asimplechord | Entries tagged with ppl have fought over this for millenia

I have opinions about the news that's in the headlines, but all I'm going to say is that I hope that everyone who lost a loved one on 9/11/01 or when the USS Cole or the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed feels some closure. I'd like to believe that this means we'll extract ourselves from the untenable, unsustainable military conflicts in which we embroiled ourselves in the name of capturing OBL, but I have sincere doubts on that subject.

IN HAPPIER NEWS.

pjvilar posted a picture that makes me FINALLY feel the urge to write, for the first time in months. If I can squeeze it in around my work hours, which have once again grown to encompass far more than the 40 for which I am paid.

AND. Seriously, did we magick Panic! At The Disco into being with our will, bandom? Because this video. SERIOUSLY. It's a half-dozen different musicals and Disney movies for a single 3-minute song, and I LOVE IT. I cannot wait for June. Or for the autumn tour with Black Cards and Neon Trees.

Current Music: Panic! At the Disco - Science Fiction/Double Feature (Cover) | Powered by Last.fm

1. I feel like I've lost my porn-fu. Ugh, it took me FOREVER to write some comment-fic porn, and I can't tell if it's because it's a pairing I've never written before or if I'm getting stuck on mechanics and description. (Please note that I have not written any more of my exchange fic. My brain's squarely focused on things that have no deadline and/or are complete crack. Like the porn that would go with item #12 of the girl!Brad not!fic.)

2. Last night's show at Fitzgerald's was stellar. I appreciate Amanda Palmer's solo work, but her + Brian Viglione = so fucking much more energy. It's not multiplicative or additive, it's exponential. They were on stage for 2.5 incredible hours. Coin-Operated Boy, Gravity, the Jeep Song, Missed Me, all that stuff, with the bonus of a performance of War Pigs as the finale. ***That's not video of last night - I didn't have my camera, and no-one's uploaded it, that I can find.

Every time AFP's internet hubbub annoys me and I tell myself I'm not going to bother with her or DD again, I remember how fantastic the live shows are, and remain willing to pay the venue's entry fee.

(Girl In A Coma opened. Ungh, Nina Diaz. Your VOICE. Especially on the cover of For What It's Worth.)

3. Totally unrelated to music or fiction. Sort of. Nir Rosen debated Max Boot on Fareed Zakaria's GPS this morning. It was painful to watch, because clearly neither could or would concede any ground, and if you believe the thinkers at CFR, well, I guess I have to ask if you've drunk the Kool-Aid. But on a purely visual level, I was interested in the contrast between them: Boot in his suit and shorn hair seated at an angle to Rosen, who was wearing jeans and a casual shirt and jacket, if I recall correctly, and a pair of Chucks.

This entry was originally posted at http://favoritemistake.dreamwidth.org/8626.html.

Current Music: The Dresden Dolls - Missed Me (Album Version) | Powered by Last.fm

a) Yeah, still loving the 2-minute tease MCR gave us.

b) So, instead of spending far more than my Jeep is worth for a fix that will only be temporary, we went car shopping this afternoon. Meet the new occupant of our two-car garage. S/he needs a name. I have to drive it a bit before I can make that decision. I will say, however, that is it WAY easy to speed without realizing it, in comparison to my lumbering Snowflake. And the turning radius is a bit broader.

c) Insights from the Afghan field. A book-rec, but also a really interesting read about cultural differences/memory and imperial mistakes, and how US military/foreign policy has repeated them in the last ten years.

d) I finally read Henry Jenkin's interview with Mary Gray about her book, Doing Drag in Wal-Mart and Other Stories of Rural Queer Youth, which I've had bookmarked forever. I need to add the book to my to-be-read list.

e) I've had the same bit of porn stuck in my head for days, and haven't written it out. I have no idea what my problem is, but I am ridiculously unmotivated. I thought I'd do it today, but we see how that worked, right?

f) M'kay. I'm going to read another chapter of Steven Saylor's Empire, then stir-fry some broccoli and other assorted veggies for supper.

(Re: post title? The Badgers are gonna fall in the rankings after today's debacle, even if they pulled out the win in the end.)

This entry was originally posted at http://favoritemistake.dreamwidth.org/4208.html.

Current Music: Ludo - All The Stars In Texas

The syllabus for Stanley McChrystal's graduate seminar at Yale has been released.

It includes:

12th October 2010: “Navigating Politics”
2nd November 2010: “Loyalty, Trust and Relationships”
16th November 2010: “Communicating the Story – the Media Environment”

Note that *nowhere* in the reading material is the Hastings article. Which, IDK, could be a PRIME EXAMPLE for tying together those three lectures, don't you think?

In fact, I'm pretty amused that one of the primary references is an article that was a pretty fucking shiny piece of PR for him.

1. \o/ for Judge Walker and California!

2. /o\ for Google and Verizon signaling the beginning of the end of Net Neutrality.

3. Is anyone surprised that the USMC declined to embed Hastings with a unit in Afghanistan? I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, Hastings cannot be surprised. Didn't his momma ever tell him not to shit where he eats? Even if he were allowed to embed, does he really think anyone would be comfortable or trust him, and speak openly in his presence? But on the other, I think this was an opportunity for the USMC to take the high road, and say, "Look, we can heal the media/military relationship issues, and this is one step on the way," if they let him go as planned. (Plus, they've let a Rolling Stone reporter embed with them before, and although the brass were not particularly happy with the book that resulted, I don't remember there being a huge uproar at the time the articles came out. I actually subscribed to the paper form of the magazine back then.)

4. :DDDDDD I am tempted to skip work entirely, but I need to passage some cells and do some ordering and other paperwork before we head to the airport.

5. My half-sister is getting married at the Sandals in St. Lucia in March. I think that will be a prime opportunity for the first actual vacation we'll have taken since... since we went to Australia in 2007? OMG, that was a long time ago!

1. Unpopular fandom opinion: I am not fond of Gee Way with that blond hair. And WTF is up with the Hawaiian shirt? Also, I'm glad he's successful and all with The Umbrella Academy, but GIMME THAT NEW ALBUM, GODDAMNIT.

2.

why_me_why_not's brain is my favorite place to be. Somehow even though we're not writing fic, we're... writing fic? We've sort of got two Generation Kill-related fic universes going in an email chain, one gen and one decidedly not. It's been my happy place for a few days.

3. Taddy Porter, my new favorite band (for a little while, until Discos GIMME THAT NEW MUSIC). First, because they're named after a beer. And second, because they are trying to be a cross between Led Zeppelin and Bad Company. Third, because the bassist is this tiny redhead who rocks the fuck out when they are on stage.

4. I want someone to tell me the story of Gunny Wynn when 1st Recon redeployed to Iraq, when Bravo Company was assigned with the rest of the battalion to Fallujah, and it's like the invasion all over again, doing things that even Battalion Command isn't happy with, ignoring the plan they'd laid out in favor of an emotional, intemperate response at the behest of JTF and the Commander-in-chief. I want the story of Gunny Wynn in a unit that has no Nate Fick (although he'll allow that Brent Morel isn't a bad platoon commander), no Brad Colbert, no Ray Person, no Poke, no Reporter, no Pappy, but does have Redman and Kocher and Hasser, at least. NOT the story of what happens when Morel, Eddie Wright and Kocher are injured by an IED. But I'd like someone's view of whether it'd be at all different, going with different personnel, as an occupation rather than an invasion. Compared to his experience in Somalia, for example.

5. I am very curious to see what Danger Room and Best Defense have to say about the WikiLeaks release of the Afghanistan War Logs tomorrow. Mostly because the headlines over at The Guardian... are not earthshatteringly unsuspected. Pakistan's ISI has links to the Taliban? SHOCKING. Maybe, though, making Americans (or Britons, or whoever) more aware will make them more participatory in their government, and say something about tax dollars and soldiers (and civilians) being used so wastefully. Maybe? Yeah, doubtful, right?

6. Stark Bunker Sands, you are ridiculously adorkable, and still I can't help but be charmed by you.

Current Music: Against Me! - Don't Lose Touch | Powered by Last.fm

DDDD: Our neighbor goes fishing on weekends. He gets up, gets ready, and puts his dogs out in the backyard, all by 5 am. The dogs bark pretty much continuously when they are left alone. This does not endear said neighbor to me.

+ I would like to hear what Abu Muqawama has to say about Mleeta and what it implies about Hezbollah's current mindset w/ respect to the IDF and UNIFIL.

+ Restrepo.

( cut for spoilers, just in case )

It's too early for this. Need coffee, or my brain will go offline.

Current Music: Against Me! - I Was A Teenage Anarchist | Powered by Last.fm

+ Hastings earned a contract for a book about his adventures in Afghanistan? The cynic in me wonders if this was the reason for the controversial article, to generate noise and interest. (I haven't read his memoir of Iraq. Anyone have an opinion on it?)

+ The Snowflake turned over 100k miles on my commute to work yesterday. \o/?

+ I have no idea what was in the pocket of these pants when I washed them, but I put my phone in one, and when I took it out, there was something sticky on its screen. And when I put my hands into any of the pockets - front or back - they come out sticky, with something that feels like drying glue on them. D:

+ I'm not sure if it's an editing error or a type-setting error, but there have been several instances of letter inversion in my copy of The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 (do NOT get me started on the use of the word "adventure" to describe the invasion and its aftermath, just don't), with the most recently observed being:

Cook[...] had several extensive conservations with Sarhan, beginning on the first day of 2008.

Um, really? Do you mean conversations?

I was thinking about the question posed here for discussion in the context of The Runaway General and the appointment of Petraeus to head ISAF. (Wow, he'll be a busy man.)

( cut because I babble. a lot. )
*sigh*

At that point in my mental circumlocutions, my brain started hurting, so I went back to counting cells and focal adhesions under the microscope, because as boring as it sounds, these are metrics that I have complete confidence in.

*I sometimes wondered how he got the job in the first place. This is a man who personally helped cover up the blue-on-blue fire that killed Pat Tillman. And detainee abuse occurred under his command.

Current Music: The Gaslight Anthem - The Queen of Lower Chelsea | Powered by Last.fm

So, let's put the Marines in charge in pulling our asses out of Afghanistan."

*waves upward* That's a quote from a comment at Abu Muqawama's blog entry. It sort of amuses me. A LOT.

I picked up Waging War In Waziristan: The British Struggle in the Land of Bin Laden, 1849-1947 again after finishing This Man's Army, and this sentence from tonight's reading struck me as particularly appropriate, given the uproar over McChrystal's Rolling Stone interview:

[T]he relationship between the military and politicals was not always harmonious.

No, really? That's so (not) different, a century later.

Unrelated: \o/ Rafa won today! Sadly, Hot Sauce did not. And at least one other member of the Armada lost as well. Radio Wimbledon has an iPhone app, if any of y'all are closet tennis fans. And actually, I think it's a bit better than the French Open app (possibly b/c of the differences in funding/backing between the two tourneys? IDK) - the radio has a general radio station, a feed from Centre Court, and one from Court One, so you're not stuck listening to a match you're not interested in.

The CD for the Broadway Cast's recording of American Idiot finally found its way into the stereo in the living room. SurroundSound is an amazing thing.

OK. I'm going to go see what Jon Stewart has to say about today's events and try not to stress about how long and hard a day tomorrow is going to be. ♥

I get that Tiger Woods is a big deal, and in the end maybe a more influential sports figure than even Michael Jordan.

But seriously?

His "transgressions" (whateverthefuck that means) need to be the headline on Yahoo over, say, IDK, Obama's decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan?

I mean, this is a pivotal moment in his presidency, the one that makes this war HIS OWN, rather than the Shrub's, a moment that may disillusion many young people in whom he instilled hope, and Yahoo chooses to put the salacious details about a personal matter on its front page, rather than encouraging discussion and debate about Obama's decision, debate which has been remarkable by its absence, even in the NYT and WaPo op-ed pieces on this subject. Well done.

Oh, BTW, the Taliban? Formed as resistance against the Soviet Union's invasion and occupation. Guess who's now the occupier. Ironic, or simply a tragic commentary on misguided American foreign policy?

It's not like this is a surprise. But it still makes me smirk.

ETA: Mostly unrelated... \o/!

This earns \o/ /o\ together. One for Iraq, one for Afghanistan.

I've been fairly quiet about the election, I know. I just. I've got relatively little hope that things will change in large ways, to be honest. Barack Obama's health care plan still leaves millions of people uninsured; he's not talking about completely withdrawing troops from Iraq or canceling Blackwater's contract; he supports a "surge" in Afghanistan (Why don't you talk to Mikhail Gorbachev about how well that worked, hmm?); he is as beholden to corporate donors as McCain, he just has enough small-dollar individual donors that this fact is often ignored; his economic and foreign policy advisors are people who were firmly entrenched in previous administrations, all the way back to the Carter one.

But he is less likely to tax the middle class and working poor into destitution. And he's not a proponent of the trickle-down theory of economics that McCain (and Republicans all the way back to the 1890s) espouse(s).

So. Yeah. Not greatly optimistic.

But I'm inspired by a couple of things.

First, by how many people are participating in this election. Early voting surpassed previous records, and it is my understanding that hundreds of thousands of new voters registered to do so.

At nearly every play, concert, or festival I've seen in the last few months, there have been voter registration booths, and performers have urged their audiences to vote.

Some said they didn't care which candidate their fans endorsed as long as they acted.

Others (*cough* Eddie Vedder *cough*) were more pointed and specific.

This morning I woke to an email from NIN on the subject.

I cannot imagine having received that much urging four years ago.

Second? There are people who have never voted before, because they thought their vote didn't matter, voting in this election.

Lines might be long tomorrow. There were significant waits for the early voting here in Texas. But if you are in line before the polls close, you cannot be turned away. It is the law. So even if you have to work tomorrow, please go to your polling place afterwards and vote.

If you're in TX, you have to be registered. If you don't know what polling places are open in your district, go here. For the rest of the country, Google is helpful enough to be providing this.