This is a week of absurd, postmodern nonsense...the resolution of the Duke lacrosse case at the same time Al Sharpton is taking aim at Imus. Hey, Imus' remark made damn'all sense to begin with. Anyone who's watched the women's game in college or in the pros knows that the game is tough, fast and physical. Sue Bird of the Seattle Storm and UCONN has broken her nose in a playoff game and played in the next game...she left the court under her own power, at a dead run because she knew what had happened and was hoping to get some gauze and get back in the game. But with the "over-reaching and unethical" tag placed on the Durham prosecutor, the irony of Sharpton in a tie going after Imus is intriguing...can anyone say Taiwan Brawley? And, what is that lovebird up to these days? Not playing for Rutgers...
Tiffany has been watching Henry V in the Kenneth Branugh version and after watching Emma doing French along with Paul Scofield decided that she needed a herald...and, she plucked Kurt Vonnegut. Well, I gotta say that my favorite was probably Mother Night, despite the wiredly weird Nick Nolte version. (is it me, or is the last good movie he made not Another 48 Hours?). I didn't care much for Slaughterhouse 5. but loved Cat's Cradle. I first picked up his stuff in a little bookstore near Syracuse University where I'd go after my weekend job as a hospital janitor near the university; it's also where I got Thus Spake Zarathustra, my copies of Ramparts and The Evergreen Review and a bunch of other stuff that made me the man I am today...
Oh, and then there's IraqIranAbsurdistan. Robert Gates appears to be a serious anomaly in the upper regions of this administration. An honest man who speaks his mind by just ignoring the president. The extension for the current troops and the in-bound troops has nothing to do with timetables...it has to do with numbers. Tell the Army to train 3 new divisions from scratch and assuming they can get the manpower...which I doubt, by the way...it'll take at least 12 months to train, equip and form them. There simply aren't enough soldiers and Marines to go around...so it goes like this.
"
Word of the extensions reached the American military command post in
Juwayba, Iraq, in a rural area east of Ramadi, overnight when a
sergeant spotted it while surfing the Internet. It was greeted with a
mixture of anger and resignation among the few soldiers who were still
awake. “We’re just laughing,” said Capt. Brice Cooper, 26, the
executive officer of Company B, First Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment
of the First Infantry Division. He was chuckling nervously, his
frustration palpable. “It’s so unbelievable, it’s humorous.”The
soldiers crowded around the outpost’s few computers, sending e-mail
messages to their families and parsing Mr. Gates’s words in the hope of
finding possible loopholes that would exclude them from the extension.
The unit was scheduled to return to its base in Germany in June. The
extension meant it would probably have to stay here until September.“I’m fixing to lose my girlfriend,” one soldier grumbled." There is no good answer...the First Herd is permanently stationed in my old German stomping grounds in Northern Bavaria, and that's a helluva lot nicer in the spring than Iraq has been since, oh, Nebachanazzer...SUUURRRRRGGGGEEEE!
The news that the White House is looking for a WAR CZAR to head up the State and Pentagon's efforts to handle Iraq-Iran-Absurdistan fronts is amusing. First of all, they actually had 3 four-stars already turn them down. The best line was from General Sheehan..."The biggest problem is that they don't know what the hell they are doing..." It's hard to describe how hard it is to get one of these guys -- or most old soldiers -- to say no if called. ( My boss retired 70% disabled. He came in grumbling about a report that we submitted about reserve status saying that he didn't understand why he was listed with a "termination" date for his inactive reserve status. I said hell, that's weird, let me track it down -- but, that was not until I'd checked my status and saw that I was still "indefinite...") People don't get four stars because they are willing to not take risks. However, we are trained to take calculated risks...just marching soldiers into the meat grinder isn't a great idea. Until someone has a great idea, it'll be really hard to get someone who has served for decades to think this is a great idea.
Does anyone honestly think they're looking for anything besides a scapegoat? The word is probably out among the retirees -- you don't want to follow Pete Scoonover back into harness; they don't listen, they don't remember, and they lie. Someone like Barry McCaffrey is not going to not answer when they ask him, "Gee, is there a problem?" They might have feelers out for Stormin' Norman, but that would be a mistake. He has no tolerance for idiots.
Meanwhile, I am in Tacoma, waiting to close on this house and drive back with Mrs. AXE and the Tacoma Terrorist cell to the Crossroads of Opportunity. It's weird after almost a year in the desert...they have water here that just sort of comes out of the sky...
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