All BS, All The Time

10. July 2005 · Comments Off on All BS, All The Time · Categories: General, Media Matters Not

I just came home, expecting to see the repeat of Fox News Sunday on FNC. I had forsaked it earlier, in favor of NBC’s Meet The Press, which , as its cable rebroadcast is at 7pm PDT, as I remember, is much harder to catch.

Anyway, I tune in to DirecTV channel 360, and what do I find, but all Dennis, all the time. And this might be ok, if there was something really extraordinary going on. But I just sat through about 10-15 minutes of them flipping from one field reporter to another, saying “oh, it’s really windy and wet here in Tampa/Pensacola/Montgomery.” Give me a fucking break!

Look, I sat through a hurricane at the tender age of 17, while I was at Keesler. And, while I was shivering in my rack, on the third floor of the dorms, some good ol’ boy, who was being temporarily billeted in my room, said to the other Airmen he was playing cards with: “I tells ya’: I sure ‘yam glad I’is here within’ this hurr-e-cane, than out in Cali-forn-ya, within’ some earthquake.”

And then it occurred to me: unless what I feel is over about 6.0, an earthquake isn’t even something to get out of bed over. At that point I put it all in perspective, and relaxed. I just wish our news organizations could do the same.

Update: As frequently happens, it seems Glenn Reynolds and I are thinking along the same lines:

I’m With Glenn

10. July 2005 · Comments Off on I’m With Glenn · Categories: General

Glenn Reynolds proclaims Eugene Volokh to be an ideal choice, not just for a spot on the Supreme Court bench, but Chief Justice. I couldn’t agree more.

Throughout the five or so years I have known Eugene, he has consistently impressed me as a legal scholar who could remain true to libertarian first principles, while remaining moderate, and respectful of the doctrine of stare decisis. Further, there is a strong movement afoot to appoint a non-judge to the Supreme bench. While Eugene has clerked for Justice O’Connor, as well as Federal Appeals Court Judge Alex Kozinski, I don’t believe he’s ever been a state or federal jurist himself.

So, is there a “Draft Eugene” website out there?

We’re Living Here In Allentown…

10. July 2005 · Comments Off on We’re Living Here In Allentown… · Categories: Ain't That America?, General

…And they’re closing all the factories down…

WAIT!!!! Not any more it seems. Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley is emerging as one of America’s fastest growing regions. It is being revitalized by (believe it or not) Latino immigration. Stories like this give lie to many of the fears of the xenophobes.

Felonious French-Kissing

09. July 2005 · Comments Off on Felonious French-Kissing · Categories: General, Stupidity

This is the first of a few posts by Eugene Volokh on the subject:

Consensual French Kissing Can Be Felony Near-Statutory Rape, at least when it’s “a lengthy, ‘good,’ ‘deep,’ ‘passionate,’ ‘intimate,’ ‘romantic,’ and ‘memorable’ french kiss in the bed of the defendant after an overnight stay, and the kiss achieved emotional arousal and was followed by professions of true love and repeated encounters involving the same conduct.” So says the Kansas Court of Appeals, though without word on what you’re allowed to do if there’s no overnight stay, or if it was followed by professions of something other than true love.

This case involved a female high school teacher and her 16-year-old student; in Kansas, the age of consent is generally 16, but there’s a special rule for teacher-student relationships when the student is 16 or 17. However, the same would apply to two 15-year-olds French kissing, which is also a felony; it’s a lower-grade felony than full-on statutory rape, but it’s a crime nonetheless. Presumably in states where the age of consent is 18, two 17-year-olds could be similarly punished, at least if the statute uses similar terms (“lewd fondling or touching”).

Memo: London Calling

09. July 2005 · Comments Off on Memo: London Calling · Categories: General, GWOT, History

To: Osama bin Laden & Company, Presumably
Somewhere On the Pak-Afghan Border
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Your Plans for a ”Revived Caliphate”

1. Not going all that swimmingly for you, are they, oh “Noble and Esteemed One”? The recent outrage in the city of London has all of your organizations’ hallmarks, so wiser and more experienced heads than mine are assuming this is the handiwork of the organization of which you are— if not the head, at least the spiritual and financial inspiration. If it turns out that explosions in three Underground trains and a double-decker bus are in fact, the work of some other party— rabid 7th Day Adventists, or perhaps fanatical Lutherans (those Missouri Synod types bear watching, I tell you!)— I shall promptly withdraw this memo, with “profound” apologies. As tragic as the personal losses are, and will continue to be, and as horrifying as the prospect of merely showing up at ones’ workplace in a timely fashion becoming a sentence of death at the caprice of your collection of grotty little 8th century religious misfits is for many of us, logic impels me to note that the events of 7/7 are somewhat short of your usual terrifying standard. No wonder you are not all that fast off the mark in claiming responsibility. Good help must be as hard to find for a terrorist mastermind as it is for anyone else.

2. It may be that we are… sad as it is to say… becoming all to used to this war. We wake up in the morning, turn on the radio… and there is the somber-voiced announcer, reading the headlines. A car bomb here, a hijacked plane there, a kidnapped reporter, diplomat, or contract employee beheaded there… well, after a while, we get the point… and the cost of making it all go away is just too much for many of us to stomach. Y’all want us either dead or on our knees, bowing in the direction of Mecca, either that, or paying the jizaya tax to leave us alone, to bag a couple of centuries of compromise between what is due to Caesar and what is due to God, and revert back to the 12th century, when everything was fair, and perfect, Mohammed was in his paradise and all was right with the world. We got that, loud and clear. It’s — as they say in France— your idea fixee.

3. It ain’t gonna happen, as we say in Texas. Generally, we are getting less and less enchanted by militant Islam, the longer that this whole thing goes on. When you are reduced to killing people who don’t agree with you on a wholesale and retail basis, it’s kind of an admission that your side has lost the argument. It will probably take a little longer to sink in for you, if ever. Is there an Arabic version of the adage about catching a tiger by the tail? Do you have any idea of just who you pissed off on Thursday? Do you think they are f**king impressed? Bin Laden, old sport, these are Londoners! They are the descendents, and in some cases, the survivors of the Blitz! Better men than you had a go at blowing up large chunks of London on a nightly basis, for over five years! Old and unfit men, middle-aged women and invalids unfit for military service defended their city against firebombs and high explosives with stirrup-pumps and buckets of sand! This is a city that has been bombed in two world wars, burned to the ground at least twice over, decimated by the Plague, built and rebuilt after war and riot, just for the hell of it! And— if you have been paying attention to history, other than that of your own peculiar prophet and grievances— you should know that this the capitol of people who made a quarter of the globe imperial scarlet and then gave up the most part of it of their own free will. But before they did, such marvelous and heart-stopping deeds were performed; through a mistaken order, a unit of cavalry were sent down a gauntlet of artillery. An army of volunteers advanced into no-man’s-land on the 1st of July, 1916. And the sons and husbands of those who so bravely defended their city in 1940 from bombs and fire, saw to the demolition of Berlin, Dresden and much of the rest of industrial Germany with grim resolution, and being human, very probably a certain amount of satisfaction . Payback, is the word we use in Texas; payback which takes the form of what you have dished out, returned with interest and several times over, of which the saying is that “payback is….umm, an uncooperative and hostile woman”. I rather doubt there would be an Arabic version of that axiom; perhaps you could work on this.

4. Do not be deluded by lickspittles and toadies such as a George Galloway, a Michael Moore, a Noam Chomsky; in another era there were the likes of Lord Haw-Haw, Lillian Hellman, and Ezra Pound, rushing to prostrate themselves at the boots of a potential conqueror. There are always those who adore the powerful destructors, who have their own reasons and resentments, as they relish the destruction of all that has nurtured and rewarded them, and look on the deaths of their own countrymen with complacent disregard. They are a few, a passing evil; like the poor, always with us, but unlike the poor, able to command the nearest spotlight. Meanwhile, in the shadows, the ordinary citizens toil on, burying the dead, and mourning their losses, and carrying on with grim resolve, knowing in their hearts that it is nearly always better to die on your feet, than to live on your knees.

5. And remember always, in your hide-out in the border mountains, Americans were Britons, once— where did you think we learned it from, hey?

6. As always, the quote marks are not “scare” quote marks, they are “viciously skeptical” quote marks.

Sincerely
Sgt Mom

Do I See Some Inflation Here?

08. July 2005 · Comments Off on Do I See Some Inflation Here? · Categories: General

Following David’s link, below, on PBS’s reportage of the London bombings, I found this:

With the U.S. government projecting a $426 billion deficit this year, critics are blaming some of the red ink on the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which President Bush signed into law in December 2003. In 2004, when NOW first reported on the story, the original cost of the bill had ballooned from $400 billion to $534 billion. Where does it stand today? NOW looks at what the Medicare law is costing America.

But wait! That flies in the face of this from Bloomberg:

July 8 (Bloomberg) — Rising tax payments and a growing economy may push the U.S. federal deficit down to $325 billion or lower, a 24 percent decline from the previous estimate, the Congressional Budget Office said.

The agency, in a monthly snapshot for fiscal 2005 that ends on Sept. 30, said tax payments and spending were running ahead of the year-ago pace. As a result this year’s deficit “will be significantly less than $350 billion, perhaps below $325 billion.”

It seems as though someone at PBS’ NOW is fudging the numbers.

Update: To be fair, no matter what the federal deficit is, there is little doubt that a large portion of it is due to drug coverage.

Here’s An Interesting Concept

08. July 2005 · Comments Off on Here’s An Interesting Concept · Categories: General

I am currently watching The Anatomy of Sex on the Discovery Channel. And the question is posed: “why are women’s bodies designed for sex, when [by pregnancy, or any of a number of other factors], they are not in a position to conceive a child?

The answer seems obvious: to keep their men around. You might be ashamed to admit it, guys, but would you be true to your woman if she was only receptive to sexual activity when she was fertile?

Where Do I Go To Train For This Job?

07. July 2005 · Comments Off on Where Do I Go To Train For This Job? · Categories: General

This from Joy Sewing at the Houston Chronicle:

Now specialty shops can’t keep Oprah’s bra in stock, and women are flocking to stores to see whether they’re sized correctly.

“As soon as the (Oprah) show went off the air, our phones started ringing,” says Gerri Brown, a bra-fit expert at Top Drawer Lingerie in Uptown Park. “Many women are in denial about their bra size. They don’t want to admit they are actually larger than they thought.”

Finding a well-fitting bra isn’t always easy. There’s much to consider, from the size of the cup to the snugness of the fit. Bras that bind, straps that fall, breasts that spill over the cups, wires that pinch and dreaded back fat that squeezes over straps are all signs of ill-fitting bras.

Any women out there wanting bra-sizing advise – please email me. 🙂

BTW: Something about a journalist named “Joy Sewing” reporting on the garment industry I find quite funny.

Update: I just confered with a female friend, who tends to keep “abreast” of such matters, and this quote is the jist:

But some women shove them in too-small cups hoping to get the smooshed look, and then just get the fourple-boob look, where there’s a horizntal-type crease with bulge above and below. Not good.

Here’s a hint girls: this is, for-sure, not sexy.

United

07. July 2005 · Comments Off on United · Categories: General

To our Friends in the UK

07. July 2005 · Comments Off on To our Friends in the UK · Categories: General

Please accept my deepest and most sincere sympathies for the troubles assailing your nation today. The attacks are reprehensible and unconscionable.

I have no words to express the depth of my emotions as I read about the bombings.

Wishing I could do something concrete to help,

your American friend

On the Road, Again

06. July 2005 · Comments Off on On the Road, Again · Categories: Domestic, General, Memoir

I can’t recall the context now, but this week, I ran across a quoted axiom on the difference between the English and the Americans, to the effect that to an American, a hundred years is a long time ago, and to an Englishman, a hundred miles is a great distance. It struck me as apt, because it is in a fair way to being true. The single oldest house in the town where I grew up was a tiny frame cottage, supported on river-rock pilings, which just achieved 95 years before the Sylmar earthquake dissolved the mortar holding the rock pilings together, and the main floor collapsed to ground level, broken like a smashed dollhouse. But this was California— about par, actually. Our very oldest existing buildings were the missions, a chain of adobe and stone structures built by Catholic missionaries under Spanish and Mexican rule, at best a couple of centuries and change, pale and makeshift reflections of the great cathedrals of Spain. No, a hundred years is a long time, as far as domestic architecture goes… and a hundred miles is not a long way. At best, as we measured things in California, in driving time, that would be a two-hour drive or less— a goodish distance, not something you wanted to do every day (although now, many do)— but for a weekend, or a special event? No, a hundred miles was easily doable, and a drive of forty minutes, or an hour nothing special at all.

And so, we spent a lot of time in the family car, JP and Pippy and I, the commodious back seat of a jade-green 1952 Plymouth Station wagon. This would be the car that Dad bought slightly used when I was about two or three, and which my mother drove for thirty years, a great solid square of a vehicle, with a cargo area in back which could be increased by folding the back seat flat, and a gear shift lever on the steering column. Dad eventually bought, and dismembered another ’52 Plymouth station wagon to keep “Old Betsy” in parts— door panels, windows and engine parts and all, although the split windshield was inadvertently wrecked by Wilson the Horse, who blundered into the garage in search of his specialty horse-food, and stepped flat onto the glass panes.

Old Betsy got a new coat of paint every couple of years, of Earl Sheib jade-green ( the $30 special), and one of our best-remembered and most thrilling early road trips was when Dad took the three of us to Tijuana, to one of the cut-rate body and interior-work shops to get a new headliner installed. While Betsy was being worked on, we walked around to the shops in the vicinity, and watched a glass-blower demonstration, and looked at painted pottery and coarse hairy serapes and other touristy junk. We so wanted to go to a bullfight, the arena had the most interesting posters outside, but the timing wasn’t right. In a bakery-grocery, Dad bought us fresh, crusty rolls, and fresh fruit, and bottled soft-drinks, nothing that would tax our delicate, first-world digestive systems— we had been strictly forbidden to drink the tap-water. Our great adventure, and the first time we had ever been to a foreign country, the first time JP and Pippy and I could look around and think, “Not American”. Not American, maybe, but not entirely foreign, not as long as we were looking at it from the back seat of Old Betsy.

How many weeks and months of my life, total, were spent in the back seat of that car? Going to my grandparents’ houses, in Pasadena and Camarillo, going to the old church in North Hollywood, countless trips to school when the weather was bad, out to the desert with Dad for camping trips, to Pismo beach for a dune-buggy meet (with Dad following behind, driving the little red chopped-down VW he had made into a dune-buggy), to Descanso Gardens, to summer-camp in the mountains, to swimming lessons, on a long, barely-remembered trip into the Gold Rush country when JP and I were still quite small. How many weeks and months would that work out to be— JP and I on either side, and Pippy in the middle, she being the littlest, and least inconvenienced by the hump of the transmission in the middle of the floor? Looking out the window, daydreaming as the cityscape and the countryside swept by… hills upholstered in crunchy golden grass and spotted by dark green live oaks, watching for landmarks as the grey highway unspooled in front of us, the landmarks that let us know how close we were to… well, wherever. The mock-log cabin in Laurel Canyon, across from the ruins of Harry Houdini’s estate… Jungle-Land, in Thousand Oaks, the place where they shone colored lights on three large fountains (we called it “The Great Fizzies”), the huge factory in Fontana done in Babylonian motifs along the concrete walls, the orange groves walled in by straight lines of eucalyptus trees—before they were ripped away and replaced with straight lines of suburban developments— the old Greene Hotel, in Pasadena… all these places that we knew, knew from seeing them out the windows of the car, sweeping by.

I was apt to get car-sick; the most reliable preventive was to be amused, to have a window open and the fresh air blowing in, and to apply the usual solution: to sing. We had a wide repertoire of folk songs, of hymns, of campfire songs, all sung in tight family harmony… and we would talk. So many things we talked about— the back of the Plymouth is where we first heard that we were going to have a baby brother, where Great-Aunt Nan talked about her half-brother, so many family moments. The back of the car, on the way to so many places; that’s where family is, that’s the place that family memories happen.

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

JRR Tolkein

Movie Trivia Question For 7/6/05

06. July 2005 · Comments Off on Movie Trivia Question For 7/6/05 · Categories: General

In the original edition of the book this movie was based upon, the lovable and industrious characters portrayed therein were described as pygmy Negroes, who’s diet at one time included tree bark.

It’s Propaganda!

05. July 2005 · Comments Off on It’s Propaganda! · Categories: General, Media Matters Not, That's Entertainment!

So, if “news” comes from the left, it’s responsible journalism, but if it comes from the right it’s propaganda. When I first read that article on FoxNews, I thought, “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?” After all, all you hear from “mainstream media” is dead Americans, the war is being lost, the US Government is torturing prisoners, and Bush lied. That, too, is propaganda. Seems to me, if you are only giving one side, true or not, it’s propaganda whether you’re conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, journalist or entertainer.

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin

The Camellia Collector’s Garden

04. July 2005 · Comments Off on The Camellia Collector’s Garden · Categories: Domestic, General, Memoir

In an upscale neighborhood halfway between Redwood House, and Granny Jessie and Grandpa Jim’s tiny white house on South Lotus, there was a magical place tucked into a dell of huge native California live oak trees. Looking back, we— my brother JP, my sister Pippy and I— seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time there, in those lovely leisurely days when mothers were expected to stay at home with children, but not to spend every waking minute ferrying them frenetically from scheduled amusements, playdates and lessons, with barely time for a snatched meal from drive-through or take-out.

Compared to our peers in the 1960ies, Mom may have been a bit of an overachiever, with Cotillion on alternate Tuesdays, Girl Scouts on Wednesday, and Confirmation on Thursdays. That was during the school year, though… in the summers, we three had swimming lessons at the house of a woman in La Crescenta who had, like her mother before her— been on the American Olympic swim team in their respective days. Mom sat with half a dozen other mothers on the deck in back of the house, while the two women dragooned a dozen tadpole children through their paces: diving, back-stroking, holding our breath and diving down to the bottom of the nearly Olympic-sized pool, treading water. It must have been rather boring for her, I imagine. Mom must have enjoyed the time during our lessons in nature appreciation at Descanso Gardens more, because she could walk around the acres of Manchester Boddy’s landscaped estate.

He was a newspaper publisher in the 1920ies and 1930ies, an aesthete with a mad passion for camellias, and a lovely chunk of property, close against the hillside and thickly grown with huge native oak trees. His house was still there, back against the first rise of the hillside, a large, graceful white house with the hollow and institutional feel common to a mansion that has once been a great home, but now full of empty, or nearly empty rooms, given over to official enterprise. Owing to a number of business reversals, the estate and garden wound up being in the public domain, but unlike the house, the gardens were burgeoning, enchantingly full of life… and flowers.

As children, we loved the camellia woods, but Mom loved the rose garden, two acres of roses, Grandpa Jim’s tiny formal garden expanded exponentially. Like his garden, it was for roses and roses alone, bare thorny stems rising up out of carefully tended weedless ground, planted in curving beds, and straight disciplined lines, trained over arbors and pergolas, every selected bush lovingly tended and encouraged to bloom, bloom and bloom again, encouraged with every atom of the gardeners’ art and skill with water, and application of clippers and fertilizer. Under the hot spring sun, the scent of acres of roses in bloom was intoxicating… but the rose garden was baked and bleached by sun, shimmering off the gravel paths, and we preferred the cool green shades of the camellia grove and the pond with the ducks.
The gardens seem to have been much improved upon, since we were there so often, and even since I took my daughter in the early 1980ies, perhaps the large artificial pond, just inside the old main entrance is no longer there, or in the same form, but the gardens that I remember was threaded with artificial, but skillfully built watercourses, and the main catch-pond was the home of a flock of tame ducks. There was a coin-op dispenser that for a nickel, administered a handful of cracked corn— so very clever of the garden administrators to charge the public for expense of feeding the tame resident waterfowl. By afternoon, the ducks would be lethargic, sleeping off their orgies of gobbling corn from the hands of small children, but in the morning hours, when the garden had just opened, they would throng hopefully towards anyone approaching the main pond, and the ever-bountiful coin-op dispenser.

On the other side of the pond there was an oval lawn, shaded by towering oak trees, and groves of shrub camellias, acres of cool and misty green paths planted with Manchester Boddy’s pride and joy, all dark glossy green leaves and pale pink and white or magenta flowers. We loved the camellia groves, and the tangle of green paths threading the dell: we knew the chaparral hillsides, and the open, sun-blasted acres of rose garden— it was what we lived our lives amongst— but acres of cool green woods, and stone-trimmed water-courses, that was something rare and exotic and special.

Bearing to the left of the duck pond was another bit of exoticism; along about in the late 1960ies, they built a Japanese tea-house, a lovely little tile-roofed pavilion, led to by a series of bridges, walkways and a carefully clipped landscape of bamboo and azaleas. The watercourse was extended into a lagoon around the tea-house foundations, and stocked with fat golden carp. The teahouse served tea, of course, courtesy of a concessionaire who was in the good graces of the Japanese-American organization who had funded construction. The tea was clear greenish-golden liquid, served in handle-less cups and accompanied with fine-grained, soy-salt tasting crackers. We sipped it, looking out into the serene green depths of the camellias and the sheltering oaks, and thought there was nothing more restful, nothing more peaceful in all of the world, than Manchester Boddys’ wonderful gardens.

(Reposted to allow comments— Sgt Mom)

Independence Day

04. July 2005 · Comments Off on Independence Day · Categories: General

June 7, 1776:

“RESOLVED: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally disolved.”

July 4, 1776:

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….

… We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

I am not ashamed to say that the first quote moves me to tears. Two hundred and some years ago, a group of men in a hot, humid meeting room in a backwater country joined together in a noble experiment. It was a new thing they were trying – no colony in the history of the world had broken from the parent country before. Simply stating the resolution made them all candidates for the hangman’s noose. But they not only resolved for independence, they proclaimed it, loudly and defiantly, in the midst of numerous military defeats.

Yes, we have a checkered past. So does every other country on the planet. I’m not going to let the mistakes of our past (or even of our present) impact my pride in, and love for, my birth country. A country is nothing more than a collection of people. People have always been imperfect. It stands to reason, then, that a country will also be imperfect. What matters is not that we make mistakes, but what we do once we recognize them.

The experiment begun in 1776 is still going strong. Amid triumps and tragedies, with victories and defeats, proud moments and shameful incidents, we have survived. May God grant that it always be so.

4th of July: Helping Our Heroes

04. July 2005 · Comments Off on 4th of July: Helping Our Heroes · Categories: General, Home Front, Military

Daily Brief reader Emily Cochran writes “We have just launched a fundraising campaign to pull in $40,000 to meet recent requests for emergency cash grants from families of the wounded troops at Walter Reed …. we’re a non profit 501c3, have minimal overhead (it’s all donated), no paid staff, all of our money reaches our heroes….”

More here.

More On McLeod’s Daughters

02. July 2005 · Comments Off on More On McLeod’s Daughters · Categories: General

Our friends from Down Under might note that we are only on season two here, about three years behind you. Our current episode is You Can’t Leave Your Hat On.

Well, concurret with my previous post, this is pretty much a stock melodrama. It’s just amazing to see something this well produced come from overseas.

But, as I inferred in my previous post, the real attraction of this series is those georgous Aussie women [I still think Lisa Chappell and Sela Ward were twins, seperated at birth. (Although, in truth, Lisa is about 12 years younger, and has blue eyes, rather than Sela’s brown.)]

But there’s something beyond that: It’s that wonderful Kingsford Homestead (the fictious Drover’s Run). I mean, a million dollars wouldn’t build sets like this. And the Barossa Valley: I mean this is the Orange County I saw evaporating before my eyes in the ’60s.

My, how History Repeats Itself.

02. July 2005 · Comments Off on My, how History Repeats Itself. · Categories: General

This ties into an email I just received from one of our more brilliant (albeit perhaps rather innocent) readers, quoting Hermann Goering:

Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the
country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the
people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament
or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be
brought to the bidding of the leaders. That’s easy. All you have to do is tell
them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifist for lack of patriotism,
and exposing them to greater danger.

I pointed out to her that, while not untrue, this quote was hardly seminal. But, by attaching it to a reviled Nazi, certain factions gain political advantage.

An incise knowledge of history is essential, for the electorate to rise above the demagogues.

Argh! I lost the whole first half of this post, concerning David McCullough, 1776, and the unpopularity of the American Revolution. Oh, fuck it.

I’m Lester The Nightfly…

01. July 2005 · Comments Off on I’m Lester The Nightfly… · Categories: General

…Hello Baton Rouge. Won’t you turn your radio down…

I’m just sounding off to see what readers we have around and abouts on this long weekend. Please chime in with your handle and locale.

What Comes Around…

01. July 2005 · Comments Off on What Comes Around… · Categories: General

I am currently watching The Magnificent Ambersons, for about the dozenith time. And I can’t help but wonder: How much were the generational frictions of the ’60s were precursed by this movie?

Just reflecting on the great line from the banquet scene: “Perhaps the world would be better if automobiles had never been invented.”

Yes, perhaps the world would be better if the wheel hadn’t have been invented either. But that’s really not the question, is it?

Should I Bother Posting?

01. July 2005 · Comments Off on Should I Bother Posting? · Categories: General

Well, I’m still here, manning my post. But I havta’ telya’, at least half my friends are out-of-town – taking advantage of a four-day weekend.

I hazard to think that the same is true of my readership on the blogosphere. Should I bother posting? Does anyone really care?

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

01. July 2005 · Comments Off on LET THE GAMES BEGIN! · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Home Front

Well, well, now that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has announced her retirement, it seems the race is on. The news(?) media are salivating all over themselves and rolling around in orgasmic happiness. Democrats in the Senate are gearing up, I hear, for the fight of the century, no matter who President Bush selects to fill her seat on the Supreme Court. Republican Senators, on the other hand, are getting set to push to the wall to get the President’s pick confirmed.

As for me, all I ask is that Sgt Mom pass the popcorn, I’m just gonna sit back and watch these dreary old men (and women) make total asses out of themselves, if they can be bigger idiots than they are now. As I said in the beginning, let the games begin!

Quagmire!!!

01. July 2005 · Comments Off on Quagmire!!! · Categories: General, GWOT, Iran, Media Matters Not

It looks like all the channels in the basic TV package are on repeats, and of stupid, intelligence-insulting, mind-numbingly boring programs that looked like twenty years of repeats even upon first airing; watching them in repeats one more time would be like root canal work with not much in the way of painkillers. Sooo… this summer, it looks like I am watching stuff on VHS and DVD, things I bought because I liked them, or taped off the broadcast channels— odd-ball things like “Due South”, various impeccably written and filmed stuff from “Masterpiece Theatre”, “Crusade” and “Babylon 5”…. And if my science fiction jones really gets bad, I have all of “Blake’s 7” (taken from the KUED, the Utah Public TV channel, in the early 90ies, when the broadcast that and Dr. Who at midnight on Saturdays. Note: “Blakes’ 7 was the British analogue to the original “Star Trek”, but with better writing, more interesting characters… but special effects that were…ummm… even more cheesy, and trust me, this is possible. And the dramatis personae only added up to 7 on occasion and only if one counted the computers, but against that… Paul Darrow, brooding in black leather and studs. Yum. Trust me on this. Yum.)

Oh, where was I? TV nostalgia. Back on topic. In the interests of 60ies nostalgia, a topic in which a great many of our media and duly elected officials seem lately to be mired down, I revisited my own memories, and some of my televised Vietnam memorabilia, a number of movies like “84 Charlie Mopic”, and the complete runs of “Tour of Duty” and “China Beach”, as they were broadcast on EBS-Zaragoza, complete with EBS TV identifiers, and a selection of cheesy AFRTS spots. Both programs were enormously popular among overseas military audiences at the time, to judge from the feedback that I remember, and from the number of small boys who borrowed BDUs, fatigues and flight-suits from their elders for the yearly Halloween parade at the DODs school. Those with first-hand memories of the Vietnam experience had more complicated reactions, like the husband of one of my friends in Korea. At that time he was the deacon of the Episcopal congregation, but he had served a combat tour as a very young infantry officer. His wife commented once that she always knew when he had watched “China Beach”, or some such, while she was out at choir practice, because he would be so white-lipped and silent for the rest of the evening.

But equating Vietnam to Iraq is a terribly strained analogy, and there are more differences than similarities. Some of them small and seemingly insignificant, some are written off as trivial, but to military veterans those differences posit a gulf of enormous difference… and some are just… well, differences. In no particular order;

1. Vietnam: a long, narrow south-east Asian country, once known as Cochin-China, or French Indo-China, of which practically no one in America had ever heard of, prior to about 1950. After WWII, we let the French take back their colony, although we could just as easily have pressured them into giving the Vietnamese their independence. A bad decision, but exactly how bad would not become apparent for many decades.

Iraq: a large, centrally located Middle-Eastern country, also known as the “Cradle of Civilization” (western division), Mesopotamia or the Land Between Two Rivers, the Fertile Crescent. It encompasses the birthplace of Abraham in the city of Ur of the Chaldees, of ancient cities, and the first recorded set of laws, the Code of Hammurabi, the earliest written epic, the story of Gilgamesh. The tower of Babel was supposed to have been built there, and the wonder of the world, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The ancient names of cities, Ninevah, Babylon, Ur… resonate in western history and religion, a fountain-source, and a wonder.

2. Vietnam, to judge from the memories of friends like Xuan-An, and from the cameras of everyone who turned away from war and atrocity, and recorded the countryside itself is— from the mountains to the seaside and in the tended farmlands and the forests between— mainly green, lush and achingly beautiful.

Iraq— to judge from pictures posted by pro and amateur photog— is…. Ummm. OK. With careful lighting and creative shooting, Iraq can look… umm, interesting. Striking, even. Certain bits of it can grow on one, if one has a taste for the austere, and an appreciation for contrasts— which can also be said of much of the American West.

3. There doesn’t seem to be much impenetrable jungle in Iraq. Lots of desert, though; wide-open, no-much-of-a-place-hide desert, with excellent lines of sight.

4. The American troops are not draftees, this time. I will repeat this for the benefit of Prof. Churchill and the other SDS wannabees, milling around in the back and passing around… yo! Ward Baby! No smoking, ‘kay! You want to relive the glory days of 1968, you round up a bunch of your dopey friends and form a re-enactors’ group, just like normally nostalgic people do! THERE IS NO DRAFT! THEY ARE VOLUNTEERS! ‘KAY! Some 18-year olds choose to serve, others elect to sit in your classroom and pay for a couple of years of educational malpractice by flipping burgers at Mickey D’s. Free country, Ward… and that had better be a regular tobacco cigarette.

5. Which brings me seamlessly to the fact that the military has been… umm, rather stern for the last thirty years as regards the ingestion of mind-altering substances. They screen for it, at random, regularly and persistently… and they aren’t all that indulgent about alcohol, either, even outside of the Middle East. This isn’t Oliver Stone’s Army, and hasn’t been for years, although he himself is probably too whacked out to notice this.

6. American personnel rotate in-country as a unit, and rotate home again, en masse. They are not coming and going as single replacements… which makes it very difficult (not to say dangerous) for those who would hang around in international airports spitting on solitary members of the military. The old baby-killer accusation still gets traction, however.

7. Jane Fonda has yet to go over to the Sunni Triangle and pose with insurgent weapons. Yet, anyway.

8. The Ho Chi Minh Trail, skirted South Vietnamese territory as much as possible, running through neighboring countries, safe from interdiction, until the very last leg. The insurgency’s supply trail is vulnerable all the way from the Iraqi border.

9. The Viet Cong swam among the Vietnamese population, especially in the countryside like fish in a pond of water. The Iraqi pond seems distinctly unwelcoming to the insurgents. The fact that the most recent suicide bombers are either foreign jihadists, or local citizens either blackmailed into driving a car bomb or handcuffed to the steering wheel suggests that they are a considerable distance from the “winning the hearts and minds” ideal of a popular insurgency. It was supposed to be the Americans committing brutal atrocities on a innocent and defenseless population that would drive ordinary Iraqi citizens into supporting the insurgency; instead, it looks like the insurgents are committing the atrocities, and driving ordinary citizens away.

10. American troops in Iraq are armored-up, to a degree that makes their predecessors in Vietnam look positively undressed. And they seem to be amusing themselves without the local version of the “ville”, those notorious local districts just outside the gates of American bases which in days of yore provided loud music, cheap alcohol, and cheaper floozies to those members of the American military who were young and dumb and full of… erm, whatever. Mind you, any one knowing the location of a suitably Vietnam-style “ville” anywhere in Iraq will earn popularity undying by sharing that intelligence immediately… with members of the international press.

Feel free to add your own then-and-now observations in the comments.

Sincerely,
Sgt. Mom

Yea, Yea, And What’s New?

30. June 2005 · Comments Off on Yea, Yea, And What’s New? · Categories: General, Politics

There are so many conservatives taking so much objection to so many liberals taking such exception to the current administration’s policy, vis-a-vis Iraq, that one is driven to say: “yea, yea, what new do you have to offer?” I was just about to cite yet another liberal vanilla flavored opinion piece, but what’s the point? It’s time to say, “yea, fuck you, and your mother,” and get down to business.

And, history is with us: do you think The Revolution would have succeeded, where it up to popular opinion? How about Truman’s war against Japan? No, there are points in history where the bold must make bold moves. And these are those times.

What shape, “Sphere”?

30. June 2005 · Comments Off on What shape, “Sphere”? · Categories: General

At Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Skippy objected to the term “blogosphere”, because nothing in the internet is truly “spherical”. I countered, with citations of “sphere of influence,” and “magnetosphere“.

Skippy still takes issue. But, as this point it is a digression from the main thrust of his (her?) thread, I thought we might take it up here. Oh, and BTW: anyone looking for a REALLY cool graphic of the magnetophere should go here: http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/Magnetosphere.jpg

Memo: Enemy of My Enemy

28. June 2005 · Comments Off on Memo: Enemy of My Enemy · Categories: General, GWOT

From: Sgt Mom
To: Assorted International Intellectuals of Note
Re: Choosing Your Sympathies and Your Allies

Item: “World Tribunal On Iraq Condemns US & Britian, Recognizes Right of Iraqis to Resist Occupation”

Item: “Eurolefties Fund Iraq Insurgency”

1. Well, watching the usual progressive, politically advanced, oh-so-enlightened international intellectual set embrace, intellectually and apparently financially, a coalition of neo-fascist, bitter-end Baathists, nostalgic for the mass-graves and torture of yore, and a set of nihilistic, head-chopping jihadi fanatics bent on joyless forced devotion to a deity that precisely dictates every jot and tittle of personal conduct – let’s just say I haven’t read of such a naked and cynically calculated coupling of ostensibly extreme political opposites since the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939.

2. I cannot imagine what would inspire people and groups who have made a great display, over years and decades, of being against any kind of political and social oppression, of being against the abuse of the individual by the state and organized religion, of wanting to explore the boundaries of intellectual and artistic thought, who have reveled in sexual and political freedom, untrammeled by the constraints of former conventions. Apparently this is too good for the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan. According to high-minded, international intellectual set, they out to be well-content with what they had before: brute political oppression, religiously-enforced ignorance, isolation from the rest of the world, the burka, the mass-graves, the lash, and poisoned gas rained down on Kurdish villages.

3. One lot is making an attempt to fund the insurgents in Iraq— to aid and assist them in their brave work of assassinating legitimately elected politicians, government employees, and blowing up policemen, grade school children and incidental passers-by — and the other merely confines itself to the intellectual embrace of those who would otherwise merit their pious condemnation, were they performing such sterling service elsewhere in the world. But of course, it is against the Americans, which makes any sort of outrage completely legitimate.

4. It surely must excite the professional envy of many an old retired tart from the Reeperbahn, or Rainbow Corner (whiling away a blameless retirement in a condo in Torremolinos, perhaps) at the professional speed with which a certain set of academics, activists and personalities went from administering intellectual fellatio on Uncle Joe Stalin and his heirs and switched over to neo-fascists and Islamic fundamentalists— without even swapping out the kneepads and taking a spritz of metaphorical Binaca.

5. I often wonder if such are not darkly attracted to it all: violence, the tremendous pull of authority exercised willfully and absolutely, the subtle glamour of the cult of personality: the dangerous hero in fatigues and kaffiyeh, or other “of the people” glamour, the super-man who is permitted and excused for every kind of abuse, corruption, atrocity and stupidity. The holy anointed, like a Stalin, an Arafat, a Castro, a Mao, get a free pass; everyone else puts up with smelly anarchists waving incomprehensible signs, and the occasional threat of summons to an international court.

6. I also wonder, if deep, deep down, the usual set are afraid, afraid of the vast irrational powers loose in the world, ancient powers long thought tamed by conventional civilized mores, powers that they sense cannot be controlled by any of the old means. I wonder if this is an attempt to control those powers by placating them; “I am being nice to you, I am not like them, I am giving you what you want— be nice to me!” And I wonder if— in their nice, morally-equivalent, post-modern way— they have ever heard of the axiom that the Devil cannot enter unless he is invited.

7. Finally; who you ally yourself with — unless you make an ostentatious display of holding your nose, and making it obvious that it is a short-term and expedient alliance, says a lot— perhaps more than Ms. Roy, et al, have bargained for.

Sincerely
Sgt Mom

Kelo versus Nat. Cable & Telecomm.

28. June 2005 · Comments Off on Kelo versus Nat. Cable & Telecomm. · Categories: General

In a bit of intellectual disintegrity, right on the heals of declaring that government can seize the homes of private individuals, the Supremes pronounced that the cable lines of giant corporations are protected:

“Today’s ruling is bad news for millions of Americans who are overpaying billions of dollars every year in cable Internet service,” said Mehrdad Saberi, chairman of the California ISP Association. “The interests of American consumers and businesses have been sold out as the FCC and now the court have defined Internet service in such a narrow way that allows cable companies to escape proper regulation. Nearly every innovation in Internet service has come from independent ISPs. Now that source of Internet innovation, consumer choice and affordability is threatened with extinction as cable companies block the benefits of competition.”

Not that I really see this as a bad ruling, but I don’t see how the public is not better served by the lower prices and improved service that invariably comes from competition, than from a highly speculative community redevelopment project.

The two cases are No. 04-277, National Cable & Telecomm. Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Servs., and No. 04-281, FCC v. Brand X Internet Servs. I will be surfing the blawgs later tonight looking for other opinions on this.

Update: David Kopel at Volokh has an interesting post, in which he points to this policy study he did in 1999. He states that open access to cable systems would discourage cable providers from making improvements in infrastructure, as they would have to share the benefits of those improvements with companies which made no such investment.

I agree, and see an analogous situation with Kelo: Homeowners and small investors will be far less likely to make improvements and renovations in structures, particularly in less affluent areas most likely to be targeted for redevelopment.

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