Cherry Jump

On Tuesday I had the pleasure of completing my "cherry jump" with the 82nd Airborne. I'm not finding much online explaining the tradition of the cherry jump, so here goes:

Here in the 82nd Airborne Division (and elsewhere), a new soldier to the unit is known as a "cherry" (I'm assuming you can follow the connotation), and his first jump in Division is known as his "cherry jump" or "cherry blast". While this part of the tradition has now been gutted in an ill-targeted crackdown on "hazing", the cherry soldier used to be given a cherry-red helmet cover to single him out (which would also, to my mind, rather helpfully alert the jumpmasters to his inexperience). The cherry is also given a cherry pie to carry in his pocket during the jump, which he then eats on the drop zone after his landing. Complicating this process, however, are his fellow paratroopers who, through much good-natured punching, ensure he lands with nothing but a charleyhorse and a pocketful of cherry goo.

So that's the tradition, but I missed out on most of it. One of my buddies had indeed bought a full cherry pie (instead of the usual Hostess single-serve pie) for the three cherries in our platoon, but I ended up in a different "chalk" (a single planeload of paratroopers) and so managed to jump without my pocketful of pie. Oh well. I've got that out of my way, and got my first precious scrap of Airborne credibility.

Which is not to say the jump went off without a hitch. After a shockingly early wakeup call and zero-dark-thirty manifest formation, we arrived at the drop zone to find that, in all-too-classic fashion, our unit had failed to procure both parachutes and working aircraft for the day's jump. One could be forgiven for incredulously exclaiming that these are, in point of fact, the two sole necessary elements of an airborne operation. But, you see, you would be applying sense, and the fact of the matter is that, particularly in garrison training operations, the Army rarely makes any. Eventually, though, 'chutes were scrounged and a bird was summoned, and we jumped. And I'll never understand what makes a sky full of paratroopers such a beautiful sight, but maybe I've drunk just a bit of that Airborne Kool-Aid, because this is awe-inspiring:


Next time I jump I'll try to post a good short video of the jumpers coming out of the bird. It's awesome.

All aside, it was a good jump and a safe landing, even if it was a bit harder than textbook. It's well and good to angle your body to adjust for your direction of drift, but they never really tell you what to do when you're falling straight down. Land like a sack o' potatoes, apparently. Oh, and the green patch that looks thick and soft from 200 feet up? Yeah, that's blackberry briar and it's nowhere near as soft as it looks.

Protestant America

Joseph Bottum of First Things shares a fascinating historical perspective on Protestantism in America. Having been educated in the limestone tower of Mainline Lutheran (ELCA) academia, much of Bottum's analysis rings true as things I'd known, without knowing I knew. (And apparently I can simultaneously channel Plato and Mr. Rumsfeld). I really like his analysis of American society resting on the three-legged stool of democracy, capitalism, and religion, and his social and economic analysis of civil religion's role in general. As to where that society can be headed on a two-legged stool none of us can say for certain, but neither politics nor economics has a good track record in trying to fill the role of civil religion.

Cake Wrecks

A new fun blog: Cake Wrecks. A gallery, with commentary, of some truly appalling cakes (and a few totally awesome ones). My favorite is titled I'll Take My Chances. That or the cake-entombed baby. Yeah, you read that right.

Zucchini

Big Doofus reveals the truth behind the Zucchini Conspiracy. Concerned citizens beware.

Priorities

Apparently Obama's got 'em, but they don't reflect particularly well on him, as PowerLine reports. What amazes me more than his preference for sightseeing rather than visiting wounded soldiers in Germany is that -- again -- the allegedly masterful campaigner seems unaware of or indifferent to the sort of message these choices send. We must conclude that is either a) a fool, or b) cynical enough to write off the yellow-ribbon crowd as already lost to him and not worth the trouble of pandering.

Book Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns

I just finished reading Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. It's a very good book, and its popularity gives me faith in the American book-reading public. I know he made his name with The Kite Runner, and they already made a movie and all, but this book is better. Hosseini's storytelling talent and incredibly, almost painfully honest portrayals of the guts and grit of human relationships, which made The Kite Runner so rightfully popular, are here refined even further. So, too, is the pain and torment, the heartbreak, the devastation of a whole country told through so many devastations of individual lives.

There was a particular point that caught me, though, in the midst of all the terror and destruction wrought by the waves of utopian revolutionaries, Soviet "liberators", counterrevolutionaries, and holy warriors of all stripes whose various crusades all but destroyed Afghanistan. At one point in the novel, a character is standing trial before a Taliban judge, who explains in the sentencing that while the circumstances of the crime tempted him to mercy, he was himself nearing death, and feared that he would be held to account for his failure to uphold God's law. He imagines God standing judgement upon him saying, "But it was not for you to forgive, Mullah". Probably the second-most common Muslim epithet for God is al-Rahman, the merciful. Every letter, every document, every memo in the devout Muslim world is headed by the phrase bismallah al-rahman wal-rahim. In the name of God, the Merciful, the Benificient. Islam hangs all hope of salvation on this, the mercy of God. Does God really then hold a monopoly on mercy?

This point struck me so because it is the complete reversal of a Christian understanding. My God is indeed not merciful, not in the sense of a pitying judge who pardons the truly guilty, for He is just, and justice demands payment for sin. This payment has been made. Our sins are not pardoned out of mercy, they are absolved by Christ's redeeming sacrifice. All of which allows us to leave divine judgement where it belongs, in God's hands. A judge, no matter his personal faith, does God's work when he rules wisely according to the law of the land. We ought not be so bound by the Law that we fear damnation for encroaching on God's mercy, for stepping on His toes.

Back at Bragg

For my four readers who aren't family members or reading this on Facebook, I'm now safely back in the best country on the planet: Not Iraq. Specifically, America. Or 'Murka, if you're Toby Keith. We've been having lots of free time since we got back, which is rather nice. Still waiting to get most of my stuff out of storage and get fully moved into the barracks. It's definitely a different feeling, settling into a place with the expectation of staying a while, rather than just living out of one's bags, waiting to leave again. I haven't gotten internet in my room yet, but there's at least coffeshops and such here I can use, so I'll likely be posting on a fairly regular basis again. I've got a lot of material in my mental queue, so expect plenty of stories and reflections from my deployment.

Classic Moments in Soldiering: Hey, Try This!

This exchange came as we scarfed down the goodies out of a care package that had been handed to us as we sat around the chaplain's tent today. We found a bag of peanut butter M&Ms that was already torn open, spilling some into the box, which I snatched and tossed into my mouth.

Me (chewing): Uh, this bag wasn't sealed and these kinda taste like diesel exhaust.
Sgt D (eating): Yeah, definitely diesel exhaust.
Me: So, uh, you gonna stop eating them?
Sgt D (still eating): Hmmmmm, thinkin' about it.

So we stopped eating, but we definitely didn't throw them away, because we had to offer them to anyone who came into the tent. And it wasn't like we were tricking anyone:

Us: Hey, try one of these. They taste like diesel.
Them: Awesome. (tries one). Gross.
Us: Yeah, ain't it?

It's the little things.

Soundtrack to My Life

Oh, it was getting about time to participate in another silly meme. So here we go, courtesy of IndianaJane.

Here's how it works:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...
7. Include commentary

Opening Credits: Zak and Sara, Ben Folds Five.
Pretty good start, to a quirky romantic comedy. Which is not at all what I imagine my life to be.

Waking Up: I Can't Help It, Johnny Cash.
Starting the day with unrequited longing? At least the dragging beat fits my typical morning mood.

First Day at School: Wolverine, Sufjan Stevens.
Fitting: hesitant, understated. "Take it in stride, take it in stride, take it in stride. It's not your fault, it's not your fault, it's not your fault". I wish someone had told me that then!

Falling in Love: It's Been So Very Long, Plankeye.
Pop-punk's a strange genre for love, but the lyrics are perfect: "It's been so very long, since I've been man enough, to be the kind of man, if I'm'onna hold your hand."

Fight Song: La redecouverte. Yann Piersen (Amelie soundtrack).
The fight occurs in surreal silence behind a lilting waltz of an accordion, a glockenspiel, maybe, what is that, a klavinette? Is that the right name for that? Anyways: Awesome.

Breaking Up: Pancho and Lefty, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard.
I throw my banged-up guitar into my rusted musclecar and tear off down a dusty country road. Cue montage of me drinking my sorrows away in a series of increasingly shady roadhouses, finding myself down and out in a gutter, pulling out that picture of my girl that I just couldn't let go of, throwing away my fifth of cheap whiskey in disgust (which shatters, because in movies even cheap booze still comes in glass) and climbing onto a bus headed for home.

Prom: Oh, Fugazi.
This soundtrack rather optimistically imagines my high school to have been much hipper to the indie scene than is plausible for rural east-central Wisconsin. Also, you can't dance to this, but it'd be amusing to see someone try.

Life's Ok: This Is Not a Love Song, The Juliana Theory.
This would make for a very bittersweet sort of "Life's Ok" moment. Maybe this is fitting for a Dark Lutheran? "and you're so far away, and I'm sitting right here. It's ten o'clock your time, and it's one by mine".

Mental Breakdown: Take the "A" Train, Duke Ellington.
Hahahahaha. I love it. My soundtrack is so very appropriately surreal.

Driving: Janine, Soul Coughing. This is more than just a trip, this a journey. A journey of self-discovery. Contemplative, mournful, dirty acoustic guitar scratching, and the gonzo touch of a lo-fi answering-machine recording of a woman singing "The Lemon Tree" (tune-and-rhythmlessly) playing in the background through the length of the song.

Flashback: It's a Scientific Fact, Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans (the Singing Science records). Definitely a flashback, but not exactly what we were going for. "It's a scientific fact that there are belts of radiation in outer space that are a hazard for future space travelers to overcome."

Getting Back Together: Lady Eboshi, (Princess Mononoke soundtrack).
Haunting orchestral melody, pizzicato strings opening to an oboe solo, brimming with mournful hope. The past cannot be forgotten or overcome, but the pain strengthens our love.

Wedding: The Colony Room, The Sea and Cake.
Now is the time for something understated and light-hearted. We don't want to overdo anything.

Birth of Child: Amazon, M.I.A.
What better to commemorate the birth of a child than underground Lankan-British trip hop self-produced on a 4-track mixer in a London basement?

Final Battle: The Gash, The Flaming Lips.
The song is about not quitting, as much as any Flaming Lips song is about anything. I suppose that works. I just wish it had been "Fight Test". That'd have been perfect. Oh well.

Death Scene: Narcolepsy, Ben Folds Five.
I guess that works. It's sort of epic-tragic anyway. I'd like to think of my life as more the former than the latter, but you take what you get.

Funeral Song: Cinders and Smoke, Iron and Wine.
"Give me your hand, take what you will tonight. I'll give it as fast, and high as the flame will rise. Cinder and smoke, you ask me to pray for rain, with ash in your mouth, you ask it to burn again." Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.

End Credits: Brazil, Grant Green.
(from the Brazil soundtrack, which is something like 17 different versions of the same tune).
A nice electric jazz guitar version of the old standard. A fitting end to the strange movie of my life.

The Face Of Hope

Meet Sheikh Ahmad Fatah Khan al-Rishawi. He and his late brother Sheikh Sittar (assassinated by al-Qaeda last fall) have been architects of the "Awakening" movement that since summer of 2007 has seen Sunni tribes in Anbar province join with each other and with coalition forces to rid their lands of al-Qaeda, and which has become the archetype for American counterinsurgency efforts throughout Iraq. Now he's offered to send his tribesmen as advisors to Afghanistan.

Remember hearing how Iraq's tribes were going to be such a stumbling block? We don't know anything about their relationships, it's a dangerous wildcard, we told ourselves. Seems nobody had the optimism to believe that a social institution that has provided a coherent framework for Iraqi life through millennia of upheaval just maybe could turn out to be a stabilizing force.

And So The Luster Fades

In a few short months, my opinion of Senator Barack Obama has degraded considerably, to say the least. At the start, when I knew nothing of him but what he chose to present of himself, I was suitably impressed. I never thought much of his policies (or lack thereof), but I at least believed in his idealism. When his church was shown to be a hotbed of racial contempt and grievance-mongering I at least admired his willingness to stand by his associates, even while he artlessly dodged the implications of those associations. I lost the last of my personal respect for him when, so soon after defending his pastor of 20 years, he publicly sacrificed the Rev. Wright on the altar of political expedience. Call me old-fashioned, but loyalty still means something to this soldier.

Then came Mr. Obama's autohagiographic commencement speech this past Memorial Day weekend, with its strangely limited conception of service. For Obama, improving the lives of others apparently only counts as "service" when you're an underpaid left-wing rabble-rouser or organ of a maternalistic government bureaucracy. Referencing the economic challenge of India and China, Obama calls for graduates to become not engineers, scientists and tradesmen, but teachers and administrators. He quotes a young man who joined the Peace Corps “because it was the first time someone asked me to do something for my country.” This young man has seemingly never seen an Armed Forces recruitment ad anywhere, ever. And those men and women many of us think of first when we think of "service" -- firefighters, policemen, armed servicemen -- who daily protect Americans from those people and forces that would do them harm? Ironically for a speech on service, "the Service" earned not even a mention from Mr. Obama.

After all that, however, it was Senator Obama's victory speech last night in St. Paul that turned my ambivalence to disgust. There are a lot of things in this speech I could write pages about: Obama's disingenuous mischaracterizations of John McCain; his arrogant naivety in thinking that handing out international legitimacy like party favors counts as "tough, direct diplomacy"; his Obamessianic promise to retrochronically create the fields of health care and employment while channeling King Canute's promise to command the tides (and without the good King's pious intent); his fascistic sanctification of "change", as if we live in the worst of all possible worlds and any change must be for the better; or his adolescent whinging that McCain hasn't given him an attaboy for his (unsuccessful) campaign to get asbestos removed from some Chicago tenements at the same age McCain was having his bones broken in a North Vietnamese prison camp. But I'll leave all that aside for the one unforgivable quote of the speech:

[I]t's not change when [John McCain] promises to continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians.

Mr. Obama, before now I was thinking that you really need to visit Iraq, to understand the imminent victory from whose jaws you are so intent on snatching defeat. But after that remark, I truly wish you wouldn't visit Iraq -- though I know political expedience will force you to -- because you have no right to stand alongside the Iraqi politicians you sneer at. If you must go, however, I wish their examples might teach you what hope means when it's not just a pleasant buzzword. These men risk their lives daily to build a future for their country; many have had family members kidnapped and killed. We ask nothing?! They risk everything! They risk everything because they. have. hope. Hope for the future and faith in their countrymen. You would present yourself as an expert on hope, but your denial of the courage and determination of these brave men -- and your cynical reliance on the ignorance and indifference of your supporters to the undeniable political progress being made in Iraq -- has made me realize that whatever you mean by that word, it's something I don't even recognize.

Basrah, After

In March the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police, with limited support from American and British forces, took back control of the port city of Basrah from assorted bands of smugglers and puritanical thugs under the aeges of the Jaysh al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) and Iranian-supported "special groups". While Prime Minister al-Maliki's new-found willingness to confront Shi'a extremist groups closely tied to his political base was a welcome development, at first the rather slapdash execution of the operation rightly made concerned observers a bit nervous. I stated back in April (a bit boldly, in hindsight) that the IA had proven the naysayers wrong, and it seems the center continues to hold as IA and government-aligned civilian militias keep the peace. Basrah joins the majority of Iraqi cities on the path toward a semblance of normalcy, something even the Washington Post can celebrate with a photoessay of life cautiously coming out of the shadows. At the start of the Basrah operation, I called these "dangerous but hopeful times for Iraq". The danger is most certainly not past, and any progress is reversible. But these pictures speak to the power of hope.

Hiatus

Looking ahead at some changes coming down the pipeline, I figure I should give my loyal readers the heads-up that I'll probably be taking a bit of a hiatus from blogging. Things are getting busy as we prepare for redeployment in a few months, and at some point we'll be moving into tents to make room for our replacements coming in. Long story short, since I don't know exactly when I'll suddenly find myself without internet access, I'm letting you know now so you don't worry if I stop posting for a month or so.

Camel Spider

I have now truly been to Iraq. I have seen the quasi-mythical camel spider. I say quasi-mythical because the creature soldiers tell stories about and the actual beast are pretty much two separate things. The one I saw was just scuttling alongside the path to the bathroom the other night. It was pretty creepy, but I managed to refrain from stomping it. And I'd still prefer that to a scorpion. Haven't seen any of them yet, surprisingly. I would have imagined this place to be crawling with them.

So let me let you in on a little secret, should you ever find yourself out here in the desert. I haven't actually needed this advice, due to the aforementioned lack of scorpions and seeming rarity of camel spiders in this area, but I figure I'll pass it along. Apparently some soldiers like to pull a fast one over on the new guy by taking bets on a staged battle between a camel spider and a scorpion. After all the horror stories he's heard about them, the new guy will always bet on the larger, more fearsome-looking camel spider. But here's the secret: scorpion always wins. There. I just saved you 5 very hypothetical bucks.

Battle Hymn

For Memorial Day, John Hinderaker over at PowerLine posted a nice recording of his children's school choirs singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I imagine it would be pretty moving except that whenever I hear that tune, thanks to the Airborne brainwashing they play over the loudspeakers every morning in Braggistan, all I hear are the words to "Blood on the Risers":

There was blood upon the risers, there were brains upon the chute,

Intestines were a'dangling from his Paratrooper suit,

He was a mess, they picked him up, and poured him from his boots,

And he ain't gonna jump no more

Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,

Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,

Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,

He ain't gonna jump no more!

The Airborne has ruined me.

Memorial Day Post

Happy Belated Memorial Day.

Forgive me, but I'm 8 hours (at least) ahead of most of y'all and I work nights now to boot. I'm not going to go too in-depth on my thoughts on Memorial Day; I think I wrung most of that out a bit prematurely. But on this (second-?)most patriotic national holiday, I'm struck by how many Americans are confused or conflicted on what constitutes the proper expression of patriotism. A captain I trained with and greatly respect used to rail against the sort of flag-waving patriotism he saw as cheap and hollow. And I think he had a point, to a degree, that patriotism and even "support" for the military can be cheap, when it's nothing but words and flags and bumper stickers. On the other hand, I consider all the soldiers' charities out there that provide real support for wounded veterans our government is failing. I sleep under a camo quilt handmade for me by some very hard-working ladies from my hometown. And my PT score is gravely threatened by all the goodies we receive. Some of these things are weightier than others, obviously, but none is trivial.

Melody of Boots on the Ground has a good reflection on a civilian's patriotic duty:

It's my responsibility... that I value my freedoms enough to fight for them here at home while she fights for them overseas. [My emphasis].

Ain't that the truth.

Lieberman On Obama

The Wall Street Journal has published an editorial by independent Democrat (and one still worthy of the name) Joseph Lieberman, adapted from a speech he presented May 18 to Commentary magazine. In it he addresses the (historically aberrant) McGovernite trend in Democratic foreign policy and its unfortunate resurgence in the post-9/11 Democratic party and particularly in the person of Barack Obama. He deconstructs Obama's fallacious historical justifications for the gaffe-become-doctrine of unconditional meetings with foreign tyrants. It's good stuff.

Not-So-Big Oil

Following up my previous comments on the subject, and Melody's question about when people are going to start really getting upset about the price of oil, PowerLine today had a pair of items that really point the finger at those ultimately responsible for the price Americans pay for oil: state oil companies in foreign countries who control 94% of the world's proven reserves, and those politicians in America who have blocked even exploration of domestic oil and near-oil resources, lest Americans come to know exactly how badly they're being screwed. America's oil companies are tiny compared to the foreign state-owned monopolies from whom they are forced to purchase crude. ExxonMobil, America's oil "giant", controls one measly percent of global oil reserves, making it the world's 14-largest by that measure. Only 7% of the worlds total reserves is up for unrestricted bidding by private companies, while almost 75% is completely off-limits, controlled by state oil companies. So who's the big bad wolf?

Orwellian Influence at the BBC

Don't get me wrong. I'm no Holocaust Denier. I am, however, just old-fashioned enough to think that skepticism is the root of science rather than a threat to it, and according to some that puts me in the same camp. I don't even deny the central premise, that global temperatures have risen and that human activity has some connection to that. What needs further study is 1) the strength of that connection and 2) real analysis of the costs and benefits of a warmer world. And I'm with Bjørn Lomborg; we need to think rationally about whether our money and efforts are better used trying to forestall a global phenomenon or simply adapting to it. Meanwhile the tactics of those who ominously insist "the time for debate is over" just get spookier. Jennifer Marohasy's Politics and Environment blog posts an e-mail exchange between a BBC Environment reporter Roger Harrabin and "climate-change" activist Jo Abbess. (HT: Pajamas Media). It seems the reporter's original story on decreasing global temperature, while factually correct according to the World Meteorological Organization, would supply dangerous material to "skeptics" and thus should be edited to fit the activist-established reality. Or, as Abbess puts it, "emerging truth". When Abbess writes demanding he change his reporting, Harrabin initially takes a very reasonable line:

If the [secretary-general] of the WMO tells me that global temperatures will decrease, that's what we will report.

Abbess, however, persists in chilling terms:

Personally, I think it is highly irresponsible to play into the hands of the sceptics/skeptics [for someone otherwise so sure of herself, what's with the indecision?] who continually promote the idea that "global warming finished in 1998", when that is so patently not true.

It is hard to tell exactly what will happen based on historical science. However, the broad sweep is : added GHG means added warming. Please do not do a disservice to your readership by leaving the door open to doubt about that.

The next correspondence only gets more Orwellian:

Your word "debate". This is not an issue of "debate". This is an issue of emerging truth. I don't think you should worry about whether people feel they are countering some kind of conspiracy, or suspicious that the full extent of the truth is being withheld from them. Every day more information is added to the stack showing the desperate plight of the planet.

It would be better if you did not quote the sceptics. Their voice is heard everywhere, on every channel. They are deliberately obstructing the emergence of the truth.

And it wouldn't be a clear-cut case of intellectually thuggery without a credible threat:

Otherwise, I would have to conclude that you are insufficiently educated to be able to know when you have been psychologically manipulated. And that would make you an unreliable reporter.

I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution, unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics.

In other news, I'm currently reading a book that traces the historical relationship between real, historical fascism (as opposed to the more-common definition" "an idea so bad I don't have to engage it intellectually") and progressive politics. Go figure.

Remembering

Peter, a fellow Ole working in youth ministry in Petrozavodsk, Russia, has a great post on the Russian celebration of Victory Day, roughly equivalent to our Memorial Day. His piece led me to reflect on what led me on the path to becoming a Soldier, a path very far removed from everything I had expected or imagined for myself. I suppose now's as good a moment as any to share the story.

There are all sorts of reasons I enlisted, of course. Such a major life choice doesn't spring from a single motivating factor. When the standard script of military smalltalk gets to "so what brought you into the Army?", I usually mention how the linguistic training I could get in the Army more specifically matched my aspirations than anything available in graduate school. But of course, having almost zero contact with the military sphere, I wouldn't have even learned about what training was available if I hadn't been looking into it. So why, during my senior year of college, with a defiantly impractical Classics degree within my reach, was I considering military service? The moment that first opened the door for me to consider military service was, in fact, lost to me for some time. I had completely forgotten about it. I spent my first year in the Army not exactly remembering what had led me to consider enlistment in the first place.

Then, sometime last year, I remembered. It was the fall of my senior year, while I was circumnavigating this beautiful and tragic world of ours, that I found myself at the battlefield of Al-Alamein on Egypt's Mediterranean coast. I'd been to war memorials before, and never really managed to internalize much of what I saw. This time, it was different. The North African campaign wasn't even a particularly brutal sideshow of WWII. It's celebrated as much as it is precisely because it featured the (comparatively) easy morality of soldiers fighting soldiers in a desert landscape devoid of "collateral damage". That said, when we visited the German mausoleum and the Commonwealth cemeteries, I was overwhelmed. The German monument includes a dedication to the truly unknown soldiers, those whose remains left no clue to their nationality. It is a tribute to the universality of patriotism, and of sacrifice. But it was in the Commonwealth cemetery, with its rows upon rows of simple headstones, where I was convicted. Each stone there bears a name, a rank, a date, and a relationship. I was saddened -- though not shocked -- to see the numerous stones marked "brother" and "son", over men who died at 18, 19, 20. What took my breath away, left me weeping quietly in the desert, were the stones marked "father". Too many young men with young families of their own lay dead on that desert plain. Too many young women, young mothers, received that terrible news. Too many children grew up with a medal and a photograph on the mantle in the place of a father. Yet England knew well that the price her young men paid -- not to mention their widows and children -- was the fair price of freedom in this dark world. It was on that desert plain, wandering between the gravestones, that I was convicted by the sacrifice of all those young fathers. They had so much more to lose than I, so many more depending on them, and they gave it all. Somewhere deep inside I asked myself if I could risk the same.

I left Alamein and promptly forgot all about duty and honor and sacrifice, for a time. I was still in college, after all. The example of the soldiers buried there had opened a door, however, one that never entirely closed again. And here I am.

Something New Every Day

Today, while reading an entertaining piece by St. Olaf professor Gordon Marino on the author David Mamet's fondness for Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I was surprised to find the word transmogrify slipped into a piece of otherwise stolid prose. I, of course, immediately connected this word to Calvin and Hobbes and pegged it for a sly tribute. Not so, according the the Online Etymological Dictionary, for transmogrify dates back to 1656. Go figure.

Reflections on Vengeance

For all those who extol the virtues of traditional, peaceful, aboriginal cultures, unsullied by the violence and greed of technological civilization, Jared Diamond has some reflections on vengeance in the Papuan highlands.

It's been said that the root of conservatism is the heartfelt belief that civilization is both precious and fragile. The Burkean war of all against all is not, after all, so very far removed from our daily lives. It lurks just below the surface, in each dark animal impulse we resist out of respect for morality and law. But those ideals make for a dangerously thin wall, and there are those who continue to dig at its foundations.

Further Reading: Theodore Dalrymple has said much more, and much better, on this topic.

Guess They're All Just Hajji to Him

I'm used to gently correcting fellow soldiers on this point, but it seems even Barack Obama hasn't gotten the news that Iraq and Afghanistan are very different places. Via ABC News (HT: PowerLine and Hot Air), Obama said in a recent speech in Missouri:

Obama posited — incorrectly — that Arabic translators deployed in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan — forgetting, momentarily, that Afghans don’t speak Arabic.

“We only have a certain number of them and if they are all in Iraq, then its harder for us to use them in Afghanistan.”

His campaign put out a nice response to ABC, of the usual "if you consider that I was actually referring to this and not that, you'll see I was right all along" line. Sorry, not buying it. I'm willing to grant that he probably did know -- if he stopped to think about it -- that they don't speak Arabic in Afghanistan, but simply misspoke. That doesn't absolve the issue for me, as mentally conflating two very. different. places. shows a significant lack of depth of understanding either one.

I Want One

Microsoft's former chief of technology has commissioned the construction (for a cool million dollars) of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2, what would have been, had it been built in its time, the world's first computer, capable of computing polynomial calculations of over 30 digits. In analog. 8,000 moving parts, which when cranked by hand spool out calculations on paper tape. It's a work of art, it really is, and if any of my readers make it out to Silicon Valley in the next year it's on display, I think it'd be worth seeing.

Preterition

In follow-up to my piece on Hillary's gripe with OPEC and in reference to Necessary Roughness, I was going to throw in my own two cents on the subject of peak oil. But after reading numerous websites declaring that civilization will collapse as a result of, well, commodity speculation, I just lost interest. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've long held that while I don't expect to see civilization collapse in my lifetime, I wouldn't be all that surprised. So I'm sympathetic to the homesteader's mindset of living self-sufficiently, just in case. But there's a big difference in mindset between living a simple country lifestyle and filling your basement with astronaut food. And of all the things I can imagine bringing down civilization, a shock in the petroleum market isn't one of them. So there, Peak Oilers, I think you're wrong, but I just don't care enough to bother explaining why in any detail. More vacuum-packed survival rations for you, I guess.

Bad News from the Sudan

Granted, that's one of the world's more unnecessary headlines. But, no matter how evil and oppressive the Khartoum regime in the Sudan is, rebels on the outskirts of the capital is not good news. As bad as the current government is, I don't want to see Sudan go the way of the Congo.

Windfall Profits Tax

In reference to my previous post on Hillary's gripe with OPEC, I've also got a few excerpts from Jonah Goldberg over at National Review Online, on the proposal to tax the "windfall profits" of oil companies:

Imagine this. You've built the better mousetrap... You take your invention and, with your last few pennies, manage to bring it to market. It’s a smash hit. It starts flying off shelves. You earn back the investment in raw materials and maybe something close to compensation for your time. Now you’re ready for the big payoff. There’s just one thing left to do: make an appointment with the regional Reasonable Profits Board to find out how much of your windfall is reasonable for you to keep... members of the Reasonable Profits Board will determine how much of your already-taxed profits cross the “rational threshold.”

“Windfall,” of course, is just another word for “undeserved,” which is why windfall profits are defined as the profits earned by someone other than you.

If you tell oil companies that they won’t be able to keep their profits past a certain point, you know what they’ll do? They’ll make money right up until that point and then they’ll stop. Unlike the guy building the better mousetrap, oil companies aren’t in it for the glory, they’re in it for the money.

Meanwhile, less investment in exploration and efficiency will cause pump prices to rise (less supply = higher prices) and, as in the 1980s, cause us to rely on more foreign oil. But, by all means, let’s do it, because Big Oil is bad and someone — or everyone — has to pay for it.

Hillary vs. OPEC

So Hillary Clinton has decided to direct America's oil-price frustrations at OPEC. It's a reasonable political move, I suppose, since the cartel does perform a great deal of supply-side manipulation of the oil market. It's also a natural progression when you've burnt out on blaming oil companies and their "obscene profits" (which are only obscene in gross; as a percentage of oil companies' massive revenues, they are in fact quite small). I just wonder, what exactly does she intend to do about it? Scold them? Get us into a devastating trade war? She proposes to bring them to court under US anti-trust law, as well as filing a WTO complaint. So yeah, somewhere between options A and B. And, when you get right down to it, I don't blame OPEC. It's their oil, and they can do what they please with it, as far as I'm concerned. When we've pumped our last drop of American oil, and our children are huddled in the cold because we can't afford to heat our homes and OPEC is still refusing to increase production, well, then we'll start to have a moral case against them. Until then, while we still sit on millions of barrels of oil we'd prefer not to pump for aesthetic reasons, the grandstanding rings a bit hollow. They won the geologic lottery, and good for them. They're not even a particularly effective cartel, anyway, as members are constantly producing above OPEC limits, and they only control one portion of a globally-traded commodity.

All in all, I'm getting tired of all the hand-wringing about energy prices. The high price of oil is reflecting how much we need it, and how many other people (read: China, India) want it. Got it. The fact that it is likely to stay this high means that huge amounts of money are now being invested freely in all sorts of alternative energy technologies. Coal-to-oil conversion is competitive with petroleum at around $35 a barrel; last I checked, we're looking at nearly four times that price today. Meanwhile, as the shock of $125 oil filters through the energy industry, all sorts of energy sources will become profitable. Lets all just have a little bit of faith in American ingenuity, and everything's going to be okay.

Paleofuturist Education

Paleo-Future has a great piece for all my home/un-schooling readers, quoting the San Antonio Light of July 8, 1937:

A Columbia university educator, addressing students at the University of California at Los Angeles, predicted that "by the year 2000, we won't send children to school until they are 10 years old." He said that "while they are young, we will keep them busy building healthy bodies in the fresh air". Evidently, he doesn't know the mammas. They want to get their children into school as early as possible. One of the reasons for the development of the kindergarten is to hasten the time when even devoted mothers can get a little freedom from the demands of their children. But the year 2000 is a long way in the future.

The "mammas" have prevailed in public education, even beyond the year 2000, with government daycare school starting earlier and earlier with 4-year-old kindergarten and Head Start and the like. Telling how well the writer predicted that, actually. Wish the piece gave the name of the Columbia educator, because the whole "building healthy bodies in the fresh air" sounds like a great educational philosophy to me.

Rocket Scientists Lean Republican

Michael G. Franc has a great piece on National Review Online using analysis of primary-season campaign contributions data to shatter the still widely-held notion that the GOP is the party of big business while the Democrats represent working-class America:

Through May 1, the Democratic presidential field has suctioned up a cool $5.7 million from the more than 4,000 donors who list their occupation as “CEO.” The Republicans’ take was only $2.3 million. Chief financial officers, general counsels, directors, and chief information officers also break the Democrats’ way by more than two-to-one margins. The Democrats’ advantage among “presidents” is a less dramatic but still significant $7.2 million to $6.1 million. And this isn’t new: In 2004 all but one of these categories of top corporate officers broke just as dramatically for the Democrats.

Not surprisingly, universities offer Democrats a hotbed of support. Professors favor Democrats over Republicans by a nine-to-one margin ($3.7 million to $430,000). The “objective” media — reporters, journalists, publishers and editors — also breaks heavily for the Democrats. But no listed occupation gives the Democrats a greater edge than the unemployed. These presumably idle folks have dropped over $14.6 million into the laps of the Democrats. Their idle Republican neighbors, in contrast, have unburdened themselves of a mere $9,775. Go figure.

Republican presidential aspirants hold a nearly three-to-one edge among janitors, custodians, cleaners, sanitation workers, factory workers, truckers, bus drivers, barbers, security guards, and secretaries. While Democrats command the financial loyalty of architects, Republicans successfully woo contributions from the skilled craftsmen who turn their blueprints into reality — specifically, contractors, hardhats, plumbers, stonemasons, electricians, carpenters mechanics, and roofers. This trend extends to the saloons, where the Democrats carry the bartenders and the Republicans the waitresses.

So the Democrats have become the party of liberal guilt and the unemployed? It's worth noting this is not polling data or election results, both of which quite frankly reflect large numbers of the uninformed and easily-influenced. Rather, this analysis is based on the self-selected sample of the those politically-engaged enough to be donating to campaigns early in the primaries, and the trends are surprising. Also, Republicans win among rocket scientists. If you can think of a more trustworthy political advocate than rocket scientists... well, it doesn't matter, because you can't.

My Grandfather's Church

I've refrained from commenting until now on this topic, when so many better-informed commenters are writing on it, but I couldn't keep from adding my own thoughts. Those of my readers who aren't confessional Lutherans are probably (blissfully) unaware of the current sturm und drang within the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, the church I was raised in and have embraced as an adult. The current round of controversy was set off by the summary cancellation by the Synod -- during Holy Week -- of a popular and theologically-conservative radio show which had at times been critical of the sort of "seeker-sensitive", "purpose-driven", and quite frankly Oprah-fied programs and congregations that are so beloved of the Synod's aggressively modernizing current leadership. The Synodical leadership's responses to the grassroots outcry have only solidified the impression among many that there is a concerted effort among the top leadership to change the face of the LC-MS forever. Indeed, the current president is quite fond of saying, "this is not your grandfather's church."

Why are you so intent on taking my grandfather's church from me, President Kieschnick? I like my grandfather's church, for a host of reasons, but one of which is that it is my grandfather's church. If I didn't like it, after all, there are a great many churches out there that aren't my grandfather's church; namely, every other church in the country. Where will I go, when my grandfather's church has been "improved" into something he wouldn't even recognize?

Eeek

While I was typing just now, a tiny spider just rappelled from the ceiling down to my keyboard, crawled under the keys and disappeared into the depths of my laptop. I hope he finds it inhospitable and leaves before he manages to short-circuit anything.

Eco-imperialism

In response to this Wondermark comic, the Elephant's Child commented:

I'm actually surprised nobody (in which I mean Al Gore et al) has mentioned the astonishingly low carbon footprint of the underdeveloped world.

Oh, they do mention it, indirectly, when they celebrate the "simple, traditional cultures, living in harmony with nature" that are threatened by globalization, westernization, and every other -ization. They have to romanticize Third-world squalor, because eventually people will realize their pet policies will require them to trap about a billion people in that squalor. It's sickening. On the flip-side, I've seen some heartening Third-world backlash against Western environmentalist nannying. Schadenfreude's probably a sin, but I can't help getting a thrill of pleasure when I think of what an environmental activist feels seeing increasingly confident Third-worlders reject their ideas as "eco-imperialism".

Quiet Revolution

In browsing Lutheran Lucciola's links on simpler living, I came across the Quietrevolution vertical-axis wind turbine. VAWTs have been around for a while, but the Quietrevolution helical design solves several nagging design issues with the concept, while making a great aesthetic improvement over previous VAWT concepts, in my opinion. This turbine is nearly a piece of sculpture, don't you agree? I've seen some designs for home-built VAWTs, but none quite as elegant as this.

Working with the Locals

The other day I got a break from my usual job for a few hours by doing "escort" duty while some local nationals (i.e. Iraqis) did some construction work on our building. It's entertaining working with the LNs. The smalltalk always takes the form of an interview following the same pattern:

• "How many kids do you have?"
• None
• [intrigue] "You're married, though?"
• No, not yet.
• [surprise] "How old are you?"
• Twenty-four.
• [shocked indignation] "Twenty-four and no wife, no kids?" [astonished Arabic muttering]. "But you have a girlfriend, right?"
• ...[sigh]

I guess it goes to show you the value these people place on family. That doesn't even express it right, because it's not just that they value family ties more than modern Westerners generally, but that they truly value themselves less as individuals. A person's whole identity is defined by their family, and a man's worth in particular by the number and stature of his children. European family names began as patronymics (witness the proliferation of Andersons, Christiansens, Nelsons, Olsons, and Thorvaldsons with whom I attended college), but Iraqis proudly go through their adult lives being addressed by reference to their children: Abu (father of) Haydar, Abu Miriam, Umm (mother of) Marwan, Umm Zaynab etc. etc. etc. Apparently there's even an unfortunate nickname for an unrepentant bachelor: Abu Gha'ib, father of the absent. And I thought my family's hinting was bad.

But I digress. Apart from being heckled for my childlessness and bachelorhood, hanging out with the LNs is always rewarding. I experienced the legendary Iraqi hospitality when -- despite being right across from the chow hall -- the four workers insisted on sharing their meager lunch with me: a tiffin of boiled chicken, heated up with a cutting torch; another of lumpy sour something's milk; and of course, the flat local bread. Not particularly good, but not bad, and worth it for the cultural sensitivity points.

Weather Report

So it's getting a bit warmer around here. Right now it's sort of a typical summerlike temperature. It'd be pretty hot for comfort if you had to work outside, but it'd be fine for lounging in a hammock or a day at the beach. Trouble is, right now it's midnight; sun went down five hours ago. This afternoon was moderately hellish, around 115, and the wind feeling like God's own blowdryer off the desert. Can't wait to see what 130 feels like. Today we fell again into one of the classic Iraq conversations: don't even mention that there are people willing to fight over this place, it's amazing just that there's anyone still here at all. You could just start walking, pick a direction, eventually you'd end up someplace better. Except South, I guess, because then you'd end up in Yemen. I don't hear good things.

Depravity

For those out there who are not yet convinced that we live in a fallen, broken world, comes news from Austria of a man who kept his daughter imprisoned in the basement for 24 years and fathered 7 children by her. Read the story, and notice how confusing it is to keep track of who is who. The perpetrator is both father and grandfather to the children. His daughter is both mother and half-sister to her children. Our language lacks the words to speak of such depravity.

Michael Yon on Iraq

Michael Yon has an awesome interview with Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review. If you read one link of mine, make this the one. As I've said before, nobody else who is free to talk about it is in a better position than Michael Yon to understand the realities of Iraq.

Is anyone out there making "Petraeus '12" bumper stickers yet? Because I'd love to slap one on our HMMWV.

Live-Blogging 10,000BC

While I was up in Baghdad recently I bought a hajivision DVD of Roland Emmerich's prehistoric epic 10,000BC. I didn't so much want to see it as enjoy the experience of tearing apart the anachronism, just a few minutes in, it's as bad as I expected. I do still want to see it, but I don't want to feel like it's a complete waste of my time, so I'll be live-blogging it. Spoiler alert. Like you care, because if you take my preemptive advice, you won't see this movie.

• I can't quite place the imagined location. Everything would speak of Eurasia to me, what with the mountains and mammoth and such, except our heroes just reached a jungle full of giant, flightless birds of prey. This could work, in South America or New Zealand, except that the bad guys ride horses, which are strictly Eurasian in antiquity. Oh, nevermind. This movie is clearly not trying to be taken anywhere nearly that seriously.
  

• Speaking of the bad guys -- tall pale figures with straight hair and aquiline noses who ride horses and terrorize those who don't -- we actually do seem to be looking at a semi-believable imagining of the Indo-European expansion in Eurasia, which many scholars believe was facilitated, if not defined, by the successful (and likely unique) domestication of the horse. In which case, go us. Am I allowed that sentiment?
  

• Forget the issue of location, now they're coming to a desert. This within a few days walking of the jungle and the snow-covered mountains, remember.
  

• Ooh, and our hero just saved a sabre-toothed cat from a trap, after asking it not to eat him, Aesop's fable-style. Oh, and now it's defused a confrontation with a bunch of Zulus, who conveniently have a prophesy about "the one who speaks to the spear-tooth", who will lead them in battle against the horsemen.

• I'm already seeing the whole ideal of this film coming together. We've got the standard celebration of primitive society and over and against the degradations of "civilization". It's the same thing we saw in Apocalypto, except that movie was executed with far more depth and resonance. It only makes sense the man who brought us The Day After Tomorrow would be pretty down on civilization. And there are those out there who -- understanding that "stopping global warming", or even any serious attempt to do so, means locking a billion or so people in dire poverty -- have an urgent need to romanticize "traditional lifestyles", by which they mean "abject squalor" and which they, of course, have no intention of emulating.
  

• Ooooh, all the brown and black people are joining together to rescue their captives from the evil white horsemen. They're marching across a massive desert to get there. Good for them.

• Now we've reached the city of the horsemen, which shows some remarkable architectural achievements for the early stone age. I suppose, when you've domesticated the mammoth to help build your pyramids, things are easier. So are these supposed to be the builders of the Egyptian pyramids? Plausible (minus the lingering location issue) except that Egypt always had a surplus of native labor. Most musings about the pyramids wonder about how they managed to get enough people to build them, but never seem to consider the possibility that they were built precisely because Egypt's leaders needed something to consume the excess labor of a heavily populated land whose climate leaves four months of the year free of agricultural labor.

• So our hero's captive love interest bears scars that mark her as the one prophesied to portend the collapse of the god-king's evil civilization. How perfect.

• This is feeling more and more like a ham-handed, Hollywood-ized Apocalypto, with precious few of that film's strengths. Sad.
  

• Yep, there's the climax, pathetic attempt at meaningful tragedy included. Oh well, there was some nice imagery, it's always pretty cool to see CGI mammoth running amok through a stone-age construction site. I'll pay $1.50 for that any day of the week. Even if it's got that videotaped-in-the-theater look of the lower-grade hajivision.
  

• So, wait a minute, where exactly was the city surrounding the temple complex and pyramid? Or were a few dozen priests and a few hundred slave-drivers all that was necessary to constitute a pyramid-building civilization? I can't be the only person who noticed this. I suppose the temple complex could be a ways out of town, I could see that being convenient for the god-king.
  

• Nevermind, forget about the pathetic attempt at tragedy, because the person we just thought had died just got saved by a mammoth looking really intently in her direction and sorta waving his trunk. It could only have been a better moment if his trunk had lit up like ETs fingertip.
  

• The movie ends with one of the black tribes (from the desert) giving the gift of agriculture (which apparently is nothing more than a handful of seeds) to the hero's tribe (from the snowy mountains) to replace their lost food source because the mammoth aren't migrating any more (for no explicable reason). Does any of my farming and gardening readers not see this working out quite as rosily as the epilogue implies?
  

• Ah, credits. God be praised. So yeah, don't see this movie.

Iranipedia

The Iranian regime is certainly taking their worldwide PR game wherever they can, and now seem to be fighting it out on Wikipedia. Check out Ethnic Minorities of Iran.

The main ethno-linguistic minority groups in Iran are the Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, and Georgians. [...] While many of these ethnic groups have their own languages, cultures, and often literature, their languages and cultures are essentially regional variations of Persian and are all native to Iran.

This claim is practically Chinese in its audacity, and there are many similarities between both nations' needs to justify their empires. Of the above list, only Kurdish is linguistically related to Persian, while the Azeris and Turkmen are descendants of relatively recent Turkic invaders from very far away, indeed. So who counts as native? This is the problem with promoting an ethnic nationalism that tries to erase ethnic differences by redefining everyone into the majority.

The Horror!

It is truly astounding what people will eat. Horrifying. Revolting. And I'm fully aware that there are probably people who would be equally disturbed by certain American "delicacies". But really. Check out Cracked's "6 Most Terrifying Foods", if you have the stomach and don't mind the profanity.

Best AFN PSA Yet

Today as I was looking (in vain) for a particular AFN PSA about computer network security to link to my previous post, I came across the best one yet. Hercules and the Power of Attorney. It's amazing. Except that the Golden Fleece is from the story of Jason and the Argonauts, not Hercules. But who's to quibble?

Procrastination

I suppose it is a sign of our times that the "Most Requested Forms" sidebar at the IRS homepage is topped not by the ubiquitous 1040, but by the 4868, Application for Automatic Extension of Time To File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Of course, I would never be filing such a form myself. Certainly not desperately trying to figure out how to e-file it after finding out I have no access to a non-military-networked printer. Information security being maintained by the "air gap" principle (I prefer to think of it as the "cooties" principle), there's no responsible way to get something from the civilian internet to a military printer. People do it all the time, of course, with thumbdrives and such. But this practice is officially forbidden, and for good reason, as those things get lost or stolen all the time.

Hedgehog! To The Face!

I just couldn't pass up this headline. Awesome.

Basrah Recap

I stopped following the 'mainstream' news out of Basrah once things calmed down over here, so I hadn't realized that the press has been painting the recent skirmishes as a strategic defeat. I was a bit stunned to hear it actually, and happy to see David Frum's excellent rebuttal to the idea that the battle of Basrah was a step back. Here, on the ground, I never would have believed that story could have been sold in the first place. Here, everyone's wishing they could go to Basrah, to consolidate and exploit the success, the success of the Iraqi operation. Everyone's congratulating the Iraqi Security Forces, marveling at their performance, so much better than the somewhat dismal expectations. Jaysh al-Mahdi are wounded, scattered, and thoroughly disenheartened. This was supposed to be JAM's great last stand, and it fizzled in a heartbreakingly undramatic fashion.

And really, what exactly would it have taken for this to be called a victory by those determined to see defeat? The Shatt-al-Arab flowing red with the blood of JAM and their supporters? Any victory decisive enough to be named a victory would have been decried as an atrocity. The biggest stumbling block to understanding this part of Iraq is identifying JAM and its loosely associated militias solely as a religio-political movement, when their day-to-day activities are far more concerned with good old Mammon. Basrah is (and has forever been) a smugglers' den. Will there continue to be well-armed, politically connected gangs operating organized crime rings in the Basrah area for generations? Probably. They've been there for centuries. That doesn't mean there's no road forward; Italy manages, after all.

A Little Perspective

The kind folks at Wired magazine have brought us this helpful threat warning, to help us all put things into a touch of perspective. Of course, I think the vast majority of people are well aware that a car accident is a far more immediate possibility than a terrorist attack. At the same time, I'm happy to keep it that way.

S E V E R E Driving off the road: 254,419 Falling: 146,542 Accidental poisoning: 140,327

H I G H Dying from work: 59,730 Walking down the street: 52,000. Accidentally drowning: 38,302

E L E V A T E D Killed by the flu: 19,415 Dying from a hernia: 16,742

G U A R D E D Accidental firing of a gun: 8,536 Electrocution: 5,171

L O W Being shot by law enforcement: 3,949 Terrorism: 3147 Carbon monoxide in products: 1,554

Moving

There's a bit of a housing crunch on our base right at the moment, so the garrison command has changed the housing policy to help consolidate rooms in some living areas (LAs) that were well below capacity. As the KBR billeting employee put it, "there's a lot of people who thought they were somebody finding out that now they're somebody who's got a roommate". Heh heh. The upshot is that I'm moving a few rows down the LA, so it might be a few days before I can get internet set up over there. We'll just have to see.

Wal-Mart

I really like Wal-Mart. I can't stand the way they lay out the grocery section in Super Wal-Marts, but beyond that, I can generally find whatever I need pretty quickly and cheaply. I appreciate that the "Wal-Mart effect" has lowered retail prices of consumer goods across the economy, saving the average US family around $2,300 annually (.pdf warning), whether they shop there or not. I find it remarkable that despite building their empire on tight supply chains and centralized logistic they have managed to become the nation's #1 retailer of locally-grown produce. At the same time, I can appreciate that some people prefer not to shop there. Everyone has preferences, and it's really not my concern. I do get a bit tired of hearing how Wal-Mart is destroying America, however, particularly in light of significant evidence to the contrary. (HT: Round Unvarnish'd Tale).

What Will We Say?

The Times of South Africa today published an editorial on the upcoming 'election' in neighboring Zimbabwe. It's written for South Africans, and decries their apathy and collusion in prolonging one of the world's more disastrous regimes, but its message is for all of us. What will we say, when our children ask how these horrors were allowed to continue?

Oil!

Hahahaha, this story is just too awesome. 200 billion barrels of oil. Under North Dakota. I can't wait to start seeing the new Dakota sheikhs rolling out in their silver-plated F150's.

PSA-TV

My roommate finally found the correct cord to connect the cable feed to our tiny TV, so we can now enjoy the 11 channels of the Armed Forces Network. It's really not bad, there are two movie channels, sports, news, two 'prime' TV channels, etc. And all the programming is perfectly normal TV, just licensed and cobbled together. So AFN News, for example, will switch between CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and others over the course of the day. I believe this is supposed to be based on the popularity of various shows by timeslot, but I know it gets more political than that. The most interesting part of AFN, however, is not the programming, but the commercials. See, network programming doesn't come with commercials; those are added by the local broadcaster. But AFN, being an agency of the Department of Defense, doesn't need the sponsorship, so the commercial breaks are filled with in-house Public Service Announcements covering just about every aspect of military life. Practice Fire Safety. Call Your Family. Get Tax Help. Respect Local Cultures. Mind Portion Size. Maintain Operational Security. Wear Your Bike Helmet. And my absolute favorite, a PSA about respecting local mores by dressing conservatively which carries the tagline, "because dressing appropriately is always in style".

Amazing

I just came across this inspiring story of a Muslim baptized and confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI at Easter Vigil in St. Peter's. Read his testimony. Amazing. God be praised!

Showdown

Things are certainly getting rather more interesting in the south of Iraq, and as dourly as the BBC can spin it, I see this as a very hopeful time. The Iraqi Security Forces, made up of Iraqi Police and Army (ISF, IP and IA) have launched a massive offensive against elements of the Iranian-backed Jaysh al-Mahdi ('Army of the Mahdi', JAM) Shi'a militia in Basrah and throughout southern Iraq. JAM has responded in force, though without the explicit blessing of its supposed leader, the self-proclaimed 'cleric' Muqtada al-Sadr, who is still in theory holding to the cease-fire he declared six months ago.

Sidenote: At issue here is a bit of a semantic misunderstanding. The Western media insist on referring to JAM as if it were a traditionally organized guerrilla military. And to be fair, JAM refers to itself as such. In the Arab media, however, you'll see far more reference to the "Sadrist movement", which does a better job of conveying exactly how nebulous this organization is. No one really knows exactly what degree of operational control al-Sadr has over the movement that bears his name. It's quite likely that he's continued operations throughout the ceasefire. It's also likely that there are "Sadrist" groups using the name of JAM that have no operational connection whatsoever to Mr. Muqtada. In any case, the point will soon be moot, God willing, when the IP and IA run them out of town.

This is the biggest test the ISF have yet faced, and by all accounts, they're performing remarkably well. As far as I've seen in the media, they've received nothing more than air support and advice from the Brits and Americans, and believe me, we're happy to sit this one out. If they pull this off and come out of this with anything that even approximates a victory, it will be a huge accomplishment for the Iraqi government. The Iraqi people's confidence in the ISF and in Baghdad in general, already growing according to recent polls, will get a massive boost. At the same time, their waning support for JAM and similar militias could hit rock-bottom. We can but hope and pray, as these are dangerous but hopeful times for Iraq.

Suckers!

Hahahahahaha. I found this really amusing (HT Blackfive). I'll have you all know that we've been enjoying several weeks of pleasantly summerlike weather, if a bit chilly at night. Then again, very soon you'll all be able to pity me when we go weeks without the thermometer dropping below 120. It's already starting to get kinda warm:

Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
Partly Cloudy Hi 102° Lo 83°	Partly Cloudy Hi 104° Lo 70°	Partly Cloudy Hi 95° Lo 67°	Partly Cloudy Hi 97° Lo 71°	Partly Cloudy Hi 98° Lo 67°

But it's a dry heat, y'know?

Devil's Roux

It would really make me happy in a particular sort of way to find out that Arabic had 200 different words for dust, as the Eskimos of lore supposedly had for snow. Sadly, they really have no more than we do, which is a shame. Because there really is a great diversity in the types of dust to be found around here. In the last week or so, I've become well-acquainted with an especially pernicious type. I'll get back to that. So in my shop, on of my duties is fueling up our generator at the end of every shift. I walk outside our little compound to the fuel point to fetch a jerrycan of diesel and carry it back to the "jenny". I then carefully set the jerrycan as far as I can within the triple-stack of concertina wire that surrounds the jenny and the systems it runs, walk around through the checkpoint to enter the secured area, carefully reach into the C-wire to pull out the jerrycan and proceed to top off the jenny's fuel tank. This is where the dust comes in, because when I'm done, I find it all over my hands and pants. See, when a jerrycan sits outside here, it collects dust in short order, like everything else. The first fine layer of dust then acts as a wick to draw oil out of the cap on the can. This oil then causes the can to accumulate that much more dust, until the whole thing is coated in a layer of a pasty oil-dust mixture, a sort of diabolical roux. And just try carrying a five-gallon can in one hand without it making any contact with your leg as you walk. It don't work.

Easter

He is Risen!

He is Risen, indeed!

Alleluia!

Good Friday

I am he who betrays my Lord for thirty pieces of silver.
I am he who denies that I ever knew Him.
I shout "crucify Him!", demanding His blood. I claim it for myself, and for my children.
I am Pilate, washing my hands of the matter.
I am a soldier, weaving a crown of thorns to mock the King of Kings.
I hold the scourge that tears His flesh.
I pound the nails that pierce His hands, his feet.
I bet and bicker for His garments.
I am a thief dying justly for my crimes, yet through my agony I find strength to hurl contempt on the Innocent suffering beside me.

I am all of these, but by God's grace I am also the other thief. Empowered by the Holy Spirit I pray, "Jesus, remember me."

What Beats a Full House?

Four Aces, Baby!

Care Package

Today was a significant milestone in my Army career: I picked up my first care package while deployed. And what a care package it was! It contained a few of the little items I had asked for, such as a cheap watch and some keychain LEDs. There was also a nice selection of Easter candy (which I would of course never even begin to think of touching before Easter). There were also some cookies of course, which I will share with my coworkers tomorrow. My mother is still committed to using baked goods to buy me friends. Digging through all these things, I also came across a mysterious block wrapped in aluminum foil inside a ziploc bag. I assumed it was brownies, stacked and wrapped together, and left it for last. When I picked it up, however, I immediately knew it was too heavy, too dense to be simple brownies. Wait, could it be? No... I slowly opened the bag and sniffed, yet refused to believe my nose when it corroborated my growing suspicion. No way, there couldn't be any left, could there? Excitement mounting, my hands nearly shaking, I unwrapped the foil to reveal -- joy of joys! -- an entire half-loaf of Christmas fruitcake! For those of you who don't understand our family's love for this singular, maligned confection, I only wish you might have the chance someday to sample our fruitcake, and forget everything you'd even known or been lead to believe about it. That said, I'm now in a bit of a quandary. How exactly do I go about eating it? I'm not sharing, that's for certain. But even so, I have a distinctly finite amount of fruitcake to enjoy. My instinct is to savor it, eating only a tiny portion every few days, to make it last as long as possible. The heterogeneous nature of the fruitcake, however, means that a sufficiently large bite must be taken to ensure the complete fruitcake experience, so a balance of concerns is in order. This is the point where you accuse me of overthinking this to a nearly ludicrous degree. And I can only shake my head sadly, because you just do not understand. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Death of Childhood

My old college friend Ben, in his second year of teaching English literature to the privileged youth of northern India, has some very interesting comments on the state of childhood in the world today. I think his point is valid in the aggregate, but I think he might also be a bit short-sighted. His vision of what childhood ought to be is certainly not the norm, but I don't think it's entirely that rare, either. He might, methinks, be enheartened by some of the children of this blog's readership.

Internet is a Go

I have Internet in my hooch now. So if you'd been disappointed by my meager attempt at milblogging, well, I'm not saying I'm going to turn into Michael Yon, but it'll at least get somewhat more frequent. And I'll start posting pictures. Once I get a camera.

Surreality

Being here is very strange. There's just such a bizarre, jarring disconnect between various aspects of life on this base. A few samples:

• A few nights ago, our chow hall featured a Mongolian BBQ service. And they serve steak and crab legs on Rocket Attack Wednesdays (also known as "Wednesdays").
  
• Last week I mopped a floor with bottled water.
• I've met several soldiers who spend most of their free time fishing in the lone pond on base. No word yet if there's actually any fish in it.
  
• After nearly two weeks here, I still regularly get turned around in the elephant-maze of 12-foot tall blast walls that surround and divide every building on base.
• Despite being in Iraq, I've only met a handful of Iraqis. Most of the service workers on base are South Asians and Filipinos.
• In the middle of the desert, in a devastated, war-torn country, I have reliable electricity, running water, and Internet service.

All in all, it's a strange sort of existence here. I'm sure it'll only get stranger once summer sets in and we start seeing temperatures in the 130's and higher. And apparently summertime is the high season for rocket attacks as well, so that'll be interesting. I guess that's the most surreal thing of all, that there are people out there doing what they can to kill me and mine. To be honest, that really hasn't set in yet, that there are people behind the rockets. It still mostly just feels like a particularly dangerous sort of weather phenomenon.

Dust

As I mentioned in my first deployed post, the desert in this part of the world isn't particularly sandy. In fact, it's not sandy at all. Somehow, God in His wisdom decided that the Iraqi desert should be completely devoid of particles between the grades of corn flour and brussels sprouts. Which is to say, there's gravel. And dust. But no sand. Chalk it up to divine irony. Oh, and corn flour is the coarsest grade of dust around here. It goes down through cake flour, to powdered sugar, and all of it in an uncharmingly drab khaki color you're probably more familiar with from suburban vinyl siding. And for two days now the sky has been completely full of it. Last night the wind really picked up for a few hours, in what I suppose counts as my first real dust storm. Pretty awesome, except for the fact that you can't open your eyes in it without goggles. And the way the wind drives the grittiest dust deep into your ears, and how you blow mud boogers out your nose. And then it started raining. Of course, rain falling in a dust storm doesn't come down as water. It falls as mud. Mud rain. Worth seeing, just once.

The finest grades of dust, of course, have the most incredible ability to infiltrate the tiniest of crevices. You can't get away from it, so you just have to accept it. If you thought of the dust as being 'dirty', I'm pretty sure you'd go insane. Though it's still troublesome. It's limestone dust, so it's chemically reactive enough to wreak havoc on electronics and engines and such. Nice, huh?

Military Efficiency

Elapsed time from touchdown in Iraq to first PowerPoint briefing: 5 minutes.

Elapsed time from inprocessing unit in Iraq until assignment of first furniture-moving detail: 1 hour.

Airborne.

Thoughts From The Desert

As many of my readers probably already know, I'm currently on my way to Iraq to play my little part in this war. Right now, I'm sitting around on a base in the Gulf, killing time while we wait for a plane to take us into Iraq. A few thoughts:

• When you think of the desert, you think of sand. Wrong. This place is nothing but dust. You'd think, eventually, all the dust would have blown away leaving just clean sand, gravel and rock. But no, this entire country is nothing but dust. We've seen workers digging pits, and it's solid dust down to three meters, at least. The gravel on the roads seems to have been shipped in from somewhere.

• Why do they even bother making gravel roads anyway? It's not like there'd be anything to keep you from driving anywhere else. The whole place is a giant parking lot anyway. Maybe the gravel is just to mark where the roads are.
  

• Ditto that for the sidewalks. I suppose enough road traffic could turn this place into one giant washboard, but do they really need to pave concrete walkways for us? It's a touch surreal.

• A previous base en route, closer to civilization, had some sparrows singing. At this place, the very first non-human life I've seen in two days was a single cricket.

• I'd heard before how much the service industries in the Gulf rely on TCNs (Third-Country Nationals): Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians, Filipinos. But it's still a shock, to come to a country and see next to none of the locals. I suppose if I wanted to meet them, I'd have to go into town. But I don't think there's any towns anywhere near here.

• Despite being on an isolated base in the middle of the desert, with no drugs, no alcohol, no pornography allowed -- in short, no way to get in trouble if we wanted to -- we still have to break up our free time hiking back and forth to the tents for accountability formations. Just to keep track of us. Where exactly would we go? Sigh.

Look forward to my next post from Iraq. Got no clue when that'll be.