Le ciel est tombé sur ma tête

It’s raining. It’s raining the kind of rain that falls with wicked violence. At times it seems it is a special kind of rain, a sentient rain. The droplets, having reached terminal velocity, hit your hat, wiggle through the knitted wool and impact your hair, but often they simply aim for the thin live of uncovered skin between the rim of the watch-cap and the collar of the rain jacket. There they pool together, and slowly, steadily they snake down your spine. The only respite from those comfort assassins is indoors, in dry, clean clothes.

Press review? - not really

There is an interesting story in today’s Christian Science Monitor . It’s about Marines training to go to Iraq as a Civil Affair unit. CAs interact with the citizens to find what their concerns are and pass them on up the chain. (I know that it’s more complex than that but time is of the essence on Monday mornings.) As I read it I alternatively thought that it was a fair look at training, message controlled well, and cliché. Those of you who read military blogs (Those that use neologisms such as “milblogs” on this blog will be swiftly condemned to be hanged, quartered, burned, and drowned. Trial by fire might be offered as an alternative for those deeply convinced of the righteousness of their cause.) will know that war supporters have been advocating for better message control on the part of the armed forces. The term of art is psyops. The idea is to present our actions in Iraq in a more positive light. It also requires troops to be kept “on message” during their contact with the press.

The article is a fair look at training because it describes the operation taking place in a small North Carolina community in what I thought was a clear, detached manner. It’s a single byline but the reporter seems to have been around all the members of the unit. He gives the reader the whole picture.
Message control on the part of the Corps is great. The writer concludes with this quote by a Cpl. "I would have been disappointed if I had spent four years in the Marines without going. I want to do something with all this training I have." Marines know what they want. Contrast that with this story in today’s Washington Post where an army SSgt says, "I don't know who I'm fighting most of the time, I don't know who is setting what IED." While the statement is true, how are you supposed to know who’s planting IEDs or shooting at you, it does give the impression that this SNCO is completely lost. Not exactly something to be chalked under good PR. Some people will undoubtedly blame it on The Post. They are wrong. The blame for this kind of statement is on individuals who don’t think through what they say, but mostly on the institution for not providing them with guidance. Is it the groundpounder’s job to deal with the press? No. But it’s his boss’ job to give him guidance on how to deal with the press correctly.
Finally, let’s talk about the clichés in the CSM. "It's easy to go kick down a door, and marines love that, so this is actually much harder for them." We are not all brainless apes who thrive solely on blowing stuff up. Do we really need to perpetuate this image? All it does is that when Marines like me go to job interview we end up being asked, in a very PC kind of way: Can you think for yourself? And last but not least let us not forget the obligatory paragraph dedicated to women ogling the Marines while lunching.

Poodles and Choppers

There were a couple of interesting items in the news over the last few days. The first one is that the poodle has decided to start withdrawing British troops from Iraq. It’s hardly surprising considering that even though he managed to win an unprecedented third term as Prime Minister his margin was the slimmest so far. Can the Tories win the next election? I don’t know. It seems that if the discontent of the British population with Iraq was such they would have voted conservatives in greater numbers in the last election cycle. I also think that however discontent the public might be with Blair the population isn’t ready yet for another Tory government. Could it happen? Sure. I think that the liberal democrats might be the greatest beneficiaries of the current situation. We will see in a few months. The bottom line is that no matter how cheery Tony Snow is; this is a hard one to spin for the government.
The second item is the increased number of aircrafts shot down. I don’t have clear-cut reasons on that one. I would rate the probability of shoulder fired missile trickling down from Afghanistan as pretty high. I am sure the Iranians would look the other way if not outright help the transfer. Why from Afghanistan, you may ask? Well, I am a frugal kind of guy. If you give me something and I don’t need it I will store it. We gave the mujahideens thousands of Stinger missiles in the 80s so that they could rid themselves of the Russians. I would be very surprised indeed if a) they used all of them and b) returned them for a refund after the Russians left. I don’t know the reason for every chopper to go down but I wouldn’t be surprised if those Stingers played a part in it. The next thing is that bringing a chopper down is possible with small arms fire. Missiles or not, enough people taking pot shots, or expanding a burst of automatic fire, at helicopters some of those shots are bound to hit their targets. At this point a reading of Dune might be required to understand the gravity of the situation: the Harkonnens are beaten by the Freemen once they loose the ability to move at will… Are we in dire straits? Probably. Will more troops help? Possibly. I am simply afraid that it might be too little too late.

Trumpet

I volunteered for the Portland Jazz Festival this morning, meaning that my tush got out of bed at 0530. I drove Tomasz Stanko, a polish trumpeter, back to the airport. We made a quick side trip to Monette, a trumpet factory located in the airport industrial zone, less than ½ mile of track. Stanko referred to the instruments as the Rolls Royce of trumpets. It might as well be considering the price tag of about $10,000 for the one he was eyeing.
Stanko is one of those naturally funny guys. He made me laugh most of the drive by the way he described his native Poland. The best part might have been to hear him try on different instruments for over an hour. I haven’t been able to make it to any of the concerts yet but this well made up for it. He didn’t walk out with an instrument, the waiting list is quite long but for a while he did seem like a kid in a candy store.

Netflix

We succumbed to temptation last week and signed up for Netflix. We bought into the one movie at a time unlimited package. It’s cheaper than going to blockbuster and we don’t have to wait in-line for an insane amount of time on Saturday nights. Also we won’t be spending two hours each time we go the rental place to choose a movie an hour and half long. We do try pretty hard to stay away from over consumption but it really is about the only way to watch foreign films and art house productions. Plus our local rental store always makes me feel that I should be packing.
So we watched a couple of good movies recently. “Over the hedge”: an adult movie in cartoon clothes. I don’t think that kids would get half the jokes in that production. This is making me think that when I have children going to Disney flicks might actually be fun. The Nazi like condo manager was as good of a social satire as mainstream fare gets. The second one is “Ma vie en rose” (My life in pink). Here we have a little boy who is convinced that a little girl is trapped inside his body. Very funny movie. Very scary too for someone who plans on having kids one day. I don’t mind gay people but I have never thought how I would act if my son/daughter turned out that way. If you know, share the wealth.
We also watched “Crash,” at the future in-laws. It did live up to most of the hype. I found the photography to be absolutely gorgeous. I also found this incredibly funny. I did get enraged with some of the characters. If I were to get pulled over by a cop (actually I have been twice) I wouldn’t start mouthing off. The more so if I got pulled over by the LAPD. (I remember going there some years ago and seeing “LAPD – We’ll treat you like a King!,” T-shirts on sale on Hollywood Boulevard.) All the characters are stereotypes and so of course they all ring true. I think the moral of the story is don’t be stupid and people can change. I am no film critique though.
Sur ce, I need to go file my nails.

Cynic's inc.

So many things in the news this week it’s hard to pick what to talk about. Let’s start with the obvious: North Korea. Apparently Dr. Evil has accepted to shut down a nuclear reactor in exchange for energy guaranties. I don’t know about you dear reader but that sounds furiously close to the deal hashed out under Bill “I didn’t inhale” Clinton. Deal, which you may remember, was much maligned by the conservatives as being weak. The way I understand this, but I am not very bright, is that it took the current administration six years to get back to the same point Clinton had arrived at. If you read this, unlikely, and know what makes those two agreements intrinsically different please enlighten me.
If you listened to the President’s news conference this morning you probably noticed that he was in a cheerful mood. He didn’t seem to understand that people might not take the administration at its word when it presents information linking EIDs to Iran. Maybe, just maybe, the American public is remembering something about WMDs in another Middle Eastern country that we used to like but don’t anymore. I know this is crazy talk.
Finally I stumbled upon this blog a few weeks ago. It’s a milblog (Dear Lord can’t you save me from neologisms?) but the author, an army officer, is actually quite handy with his pen. I would even say that the first posting of his that I read is material for a literary journal. The poetic rhythm of his prose and sparseness of language powerfully translated his emotions about the death of a colleague. The blog does have its faults. The man is writing in order to support the war not to bring an impartial picture of it. He does have rants that border on the right-wing nut. Especially when it comes down to the mass media. Sometimes he seems justified, others not so. One of his latest entries falls under the latter part. He complains that media outlets got the ranks of some KIA soldiers wrong. Let me ask this simple question: where do you think the reporters found their information? Being that I know a little bit about reporting, I would say reporters either received a press release from the parent unit with the KIAs info or called the parent unit after being alerted of the deaths. In either case, the information must have come from an admin clerk, hence the problem with accuracy in my book. (Admin: the people who underpaid me last summer and haven’t fixed it yet!) Instead of calmly looking at the facts and realizing that some private fucked up, the blogger goes into another tirade about the mainstream media. Does it make sense to you dear reader? It doesn’t to me but I am just a stupid, enlisted jarhead.

Gays and the military

For those of you reading French there is an interesting tidbit on this blog . Apparently the army's homophobia is costing them qualified personnel again. I remember reading about a WWII study by the Navy about homosexuality whose conclusions was that it did not interfere with military occupations. I guess that pandering to the electorate is more important than fielding the best team.

Aaaand Jump!

Taking the trash out got exciting today. No, I didn’t get mugged on the way down. I do live in NoPo but it really isn’t that bad. My new boss remarked that the office building they recently moved to, had a Baghdad style décor with its flaky plaster whose holes were created not by bullets insertions but by nails extractions. I had to break the news to him that my recollections of Baghdad prevented his office from making the cut.
Anyway, I am digressing here. We have two large size dumpster that we toss our garbage in at our complex, and three smaller recycling container. I went for the two large ones as I was tossing the kitchen trash filled with days old vegetable clippings, and skins, bones from a tender lamb shank and other delightfully smelly leftover from one who believes in making everything from scratch. I opened the gate to the enclosure and used the index finger of my right hand to life the lid of the large brown receptacle and quickly tossed my bag of goodies in it. I then turned and stepped off with my left foot, only to find that the door I had pushed to enter the enclosure had swung back during the few seconds it took for me to perform my task, and closed. It is no high security fence and one can indeed push the doors outward. Which I did to no avail, as I could not slip my fingers in the space created between the two door sections. I was stuck. Fortunately the fence is only about seven feet tall I was able to climb over it and jump off.
On an unrelated subject I do maintain that ukemi practice is much better before breakfast.