his failure to play nicely with others.

Bush is also staunchly resisting Republican cries that Alberto Gonzales, his beleaguered pick to continue running the Justice Department, vacate the post of attorney general.

At the same time, Bush is finding that his old soul mate, Russian President Vladimir Putin, seems to be comparing his U.S. foreign policy to Adolf Hitler's. Threats to peace are not diminishing, Putin said in Red Square. "They are only transforming, changing their appearance. In these new threats, as during the time of the Third Reich, are the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality and diktat in the world."

If you had a meeting with the U.S. president, what would you say to him?

When 11 Republican lawmakers had that chance a few days ago, they had a reported "no-holds-barred" session, warning Bush they will desert him on the war in Iraq if Gen. David Petraeus does not report in September that the "surge" of new U.S. soldiers into Iraq has worked to stem the escalating violence and civil war.

Bush retorted in a news conference that if you disagree with his policy on the need to stay in Iraq, you're playing politics. He then insisted that Americans will stay in Iraq (and continue to die in Iraq) for the "peace and security" of the United States. No matter what Congress says or does, he said, he will not give in on his insistence that there be no deadlines for the withdrawal of troops. And as for the daily deaths of Americans, he said it is remarkable that soldiers still voluntarily risk their lives to go to Iraq to save America.

Bush already has vetoed a $124 billion spending bill for Iraq because it created benchmarks for the Iraqi government and timetables. He will continue to veto any measure he doesn't like and blame Democrats for playing politics with soldiers' lives.

The June departure of his closest ally, Tony Blair, as the British prime minister will only increase the debate that the war in Iraq is unwinnable or that it will require American troops there for years more or that a pullout would result in a far bloodier disaster than anything so far.

This is a sample of what just one week brings these days. The likelihood is that the remaining months of Bush's term increasingly will be hell for Republicans, who not only face the possibility of losing a presidential election next year but more losses in the Senate and the House and in state legislatures.

The man they will blame if that happens will not be former CIA head George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney or one-time defense chief Donald Rumsfeld or Gonzales or anybody else in a long list of people who have seen their reputations diminished during this administration. It will be George W. Bush.

(Scripps Howard columnist Ann McFeatters has covered the White House and national politics since 1986. E-mail amcfeatters(at)hotmail.com. To comment or for more stories visit scrippsnews.com)

By CHERI CARLSON
Scripps Howard News Service
Thursday, May 10, 2007

Rigo Corona doesn't put too much stock in annual achievement tests.

Each spring, students go through days of Standardized Testing and Reporting, taking the STAR exams developed to measure their knowledge of academic standards.

Students' scores determine whether schools meet federal requirements set by the No Child Left Behind Act. Their scores also determine schools' state academic rankings.

But for Corona, the tests simply mean that his third-grade son, Albert, will come home from school tired and frustrated. Albert attends a program for hearing-impaired children at Loma Vista School in Ventura, Calif. Last year, he and his classmates sat through six days of tests, only to find out months later that their scores wouldn't be counted.

Their teachers used sign language to give them the test questions -- a modification that the school and parents said the children "rightfully and legally" deserved. Deaf children, who can't learn language skills by hearing, typically fall behind grade level in reading, they said.

California officials, however, decided that the use of sign language invalidates the scores on reading, language and spelling tests.

This month as students throughout Ventura County take the 2007 exams, 20 families in the Loma Vista program opted to have their children sit out STAR testing.

"It's hard for the kids to try and do something they have had little or no exposure to," Rigo Corona said. And after their test scores were thrown out, he added, the exercise seemed even more futile.

No Child Left Behind requires that all students, including those with disabilities, participate in the annual achievement tests.

Some special-education students -- up to 1 percent with the most significant cognitive disabilities -- take an alternate exam not tied to grade-level content. But all other students, including the hearing-impaired, are required to take the same test, based on grade-level standards.

The U.S. Department of Education recently released regulations designed to change that. They allow states flexibility to create a "modified assessment" for special-education students to master the same grade-level standards but take an easier test.

The modified assessment will be available for a yet-unidentified "small group" of students whose disabilities prevent them from meeting targets. Changes could include larger print, three answer choices instead of four, and teachers allowed to read test questions to students.

But no one knows exactly how the changes will be put into practice, according to Jan Chaldek, California's STAR manager. A blueprint is being considered by the state Board of Education. After its approval, the modified exam must be developed and tested. At the earliest, a new, modified assessment for elementary grades would be ready in spring 2008.

While local educators said they would welcome a modified assessment, Ron Moon, pupil-services administrator for the Oxnard School District, said he thinks that No Child Left Behind has helped raise expectations in some special-education classes.

"Many of us are glad to see special-education students in a situation where the bar is raised," Moon said. "The question is: Has it been raised so far it's not achievable?"

He discourages the use of modifications in Oxnard schools because those tests automatically are given failing grades, but, he said, the new modified assessment, if approved, could be a solution for those students allowed to take it.

By DAN WALTERS
Sacramento Bee
Thursday, May 10, 2007

California's legislative term limits have been a mixed blessing at best. A cogent argument can be made for changing them to allow lawmakers to serve longer in one legislative house, rather than jumping back and forth.

Why, then, would legislative leaders and business and labor groups promoting a term limit overhaul mislead voters about what their ballot measure would do? Even more important, why would Attorney General Jerry Brown go along with that trickery by writing an official summary of the measure that echoes the misleading propaganda?

Voters, apparently disgusted by a corruption scandal in the Capitol, enacted term limits in 1990, restricting legislators to three two-year terms in the Assembly and two four-year terms in the Senate, for a maximum of 14 years in legislative office.

Many legislators and interest groups have yearned to change the law, but voters turned down a modification in 2002. The possibility of change arose again this year as a possible tradeoff for the redistricting reform that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has sought, with the added urgency that Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata both would be "termed out" next year.

A business-labor-political coalition with ties to Nunez drafted a ballot measure, reducing the maximum service to 12 years and allowing someone to serve all 12 years in one house, with a special provision allowing Perata to serve an additional four-year term in the Senate. But to help Nunez and Perata remain in office, the measure would have to gain voter approval by early next year _ one reason Schwarzenegger and legislators created a Feb. 5 presidential primary.

An initiative measure must be submitted to the attorney general for an official "title and summary" that goes onto the ballot. In this case, Brown's summary reads: "Reduces the total amount of time a person may serve in the state Legislature from 14 years to 12 years. Provides a transition period to allow current members to serve a total of 12 consecutive years in the house in which they are currently serving."

Someone reading that summary might conclude that the measure tightens up term limits, rather than loosening them. U.S. Term Limits, the national pro-term limits organization, pointed out Tuesday that Brown's summary virtually plagiarizes the campaign organization's self-serving description.

The campaign's Web site describes the measure this way: "Reduces the total time a member can serve from 14 to 12 years," and adds: "To provide a fair and equitable transition to new reduced terms, the current members of the Legislature would be able to serve a total of 12 years in the house in which they currently serve, including all previous service in that body."

U.S. Term Limits, which has sued over the summary wording, describes the similarities as a "smoking gun" that may prove collusion. Brown's office insists that its summary was fairly written and "explains what this measure is about."

This is not mere semantics. When the Public Policy Institute of California conducted a poll in March on the issue, it described the current law and asked poll respondents whether they'd support or oppose "a change in term limits that would allow members to serve up to 12 years of total legislative service in either house." The response was overwhelmingly (66 percent) negative. But when the Field Poll asked its respondents about the measure, stressing the reduction in total service from 14 to 12 years, there was a positive (54 percent) response.

The bottom line: Rather than make the logical case for softening term limits, the campaign wants to trick voters into thinking that they are tightening up limits. Jerry Brown is abetting that strategy.

(Contact Dan Walters at dwalters(at)sacbee.com. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/walters.)

By PETER FIMRITE
San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, May 10, 2007

Peller Marion enjoys swimming with the turtles in Hawaii, but she was surprised when one began tugging on her foot.

Turned out it wasn't a turtle, and it wasn't tugging.

A hungry tiger shark had chomped down on her foot and was filleting the appendage with its razor-sharp teeth like it was a meaty appetizer.

"I saw it from the side," the California woman said by phone Wednesday from her hospital bed in Maui. "It looked like a wall of gray. I instantly said, 'Holy (smokes), this isn't a turtle.' "

Marion, who swims regularly with members of the Tiburon Peninsula Club, was in the water about 8:30 a.m. off Keawakapu Beach in Kihei, Maui, when she was attacked by the shark, estimated to be about 14 feet long.

The 63-year-old author of four books, including the nonfiction "Career Tune Up" and the fictional "Searching for the G Spot," immediately pulled her foot away. Breathing through a snorkel, one fin gone, she began swimming like mad for the shore about 25 yards away, trying hard not to panic.

"I didn't hear the 'Jaws' music. I heard my heart pounding," Marion said.

By the time Marion stumbled onto the sand, her foot was a bloody mess.

"You could look through my foot to the bone," she said. "There is a huge gash, tendons were slashed, joints were popped and there were marks on the bone like the teeth had scraped across."

The attack happened about an hour after a tiger shark bumped a surfer at nearby Kamaole Beach Park II, prompting officials to issue a shark alert and close a 1-mile stretch of coastline.

Keawakapu is about a mile and a half from Kamaole Beach, so it was not closed. Marion said there were no warnings or she never would have entered the water.

The tiger shark is named for the dark strips on its gray back, which fade in adulthood. It is notorious for its jaw strength and heavily serrated teeth. One of the largest sharks in the ocean, tigers generally roam shallow reefs and lagoons at night and can cut open the bodies of large sea turtles.

"They are what we call our apex predator," said John Naughton, a marine biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries service in Hawaii. "They are the big boys at the top of the food chain, like the white sharks are in colder waters like Northern California."

Tigers are second only to great whites in the number of recorded human deaths. They have been known to consume sailors who have fallen overboard, but Naughton said they do not hunt people.

"Very commonly, what we see is one bite and then they are gone," he said. "It seems to be mistaken identity."

Naughton said Hawaii averages two to four attacks a year. "It's more dangerous to drive 100 mph, but being eaten by an animal seems to really get people's attention," he said.

Marion, a professor of psychology at Dominican University in San Rafael, Calif., underwent a two-hour operation at Maui Memorial Medical Center. She is facing long hours of rehabilitation.

Marion plans to go back in the water as soon as she can.

"I just feel fortunate that I'm alive. If (the shark) had followed me, I wouldn't be alive today," she said.

(Reach Peter Fimrite at pfimrite(at)sfchronicle.com. For more stories, visit scrippsnews.com.)