Via Metafilter:

"The Blazers are extremely proud of the leadership that Coach Cheeks showed to Natalie Gilbert(asf video), our National Anthem singer for Game 3 of the playoffs. Coach’s immediate and compassionate intervention turned what could have been a terribly humiliating event into an uplifting one. And when the entire arena joined in – it was truly a moving experience for everyone and will most likely be one of the most memorable moments of the entire 2003 playoffs.

"This heartfelt story has picked up momentum and was featured on Inside Edition, CNN This Morning, TNT live, The View and Good Morning America!

"We received hundreds of emails of support for Coach Cheeks. We have forwarded each email and note to Maurice, and are putting as many of them as possible in one area to share with our fans. Coach wants you to know how much he appreciates your kind words." ~ BLAZERS.com

Labels: media

LIMA, Ohio, April 24 -- President Bush today raised the possibility that Saddam Hussein's government destroyed the prohibited chemical and biological weapons that were the justification for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Well I’m glad that’s over and done with. No more petty debate about whether or not the invasion of Iraq was a just cause. Now we know it wasn’t. Will it matter? Nope, not a damn bit.

Most Americans have already been brainwashed into blindly supporting this administration by the continuous, 24-hour a day information offensive ever since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Some Americans have been so stupefied by the onslaught of propaganda and misinformation that they believe Saddam Hussein, and not Osama Bin Laden (whom we haven’t heard much about lately, but don’t worry I’m sure O.J. is on the case), was responsible for those attacks.

Are Americans morons? No, we’re not. We are however addicted to information, and the more entertaining the better. The average pre-packaged news burst in this microwave-loving, instant gratification crazed country is about 30 seconds long. Slam a few graphics on a few lines from an official (read: carefully tailored) news release, and BAM! you’ve got yourself half a million viewers glued to your channel for the next half an hour. Everybody wins. The government gets its propaganda out, the network gets its advertising dollars, and the advertisers get their captive audience. The current administration knows this – thanks to many years of careful research - and has been carefully manipulating public opinion through the mainstream media for its own profit.

This is just the latest, blatant example of that manipulation. By raising the possibility that the Iraqis destroyed any existing WMDs just before we invaded, President Bush echoes a dubious story that was quietly seeded into the news cycle a couple of days ago that conveyed the same message. That article gave everyone who read it some background so this scripted statement by the President didn't come straight out of left field. More stories about this will be written, although none beyond the editorial pages (who reads those?) will be critical. After a week or two, the possibility that Saddam Hussein’s government destroyed WMDs days before the US invasion will suddenly appear to be historical fact - even though no facts have ever been presented. Within a month – enough time for other gripping stories to capture our collected attentions - many Americans will believe this absurd scenario is actually true. The debate of whether or not the United States was justified in re-writing international doctrine by initiating a pre-emptive strike against a sovereign nation based on a perceived threat – one which has never been proven to exist – will be over. It might as well have never occurred.

I’m afraid for America. Our actions have consequences. We can’t afford to remain a nation of citizens crippled with goldfish memories. If we don’t pay attention, read, watch, listen, learn, and form opinions on our own, then someone else will do it for us.

Sheep have no choice but to be slaughtered.

Labels: George W. Bush, iraq, saddam hussein, wmd

“Dr Mark Salter, co-coordinator of the WHO Clinical Management Group…said the world should learn to live with a virus that was serious but not hugely infectious, and may already have become part of our environment.”

Um…What?!

So I guess that’s it then…we’re fucked. I hate to sound like an alarmist here, but this is just too big not to take seriously. SARs is far from harmless, and the world can’t afford to “get used” it.

The bottom line is that the SARs virus has been identified as a new type of corona virus – it’s a kissing cousin of the same little shit that causes the common cold. When is the last time you had a cold? What did you take for it? Chicken soup? If you did, it probably helped about at much as all the other crap you tried: Very little, or not at all. The common cold can't be vaccinated against. It also can’t be “cured” once you've got it. The best you can do is take as much as you can to mitigate the symptoms until the virus runs it course, and your body is finally able to fight it off. See the problem here?

This is a cold that can kill, and the World Health Organization is telling us they can’t do anything about it. Including statistics for the cases in China and Hong Kong the worldwide mortality rate for SARs is about 6%. However, because these numbers are highly suspect, some people have put the mortality rate closer to a range of 10-to-20%. That’s just for the 2003 SARS season, what about 2004? 2005?

If you’re the type of person who gets at least one cold a year – which I believe is nearly every mere mortal on Earth – you might want to concern yourself with the spread of SARS.

Thankfully, no one has died from SARS in the US. But that won’t always be the case. There are a lot of people here who don’t have health coverage, so not all of the cases have been reported. There may be many – some possibly fatal - cases of SARS here that we haven’t heard about yet. Don’t rely on the government to tell you whether your safe or not; They don’t know.

If you don’t have health insurance, get it soon. Until then (unless you can afford treatment, and don’t mind getting whacked with one hell of a flu for a week):

- Avoid traveling on planes, trains, and buses.

- Stay out of theaters and auditoriums.

- Do not go to parades, rallies, or any other large gathering of people.

- Wash your hands often – really often.

- If you work at an office don’t use another person’s mouse or key board before sanitizing it. The same goes for public restrooms (On second thought, it’s probably best to avoid these all together).

- Finally, if you live or work in a city, wear a damn mask (Think of it as duct tape and plastic sheeting for your face).

The 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic killed as many as 40 million people. Sure that was a long time ago, and medicine has gotten a lot better since, but that was also before any and every ass-munch on Earth could jump on a flight to anywhere – or several anywheres for that matter. If the lowest estimated mortality rate of 3% is accurate, we’re looking at 186 million deaths worldwide. That’s our minimum. A maximum mortality rate of 20% will reduce the global population by 1.24 billion people. Either way, it’s not looking good for team Homo Sapien.

The spread of this virus will not stop, and it looks like we’re on our own until this thing mutates itself to death and goes away for another hundred years.

But hey, at least Tariq Aziz is in custody!

Labels: bloggers, blogging, sars

If you’re a religious fundamentalist, please just stop reading right now and go back to whatever it is fanatics and zealots do on the net.

There are a lot of religions. Almost all of them have similar basic tenants: Don’t kill, don’t steal, treat others the way you’d want to be treated, love/tolerate each other, and forgive each other as much as you can stand. Fairly simple stuff, right? They’ve proven to be excellent guidelines for building a stable, productive human society. So what the hell is the matter with our world?

The problem isn't the tenants of faith, it’s the fundamentalists who practice it. (Caveat: For the sake of brevity, and because the majority of folks on Earth practice one flavor or another of Judeo-Christian faith, I’m excluding paganism, animalism, ancestor worship, polytheism, and duality from this entry).

A long time ago someone said “Hey, I’ve got a great set of rules to ensure humanity survives and prospers without petty infighting and conflict – let’s call it ‘religion’.” Of course, it being so long ago, most people looked at the guy and said, “Huh?”.

“Well,” the guy said, “what if I told you that you can live forever in paradise if you follow the rules?”. Naturally, that got some of the people’s attention, but not everyone was convinced. So the guy told them, “How about this: If you DON’T follow these rules, you’ll burn the fiery pits of doom for all eternity.” Now that got just about everyone else to sign-on. Those who didn’t were systematically killed or driven-off into the dessert by the first fundamentalists...despite the fact that this was a complete violation of the rules they were supposed to follow. Ah, humans. What can ya do?

That pretty much brings us up to modern day. We’ve got the faithful who want their paradise, the faithful who fear eternal damnation, and a few non-believers who more or less get marginalized from society and become scientists and academics (For a while there the non-believers actually gained a small foothold, but the Bush Administration has been doing it’s best to take care of that). Somewhere between the past and the present, getting into heaven - and staying out of hell - became a pyramid scheme. Again, this was the work of fundamentalists.

For the fundamentalist, being faithful and doing good deeds isn’t enough to get your wings. You’ve got to go above and beyond. You’ve got to be a go-getter! What do you have to go and get to avoid the pitch forks and pools of fire? Why, souls of course! Whether you want to call it the Crusades, Manifest Destiny, or Gulf War II fundamentalists have been doing their damnedest for a long, long time to ensure that theirs is the only true faith – one way or another.

These aren’t people who go to church every Sunday and visit the elderly. These are people who believe with all their hearts that – potentially in our lifetimes – God Himself will drop from the sky one day and smite the Earth, destroying all life as we know it...except for them. They are willing to kill or die for this belief, regardless of the fact that this blind fervor is a contradiction to the basis of their faith. It’s their way, or the highway. Hmm, now why does that sound familiar?

I never really paid much mind to religious folks in the past. They went their way, and I went mine; All was right with the world. I figured as long as no one was rounding-up people and burning them at stakes we were doing OK. Now I’m not so sure.

Evolution is fact. Stem cell research will save human lives. These are truths. You can observe them, study them, and reproduce their results in a controlled setting – they are REAL. The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, speaking in tongues, and faith healing are bunk. Even people who say are “religious” generally agree with these statements, but ask a fundamentalist and all hell breaks loose (In all honesty I think they'd probably let the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus thing slide).

I say fine, let’s give them speaking in tongues and faith healing if they’re so touchy about it, but I’ll be damned if I’m going let them take evolution and stem cells. Those belong to us. They're what WE believe in, and no one can take them away. That’s not going to stop them from trying.

The fundamentalists controlling our government are dangerous. They’re jeopardizing our future by screwing-up our present. I don’t care if they pray in public buildings and I don’t care if they refer to supreme beings in their speeches, but I DO care if they start slashing funding for scientific research, and begin pushing religious agendas in our public schools and universities. Religion has about as much place in our government as it does in the operating room. You want to put your faith in God? Good for you, but stay out of my hospital.

I’m not an anti-religious person, everyone has the right to believe what they will, but the snake-dancers and cultists in Washington are going too far. As Americans it's our duty to oppose this religious coup d'tat. The fate of our freedoms, and our country depend on it.

The Founders believed in a supreme being, but they also fought like hell to keep religion out of our government. They established our nation on the rationalistic tenants of logic, law, and science over 200 years ago. Isn’t it about damn time we lived up to their expectations?

"I am not about to become a Leader or Follower in Theology. To my own Master I stand or fall." ~ John Adams

"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole "volume" of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." ~ Alexander Hamilton

"I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made the world, and govern'd it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service to God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteem'd the essentials of every religion; and, being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I respected them all, tho' with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mix'd with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote or confirm morality, ser'd principally to divide us, and make us unfriendly to one another." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science." ~ Thomas Jefferson

Labels: bloggers, blogging, founders, fundamentalism, religion

This being Earth Day, I’ve been thinking about…erm...well...Earth. But more precisely, I’ve been think about our relationship – as the sole sentient race of beings known to exist - with the little spec of galactic dust we call home. I mean, the place isn’t getting any bigger, you know?

Homo Sapiens: “species virtually indistinguishable from living people, dating to as early as 100,000 years ago. We have a worldwide distribution, arriving in Australia around 60,000 years ago and in North and South America between 20,000 and 12,000 years ago.”

Hell, that’s not too damn bad is it? “Worldwide distribution,” I like the sound of that. If the race of modern humans were a corporation I just might buy stock in it. We’re productive buggers, and there’s more of us every single day. You know, like bacteria in a Petri dish…only we’re eating parts of the dish away.

Global desertification and deforestation are forcing us to get more from less in terms of agriculture. A drought here, or an early frost there has been known to cause waves to ripple through the world economy as effectively as fluctuations in oil prices. Food is, after all, pretty important stuff when you stop to think about it.

Food is difficult to make. Not like perfect omelet difficult, I’m talking about actual food production. Whether you’re a vegemite or an omnivore, food needs to be born, raised, harvested, packaged, and delivered before any off us here in the industrialized world ever even see it. That’s where the energy I’ve been thinking about comes in.

What if we sorta just ran out of energy one day? Or, more specifically, what if we ran out of oil? Sure there’s lots out there right now, but we seem to be pretty good at sucking it out of the ground and burning it. You might even say we have it down to a science. It’s pretty well accepted that we will run out of oil one day. There is only so much of the stuff to begin with, and making it takes time. Well, time and dinosaurs, but we’re already out of them. Current estimates put us on course to reach “peak” production sometime between 2007 and 2013, after that we start the “not enough oil to go around for everyone on Earth to eat” phase of human history.

Interestingly, just as I’ve been considering this imminent energy problem, and – I think justifiably – freaking out about it, several sci-fi level advancements in energy production technology have been made public. Funny – these announcements coincide with Earth Day. Easter too, but that’s neither here nor there.

Changing World Technologies, WaveCrest Laboratories, and Ferro Solutions each have products that seem like they could help human beings evolve beyond our centuries long dependence on fossil fuels.

The first, Changing World Technologies, has snagged big name investors and some good press after announcing they have a technology that can convert biomass into oil in hours instead of millennia. Nifty, eh? They also claim to be able to do the same with any substance containing carbon: “tires, plastic bottles, harbor-dredged muck, old computers, municipal garbage, cornstalks, paper-pulp effluent, infectious medical waste, oil-refinery residues, even biological weapons such as anthrax spores.” This is great, but we’ll still have to burn the stuff.

WaveCrest Laboratories on the other hand embeds electrical generators into already moving machinery. This is a great idea. Why don’t the tires of our cars produce any energy? Now they can. WaveCrest just named General Wesley Clark - fresh off his stint as a CNN military analyst, and rumored briefly to have been a possible Democratic candidate for President in 2004 – as their CEO. Keep your eye on this company.

Lastly, Ferro Solutions has developed a new technology “that scavenges energy from the minute vibrations machines create when they're running.” Like the WaveCrest innovation, this uses a simple principle: You don’t need to make more energy if you can use the energy you’ve already got.

I have to say, reading about all of these technologies in the span of a couple of days is pretty stunning. Did the cavalry arrive just in time? Will these and other scientific advances be enough to counter-balance our rampant oil consumption before 2007? I don’t know about you, but after this past winter here in Maine I’ll be watching the state global oil production very closely for the next few years.

Act locally, think globally. Conserve.

Labels: environmentalism, oil, technology

Last week I almost lost my father to a pain in the neck. Dad did what any of us would do: He took some aspirin. But the pain got worse. He saw a doctor. The pain got worse. In two weeks he couldn’t hold a coffee cup to his lips; Walking was agony.

Despite repeated pleas to his doctor, he had to wait for an appointment for the MRI necessary to diagnose his condition. The results, his doctor’s office told him, would be back in two weeks. That was Wednesday.

By the time got to Rhode Island on Friday, dad was unconscious in a neck brace on a gurney in the emergency room of a local hospital. The rest of my family, already there, told me they were waiting for an ambulance to take him to the trauma unit of another, larger hospital. It was 15 minutes away. We waited an hour-and-a-half.

Another hour after getting to the second hospital – at which I arrived before the ambulance – a neurosurgeon told us that “time is of the essence.” He also told us dad’s chances were less than 50/50.

A small tumor had lodged itself inside one of the disks in dad’s neck. The mass was growing inside the cavity his spinal cord passed through, and was slowly crushing it.

When dad woke-up from the “extraordinary” surgery, he felt no more pain. He didn’t feel a lot of things. As I type this, dad is in a hospital bed hundreds of miles away barely able to breathe without a respirator. He can move his head, and his right arm – somewhat. As for the rest, we’ll have to wait and see.

Dad’s spirits are good. He’s glad to be alive. The rest of us are each dealing with it in our own way. Mom goes to the hospital every morning at 8, and stays for twelve hours or so. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met.

My sister comes in a close second. She works third shift, then goes straight to the hospital. No one can survive long on 2 or 3 hours of sleep a day, but that hasn’t stopped her yet.

My brother, the eldest, is there every day. Managing a small business and raising a family of his own hasn’t prevented him from making the daily trek from Cape Cod to see mom and dad.

My wife, brother-, and sister-in-law have been the glue holding the rest of us together. They’ve hung back in the wings; There with unflinching support, but also aware that each of us tends to prefer solitude in times of crisis. We’re an introspective bunch, and I don’t envy them for having married into our odd little family, but I’m damn glad they did.

Thanks to everyone out there for all the support and well wishes. Please keep them coming. Check back here for updates as this blog returns to its regularly scheduled programming.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, family, Rhode Island

The year is 2003. By all accounts, the Cold War is over. For those just joining us here in the 21st century: We won.

The former Soviet Union was the United States’ largest naval adversary with the cornerstone of their seafaring arsenal being a large number of nuclear submarines, each of which could easily destroy the entire east coast with a volley of sea-launched ballistic nuclear weapons. Naturally this was cause for some concern...in the 1990’s.

Yet, like the Russian space program, much of what was once a technologically advanced military force is now a footnote in the history of mutually assured destruction (MAD).

No other nation on Earth has such a fleet of killing machines - except of course for the USA. Most countries find it challenging enough to fund and support fleets of old, loud, slow, diesel-powered boats. So why does the US continue to research and deploy super powered sonar systems at a cost of billions of dollars to US taxpayers?

Whales.

What most Americans don’t realize is whales - and their dolphin cousins - are vastly more intelligent than human beings. Not only that, but the beasties are fucking huge! Just think what would happen if these gigantic, genius creatures decided that they should rule the world. We wouldn’t stand a chance. As it is, the bastards are already threatening our already depleted supply of tuna - the chicken of the sea. In a few short years we could be dealing with a worldwide tuna shortage! The thought gives me chills.

Fortunately, the Bush Administration has seen this danger on the horizon, and has vowed to protect us from these behemoths. However, because of the creature’s devious intellect, we’ve had to prepare for inevitable war with the whales in secret.

Sonar is the key. Ultra-low frequency sonar doesn’t just detect non-existent submarines deployed by non-existent geo-political adversaries; it also kills whales by the dozens! Our Navy is “testing” this new super weapon on daily basis in areas heavily populated by our mortal enemies. As a result, whales suffer crippling brain hemorrhages as their super-sensitive internal navigation systems painfully explode under the pressure of the sonic onslaught.

I for one will sleep easily tonight knowing that I won't be subjected to the brutal life of toiling in the undersea kelp farms of our would-be overlords.

Death to the whales! And god bless George W. Bush!

Labels: environmentalism, George W. Bush, military technology, Navy, Russia, technology

USA TODAY via Drudge

White House seeks to expand DNA database

WASHINGTON DNA profiles from juvenile offenders and from adults who have been arrested but not convicted would be added to the FBI's national DNA database under a Bush administration proposal.

Sure. Why not, right? This is a good thing. Isn't it? Just think, now EVERYONE can have their very own file at the FBI.

J. Edgar Hoover + Joe McCarthy x G. W. Bush = ?

Labels: fbi, George W. Bush, patriot act, tia

Via boingboing:

Amorous worms reveal effects of Chernobyl

WORMS contaminated by radioactivity from the Chernobyl nuclear accident have started having sex with each other instead of on their own. According to Ukrainian scientists, they may have changed their sexual behaviour to increase their chances of survival. It's one of the first pieces of direct evidence on how wildlife is affected by radioactive pollution.

Why do I envision a race of super-worms emerging from central Russia? How might our new invertebrate overlords rule the world? Oh well, at least it couldn't be much worse than this.

Labels: environmentalism, Russia

Yep, this sure is one fine hand basket we have here. Enjoy the ride while you can!

Working with the Bush administration, Congressional Republicans are maneuvering to make permanent the sweeping antiterrorism powers granted to federal law enforcement agents after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said today.

The move is likely to touch off strong objections from many Democrats and even some Republicans in Congress who believe that the Patriot Act, as the legislation that grew out of the attacks is known, has already given the government too much power to spy on Americans.

Labels: Charles Schumer, Congress, fisa, George W. Bush, Orrin Hatch, patriot act, Tom Daschle

So when is the last time you heard the word "nosedive" used in reference to the US economy?

This is not good. In fact, it is BAD.

I was particularly heartened by this confident passage:

"Fed officials have indicated that their battle plan has been influenced heavily by reviewing the mistakes made by the Bank of Japan, which has been unable to jump-start that country's economy over a decade despite driving short-term interest rates to zero."

Isn't that just nifty. Maybe we should also build ourselves a giant, sinking airport while we're at it.

Will Iraqi oil be enough to get us out of this mess?

Labels: economy, iraq, Japan

Via MSNBC:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 8 — A U.S. Air Force warplane dropped four enormous bombs Monday on a residential neighborhood where “extremely reliable” intelligence information indicated that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his two sons were staying, senior administration officials told NBC News. The sources would not rule out the possibility that Saddam could have moved before the planes struck, but they said it was highly likely that he and his sons were dead if they were still there when the bombs hit.

How likely is it that the CIA could miss twice? Not very likely at all.

Now all the administration needs to do is get there story straight on the fertilizer, er, I mean sarin nerve gas.

Labels: cia, iraq, saddam hussein, wmd

I hate self-righteous bloggers who watch the news like vultures, posting every headline of even minor importance just so they can say, “See, I told ya so!” a few weeks later when the mainstream news finally catches up. Poor CNN, they never even saw it coming. Oh well.

But I’m not one of those smarmy blogging pseudo-intellectuals who would declare “You heard it here first” after scooping every major news outlet in America. Nope, not me. That would imply that I take pride in scouring the web for news and cool stuff 8 to 12 hours a day. I don’t. It’s a sickness really, and I probably couldn’t stop if I wanted to. Now, if there were just some way to make a living as an intelligence analyst outside the military…

Anywho, here’s an update on the US-backed, post-Saddam leader of Iraq via ABC News Online, Austrailia:

Missing Iraqi General in Kuwait after CIA aided Denmark escape

Why it’s none other than Nizar al-Khazraji, the former Iraqi Army Chief of Staff who disappeared from Denmark – where he was under house arrest while being tried for war crimes (when will they just get over gassing people to death, sheesh!) – back on March 17th. What a surprise!

Not to worry though, the CIA says he’s A-OK with the USA. He’s a GOOD (suspected) mass-murdering fuck-head TM.

I’m going to take a nap now.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, cia, iraq, media, Nizar al-Khazraji

I have no idea what is happening in the world anymore. It could be the lingering effects of the massive amounts of pain killers I’ve been taking – the only GOOD thing about my experience in undergoing invasive surgery at a facility run by the US Department of Veteran’s Affairs (The same incompetent slobs who are about to suffer massive budgetary cuts so the Bush administration can “afford” to line the pockets of our nation’s most wealthy citizens). Or it could be that there’s just a hell of a lot going on right now, and no one seems to have a handle on any of it except this guy. This is, of course, disconcerting.

I’m reminded of the final scene in Star Wars: A New Hope (“from the Adventures of Luke Skywalker” for you purists out there). It was the assault on the Death Star – the Empire’s ultimate weapon (Although in hindsight we should have guessed that it was just a prototype, and that the Empire was secretly building a bigger, badder Death Star battle station all along. But I digress).

Despite all the confusion of that epic fight, two things are permanently burned into my memory. The first is the line “Stay on target!”, referring to the small thermal exhaust port the rebel insurgents were gunning for in their attempt to destroy the Death Star with a single, well placed proton torpedo. The second is Porkins.

Porkins has nothing to do with anything else in the movie – or the trilogy for that mater (I say trilogy because there are only three Star Wars movies in my reality). He’s just a fat schmuck who lives his life under the increasingly oppressive thumb of the Empire until he just can’t stand it anymore. He finally works up the courage to do something about it one day, and joins the rebellion. Leaving his shity life behind, Porkins works his ass off to become a skilled X-Wing star fighter pilot, and eventually makes it into the rebel’s feared Red Squadron. Then - about a minute and thirty seconds after his character is introduced – his X-Wing is vaporized. If that’s not the most depressing thing you’ve ever heard…Well, you’re just dead inside.

At any rate, the phrase “Stay on target” has been echoing in my mind the past few days as I’ve been reading the news. The war, SARS, the RIAA, a laughable budget…it just doesn’t stop. Every time I read something and think “Shit, it just doesn’t get any more screwed-up than that,” another headline comes along.

I’m left asking myself if it’s always been like this? Has the United States always teetered on the edge of ruin, and we’re just now coming to realize it because news gets disseminated so quickly these days? Or have we progressed to an actual point of no return after generations of over-consumption, political corruption, and public apathy?

I’m still trying to figure it all out, but one thing I do know is this: I’m not going out like Porkins.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, media

A few years ago – OK it was more like 10 – I was a freshman in college. (We just didn’t believe them when they said the time would fly). I was in a bizarre little class of 10 or 12 students entitled Freshman Seminar: Contemporary Japanese History and Culture. I say it was bizarre because by the end of the second semester of my sophomore year I had exhausted the University’s entire catalog of courses regarding Asian Studies; At the time, URI was still very much a Euro-centric East Coast State University – a bit backward really.

I took the course because it fit nicely into a schedule I had thrown together at the last minute (i.e. the day classes started), but also because it complemented the Japanese 101 course I had signed up for to satisfy my language requirement (Spanish 303 at 8 am MWF, or Japanese 101 at 2 pm TR – it’s a no brainier really).

The course was – after several years of Asian Studies at various institutions - actually a decent, but slightly dated, introduction to the cultural identity of Japan. Any legitimate understanding of the topic requires a lengthy study of history, geography, anthropology, art, political science, language, and philosophy, but this odd little course at URI served its purpose well.

In my final paper for the class, I tried to tackle the difficult subject of competitive spirit - as it exists in all cultures – and its specific manifestations in modern day America and Japan. (That's what I was attempting to write about, but I’m sure the thesis looked more like: “The Japanese are cool.”).

In America – go to any ball park on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and watch your neighborhood sports teams play a game – and listen. What are you likely to hear from the stands? “Be number one!” In Japan – at the time I wrote my original paper anyway – you’d hear something that translates roughly to “Do your best!”

In America, being called a “loser” is perhaps one of the worst insults imaginable. This is not necessarily true for other cultures in which doing one's best – regardless of the outcome – is a more significant endeavor than simply winning. It’s a subtle difference, but one that deserves exploration considering our current situation in Iraq.

Militarily, there’s no doubt that the US will “win” this war. No comparison exists between US and Iraqi forces. None. However – as simple as this fundamental truth appears – it all goes to shit once we move beyond the limited American cultural instinct of applying concepts of “win” and “lose” to a conflict. Who says the Iraqis are in the same ball game we are? What if not a single Iraqi soldier is trying to win at all? What if each one of them is simply trying to cause as much damage as possible?

When you sit down across from an opponent at chess, or tic-tac-toe for that matter, it’s not very difficult to play that opponent to a draw – even if they’re a “better” player than you. If you have no intention of winning from the start, you can turn the game into a very frustrating exercise for your advarsary; Especially if instead of a single match, you play a series of long, slow matches. It’s obvious that the superior player will win in the end, but who’s counting the pawns?

In reading about what’s likely to become “The Siege of Baghdad,” I’ve had to ask myself, what is an acceptable end-game for Saddam Hussein at this point? He’s not in this battle to actually win – that option doesn’t exist for him. The best he can do is inflict as much damage to US forces as possible, and hope that world and US public opinion will eventually further hamstring the Pentagon’s efforts to fight this war the way they want and need to in order to minimize the loss of American lives. This is, of course, monstrous – but all’s fair.

In my mind, it’s logical to ask what the magic number is. That being the number of US casualties Saddam Hussein’s forces must inflict before his death for this entire operation to be considered a costly “failure” on the part of the United States. In other words, how many US lives will it take before history regards this war as Vietnam II, instead of Gulf War II?

Numerically, I think it’ll take far less than the number of lives lost in Vietnam. I also think it will take far less time. The stakes are much, much higher here. The US is using 21st century technology: a constellation of intelligence satellites, precision guided bombs, special forces, the best of the best of the best…against troops employing soviet era, rusting, dilapidated armaments.

So far, we know that the US troops on the ground have had some difficultly. It’s widely believed that Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration wanted to not only do this "on the cheap,” but also to show how much the US could do with so little effort. The plan was to show the entire Axis of Evil how easy it is for the US to cut through a nation like a hot knife through butter – just like Afghanistan. North Korea and Iran are watching this unfold just as attentively as China was watching the first Gulf War. This is an international parade and review of the United States top weaponry and intellige