I’ve been busy

by lex

Posted on Monday, September 19, 2005

 

Haven’t been able to keep up with the news.

But, you know. If something big happens? Usually the press will run it for a day or so.

So it surprised me a bit to hear about the elections in Afghanistan. You heard about ‘em probably. All over the news. Happened yesterday, I must have missed it when it first came out (but I heard something about it on the BBC, going to dinner last night). Thought I’d catch up on it today. Had to go to the Ashahi Shimbun. In Japan.

Four years after the end of civil war, long-delayed elections for a legislature were held in Afghanistan…

Huh. Guess they had a civil war. Ended, somehow. Not a lot more about how that might have happened.

(And your point is?)

Michael Moore’s Minutemen

by lex

Posted on Yue, September 20, 2005

Remember this?

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not “insurgents” or “terrorists” or “The Enemy.” They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win.

Sounds noble, dunnit? Well, maybe. But these don’t sound like winning tactics to me (and look hard for some shred of nobility):

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A suicide bomber captured before he could blow himself up in a Shiite mosque claimed he was kidnapped, beaten and drugged by insurgents who forced him to take on the mission. The U.S. military said its medical tests indicated the man was telling the truth.

Mohammed Ali, who claimed to be Saudi-born and appeared to be in his 20s, said he managed to flee after another suicide attacker set off his bomb, killing at least 12 worshippers Friday as they left a mosque in the northern city of Tuz Khormato.

In confession broadcast on state television later that day, Ali told Iraqi interrogators he did not want to bomb the mosque and hoped to go home.

Results from medical tests on Ali were “consistent with his story and characterization of his treatment,” Col. Billy J. Buckner, a U.S. military spokesman said Sunday.

Ali said insurgents kidnapped him from a field near his home earlier this month, then drugged and beat him.

Choose sides. Choose carefully.

No, not you Mikie. We know whose team you’re on.

 

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Rest In Peace

by lex

on December 10, 2005

 

You know, I’m not entirely sure? But I kind of think that Richard Pryor, for all his faults, did more for race relations in this country than all the saints of any color.

You want to scare somebody off, or close their mind? Preach at them.

You want to make them think? First you make them laugh. Make them laugh, and you’ve got their attention.

We’d listen to his records, back in the day, and we’d laugh out loud: “You go down town looking for justice, and what do you find? Just us.”

We laughed and then we learned. Learned what is was like at a remove or two, not being the man.

I hope he found what he was looking for. I hope he can rest in peace.

 

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Friday Musings – 09-23-05

by lex

Posted on September 23, 2005

 

I may have to be short, said the midget to the barmaid, who in return, nodded thoughtfully. I’ve been away a bit, and while I’m finally back at home (woo-hoo!) ahead of the throngs, it’s only just barely. Bad form to spend two weeks in The Beautiful Monterey Peninsula and then come back home and wall yourself into the office for a blog post. Not even because they want to see you so much, as that you want to see them.

Which is every bit as it should be.

It’s the small things in life

That have always fascinated me. It fascinated Lex, too. Both the good things and bad things that affect your life’s major arcs, “but for”. As I had said in my Epilogue  of Neptunus Lex, I just happened to see a post from one of their writers about Lex’s accident, and through curiosity, read a post David recommended. Which ended up putting me on a completly new arc.

The Small Things can bring life-changing events to people, good and bad. Ask any number of people in prison “but for”.

Which reminds me of some of the greatest advice on life I ever received from someone – “Life is nothing more than choices“.

Anywho, I am driving home a few hours ago and spot a cyclist oblivious to the world.

It’s a two-laned road each way, and he is riding down the center of the right lane seemingly without a care in the world. I am watching him as I move to the left lane.

Just then, he swerves right in front of me when I put to the test my ABS brakes. I stop with him in front of the car maybe 2-3 feet, still blithely tooling along. Even the sound of my horn didn’t faze him.

Was he trying to kill himself? I obviously can’t say, but he reminded me of this guy, in his own way sort of a hero to me (in a funny way).

Sometimes ignorance is bliss, sometimes it can kill you.

 

Whittle’s Latest

by lex

Posted on September 7, 2005

Bill Whittle has another of his characteristically long, passionate, well-written posts up today. Give it a read when you’ve got the time. Summat to do with tribes, wolves, sheepdogs and sheep, pinks and grays. Very well received.

A Great Read

by lex

Tue – July 19, 2005

 

Josh Chafetz  * of the Oxblog sends us to an article written by Johns Hopkins University Professor Eliot Cohen.

In it, Cohen is asked three questions, but it’s the last that gives plangent context to the first two:

You supported the Iraq war when it was launched in 2003. If you had known then what you know now, would you still have been in favor of it?

You are a military historian; what does the history of war have to tell us about the future of Iraq?

Your son is an infantry officer, shipping out soon for Iraq. How do you feel about that?

You owe it to yourself to see how he answers.

 

** Link gone – Ed.

History Repeats Itself

by lex

Posted on Wednesday September 7, 2005

 

The first time as a tragedy.

The second time as a farce.

 

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ROE Violations 1, 2, and 3

Things that there probably ought to be a law against, but isn’t apparently – aka, examples of a very strange man breaking major rules of engagement at the athletic club:

1) Walking around the locker room in your altogether, toweling yourself off vigorously while humming the crescendo of the 1812 Overture (complete with simulated cannon fire)

2) Meat-gazing

3) Any combination of numbers 1 & 2

 

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The Advantages of a Parliamentary Democracy

by lex

Posted on July 21, 2005

Are made manifest when a journalist asks the Australian Prime Minister a stupid question about whether British policy in Iraq is to blame for recent terror attacks there.

Parliamentarians learn to be quick on their feet.

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