- sunday 03 30 03 -

You complete and utterly fucking evil bitch. There are no words to describe how much I hate you. Three times - that's enough.

- sunday 03 30 03 - editorial continued again -

In the interest of completeness, here is a follow-up

I figured I might rake a few nerves out there. My rant was not complete, not as clear as I'd like it to have been, and I've been thinking about the other things that I needed to say in addition to what I posted. SO, in the interest of clearing the air:

1. The invasion and war are an absolute necessity at this point - agreed. What makes me so angry is that not *just* the Clinton administration, but Bush's daddy and his boss, Reagan, and even Carter before that let the fucking Iranians and Iraqis get to where they are today. Saddam is not some new kid on the block - he's been around for long enough that *we* sold him weapons, and we've sure as hell put a lot of *our* money into *his* pockets so that we can fill our gas-guzzling SUVs. ExxonMobil, Chevron, and all the other friendly neighborhood oil conglomerates have bought and sold their shares of Iraqi oil. The CIA, et al, propped him up against the Ayatollah after the Shah got his corrupt ass kicked out of Iran before he could use the Bell Cobra helicopters we sold him to kill off enough Iraqis. The pre-emptive strike is not really a pre-emptive strike - it's a long overdue action that should have been taken the *last* time we were over there. Bush and his gang just needed to go out of office with a bang to distract everyone from the collapsing economy, so once that was accomplished, they quit, leaving Saddam to help train, supply, and protect the hordes of terrorists responsible for thousands of deaths all over the world, including the WTC attacks. We should have driven to Baghdad, razed the place to the ground, salted the earth, drug Saddam out into the sand, and shot him the back of the head. Hindsight is 20/20.
2. I want the chem / bio / nuke weapons gone - I only hope that Saddam and his cronies don't take out 250,000 of our troops with a deadman switch or some last ditch suicide attack. Once again - if this had been done 10 years ago when it *should* have, the worst thing they'd have to worry about would be some mustard gas or some defective SCUDS - now we stand the unavoidable risk of losing tens of thousands to finish Saddam off. That type of loss is going to be pretty hard for the American people to swallow, and it'll make the next one of these sorties a hell of a lot harder to sell. The other risk is if things go smoothly, we drive into Baghdad and frag Saddam and Company, then the American people will be totally unprepared for the shitstorm that will be the next fight against the North Koreans. Having read quite a bit about those folks, I'm a hell of a lot more worried about them than the Iraqis. We will bleed heavily to get rid of that menace.
3. The news. The problem with the way that the war is being presented is that it's no longer real - it's a fucking movie. People are not watching it and gaining an understanding of the horrors of war, and what it would be like if it was ever brought home to them - they're watching it as evening entertainment, and if they don't see enough explosions and death, it gets boring. People are watching streaming media of flak cannons and bombing strikes, and looking for the next good picture of some Marine with his leg blown off at the knee. People are so totally desensitized from thirty years of live wars that they can't be shocked anymore. It's like big football game with the US as the favored team, and that makes me angry. The knowledge that the networks are making millions per hour by exploiting American citizens being killed pisses me off - they did the same thing after 9/11, and they'll do the same thing whenever they can - it's just great busines. I have no sympathy for an Iraqi soldier who when given the opportunity to surrender instead chooses to fight, but I am not going to cheer as incendiary bombs rip through a school and thousands of people who are just trying to survive are left homeless or used as shields by the military that is supposed to protect them. It's not going to change, but I can still be pissed off about it. We should not be celebrating the fact that we are having to kill our enemies, losing hundreds or thousands of our own people at the same time. The decision has been made to go to war, and we should support the people who are on the ground doing it in every way possible, but treating war as a sporting event is a step back of about 2,500 years on the timeline for civilization.
4. As far as the protestors and actors and - they've got the right to speak out, and they have the right to be maced, beaten, zip-tied, and thrown into jail if they step over the line from voicing their opinion in public to breaking the law.
5. War is a sometimes *necessary* wrong, but it is still wrong. I'll rephrase the evil part. Predatory instincts exist because we are mammals - we can control them because we are a cognitive, relatively advanced species that already spent 10 million years thinning the herd and following the alpha male. People like Saddam and Kim Jong are throwbacks that have to be eliminated, but that doesn't change the wrongness of people having to die to perform that elimination. People being shot and burned and blown into bloody rags and having their houses razed because a madman is running the country that they happen to live in is wrong. People being told that their job is to do that is wrong. It doesn't change the fact that it has to be done. I think that there are very few people in the military or our government who *want* to do these things - they're doing them because they've been left no other option. This all goes back to point 1 - this should have been taken care of a loooooong time ago.
6. Politics. I have an intense dislike and distrust of our government, the mechanisms through which it operates, and little faith in the likelihood of the "will of the people" being served by it. It is a machine driven by greed, ego, and self-interest, which happens to have enough checks and balances to keep it racing along without crashing. There has not been a president during my lifetime that I both trusted and felt was competent, and I have always felt agreed with the old philosophical saw that those who most desire power are generally the most unfit to posses it. I unfortunately also have little faith in "we the people" because I think / know that there are a lot of sheep out there who are willing to be led by the nose, blindly nodding along with whatever tune is being played at the time. With this mindset, I take look at the actions of our leaders and see a lot of them being driven by factors other than "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" or the common good or peace for all men in our time.

SO, I agree that we need to be there, and we need to finish the job this time. We need to do it with authority and finality, leaving no doubt that aggression will be met with brutal and immediate consequences. We need to be very clear on what constitutes aggression. We need to be very careful that the precedent we set is not abused by the next man in the White House - we can't send in the troops just because somebody is talking shit in Grenada. Terrorists should be hunted down by our special forces and black ops groups like the animals they are, and exterminated in whatever holes we find them in. We should receive support for this from all nations that cherish the idea of making it through this century. People or countries that possess biological / chemical / nuclear weapons and the will to use them should be dealt with *before* they gain the ability to use them. Will all of this happen? I lost my ability to peer into the future at birth. I think we've got a long brutal road ahead of us as we reap the seeds sown at the end of the last century, but I'm hopeful that we can eventually turn our attention from killing each other in "pre-emptive actions" back to that trail of Manifest Destiny out into space. Pissed, worried, and hopeful.

- wednesday 03 26 03 - editorial continued -

I've made aware of some gaps in my rant below, and I am awaiting a reply to my rebuttal before I update this. Suffice to say that the post below, no matter how it has been interpreted, is anti-war, but does not mean that I think we can let Saddam and his ilk have free rein across the globe. It is an expression of my anger at the leaders of the free world that have let us slide once again to the brink of global conflagration, and it is going to take warfare to bring us back from the edge. My dislike of our current leaders existed prior to this, prior to 9/11, even prior to their taking office. However, I feel that we are now in a situation where aggressive acts against free peoples should be met with brutal and immediate force, ensuring that those who would destroy the fragile balance of power in our world should think twice before trying to do so. And so the cycle begins again ...

- monday 03 24 03 - editorial -

Two posts in the same day - I started to tack this to the end of the regular news, but my wife happened to tune in a live feed on the web. The war. The first pre-emptive strike by the United States in this new century. What precedent does that set? Where else does the Bush administration see evil lurking in the darkness, and how many more people will die before this American jihad is over? I will not deny that Saddam Hussein is an evil man, and that he should be removed from power. And I think that at this late stage in the game, military action was probably the only solution. Why did we wait this long? Saddam was butchering his people in 1991, the last time we went to the desert. Was he any less evil then than he is now? America should tread carefully in this post-Cold War era where nuclear weapons have been planted like poisonous seeds in all corners of the globe, waiting for us to stick our guns in the wrong hole. Bush has put forth the concept of cutting down dictators like Hussein before they grow to power - he needs to make sure that he pays attention to where he steps. And I hope that the brave men and women of the United States military don't charge into Baghdad without considering the possibility of Saddam's undiscovered chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons going off as a last stand at the end. We shall see.

Back to what inspired me to post this. I personally would like to see every greedy, ratings-hungry news channel running their 24/7 war-status tickers and sound-bite newsfeeds with commentary by every "military expert" and their for-Christ-sakes scoreboards in the sidebars shut down, turned off, and put out of business. This is probably the best thing for their business since September 11, 2001. I hate to think how many millions were paid out to get those anchors at the front line, and the advertising dollars being made for commercials tacked in between the 5-minute clips of who's-dying-now. All those up-to-the-minute stats and play-by-play field reports are PEOPLE - people who are dying as "collateral damage", people who's job it has now become to kill other people who happen to be running around under the wrong flag, people who will never come home to have another Sunday cookout with their children and families. All those cool fireworks you see by the night vision scope - those are explosives designed to shred human beings into unrecognizable pulp. All those nifty tracer rounds - white-hot slugs of lead designed to punch holes through living things. No matter what the reason behind it, war is evil. It has been forced upon us once again by leaders who placed dictators and thugs in power, and then turn around years later to decry the horrible things they do with the tools given them. Turn off your webcasts and your CNN and your Dan Rather saying "Good morning, Baghdad!" through your 42" HDTV surround-sound media center as the bombs start falling, and take a minute to pray to whatever gods you have that this generation will study its history. Maybe we can learn this time.

- monday 03 24 03 -

Holy poo. It's an update. Been a hellaciously busy month, what with being a full-time employee, an aspiring model ... umm, er, I mean modeller, and trying to find time to keep the house clean. While doing all that, I've had time to see some great films, drink some really good beer, and check out a couple of fascinating new technical manuals - please apply as much dripping sarcasm as possible to that last statement.

Beer. Mmmmm. I finally tasted that vaunted nectar of the gods that is Orval. Any beer whose makers are as completely right with God as these monks obviously are has simply got to be good. Wandering through their website is a bit bizarre, wherein you find references to space, time, and beer, all gathered together in homegrown, wheat-colored, monk-rendered HTML. Anyway, on to the beer. First sampled at the best damn bar on the planet during a tasting with this drunken Canadian and this one, too. I have to say that it ranks well into the top ten best beers I've ever had. Excellent body and flavor, just the right mix of hops and yeast sourness, with a beautiful color. I have not been fortunate enough to try it again, mainly because I'm broke and tired. I hope to soon acquire one of the awe-inspiring, Orval-logo-graced glasses that have been retained for me, and not one of the other objects that I have been threatened with. It will sit proudly next to the Chimay glass.

For Marcus - have no idea if the site is worth two shits, but the domain name alone is worth it.

Movies. First up, the most powerful documentary I've seen in a while - 9/11. If you haven't seen it, get it. A gripping look at a day whose impact is still reverberating around the globe. Unforgettable images of courage, willpower, luck, and grief. The shots of the teams of New York firefighters and emergency workers preparing to dig into the WTC rubble with 5-gallon paint buckets brings home the utter helplessness that must have been felt by those tasked with recovering the victims, like planning to dig a rail tunnel with a spoon. You will probably never forget where you were when you first saw the images of the terrorist jets being driven into the towers - see this movie so that you never forget the people who were there first, ready to die to save anyone they could.

Next up, The Devil's Backbone. Guillermo del Toro directed this moody, grim Spanish ghost story set at the end of the 1939 civil war. Slow-paced, with great design and use of lighting accentuating the gothic mood, a great cast of young actors, and some very good performances by the adults. Not widely distributed, but worth hunting down.

Monster's Ball - it's as good as you've heard. Another great performance by a man wacky enough to marry this vampress - he may not have any taste in women, but he can deliver onscreen. Tragedy and ignorance are replaced by redemption, and the whole cast works together to bring a haunting story to a beautiful ending. The squeamish should be aware of the extended bout of graphic sex about half way through the movie - at nearly fifteen minutes, it's about the longest sex scene you're liable to see these days outside of your local den of iniquity.

Lastly, The Ring, a very scary remake of a very scary Japanese horror flick. Some genuinely shocking moments, and the kind of high-grade tension that keeps you sitting on the edge of your seat or crawling under the couch cushions. The visual effects and atmosphere could have skewed over to the cheesy side, but they don't. The film reminded me of Sam Raimi's The Gift, with a harder accent on the shock factor, whereas Raimi focused on the disturbing currents of the Southern gothic genre. I have yet to see the Japanese version, but I plan to get it on my next visit to the local video store.

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