Horrors of War Pictures, Primary Day in Indiana, The Rocket and Confession

Of note these past few days:

-via Arianna Huffington's blog, the horrors of war revisited with new found pictures of the aftermath of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The hideous aftermath.

-primary day here in Indiana. First time in a long time it makes a difference. Diane and I both took advantage of the mail-in-your-vote option which we did last Thursday. One thing for sure: Hillary is a fighter; hard to believe that she is still in there slugging it out. And it is very much not over. She got our votes.

-heard on the radio yesterday that Roger Clemens had apologized to his family and fans for unspecified mistakes in his past, a public confession of sorts with the hope that he will receive both his family's and the public's forgiveness, or maybe acceptance, that he is human after all. Just read the NYTimes article. You know, maybe that's not all that bad an idea, that we make this general confession every now and then, ask others to recognize that we are fallible. Of course, asking others to recognize that we are fallible doesn't necessarily mean that we are admitting to ourselves that we are fallible. Expect Roger Clemens still has a pretty fair opinion of himself; seems like that kind of guy.

Fine day to do just about anything. Like go vote. Like go golf.

Lawyers as Heroes, Pat Summitt, Reminders

Pictures: a change of pace: lake shots taken in December of 2007.

Of note:

-digby make noise about heroes who have been trashed by our lawless administration. In brief:

...there is another kind of military hero who isn't going to be fawned over by senators and awarded medals by president Bush --- the military lawyers who risked their careers and freedom to defend the constitution against the lawless actions of the Bush department in this misbegotten War on Terror. And there have been a few.

Go read the whole thing to get an idea of what happens when you go against the wishes of the powers that be.

-the college basketball coach with the most wins ever gets herself another championship. This is one amazing coach: at age 55, she has 983 victories and 8 championships. Wow! (Tennessee beats Stanford in the ladies version of March Madness; Coach is Pat Summitt.)

-I got an email from Hillary's campaign informing me I can vote early, even by mail. Might just do that.

-Don't forget to pay your taxes. Wish more of my tax dollars were going for social benefits rather than military hardware.

Letters from the now dead - powerful stuff

From the NY times, these messages written by our young over in Iraq before they died. Very powerful stuff. Read them all. Ends with a last letter of love.

Five years in Iraq

As you can imagine, the blogs are full of Iraq and things people said in ignorance and bluster five some years ago and are still saying in ignorance and bluster. Let me add my two cents: war is stupid, really stupid. It took twenty some years for United States citizens to get over the shock of Vietnam and let some cowboy take us into another foreign conflict. May it take forty, make that sixty, no, one hundred years before it happens again. Make that one thousand years and that might be too soon. (Just did some off site calculations and, by golly, that is way too soon. Let it, war, be postponed indefinitely.)

Nixon and Kissinger as Mad Men, Hamburger Hill, Chaos

From wired.com, a story about how Nixon and Kissinger acted like mad men to change the course of history. Short take: lets load up a bunch of B-52's with nuclear weapons and send them towards Moscow so that the Soviets and the North Vietnamese will believe that the leaders in the US are mad enough to do such a thing and that they had better immediately race to the peace tables in Paris and beg for some kind of settlement to end the war in Vietnam, or at least get the Soviets to stop sending arms that way. Didn't work then though I would say it has a chance of working now, at least the first part, the part that leads people to believe that Nixon and Kissinger were crazy.

Referenced in the above article is the battle for Hamburger Hill fought in May of 1969 which actually did change the way the war was fought. From wikipedia.com:

The backlash due to the high casualties over a strategically unimportant point led to dramatic changes in the conduct of the war, and Hamburger Hill would be the last major US ground assault of the war.

Hmmm. Wonder how many causulties? Would you believe 84?

Down at the local bank yesterday taking care of busness and had the chance to talk with Dave W. for a bit. The current mess in the home mortage business and the banks that will be affected by it came up. Didn't dawn on me till later but the S&L mess in the late 80's - are we experiencing something similar to that? The wikipedia link references this from John Kenneth Gailbraith:

"the largest and costliest venture in public misfeasance, malfeasance and larceny of all time."^[1]

Wow. So, we have this growning banking and home mortgage problem and we have the three trillion dollar war and we have jobs going who knows where but definitely not to Ohio and we have global warming and windy and rainy weather to boot. Sounds like we're heading into chaos; best get out a board game or a good book or turn on the television or find a place to just sit and watch Carl and Carrie Cardinal having breakfast cause 'times they are a-changing'.

Best go have breakfast and read a little more of Halberstam's The Powers That Be.

Sex, Korea,

Picture: Windy and cold at the golf course yesterday afternoon. Note Jonathan Livingston Seagull making the rounds with me...

Sex is back in the news again. This time with John McCain. Did you know that the French elderly gentleman have a habit of buying drinks for their elderly gentlemen peers who show up in public places (bars and cafes, I guess) with younger women? Would someone send a bottle of red to the presumptive Republican presidential candidate? Jeesh. Come on, America. We're better than this. Btw, Bloomington has no similar tradition to the French one I mentioned above; my daughter, Miki, will attest to that.

Coming to the end of The Coldest Winter. MacArthur has been relieved and returned to the United States where he was received with love and respect, at least for a little while:

On his return from Korea, after his relief by Truman, MacArthur encountered massive public adulation, which aroused expectations that he would run for the presidency as a Republican in the 1952 election. However, a U.S. Senate Committee investigation of his removal (which largely vindicated the actions taken by President Truman), chaired by Richard Russell, contributed to a marked cooling of the public mood, and hopes for a MacArthur presidential run died away. (from the MacArthur link)

Best go have some breakfast and then maybe a walk...

Ruby Tuesday: Traffic, Iran, The Piano Tuner, The Red Sea

Picture: Quiet crossroads in Loogootee shortly after noon today. Siesta time?

Ruby Tuesday: And what came to mind when you saw 'Ruby Tuesday'? This (google rank #4) or this (google rank #1)? Or something else?

Netflix movie this afternoon: Traffic. Michael Douglas stars in this movie dealing with drugs and drug traffic. Lots of action and meaningful stuff on this side of the Mexican border and on the other side, even including subtitles on occasion (when in Mexico). Not a message of hope by any means. Gave it a four - we both enjoyed it.

From WAPO: Iran shut down a suspected effort to build nuclear weapons four years ago. Sure am glad to hear that. Sorry to see our president again getting the intelligence wrong. Glad the CIA is speaking up. Even gladder that the Press is picking it up and reporting it. And now the Press wants to know when the president knew what he knew, like maybe he knew before all the saber rattling about the real danger that we are all in because of Iran's growing nuclear capability. Good for them. I'm interested too though I already know the answer.

Update: Via tpm, Seymour Hersh on CNN saying that WH has know for over a year and that they tried to keep it out of the NIE. My oh my. Doesn't that beat all...

Started a new book, another one of Diane's which she thought I might enjoy as it has a setting in Burma: The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason. So far have traveled around London, across the English Channel to Paris and then by rail to Marseille; from there back on the water to the Suez Canal and down into the Red Sea and onto Bombay and then via rail to Calcutta. Destination: Burma.

It was as I was steaming down the Red Sea with the hero of the book, Edgar Drake, that I wondered how much of Africa to the east and Arabia to the west he was getting to see. Now my thinking was conditioned by the narrowness of the Suez Canal so I was thinking maybe Africa and Arabia weren't all that far apart. Well, just how far is it from one side of the Red Sea to the other? Have any idea? I had a rough idea after looking at a globe and eyeballing the distance between South Bend and Chicago; thought maybe it was comparable, about ninety miles, not a distance very easily spanned by the human eye thus making the Africa on my right and Arabia on my left not a very good construct. But the ninety miles happens to be way off. According to Wikipedia, it's widest point is a hundred and ninety miles. Wow.

So it goes. World turns.

PBS: Bill Moyers' Buying the War: Cudos to Knight-Ridder

As I mentioned last night, PBS was doing a fund raiser. Along with the special Johnny Cash clips from the 60's, they also ran Bill Moyers' Buying the War, a devasting critique of the Press and its role in selling the Iraq War to the Public in the months before March of 2003. It is clear that the Press, with the exception of Knight-Ridder, became propaganda tools of the Bush administration. They rolled over and practically begged to participate in the sham that was the run up to the war. They completely abdicated their role in keeping the Public informed, in asking the right questions, in being skeptical at every turn. They allowed the administration to lie, over and over.

From the link:

How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? How did the evidence disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 continue to go largely unreported? "What the conservative media did was easy to fathom; they had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked. How mainstream journalists suspended skepticism and scrutiny remains an issue of significance that the media has not satisfactorily explored," says Moyers. "How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?"

Moyers gives credit to the Knight-Ridder news organization for getting it right, for being skeptical, for doing the leg work that uncovered the facts and revealed the lies. Alas, the Knight-Ridder voice was drowned out by the roar of the right wing noise machine and the mis information blared from every available outlet, whether news print or television or radio.

Guess this program was originally aired sometime last spring. I missed it the first time.

Wednesday: Golf, IU, State of Denial, Michelle Obama

Picture: Lucas at Lost River a few years back... (I think these are pictures Danielle took when she was back in the area for a visit; think she had already moved to Seattle and Microsoft.)

So yes we did play golf yesterday (Jack B., Ken H., Jack L., and myself) and it should be something that happens again today. No, we don't have the weather they are having out in Palm Springs, but the sun is shining, the greens are lovely, and the golfing company is just great, thank you. Even tried the Bingo, Bango, Bongo golf game which I talked about a few days back (I like it...).

Other notes:

-IU beat Georgia Tech in one of those Big Ten-ACC matchups. Caught a little of the game down at the VFW where I was hobnobbing with George Foster.
-Continuing Woodward's State of Denial. The war has started, Iraq has fallen into chaos, leaders back in the States can't believe it, want the Press to report the good things, spending way too much time dwelling on the chaos. Oh my. And we know that the story doesn't get much better, don't we? Garner a good guy so far; Rumsfeld a fool; lots of turf fighting between State and Defense (Powell and Rumsfeld).
-When it comes to good looks on the spouse's of Barack and Hillary, Michelle Obama wins over Bill Clinton, at least in this quarter.

Got to get to the golf course.

The Crossing, Golf with the Boys, Good News from Basra

Finished Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing today. It's deep and it's dark with not a whole lot of things to cheer about in the entirety of the book. Worth reading? Of course. McCarthy's vision for the most part is pretty dismal but the way he puts together the words is absolutely stunning. One reads not only for the message but also for the sound of it all. This author tells truths that might not be to our liking but he does it with a spoon full of sugar with each chapter, maybe with each page.

Golf with the boys today. Eighteen holes and that was just about enough for each of us. Good neighbor Jack Lents took home the most quarters. Lots of not so pretty shots as one can expect this time of year but then also enough good ones to make us want to try it again tomorrow and the next day as well. Wouldn't want to waste this unseasonable weather we're having...

Good news from Basra, Iraq's second largest city, via Firedoglake and the International Herald Tribune:

Attacks against British and Iraqi forces have plunged by 90 percent in southern Iraq since London withdrew its troops from the main city of Basra, the commander of British forces there said Thursday.

The presence of British forces in downtown Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, was the single largest instigator of violence, Maj. Gen. Graham Binns told reporters Thursday on a visit to Baghdad’s Green Zone.

“We thought, ‘If 90 percent of the violence is directed at us, what would happen if we stepped back?’” Binns said.

Britain’s 5,000 troops moved out of a former Saddam Hussein palace at Basra’s heart in early September, setting up a garrison at an airport on the city’s edge. Since that pullback, there’s been a “remarkable and dramatic drop in attacks,” Binns said.

“The motivation for attacking us was gone, because we’re no longer patrolling the streets,” he said.

Hmmm. Might be something to consider: remove occupying force, reduce violence. Whoever heard of such an idea.

Tuesday: French Revolution, Blackwater

picture: Alleyway colors and stairs in downtown Bloomington.

Notes to get a day started:

-started the day with William Manchester starting his journey of recollection. First stop is Honolulu, then the Philippines.

-from the NYTimes (via Eric), an op-ed that gives an historical parallel to the war on terror of these last several years: the French Revolution, the Jacobins and the Reign of Terror. Not nice.

-from WAPO, a story that suggest the thugs from Blackwater may have been given immunity for their testimony on the most recent Blackwater rampage. What a crock...

Gotta stop. Breakfast and then the golf course... Hoping for a scramble this afternoon - the sun dropped below the tree line about 5:15 pm yesterday. Cool followed.

Notes to get a day started

The World:

-From WAPO: Kurds kill Turks, Americans kill Iraqis. Death on the move picking up souls whose lives have been arrested for unknown crimes. Dispatched to some better place or to no place - we just don't know though each of us will find out eventually, or not.

Sports:

-Red Sox beat the Indians in a 7th game which was great for seven innings, and head to World Series to face Rockies. Would have been fun to see the underdog Cleveland team advance. Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima - two guys from Japan, make super contributions on the mound. Cool.
-Houston loses to Tennessee but not after a 4th quarter that was everything a sports guy could ask for. A guy named Bironas kicks a record setting 8th field goal to give the Titans the win after the Texans had stormed back with 29 points in the 4th quarter to take a one point lead with less than a minute to play. Alas, that was way too much time. Fun to watch. I bet Tennessee did it on purpose just to give the fans in Houston a treat. Of course, most of them had already left after three quarters with their guys down, 32-7. Never give up. Never.
-Patriots' Moss looking super. Of course, I saw the highlights several times yesterday afternoon and he was still making those nifty catches for touchdowns over and over and over, time after time after time. He and Brady are clicking.
-Colts tonight. Has it been a long time since they last played, or what? Go Blue.

Weather, etc:

-Sunny and cool and nice. Time to go play golf. Which reminds me: kept my head absolutely still and my eyes on the ball (or a spot just this side of the ball) during my swing yesterday and actually hit the ball cleanly. Having to wear the glasses all the time is a bummer but I do like to see the far things.

Saturday Wrap: Football Woes, Wie,

-Irish waxed by Trojans, 38-0. Player of the game for the Irish - the punter. TV announcer says "not rubbing it in..." Wouldn't surprise me if that was the first time ever a punter was so celebrated. Irish are indeed woeful.
-Hoosiers hand one to the Nittany Lions. Too many turnovers in this one that reads like the Hoosiers could have won easily.
-Boilermakers win. Hurray.
-Nancy Lopez wants to give Michelle Wie a hug:

It's the mental pressure that Michelle Wie has had to endure that has been really tough. She may have the golf game like a 20 year old, but her mind's still young. For her to have to deal with the press and the media...here she was this great player and often times I would just cringe because I just wanted to take her into a room and hug her and tell her everything's going to be alright. You're young; Just concentrate on having fun.

The way I've been playing, though not because of any mental pressure that I'm aware of, I need to find a Nancy to take me into a room and hug me... Hmmm, that doesn't sound just right. Anyway, we all know it's my new glasses. Dang things.

World turns. More and more news items on Blackwater, that Crusader force fighting the infidel around the world. Worth watching them and reducing them to gate guards at gypsum plants. This is a start - report that says they are to be eased out of Iraq.

Friday Wrap: Blackwater, Patagonia

-Good program on Blackwater and other mercenaries tonight on PBS - the Bill Moyers' Journal. Did you realize that there are more mercenaries in Iraq now that US Military? 180000 to 170000. Makes me wonder what was the extent of mercenaries or extra military personnel in Vietnam. Makes me wonder if the American people would be more enraged if they realized that our government was paying for 350000 military type people in Iraq and that more than half of those were being paid three and four times as much as our men and women in uniform.

-Geography question of the day? Where is Patagonia? And I don't mean the catalog...

Sunday Funnies: Ladies golf, a new read, and the War

Ladies Golf

-got to watch a bit of it yesterday afternoon waiting for the Irish-BC game to come on. Not a whisper about Michelle Wie that I heard. She again has opened terribly and was in 20th place. That would be 20 out of 20, dead last at +19. Ron Sirak at espn.com makes a strong case for why Michelle shouldn't have been there. I agree. More background on Michelle here.
-Suzann Petersen and Lorena Ochoa tied at the top going into the final day of play at -12.

Books

Am reading a book Diane has just finished, one which she often interrupted me in whatever important thing I was engaged in doing so as to share a pearl of wisdom. The book: The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. Set in Hitler times in Munich. Excellent so far, eighty some pages in.

War and Ugliness and Responsibility

Frank Rich in the NYTimes today:

The first paragraph:

“BUSH lies” doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s time to confront the darker reality that we are lying to ourselves.

The last paragraph:

Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name.

Go read what's in between, it will make your skin crawl.

Gotta stop. The weather is lovely. No Colts today. Go Golf, you know that's good for you. We also have two Netflix movies waiting for us: Gods and Monsters, and Chinatown. And a good book started. My cup is full.

Friday Follies: Cubs Must Win, etc.

Picture: August 1962

-In Arizona, the Cubbies dropped a 2nd straight game to the Diamondbacks and put themselves on the very brink of being put out to pasture for the winter. Come on, Cubbies; win one for Ernie, and then another one for your fans, and then the third one for yourselves. The march to the pennant must continue.

-Latest Blackwater incident and Blackwater cowboys getting the attention from the major media that they deserve: link is story from WAPO, and PBS News Hours last night covered story in it's first in-depth segment. Let there be consequences for one's actions - of course, that is something that has been missing these last several years. Guess we're still waiting for the second part of 'what goes around comes around'. Or maybe not - certainly we are seeing a lot of investigations and a lot of screaming and yelling for documents. Too bad impeachment is off the table though what we have in it's stead is a steady stream of bad stuff for this administration, a festering sore that will not heal. And lest we forget, Gonzales and Rove are gone (though not in prison, yet).

-In my reading of The Final Days, it's late in July of 1974 and the Supreme Court has ruled, 8-0, that Nixon must turn over the tapes (those damning tapes!). Nixon, at San Clemente, has issued a statement that he will comply with the ruling and that he has always been a law abiding man. Hmmm...

Enough to get the day started. Heading to the golf course where birdies and eagles are in abundance having been left there by generous and sharing golfers of past days and weeks.

Thursday's Start

Items of Note

from WAPO:

-Gates (not Bush) seeking 190B for wars. Certainly we have better things to do with our money. I say NO. Come back with a better plan, a more reasonable request.
-Oregon judge throws out (voids) parts of Patriot Act, unconstitutional. That's good news.
-Broder on the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP): Republicans following Bush over a cliff. Hmmm. What is up with these guys? I say yes to more health insurance for our kids.

from ESPN:

-Jason Sobel goes through the match ups: the one that struck me as, well, striking, was the David Toms/Jim Furyk fight with Ernie Els and Angel Cabrera. I guess it's the presence of Angel that provides the electricity. Should be fun - who can ever forget the Ernie Els/Tiger Woods fight to the finish a couple of years back (turns out it was back in 2003) when the two of them traded pressure putts till darkness came and Nicklaus and Player decided that nobody should lose?! Declared it a tie. Good stuff.

It's raining here and looks like it will keep on raining for a while. Eric is at the golf course mowing greens. Guess I'll head that way, just for the fun of it.

Morning Morning Chatter: Good Golf, Oil and War, Boyz

At the course yesterday, recently reinvigorated golfer Karry Stoll got his first eagle, a chip in from about twenty feet at #4. And Tuesday Men's League champ John Foddrill was out late in the afternoon with new members Heath Sult (whose uncle, Paul, helped introduce me to golf at Lakeview in the early '90's) and Travis Bullock. They helped Mike Arvin and Scott Schutte turn out the lights.

In our nation's capital, Bob Woodward has a second WAPO article in the last week up about Alan Greenspan and his thoughts, this time on the need to secure oil reserves from Hussein; the headline: Greenspan: The Ouster of Hussein Crucial for Oil Security. Greenspan's thoughts were shared with Bush and Cheney and anybody else who cared to listen. Hmmmm, of course we all remember that that thought/suggestion was quickly and vehemently denied back then in the run up to the war (bloody mess) and after the invasion.

Back here in Loogootee, weather is lovely and I'm heading out to the golf course where golfing today will be superb. About time for another hole-in-one, isn't it?

And a reminder for those of you who can play in the morning: the Tuesday Boyz are having their East-West match play event; 18 holes of golf, best ball, scramble, alternate shot; starts at 8:30. Call and sign up. East squad is looking for ringers (smile).

Strong Condemnation of Efforts Since 9/11

From Firedoglake and Scarecrow: (yes it's worth reading and there is no need for me to comment, just weep.)

What Should Have Followed 9/11

By: Scarecrow

Keith Olbermann’s coverage (video here) of the commemoration of 9/11 reminded us of what might have been, had we had genuine leaders that fateful day.

On September 11, 2007, the nation should have been able to congratulate itself that the people who planned and organized the mass murders of US citizens six years earlier had been brought to justice. Instead, we saw videos of al Qaeda’s leaders taunting us and threatening to attack again.

We should have been able to point with pride to an exemplary system of justice set up to bring the 9/11 perpetrators to justice. Instead, we have been shamed by policies that authorized torture, kidnapping, and rendition; shamed by Abu Ghraib, by Guantanamo, and by the Military Commissions Act; and shamed by the fact that not one of the Administration lawyers who approved these shameful practices was ever fired, disciplined or disbarred — though all should have been.

The nation should have been able to focus its mourning exclusively on the 3,000 Americans people who were murdered that day, but instead we now mourn another 3770 3776 (and still counting) additional dead Americans plus nearly 28,000 wounded, plus tens/hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties — men, women and children killed, wounded or brutalized in an unnecessary war because our dishonest President and his crazed Vice President chose to fabricate a linkage between the leaders of Iraq and the perpetrators of 9/11 while hyping the dangers of WMD that never existed. Not one person has been held accountable for these massive deceptions or the unspeakable suffering they caused.

Americans should have been assured that we had, through our courageous and principled response to 9/11, earned the decent respect for the opinions of mankind. We should have set the model for an enlightened approach that focused as much on discouraging the rise of religious extremism and its causes as on stopping those already committed to violence. Instead we find ourselves despised for our post-9/11 policies and blamed for the resurgence of al Qaeda and violent extremism that now confronts a dozen allies.

We should have been able to come together, united as a country and proud of having survived 9/11 with renewed honor and respect for each other, for the rule of law, for the freedoms that have attracted so many generations to our land. But instead we are deeply divided, our constitutional government under siege, our privacy rights routinely violated, and the rule of law disregarded by our Executive.

We were still in mourning on September 11, 2007, because we have an Administration that has wasted much of the last six years making things worse instead of redeeming our future. We still grieve, but the Bush/Cheney regime has managed to push the original 9/11 tragedy out of the top spot of the losses for which our nation grieves.

Movie and News

Netflix movie night, this time Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. Full of blood and gore, running, chasing, sacrifice, death. Not a love story. We both enjoyed it.

And after the movie I watched way more than I really wanted to see of the General (Petraeus) and the Ambassador (Crocker) spinning tales on PBS' News Hour. What a crock. Would somebody please start the parade so that the little boy in the front can say to anyone who cares to listen that the king is wearing no clothes? I wish somebody would do a side by side of Petraeus and Westmoreland just so we could see how the times they really haven't changed that much when it comes to the stories our government tells the people.