General – Page 61 – The Daily Brief

Another Brush With History

14. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: General, History, Israel & Palestine, Memoir, Military, World

I had long put it out of my mind, and was only reminded when I ran across this picture at Chicago Boyz… that I actually went to see one of these men speak. For some reason (probably because he had recently resigned from the government) he came to speak at Cal. State Northridge, sometime in the spring of 1975 or 1976, under the sponsership of (I think) the campus chapter of Hillel.

I an fairly sure it was spring, because it was raining cats and dogs, and I was still inexperienced enough a driver to be mildly terrified of the ordeal of driving across the Valley in a downpour, what with the lights reflecting off the water in the road making it hard to see where the lanes were. On the whole the drive was a titch more unsettling than getting into the campus theater was. Each of us lined up to go into the theater— and there was a fair turnout— was patted down, briskly and effeciently, and all the women’s handbags were opened for inspection. Now that was unsettling. It hadn’t been unheard of, that kind of precaution, after all, it was only a half-dozen years after Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, a dozen since Jack Ruby walked into a police station in Dallas and killed another Kennedy assassin… but still.

Even on a wet and unpleasant evening, there were protestors, or course…. practically the only time I had ever seen such on campus with my own eyes… chanting dispiritedly “Palestina! Palestina!” in the downpour that the weather gods save for those who are convinced the sun always shines in Southern California. (There was hardly any campus culture of protest after about 1972, and anyway, Northridge was a commuter school— most students going there had jobs and real lives, and just wanted the damned education, thank you very much.)

I think most of the other people in the audience were, like me, curious and interested… and polite. The person we had come to hear speak was famous, of course, mostly for winning wars— something that our own generals had not lately had much experience with. He had been on the cover of Time, and all. There was an air in the audience of pleasant anticipation, not excitement as if for a rock concert, but more like that in a classroom, when a really rivetingly good lecturer is about to begin. And there were good lecturers at Cal State, and there was a history prof at Glendale JC who was so fabulous that people sat out in the corridor to audition his classes. This man was truely a historic person, well worth driving across the Valley in driving rain to see and listen to.

For a hero, though, he was pretty short, and rather modestly ordinary looking, for all the world like a small local business owner at a Rotary or Lions meeting, wearing a plain tan-colored suit and a wholly lamentable tie. Perhaps I should have looked back in the diary I kept at the time before writing this because I would have written about what he said, because I can’t really remember any of it. But I am good with voices and accents, and they stick in my mind more tenaciously, and I thought it was curious how he spoke English well, but with sometimes a very pronounced accent, alternating jarringly with some words and phrases in perfectly fluent British English— as if he had once spoken English often and comfortably, but not lately, and so become rusted linguistically.

Exept for the eye-patch, one would have hardly noticed Moshe Dayan at all, in that campus theater; he had, I think now with my own experience in the military, perfected the art of putting aside the command presence that a military leader must have in order to lead… but that only the very finest of them can put aside when the occasion demands, and appear to be only ordinary.

(I saw Ray Bradbury lecture once, in the same theater, and remember that he told the story of being arrested for walking in LA, but I think he’s been telling that one for years.)

What Are the Marks of a Sick Culture?

12. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: General

What are the marks of a sick culture?

It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn’t the whole population.

A very bad sign. Particularism. It was once considered a Spanish vice but any country can fall sick with it. Dominance of males over females seems to be one of the symptoms.

Before a revolution can take place, the population must loose faith in both the police and the courts.

High taxation is important and so is inflation of the currency and the ratio of the productive to those on the public payroll. But that’s old hat; everybody knows that a country is on the skids when its income and outgo get out of balance and stay that way – even though there are always endless attempts to wish it away by legislation. But I started looking for little signs and what some call silly-season symptoms.

I want to mention one of the obvious symptoms: Violence. Muggings. Sniping. Arson. Bombing. Terrorism of any sort. Riots of course – but I suspect that little incidents of violence, pecking way at people day after day, damage a culture even more than riots that flare up and then die down. Oh, conscription and slavery and arbitrary compulsion of all sorts and imprisonment without bail and without speedy trial – but those things are obvious; all the histories list them.

I think you have missed the most alarming symptom of all. This one I shall tell you. But go back and search for it. Examine it. Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms as you have named… But a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot.

This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength. Look for it. Study it. It is too late to save this culture – this worldwide culture, not just the freak show here in California. Therefore we must now prepare the monasteries for the coming Dark Age. Electronic records are too fragile; we must again have books, of stable inks and resistant paper.

~~Friday and Dr. Baldwin in Friday~~

Found at Quoteable Heinlein

Real ID: States Say Too Soon And Way Underfunded

12. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: General

This AP story sounds like par for the course:

“It is just flat out impossible and unrealistic to meet the prescriptive provisions of this law by 2008,” Betty Serian, a deputy secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, said in an interview.

Nebraska’s motor vehicles director, responding to the survey by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, said that to comply with Real ID her state “may have to consider extreme measures and possibly a complete reorganization.”

And a new record-sharing provision of Real ID was described by an Illinois official as “a nightmare for all states.”

“Can we go home now??” the official wrote.

[…]

The August survey by the motor vehicle administrators’ group, which has not been made public, asked licensing officials nationwide for detailed reports on what it will take to meet Real ID’s demands.

It was not meant to produce an overall estimate of the cost of complying with Real ID. But detailed estimates produced by a few states indicate the price will blow past a February 2005 analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, which estimated Congress would need to spend $100 million reimbursing states.

Pennsylvania alone estimated a hit of up to $85 million. Washington state projected at least $46 million annually in the first several years.

Separately, a December report to Virginia’s governor pegged the potential price tag for that state as high as $169 million, with $63 million annually in successive years. Of the initial cost, $33 million would be just to redesign computing systems.

It remains unclear how much funding will come from the federal government and how much the states will shoulder by raising fees on driver’s licenses.

“If you begin to look at the full ramifications of this, we are talking about billions and billions of dollars. Congress simply passed an unfunded mandate,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty project at the American Civil Liberties Union. “Every motorist in America is going to pay the price of this, of the Congress’ failure to do a serious exploration of the cost, the complexity, of the difficulty.”

I am not a big fan of the Real ID Act. But, on some things, you just have to ride the tide. That aside, I would guess that this whining by the several states, to say nothing of the ACLU, is blown way out of proportion.

Mere Doggerel

11. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Domestic, General, Pajama Game

Oh, good lord, after 20+ years of dedicated cat ownership (having freely acknowledged that a cat or cats more or less owned me as their human-hot-water-bottle, their provider of companionship, clean litter-boxes and finest gourmet cat kibble) I have descended—as Morgie, Henry VIII, Little Arthur, Percival and Sammy would see it— to ownership of that lesser form of companion-animal life, a mere dog. Yes, a mere dog, in the form of the Lesser Weevil, chosen for me by Cpl/Sgt. Blondie. Owing to a small spate of petty crime, or attempted crime in my otherwise fairly regulated neighborhood, my daughter issued an edict; that as I generally live alone, I should have either a dog, or a gun. I chose the dog as the lesser of two weevils. Not only is it rather harder to kill someone by accident with a dog, but one of the local patrolling SAPD officers cheerfully noted when asked for his opinion, that he had oftener been chased out of a back yard by a dog than he had been by a gun. The initial expense and upkeep, training and licensing, plus ammunition or food and vet bills may work out to about the same amount, in the long run. And a dog is generally more charming and affectionate… and the Lesser Weevil is all that… charming, happy, affectionate, quite intelligent as dogs go (some of my parents’ dogs were certifiable idiots), and rather attractive… again, as dogs go.

She is mostly and obviously boxer, with a quarter to a half of something else; what that something else might be is a mystery for geneticists, but her resulting general appearance is of a leggier, slender boxer. She is fulfilling the basic requirement of being a watch or alarm dog, in that she does bark at strangers coming to the door, or crossing the green belt too close to the back fence, but displays a pleasingly intelligent discretion in that she does not bark endlessly over trivial or distant provocations, and stops barking once Blondie or I tell her to stop. The bark is evidence of some other ancestry; a deep sonorous bay, reminiscent not of Jengiss-Khan, but something more like a bloodhound or beagle. She is intelligent, in that she has caught on to the concept of “sit”, “stay”, “get in the car”, “behave”, “on the right, Weevil!” and manages mostly to obey, and to not pee inside the house too much… well, only once or twice in the last 48 hours. We started letting her inside the house after we came home from California: she was allowed inside there, and spend nights in the guest room with us, so it was just too cruel to banish her to the yard again.

The cats are handling this thing very well; they have the upper hand inside, and they know it and she knows it. Touchingly, she seems to want them to play with her. I have observed her often crouching down, tail wagging, just inviting them to a romp, but only Blondie’s cat, Sammy the Gimp (who was raised with dogs, albeit much smaller ones!) is interested in accepting the invitation. Percival and Morgie are distantly interested, Henry VIII is just disinterested, and Little Arthur is the only one actively hostile— he snarls, hisses, and makes a barbed one-paw swipe at her at every opportunity. But none of them are afraid of her, really. This evening, she was sniffing at Henry, who was his usual bored and languid self, sprawled half on his back in the hallway, hardly a defensive posture. All he did was bare his teeth and hiss; somewhat crushed, she let him alone. I don’t really think she sees cats as an alien species to her, just some sort of odd, non-barking and snobbish dog, who mystifyingly, do not want to play with her.

And she is a friendly and open-natured dog. Hostility from other dogs freaks her out, and then she displays a overwrought tragic and woebegone countenance that would do Sarah Bernhardt proud. At a rest-stop beside the highway near Ft. Stockton, she was snapped at by a bad-tempered poodle while Blondie had her on the leash in the pet area and I was in the restroom. When I came back, Blondie was sitting on one of the benches, with an utterly distraught Lesser Weevil gathered up in her lap… if Weevil had been a small child, she would have been sobbing uncontrollably.

And lest this seem like an utter paragon of a dog, there are some small considerations to hold against her. The veterinarian guessed her age at anywhere between 6 and 18 months, and at this point I would tend towards the younger end of that sliding scale. She tends to be over-excitable, especially when Blondie and I come home after a time away from the house, and the first half-mile or so of my run in the morning is a prolonged wrestling match with a rowdy puppy, pirouetting like a maddened dervish, until she settles down to a steady reliable trot… there was an accident on the rug not twenty minutes ago… and she chews things. My god, does she chew things. A partial list of casualties so far includes all three pillows off the porch furniture, two of the wooden outdoor chairs, a plastic garden sprayer, one garden hose, my gardening hat (which was practically trashed anyway), the bottom of the trellis gate arch, a bamboo outdoor table with glass top (she knocked it over and the glass shattered on the stone pathway) a rose bush, a butane lighter kept on the back porch to light the oil lanterns with, her own leash, and a pleather handbag of Blondie’s forgetfully left in reach.

My neighbor Judy advises me that this will go on for another year or so; I only hope I have some garden left at the end of it.

Louisiana, Washington Officials Off To Holland

10. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Politics

This from the AP:

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and U.S. Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter will be accompanied by more than 40 government, business and education leaders from across the state in a trip to the Netherlands to study the flood control systems protecting a nation much farther below sea-level than New Orleans.

[…]

Holland recently completed a 50-year program to build dams, sea walls and surge barriers designed to protect the south of the country against almost any storm. It includes the twin rotating gates that can seal the mouth of Rotterdam’s harbor against a storm surge, and the set of 62 big gates that can close off an estuary in Zeeland.

I seem to recall someone saying this would be a good idea. 🙂

On “Filling O’Connor’s Seat”

10. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: General

The latest meme of the Jackasses is that it is necessary for the next person to rise to the Supremes to possess a similar judicial disposition as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, to maintain the “ideological balance” of the court. This sort of broad, sweeping standard makes the “abortion rights” litmus test look positively Lilliputian.

Further, for the Dumbos to hold up Justice Antonin Scalia as the gold standard of “strict constructionism” is the height of absurdity. He is a social conservative activist, as extreme as the “liberal activist” judges the Dumbos so love to deride.

Personally, Alito troubles me. I see him as a “big government” conservative, who will do little to check intrusions on our civil rights. However, he reflects a certain “judicial modesty”, which makes me believe the new Court will follow the Congress, and the Constitution, rather than try to lead it.

Operation Jaywick

08. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: General, History, Military, War, World

I had never, ever heard of this particularly daring and creative WWII operation, until I taped a TV mini-series about it all, off Star-Plus when I was in Korea… umm, about a decade ago. Chalk it up to cultural bias and isolationism, since I had always read more about the European side of it, and the bits that American forces were involved in, in the Pacific…still, I do regret that I had never heard much about this operation. Major/Colonel Lyon does come off as one of those who is indisputably mad, perhaps a little bit bad, and definitly dangerous— if not to know, then to follow him into the jaws of death or Singapore harbor under Japanese occupation in 1943-45.
(The miniseries is not, apparently, available via Amazon, although the book that it is based upon is.)

DeLay gives up the fight

07. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: General

From Yahoo! News… (posted 90 minutes ago)

WASHINGTON – Rep. Tom DeLay, the defiant face of a conservative revolution in Congress, stepped down as House majority leader on Saturday under pressure from Republicans staggered by an election-year corruption scandal.

(snip)

DeLay temporarily gave up his leadership post after he was charged, but always insisted he would reclaim his duties after clearing his name.

His turnabout cleared the way for leadership elections among Republicans buffeted by poor polls and by lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s confessions of guilt on corruption charges in connection with congressional wining and dining.

Those of you who deeply care about and study these things, tell me – will it make a difference? From what I’ve been reading, he was right to step down, but will it really change anything?

While you’re at it, can you tell me if there has ever truly been a time in our history where Congress cared more about the nation than about their own political parties? Or am I just getting overly cynical in my not-so-old-age?

Weekend Recipe: Catalan Fish Medley

07. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Domestic, Eat, Drink and be Merry, General

(Source for this recipe was probably the Stars & Stripes newspaper— I have no idea where they took it, as I copied it out into my own little book of recipes)

Chop finely:
2 large onions
4-5 large cloves garlic
2 red bell peppers
2 Tbsp smoked dried ham such as proscutto, or Spanish jamon serrano

Slice and set aside: 6 Medium tomatoes

Clean and devein: 1lb whole shrimp

Grind to a fine cornmeal consistancy enough shelled almonds to make 1/2 cup of ground nutmeats. Set the tomatoes, shrimp and almonds aside.

Sautee the onions, garlic, and ham in a large sautee pan or dutch oven in 1/2 cup olive oil. (Oil quantity can be reduced somewhat, to 1/3 cup)
When onions and peppers are soft, sprinkle over them:

1 tsp mild paprika
1 tsp hot paprika

Stir and cook for 2 minutes, then add ground almonds, cooking and stirring for another minute. Stir in the tomatoes and bell peppers, along with:

1 crumbled bay leaf
1/8 tsp crumbled saffron threads

Simmer for five minutes, and stir into the pan:

1 1/2 lbs sole, turbot, perch or red snapper filets, cut into 2-in chunks
1/2 cup white wine
juice of one lemon.

Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and let cook for to minutes. Add the shrimp and simmer for another 3-4 minutes. Serve immediatly, garnished with fresh parsley and lemon wedges.

It’s good served with jasmine rice. This recipe may be halved, to better suit a small family… and may also be done in a microwave, with everything added in the same order, and nuked appropriatly.

And the nominee for worst parents of 2005 is…..

05. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: A Href, General

This couple.

Excerpt:

MANTECA, Calif. — A married couple who got a dog sitter for their puppies but left the man’s young children home alone while they vacationed in Las Vegas were arrested Wednesday, police said.

Jacob Calero, 39, and Michelle De La Vega, 32, were taken into custody as they arrived home on a flight to Oakland. They had left town Friday to celebrate the new year, authorities said.

The couple apparently told 9-year-old Joshua to look after his 5-year-brother, Jason, who is autistic. The children spent one night alone before police found them.

Thank God Grandma called the cops. How do you get to be that old and have no clue of what’s the right thing to do?

Nothing New Under the Sun

05. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Domestic, General, Media Matters Not, Rant, That's Entertainment!

I really can’t think of anything more trenchant to add to the debate over the West Virginia mining disaster mass-media spazz-out than what Don Henley sang, some years ago.

“I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something, something I can use
People love it when you lose, they love dirty laundry

Well, I could’ve been an actor, but I wound up here
I just have to look good, I don’t have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear, give us dirty laundry

Kick ’em when they’re up, kick ’em when they’re down
Kick ’em when they’re up, kick ’em when they’re down
Kick ’em when they’re up, kick ’em when they’re down
Kick ’em when they’re up, kick ’em all around

We got the bubbleheaded bleach-blonde, comes on at 5
She can tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eye
It’s interesting when people die, give us dirty laundry

Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet?
You know the boys in the newsroom got a running bet
Get the widow on the set, we need dirty laundry

You don’t really need to find out what’s going on
You don’t really want to know just how far it’s gone
Just leave well enough alone, keep your dirty laundry

(chorus)

Dirty little secrets, dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybody’s pie
Love to cut you down to size, we love dirty laundry

We can do the innuendo, we can dance and sing
When it’s said and done, we haven’t told you a thing
We all know that crap is king, give us dirty laundry!”

Well, that and go watch “Network” one more time….

For the photo and history buffs amongst us

03. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Domestic, General, History

There’s a very cool photographic exhibit at the Library of Congress, portions of which are available online.

From 1935 to 1944, the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) employed about a dozen professional photographers to wander the country and take pictures. What makes this collection notable is that the photographers were using the new KodaChrome slide film, as well as their standard black and white.

From the exhibit overview page:

The original goal of the government project was to record through documentary photographs the ravages of the Depression on America’s rural population and were intended to spur Congress and the American public to support government relief efforts. Over the years, with an improved economy, increased industrialization, and the onset of World War II, the photographs increasingly focused on an America that was productive, beautiful, and determined. The photographs originally intended to have a narrow focus developed into a noteworthy broader national record.

The LOC has put 70 of these color photos into an online exhibit for those of us who aren’t near the actual exhibit in DC. Those 70 photos are awesome enough, although titles of some pieces most likely do not reflect the photographer’s original labeling of the work (or did we use the term “African-American” in the late 1930s?). They run the gamut from American Gothic type shots to Rosie the Riveter, and then some.

And for those of us (like me) who think 70 pics just whet our appetite, the entire collection of over 171K black/white and color photographs (about 1600 color ones, I think) are also available for viewing online.

You can even view the uncompressed TIFF version of the images, if you have the bandwidth to spare.

This is one of my favorites, thus far. It’s different from most of the other “Rosie the Riveters” I’ve seen before.

This pic of a welder is another one I really like.

Give yourselves a visual treat. As a bare minimum, check out the 70 photo exhibit. It’s pretty impressive.

On the Road With the Lesser Weevil

02. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Pajama Game

Among her favorable canine qualities (sweet nature, high intelligence, compact size, overall good health and relative freedom from behavior problems stemming from the circumstances which inspired my daughter to rescue her from a very unfortunate situation) highest among them is the one which became most apparent over the last week or so. That is, the Lesser Weevil is an excellent traveler. She readily jumped into her travel station in the back seat on command and spent much of the journeys of the last three weeks curled up sleeping there, qualities which can best be appreciated by anyone who has gone on a very long road trip with a dog… which if the evidence of my own experience at rest stops along the highways between San Antonio and San Diego this last holiday week are any indication, may include a large percentage of the traveling public. Most of our stops, up and down IH 10 and 8 coincided with those of other travelers armed with leashes, at the other end of which was one of the canine set enjoying a leisurely poop and pee in the designated pet section of the state-designated rest area.

And, oh, how those rest areas were welcomed by the weary traveler. It would be hard for some of my European friends to visualize how vast and how empty the western United States can be, nothing but two lanes of blacktop with a wide median in between, spooling endlessly across a great basin towards a jagged line of distant blue mountains. On either side of the road, nothing much but adobe colored dust, and low scrub bushes… taupe and pale green, pale gold tufts of bunch-grass, dark green mesquite, and saguaro cacti with uplifted branches…. And that is all there is, for miles and miles. The only other signs of human traffic are the other vehicles on the road, coming and going, their lights at night like a sliding string of diamonds and rubies, perhaps a long freight-train loaded with containers moving toy-like in the distance, and a couple of jets scribbling a feather-stitching of contrails in the blue bowl of sky overhead. Only twice did we drive through cities of any size— El Paso and Tucson— all the rest are places like Yuma and Fort Stockton, or even smaller still, like Sierra Blanca and Junction, just a couple of square blocks of houses, and sometimes not even that. We breezed past an off-ramp with the name of a town on it, which seemed to be made up of a gas station, a house and a scattering of rusting trailers, and Blondie wondered out loud what makes a town? Isn’t there some sort of minimum requirement? Or was there once a substantial town which has dried up and withered away in the fierce desert heat? How lonely it must have been for the first settlers, in the late 19th century, to live so far over the edge of civilization. I remembered an account from the wife of one of the early Texas cattle barons— Mary Ann Goodnight, I believe, who came out to live on her husbands’ ranch several days journey from the nearest small town, the only woman for a hundred miles in each direction. One of the ranch hands gifted her with some chickens, and she was so desperately lonely that the chickens became beloved pets, rather than dinners. Driving past one of those tiny, solitary houses or trailers sitting in a small clump of trees fifty miles from the nearest town, I can now understand how that happened.
More »

“I was Borned a Coal Miner’s Daughter…”

02. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: A Href, Domestic, General

well, technically, anyway. My daddy did spend a couple days working in a coal mine before he decided it wasn’t for him. But both of my grandfathers were coal-miners, and so when I read stories like this, my heart sinks.

Thirteen coal miners are trapped 1-2 miles underground after an explosion at a coal mine in WVA, about 100 miles from Charleston. Charleston is just a couple hours away from where my grandparents were coal-miners.

At this time, they don’t know the status of the trapped miners. Six others made it out alive, and refused treatment.

Those of you who pray, please join me in praying these miners will be rescued alive, and that their families will find comfort throughout this ordeal.

If praying’s not your thing, please offer your warm thoughts, good wishes, or whatever works for you.

This is a small thing in the grand scheme of the world’s problems, but it’s a huge thing to those 13 families in WVA, whose world exploded this morning about 8am eastern time.

Update: The news article has been updated, and they’re now saying the explosion took place around 6-630am, at shift change. No idea what caused it, but there was severe weather in the area, and they’re speculating maybe a lightning strike was the culprit.

Update 2: The 630pm national news tells me that the special rescue team has arrived and entered the mine. They also said that fresh air has been pumped into the mine all day, but they have no way of knowing if any of it is reaching the trapped miners. I hope it is, because from what I’ve read, their personal air devices only give them about 7 hours of air.

Poll Shows Drop In Military Support For Bush

02. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Media Matters Not, Military, Politics

This from NPR’s All Things Considered:

A new poll by the Army Times Publishing Company, to be released Monday, shows a drop in support for President Bush and his conduct of the war in Iraq. The poll was sent to thousands of active duty military subscribers of the publisher’s newsweeklies, including the Army Times.

They link to a podcast of the interview with Army Times’ senior managing editor Robert Hodierne. But I’m going to wait for the print story, which doesn’t seem to have been released yet. I want to see the particular questions asked, and the responses. Because, as we all know, support for mister Bush among the military, or any other group, hinges on far more things than the administration’s handling of the GWOT.

Someone made an Oops

01. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: General

This Marine is hereby appointed a Sgt on this day January 1st 2006.
What a way to start off the new year..eh

FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION

01. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: General, General Nonsense, My Head Hurts, sarcasm, The Funny

Ever get one of those words in your head that just won’t go away? Or a tune that keeps on running through your head, and you can’t banish it no matter how hard you try? This long word did it for me. After seeing the GEICO Insurance commercial with the word in it for several thousand times, I just had to know what it meant. Yep. It’s a real word, for sure. A noun, the meaning is that it is a nothing word. Each element of the word has a meaning of nothing, or intense triviality. This leads to the word meaning something of really low importance, or low/no use. That gives floccinaucinihilipilification a humorous overall meaning in the context of the commercial and the product they are trying to sell. I really got a good laugh out of it when I looked it up in an online dictionary.

So there! Getting the new year off to a rousing, “my head hurts” post, we who are about to go back to bed salute you!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

A Toast for 2006

31. December 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General

May you live as long as you love ‘n’ laugh and love ‘n’ laugh as long as you live.

Be excellent to one another.

So…..

31. December 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Domestic, General

We’re back. Exhaustive posting to follow, after recovery from 2-day drive along IH-10 and 8 across substantial portions of four western states between San Antonio and San Diego… with a dog. Did we miss anything interesting? Don’t everyone chime in at once….

Georgia Guardsmen instrumental in saving baby

31. December 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: A Href, General, Iraq: The Good

I don’t know if y’all have heard about this – it’s making the local news because it’s a GA National Guard company.

I ran across it on a couple blogs earlier this week, but forgot to say anything. Basically, a company of Guardsmen, whilst patrolling a city looking for insurgents, came into a house with a sick child, who had what appeared to be a huge tumor on her back. Turns out she was born with Spina Bifida, and the doctors there said she wouldn’t last 45 days. Well, she’s about 3 months old now, and thanks to our servicemembers and some generous doctors, corporations, and aid groups, she’s coming to Atlanta to have corrective surgery, FOR FREE.

A friend of mine said they were showing her on the news (last night?) and the grandmother (grandma and papa are traveling with the little one) was rocking her, in her lap at the airport, and calling her “Georgia.”

Without the surgery, her days are numbered. With it, she has a chance at a functional life, although most likely in a wheelchair.

Oh – I remembered where I first read about her – at OpinionJournal’s Best of the Web, where they were wondering if this was what he meant when Senator Kerry said that US troops are terrorizing children in Iraq. James Taranto was referencing CNN, so maybe y’all *have* heard about it.

UPDATE: She arrived in Atlanta this evening, and her first surgery is scheduled for Jan 9.

and one more, before I head out to lunch

30. December 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: A Href, General

Just read this on Yahoo! News….

The National Guard has found a way to help out its soldiers who were affected by Katrina. If the soldiers’ job is gone due to Katrina, they can extend their active duty time (up to one year), and work on rebuilding projects, including an NG headquarters building in New Orleans.

So far, over 200 LA Guardsmen have signed up, and some MS troops are interested, as well.

PFC Pedro Martin – American Soldier

30. December 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: A Href, General

From Sgt Hook (always one of my fave reads), comes a story he originally posted on Blog Cuba.

If Sgt Hook ever writes a book, I’ll be standing in line to buy one of the first copies.

Pedro Martin (Originally posted at Val’s Blog Cuba, August 2004).

Private First Class Peter Martin lay on his cot made of an aluminum frame and green nylon, dressed only in his desert camouflage trousers and a brown t-shirt and tan suede combat boots. His blouse hung on a hook fashioned out of 550 cord and an expended 7.62 shell casing tied to a section of the tent’s metal frame. He lay on his back, with his hands behind his head, staring at the canvas ceiling, tiny rays of sunlight piercing the many holes in the tent, waiting. He’s been there waiting for three days now while his platoon was on patrol in the village to the east of their forward operating base. The tent flapped violently in the wind and dust settled on everything. Pete Martin tired of waiting and tired of the heartache he felt within.

He had joined the Army just less than two years ago, shortly after the events of September 11, 2001. He signed on to be an infantryman, he loved being an infantryman. The day that he raised his right hand taking an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies was one of the proudest moments in his life, he was twenty-one years old at the time. He had trained hard after enlisting, first at Fort Benning’s school for boys during the Army’s basic training, then with his unit at Fort Campbell, Kentucky before coming to Afghanistan two months ago.

Read the rest.

Christmas Cheer

30. December 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General

Blonde Sagacity posts about a special train ride – no, it wasn’t the Polar Express. It was more special than that. The complete article can be found here.

It seems that last year a certain Philadelphia gentleman and his wife were sad when they thought about the troops who were stuck at Walter Reed and Bethesda, recovering from wounds received overseas. So this year, they decided to do something about it.

Since the gentleman in question owns a few luxury rail cars, he hooked up with other luxury rail car owners, and they ran a special train to the Army/Navy football game. Luxury cars, gourmet meals, seats on the 50-yard line, corporate goodie bags, and each military member was allowed to bring a guest (the Marines chose to forego the guests, so that more Marines could attend). The guests got goodie bags, too. There were no press on the train, no politicians, and no “pentagon suits” so the troops could just enjoy themselves.

Probably the part of the article that hit me the hardest was towards the end. The author was detailing the reactions of the philanthropists and their guests, and it was wonderful to read. I especially liked this paragraph:

The most poignant moment for the Levins was when 11 Marines hugged them goodbye, then sang them the Marine Hymn on the platform at Union Station.

“One of the guys was blind, but he said, ‘I can’t see you, but man, you must be f—ing beautiful!’ ” says Bennett. “I got a lump so big in my throat, I couldn’t even answer him.”

It’s been three weeks, but the Levins and their guests are still feeling the day’s love.

“My Christmas came early,” says Levin, who is Jewish and who loves the Christmas season. “I can’t describe the feeling in the air.”

Holey Moley!

27. December 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General

Anyone wanna play cards? There are currently 20 spam comments about poker waiting to be dealt with – I’m saving those for Kevin/Timmer/Mom cause I don’t know if y’all do anything special with them. (delete, mark as spam, block, whatever)

I guess I should just be grateful that it’s only card spam, and not some of the other stuff that I’ve seen on occasion.

I hate spam.

I’m Getting Personal…..

26. December 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General

…And I might come back later and yank this post, as not really being related to the overall theme of our blog, but sometimes you just gotta dump what’s in your gut, and hope there’s someone who can hear it and relate to it.

Later this week, for the first time in my life, I’ll be going to an Al-Anon meeting. For some reason, this scares me. It shouldn’t. It’s not like I’m the only person in the world who ever grew up in an alcoholic family. It’s not like I’m the only person in the world who ever needed help to keep from wanting to kick the living shit out of someone because of how they behave when they’re “likkered up.” I’m certainly not the only person in the world who has bad childhood memories (or no memories?) of family holidays because there was so much stress/chaos involved in them. So even though I’ll be walking into a room full of strangers, it’s not like I’m walking into a room full of strangers, ya know?

Heck, I won’t even be going alone – I’ve got a friend who’s offered to go with me so there’ll be someone there I know. And we’re going to a meeting that she particularly likes, where she assures me I’ll be safe.

This is actually huge progress, for me. Two years ago, she offered that if I ever wanted to attend a meeting, she’d go with me. At that time, I couldn’t even consider it, because in my brain going to a meeting meant that I was defective, somehow (hmmm… *they’re* the alcoholics, but I’m defective). Recently, I’ve been able to view Al-Anon as a resource that can help me get to where I want to be, which is detached from the emotional chaos that my family generates. It kills me that I can still be sucked into their chaos when I’m 500+ miles away from them.

So I guess that means I’m growing up (not the part about being sucked into their chaos – the other part). Which is not a bad thing. And it probably means I’m healing, which is definitely a good thing. Now, if there were only some way to make it not hurt, then everything would be all better. Or if I could figure out what hurts, or why it hurts. For lack of a better description, my heart hurts.

Is it because I can’t avoid the fact that we weren’t a “Leave it to Beaver” family? (were there any such?) Or is it because I’m the only one in my family who will say that the family was/is alcoholic?

We’re hillbillies. Drinking is what we do. One time when I was home from college, my brother teasingly said maybe I wasn’t really one of the family, since I wasn’t a drinker (I didn’t like the taste of alcohol back then, so I wouldn’t drink). Christmas gifts to grandparents were huge jugs of whiskey, and christmas visits involved lots of alcohol (mostly for the adults, of course). I spent most of my adolescence refusing to drink with my aunt and my grandma, and then listening to them say I thought I was better than they were, since I wouldn’t drink with them. They just kept ignoring the part where I was 14, or 16, or whatever age I was at the various times. (eta: I’m not talking about wine with dinner, I’m talking about sipping whiskey throughout the entire day)

As far as I know, I’m the first one of us to spend 3+ years in therapy, trying to get past my past. And other than my dad’s little brother, who joined AA 15 or so years ago, I’m the only one I know of who’s choosing to go to an Al-Anon meeting. I thought about an Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting, but after some research, I think Al-Anon might be a better fit for me, right now.

I’m hoping to learn how to detach from the family without divorcing the family. And it would probably do me good to learn that I’m not crazy, and not alone. So it’s probably a good idea for me to go.

My therapist told me one time that it’s the *healthy* members of the family who are in therapy. I’m just not feeling very healthy, right now. I’m pretty much feeling defective.

(/personal stuff)

Update: Looks like I won’t be deleting this post 🙂 I came online this morning, ready to delete it, and there was already one comment posted, so I thought I’d wait until I had time to email the commenter and thank him/her for posting, and the next time I looked, there were 6!
I *do* appreciate y’alls support – last night was a wee bit of a meltdown…they’ve been happening fairly frequently this holiday season as my past battles its way into my consciousness again for more healing.

This al-anon decision has been slowly building since last New Year’s Eve, when I was visiting my dad for the holiday, and had to leave the house at 2am to find a motel, because my nephew and his wife (who lived with my dad) were having a drunken row, and it was impossible for me to sleep. Things came to a head with them this fall, and they’ve since been evicted from my dad’s house last month (they weren’t renting from him, they were squatting from him). But it really drove home to me how much enabling is one of our family traditions (denial’s another big one), and then the whole mess just kept dragging on, and everytime I’d hear more about it, I’d get tied up in knots cause I don’t detach well, and so I knew it was time.

It’s still scary – biggest fear is that I’m just gonna sit there Fri night and bawl my eyes out, much as I was doing last night. But I’m ok with that, as long as I know that no one’s gonna jump on me for it. But since I’m no longer hungry, lonely or tired, it’s not as frightening as it seemed last night.

Thanks, everyone, for your support. It really does help. 🙂

Oh, and Almost Forgot (051226)

26. December 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Bears!

Merry Christmas!

25. December 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General

To all the men and women out there today in uniform keeping us safe, to those fortunate to be home this Christmas, and to all the veterans who have been there and done that, thank you for your service and God Bless!

The Daily Brief