War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
In Vietnam, so many, many years ago, the US employed a “search and destroy” tactic, but it failed big time: As one marine captain explained: “You never knew who was the enemy and who was the friend. They all looked alike. They all dressed alike.” Innocent civilians were often killed by mistake. As one Marine…
Killing people from afar has always been the safest bet in any kind of murderous situation — the longbow ended the age of chivalrous knights, and the firearm put the archer out of work — even a rock in a sling could put bad shit on a much bigger, uglier opponent. In fact, an entire…
(Illustration found here). “Dawn“Â by Miss Emily Dickinson When night is almost done, And sunrise grows so near That we can touch the spaces, It ‘s time to smooth the hair And get the dimples ready, And wonder we could care For that old faded midnight That frightened but an hour. Another day, another time…
Although informative and hilarious, the TV news programs on Comedy Central present a stark, and sad reminder of just how bad journalism in general (or honest-to-goodness news gathering) has become in the last few years. When the best news programs on TV are phony mock-ups — WTF! (Illustration found here). Of course, the massive, humongous…
What a complete, horrible mess the US nine years and some 24 hours following the attack on the World Trade Center, an event apparently which has become a turgid line drawn in the sands of time — we’ll always be caught nasty-faced in the before and after. In the front-page explosion off the San Francisco…
UPDATE BELOW If there’s going to be any kind of future history — or any kind of logical future history with all the shit hitting the earth’s fan right now — President Obama will be named/remembered as the most-greatest letdown of all time. Indeed, there’s thousands if not millions of people completely discouraged by US…
One of those extremely-dramatic moments, though, executed in easy, slow steps: Scientists studying an Indonesian tropical glacier witnessed first hand life with climate change: The glacier was literally melting under their feet. From NPR (including the highlighted sentence above), a piece on a research team’s two-week outing earlier this summer on Puncak Jaya Glacier in…
Ocean water all over is apparently getting warmer. Above the Bering Strait, in the Chukchi Sea, northwest of Alaska, the water there is nearly pool worthy as recorded in this captain’s blog: “The water temperature is 7.5 degrees. If we weren’t sailing, it would be a great temperature for a swim!” (via ClimateProgress). And in…
Tonight President Obama is reportedly set to go on national TV and proclaim the end to the Iraqi war, of course, without using the infamous phrase, “mission accomplished” — a tightrope walk between half-truth and full-blown lie. And the peace president will also not mention the other war zone, Afghanistan, where it’s been a nightmare…
In keeping with the reality of early morning, it’s always a heart-touching, easy embrace to read Nobel Prize-winner and NYT columnist Paul Krugman, especially on Mondays — in a quiet, peaceful pre-dawn it’s hard to believe the USA and the world is going to shit in a wire basket. A lot of folks don’t like…