On terra. TERRA! (Ooga-booga)

Okay, so the threat level has been raised to orange in DC and Newark, NJ (New York has been at orange ever since September 11). This is the result of late-breaking terror threats on some of our nation's financial centers. This is no joke; President Bush was quoted by the Washington Post as saying,

It's serious business. I mean, we wouldn't be, you know, contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real.

But local authorities have been contacted, and residents of both towns can take comfort in the fact that in addition to the new security that they can see, there's more behind-the-scenes security to keep them safe from the terrorists that we know are coming.

But even with terrorist threats looming, we need to remember that - what's that? I'm sorry? Ladies and gentlemen, this just in - the late-breaking news that has necessitated the royal tizzy currently enjoyed by Tom Ridge and friends is actually, well, old. Like, way old. Like, several years old, dating back to before the September 11 attacks, like news that Condi Rice considered "historical" back in August of 2001. Said one senior law enforcement official, "There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new. Why did we go to this level? I still don't know that."

Why would our trusted leaders do something like that? Why would they arouse the fears of American citizens over news that was considered old before it became pertinent the first time? What reason could the Bush administration possibly have for randomly frightening us with old news?

Ohhhh.

On the evils of bad poetry

Okay, so Landover Baptist Church has long been a beacon of hope for we the fallen and/or lapsed who seek to abandon our current flawed faiths in favor of something a little more judgmental. General J.C. Christian, Patriot has been kind enough to warn us of a group attacking the good works that Landover does. But Jim Carlson of Objective: Christian Ministries warns his flock of potential impostors writing comment-thread naughtiness in his name:

Any message you read claiming to be from Jim Carlson or any other OBJECTIVE: Ministries member that contains vulgarities, sexual innuendo, bad poetry, or other un-Christian sentiments is to be considered a FRAUD and ignored. [Emphasis mine]

Yes, of course. God forbid Our holy name should be attached to limericks with no perceptible meter. Or worse - haiku.

Note: Could this all be an elaborate parody? Jesus, God, I hope so. The question is, though: Can we take that chance?

On my new boyfriend

Hey, honey.

Okay, so anyone unfortunate enough to miss Barack Obama's keynote address to the DNC last night really, really missed out. I honestly don't know that I've ever heard anyone so sincere and passionate about what he was saying. He said all of the things that Democrats have needed to say, have been trying to say for months now but haven't known how - and he meant every word. I really can't describe what it felt like to just sit there and listen to him speak - and I'm starting to gush, so I'll just leave you with some of the high points. Thanks, by the way, to GWBWYPGN?! for the link, and to the Daily Kos for pointing out that maybe the Republicans want Obama as much as I do.

On with the show:

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’

That is the true genius of America — a faith in simple dreams,, an insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted at least, most of the time.

This year, in this election, we are called to reaffirm our values and our commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers, and the promise of future generations.

Snip.

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

Snippety-snip.

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?

John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope.

I’m not talking about blind optimism here - the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t think about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores. The hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta. The hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds. The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.

Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.

I believe that we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair. I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us.

Barack? Call me. Yeah. Hey, there.

On more sick, sick bastards

Okay, so now we have to deal with Altavista searches for "raped by dogs"? Masturbating dogs weren't enough? What the hell.

I think someone needs to tell Basket Full of Puppies; this might be worthy of invesigation for his Official Right Wing Dog Injury Counter.

On caring enough to care

Okay, so in District 5 of the Muscogee County School Board, the wrong guy got elected. It's happened before. This time, it hits a little closer to home simply because the right guy happened to be my own dad. But there's no crying in baseball, and rubbin' is racin'; there will be no Florida-style recount, and to concentrate on the fifty-one percent who voted for the wrong guy would a) be sour-grapey and b) completely ignore the most important fact, which is that my dad ran in the first place.

Words can't describe how proud I am of my dad. Ever since the family moved to Columbus in 1991, he (we all, really) recognized that the school board left some room for improvement. There was a lot of Columbus-society "old money" flying around, a lot of politics, a lot of big egos, none of which contributed anything positive to the education of kids in Muscogee County. But instead of just sitting around bitching about it, like ninety-nine percent of the people in Columbus, my dad decided to do something about it and run for public office.

Honestly, Dad has so many other responsibilities, it's a wonder he had time. He's a family physician and the kind of doctor who really, sincerely cares about his patients - each of them gets as much time with him as they need, he'll answer a call at any time of the day or night, and with the number of low-income patients he sees every day, this is not a job that's keeping him in Mercedes convertibles. He honestly cares about his patients. And he cares about his family, too, his wife and two kids. You'd think that he'd be just about cared out.

But that doesn't happen with people like my dad. He has an infinite capacity for that kind of caring, and that extends to the kids in Columbus, Georgia. He cared enough to further extend himself and put himself out in the hopes that he could make a difference in the lives of all of those kids. That, in the end, voters chose the incumbent over the challenger, is to me far less significant than the fact that forty-nine percent of voters thought that my dad was the person in District 5 who would make their schools better, and the fact that he cared enough to run at all. The fact that he saw room for improvement and instead of bitching about it, instead of just sitting around and griping to his friends or starting a blog, he stepped up to the plate for his try at changing the world. Would that we all had the guts to do what he did.

More on this from my parents' other kid at GWBWYPGN?!.

On little bits of history repeating

Okay, so it took all of seventeen months in Afghanistan for George W. to get bored and jog off to find himself a new party in Iraq. We shouldn't be surprised, then, that, sixteen months after we headed into Baghdad with all kinds of shock and awe, his attention is starting to drift:

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Monday the United States is exploring whether Iran had any role in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a scenario discounted by the CIA.

Well, great.

Flashback to September of 2001, when Richard Clarke was telling Bush that all of the 9/11 hijackers had been Saudi, and Bush told him to find a connection to Iraq. Why? Because "there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan" - Iraq would make a much better war.

I guess we're running out of good targets in Iraq.

Or maybe President Bush just isn't feeling terribly comfortable with poll numbers that indicate Americans aren't entirely pleased with the job he's doing in Iraq. It's finally getting through to him that his "Mission Accomplished" banner was just a bit premature and that the ticker-tape parade he was expecting won't be forthcoming, and rather than trying to fix what's probably broken beyond repair, he's decided to scrap it all and try again with a new bunch of Arabs. He's desperate to get one good war in before Americans go to the polls in November.

God help Iran. And God help whoever is in line after Iran (North Korea, maybe?). And if He's still willing, God help America.

Mad props to Atrios for the link.

On the noble euphonium

Okay, so thanks to Basket Full of Puppies for a giggle first thing in the morning.

"Tactical field tuba." Hee hee.

On the re-Iraqification of Iraq

Okay, so it looks like all of our progress in Iraq (which is debatable anyway, but for the sake of argument, we're gonna go with it) has come to a screeching halt and slammed into reverse as Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, according to witnesses, pulls out a gun and goes all Saddam on six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Granted, right now we're just working with allegations. So far, the story has only been picked up by the Australian media, and there are holes to be filled in - we don't know the names of the two people who witnessed the act, and Allawi claims that he's never been to the prison and doesn't carry a gun. But if there's any kernel of truth to this it all, it means bad, bad things for the American war effort.

Let's look at the scorecard, shall we? Executions... check. Torture... check. Rape rooms - does it still count if the victims are little boys instead of women? Yeah? Then check.

If substantiated, this means that we've been in Iraq for over a year to accomplish pretty much jack. It means that we've come in promising to save the Iraqi people and bring them the joys of freedom and democracy, and then we've given them more of same, but this time with their houses blown up and their families maimed. It means that over 1,000 coalition troops, nearly 900 of them American, have lost their lives so that we could leave Iraq just about as bad as it was before we got there.

Bad, bad things.

On the Iraqification of America

Okay, so anyone with a little bit of sense was concerned when the USA PATRIOT Act passed with such ease - in addition to a lengthy, horribly contrived acronym, the act went to great lengths to threaten and/or suspend our basic civil liberties.

Well, this guy can tell us what it's like to be hassled by not only the police but by the Department of Homeland Security - for taking pictures of a bridge for a photography class. For taking pictures of a bridge for a photography class.

Now, I don't doubt that part of the problem was that small-town police officers and security officials can have a tendency to get a little bit of attitude, let their position of authority go to their heads, get a bit swell-chested, especially when confronted with individuals who are... a bit more tan than others. But there comes a point when it's just post-9/11 paranoia, pure and simple, and it encourages those in positions of power to completely and totally step all over the Constitutional rights of those they're supposed to be protecting. And what sucks even more is that given the opportunity to take a much-needed whack at USA PATRIOT that would give us out rights back, the House decided that things are fine the way they are, thanks.

When are we going to get pissed off enough to do something about this? For that matter, is there really anything that we can do anyway? I'm not willing to sit back and watch John Ashcroft sift through my e-mail for fun, but I honestly don't know where to start.

Much thanks to Sadly, No! for the link.

On sick, sick bastards

Okay, so whoever got here via a Yahoo search for "masturbation dogs"? You are a sick, sick, sick, sick individual. I pity your mother.

On the passage of time

Okay, so there are dozens of reasons given as to why Bush invaded Iraq. And except for the fact that not a one of them holds water better than a cheese grater, they all sound really nice. But what has struck me recently is actually the timing of it all; how did the invasion get so urgent, so suddenly? Where did it all come from?

Let's go down the list. Iraq was threatening the no-fly zone and violating UN resolutions. Saddam Hussein was a tyrannical leader who terrorized his own people. Hussein wouldn't let UN inspectors in because he had weapons of mass destruction. There were all kinds of connections between Iraq and al Qaeda and September 11. The Iraq threat was "grave and growing."

Let's, for a moment, ignore the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were ever found. That we actually never got any farther than "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities." That no connection was ever found between Iraq and September 11, and that the Bush administration is now denying that such a connection was ever implied. Let's concentrate, just for now, on the fact that the above justifications for war have all been going on since 1991.

It's certainly something Bush couldn't have missed - his dad was president at the time, and in light of everything Saddam was doing in the Middle East, Bush Senior decided not to invade Iraq. But Bush Junior decided to go ahead and do it, at the risk of hundreds of thousands of lives, both American and Iraqi. Why? I mean, sure, I know why he's said, I know the reasons given, but why now? What made him such a threat that he had to be invaded then, when nothing has changed in the eleven years since it was last decided that Iraq wasn't worth invading? If he has been such an ongoing threat, why didn't we hear about him when the second Bush took office in 2001?

In 1991, Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. We knew that because he was using them against his own people, and against the people of Kuwait. At that point, the UN told him to disarm, and he didn't, and they told him to get out of Kuwait, and he didn't. So the US went in and kicked him out of Kuwait, but decided not to go into Iraq while they had the chance, because that just wasn't our objective. Since then, Saddam hasn't made a single credible threat against the United States. Allegations of his involvement with al Qaeda and September 11 have been dismissed as political posturing. And UN weapons inspectors poking around Iraq found... nothing. He wasn't invasion-worthy in 1991, he wasn't invasion-worthy in 2001 - since then, what has changed?

Usually, at this point, I'd get all pithy, and you dear readers would discover that, hey, I had answers to those questions all along. See, sometimes, I ask rhetorical questions - just for effect, you know. But at this point, I don't have any answers for the questions above, pithy or no. I don't have any answers that would condemn Bush, or any that would vindicate him. That's the thing: I just don't freaking know. And I hate the feeling of not knowing. I hate the idea that between 11,000 and 13,000 Iraqi civilians and over 1,000 coalition troops have died in the conflict. I hate the idea that the Taliban is making a comeback in Afghanistan and and al Qaeda is flourishing again because Bush got distracted and didn't finish the job because he just had to invade Iraq when he did.

In his TV address 48 hours before he blasted the everliving crap out of a country that had never threatened the US, Bush said that "we are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over." Well, Mr. President, if that was the case, wouldn't we have been even better off invading three years ago, when Iraq's capacity for harm would have been even less? Or did it really take you this long to find a good excuse to settle an old grudge?

On gay marriage

Okay, so maybe we’re going a little bit crazy with this whole “war” thing. First there was a war on drugs, and then a war on poverty (or was poverty first?). The big news lately has been, of course, Bush’s War on Terra. But it looks like Dubya’s going to have to take a back seat for a while, because the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Shaunti Feldhahn wants us to wage war on gay marriage:

[A]lthough you can't see the battle to protect marriage as you can a military war, its cultural ramifications may be just as radical. In his new book, "Marriage Under Fire," James Dobson notes that, "This struggle is not being fought with guns and bombs, but with ideas, with creative uses of the law ... It is a battle for the very soul of the nation."

Shaunti, in her infinite wisdom, warns us that we must learn our lesson from pre-World War II Europe. See, when they saw Hitler coming up, they were all, like, “it’s none of my business.” And you saw what happened to them. We must nip the scourge of homosexual marriage in the bud – the alternative, apparently, is genocide.

As we speak, evil activist judges are trying to “rewrit[e] the will of the people” to the end of – gasp! – equal rights for all. Gay couples everywhere could soon be joining in committed, monogamous unions, setting up households in which innocent children might be raised in an environment of open affection and coordinating chintzes.

Congress is currently discussing legislation to help save American society from the evil gays. Apparently, the world will be a better place if, in the interest of traditional heterosexual marriage, we can deprive gays of domestic partner benefits, rights of survivorship, and pretty ceremonies with big tall white cakes with two tuxedoed guys on top.

From what I can tell, objections to gay marriage take three forms: the protecting-traditional-marriage argument, the how’s-about-civil-union argument, and the what-about-the-children argument.

We must protect traditional marriage: Well, okay, then, do that. You can start with Elizabeth Taylor and Jennifer Lopez; they’ve had, like, eleven traditional marriages between them, so they’re probably experts by now. Then you can talk to Britney Spears, who has the dual indignities of a 55-hour Vegas marriage (just for poops and grins) and an engagement to a guy who just knocked up his ex-girlfriend for the second time. It could all be worse, though; they could be – clutch the pearls! – gay.

How’s about, in the interest of preventing broken homes, looking at divorce instead of marriage? These days, an uncontested divorce is as easy (and almost as cheap) to get as a food processor. Far be it from me to insist that a woman stay with her abusive husband simply to maintain the union. But if you’re ready to break up your family because you’re bored, or because you just know you’ve met your soulmate, or because this whole marriage thing is, like, hard – you’re a selfish, selfish bitch/bastard and don’t deserve an easy divorce.

Or even better, how’s about looking at the marriage before it gets all permanent? The Catholic church requires three months of counseling before the marriage can take place; I think it’s a splendid idea. You want a threat to marriage, try two folks who met three weeks ago in their creative writing class and think that their shared love of modernist poetry is a sign from above. Try two teenagers who have no idea what they’re looking for in a life partner but are, like, totally in love. Hell, try two adults who disagree on everything from money management to child rearing to decorating color schemes but figure that when they’re hungry, love will keep them alive. Honestly, who’s more likely to put together a lasting relationship, two compatible gay men or a man and a woman who met in a bar and have never actually seen each other in daylight yet?

Well, what about, like, civil unions and stuff: Here’s my thing about marriage: every marriage is a civil union. Shut up, it is. See, every marriage has a government part and a church part. A couple can get married in a church, and God smiles on their union, but if they don’t have a marriage license issued by the state, the government isn’t going to smile on their joint tax return. And the state doesn’t mind if you get married by a justice of the peace – but many churches won’t recognize the marriage unless you have it done by a cleric.

That being the case, whose business is it to tell gays they can’t get married? Civil unions are only fair; that’s completely nonreligious, just a matter of two committed individuals sharing insurance policies and being recognized as next of kin. If a gay couple can’t find a church to perform the religious part of their wedding, that sucks; if they can, what’s it to you?

What about the poor children: First of all, see above re: Britney as responsible stepmom. When you’re done shuddering at the thought, ask yourself if a child raised by an abusive straight couple is any better off than a child raised by a nurturing gay couple. Rejecting outright the characterization of all gays as pedophiles, why would a gay couple be inherently bad at raising kids? Would a gay couple not actually be more likely to raise a child who is open-minded and accepting, who isn’t limited by traditional gender roles, who (not to embrace an absolute stereotype) is clean and clean-cut and well-dressed to boot? Most women dream of a guy who can cook, clean, pick out a bottle of wine, buy thoughtful gifts, give compliments and dress himself; in Midtown Atlanta, those guys travel in packs.

Shaunti, you can have your war on gay marriages. I understand if homosexuality makes you a little squeamish. But if your marriage is endangered by a couple of guys getting married and having a family, maybe you’re the one who needs to be examining your relationship. As for me, I’m going to be at Mike and Troy’s wedding with bells on, ‘cause honey, the cake will be to-die-for and I know there’ll be someone willing to dance.

On patriotism

Okay, so I’ve gotten used to being called an unpatriotic, America-hating traitor by many loveable puffballs of the Wacko Right. It doesn’t bother me because, let’s face it, I know for a fact it’s not true. But in honor of July 4th and Independence Day and fireworks and apple pie, let’s talk about the patriotism thing.

I heart my country. America is a wonderful place to be. In my country, I can vote, live on my own, choose whom I want to marry, dye my hair all crazy-like, acquire birth control without hassle, watch soap operas in two languages, surf the Internet for porn, express my political views, travel freely, listen to punk rock, adopt a child, read books with naughty words in them, wear tank tops, join the military – or choose not to do any of these things. I can’t think of a single other country that offers so many freedoms while also providing the security of a kick-ass military and a government structure that, as long as we don’t screw it up like we’ve been doing lately, protects the rights of the people.

And all of that means that America is absolutely perfect and nothing should be changed – except wait, no, that’s not what it means at all. Because nothing is perfect; there are always steps that can be taken to improve upon the status quo. America is great – I happen to think it would be even greater if homosexual marriages and/or civil unions were recognized by the federal government. America is swell – and would be sweller still if the Religious Right would stop trying to break down the barrier separating church and state and forcing a particular form of religion on folks who have their own way, thanks. There could be more money spent on education and less on corporate safety nets. John Ashcroft still stands way too close to our civil rights for my comfort. And I just plain don’t think we should have invaded Iraq the way we did.

But don’t you think I’m leaving. Because I love America.

Most people know that there are all kinds of love; that’s nothing new. For some, patriotism is love like the second month of a new relationship. It’s not infatuation, you’ve had time to actually get to know a person and love him for the qualities that make him who he is, but when he pisses you off, you don’t say anything because you don’t want to rock the boat. Yeah, you wish he wouldn’t smoke so much, and he drives way too fast, but in the interest of domestic tranquility, you’re going to leave it be.

For me, patriotism is the love a mother feels for her child. It’s deep and sincere and absolutely unconditional. She’ll do anything, give anything, even her life, for her kid. She protects and defends and supports her kid and does her best to guide him to become the best adult he can possibly be. And part of that love involves correcting him when he goes wrong. Sometimes it’s benign, helping him with his homework or changing his grip on the football. Sometimes, it’s a lot more serious. Sometimes, a child runs into the street in front of a car, and when Mom snatches him back, he’s getting a whack on the behind that will remind him not to do it again. Does it mean that she doesn’t love him? Of course not. She loves him enough that she doesn’t want to see him dead, and if takes a little sting to get the message across, so be it. He smokes, and he drives way too fast, and she’s going to put a stop to that before he hurts himself.

When I see America running out into the street, you can be damn sure I’m going to snatch her back. When I see our leaders abusing their powers and infringing on the rights given to us by the Constitution and all those institutions that support it, I’m going to speak up. To not speak against the USA PATRIOT act or the invasion of Iraq or the abuse of our environment by industry or the coddling of corporations by legislators getting kickbacks, to see all of that and stay quiet, would be criminally negligent. I’m not about to let my country head in the wrong direction – I love America, so by God I’m holding her to a higher standard.

Conservatives out there love to throw around the phrase “America, right or wrong.” Works for me. It’s a great quote. It’s by a Navy commander named Stephen Decatur, and the entire quote says, “America, right or wrong. When right, to keep right. When wrong, to make right.” Anyone who really loves America wants her to be right. And if you think she’s already as perfect as she can be, I’m happy for you. I happen to see room for improvement. And because I love her so very, very much, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to see her reach her full potential. Anything less would be unpatriotic.

On Carol Coleman, my other babydaddy

Okay, so I don't have much so say on this topic that hasn't been better said elsewhere. But I would like to address an open letter to Carol Coleman, owner of a great big pair of cast-iron cojones:

Carol. Girlfriend.

As you probably know, your interview with President Bush has been spreading wildfire-esque across the Internet and is the talk of the liberal blog community. I wanted to add my thoughts to the barrage of e-mail I'm sure you're getting -- thank you. Thank you for asking the questions that no American journalist has the guts to say; thank you for calling him on his attempts to change the subject and out-and-out lie. Your interview was fun to watch and, for those of us used to nothing but American quasi-journalistic softballs, even a bit exciting. It's really too bad that you got your hand slapped for your "impertinence", because it really was refreshing to see.

Nothin' but love,
ACG
Citizen of Blogovia

On Madeleine Albright, my babydaddy

Okay, so anyone watching “Meet the Press” on Sunday might have rightly assumed that I was communicating with Madeleine Albright via a tiny, tiny radio secreted in her left ear. I thought that my ideas would have a lot more credibility, and reach a much larger audience, coming out of her mouth. Here are some of the thoughts that we were able to share with the world:

I never did believe that there was a connection between al-Qaeda, Saddam Hussein and 9/11. But I now do think that Iraq has become a magnet and a gathering ground for terrorists.

Well, of course it is. You’ve got a bunch hyper-religious sociopaths who have been waiting for the hyper-secular tyrannical dictator of Iraq to get out so they could get in. It’s like mice swarming the house once the cat is gone. it doesn’t mean that the cat and the mice were collaborating; it means that when the cat’s away, the mice will have free reign to kidnap and murder in the name of Allah.

I think we clearly do not understand Islam completely and we have to figure out distinctions between those who also are victims of extremism and Islamic fundamentalism, jihadism.

To be sure. As simple as it would be for us to just see this as evil Muslims trying to corrupt our way of life and eventually take over the world and rape our wives and enslave our children and burn our churches to the ground, life just isn’t that easy. We’re dealing with a group of bad, bad people perverting a religion that, if you actually take the time to read the damn book, actually encourages peace and tolerance. Al Qaeda doesn’t represent Islam any more than Eric Rudolph represents Christianity, so let’s jump off the religious intolerance bandwagon.

And I'm very glad to see Saddam Hussein gone. That is good. But I'm not sure we're safer today than we were before. … I would say that the situation emanating from Iraq is more dangerous in terms of the number of terrorists that are out there and Afghanistan is half-finished job. We diverted our attention from Afghanistan to do a war of choice, not of necessity, in Iraq. The thing is now it is a necessity and not a choice to get it right in Iraq.

Absolutely. The people of Iraq, along with the rest of the world, are certainly better off without Saddam Hussein in power, but their lives don’t improve much when their country is overrun with terrorists and when the provisional government can’t even provide them with electricity on a regular basis. We had a thing going in Afghanistan, and when we got frustrated and bored, we turned our attentions elsewhere. But anyone who has seen “Fatal Attraction” knows that just ‘cause al Qaeda is under the water doesn’t mean they’re not coming back.

I wish the interim government of Iraq the very best, and we need to support it in every way we can because they are the hope and the future here.

Amen.

On my inadequate thought process

Okay, so I found myself in an, er, enthusiastic discussion with a certain retired Marine with about a thousand kids currently in the Corps and a huge chip on his shoulder. And I really have come to terms with the fact that, in the eyes of the Republican party, I am the embodiment of evil. Now, anyone who knows me has heard me rant about what it truly means to love America – I’ll post on that at some point for those who haven’t heard it but, for some reason, want to. Obviously, the Right doesn’t see patriotism the same way I do, and there are definitely a few other areas where our thought processes just don’t meet. The retired jarhead in question found himself staring down the business end of the following rant:

My problem is only that I've honestly and sincerely tried to think the way you do, and I can't. I’ve tried so very, very hard to understand your perspective, but it's just not working.

I'm so truly jealous of your thought process. It must be so easy and comforting to see in such absolute shades of black and white. I can't, and I guess that's just a sin of the Left. I don't understand how you can know who to hate and fear just on the basis of their religion. I don't understand how you can take a religion that's 95% good people and 5% bad and call it evil and hateful; I don't understand how you can read the Koran, with all those passages about charity and a forgiving God and the wisdom of Jesus and the way your religion doesn't matter as long as you love God and do good deeds, and from that gather a religion of hatred and intolerance.

I don't understand how you can ascribe nothing but wicked motives to the leadership of the Left but assume that the motives of the Right are absolutely pure and without blemish. I don't understand how you can think that a human being, a person with a soul, can actually want to see a person die just to further a political agenda. I don't understand how you can automatically assume that the media are lying and/or biased just because you don't like their coverage. I don't understand how you can say that Democrats hate Christianity just because they want each person to make that decision on their own, and because the first amendment says that the government can't like Christians more than anyone else.

My mind just doesn't work that way, and when I try, I get so incredibly frustrated and so incredibly upset. And that's why I'm giving up, because I'm not so stupid that I don't recognize when something just isn't working. I apologize for wasting your time; it won't happen again.

Anyone who might be able to help me out on any of those is welcome to give it the ol’ college try. I’d really like to understand, because I feel that understanding is the key to not thinking that these people are freaking lunatics. Feel free to shoot me some suggestions under Comments. Anyone. Please. I'm begging.

On beating a guy up on national TV

Okay, so maybe some people just don’t understand what a fishbowl the world has become. It’s hard to ignore the fact that “reality” TV is taking over the airwaves and that the most popular TV shows are the ones that either put “real” people in “real” situations or follow “real” people around with cameras. Screenwriters might want to start looking for a fast-food job, because if it ain’t voyeurism, we ain’t interested.

Still, as evidenced by this, it’s apparent that some folks just haven’t realized that someone is always watching, and that the news helicopter with its million-candlepower spotlight isn’t just making sure you don’t trip in the dark.

Let’s get this out of the way first: police brutality is a bad, bad thing whether someone sees it or not. I’m not talking about a little additional but necessary force, an extra-special smackdown for the guy you’re arresting who happens to have a razor blade hidden under his tongue. I’m talking about having someone fully in custody and under control and still feeling that it’s okay to smack him around, take out a little bit of frustration. If you’re having stress-management issues, there are classes you can take and people you can talk to. Taking it out on someone else is just asking for trouble.

That having been said, please don’t be stupid enough to do it in front of a camera. And, just a hint, if you’ve been involved in a police chase, you can guess that someone has a camera on you. There’s a whole TV show devoted to that very activity. And even if TV cameras are nowhere to be found, there’s always some guy with a handicam waiting for something exciting to happen. Remember, if you’re in any position of authority at all, someone is watching and waiting for you to screw up.

We thought we might have figured this all out with Rodney King; if not that, “Cops” and “America’s Wildest Police Chases” should have straightened us out. But as Abu Ghraib, America’s Funniest Videos and this most recent incident have shown us, some people just can’t act right when the camera is on them. So it looks like we need a review.

Lesson the first: always behave yourself if someone’s watching. Lesson the second: someone’s always watching.

On being better than that

Okay, so this kind of drives me nuts. Particularly this part:

I guess they are going to strip him, put women's panties on his head, let dogs bark at him and then set him free.

And this one:

I wonder if Nick Berg got to choose between being in a pile of naked people or being beheaded.

Do people not realize that it was more than just some junior high panty raid? That in addition to the underpants and the naked man piles, these folks were beaten and raped and sodomized and attacked by dogs? That people actually died from the abuses at Abu Ghraib?

Actually, I’m going to have to go with no, they don’t realize, because folks are too full-on lazy to actually read beyond the front page of the paper and the sports section.

And yet, folks act like this whole abuse scandal is okay, because hey, we’re still not as bad as Saddam. Apparently, that’s where we’ve gone with this, those are our standards of morality, we’ve got to be better than Saddam. The fact that our guys, the guys wearing our flag on their uniforms, behaved like absolute soulless animals is perfectly okay because Saddam Hussein was worse. Jesus Christ on a crutch.

I know it feels like it’s been months already, but it looks like we’ve got to go over this again: We went in as liberators. That was our only justification for going in. No matter how many innocent people were murdered under Saddam’s regime – and no matter how many are murdered by al Qaeda – nothing can justify the behavior of those contractors, MPs, and interrogators. Nothing. Nothing.

We are Americans. We are better than that. That’s really all there is to it. That’s the point of the Geneva Conventions – we can’t torture their guys because we don’t want our guys tortured.

And of course folks will argue that they’ve already done horrible things to our troops and contractors and that it justifies what has happened in a couple of prisons, actually, not just Abu Ghraib. But you know what? It really doesn’t. Because we’re Americans, and we’re better than that.

I think that the reason conservatives aren’t freaking out more about this is that they had no problem going in there in the first place. To them, we’re liberators, we’re saviors, we’ve rescued them from the tyranny of an evil dictator, and if a couple of guys get mauled by dogs or raped by guards while they’re in the pokey, well, that’s just the cost of doing business, they were probably terrorists anyway.

Liberals see it differently. From our end, we see that the US got bored with Afghanistan and blew off Osama bin Laden so that we could go after someone a little bit sexier. In the process, we decimated global policy, made a mockery of diplomacy, and seriously cheesed off a good number of former allies. Why do we have to adhere to the Geneva Accords and hold off on the torture? Because we have nothing left. We’re clinging desperately to the moral high road like a mountain climber watching that one last piton quiver in the rock wall and hoping to God it’s not going to slip. Not torturing people, not raping people, not threatening people with dogs or with the murder of their families, that is the only thing that we have left. Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda, they don’t have that left. We have it. And that’s all.

Jon Stewart said it in his block rocking commencement address at William & Mary:

But here’s the good news. You fix this thing, you’re the next greatest generation, people. You do this—and I believe you can—you win this war on terror, and Tom Brokaw’s kissing your ass from here to Tikrit, let me tell ya. And even if you don’t, you’re not gonna have much trouble surpassing my generation. If you end up getting your picture taken next to a naked guy pile of enemy prisoners and don’t give the thumbs up you’ve outdid us.

It’s funny ‘cause it’s true.

On Deep South antebellum agrarian society, circa 1991

Okay, so I’m not actually a military brat. In fact, it could be argued that military brats have it all over me. ‘Cause when a military kid gets uprooted from Fort SomeGuy to Fort SomeOtherGuy, she finds herself surrounded by hundreds of uprootees her own age, kids who have been shuffled around and who might not have a lot of old friends but are pretty damn good at making new ones. There aren’t a lot of kids on military bases who have known each other since infancy; at some point, they’ve all been moved, sometimes several times. So if you need a friend and you’re looking for someone who needs a friend, you’re likely to find one. Maybe a couple.

It never worked out like that for me. My first move was at age five, from BFVirginia to BFTennessee, and then again at age ten to BFGeorgia, not because of the military but because of… well, that part I haven’t quite figured out yet. But by age ten I was a champ at making friends. I had the system down, I practically had the steps on a little laminated card in my lunchbox, and life was pretty good.

The second move was pretty hard on me. That’s a hard age, anyway, to uproot a kid, but I had a particularly tough time because when I hit elementary school in Georgia, everyone already had friends. I mean that quite literally; every child in my school had at least one friend already and had little to no interest in making any more. Some of them said so in so many words. As a person who could never have enough friends, I was completely baffled.

It didn’t seem to be something that kids grew out of, either. Kids left elementary school and went to middle school together (which was a fresh hell all its own), then left middle school together and went to high school together. In 2003, a good half of UGA’s student population came just from metro Atlanta. There are kids who were born next door to each other, went through grade school together, sat next door to each other at their college graduation, and then lived together when they moved back to Atlanta to get jobs. Jealous? You bet your sweet ass I am.

Looking back on things with the perspective of thirteen years, hours of psychotherapy and not a little bit of hard liquor, I’ve developed a theory on this; it hinges on the fact that the Deep South is resistant to change. You can see this in the “fergit hell” attitude of rebel-flag-waving Sons of the Confederacy who swear that Stonewall Jackson is going to leap bodily from the side of Stone Mountain and ride again victorious, and in the insistence that macaroni and cheese is a vegetable.

The antebellum south was a wholly agrarian society. That’s what they did all the time; hell, that’s part of the reason they started the war. If you didn’t have your own farm of any significance, you worked on someone else’s farm. When a kid grew up, he either went to work on his daddy’s farm or went to college, graduated, and came back to work on his daddy’s farm. In the industrial north, families moved as necessary to follow the work; in the south, they stayed put. A southern kid who misbehaved could anticipate a butt-whupping not only from his father but also from both uncles, his grandfather, and possibly his great-grandfather, ‘cause they all lived just a short buggy ride away, if that.

Fast forward a hundred and fifty years, give or take, and things haven’t much changed. Kids grow up and fly the nest, only to marry and return and start popping out kids right down the street from Mom and Dad. It’s not a bad thing; kids have the opportunity to develop close and meaningful friendships, and they get to really know their grandparents, which is harder to do when they live in the next state. A kid who can put down roots is guaranteed a familiar place to live and family close by.

At the same time, though, these kids are missing out on a lot. They never get the opportunity to really explore what’s out there to be explored. They never get to compare grits and cream of wheat, or hear Coke referred to as “pop”, or stretch their friend-making muscles to meet that kid with the funny accent. They never learn what it’s like to be an outsider, which can teach them sympathy to other outsiders, and they never get to make friends who look and sound different than they are. They aren’t blessed with diverse social groups of kids who speak different languages and carry lunchboxes full of weird and different foods. And if you don’t start ‘em young, sheltered kids can grow into xenophobic adults who never have the chance to enjoy a really fantastic plate of pad thai.

Parents need to give their kids the world, even if they never leave their hometowns. Six years old is not too young for your first calamari – tell the kid it’s squid, and he cleans his plate. Korean food is great for babies who eat with their hands anyway. That new kid with the weird flag on his backpack should be the most popular guy at school, because, hey, I’ve never been to Kenya. A kid who can look at weird and see cool, who doesn’t see a weird accent or a lunchbox full of weird food as an impediment to friendship, can be the most popular kid in school.