I spent 21 years in the Army as a Middle East Intelligence Analyst and Arabic Linguist. Without divulging any specifics about what I did, let's take it for granted that I know a thing or two about the Middle East.
One of the things I learned as I grew for young into full adulthood was the intricacies of the Palestinian/Israeli issue. The thing that most struck me as I grew older and more worldly was the attitude and behavior of the nearby Arab states and the equally nearby Persian state of Iran. The crux of the debate for over 50 years now has been the lack of an established Palestinian homeland, free from the presumed or actual oppression/rejection by the state of Israel. Without the continued Palestinian/Israeli conflict, there would be very few things to gripe about to a world audience. And so, the Middle Eastern nations gave volumes of lip service to the plight of the Palestinians, but came up with little in the actual act of granting them a homeland for themselves. The reason??
They liked and still like the Palestinians clashing with the Israeli's. You see, the battle is a built-in excuse for the ages for the Arab world. You won't help us with our poor, poor, Palestinian brothers, so we will not come on line with the decency and peacefulness of the rest of the civilized world. You can't cry wolf if you've killed it, so they keep it alive.
Jeremiah Wright not only has not quieted down as Senator Obama has practically pleaded with him to do, he keeps coming on stronger and stronger every day, saying one outlandish thing after another - admittedly some of the statements are sincerely funny - but outlandish nonetheless. Why would he continue on in this fashion, knowing he's actually hurting Senator Obama's presidential run? Why?
Why don't the Arab nations with thousands of miles of inhabitable terrain give some to the Palestinians?
The answer, I'm afraid, is the same. If the Palestinians are given southwestern Syria, for example, and they live happily ever after, what happens to the 50 year and counting argument against the Jews? That's right; it dies. And with it, the worlds sympathy when they do another terrorist activity, or claim no one is listening to their "plight."
If Barak Obama is elected President, what happens to the Rev. Wright's 20 year pulpit claims that the white man continues to oppress and stifle the black man?
Twin sons. Different mothers.
- I am, JL Hussein 4, and I've approved this blog.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Ahhhhh...now I get it
I spoke to a mom today at a sports complex. She has a third-grader who is going to play football in the fall. It's full contact football, pads, helmets, the works. She stated that the team will practice every night from 6pm to 8pm, play games on Saturdays, then practice Sunday afternoons 1pm to 3pm.
And it hit me right there. The link I was missing. NOW I KNOW.
A third grader is what...9 years old? So he practices 2 hours a night 5 days a week, 2 hours a day Sundays, and of course game days are at least 4 hours with prep time, etc. This is how this happens.
This?
Oh, I'm sorry. This is the explanation for why in the State of Florida, approximately 73% of all high school football players drop out by their sophomore year...sometimes reappearing at another school...most times not reappearing at all.
They practice every night of their life, so by the time they reach high school they can't read or write. If they're enormously talented, they get a pass all the way through, and go on to fake their college education at a major university that plays football on a high level. If they're not enormously talented, they just disappear with the other 72.9% who disappear, never to be heard from again.
Except possibly on a police blotter.
All my kids play sports. All are exceptional athletes. They are all exceptionally intelligent and have the grades and SAT scores to prove it. They are this way because they never do anything every day, 2 or more hours a day, all year long. They enjoy balance in their lives, and although none of them so far is on scholarship to play sports and obtain a fraudulent collegiate diploma, they are all going to achieve their college education the old fashioned way...through school work.
I love athletics and believe in the ethos that athletics can actually make a child's scholastic abilities increase. But only if there is proper balance.
Ready!!! Hike!!!
And it hit me right there. The link I was missing. NOW I KNOW.
A third grader is what...9 years old? So he practices 2 hours a night 5 days a week, 2 hours a day Sundays, and of course game days are at least 4 hours with prep time, etc. This is how this happens.
This?
Oh, I'm sorry. This is the explanation for why in the State of Florida, approximately 73% of all high school football players drop out by their sophomore year...sometimes reappearing at another school...most times not reappearing at all.
They practice every night of their life, so by the time they reach high school they can't read or write. If they're enormously talented, they get a pass all the way through, and go on to fake their college education at a major university that plays football on a high level. If they're not enormously talented, they just disappear with the other 72.9% who disappear, never to be heard from again.
Except possibly on a police blotter.
All my kids play sports. All are exceptional athletes. They are all exceptionally intelligent and have the grades and SAT scores to prove it. They are this way because they never do anything every day, 2 or more hours a day, all year long. They enjoy balance in their lives, and although none of them so far is on scholarship to play sports and obtain a fraudulent collegiate diploma, they are all going to achieve their college education the old fashioned way...through school work.
I love athletics and believe in the ethos that athletics can actually make a child's scholastic abilities increase. But only if there is proper balance.
Ready!!! Hike!!!
Friday, April 25, 2008
An actual conversation
I ran into a former co-worker at the supermarket yesterday, and she and I had a conversation. As is her want, she shifted it quickly over to politics, and she wanted to know if I was going to vote for Barack Obama. She was disappointed in my answer, yet the talking went on.
Me: Why do you want to vote for him?
Her: Because he's going to give me free medical.
Me: Free?
Her: Yes
Me: You do know that nothing is free, and the so-called free medical is going to come from raised taxes, right?
Her: I'm ok with that. Helping each other out is what America is, right?
Me: Sooooo...you don't mind paying for your neighbors medical expenses?
Her: Not at all.
Me: Will you pay for a new car for him too?
Her: As long as he helps pay for mine.
Me: But what if he wants a Hummer and you only want a Yugo?
Her: It would never work that way.
Me: You don't think there are people out there who would take advantage of this?
Her: You're such a pessimist...of course there aren't any people like that.
Me: How do you feel about his introduction of a bill that will send $900 Billion US tax dollars in the next 4 years to other countries?
Her: I heard about that, but my friend says it's not true.
Me: Actually, it is.
Her: No it's not.
Me: How about Obama's relationships with people who have blown off explosives in the Pentagon? You know, Bill Ayers?
Her: That is just something concocted by the Bush administration. It's not true either.
Me: But Bush isn't running against Obama, and he really doesn't like McCain.
Her: It's all the same thing. McCain...Bush...Hillary....they're all the same.
Me: They are?
Her: Yup. We need change.
Me: One last question. Has Senator Obama come out yet to tell us exactly what that change will be?
Her: He doesn't have to. He's just going to change it all, and we'll all be better for it.
Me: Did your friend tell you that, too?
Her: Nope. That one is all mine.
Me: What state is Senator Obama from?
Her: Indiana or close to that, right?
Me: Riiiight. Close to that.
Me: Why do you want to vote for him?
Her: Because he's going to give me free medical.
Me: Free?
Her: Yes
Me: You do know that nothing is free, and the so-called free medical is going to come from raised taxes, right?
Her: I'm ok with that. Helping each other out is what America is, right?
Me: Sooooo...you don't mind paying for your neighbors medical expenses?
Her: Not at all.
Me: Will you pay for a new car for him too?
Her: As long as he helps pay for mine.
Me: But what if he wants a Hummer and you only want a Yugo?
Her: It would never work that way.
Me: You don't think there are people out there who would take advantage of this?
Her: You're such a pessimist...of course there aren't any people like that.
Me: How do you feel about his introduction of a bill that will send $900 Billion US tax dollars in the next 4 years to other countries?
Her: I heard about that, but my friend says it's not true.
Me: Actually, it is.
Her: No it's not.
Me: How about Obama's relationships with people who have blown off explosives in the Pentagon? You know, Bill Ayers?
Her: That is just something concocted by the Bush administration. It's not true either.
Me: But Bush isn't running against Obama, and he really doesn't like McCain.
Her: It's all the same thing. McCain...Bush...Hillary....they're all the same.
Me: They are?
Her: Yup. We need change.
Me: One last question. Has Senator Obama come out yet to tell us exactly what that change will be?
Her: He doesn't have to. He's just going to change it all, and we'll all be better for it.
Me: Did your friend tell you that, too?
Her: Nope. That one is all mine.
Me: What state is Senator Obama from?
Her: Indiana or close to that, right?
Me: Riiiight. Close to that.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The most important blog you'll ever read. EVER.
The blood in his eyes almost blinded him, but the Navy Seal could hear, clattering above the trees in northeast Afghanistan, rescue helicopters.
Hey, he pleaded silently. "I'm right here."
On June 28, 2005, four Navy Seals, pinned down in a firefight, radioed for help. A Chinook helicopter, carrying 16 service members, responded but was shot down. All members of the rescue team and three of four Seals on the ground died. Marcus Luttrell alone survived.
Marcus Luttrell, a fierce, 6-foot-5 rancher's son from Texas, lay in the dirt. His face was shredded, his nose broken, three vertebrae cracked from tumbling down a ravine. A Taliban rocket-propelled grenade had ripped off his pants and riddled him with shrapnel.
As the helicopters approached, Luttrell, a petty officer first class, turned on his radio. Dirt clogged his throat, leaving him unable to speak. He could hear a pilot: "If you're out there, show yourself."
It was June 2005. The United States had just suffered its worst loss of life in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001. Taliban forces had attacked Luttrell's four-man team on a remote ridge shortly after 1 p.m. on June 28. By day's end, 19 Americans had died. Now U.S. aircraft scoured the hills for survivors.
There would be only one.
Luttrell's ordeal -- described in exclusive interviews with him and 14 men who helped save him -- is among the more remarkable accounts to emerge from Afghanistan. It has been a dim and distant war, where after 5 1/2 years about 26,000 U.S. troops remain locked in conflict.
Out of that darkness comes this spark of a story. It is a tale of moral choices and of prejudices transcended. It is also a reminder of how challenging it is to be a smart soldier, and how hard it is to be a good man.
Luttrell had come to Afghanistan "to kill every sonovabitch we could find." Now he lay bleeding and filthy at the bottom of a gulch, unable to stand. "I could see hunks of metal and rocks sticking out of my legs," he recalled.
He activated his emergency call beacon, which made a clicking sound. The pilots in the HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters overhead could hear him.
"Show yourself," one pilot urged. "We cannot stay much longer." Their fuel was dwindling as morning light seeped into the sky, making them targets for RPGs and small-arms fire. The helicopters turned back.
As the HH-60s flew to Bagram air base, 80 miles away, one pilot told himself, "That guy's going to die."
Luttrell never felt so alone. His legs, numb and naked, reminded him of another loss. He had kept a magazine photograph of a World Trade Center victim in his pants pocket. Luttrell didn't know the man but carried the picture on missions. He killed in the man's unknown name.
Now Luttrell's camouflage pants had been blasted off, and with them, the victim's picture. Luttrell was feeling lightheaded. His motivation for vengeance was gone.
Luttrell's mission had begun routinely. As darkness fell on Monday, June 27, his Seal team fast-roped from a Chinook helicopter onto a grassy ridge near the Pakistan border. They were Navy Special Operations forces, among the most elite troops in the military: Lt. Michael P. Murphy and three petty officers -- Matthew G. Axelson, Danny P. Dietz and Luttrell. Their mission, code-named Operation Redwing, was to capture or kill Ahmad Shah, a Taliban leader. U.S. intelligence officials believed Shah was close to Osama bin Laden.
Luttrell, 32, is a twin. His brother was also a Seal. Each had half of a trident tattooed across his chest, so that standing together they completed the Seal symbol. They were big, visceral, horse-farm boys raised by a father Luttrell described admiringly as "a hard man."
"He made sure we knew the world is an unforgiving, relentless place," Luttrell said. "Anyone who thinks otherwise is totally naive."
Luttrell, who deployed to Afghanistan in April 2005 after six years in the Navy, including two years in Iraq, welcomed the moral clarity of Kunar province. He would fight in the mountains that cradled bin Laden's men. It was, he said, "payback time for the World Trade Center. My goal was to double the number of people they killed."
The four Seals zigzagged all night and through the morning until they reached a wooded slope. An Afghan man wearing a turban suddenly appeared, then a farmer and a teenage boy. Luttrell gave a PowerBar to the boy while the Seals debated whether the Afghans would live or die.
If the Seals killed the unarmed civilians, they would violate military rules of engagement; if they let them go, they risked alerting the Taliban. According to Luttrell, one Seal voted to kill them, one voted to spare them and one abstained. It was up to Luttrell.
Part of his calculus was practical. "I didn't want to go to jail." Ultimately, the core of his decision was moral. "A frogman has two personalities. The military guy in me wanted to kill them," he recalled. And yet: "They just seemed like -- people. I'm not a murderer."
Luttrell, by his account, voted to let the Afghans go. "Not a day goes by that I don't think about that decision," he said. "Not a second goes by."
At 1:20 p.m., about an hour after the Seals released the Afghans, dozens of Taliban members overwhelmed them. The civilians he had spared, Luttrell believed, had betrayed them. At the end of a two-hour firefight, only he remained alive. He has written about it in a book going on sale tomorrow, "Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10."
Daniel Murphy, whose son Michael was killed, said he was comforted when "Mike's admiral said, 'Don't think these men went down easy. There were 35 Taliban strewn on the ground.' "
Before Murphy was shot, he radioed Bagram: "My guys are dying." Help came thundering over the ridgeline in a Chinook carrying 16 rescuers. But at 4:05 p.m., as the helicopter approached, the Taliban fighters fired an RPG. No one survived.
"It was deathly quiet," Luttrell recalled. He crawled away, dragging his legs, leaving a bloody trail. The country song "American Soldier" looped through his mind. Round and round, in dizzying circles, whirled the words "I'll bear that cross with honor, because Freedom don't come free."
The Seal wondered whether he was dying -- if not from the bullet that had pierced his thigh, then surely of thirst. "I was licking sweat off my arms," Luttrell recalled. "I tried to drink my urine."
Crawling through the night, as Spanky Peterson's HH-60 flew overhead with other search helicopters, he made it to a pool of water. When he lifted his head, he saw an Afghan. He reached for his rifle.
"American!" the villager said, flashing two thumbs-up. "Okay! Okay!" "You Taliban?" Luttrell asked. "No Taliban!"
The villager's friends arrived, carrying AK-47s. They began to argue, apparently determining Luttrell's fate. "I kept saying to myself, 'Quit being a little bitch. Stand up and be a man.' "
But he couldn't stand. Three men lifted 240 pounds of dead weight and carried Luttrell to the 15-hut village of Sabray. They took his rifle.
What happened next baffled him. Mohammed Gulab, 33, father of six, fed Luttrell warm goat's milk, washed his wounds and clothed him in what Luttrell called "man jammies."
"I didn't trust them," Luttrell said. "I was confused. They'd reassure me, but hell, it wasn't in English."
Hours after his arrival, Taliban fighters appeared and demanded that the villagers surrender the American. They threatened Gulab, Luttrell said, and tried to bribe him. "I was waiting for a good deal to come along and for Gulab to turn me over.
"I'd been in so many villages. I'd be like, 'Up against the wall, and shut the hell up!' So I'm like, why would these people be kind to me?" Luttrell said. "I probably killed one of their cousins. And now I'm shot up, and they're using all the village medical supplies to help me."
What Luttrell did not understand, he said, was that the people of Sabray were following their own rules of engagement -- tribal law. Once they had carried the invalid Seal into their huts, they were committed to defend him. The Taliban fighters seemed to respect that custom, even as they lurked in the hills nearby.
During the day, children would gather around Luttrell's cot. He touched their noses and said "nose"; the children taught him words in Pashtun. At prayer time, he kneeled as best he could, wincing from shrapnel wounds. A boy said in Arabic, "There is no god but Allah." Marcus repeated: "La ilaha illa Allah."
"Once you say that, you become a Muslim -- you're good to go," he said. Luttrell offered his own unspoken prayer to Jesus: "Get me out of here."
At 1 a.m. on July 2, Staff Sgt. Chris Piercecchi, 32, an Air Force pararescue jumper, picked up Gulab's father at the Marine outpost. He flew with him to Bagram. "He was this wise, older person with a big, old beard," Piercecchi recalled. Gulab's father handed over Luttrell's note and described the Seal's trident tattoo.
U.S. commanders drew up rescue plans. "It was one of the largest combat search-and-rescue operations since Vietnam," said Lt. Col. Steve Butow, who directed the air component from a classified location in Southwest Asia.
Planners first considered sending a Chinook to get Luttrell, while Peterson's HH-60 would wait five miles away to evacuate casualties. But the smaller HH-60, the planners concluded, could navigate the turns approaching Sabray more easily than a lumbering Chinook.
"Sixties, you got the pickup," the mission commander said to the HH-60 pilots.
"I was like, 'Holy cow, dude, how am I not going to screw this up?' " Peterson recalled. His chest felt tight. He had never flown in combat. "You want to do your mission, but once you're out, you're like, damn, I'd rather be watching the American puppet movie."
At 10:05 p.m. -- five nights after Luttrell's four-man team had set out -- Peterson climbed aboard with his reservist crew: a college student, a doctor, a Border Patrol pilot, a former firefighter and a hard-of-hearing Vietnam vet.
First Lt. Dave Gonzales, 41, Peterson's copilot, recalled that he felt for his rosary beads. "If you guys are praying guys, make sure you're praying now," Gonzales said. Master Sgt. Josh Appel, 39, the doctor, had never asked for God's help before. His father was Jewish, and his mother was a German Christian: "I don't even know what god I was talking to."
They flew for 40 minutes toward the dead-black mountains. Voices from pilots -- A-10 attack jets and AC-130 gunships flying cover -- droned over five frequencies. Peterson's crew was quiet, breathing a greasy mix of JP-8 jet fuel fumes and hot rubber.
As they climbed from 1,500 to 7,000 feet, Peterson asked about the engines: "What's my power?" In thin air, extra weight can be deadly. He didn't want to dump fuel; they were flying over a village. But he could sense the engines straining through the vibrations in the pedals.
Peterson broke the safety wire on the fuel switch. "Sorry, guys," he said, looking down at the roofs. He felt bad for the people below, but he needed to lighten the aircraft if he wanted to survive. Five hundred pounds of fuel gushed out. "That's for Penny and the boys."
Five minutes before the helicopter reached Sabray, U.S. warplanes -- guided by a ground team that had hiked overland -- attacked the Taliban fighters ringing the houses. "They started shwacking the bad guys," Peterson recalled. The clouds lit up from the explosions. The radio warned, "Known enemy 100 meters south of your position." The back of Peterson's neck prickled.
At 11:38 p.m., they descended into the landing zone, a ledge on a terraced cliff. The rotors spun up a blinding funnel of dirt. The aircraft wobbled, drifting left toward a wall and then right toward a cliff. Piercecchi lay down, bracing for a crash. Master Sgt. Mike Cusick, 57, the flight engineer who had been a gunner in Vietnam, screamed, "Stop left! Stop right!"
"I'm going to screw up," Peterson recalled thinking. He thought of his best friend's wife, how she howled when he told her that her husband, a pilot, had crashed. "Don't let this happen to Penny."
Then, suddenly, through the brown cloud, a bush appeared. An orientation point.
Luttrell was crouching with Gulab on the ground, watching them land. The static electricity from the rotors glowed green. "That was the most nervous I'd been," Luttrell said. "I was waiting for an RPG to blast the helicopter."
Gulab helped Luttrell limp through the rotor wash. Piercecchi and Appel jumped out and saw two men dressed in billowing Afghan robes.
Appel trained the laser dot of his M4 on Luttrell. "Bad guys or good guys?" Appel recalled wondering. "I hope I don't have to shoot them."
Someone shouted: "He's your precious cargo!"
Piercecchi performed an identity check, based on memorized data: "What's your dog's name?"
Luttrell: "Emma!"
Piercecchi: "Favorite superhero?"
"Spiderman!"
Piercecchi shook his hand. "Welcome home."
Luttrell and Gulab climbed into the helicopter. During the flight, Gulab "was latched onto my knee like a 3-year-old," Luttrell recalled. When they landed and were separated, Gulab seemed confused. He had refused money and Luttrell's offer of his watch.
"I put my arms around his neck," Luttrell recalled, "and said into his ear, 'I love you, brother.' " He never saw Gulab again.
Marcus Lattrell lives on his family's farm now with his "Mama". In interviews, he shy's away from words like "Hero" and never utters "ya man." Instead, he uses such time honored phrases as "Yes Sir", and "No ma'am." He was awarded the NAVY CROSS for Valor, but like all true veteran warriors, he can't remember in which box in the storage closet the medal is contained.
Marcus Latrell is a part of Americana that some people cannot understand, for they have no idea it even exists. People who say things like, "The working class is bitter, so they cling to their religion and their guns." These kinds of elitists have neither the moral courage or the moral clarity to understand a person like Marcus Latrell, which is truly a tragedy of our modern society.
To understand Marcus is to understand Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. To understand Marcus is to understand exactly why he clung to Jesus on the side of that hill. To understand Marcus is to understand what America once proudly was, with the downside of knowing how far America has separated from the values and bravery of the forefathers.
To understand Marcus is to....well...never mind.
Hey, he pleaded silently. "I'm right here."
On June 28, 2005, four Navy Seals, pinned down in a firefight, radioed for help. A Chinook helicopter, carrying 16 service members, responded but was shot down. All members of the rescue team and three of four Seals on the ground died. Marcus Luttrell alone survived.
Marcus Luttrell, a fierce, 6-foot-5 rancher's son from Texas, lay in the dirt. His face was shredded, his nose broken, three vertebrae cracked from tumbling down a ravine. A Taliban rocket-propelled grenade had ripped off his pants and riddled him with shrapnel.
As the helicopters approached, Luttrell, a petty officer first class, turned on his radio. Dirt clogged his throat, leaving him unable to speak. He could hear a pilot: "If you're out there, show yourself."
It was June 2005. The United States had just suffered its worst loss of life in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001. Taliban forces had attacked Luttrell's four-man team on a remote ridge shortly after 1 p.m. on June 28. By day's end, 19 Americans had died. Now U.S. aircraft scoured the hills for survivors.
There would be only one.
Luttrell's ordeal -- described in exclusive interviews with him and 14 men who helped save him -- is among the more remarkable accounts to emerge from Afghanistan. It has been a dim and distant war, where after 5 1/2 years about 26,000 U.S. troops remain locked in conflict.
Out of that darkness comes this spark of a story. It is a tale of moral choices and of prejudices transcended. It is also a reminder of how challenging it is to be a smart soldier, and how hard it is to be a good man.
Luttrell had come to Afghanistan "to kill every sonovabitch we could find." Now he lay bleeding and filthy at the bottom of a gulch, unable to stand. "I could see hunks of metal and rocks sticking out of my legs," he recalled.
He activated his emergency call beacon, which made a clicking sound. The pilots in the HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters overhead could hear him.
"Show yourself," one pilot urged. "We cannot stay much longer." Their fuel was dwindling as morning light seeped into the sky, making them targets for RPGs and small-arms fire. The helicopters turned back.
As the HH-60s flew to Bagram air base, 80 miles away, one pilot told himself, "That guy's going to die."
Luttrell never felt so alone. His legs, numb and naked, reminded him of another loss. He had kept a magazine photograph of a World Trade Center victim in his pants pocket. Luttrell didn't know the man but carried the picture on missions. He killed in the man's unknown name.
Now Luttrell's camouflage pants had been blasted off, and with them, the victim's picture. Luttrell was feeling lightheaded. His motivation for vengeance was gone.
Luttrell's mission had begun routinely. As darkness fell on Monday, June 27, his Seal team fast-roped from a Chinook helicopter onto a grassy ridge near the Pakistan border. They were Navy Special Operations forces, among the most elite troops in the military: Lt. Michael P. Murphy and three petty officers -- Matthew G. Axelson, Danny P. Dietz and Luttrell. Their mission, code-named Operation Redwing, was to capture or kill Ahmad Shah, a Taliban leader. U.S. intelligence officials believed Shah was close to Osama bin Laden.
Luttrell, 32, is a twin. His brother was also a Seal. Each had half of a trident tattooed across his chest, so that standing together they completed the Seal symbol. They were big, visceral, horse-farm boys raised by a father Luttrell described admiringly as "a hard man."
"He made sure we knew the world is an unforgiving, relentless place," Luttrell said. "Anyone who thinks otherwise is totally naive."
Luttrell, who deployed to Afghanistan in April 2005 after six years in the Navy, including two years in Iraq, welcomed the moral clarity of Kunar province. He would fight in the mountains that cradled bin Laden's men. It was, he said, "payback time for the World Trade Center. My goal was to double the number of people they killed."
The four Seals zigzagged all night and through the morning until they reached a wooded slope. An Afghan man wearing a turban suddenly appeared, then a farmer and a teenage boy. Luttrell gave a PowerBar to the boy while the Seals debated whether the Afghans would live or die.
If the Seals killed the unarmed civilians, they would violate military rules of engagement; if they let them go, they risked alerting the Taliban. According to Luttrell, one Seal voted to kill them, one voted to spare them and one abstained. It was up to Luttrell.
Part of his calculus was practical. "I didn't want to go to jail." Ultimately, the core of his decision was moral. "A frogman has two personalities. The military guy in me wanted to kill them," he recalled. And yet: "They just seemed like -- people. I'm not a murderer."
Luttrell, by his account, voted to let the Afghans go. "Not a day goes by that I don't think about that decision," he said. "Not a second goes by."
At 1:20 p.m., about an hour after the Seals released the Afghans, dozens of Taliban members overwhelmed them. The civilians he had spared, Luttrell believed, had betrayed them. At the end of a two-hour firefight, only he remained alive. He has written about it in a book going on sale tomorrow, "Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10."
Daniel Murphy, whose son Michael was killed, said he was comforted when "Mike's admiral said, 'Don't think these men went down easy. There were 35 Taliban strewn on the ground.' "
Before Murphy was shot, he radioed Bagram: "My guys are dying." Help came thundering over the ridgeline in a Chinook carrying 16 rescuers. But at 4:05 p.m., as the helicopter approached, the Taliban fighters fired an RPG. No one survived.
"It was deathly quiet," Luttrell recalled. He crawled away, dragging his legs, leaving a bloody trail. The country song "American Soldier" looped through his mind. Round and round, in dizzying circles, whirled the words "I'll bear that cross with honor, because Freedom don't come free."
The Seal wondered whether he was dying -- if not from the bullet that had pierced his thigh, then surely of thirst. "I was licking sweat off my arms," Luttrell recalled. "I tried to drink my urine."
Crawling through the night, as Spanky Peterson's HH-60 flew overhead with other search helicopters, he made it to a pool of water. When he lifted his head, he saw an Afghan. He reached for his rifle.
"American!" the villager said, flashing two thumbs-up. "Okay! Okay!" "You Taliban?" Luttrell asked. "No Taliban!"
The villager's friends arrived, carrying AK-47s. They began to argue, apparently determining Luttrell's fate. "I kept saying to myself, 'Quit being a little bitch. Stand up and be a man.' "
But he couldn't stand. Three men lifted 240 pounds of dead weight and carried Luttrell to the 15-hut village of Sabray. They took his rifle.
What happened next baffled him. Mohammed Gulab, 33, father of six, fed Luttrell warm goat's milk, washed his wounds and clothed him in what Luttrell called "man jammies."
"I didn't trust them," Luttrell said. "I was confused. They'd reassure me, but hell, it wasn't in English."
Hours after his arrival, Taliban fighters appeared and demanded that the villagers surrender the American. They threatened Gulab, Luttrell said, and tried to bribe him. "I was waiting for a good deal to come along and for Gulab to turn me over.
"I'd been in so many villages. I'd be like, 'Up against the wall, and shut the hell up!' So I'm like, why would these people be kind to me?" Luttrell said. "I probably killed one of their cousins. And now I'm shot up, and they're using all the village medical supplies to help me."
What Luttrell did not understand, he said, was that the people of Sabray were following their own rules of engagement -- tribal law. Once they had carried the invalid Seal into their huts, they were committed to defend him. The Taliban fighters seemed to respect that custom, even as they lurked in the hills nearby.
During the day, children would gather around Luttrell's cot. He touched their noses and said "nose"; the children taught him words in Pashtun. At prayer time, he kneeled as best he could, wincing from shrapnel wounds. A boy said in Arabic, "There is no god but Allah." Marcus repeated: "La ilaha illa Allah."
"Once you say that, you become a Muslim -- you're good to go," he said. Luttrell offered his own unspoken prayer to Jesus: "Get me out of here."
At 1 a.m. on July 2, Staff Sgt. Chris Piercecchi, 32, an Air Force pararescue jumper, picked up Gulab's father at the Marine outpost. He flew with him to Bagram. "He was this wise, older person with a big, old beard," Piercecchi recalled. Gulab's father handed over Luttrell's note and described the Seal's trident tattoo.
U.S. commanders drew up rescue plans. "It was one of the largest combat search-and-rescue operations since Vietnam," said Lt. Col. Steve Butow, who directed the air component from a classified location in Southwest Asia.
Planners first considered sending a Chinook to get Luttrell, while Peterson's HH-60 would wait five miles away to evacuate casualties. But the smaller HH-60, the planners concluded, could navigate the turns approaching Sabray more easily than a lumbering Chinook.
"Sixties, you got the pickup," the mission commander said to the HH-60 pilots.
"I was like, 'Holy cow, dude, how am I not going to screw this up?' " Peterson recalled. His chest felt tight. He had never flown in combat. "You want to do your mission, but once you're out, you're like, damn, I'd rather be watching the American puppet movie."
At 10:05 p.m. -- five nights after Luttrell's four-man team had set out -- Peterson climbed aboard with his reservist crew: a college student, a doctor, a Border Patrol pilot, a former firefighter and a hard-of-hearing Vietnam vet.
First Lt. Dave Gonzales, 41, Peterson's copilot, recalled that he felt for his rosary beads. "If you guys are praying guys, make sure you're praying now," Gonzales said. Master Sgt. Josh Appel, 39, the doctor, had never asked for God's help before. His father was Jewish, and his mother was a German Christian: "I don't even know what god I was talking to."
They flew for 40 minutes toward the dead-black mountains. Voices from pilots -- A-10 attack jets and AC-130 gunships flying cover -- droned over five frequencies. Peterson's crew was quiet, breathing a greasy mix of JP-8 jet fuel fumes and hot rubber.
As they climbed from 1,500 to 7,000 feet, Peterson asked about the engines: "What's my power?" In thin air, extra weight can be deadly. He didn't want to dump fuel; they were flying over a village. But he could sense the engines straining through the vibrations in the pedals.
Peterson broke the safety wire on the fuel switch. "Sorry, guys," he said, looking down at the roofs. He felt bad for the people below, but he needed to lighten the aircraft if he wanted to survive. Five hundred pounds of fuel gushed out. "That's for Penny and the boys."
Five minutes before the helicopter reached Sabray, U.S. warplanes -- guided by a ground team that had hiked overland -- attacked the Taliban fighters ringing the houses. "They started shwacking the bad guys," Peterson recalled. The clouds lit up from the explosions. The radio warned, "Known enemy 100 meters south of your position." The back of Peterson's neck prickled.
At 11:38 p.m., they descended into the landing zone, a ledge on a terraced cliff. The rotors spun up a blinding funnel of dirt. The aircraft wobbled, drifting left toward a wall and then right toward a cliff. Piercecchi lay down, bracing for a crash. Master Sgt. Mike Cusick, 57, the flight engineer who had been a gunner in Vietnam, screamed, "Stop left! Stop right!"
"I'm going to screw up," Peterson recalled thinking. He thought of his best friend's wife, how she howled when he told her that her husband, a pilot, had crashed. "Don't let this happen to Penny."
Then, suddenly, through the brown cloud, a bush appeared. An orientation point.
Luttrell was crouching with Gulab on the ground, watching them land. The static electricity from the rotors glowed green. "That was the most nervous I'd been," Luttrell said. "I was waiting for an RPG to blast the helicopter."
Gulab helped Luttrell limp through the rotor wash. Piercecchi and Appel jumped out and saw two men dressed in billowing Afghan robes.
Appel trained the laser dot of his M4 on Luttrell. "Bad guys or good guys?" Appel recalled wondering. "I hope I don't have to shoot them."
Someone shouted: "He's your precious cargo!"
Piercecchi performed an identity check, based on memorized data: "What's your dog's name?"
Luttrell: "Emma!"
Piercecchi: "Favorite superhero?"
"Spiderman!"
Piercecchi shook his hand. "Welcome home."
Luttrell and Gulab climbed into the helicopter. During the flight, Gulab "was latched onto my knee like a 3-year-old," Luttrell recalled. When they landed and were separated, Gulab seemed confused. He had refused money and Luttrell's offer of his watch.
"I put my arms around his neck," Luttrell recalled, "and said into his ear, 'I love you, brother.' " He never saw Gulab again.
Marcus Lattrell lives on his family's farm now with his "Mama". In interviews, he shy's away from words like "Hero" and never utters "ya man." Instead, he uses such time honored phrases as "Yes Sir", and "No ma'am." He was awarded the NAVY CROSS for Valor, but like all true veteran warriors, he can't remember in which box in the storage closet the medal is contained.
Marcus Latrell is a part of Americana that some people cannot understand, for they have no idea it even exists. People who say things like, "The working class is bitter, so they cling to their religion and their guns." These kinds of elitists have neither the moral courage or the moral clarity to understand a person like Marcus Latrell, which is truly a tragedy of our modern society.
To understand Marcus is to understand Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. To understand Marcus is to understand exactly why he clung to Jesus on the side of that hill. To understand Marcus is to understand what America once proudly was, with the downside of knowing how far America has separated from the values and bravery of the forefathers.
To understand Marcus is to....well...never mind.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Random synapse firing
- Am I alone in thinking Senator Clinton will still be claiming in June of 2009 the primary is still on?
- Did you know Barack Obama's given name was Barry? He changed it when he was in elementary school in Indonesia, in an effort to become more popular.
- Exit polls are worthless. I've been exit polled twice in the last 20 years, and I lied both times. I can't imagine I'm the only one who has done that. Oh...why did I lie? It was none of their business who or what I voted for.
- If you take a Flomax and a Cialis at the same time, will you pee for 4 straight hours?
- I watched a dramatization of a person who was having unexplained strokes, and I knew what each doctor was thinking and going to say before they did. Unfortunately, I shouldn't know that....but I do.
- I can understand why someone would rob a bank. I can even understand why they would want to be armed to do so. What I will never understand is the utter hatred a person must posses to shoot an obviously pregnant bank teller in the stomach. I hope when the police corner him, he resists. I really do.
- Have you ever noticed that car dealerships and furniture outlets always have THE GREATEST SALE EVER, and invariably it is predicated on some dire circumstance: THE HOME OFFICE SAYS EVERYTHING HAS TO GO....EVERYTHING!! Ok...I'll take two of those 6 series Mercedes off your hands if it makes you happy.
- Speaking of Cialis - and the resulting phone call they say you should make to your doctor - how exactly would that one go? "Hey doc. It's been...like...6 hours now." Doctor: "Its not polite to brag, you know."
- Someone once asked me why I don't have a site blog counter meter, or sidebar things on my blog. My response? I have no idea how to do any of those things. Seriously.
- I've always been a believer that whenever humans try to solve nature's problems, more problems will occur (Ref: Killer Bees being moved from Africa, for one thing). Mother Nature is a lot smarter than we are, you know. In any case, for about a year now, I've wondered if our knee-jerk emergency reaction to Global Warming was going to have its own set of issues. Apparently the lack of corn world-wide as a food source is becoming the first negative result. Farmers are sending an additional 11% of their corn crops - formerly designated for food - off to Ethanol refineries. Additionally, enterprising farmers world-wide are converting wheat, soy, rice, and other crops to corn for the same reason. There is money in it for them, and money in it for others as well. So much for "Going Green" being about saving the planet. It's becoming about making as much jing as you can; as fast as you can. Look at all the advertising. Everyone from flooring manufacturers to new home builders to toilet paper manufacturers are claiming their products are green. Pleeeeeeaaaase!!!!!!!!! Spare me the bullshit.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Ladieeeees aaaaaaaannnd Gentlemen...
May I present to you, Professor Peter Singer. Ethics department, Princeton University.Everybody say, "Hiiii Peeete."
The New Yorker calls him "the most influential living philosopher." His critics call him "the most dangerous man in the world." Peter Singer, the De Camp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University's Center for Human Values, is most widely and controversially known for his view that animals have the same moral status as humans. He is the author of many books, including Practical Ethics (1979), Rethinking Life and Death (1995), and Animal Liberation (1975), which has sold more than 450,000 copies. Recently, Peter published and A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution, and Cooperation , which argues that the left must replace Marx with Darwin if it is to remain a viable force.
Singer believes animals have rights because the relevant moral consideration is not whether a being can reason or talk but whether it can suffer. Jettisoning the traditional distinction between humans and non-humans, Singer distinguishes instead between persons and non-persons. Persons are beings that feel, reason, have self-awareness, and look forward to a future. Thus, fetuses and some very impaired human beings are not persons in his view and have a lesser moral status than, say, adult gorillas and chimpanzees.
Singers view on abortion is a bit...shall we say...extreme. Yeah. Extreme. I think that covers it. You see, the fine professor believes that parents - not the state or the government - should have the right to decide the fate of their children. In expanding his views further, it seems professor Singer believes that a family who gives birth to a baby with downs syndrome, for example, should be allowed to euthanize the child up until 2 years after birth.
Yes...I said two years after birth.
In a recent New York Times Magazine essay, he argued that the affluent in developed countries are killing people by not giving away to the poor all of their wealth in excess of their needs. How did he come to this conclusion? "If…allowing someone to die is not intrinsically different from killing someone, it would seem that we are all murderers," he explains in his Practical Ethics class. He calculates that the average American household needs $30,000 per year to avoid murder, anything over that should be given away to the poor. "So a household making $100,000 could cut a yearly check for $70,000," he wrote in the Times.
Pete, Pete, Pete, Pedro, Petey, Peeeeete... What the fuck is WRONG with you?
If a child is born with autism, we should be allowed to murder...uuuuuuh....e-u-t-h-a-n-i-z-e them, but if Lawgirl makes over $30,000 a year and doesn't donate all the excess to the poor, she's a murderer?
I see...and how much are you paid a year? Ohhhhh... it's not YOU you're talking about; it's everyone else. Again, I see your point.
Wait...no I don't, actually.
It's important to note that I can honestly say I've never heard of anyone in my lifetime who ever publicly said such things, but I've read about such people. Joseph Mengele, Herman Ghering, Adolf Hilter and other Nazi theorists obsessed with "Life unworthy of life" come to mind. But the difference between them and you is this, professor:
They [the Nazi's] lived in a time and place where the world would not stand for or tolerate in the slightest such behavior, and millions went to war because of it. But you professor live in 2008 America, where talk of murdering - uhhh euthanizing - disabled children and other "undesirables" is not only accepted, you're given a podium at one of the finest universities in the world. And lets not even talk about the idiotic board of regents at Princeton who thought it was a really good idea to hire this schitz.
For the life of me, I cannot understand what the hell is wrong with the thought processes of this country. No shit. I just can't. I'm frightened more by the fact that this guy is allowed to exist more than the fact that he does exist. Freedom - for all of its glory - is supposed to have limitations. Apparently when it comes to the "Ethics" department at a famous university, it doesn't.
Who needs terrorists? We're crashing it all down without their help.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Saturday, April 19th, 2008
It's actually about tomorrow and the next day, but I'm posting today. Whatever. Just follow the bouncing ball.
I have no idea why this is, but April 19th is a very bad day in the history if of this world. More so than any other particular day, it seems.
April 19th, through the years:
1904 - Much of Toronto, Canada is destroyed by fire.
1927 - Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenityfor her play Sex.
1936 - First day of the Great Uprising in Palestine.
1942 – World War II: In Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is established, situated between the Lublin ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp.
1943 - World War II: In Poland, German troops enter the Warsaw ghetto to round up the remaining Jews, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
1943 - Bicycle Day: Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time.
1971 - Vietnam War: Vietnam Veterans Against the War begin a five-day demonstration in Washington, DC.
1971 - Charles Manson is sentenced to life for the Sharon Tate murders.
1985 - U.S.S.R performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalatinsk U.S.S.R. The explosive is hydrogen.
1989 - A gun turret explodes on the USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors, the result of one distraught sailor's suicidal bent.
1993 - The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.
1995 - Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is bombed, killing 168. That same day convicted murderer Richard Wayne Snell, who had ties to bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh, was executed in Arkansas.
2001 - Orlando, FL. The monster comes to roost at my house.
A footnote: April 20th was Columbine and April 16th Virginia Tech. Beware the ides of April, my friend.
April.
I have no idea why this is, but April 19th is a very bad day in the history if of this world. More so than any other particular day, it seems.
April 19th, through the years:
1904 - Much of Toronto, Canada is destroyed by fire.
1927 - Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenityfor her play Sex.
1936 - First day of the Great Uprising in Palestine.
1942 – World War II: In Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is established, situated between the Lublin ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp.
1943 - World War II: In Poland, German troops enter the Warsaw ghetto to round up the remaining Jews, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
1943 - Bicycle Day: Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time.
1971 - Vietnam War: Vietnam Veterans Against the War begin a five-day demonstration in Washington, DC.
1971 - Charles Manson is sentenced to life for the Sharon Tate murders.
1985 - U.S.S.R performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalatinsk U.S.S.R. The explosive is hydrogen.
1989 - A gun turret explodes on the USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors, the result of one distraught sailor's suicidal bent.
1993 - The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.
1995 - Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is bombed, killing 168. That same day convicted murderer Richard Wayne Snell, who had ties to bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh, was executed in Arkansas.
2001 - Orlando, FL. The monster comes to roost at my house.
A footnote: April 20th was Columbine and April 16th Virginia Tech. Beware the ides of April, my friend.
April.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Awwww shucks...I'm "it" again?
KNOCK KNOCK.
WHO'S THERE?
THE WORLD.
THE WORLD, WHO?
THE WORLD IS LOSING IT'S FREAKING MIND.
McClean VA. elementary school has put a ban on tag, the children's game that Jesus himself probably played 2000 + years ago. This is the 5th such school or entire school district that has banned the game. School Principal Robyn Hooker claimed the "game was becoming increasingly intensely aggressive, and is causing some children to feel bad about themselves."
Heeeeeere we go again. First it was the fat kids and dodge ball. Now it's tag. What's next? "Red Rover" has to be called:
"A mixture of magenta and yellow makes the color but not that color because it's offensive to American Indians?" Try chanting that while holding hands in a line.
Are we going to insist on banning Hop Scotch, Four-Square, The Farmer in the Dell, Kick the Can, Capture the Flag, Duck-duck Goose, Steal the Bacon, and Red Light/Green Light too?
Look. To all the *@#*% thunderheads in our educational system: Recess was created to allow the aggressive energy to flow out of small children so they'd be more attentive and receptive in the classroom. How is it that all these academics don't know or have forgotten this? And why do we have to stress ad nausea that there are no winners and losers, and that all children should be sensitive and caressing of each other?
Children...for those of you that don't know this...are little adults. Yup, they are. They think, breathe, talk, calculate, and compete just like we do. If we teach them that no one wins and no one loses, we're teaching them a lie. People do win and lose. If we give everyone a trophy for playing, we're destroying their value system. And if we tell them that everyone is equal - as opposed to telling them everyone should be treated equally, we're going to confuse them because they can clearly see with their own eyes the fellow students who are struggling academically, the students who have behavioral issues, and who the best kick-ball player is in the third grade - IF in fact kick-ball is still allowed, that is.
What I'm saying here is this. The sanitized PC environment we have and still continue to create for our children is going to be the undoing of this nation. Not a bad President. Not higher gas prices. Not even some moron hiding in a cave in Pakistan. We're sacrificing our future, and we're doing it voluntarily, which makes me want to throw up. It's high time we came to the realization that kids don't draw up plans to kill other kids because they get beat at "Simon Says." Kids bring guns to school because our system and our society keeps telling them they're all equal - and therefore deserving of equal reward - when the truth is they are not all equal...and they know it. Kids shoot their teachers and classmates because they're receiving crappy or no guidance at home, not because they boinked a spelling test. Please don't give me this bully crapola, either. There were bullies 45 years ago when I started kindergarten, and no one shot anyone back then. It's our lack of personal accountability that is creating this festering mess. Taking away playground games doesn't solve any issues - it only serves to create more.
We have lost the ability to rationally explain to our children that "life's a bitch", and here's how you go about winning the game:
"It's called hard work and perseverance, little Johnny. Your friend Tim is better at baseball than you because he just is. Johnny, you need to stop obsessing about how life isn't fair, and find what you're good at doing, so you can out perform Tim in some other aspect of life."
It's called "Tough Love" boys and girls, and we currently suck at enforcing it.
Johnny is receiving mixed signals, so the chances of him following solid advice and putting his nose to the old grindstone are diminishing as we speak.
As is our national prowess.
WHO'S THERE?
THE WORLD.
THE WORLD, WHO?
THE WORLD IS LOSING IT'S FREAKING MIND.
McClean VA. elementary school has put a ban on tag, the children's game that Jesus himself probably played 2000 + years ago. This is the 5th such school or entire school district that has banned the game. School Principal Robyn Hooker claimed the "game was becoming increasingly intensely aggressive, and is causing some children to feel bad about themselves."
Heeeeeere we go again. First it was the fat kids and dodge ball. Now it's tag. What's next? "Red Rover" has to be called:
"A mixture of magenta and yellow makes the color but not that color because it's offensive to American Indians?" Try chanting that while holding hands in a line.
Are we going to insist on banning Hop Scotch, Four-Square, The Farmer in the Dell, Kick the Can, Capture the Flag, Duck-duck Goose, Steal the Bacon, and Red Light/Green Light too?
Look. To all the *@#*% thunderheads in our educational system: Recess was created to allow the aggressive energy to flow out of small children so they'd be more attentive and receptive in the classroom. How is it that all these academics don't know or have forgotten this? And why do we have to stress ad nausea that there are no winners and losers, and that all children should be sensitive and caressing of each other?
Children...for those of you that don't know this...are little adults. Yup, they are. They think, breathe, talk, calculate, and compete just like we do. If we teach them that no one wins and no one loses, we're teaching them a lie. People do win and lose. If we give everyone a trophy for playing, we're destroying their value system. And if we tell them that everyone is equal - as opposed to telling them everyone should be treated equally, we're going to confuse them because they can clearly see with their own eyes the fellow students who are struggling academically, the students who have behavioral issues, and who the best kick-ball player is in the third grade - IF in fact kick-ball is still allowed, that is.
What I'm saying here is this. The sanitized PC environment we have and still continue to create for our children is going to be the undoing of this nation. Not a bad President. Not higher gas prices. Not even some moron hiding in a cave in Pakistan. We're sacrificing our future, and we're doing it voluntarily, which makes me want to throw up. It's high time we came to the realization that kids don't draw up plans to kill other kids because they get beat at "Simon Says." Kids bring guns to school because our system and our society keeps telling them they're all equal - and therefore deserving of equal reward - when the truth is they are not all equal...and they know it. Kids shoot their teachers and classmates because they're receiving crappy or no guidance at home, not because they boinked a spelling test. Please don't give me this bully crapola, either. There were bullies 45 years ago when I started kindergarten, and no one shot anyone back then. It's our lack of personal accountability that is creating this festering mess. Taking away playground games doesn't solve any issues - it only serves to create more.
We have lost the ability to rationally explain to our children that "life's a bitch", and here's how you go about winning the game:
"It's called hard work and perseverance, little Johnny. Your friend Tim is better at baseball than you because he just is. Johnny, you need to stop obsessing about how life isn't fair, and find what you're good at doing, so you can out perform Tim in some other aspect of life."
It's called "Tough Love" boys and girls, and we currently suck at enforcing it.
Johnny is receiving mixed signals, so the chances of him following solid advice and putting his nose to the old grindstone are diminishing as we speak.
As is our national prowess.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
April 16th, 2008
I wrote this a year ago. I just thought it was worth posting again.
http://jl4.blogspot.com/2007/04/angel-in-yarmulke.html
http://jl4.blogspot.com/2007/04/angel-in-yarmulke.html
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
I'm NOT making this up.
This man is going to run the Boston Marathon on Patriots Day --- for charity.
He even has a website for his historic run: http://www.whatwouldjacobdo.com/
I'm hopeful the Boston Fire Department Para-Medic's are on full alert!!
The Three
There are three candidates left for the office of President of the United States. The following describes one of them. Nooooo, I'm not saying who...nor am I going to tell you what the following is a definition of.
It's up to you to figure it out.
It's up to you to figure it out.
1) A belief that capitalism is based on the exploitation of workers by the owners of capital
2) A belief that people's consciousness of the conditions of their lives reflects material conditions and relations
3) An understanding of class in terms of differing relations of production, and as a particular position within such relations
4) An understanding of material conditions and social relations as historically malleable
5) A view of history according to which class struggle, the evolving conflict between classes with opposing interests, structures each historical period and drives historical change
Who is this? Bonus points for knowing WHAT it is.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Say what?
Non-native English speakers often say ours is the hardest language to learn. When you look at it...how could it NOT be? We the people of the United States of America screw our own language up so badly, how could we possibly expect someone from another country to grasp it.
We DON'T screw up our language, you say? Really?
I present to you, lots of examples of how we do it in our daily lives:
Athletes:
Often referred to as Affletes. Many affletes also like to conduct interviews about themselves in the 3rd person. "The onliest person be stoppin' Allen Iverson, be Allan Iverson. Boff of um come at me, annnn they cain't pull da moves dey need...eeever one a dem."
NASCAR drivers and fans: "Ahh don't not know why they was a-drivin' in that layne, but fer sher they wasn't not doin' what the rules say."
Ad agencies: "Do you need a pain reliever that works?" Or...."Are you tired of working 75 hours a week for low wages?"
Famous People:
Brooke Shields: "Smoking kills, and if your dead you've lost a very important part of your life."
Britney Spears: "I love my job. I get to go to a lot of oversea places... like Canada."
Al Gore on Global Warming: "We are not yet prepared for an event that may or may not happen."
President Bush: "I don't know. I don't speak Mexican."
A cooking show host: "Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees." Pre-heat it? Does that mean you turn it on before you turn it on? I mean, how many conditions can an oven be in? I know of heated and unheated. I don't honestly think you can have something called pre-heated.
From the fine folks at PETA:
"People get to eat wholesome and nutritious good food (hamburgers, pork-chops, french-fries, spaghetti, pizza etc.), while cattle, which helps us to produce these vital life-quality-composing elements is eating grass with some phosphates ... " Nope...no idea either! Neither the grammar, the content, or the meaning.
Say good-night Wolfgang.
" In English?"
Never mind. I understand
We DON'T screw up our language, you say? Really?
I present to you, lots of examples of how we do it in our daily lives:
Athletes:
Often referred to as Affletes. Many affletes also like to conduct interviews about themselves in the 3rd person. "The onliest person be stoppin' Allen Iverson, be Allan Iverson. Boff of um come at me, annnn they cain't pull da moves dey need...eeever one a dem."
NASCAR drivers and fans: "Ahh don't not know why they was a-drivin' in that layne, but fer sher they wasn't not doin' what the rules say."
Ad agencies: "Do you need a pain reliever that works?" Or...."Are you tired of working 75 hours a week for low wages?"
Famous People:
Brooke Shields: "Smoking kills, and if your dead you've lost a very important part of your life."
Britney Spears: "I love my job. I get to go to a lot of oversea places... like Canada."
Al Gore on Global Warming: "We are not yet prepared for an event that may or may not happen."
President Bush: "I don't know. I don't speak Mexican."
A cooking show host: "Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees." Pre-heat it? Does that mean you turn it on before you turn it on? I mean, how many conditions can an oven be in? I know of heated and unheated. I don't honestly think you can have something called pre-heated.
From the fine folks at PETA:
"People get to eat wholesome and nutritious good food (hamburgers, pork-chops, french-fries, spaghetti, pizza etc.), while cattle, which helps us to produce these vital life-quality-composing elements is eating grass with some phosphates ... " Nope...no idea either! Neither the grammar, the content, or the meaning.
Say good-night Wolfgang.
" In English?"
Never mind. I understand
Friday, April 11, 2008
The ANSWERS
1) I am framed in front by large Greek-style columns, and you can see me seated behind them. Who am I? LINCOLN MEMORIAL
2) I was once considered "the most trusted man in America". Who am I? WALTER CRONKITE
3. I am the largest monument in the world, but I am incomplete. Who am I? CRAZY HORSE
4. My constant companions live their lives in terms of "21". "21" steps..."21" seconds, etc. Who am I? THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER
5. My flip side would have you buffaloed. Who am I? A NICKEL
6. I have 26 rings, and even more flags and banners. Who am I? THE %^%#@ YANKEES
7. I once said, "I am older than most, and slightly older than my teeth". Who am I? SANTA
8. I believe that every good boy deserves a favor. Who am I? THE MUSICAL SCALES/NOTES
9. I was declared by a newspaper to be the loser, when actually I was the winner. Who am I? HARRY S. TRUMAN
10. I change when I'm blue, excited, angry, or mellow. Who am I? A MOOD RING
11. I once said, "I never met a man I didn't like." Who am I? WILL ROGERS
12. I said, "These are the times that try men's souls". Who am I? THOMAS PAINE
13. I'm taller than anything else in the United States, and I'm not a building. Who am I? MT. McKINLEY
14. "Is this heaven?" "No...It's Iowa." Who are the two people talking? Ray and his father / Ray and Shoeless Joe Jackson in "Field of Dreams"
15. "He's not dead-dead...he's just almost-dead. Only one thing you can do if he's dead-dead." "What's that?" "Check his pocket's for loose change." Who are THESE two talking? MAX THE MIRACLE WORKER AND INIGO MONTOYA
16. I sang the song, "Two outta three ain't bad" Who am I? MEATLOAF
17. I was a famous WWII Air Corps fighter, who gave his life by luring the enemy planes away from my comrades, allowing them to escape...while I was never found. They named a Huuuuuuge airport after me. Last name is sufficient...who am I? O'HARE
18. I am semi-circular in appearance, and I'm situated on the lawn of the part of Washington DC known as "The Mall". My designer was a talented Vietnamese artist. Who am I? VIETNAM MEMORIAL
19. I am the true life story of a major U.S. ship that was sunk by the Japanese, and immortalized in the movie "Jaws" in a story of sharks eating live human beings floating in the Pacific. Which boat am I? USS INDIANAPOLIS
20. I was built in France, yet assembled here. Who am I? STATUE OF LIBERTY
2) I was once considered "the most trusted man in America". Who am I? WALTER CRONKITE
3. I am the largest monument in the world, but I am incomplete. Who am I? CRAZY HORSE
4. My constant companions live their lives in terms of "21". "21" steps..."21" seconds, etc. Who am I? THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER
5. My flip side would have you buffaloed. Who am I? A NICKEL
6. I have 26 rings, and even more flags and banners. Who am I? THE %^%#@ YANKEES
7. I once said, "I am older than most, and slightly older than my teeth". Who am I? SANTA
8. I believe that every good boy deserves a favor. Who am I? THE MUSICAL SCALES/NOTES
9. I was declared by a newspaper to be the loser, when actually I was the winner. Who am I? HARRY S. TRUMAN
10. I change when I'm blue, excited, angry, or mellow. Who am I? A MOOD RING
11. I once said, "I never met a man I didn't like." Who am I? WILL ROGERS
12. I said, "These are the times that try men's souls". Who am I? THOMAS PAINE
13. I'm taller than anything else in the United States, and I'm not a building. Who am I? MT. McKINLEY
14. "Is this heaven?" "No...It's Iowa." Who are the two people talking? Ray and his father / Ray and Shoeless Joe Jackson in "Field of Dreams"
15. "He's not dead-dead...he's just almost-dead. Only one thing you can do if he's dead-dead." "What's that?" "Check his pocket's for loose change." Who are THESE two talking? MAX THE MIRACLE WORKER AND INIGO MONTOYA
16. I sang the song, "Two outta three ain't bad" Who am I? MEATLOAF
17. I was a famous WWII Air Corps fighter, who gave his life by luring the enemy planes away from my comrades, allowing them to escape...while I was never found. They named a Huuuuuuge airport after me. Last name is sufficient...who am I? O'HARE
18. I am semi-circular in appearance, and I'm situated on the lawn of the part of Washington DC known as "The Mall". My designer was a talented Vietnamese artist. Who am I? VIETNAM MEMORIAL
19. I am the true life story of a major U.S. ship that was sunk by the Japanese, and immortalized in the movie "Jaws" in a story of sharks eating live human beings floating in the Pacific. Which boat am I? USS INDIANAPOLIS
20. I was built in France, yet assembled here. Who am I? STATUE OF LIBERTY
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Even newer twist...
Of course...once again straight from the disheveled mind of JL4, without assistance. Open to all.
1) I am framed in front by large Greek-style columns, and you can see me seated behind them. Who am I?
2) I was once considered "the most trusted man in America". Who am I?
3. I am the largest monument in the world, but I am incomplete. Who am I?
4. My constant companions live their lives in terms of "21". "21" steps..."21" seconds, etc. Who am I?
5. My flip side would have you buffaloed. Who am I?
6. I have 26 rings, and even more flags and banners. Who am I?
7. I once said, "I am older than most, and slightly older than my teeth". Who am I?
8. I believe that every good boy deserves a favor. Who am I?
9. I was declared by a newspaper to be the loser, when actually I was the winner. Who am I?
10. I change when I'm blue, excited, angry, or mellow. Who am I?
11. I once said, "I never met a man I didn't like." However, he never had to meet Barry Bonds. Who am I?
12. I said, "These are the times that try men's souls". Who am I?
13. I'm taller than anything else in the United States, and I'm not a building. Who am I?
14. "Is this heaven?" "No...It's Iowa." Who are the two people talking?
15. "He's not dead-dead...he's just almost-dead. Only one thing you can do if he's dead-dead." "What's that?" "Check his pocket's for loose change." Who are THESE two talking?
16. I sang the song, "Two outta three ain't bad" Who am I?
17. I was a famous WWII Air Corps fighter, who gave his life by luring the enemy planes away from my comrades, allowing them to escape...while I was never found. They named a Huuuuuuge airport after me. Last name is sufficient...who am I?
18. I am semi-circular in appearance, and I'm situated on the lawn of the part of Washington DC known as "The Mall". My designer was a talented Vietnamese artist. Who am I?
19. I am the true life story of a major U.S. ship that was sunk by the Japanese, and immortalized in the movie "Jaws" in a story of sharks eating live human beings floating in the Pacific. Which boat am I?
20. I was built in France, yet assembled here. Who am I?
1) I am framed in front by large Greek-style columns, and you can see me seated behind them. Who am I?
2) I was once considered "the most trusted man in America". Who am I?
3. I am the largest monument in the world, but I am incomplete. Who am I?
4. My constant companions live their lives in terms of "21". "21" steps..."21" seconds, etc. Who am I?
5. My flip side would have you buffaloed. Who am I?
6. I have 26 rings, and even more flags and banners. Who am I?
7. I once said, "I am older than most, and slightly older than my teeth". Who am I?
8. I believe that every good boy deserves a favor. Who am I?
9. I was declared by a newspaper to be the loser, when actually I was the winner. Who am I?
10. I change when I'm blue, excited, angry, or mellow. Who am I?
11. I once said, "I never met a man I didn't like." However, he never had to meet Barry Bonds. Who am I?
12. I said, "These are the times that try men's souls". Who am I?
13. I'm taller than anything else in the United States, and I'm not a building. Who am I?
14. "Is this heaven?" "No...It's Iowa." Who are the two people talking?
15. "He's not dead-dead...he's just almost-dead. Only one thing you can do if he's dead-dead." "What's that?" "Check his pocket's for loose change." Who are THESE two talking?
16. I sang the song, "Two outta three ain't bad" Who am I?
17. I was a famous WWII Air Corps fighter, who gave his life by luring the enemy planes away from my comrades, allowing them to escape...while I was never found. They named a Huuuuuuge airport after me. Last name is sufficient...who am I?
18. I am semi-circular in appearance, and I'm situated on the lawn of the part of Washington DC known as "The Mall". My designer was a talented Vietnamese artist. Who am I?
19. I am the true life story of a major U.S. ship that was sunk by the Japanese, and immortalized in the movie "Jaws" in a story of sharks eating live human beings floating in the Pacific. Which boat am I?
20. I was built in France, yet assembled here. Who am I?
Historical World Landmarks
LAWGIRL IS ONE POST BEHIND. CATCH UP LAWGIRL
Ok kids....Landmarks. Reverse Order:
1st 4....Lawgirl.
2nd 4...Sean
3rd 4...Karen
4th 4...Leelee
Good luck to all.
__________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
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World Events
World events, pulled from my memory. Actually, all these last 3 or 4 posts came from my own memory. Does anyone ELSE think I have a focus issue? Ha!
Take turns and play nice, LeeLee, Sean, Lawgirl, and Karen...
As a matter of fact...Leelee...you take the first three.
Karen...you take the next 3
Sean, the 7th, 8th and 9th
And Lawgirl, you hit cleanup, and get the last 3.
Take turns and play nice, LeeLee, Sean, Lawgirl, and Karen...
As a matter of fact...Leelee...you take the first three.
Karen...you take the next 3
Sean, the 7th, 8th and 9th
And Lawgirl, you hit cleanup, and get the last 3.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
A new direction: Quotes
I DO THE QUOTE; YOU NAME THE MOVIE.
Comedy
1. Look Russ...no panty lines
2. Put....the candle....back
3. Samir Naga...Naga...Nagona get this job
4. What a stupid looking hat...but it looks good on YOU though
5. Tell Victor that Ramon---the fella he met about a week ago?---tell him that Ramon went to the clinic today, and I found out that I have, um, herpes simplex 10, and I think Victor should go check himself out with his physician to make sure everything is fine before things start falling off on the man.
Drama and other stuff
1. I always wanted to wake up next to my commanding officer and salute her in the morning
2. Does Barry Manilow know that you raid his wardrobe?
3. Supervisor: Attention, whoever you are. This channel is reserved for emergency calls only... Our hero: No fucking shit, lady! Do I sound like I'm ordering a pizza?
4. You would pay to keep your airline, why won't you pay for your son
5. I don't gripe to you. I don't gripe in front of you. You should know that by now. Complaints go up the chain of command; not down.
Comedy
1. Look Russ...no panty lines
2. Put....the candle....back
3. Samir Naga...Naga...Nagona get this job
4. What a stupid looking hat...but it looks good on YOU though
5. Tell Victor that Ramon---the fella he met about a week ago?---tell him that Ramon went to the clinic today, and I found out that I have, um, herpes simplex 10, and I think Victor should go check himself out with his physician to make sure everything is fine before things start falling off on the man.
Drama and other stuff
1. I always wanted to wake up next to my commanding officer and salute her in the morning
2. Does Barry Manilow know that you raid his wardrobe?
3. Supervisor: Attention, whoever you are. This channel is reserved for emergency calls only... Our hero: No fucking shit, lady! Do I sound like I'm ordering a pizza?
4. You would pay to keep your airline, why won't you pay for your son
5. I don't gripe to you. I don't gripe in front of you. You should know that by now. Complaints go up the chain of command; not down.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Monday, April 07, 2008
Some of my all-time favorites...can you name them?
I'm not a huuuuuge movie person, but I do like things that are well done. In this case, I have posted photos from 7 of my favorites (by no means all my favorites).
Can you name the movies? BONUS POINTS: Can you give me a line from each?
Can you name the movies? BONUS POINTS: Can you give me a line from each?
Michael Penn - No Myth - Unplugged
Another variation of the song...one of the best one hit wonders ever.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
It's April !! Let's celebrate !!
Time to shake off the cobwebs, put away the shovels and the bag of salt, and welcome in Spring.
And how do we do that best?
Why...with baseball my friends.
The very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive, and push, and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century!- speech at Delmonico's, April 8, 1889.
- Mark Twain
Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.
- Terrance Mann (Field of Dreams)
You see, you haven't experienced life until you've sat in a box seat that is a little too small and a little too tight, just to see the boys of summer carry on. You see, there is something remarkable about eating an overcooked hot dog and a bag of cotton candy on a cardboard stick while snuggling close to the one you love watching a baseball game go by while you revel in your companionship while cheering for the team you love. Its quintessential America
- JL4 to a friend last fall.
As bad as that sounds, it also sounds incredibly fun.
- Friend to JL4
Play ball everybody!!! And enjoy life - for a while anyways - huh? Find a ballpark near you, eat a crappy hot dog, and have some fun.
I guarantee it will be good for the soul.
The 80's aren't TOTALLY filled with bad music...just mostly.
Sooooooo,
She says it's time she goes
but wanted to be sure I know
she hopes we can be friends.
IIIIII think, yeah, I guess we can say I,
but didn't think to ask her why
she blocked her eyes and drew the curtains,
with knots I've got yet to untie
What if I were Romeo in black jeans?
What if I was Heathcliff, it's no myth?
Maybe she's just looking for
someone to dance with
Seeeeee,
It was just too soon to tell
and looking for some parallel
can be an endless game.
Weeeee,
We said goodbye before hello
my secrets she will never know
and if I dig a hole to China...
I'll catch the first junk to Soho
What if I were Romeo in black jeans?
What if I was Heathcliff, it's no myth?
Maybe she's just looking for
someone to dance with.
Sometime from now you'll bow to pressure,
some things in life you cannot measure by degrees
I'm between the poles and the equator
don't send no private investigator to find me please
'less he speaks Chinese
and can dance like Astaire overseas...
Ohhhhhkay.
What if I was...?
Say, what IIII was?
Maybe she's just looking for someone to dance with?
What if I was Romeo in black jeans
what if I was Heathcliff, it's no myth
Maybe she's just looking for
someone to dance with.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Random stuff
1) In a recent survey of managers by the website Careerbuilder.com, 49% of all job applicants denied, are so because they show little or no interest in the job.
How can you drive there and then not care?
The other 51% are denied because they dress inappropriately.
Ok...ya gotta lose the Metalica T-shirt and the parachute pants, dude. And ladies? Cleavage is awesome, but not at an interview. And panties ARE NOT optional!
2) During a Fenway Park tour (I've been on it - it's fantastic) a young girl was attacked by a Hawk who had built a nest near the press box. She's ok, but blood was drawn by the hawk's talons. There were lots of girls sitting there, but the raptor chose this particular girl. Her name? Alexa Rodriguez.
You have to know and understand the Red Sox vs Yankees feud to understand and appreciate the irony of this. All those girls on the tour, and our hawk friend attacked that girl. Too damn funny.
3) The female rapper Remy Ma [Nope...I've never heard of her either] is planning on marrying her rapper boyfriend [Mr P-Diddy, Ice-Diddy, or Mr. P-nis. Whatever, I don't know]. In any event, she's facing up to 25 years in prison for shooting her best female friend over an alleged $3000, and she said jail would not stop the wedding from taking place. Weird enough for ya? Not so fast. She said in a prepared statement today, "I'm hopefull that the sentencing judge will take into account my fan base, and understand they don't want me to go to prison for very long." What is that supposed to mean?
4) Speaking of judges... A sitting judge in New Hampshire was drinking one night. Then he drove. Then he hit another car. When the police arrived, they noted the 62 year old male judge - was wearing a dress. He was charged with DUI, causing an accident, and ... and ... and ...
Duuuuuuuude. You didn't, did ya?
How can you drive there and then not care?
The other 51% are denied because they dress inappropriately.
Ok...ya gotta lose the Metalica T-shirt and the parachute pants, dude. And ladies? Cleavage is awesome, but not at an interview. And panties ARE NOT optional!
2) During a Fenway Park tour (I've been on it - it's fantastic) a young girl was attacked by a Hawk who had built a nest near the press box. She's ok, but blood was drawn by the hawk's talons. There were lots of girls sitting there, but the raptor chose this particular girl. Her name? Alexa Rodriguez.
You have to know and understand the Red Sox vs Yankees feud to understand and appreciate the irony of this. All those girls on the tour, and our hawk friend attacked that girl. Too damn funny.
3) The female rapper Remy Ma [Nope...I've never heard of her either] is planning on marrying her rapper boyfriend [Mr P-Diddy, Ice-Diddy, or Mr. P-nis. Whatever, I don't know]. In any event, she's facing up to 25 years in prison for shooting her best female friend over an alleged $3000, and she said jail would not stop the wedding from taking place. Weird enough for ya? Not so fast. She said in a prepared statement today, "I'm hopefull that the sentencing judge will take into account my fan base, and understand they don't want me to go to prison for very long." What is that supposed to mean?
4) Speaking of judges... A sitting judge in New Hampshire was drinking one night. Then he drove. Then he hit another car. When the police arrived, they noted the 62 year old male judge - was wearing a dress. He was charged with DUI, causing an accident, and ... and ... and ...
Duuuuuuuude. You didn't, did ya?
Thursday, April 03, 2008
David Cook :: Final 10 :: American Idol :: Sings Billie Jean
LET'S GET ONE THING STRAIGHT.
I don't watch American Idol...never have. My wife records it and watches it with the boys. She MADE me watch this one.
My gawd this kid is friggin fantastic! Screw American Idol...get this guy to a recording studio...NOW!!!
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
All is not well
NY Times 6 hours ago.
Alex Rodriguez told Times beat reporter Bob Elliott this morning he eats fried bull testicles every night before home games, and washes it all down with Mountain Dew laced with Tabasco sauce.The Yankee third baseman has been prominently mentioned in Jose Conseco's newest tell-all book, "Vindicated", as a habitual steroid user. There are also stories in the book about other Yankee players that like to wear dresses and do flapper dances before Red Sox games, in an attempt to revive the lost spirit of Babe Ruth. There are unconfirmed reports of seagul sacrifices and the ritual of kissing a photo of George Steinbrenner at the locker room doorway leading out to the playing field, as well.
No comment as yet from the Yankees or their spokespersons.
What's the date? C'mon. What's the date?
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