trying to grok

TWO STEPS BACK

Dear Michael Richards,

This letter will remind you of the letter I wrote to the Abu Ghraib jerks. That's because I realized today that we've got ourselves an analogy here. Remember the SAT? Here's a good one for you:

Abu Ghraib soldiers : Iraq :: Michael Richards : race relations

Yes, Kramer, you're the Lynnie England of race.

The rest of us work hard to heal the wounds of yesteryear. We try to treat people fairly, we make sure we never say something that could offend, and we work to keep our country moving forward towards harmony between the races. And you come along and yell at someone about lynching.

What in the holy hell were you thinking?

When I first heard this story, I thought it was weird and dumb. But I really didn't think it mattered in the long run. Then I read this sentence in a completely unrelated article today:

If blacks are to fight the plague that is racial ugliness -- and racism remains one of the great threats to the Republic, no question about it, just ask that Seinfeld loser or Mel Gibson -- then we have to be honest with ourselves.

So now, thanks to you, people with an agenda can hold you up as the Paragon of Racism. See, white people are racist deep down: that Kramer guy called people the n-word. Just like how the Abu Ghraib soldiers destroyed the reputation of all the other honorable and admirable soldiers in Iraq, you have destroyed whatever credibility we white people have when we claim that racism isn't nearly as bad as some people let on.

Now my college roommate, who was afraid of walking across campus for fear of being lynched, will have more of a reason to think all white people really are out to get her. Now when some loser celeb says that the president hates black people, someone might honestly think that a tirade about lynching could just as easily come out of Bush's mouth as it did out of yours.

Black people everywhere will be waiting for the racist shoe to drop, thanks to you.

Most of us are not racist. We don't think lynchings are funny. We have enough of a moral or societal compass to know that what you did was completely out of line. And weird. Most of us don't have that crap bubbling right below the surface. Slight provocation won't give us n-word diarrhea of the mouth. We look at what you did as the strangest and most horrifying thing you can think of.

But to the black author of that article, it was just proof that "racism remains one of the great threats to the Republic."

Thanks a lot. All the progress that we white people have made to try to prove that we judge on the content of character: gone.

I hate you for that.
Sarah

COOL

I'll be interested in reading Bjorn Lomborg's new book when it comes out. Check out this interview with him.

AWESOME DAY

Charlie was beside himself with excitement yesterday because the house was full of people and puppies. Guess who he got to play with? The sweetest puppy on the planet...

Tim is in town for job training, so Patti came over to hang out all day yesterday and brought their brand new puppy. Charlie had so much fun, and we had fun watching them. Charlie would pounce on the puppy and then roll over on his back and pull the puppy on top of him. Hilarious. Also, he'd steal a toy from the puppy and run away with it, and then walk back up to the puppy and let her steal the toy back from him. They were too cute. And the puppy was drenched by the end of the night because Charlie kept licking her head.

And Patti learned to knit! I love teaching people to knit, especially people who get all gung-ho about it. She was very excited and plans to crank out a baby blanket before Christmas!

It was so nice to have friends over. I've been a tad lonely here since I don't have any human contact except with my husband. Patti kept apologizing for monopolizing my afternoon, as if I were pining for my normal afternoon of Law & Order reruns. It was great to have someone to hang out with, and even better to have Tim and Patti for dinner. How fun to have your dinner guest begin the meal with "So, what do you think of Amadinejad's letter?"

I wish we were moving southwesterly instead of northeasterly, because our move will only take us further from these good friends.

Whose head will Charlie lick when we leave?

THE CHANGING HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

When I got those used books at Goodwill, I got an old copy of A Pocket History of the United States. Since I had been looking for a refresher, how could I pass up one for 50 cents? But there was another interesting aspect to this book: it was written in 1942. Before the PC era. So it's un-PC without specifically trying to be un-PC like more recently written books do. It's both strangely refreshing and extremely jarring to read things like "It was fortunate for the white settlers that the Indians of North America were too few and too backward to be a grave impediment to colonization. ... Armed only with the bow and arrow, the tomohawk, and the war club, and ignorant of any military art save the ambush, they were ordinarily no match for well-accoutured and vigilent bodies of whites." No one talks like that anymore! It's an interesting way to read history.

One of the things that has struck me most about this book so far is the preface. Written in 1942, it rings of patriotism and pride. It's worth it to me to type the whole thing out because rarely do we get to read something like this about our own country. (Please stick with me; I know big blocks of quoted text can make my eyes swim too):

America emerged out of obscurity into history only some four centuries ago. It is the newest of great nations, yet it is in many respects the most interesting. It is interesting because its history recapitulates the history of the race, telescopes the development of social and economic and political institutions. It is interesting because upon it have played most of this great historical forces and factors that have molded the modern world: imperialism, nationalism, immigration, industrialism, science, religion, democracy, and liberty, and because the impact of these forces upon society is more clearly revealed in its history than in the history of other nations. It is interesting because, from its earliest beginnings, its people have been conscious of a peculiar destiny, because upon it have been fastened the hopes and aspirations of the human race, and because it has not failed to fulfill that destiny or to justify those hopes.

The story of America is the story of the interaction of an Old World culture and a New World environment, the early modification of the culture by environment, and the subsequent modification of the environment by the culture. The first European settlers in America were not primitive men, but highly civilized, and they transplanted from their homeland a culture centuries old. Yet the United States was never merely an extension of the Old World: it was, what its first settlers anticipated and its founding fathers consciously planned, something new in history. The unconquered wilderness confronting the pioneer from the Atlantic to the Pacific profoundly modified inherited institutions and gave rise to wholly new institutions, and the intermixture of peoples and races modified inherited cultures and created, in a sense, a completely new culture. The new United States became the most ambitious experiment ever undertaken in the deliberate intermingling of people, in religious toleration, economic opportunity, and political democracy--an experiment perhaps still under way.

European historians and commentators, admitting readily enough the substantial virtues of the American people and the value of their political experiments, long asserted that American history was nevertheless colorless and prosaic. It is, on the contrary, dramatic and picturesque, and cast in heroic mold. There are few parallels in modern history to the drama of the swift expansion of small and scattered groups of people across a giant continent, the growth of a few struggling colonies into a continental nation of fifty states, or the spread of a new culture and of new social and economic practices so swiftly to the four quarters of the globe.

Makes your heart swell, huh? That was written by Nevins and Commager, the authors of the book. That was the United States in 1942. And then something happened, something that changed our nation forever. I don't exactly know what it is. My husband and I wonder about it often, why it is that WWII was the last justified war, why the Greatest Generation receives a praise no longer given to men, why no one speaks of the United States being "cast in heroic mold" any longer.

Nevins passed away before the updated edition of the book, so Commager wrote the preface alone in 1976. See for yourself what happened to the United States between these editions.

The first edition of this history was written at the beginning of World War II and was designed to present and interpret the American historical record not only to the English-speaking world, but also to the peoples of all nations who were interested in the evolution of the first constitutional and first democratic society at a time when both constitutionalism and democracy were in mortal peril. In the thirty-five years since its preparation, it has gone through five revisions and enlargements and has been published in most of the languages of the world.

This sixth edition appears as the United States celebrates or recalls two hundred years of independence. The decade since the last edition has been the most challenging, and perhaps the most sobering, since that of the Civil War and Reconstruction. In its preoccupation with war, its succeptibility to large-scale corruption, and its attack upon the integrity of the constitutional system, it discloses interesting analogies to that earlier decade. Thus, this last decade, too, has been a time of trial and disillusionment. It witnessed on the world stage a meaningless and futile war that did infinite damage to a distant people with whom we had no legitimate quarrel, and did irreparable damage to the social, economic, and moral fabric of our society. It witnessed on the domestic stage the ignominy of Watergate and all its attendant evils. It marked, in a sense, the real end of American innocence--the end of that long era that stretched from the Declaration and the Constitution to the Marshall Plan and the launching of the United Nations, when Americans could consider themselves as in some sense exempt from the truth of History and when they could take for granted that Nature and History permitted them to enjoy higher standards of conduct and of morals than the nations of the Old World could afford to indulge. It marked the end, too, on both the domestic and the international scene, of those concepts of an infinity of land and resources, of geographical and moral isolation, and of a special destiny and a special mission, which had bemused the American mind from Jefferson to Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Whether a United States chastened by experience and matured by failure can adapt herself in the third century of her existence to a new position in the world remains for the future to discover. Clearly she has the capacity to do so: immense natural resources, sound institutions, a proud heritage, and a people as competent to meet challenges and overcome trials as any in the world. There is no reason why she should not emerge from the current crisis more dedicated to the values and potentialities of her Constitution, more ardent in her response to her obligations to be vigilant against usurpations of power, more intelligent in setting the limits on that power, and more magnanimous in its exercise.

This is the same man who wrote the first preface. What happened? What turned him from pride in the greatest nation on earth to words like "meaningless and futile", "irreparable damage", and "chastened by experience and matured by failure"? The first half of our history contained slavery and a Civil War, yet there was no talk in that preface of "attendant evils" or "the end of American innocence." I wasn't alive, I don't understand; what happened to our country in the second half of the last century to make us so ashamed of ourselves?

Why do we measure the greatness of the US from the "Constitution to the Marshall Plan" and resent everything that came after?

The United States is the only place on this forsaken planet I would ever want to live, but we have some serious problems. Why can we no longer see our greatness?

BATTLE BUDDIES

My friend Angie had her third boy this year. Since they're an Army family through and through, I made her newest addition a camouflage teddy bear. But apparently I ushered an era of fighting into her home. Her oldest stole the bear from the baby.

So adorable. Except for the constant fighting. Apparently the boys fight over who gets to sleep with the bear every night. I feel so bad that I did something to contribute to discord in their house. So the Army teddy is getting some friends.

Now they have their own little multicultural squad. (I should make one more so they'd have a whole tank, but then they might fight over the extra bear!) Hopefully this helps lessen Angie's stress. And I learned a valuable knitter's lesson: never make something for one kid in a family.

LINK

Read Flopping Aces' Getting the News from the Enemy. He wonders why the media is running stories based on hearsay and rumors. And he's got a lot of info on it.

BEATING MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL AGAIN

A few weeks ago I asked what was wrong with our country that women were encouraged to covet Gucci luggage and expensive suits. Today I ask again. I just saw a segment on Fox where they talked about the worst possible Christmas gifts. I watched an "expert" say that the worst thing you can buy for your spouse is something practical. An appliance, something for the house, or even a foot massage bath? All wrong. Jewelry, that's the ticket. No wonder Americans' financial priorities are all out of whack. You know what I'm getting for Christmas? A washer. And my husband's getting a dryer. No jewelry, no gadgets, not even used paperbacks. We're getting practical things because we're adults and we don't need to spend money frivolously just to prove that we're in love. I must be the most horrible wife in the world because I give my husband what he wants for holidays: a contribution to his Roth IRA. I didn't realize that I had to throw money down a hole in order to show my love for him.

Where do they come up with these people who dole out this absurd advice? No wonder everyone in this country is drowning in consumer debt.

WTF?

I have no idea what happened or why this groom was shot at his bachelor party by the police. The only people interviewed in this article are friends of the groom and Al Sharpton. There's no official word out yet, it seems. But what in the hell is up with the last two paragraphs of the article? Let's throw in two other completely unrelated incidents where police shot black people. What does that have to do with anything? And why does the AP do this all the time, tack on unrelated crap at the end of articles? Those two paragraphs have no business being in that article, other than to lead readers to assume that cops repeatedly shoot black people for no reason whatsoever. Shame on you, AP.

MORE:

Since MSNBC changed their link, I had to find the original article elsewhere. I found it here, but I'll copy the end of the article before it disappears again.

"I still don't want to believe it," Porter said, "a beautiful day like this, and he was going to have a beautiful wedding, he was going to live forever with his wife and children. And this happened."

In 1999, police killed Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant who was shot 19 times in the Bronx. The four officers in that case were acquitted of criminal charges.

And in 2003, Ousmane Zongo, 43, a native of the western African country of Burkina Faso who repaired art and musical instruments in a Manhattan warehouse, was shot to death during a police raid. Zongo was hit four times, twice in the back.

See what I mean? Talk about inflammatory. And completely unrelated.

FYI

P.S. Gravy has always been the bane of my roasted bird existence, but this year we tried Alton Brown's version, made from a white roux instead of just stirring in cornstarch and hoping for the best. I used white wine, stock, and the turkey drippings, and it was wonderful.

THANKS

Yesterday we did the whole shebang, a turkey and all the fixins, for just the two of us. On one hand it seemed sad not to have a real Thanksgiving, but on the other hand it felt a bit silly to do the whole deal just for two. In the end, it was really nice. Three years ago I got scolded in my comments section for complaining about slaving over an entire dinner for six people. Last year was wonderful fun, but I think we made entirely too much food and stressed ourselves out a bit getting everything coordinated in the oven. But this year was nice in its own way. We cooked everything as time permitted, and it didn't matter if half the pecan goo spilled over the edge of the pie or the turkey took longer than expected. There was no one to impress, nor was there anyone asking when it would be done. We just ate when we were ready. It was very relaxing and nice.

And Charlie took an extreme liking to turkey. He followed us everywhere and cried all evening long as he tried desperately to knock over the trash can and get at the carcass.

(image cropped so you can't see the messy kitchen and laundry room)

THANKFUL

The fur and the wet nose, and the dimples and the freckles.
This is what I'm thankful for.

RIPPED FROM THE BLOGLINES

I recorded CSI last week and we just watched it last night. I guess no one else in the blogosphere watches that show, because someone would've mentioned that the episode "Happenstance" was about "fake but accurate"! The killer was a photographer who had gone to Iraq and then photoshopped a couple of photos together to make a more poignant visual. And his boss found out and was going to bust him so he killed her. I'm quoting from memory here, but at the end in his confession, he said something to the effect of

There's nothing worth photographing in Iraq. Insurgents shoot their AKs and run away. We raid houses at night and all they say is "Ali Baba not here." And the soldiers just get pumped up on caffeine and rock music waiting for something to happen. You end up praying for a roadside bomb, but even then you can't photograph the smell of gasoline. All you get is a photo of smoke. So I started playing around with the photos, and some soldiers saw me and said, "Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it's like." So yes, I told a lie, to tell the truth.

The motive for his murder was "fake but accurate"! This CSI was ripped straight from blogs.

Moreover, that's probably the most accurate description of life in Iraq that's ever been uttered on TV. My husband said that's exactly what it's like. There's usually not something to photograph.

MORE:

I was just going to go email Charles Johnson to let him know, but someone beat me to it yesterday: Art imitates life. So much for my big scoop.

MORE:

Actually, HeatherRadish liveblogged it during the episode, so nevermind. I'll just go play last week's game.

ALL IS WELL

For those of you who used to follow the adventures at Armor Geddon, I thought I'd let you know that Red6 and his wife are home safe from their year in Iraq.

LINK

Read this too: An Honest Confession by an American Coward by Pat Conroy (via Cold Fury)

GO

Read this.

HEADSTONE

I just came across photos of PFC Gunnar Becker's headstone. It's beautiful, and so fitting. I love it, Debey. The tank is so cool. And I'd like to think that his friends are leaving him Mt. Dew and whiskey...maybe to wash down that bug he ate!

LINK

Greyhawk has a lengthy and thorough analysis of the damage the Abu Ghraib scandal did to the war effort. It's posted in two parts: A Combination of Blurring and Smearing Part 1 and Part 2 (the internal links are busted, but you can figure it out).

LINK

Let Them Eat Bullets

A nation that's defended Europe from aggression in the 60 years since World War II is asking why Iraq can't defend itself. The fact is, Iraqis risk their lives for their country every day.

Clearly the days when Democrats warned of a long twilight struggle and pledged to pay any price and bear any burden to ensure the success and survival of liberty are over, judging from remarks by Carl Levin, incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee.

"We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves," Levin opined Wednesday at a Capitol Hill press conference. "The only way for Iraqi leaders to squarely face that reality is for President Bush to tell them that the United States will begin a phased redeployment of our forces within four to six months."

"We cannot be their security blanket," he added. But why not, if it's in our best long-term security interest?

Yes, we should demand more of the Iraqis. But those who ask whether we can or should stop Iraqis from killing themselves forget that we're in this to stop others from killing us and using Iraq as a base camp from which to do it.

We've been Europe's security blanket for six decades. We are Japan's security blanket. We are South Korea's. It's been said that were it not for us, the French would be speaking German and the Germans would be speaking Russian. In 1938, the West decided it couldn't be Czechoslovakia's security blanket and sold out that country in Munich, Germany. The rest, as they say, is history.

Read the rest. Via Cold Fury and Instapundit, who says he'd like to see a phased redeployment from Europe. And how.

COMPLEX EMOTIONS

CaliValleyGirl sent me an email today, asking me if we know anything else about the craziness that is my husband's next assignment. She said,

Man, you know, it's strange...part of me almost misses the deployment...don't get me wrong, it sucked...however, I felt like I was part of something bigger. You know? The ups and downs, but I was in it together with all these other families. I felt more a part of the military...I miss that.

I think that life during deployment feels more precious than life out of it. I didn't think OIF II was that bad for me. I have no memory of how I passed the time though; my husband's been in the field two days now and I'm bored out of my mind. But when we're facing deployment, I think we try to find the silver lining as best we can. We relish the tight community that develops between those on the homefront and feel a part of something big and meaningful. And, on a more practical level, we come up with all these things we will accomplish when they're gone: next year I'll lose weight because I won't cook as well, I'll make those two quilts I've been talking about for years, I'll read all those books, I'll fly to L.A. to visit CaliValleyGirl, and so on. We convince ourselves that the year will go by fast because we'll be so busy. And then, when he gets home, we'll start a family. Everything will be perfect, because we've convinced ourselves that it's all working out according to plan.

But that's not what's happening now. My husband found out that his switch went through. He originally had made a scratch-my-back deal with his branch manager that she'd let him leave if he took this slot in the deploying unit that no one else wanted. We were all set to do that, when he got word that he's going directly to Civil Affairs training. No more deployment for us.

ArmyWifeToddlerMom always says that when you're on the outside looking in, people think that reintegration is just jumping up and down with a handmade sign and life is all flowers and sausages. But for the people going through it, it's not always that simple. That's how I feel today about this non-deployment. I would never say that making a quilt or reading a book is better than (or even comparable to) having my husband living in the house with me, but I had psyched myself up with all the ways I would get through next year, and it's just strange to turn all those thoughts off all of a sudden.

And the family thing, the family thing is killing me.

I heard my husband tell his mom on the phone the other day that we just had our hearts set on having a baby "like a normal couple." The way he phrased it, "like a normal couple," broke my heart. I want that so bad, and I thought it was within reach. He'd come home from deployment and have time where he was stuck in school and not going anywhere. And we'd be together for the entire pregnancy and birth. Like a normal couple. Unlike nearly every other Army wife I know who has done it alone. We had found a way to control our destiny, if only for a while.

And now, now he starts training a year early. And we're not ready to be parents just yet. Our options have now become 1) go for it before we're ready, or 2) take the chance of doing it apart. I don't like either of those options.

Civil Affairs most likely means more deployments in our future. We're fine with that, but we just wanted to get a leg up on the Army, one last stint of normalcy before he gives his life over to the whims of current events. And I find myself extremely disappointed.

I'm disappointed that my husband isn't deploying. Try explaining that complex emotion to family and friends.

So I milked all that patriotic praise out of you guys earlier this month, and apparently we don't deserve it at this time. My husband isn't going anywhere just yet.

Which is a good thing. Just a different thing.

FIELD

Deskmerc keeps asking what Finance officers could possibly be doing in the field. I ask the same question every time he goes. Seriously, they play with fake money and pretend to pay contractors and stuff, while getting "mortared." I know, I know.

The last time he went out, he told me a great story. They were getting "attacked" and he and another hooah guy ran out and started "shooting" at the enemy, hamming it up with some m-f words as they valiantly, and fakely, fought back. And the officer in charge of the exercise told them to watch their mouths.

Remember: Horrific, deplorable violence is OK, as long as people don't say any naughty words.

TAXES

CaliValleyGenius has a post up about taxes.

I've written so many times here about fraud, waste, and abuse. I can think of dozens of examples in my own life of how the government wastes money in the military community. And if they're wasting it in the few places I've been, I can't stand to think how much waste there really is.

I've got one word to sum up fraud, waste, and abuse: Pearl.

Pearl was our education counselor in Germany. She was brought out of retirement to fill the position. She gave soldiers so much wrong advice that it makes me ill, she couldn't write a grammatical sentence to save her life, and she constantly brought me her work and asked for help because she didn't understand. I made $8.50 an hour; she made over $60,000 a year.

And if there's one Pearl, there are surely plenty of others.

The government doesn't spend money wisely, and there aren't many checkups once it's spent to make sure they're getting bang for their buck. I don't want the government to have a dime more than they need.

WASTING TIME WHILE HUBBY'S IN THE FIELD

I was messing around over at Tammi's World and decided I wanted to do part of her About Me:

* I AM: the Household 7. Most wives say they're the 6, but I work for a living!
* I WANT: my husband to be as happy as I am
* I HAVE: nine big plastic tubs of yarn, waiting to be used
* I WISH: my body didn't require sleep; I think sleep is a waste of time
* I HATE: disagreeing with people
* I FEAR: losing my husband to a car accident
* I HEAR: Charlie barking his fool head off as kids leave for school
* I SEARCH: for Charlie's kong toy; we threw it down the hall a year ago and never saw it again
* I WONDER: how long we'll be at our next duty station
* I REGRET: not meeting Bunker before he died
* I LOVE: the Apollo program
* I ALWAYS: knit while I watch TV; I don't know how to just watch TV
* I AM NOT: a feminist, by any stretch of the term
* I DANCE: to Elvis with the dog sometimes
* I SING: Swedish showtunes when I feel like belting it out; somehow my singing voice sounds awesome when it's not in English
* I CRY: at the end of Raising Arizona and most episodes of Cold Case

DO YOU:

* HAVE A CRUSH: Yes, on every man I've ever met named Fred, which is my favorite name in the whole wide world. I have no idea why I'm hooked on that name, but I get giddy around every Fred I've ever met. I remember the day we met Angie's husband, and my husband went "oh lord, here we go" when we found out his name. Angie's Fred, on the other hand, has no idea who I am even though we've met several times, which obviously points to how cool I am. (By the way, just so I don't look like the only crazy one, my husband has a crush on one of my friends from college; he schemes for her to get divorced and then marry his best friend from high school.)
* WANT TO GET MARRIED: I'd sooner die than be at a point in my life where that'd be possible.
* GET MOTION SICKNESS: not really
* THINK YOU'RE A HEALTH FREAK: ha, I wish
* CURRENT HAIR COLOR: brown, same as it's ever been. It always makes me laugh when someone says I've changed my hair color, because I've never dyed it or gotten highlights or anything.
* EYE COLOR: blue or something. I've worn contacts so long that I can touch my bare eyeball with my finger and not flinch, which makes my husband want to puke.
* BIRTHPLACE: I am way too proud of being an Okie.

POOR CONDI

Slighted...

In the past week, there are 476 documents on Nexis heralding the magnificent achievement of Nancy Pelosi becoming the FIRST WOMAN speaker of the House.

I thought we had moved beyond such multicultural milestones.

The media yawned when Condoleezza Rice became the first black woman secretary of state (and when Lincoln Chafee became the first developmentally disabled senator).

There were only 77 documents noting that Rice was the first black woman to be the secretary of state, and half of them were issues of Jet, Essence, Ebony or Black Entrepreneur magazine.

RE-SHOW

CNN Headline News is re-showing the program Exposed: The Extremist Agenda on the Glenn Beck Program on Sunday night at 7:00 and 9:00. Check it out if you missed it last night.

UPDATE:

The show ended up being the second highest rated show in the history of Headline News.

BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS

I just had to fill out the papers for our next move, and I got to do the fun one where you tally up all your beds and desks and sewing machines and get an estimate of your moving weight. In the blank where you can say what other heavy stuff you have that's not listed, I put "books -- at least 1000", which if you think about it is heavier than all our desks combined.

My mother-in-law read that I was a US history dummy and mailed us some history books. She asked my husband if I had had a chance to read them yet, and he snorted and said that I had a lot on my plate right now. Here's my birthday jackpot, thanks to my husband, Oda Mae, and CaliValleyGirl.

And that doesn't include the stash of cookbooks from my mom and mother-in-law. Nor the twelve paperbacks I got at Goodwill yesterday, nearly rounding out my Michael Crichton collection. (I swear I'd buy his grocery list if he published it.) Life is good.

I just finished reading Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader. I completely recommend it for anyone my age, we who were too young to really appreciate Reagan as a president. That man was fantastic. I just started Island, and after about 100 pages, I'm still at that feeling where I can't decide if I'm liking it or not. I guess I'm not disliking it, but it's not what I expected.

My husband said I need to stop buying books and start seriously hoarding that money to buy, oh, a refrigerator, washer, dryer, sofa, and backyard fence. I told him that my books cost less than his beer, and last much longer. And that he's lucky his wife's Day of Splurging means spending seven bucks on paperbacks at Goodwill.

But I promised: no more books until after we move.

SET YOUR VCR

Make sure you try to see this show tonight: Exposed: The Extremist Agenda. Glenn Beck is running footage from the Middle Eastern media. It'll be like LGF, only on TV.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

I missed this last week, from the always-genius Annika: I blame Bush.

GITCHER STEYN FIX

John Hawkins has an interview with Mark Steyn, whose new book is apparently on Pres Bush's nightstand. Here's one interesting tidbit from the interview:

I mean this idea that it's normal for the state to be as big as it is in advanced social democratic societies is something that would have seemed incredible to anyone a hundred years ago. I mean, I remember being struck by - on September 11th - and I was writing a column a couple of days afterwards and, you know, we're all done with our initial reaction, so you're trying to think a couple of days ahead and find a new angle on it, and I happen to just notice that it was more or less (a hundred years after the) assassination of President McKinley. I was thinking, well, maybe I could tie these two things together, these two big traumatizing events and, you know, bookending the century, whatever - you know, just peck, peck, peck - we journalists always are going to peck.

So I sort of rummaged around the clippings of President McKinley's assassination and realized that while people were upset about it, they essentially regarded it as the removal of a remote figure who played a peripheral part in their lives. To that point for most people in most parts of the U.S. the federal government did not impinge on their life in any way.

So when people talk about the modern social democratic state, you know, cradle to grave entitlements, we should understand that it is, in effect, a huge experimental departure from the normal course of human history - and the experiment as we can see in almost every other country apart from the U.S. has failed.

And if you need an even bigger dose of Steyn, check out his newest column:

If they'd done a Spain -- blown up a bunch of subway cars in New York or vaporized the Empire State Building -- they'd have re-awoken the primal anger of September 2001. With another mound of corpses piled sky-high, the electorate would have stampeded into the Republican column and demanded the U.S. fly somewhere and bomb someone.

The jihad crowd know that. So instead they employed a craftier strategy. Their view of America is roughly that of the British historian Niall Ferguson -- that the Great Satan is the first superpower with ADHD. They reasoned that if you could subject Americans to the drip-drip-drip of remorseless water torture in the deserts of Mesopotamia -- a couple of deaths here, a market bombing there, cars burning, smoke over the city on the evening news, day after day after day, and ratcheted up a notch or two for the weeks before the election -- you could grind down enough of the electorate and persuade them to vote like Spaniards, without even realizing it. And it worked.

I SIMPLY ADORE THIS MAN

Last night we were flipping channels and passed by an MTV show that's some sort of Yo Mama jokes standoff. We watched the last few minutes of the show kinda dumbfounded. And as soon as it ended and he went to change the channel, my husband said, "Yo mama's so dumb, she wouldn't understand the Laffer curve if they explained it on Fox & Friends." Oh good lord, I laughed so hard I nearly choked. That's the best yo mama joke I've ever heard.

IN MEMORIAM

Do you know the story of Joe and Tommy?

To the eye, Bloody Omaha is just a sandy beach.

No white crosses, no huge memorial, no visible signs of those who sacrificed themselves and fought for freedom. No sign of those who fell for it.

Yet I remember "Joe" and "Tommy", heroes with no names but so many faces, who came here one day, fighters for a just cause, in a liberation army.

I was told about them, I read books about them, I saw pictures of them, and I watched interviews and movies. I heard their stories. The Joe and Tommy who got through this, told me about their brothers who didn't.

And they show me why they didn't fall in vain.

One day in July, standing on the sand of bloody Omaha a long time ago, I learned about Joe and Tommy. I learned that my own Grand Pa' and Grand Ma' once hid Joe, whose plane had been shot down, in their attic, to save him from Fritz. I learned that Fritz could have killed Joe and my grand parents for that. I learned that Fritz killed and imprisoned a lot of people because they weren't like him or just because they didn't think like him and disagreed with him. And I learned that Joe and Tommy came to stop Fritz acting like this and send him back to his country.

I know I wanted to thank Joe and Tommy for that.

Who wouldn't?

So I guess I asked: "And where is Joe now? Where is Tommy?"

My parents probably answered that they were gone, back home long before I was born. Joe and Tommy didn't come to conquer like Fritz did, you know, hence they went back to their own countries. That's why, since I wasn't born when Joe and Tommy shed their blood to make sure I would come to life free in a free land, I learned about them by my father and mother, many years later.

And that's why I couldn't thank Joe and Tommy, like I wanted.

I know that today, there are fathers and mothers in Kosovo telling their kids about Joe and Tommy. I know there will be others tomorrow in Iraq.

I don't know if there are memorials to Joe and Tommy in Kosovo today and I don't know if there will be in Iraq tomorrow.

But I know that as long as I and other kids born free in a liberated land, here, in Kosovo or in Iraq, remember them, the fallen Joe and Tommy will live forever.

I know a fallen Tommy; his name is Sean Sims.
His own son lost him two years ago today.
But may he live forever in the hearts of kids born free in Iraq.

HOUSE

We bought a house yesterday. Let me tell you, that was way more stressful than I thought it would be. Sometimes people get stuck because they can't find a good house, but we had the opposite luck: there were too many to choose from. And houses are not an apples to apples comparison. This one's a couple thousand more, but it has more square footage. But it's a longer commute to post. And this other has a better school district but hideous wallpaper throughout. This one has nice landscaping, a long commute, and costs more. And so on. My mom thought that I'd get a gut feeling about one house and just know I had to have it, but I didn't. Or, I kind of did, but that house was entirely too far from post, so it wasn't perfect either.

We picked one, and have spent the past two days alternating between ecstasy and trepidation. I guess there's no way to know if we made the absolute right choice, but at least we made it.

So now the moving begins! Man, I can't believe we just did this six months ago.

CONTRAST

The other night when my husband got home from his staff ride, his world had changed: a Democrat Congress, an Army without Rumsfeld, a potential slot in Civil Affairs, and a new deployment to a completely different country. He paced around the bedroom for a long time, talking out all the different possible futures and what he might accomplish in either Iraq or Afghanistan. I sarcastically added that, given the change from elephant to donkey, it might all be moot because the troops could be home. Agitated, he said, "I know, I know, that's why I have to get there as soon as possible so I can help before it's too late."

My husband's visible discomfort that he might not have another opportunity to put to use all he learned in Iraq, all he has digested and mulled over for two years, stands in stark contrast to the Iraqi quoted in this article:

“What was I going to wait for that would keep me on the force?” said Mohammed Humadi, a police captain who quit in August after one of his commanders was killed and beheaded. “Nothing was going to get any better. I have children, and if I were to sacrifice myself, it wouldn’t change anything.”

I struggle daily with the two opposing camps of the War in Iraq: those who say that the US has no business trying to set up a utopia halfway across the world, and those whose idealism bubbles over into dreams of playing Iraq in the World Cup. But the one thing I do know is that it's a knife in my heart that my husband would give his life for Iraq while this Iraqi would not.

A knife in my heart.

FUTURE IN FLUX

I wanted to wait and write this post when we know for sure what’s going on. But as the weeks rolled by, I realized that this is the Army, and we’re never going to know for sure what’s going on. So I will tell you what I know today, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Last spring I wrote a proud post about my husband answering the call for active duty Civil Affairs. We had begun to plan our life around this decision, because we considered it a done deal: they were desperate for people, my husband’s language proficiency score was forty points higher than they were looking for, and he had recommendations and award citations all stating that, yes, he does in fact walk on water and should be considered for the job. That made the two-line form-letter rejection email he got in May a crushing blow.

We had just been back in the US for a couple of days, and my husband was completely depressed. He tried to find out why he had been rejected, but just ended up with more form letters. And he didn’t want me to post anything about it because he was embarrassed. I was just angry. I couldn’t understand why the Army would make such a stupid decision: they had someone who was begging to learn Arabic and deploy as much as they needed, and they turned their back on him. We figured the only thing that made sense was that Finance wouldn’t release him from their grasp, which just made me madder. Which is more important, winning this war or running a cash cage? Neither of us could understand. He started talking about getting out of the Army, which naturally threw me into a panic. Our homecoming from Germany was not what we expected.

Fast forward to September, when my husband’s branch manager came to speak to the captains course. She explained that the Finance branch is dwindling fast, and since they’re overflowing with extra captains, maybe some of them might consider the new and exciting field of…Civil Affairs. My husband was stunned and outraged. When he finally sat down with his branch manager, he explained that he had already tried to leave for Civil Affairs. And she explained that Finance had blocked him; his packet never even made it onto a Civil Affair’s desk. Information that would’ve been nice to know in May, before he tore himself into knots thinking that maybe he could’ve used one more recommendation letter! So he asked if he could have another shot at Civil Affairs. As of yesterday, this looks promising. We’re still trying to figure out the exact schedule, but it looks like it might finally happen.

But in the meantime…

Since there are far more Finance captains than jobs, everyone in his course is getting farmed out to random taskings. He and another soldier were assigned jobs at the same post, but my husband got a Finance job and this other guy was assigned to a unit that’s deploying to Iraq in December.

My husband came home and asked me if he could trade assignments with the guy.

Every time I think I couldn't be prouder of my husband, he does something to amaze me. This other soldier just returned from a deployment, and my husband doesn't think it's fair that this guy should do another so soon when my husband hasn't been since OIF II. But there's more to his decision than just equality of downrangedness: my husband thinks that the War on Terror is important, and he has an emotional investment in the future of Iraq.

Our old neighbor in Germany was all set to get out of the Army when he got stop-lossed and deployed. He could’ve been quite bitter about it, but instead he sent out an email that really grabbed me by the heart. In it he said, “In Texas, people thank you for serving in the Armed Forces all of the time. I know they do not mean thanks ‘for living in Germany, drinking beer, and eating bratwurst.’ When it is all said and done I will be able to look them straight in the eye and know I have done my part.”

My husband also doesn’t think that people are thanking him for cashing social security checks for German widows so they can hide the income from their government, which was what he spent a lot of time doing in Germany. He wants his service to mean more than that. He wants to do anything he can to help our country win this war. He gets personal satisfaction and meaning from doing a job that matters in the world, and right now he thinks he could matter more on a deployment.

So he asked my permission. And I granted it.

Most people I’ve told this story to think we’re certifiably insane. But the truth is, everyone reading this knows how we feel about this War on Terror. And if we feel that way, we can’t let some other family fight it for us. Morally, I can’t support the war but hope someone else’s husband will go fight it. And I think we need the best and brightest soldiers out there doing the job if we’re going to win…and you all know I think my soldier is the absolute best and brightest!

So my husband traded assignments with this guy, in exchange for a case of Budweiser Select. I told him I’m contacting Anheuser-Busch, because they should know that a man agreed to spend a year in Iraq for a case of their beer.

And then he got an email yesterday saying that he’s going to Afghanistan, not Iraq.

At this point, I’m throwing my hands in the air and giving up. He may or may not switch from Finance to Civil Affairs. He may or may not go to either Iraq or Afghanistan at the end of this year or beginning of next year. He got another email saying he could start Civil Affairs training in May, which is smackdab in the middle of when he’s supposed to be in Iraq. Or Afghanistan.

We’re going house-hunting this weekend. Hopefully we’ll find something and move me into it before my husband goes wherever he’s going to do whatever it is he’s doing. I’m getting the hang of this Army thing and just taking it as it comes.

More when we know it, faithful readers.

MOVING

Please go read this comment from Chuck Ziegenfuss. He was the inspiration behind Project Valour-IT, which provides voice-activated laptops to wounded troops. The comment he posted was remarkable for its insight into how he deals with his wounds. And then donate to Valour-IT if you're so moved.

MORE ADVICE

Varifrank also has some post-election advice for us.
By the way, my husband is "playing" Sherman in an exercise they're doing on his staff ride today. No one else wanted to touch Sherman with a ten foot pole. My husband, on the other hand, thinks he was a pretty smart guy.
Personally, I've just enjoyed teasing him about the "Civil War reenactment" he's participating in. Hopefully he can work in a game of grab-ass.

ADVICE

Bill Whittle has some post-election advice we all should read.
And a new essay up!

PIGS FLY

I thought of something I really miss about being in USAREUR.

Yes, I actually said that sentence; I can't believe it either. But it came to me in a revelation while I stood in the grocery store with cow blood all over my hands: I really miss the vacuum-packed meat. What is the deal with going to the store and getting covered in chicken and beef juice? This plastic-wrap-over-styrofoam doesn't work, people! It leaks! Which is gross and slightly dangerous. It's not healthy to be walking around covered in raw chicken, right? I hate that. I miss the days of clean packs of meat in the commissary in Germany.

LINK

Via Hud: Iraqi Leader Disparages US Media Coverage

MEMORIAL

There's a monument up in Iraq to honor the fallen soldiers from my husband's old brigade. Just take a moment to look at the pictures and absorb this statement: "This is a very special place on Forward Operating Base Warhorse. No one is allowed to walk on the grass and the grass is watered daily." There are names on there of men I never met but think of all the time: Ludlam, Rosales, Kondor, Kenny, Prewitt, Sims, and Becker.

HEH

Here's an flawlessly-executed joke, no botching at all.

LINK

Via Tanker Brothers: Soldiers say Iraq pullout would be devastating

FINGERS CROSSED

Oh lord, here's what we have to look forward to: Democrat constituents screeching for impeachment.

SWEET

Here's something I don't remember noticing in July: Saddam specifically asked not to be hanged like a common criminal.

"I advise you as an Iraqi, if you were in a circumstance in which you have to issue a death penalty, you have to remember that Saddam is a military man and in this case the verdict should be death by shooting not by hanging," [Saddam] told the judge.

Justice, thy name is the gallows.

DANG

Woah...Neil Armstrong didn't say what you think he said!

HAHAHA

BlameBush rallies the voters today:

Today, Americans all across the country, living and dead, will exercise their right and responsibility to vote Democrat. Of all the rights granted to us in the Constitution, the Right to Vote Democrat is one of our most sacred, second only to the Right to Choose. So it is vital that no matter how many times we vote today, we do so with the same courage and conviction we put into having abortions.

Read the whole danged thing.
(And for those who've never been to that site: Psst, it's a joke.)

By the way, this one is good too:

Thrice wounded on the battlefields of Vietnam, Sen. John Kerry would never dream of insulting the intelligence of our babykilling, genital-shocking, cattle razing, women-and-children-terrorizing troops. If they had any brains, they’d know that.

LINK

The Press at War: What ever happened to patriotic reporters?

MSN BLOWS IT AGAIN

I was intrigued by the MSN link called Women: 20 musts before 40. Geez, I've only got eleven years left! I'd better get in gear.

Uh, what?

All in all, MSN advocates $94,154 worth of consumer goods, plus pricetagless trips to see the Dalai Lama and a haircut from some famous L.A. barber.

Get real.

A Cadillac XLR roadster and Gucci luggage? That's what women need? Doesn't the average American household have something like $8000 in consumer debt? And MSN thinks that suggesting $4000 watches and trips to Mongolia is a good idea?

Seriously, what planet are these people living on? You know what women need by the age of 40? Maturity and self-respect. Then they won't fill that void with fancy suits, watches, haircuts, and cars.

Some of the suggestions were reasonable: a subscription to a smarty-smart magazine, a few jazz CDs, and some classic movies. Get people to broaden their horizons. Even a trip isn't a bad idea, though it's condescending to say that Europe is oh-so-yesterday and now the Third World is where it's at. Maybe MSN can encourage these women to adopt an African baby while they're there; it's all the rage, right?

I'm regularly disgusted and offended by the nonsense MSN prints, but this is just over the top. Who do they think their target audience is, suggesting a $78,000 car? Is Julie Greenwald hanging out on MSN trying to figure out what she should buy with her millions? I imagine most women who click that link are looking for more spiritual advice: find a hobby you really love, teach your children to waltz, volunteer for a charity that empowers you. Not more ways to spend money.

What the hell is wrong with our culture, that this passes as advice for women?

NOW THAT'S JOURNALISM

Via RWN: Steve Harrigan from Fox News gets waterboarded. Wow, that's really amazing journalism. Harrigan wanted to see the fact behind this interrogation technique, so he put himself on the line to find out. That's awesome.

THINGS I LOVE

Alton Brown
speaking Swedish
the Crunchwrap (CaliValley even got a comment from the creator of the Crunchwrap)
the cast of The Magnificent Seven
anything that comes out of Butters' mouth
the stupid grin I get when I hear "Burning Love" or "Mmmbop"
Robertson Davies
chocolate iced rings from Dunkin Donuts
opening a jar of new peanut butter
Wes Anderson
Mormons
knitting for babies
Old 97s
Lolita
the very first and very last discs of episodes of Futurama
Jimmy Stewart
John Doe
When Lileks told Salam Pax "F**k you"
the squirrel in the Hoodwinked! trailer who says dee-na-meee-tay
buying postage stamps
high and tight haircuts

Most of the time, this blog feels like it's just me and Will. I noticed that AWTM asked her lurking readers to de-lurk and comment once on one post. (She got 25 people to chime in, but she has more readers than I do.) I thought that was such a fun idea that I'd like to do the same. Tell me something you love too.

(This post inspired by trying the opposite of a Piece of Crap List. I'll do one of those one day too.)

TV BLOGGING AGAIN

I've been ranting about TV elsewhere because I usually get it with both barrels when I write about TV here. Yes, I know it's not real.

Anyway, Teresa pointed out that Hollywood is not very good at writing realistic marriages. I was shocked recently to see that KFC commercial where the young wife is on the phone and she "signs" what she wants for dinner to her husband. And her husband's buddy doesn't get it, so he explains their secret language. Every time I see that commercial, I keep waiting for it to change. I keep waiting for the punchline to be that the husband is complete dufus who doesn't know anything about his wife. As it stands, that commercial is really stinking cute. It shows married people actually working in harmony, knowing each other on an extremely personal level. You never get that on TV.

MORE THOUGHTS ON SADDAM

I'm reminded again of the absolute horror my Swedish friend felt when she saw me clapping and cheering the day Timothy McVeigh was executed. But I feel the same now about Saddam as I did back then: If someone called me today and said they're short a hangman and could I come give 'em a hand, I'd say, "Give me a second to put my shoes on."

Smash is right:

Unfortunately, the sentence is not to be carried out at daybreak. Appeals and due process will delay the execution for months, if not years. Saddam will get more consideration than any of his victims ever received, and arguably more than he deserves, but that's one of the many differences between freedom and tyranny.

I guess this is enough consolation for today. At least it made our household chuckle:

Thousands of Iraqis sang, danced and unleashed celebratory bursts of gunfire yesterday as Saddam Hussein finally faced the consequences of his tyrannical rule in a Baghdad courtroom.

Oh, the Iraqis and their celebratory gunfire.

The husband's leaving for a field trip tomorrow, or else a cake would be in order. I'll just have to remember the deliciousness of the dragging-him-out-of-a-dirty-hole cake. And dream of the deliciousness of the hanging-by-his-broken-neck cake I'll get to make someday. Yummy.

TIM & PATTI

We sold a few books, we signed 'em, but mostly we talked. Non-stop.

If you read his blog way back when, you know what kind of man Tim is. But all you know about Patti is that she is the Sweetest Woman on the Planet. That makes it funny to hear the sweetest woman on the planet say she wants to smack John Kerry! Patti has "rounded out" in my mind since the days of reading Tim's blog, and I just can't get enough of this couple.

My husband and I talked a lot on the way home about what kind of woman Patti is, for she said something we won't soon forget. I asked her in the bookstore how it feels to be a civilian now. And she got a bittersweet look on her face as she glanced towards the Iraq photos she'd brought to display. She's torn up inside that this War on Terror is still going on and she's no longer a part of it. It pains her to know she left the Army while something is still undone.

My husband was touched by her response. We talked about how rare it is to find someone who takes personal responsibility for the fate of our nation. Patti feels guilt that she is not fighting this war, in stark contrast to most people we know who want as little role as possible. Patti feels herself to be part of something much larger than she is, and it was refreshing to hear someone express remorse at not doing more for her country.

We talked on the way home about all the stars that had to be aligned in order for us to have this wonderful afternoon with Tim and Patti. Patti had to be adopted by an American soldier in Korea. She had to come to the US and meet Tim in the Army. We both had to be stationed in Germany, even though Germany was nowhere to be found in our top ten choices of duty stations! We both had to start blogging. And Tim and I both had to overcome cries of Jody to meet each other face to face. Life came a long way to put the four of us in the same room, and my husband, not usually one to enjoy meeting new people, said how nice it felt to sit and talk to adults. Adult is the greatest compliment my husband can bestow.

Luckily, it looks like Tim and Patti might be headed our way in a few weeks. I am anxious to spend more time with them; four hours wasn't nearly enough.

I also wanted to talk to Tim about blogging. I've been at a crossroads lately, and I wanted to talk to someone who'd walked away. He misses it. Maybe we'll get him back...

LINKING

Here's a long discussion on Donald Rumsfeld. Yesterday Tim asked my husband whether he thought Rumsfeld should be replaced. My husband replied that what Rumsfeld does is way above his pay grade and he doesn't have any access to information that would make him able to make that call. My husband is a smart man.

JUSTICE

Suck it, Saddam.
How quickly can we get the noose around his neck?

HEARTACHE

The Girl has been knitting for nine months in preparation for her new niece. But in all the joys of waiting, she never anticipated the baby to be so sick when she was born. No baby should ever have to look like this.

It hurts my heart so much to look at this picture. Please go over and send your strongest thoughts to The Girl's brother and his wife.

INSIDE JOKES

I had another thought about the internet bubble. One of the good things about it is that, coterie that we are, we're privvy to some great insider jokes. While I was liveblogging at SpouseBUZZ, AWTM came and looked over my shoulder. She pointed out in horror that I called Ward Carroll (our Military.com sponsor) Ward Churchill! That slip might not have meant much to most of the population, but it was enough to make us die laughing. I love stuff like that, and the more esoteric the better. Work a Lileks quote or a Micah Wright or Jayson Blair insult or a fake-but-accurate pronouncement into conversation, and I'm yours forever.

FYI

MaryIndiana -- FYI, there's a pupdate up at SpouseBUZZ!

OBSESSION

I'm setting my DVR for a special Fox News showing of the movie Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West on Saturday night at 8 PM ET. For more info, see here.

I have to tape it, because I won't be home. My husband and I will be hanging out with Tim and Patti! Tim organized a book signing for The Blog of War. If you're anywhere near the Aiken Office Supply in Aiken, SC, this weekend, drop in and see us!

YEESH

We're only living here temporarily, which means that I haven't got much of a social life. I don't have a single, actual, real-life human being friend here, unless you count the apartment complex staff. The only "conversation" I've had in the past five months has been the internet kind, which is bad because I've been living in a bubble. When you spend that much time in the internet community, you forget that we're such a small slice of the population.

I just caught the tail-end of a radio trivia gimmick, where a caller had to answer some questions. She had no idea who Dennis Hastert is, she couldn't provide a line from the "Star-Spangled Banner", and she didn't have the first guess what the Dow was at...in fact, she thought "the Dow" was a new type of WMD. I am not kidding. It might've been funny if it weren't so stinking depressing.

So beware the internet bubble. And be glad half the country doesn't vote.

HUH?

Who woulda thought we'd read this this morning?

Let's go back and clarify: IRAQ HAD NUCLEAR WEAPONS PLANS SO ADVANCED AND DETAILED THAT ANY COUNTRY COULD HAVE USED THEM.

Just when I think things couldn't get any weirder...

NONBOTCHED JOKES

Some people have got waaay better jokes than John Kerry. Like Right Thoughts' interview with "John Kerry's Intentions":

Kerry’s intentions: Jim...Jimbo. Jimmykins. Jimka. Listen. It’s simple. John is smarter than you. He knows that you little people can’t afford food, and you’re too stupid to become lawyers and marry rich widows. Therefore, most of you end up at one point or another either becoming volunteers for his campaign or you become horrible, murdering rapists reminiscent of Jen-jiss Khan...i.e. you join the military.

JimK: But wait a minute. That’s just reinforcing the notion that the statement was slanderous against the military in the first place! I don’t get it. What are you trying to say here?

Kerry’s intentions: Jim-bo-lah. Jim-o-rama. Jimmy crack corn...I know this is upper-level material here, but try to stay with me. Senator Kerry despises the little people, so he made a joke about Bush that wasn’t about Bush, wasn’t true, contained factual truths and wasn’t a joke, because he care about you, the common man. You see?

JimK: No. No I do not see. In fact, everything you said contradicts everything else you said.

Kerry’s intentions: Well, I was against this interview before I was for it, so there you have it.

Heh. Read the whole thing. JimK's got mad jokes.

GOOD POINT

Again with the Lileks:

I understand how some are using the gaffe to draw attention to a greater point re: the hard left’s attitudes towards the military, but if that wasn’t actually the point Kerry was making then I can’t jump on board and affirm the greater point. That smacks of fake-but-accurate.

He has a point, and we'll leave it at that. And just wait and see what happens next week.

Last night I asked my husband if part of being a grown-up means getting an ulcer every two years. I can see why less than half the country cares about voting: it's entirely too stressful to pay attention. Even when your personal choice is a no-brainer (dude, I vote in Missouri), watching the rest of it unfold is torture.

GEM

Gnat woke up with an earache on Halloween, which led Lileks to write this intensely insightful tidbit:

The school party was off, though, and that was a crushing disappointment. At least she didn’t say “it’s not fair.” You never know quite how to respond to that. You want them to believe that things are fair and good and happy and full of sparkly unicorn-dust, and your inner Drill Instructor wants to bark “Suck it up, half-pint! There’s a whole lot more unfairness rolling down the road and you’d best learn how to get out of its way! Now drop and give me 20!” It’s not fair has an impotent and powerless ring to it, and I’m glad she doesn’t say it much. I think I drummed “just my luck” out of her early on, too; that one’s poison. Luck is like Communism – believe in it if you like, just don’t base your actions on it.

My husband and I have begun to talk more and more frequently about how we want to raise our imaginary kids. And this gem of parenting advice -- thrown willy-nilly into The Bleat as only James Lileks can do -- really spoke to me.

My husband loathes people with an external locus of control, people who whine that it's always circumstances or bad luck or fate or someone else's fault that things didn't go their way. We talk constantly about how we can instill personal responsibility in our imaginary kids, and I think this nugget from Lileks is one idea we can keep tucked in our brains for future reference.

BOTCHED JOKE INDEED

OK, let's give Kerry the benefit of the doubt here and assume he was trying to make fun of President Bush instead of the troops. So what's the joke then? Study hard, kids, so one day you will grow up to be...not as dumb as the President of the United States? What kind of joke is that? Don't parents usually urge kids to study so they don't have to flip burgers, not so they won't become flipping President of the United States and make a decision that über-liberal senators disagree with? Good lord, one would hope that a presidential candidate would show more respect for the office of the presidency than that. I think it's foolhardy to send the message to young people that the president is someone to mock and jeer. As if young people these days could get more disrespectful of adults; Kerry doesn't need to fuel that fire.

Not to mention that the joke doesn't work very well, considering Bush and Kerry got roughly the same grades in college. And Kerry's wife doesn't even know what chili is. Let's not call any kettles black here.

MORE TO GROK:

Who’s the real flunky? Someone tell Kerry it’s not military via RofaSix

MORE:

Hahahahha. You HAVE to click on this photo from Iraq...

BOOK

I just finished reading Taking Science to the Moon. It was an interesting book on the minutiae of the Apollo program: who got the contract to design the little rake they used to pick up moon rocks; the intense design specifications of the boxes used to transport samples; the million-dollar science experiments that failed because of a gravity calculation error. Usually when we think of Apollo, we think of the giant leap for mankind, but this book delineated all of the small steps for man. Good book if you're an Apollo junkie like I am.