War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
Announced quietly last week was the death of Jody Powell, 65, press secretary to Jimmy Carter, ‘A leader for a change,’ whose presidency inadvertently was the last apparently in Americana’s more sane and serene view of itself as an entity of ideal. On the cover of the Rolling Stone (left), at the height of glory…
This from Josh Marshall and his fledging Talking Points Memo on Sept. 11, 2001 — unaware of even a worse horror coming: TPM, of course, is normally all about arguments among us, among Americans. But all of that falls deep into the background now. And my support, and I’m sure yours too, is with our…
(Illustration of Salvador Dali’s The Visages of War found here). War is not pretty, funny or real clever. War is Ambrose Bierce‘s ‘Chickamauga‘ revealed as “the dead body of a woman — the white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles…
Global warming is not only about oceans and weather, but also the land. (Illustration found here). Just as more bad global warming news gushed forth — sea level rise, unprecedented regional droughts, and, the Arctic is warmer than its been been for 2,000 years — comes research that indicates the land masses of earth (the ground)…
“They stuff people’s heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall,” he told Harry. “Want to come upstairs and practice?” “No, thanks,” said Harry. “The poor toilet’s never had anything as horrible as your head down it — it might be sick.” — Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone According to Juan Cole’s most-essential…
As I was thinking fairly-clear this morning — thinking is sometimes for me a really, really mega-complicated ordeal and not so unclouded — and although mostly about all kinds of related/unrelated shit, the focus finally came to war, which is part and partial to this whole blog, and on today’s complete-whole world the life-and-death real…
How in the living shit of any-kind-of-daylight can the US ‘win‘ any kind of war in Afghanistan? On Tuesday via Raw Story: According to a watchdog group and a litany of whistleblowers, Armorgroup North America, a key U.S. security contractor in Afghanistan, has suffered a breakdown of its chain of command resulting in an atmosphere…
In the last few months, Gail Collins of the New York Times has become one my most-favorite pundits, making clear, concise points with a keen sense of humor. This morning she looks at those insufferable computer upgrade notices that are seemingly always there, and always ready, willing and able to promise a more-wonderful life in the…
In my eighth-grade history class (circa 1962), we would have studied a historical document similar to the one released on Monday, and although content might have been far less graphic, one thing was for sure –Â it would not be anywhere, anyhow at all connected to the US; most-likely from centuries past, in some more…
Last summer, I had some sort of political epiphany as candidate Barack Obama near-nonchalantly shot/tossed a basketball in front of a crowd of US troops in Afghanistan — Too cool for school. One can watch the event here. From a Washington Post/ABC News poll released yesterday: Among all Americans, 49 percent now express confidence that Obama…