bryanstrawser.com

I've often said that all things come full circle - and indeed they do.

It was six years ago when I sat in this hotel lobby in Cambridge along with a peer to screen and select our first managers for our team here in Boston:

And last night, I stayed at this same hotel after the going-away party last night at a nearby restaurant. How things change.. how they remain the same.

On the way home, I realized it was likely one of the last time I'd drive through Boston's BIG DIG - so here's a picture of that portion of my ride home from work, for the last time in this position.

I report Monday to my new position. Strap in!

Posted by bryan at 04:23 PM | Permalink

I think the fine art of handwriting is about done for

My handwriting is so bad I have trouble reading it any more. It’s not rocket science, I’ve been sitting in front of a computer for two and a half decades, what do you expect? It’s gotten to the point that I no longer apologize for popping open the laptop to take notes in meetings, even with people in suits. And I frequently find that I’m not carrying a pen when I have to fill out the customs forms.

It's even worse for me. I've had horrible handwriting since I learned to write in cursive - for which I received "Cs" in school, mind you. Oh, that was in 1st grade. And it never got better.

With the advent of technology, my handwriting has simply gotten worse. I type most notes nowadays, I use email for many things, but I still take notes on my Tablet PC and sometime on paper - but I guarantee you that no one else can read them.

Posted by bryan at 01:50 PM | Permalink

I was Mr. Hallberry's striker (undercutter), and my future partner, Edwin was striker for Mr Harvey. Although this was comparatively only a few years ago, the company was still very much old school. Ed & I had to address the cutters as 'Sir' or 'Mr.' ..... The use of first names was far too informal.

It may look as if I’m painting a very austere atmosphere of the company, but although it was quite Dickensian at times, it was a great environment to be part of. Mr. Hallberry was every bit your Swedish expat cutter, silver hair & steel blue eyes. His attitude to the profession was as sharp as his shears, he didn’t suffer fools gladly; neither staff or customer.

On a red hot August day in early 1990, I sneaked out of the side door of Anderson’s to a cafe, no more than 50 yards away, for a sandwich to go. Unknown to me I had been spotted by Mr. Hallberry.

To go out at lunchtime was not a crime, however I had committed a cardinal sin. Not only was I without a jacket, but I was wearing braces (suspenders). For this I was summoned and duly berated for my sloppiness. As Mr. Hallberry said, cutters of A&S do not go out in there shirt sleeves, let alone their underwear.

When I write of my time with A&S it feels as if I worked there in the 50s , not the 90s. But you got used to such a formal atmosphere- no idle conversation, no whistling, no music or anything that could distract.

You remember how unique it was to just hear the clipping of shears into endless privileged clients' clothes (Royalty, movie stars, that kind of thing) and the soft drone of the overhead fans. We had no air conditioning, and the fans were kept slow or they’d blow the patterns off the boards, if they were turned up to any worthwhile level. Comical really, but who’s complaining, we would’t have dared.

Posted by bryan at 01:44 PM | Permalink

Today's New York Times reports on the death of three firefighters in New York City:

The fireball burst through the floorboards on Sunday, consuming the room in flames and trapping two firefighters from Rescue Company 3 by the single window overlooking the icy pavement five stories below.

Four other firefighters had already jumped to the ground from a room next door; two would die. The last two men on the floor were alone in the flames.

"I got a rope, but I got nothing to tie it to," Firefighter Jeffrey Cool said to his partner, Joseph DiBernardo, whose father recounted the story of their escape yesterday.

'"Throw it to me and I'll support you,"' Firefighter DiBernardo replied.

Firefighter Cool tossed the rope, and Firefighter DiBernardo tied it to the window's child safety bars and lowered him from the window, fire officials said.

Suddenly, the rope became taut and snapped, sending Firefighter Cool falling to the ground, said Joseph DiBernardo Sr., a retired deputy fire chief.

But Firefighter DiBernardo was still able to use the remaining piece of rope for his own escape, lowering himself until, when he was about 10 feet from the ground, the bars ripped from the window frame and he fell.

"They saved each other's lives," said his father, who gave the dramatic replay for reporters outside Weill Cornell Medical Center, where his son was being treated.

Where do we find such men?

Posted by bryan at 07:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Johnny Carson, the "Tonight Show" TV host who served America a smooth nightcap of celebrity banter, droll comedy and heartland charm for 30 years, has died. He was 79.

"Mr. Carson passed away peacefully early Sunday morning," his nephew, Jeff Sotzing, told The Associated Press. "He was surrounded by his family, whose loss will be immeasurable. There will be no memorial service."

The best there ever was - the best there ever will be.

You'll be missed.

Posted by bryan at 02:16 PM | Permalink

We entered a new political age then, born of the horribly selfish acts of a sitting Vice President who would not and could not accept defeat. Count after count after count since those horrible days, even by liberal mouth-pieces like the New York Times, have verified that President Bush won Florida. Let us concede: the vote was close, Bush did not win the popular vote, Gore was favored by a majority of voters. However, in the end, under our precious Constitutional system, Bush won the 2000 election.

The Florida disaster inaugurated a new world where the Democratic challenger never really loses an election, even if he or she has. Since Florida, the Democratic Party has been completely unable to accept that it is losing in the battleground of ideas and has retreated to ever-more improbable conspiracy theories. And since they never lose, challenging any and all results is, of course, morally justified and right, since the whole world knows that Republicans never really "win" anything. Should "all the votes be counted," the Party of the People would, naturally, prevail.

And so we have had to witness the much-commented-about public deterioration of what once was a reasonably intelligent Senator from Tennessee, as he turned into the Man Who Had the Presidency Stolen From Him. To Democratic Blacks, the Republicans "suppressed" the black vote through public intimidation. To Democratic academics, the Supreme Court "stole" the election. To Democratic "anti-globalization activists," Republicans' victories are invalid since they are the fruit of corporate contributions. Nowhere and at no time since Florida have the Democrats lost. Either they were robbed, or the people are stupid and didn't understand them correctly, or they were the victims of a racist conspiracy.

And it makes great sense - look at the uproar even over this election. The rhetorical smoke billowing out of the mouths of Barbara Boxer and Cynthia McKinney is enough for me.

Posted by bryan at 08:46 AM | Permalink

Posted by bryan at 08:05 AM | Permalink

Blizzard conditions with heavy snow and very gusty winds. There could even be a rumble of thunder. Low 18F. Winds NE at 35 to 50 mph. A foot or more of snow expected. Winds could occasionally gust over 50 mph.

I just returned from the grocery store, where there were 40 people in line at the deli, the meat counter was 60% empty, and the lines were 8 people deep.

It's just snow folks - you'll scoop it out and goto work the next day... geesh!

Posted by bryan at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Already quoted by many in the last few hours, James Lileks cranked one off in yesterday's Bleat regarding Dr. Rice's confirmation hearings before the United States Senate:

I listened to some of the Dr. Rice hearings today. Listening to Sen. Boxer is like having someone pump six gallons of lukewarm tea up a catheter tube. Slowly. It’s like being beaten to death by a moth. The rest of the questions were a bit more adept, inasmuch as they postured and preened with greater skill – but I kept wondering, who’s their audience? Who are they talking to? Who is this supposed to impress? I suppose if you believe that Abu Ghraib is the defining crime of the 21st century, you’re impressed that they’re still gnawing the bone; if you still believe that the solution to Iraqnam is the addition of Russian forces (!) (as Kerry suggested) (!) then this was heartening: truth to power, man. But to someone who is not on the moveon.org mailing list, it’s more of the same. More about WMD, for example. I too deplore the Bush administration’s decision in 2002 to go back to 1998 and plant all those false stories about Iraqi WMD and Saddam’s Al Qaeda connections in the mainstream media, for example, but I’m more interested in what comes next. (And I still, stubbornly, support the decision to go in.) What I heard from Rice’s interrogators was the same thing I heard back in the 80s – often from my own mouth, in fact. The voice of Wise Calm International Reason, all-knowing in retrospect, all-trusting in the power of a summit or a thick piece of paper signed at an impressive ceremony and toasted with Moet. But here’s the thing: the tone of voice, the tendentious lectures, the sonorous outrage, and the overall oppositional posture would have been the same if 9/11 and Iraq had never happened, and they were discussing, say, don’t ask / don’t tell or relations with Haiti.

I really wish someone would run against Barbara Boxer.. and win!

Posted by bryan at 07:13 AM | Permalink

As I thought might happen some time ago, the War on Terrorism has returned to Boston, captured here in this article from the Boston Globe:

The FBI launched a massive manhunt across the region yesterday for six people, four Chinese scientists and two Iraqis, said to be planning to detonate a "dirty bomb" in Boston, local public safety officials briefed on the threat said.

An anonymous tipster told authorities that the six sneaked into the United States from Mexico and were headed to New York and then to Boston, where they intended to launch an attack that could involve a lethal radioactive material, several officials briefed on the threat said.

The threat was reported to a California police department by someone in Mexico who said he had smuggled the suspects across the border, the officials said. The FBI had not corroborated the information as of last night, and officials expressed skepticism about the credibility of the tip, saying the names of the suspects had been run through all available databases of criminals and nothing had come up.

"What we're trying to do is reassure the public that there's no reason to panic, because the information has come from an unknown source, and none of the information has been corroborated," US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said in an interview yesterday. "At the same time, we have to do our diligence."

Sullivan said officials had decided to release the names and photos of the four Chinese nationals -- Zengrong Lin, Wen Quin Zheng, Xiujin Chen, and Guozhi Lin -- because they believe the public could help investigators find the two men and two women.

"There's an interest on the part of law enforcement to at least locate and speak with these individuals," Sullivan said.

The information about the four was all that the tipster provided, public safety officials said. The tipster gave no identifying information about the Iraqis, they said.

Federal, state, and city officials were taking the threat seriously yesterday. The threat was discussed in President Bush's morning security briefing. Representatives from several state agencies, including the Department of Public Health and the National Guard, were gathered at an emergency bunker in Framingham, as Boston police were readying themselves to respond to an attack.

Posted by bryan at 07:09 AM | Permalink

I should take a moment to point out that on Friday, January 14th, I celebrated my third anniversary of blogging.

Not a bad run so far:

• 2200 Posts
• 442 Comments

Thanks for coming here day after day and reading my babbles!

Posted by bryan at 05:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It was ten years ago next week that I was first promoted into a position where I was a leader of others.

Sure, I had been in positions of responsibility before. As a young man, my peers selected me as Patrol Leader in my Boy Scout Troop. Later, I was selected as the Senior Patrol Leader. It was a difficult and humbling experience to be responsible for other people. It was certainly not easy.

I earned my spending money as a teenager by umpiring softball games each night at the city park - and then, after turning eighteen, by refereeing basketball and volleyball games as well. Hell hath no fury like that directed at a referee in an Indiana High School Basketball game. But I digress.

Ten years ago next week I was promoted to lead a small team of men and women in Columbus, Indiana. And that was the beginning of quite an adventure. A year and a half later, I found myself without a team in Baltimore, Maryland as an investigator. And then, not even a year later, thrown to the wolves in New Jersey leading a much larger team that spanned several store locations. Then a year in Cleveland.

And then in 1999, we packed up and moved to Boston. And we've been here ever since.

When I arrived in Boston in January 1999, I was one of only a handful of employees of my company north of New York City. We were the vanguard that established the base, hired the people, trained the teams, and then started up a huge operation. Now there are thousands of us - and we're still growing.

There have been tough spots along the way - stupid mistakes that I made, silly things I did, and dumb acts I committed that got me in hot water. But it was all for a good cause - and we've had a blast doing it. But now it's time to move on.

Eight years in the same position and six years in one place is a long time - I stayed here for personal reasons, but also because it was fun. As a history buff, it's tough to pull away from the place where our forefathers first marched against the British.. to walk the trail where Paul Revere road.. to stand at the bridge where the minutemen first confronted the British under arms.. to walk the deck of the USS Constitution.. to stare with respect at the grave of Sam Adams, and John Hancock, and many others....

On Thursday, I was promoted to a new position at our headquarters in Minneapolis. In less than two weeks, I head up into the great white north to take on an entirely new challenge: staffer. I'm going to be a project manager of sorts working on a couple initiatives. I'll be commuting back and forth for a few months and then relocating permanently.

For ten years, I've led teams. Now I'm just going to be a part of one. That's going to be a major change. No more office, now I'll be in a cubicle. Gone is the casual dress code, back into suit and tie... things are certainly going to be different....

I expect the work to be difficult, highly challenging, creative, and have a major impact on what we're doing. And that excites me. There are few feelings quite like taking a vision, breaking it down, and building that into something that we can execute - and that's going to be alot of what I do in my new role. And I'm really looking forward to it.

But I will always miss my team. There's never been a challenge in my life quite like leading a group of talented individuals. But I am so much the better for having worked with them. I'll always be proud to have been a part of their team.

Posted by bryan at 05:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

Mr. Moore, I humbly implore you to take that award and shove it up your ass. As for making more Fahrenheit 9/11's, more power to you, it's a free country thanks to the people that you continue to exploit. I warn you however, as I have before, if I or any of my brothers appear in one of your films, you will regret it. To combat your propaganda I have purchased a copy of FahrenHYPE 9/11 to take with me when I leave in a few days. I know among someone's DVD collection there is a copy of your film. When I hear of your movie getting passed around among the guys, I will get them to watch Fahrenhype 9/11. It's sad that I have to include a DVD in my arsenal of weapons to combat the enemy.

Posted by bryan at 09:12 AM | Permalink

When we began putting together our DVD collection after joining the DVD revolution late, there were two documentaries that I wanted in that collection. Ken Burn's incredible The Civil War.. and Eyes on the Prize, the documentary about the civil rights movement.

I remember watching Eyes on the Prize in school in the late 1980s or early 1990s - for a few days during a history class. I don't think there's ever been a more poignant documentary about life in these United States - and one that every person should watch to understand the Civil Rights Movement. Course, I also think that history classes should travel to Fort McHenry in Baltimore to hear the story of Francis Scott Key, to the North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts to see where all of this began, and to Little Round Top near Gettysburg where Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the 20th Maine held the line and saved the Union army.. but I'm known to have rather extreme views.

That said, apparently I won't be buying a DVD set of Eyes on the Prize, because of some overstrung copyright laws, as reported in today's Boston Globe:

"EYES ON THE PRIZE,'' the epic 1986 documentary series on the civil rights movement, contains a scene showing Martin Luther King Jr. on his 39th birthday -- his last -- in 1968. King, who was trying to take on poverty and the Vietnam War simultaneously, was under tremendous stress at the time, and his staff sang ''Happy Birthday'' in an attempt to cheer him up.

But the producers of ''Eyes'' almost had to leave the scene out of the finished documentary. ''Happy Birthday,'' as it turns out, was copyrighted in 1935 and, following the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act of 1998, will remain so until at least 2030. Filmmakers have been known to pay $15,000 to $20,000 for just one verse, according to a recent report on documentary clearances issued by the Center for Social Media.

The song ultimately stayed in the film, but don't plan on celebrating King's birthday tomorrow by going to your local video store to buy a copy of ''Eyes on the Prize.'' Thanks to rights restrictions on archival material used in the documentary, the 14-hour chronicle tracing the civil rights movement from the Montgomery bus boycotts in the 1950s to the rise of black mayors in the 1980s can no longer be released in new editions or shown on television. PBS's right to air the film expired in 1993. Meanwhile, the VHS edition has gone out of print and a DVD release would require relicensing. (Complete sets of used videos are currently going for as much as $1,000 on Amazon.)

The problem goes beyond one documentary. ''We are crippling the story-telling of our own culture by the rigidity of our copyright interpretation,'' says Patricia Aufderheide, who cowrote the Center for Social Media report ''Untold Stories,''

Let's do the right things for Eyes on the Prize...

Posted by bryan at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just celebrated my two year anniversary of being - near as I can - an all-Mac operation in my personal computing.

Ten overwhelmingly positive experiences have kept me strongly in the fold:

No spam - There is no better spam filter than Spam Sieve. It's a Mac-only product and it catches 98 percent of my junk mail.

No worms or viruses - None. Zip. Zero. Not a single one in two-plus years now.

No adware/spyware - Same thing. These are non-issues on my Macs.

No crashes - It just doesn't happen with OS X. I had one crash in December 2002, but I was running OS 9 at the time and it was a very old program (from 1994-ish) and I was curious to see if it worked. It didn't.

I switched in December 2002 when I purchased the Apple Dual G4 Desktop and expanded that system in April 2003 with a Powerbook G4 Laptop. Now it's nearly two years later and I'm still using both machines without any upgrades (other than new software).

My employer is a WinTel / Microsoft shop so I picked up a Motion Computing 1400D tablet earlier this year - and used in conjunction, these two machines make my life alot easier. But I prefer an Apple solution -- why? Just look at the three items I highlighted from Wendlund's blow... No spam, no worms, no viruses, no adware, no spyware, and no crashes.

You can't beat that.

Besides, Macs are SEXY!

Posted by bryan at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you're among the millions of Americans who took airline flights in the months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the FBI probably knows about it and possibly where you stayed, whom you traveled with, what credit card you used and even whether you ordered a kosher meal.

The bureau is keeping 257.5 million records on people who flew on commercial airlines from June through September 2001 in its permanent investigative database, according to information obtained by a privacy group and made available to The Associated Press.

Privacy advocates say they're troubled by the possibility that the FBI could be analyzing personal information about people without their knowledge or permission.

''The FBI collected a vast amount of information about millions of people with no indication that they had done anything unlawful,'' said Marcia Hofmann, attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which learned about the data through a Freedom of Information Act request.

And I say. BIG DEAL.

I believe in privacy. I've been a member of the ACLU since I was 16 years old - I'm a long time member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other organizations - and I've written a ton of letters and done some individual lobbying about issues like the Clipper chip, digital telephony, and other issues.

But you also have to draw a line about what's reasonable from the standpoint of investigations - and I'm trying to see the issue here.

If you think the FBI really has the time to go digging through these records to see if you and your mistress were flying somewhere together because they're trying to co-opt your vote - then I recommend that you pull the tin foil hat down a little closer around your ears to block the alien rays.

Posted by bryan at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Second, our very success creates ever increasing expectations of perfection for a postmodern America used to instant gratification. We now look back in awe at World War II, the model of military success, in which within four years an unprepared United States won two global wars, at sea, on the ground, and in the air, in three continents against Japan, Italy, and Germany, and supplied both England and the Soviet Union. But our forefathers experienced disaster after disaster in a tale of heartbreak, almost as inglorious as the Korean mess or Vietnam tragedy. And they did things to win we perhaps claim we would now not: Shoot German prisoners in the Bulge, firebomb Axis cities, drop the bomb — almost anything to stop fascists from slaughtering even more millions of innocents.

Our armored vehicles were deathtraps and only improved days before the surrender. American torpedoes were often duds. Unescorted daylight bombing proved a disaster, but continued. Amphibious assaults like Anzio and Tarawa were bloodbaths and emblematic of terrible planning and command. The recapture of Manila was clumsy and far too costly. Okinawa was the worst of all operations, and yet was begun just over fourth months before the surrender — without any planning for Kamikazes who were shortly to kill 5,000 American sailors. Patton, the one general that could have ended the western war in 1944, was relieved and then subordinated to an auxiliary position with near fatal results for the drive from Normandy; mediocrities like Mark Clark flourished and were promoted. Admiral King resisted the life-saving convoy system and unnecessarily sacrificed merchant ships; while Bull Halsey almost lost his unprepared fleet to a storm.

The war's aftermath seemed worse, to be overseen by an untried president who was considered an abject lightweight. Not-so-quite collateral damage had ruined entire cities. Europe nearly starved in winter 1945-6. Millions were on the road in mass exoduses. After spending billions to destroy Nazi Germany we had to spend billions more to rebuild it — and repair the devastation it had wrought on its neighbors. Our so-called partisan friends in Yugoslavia and Greece turned out to be hard-core Communist killers. Soon enough we learned that the guerrillas in the mountains of Europe whom we had idolized, in fact, fought as much for Communism as against fascism — but never for democracy.

But at least there was clear-cut strategic success? Oh? The war started to keep Eastern Europe free of Nazis and ended up ensuring that it was enslaved by Stalinists. Poland was neither free in 1940 nor in 1946. By early 1946 we were already considering putting former Luftwaffe pilots in American jets — improved with ample borrowing from Nazi technology — to protect Europe from the Red Army carried westward on GM trucks. We put Nazis on trials for war crimes even as we invited their scientists to our shores to match their counterparts in the Soviet Union who were building even more lethal weapons to destroy us. Our utopian idea of a global U.N. immediately deteriorated into a mess — decades of vetoes in the Security Council by Stalinists and Maoists, even as former colonial states turned thugocracies in the General Assembly ganged up on Israel and the survivors of the Holocaust.

After Americans had liberated France and restored his country, General de Gaulle created the myth of the French resistance and immediately triangulated with our enemies to reforge some pathetic sort of French grandeur. An exhausted England turned over to us a collapsing empire, with the warning that it might all turn Communist. Tired of the war and postbellum costs, Americans suddenly were asked to wage a new Cold War to keep a shrinking West and its allies free. The Department of War turned into the Department of Defense, along with weird new things like the U.S. Air Force, Strategic Air Command, Food for Peace, Alliance for Progress, Voice of America, and thousands of other costly entities never dreamed of just a few years earlier.

Posted by bryan at 08:45 AM | Permalink

Today, during an afternoon conference that wrapped up my project of the last 18 months, one of my Euro collegues tossed this little turd out to no one in particular:

" See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, theres a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier..."

After which he and many of my Euro collegues laughed out loud.

and then they looked at me. I wasn't laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster.

I'm afraid I was "unprofessional", I let it loose -

Hmmm, let's see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want?

Something with its own inexhuastible power supply?

Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water?

Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it?

Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies?

Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier?

Well "Franz", us peasants in America call that kind of ship an "Aircraft Carrier". We have 12 of them. How many do you have? Oh that's right, NONE. Lucky for you and the rest of the world, we are the kind of people who share. Even with people we dont like. In fact, if memory serves,once upon a time we peasants spent a ton of money and lives rescuing people who we had once tried to kill and who tried to kill us.

Do you know who those people were? that's right Franz, Europeans.

Theres is a French Aircraft carrier? where is it? Right where it belongs! In France of course! Oh why should the French Navy dirty their uniforms helping people on the other side of the globe. How Simplesse...

The day an American has to move a European out of the way to help in some part of the world it will be a great day in the world, you sniggering little f**knob..."

The room fell silent. My hindi friend then said quietly to the Euros:

"Can you let your hatred of George Bush end for just one minute? There are people dying! And what are your countries doing? Amazon.com has helped more than France has. You all have a role to play in the world, why can't you see that? Thank God for the US Navy, they dont have to come and help, but they are. They helped you once and you should all thank God they did. They didnt have to, and no one but them would have done so. I'm ashamed of you all..."

He left the room, shaking and in tears. The frustration of being on the other side of the globe, unable to do anything to assist and faced with people who could not set aside their asininity long enough to reach out and help was too much for him to bear. I just shook my head and left. The Euros stood speechless.

Posted by bryan at 10:02 AM | Permalink

As always, Victor Davis Hanson, expands my mind and launches a broadside at some of the "conventional wisdom" out there in the world:

The U.S. military is habitually slurred even though it possesses the world's only lift and sea assets that could substantially aid in the ongoing disasters in Indonesia and Thailand. Blamed for having too high a profile in removing the Taliban and Saddam, it is now abused for having too meek a presence in Southeast Asia. No doubt America should have "preempted" the wave and acted in a more "unilateral" fashion. Meanwhile we await the arrival of the Charles De Gaulle and its massive fleet of life-saving choppers that can ferry ample amounts of Saudi, Chinese, and Cuban materiel to the dying — emissaries all of U.N. and EU multilateralism.

All this hypocrisy has desensitized Americans, left and right, liberal and conservative. We will finish the job in Iraq, nursemaid democratic Afghanistan through its birthpangs, and continue to ensure that bandits and criminal states stay off the world's streets. But what is new is that the disenchanted American is becoming savvy and developing a long memory — and so we all fear the day is coming when he casts aside the badge, rides the buckboard out of town, and leaves such sanctimonious folk to themselves.

Posted by bryan at 08:59 PM | Permalink

Apparantly, Lex isn't too happy with Ralph Peter's Editoral in the New York Post which criticizes the recent history of the United States Navy:

It happened because part of us are always at sea. The Navy helps provide security for all the sea lift which brings real combat power to the land fight, and sustains it once there. We keep the sea lanes of communication secure, while buttressing traditional allies in both South Asia and the Pacific Rim - something the Army would have a hard time doing in any case due to the tyranny of distance, and is far too overstretched to accomplish in today's environment. And when push comes to shove, we shove back. Hard.

Don't get me wrong, Mr Peters is right in his larger concerns about the nexus of national interest in Asia, and you'll never hear a word from me in disparagement of the ground forces - they're doing the heroes' work right now.

It's just worth saying that your US Navy has been patrolling the world's hard places for a long, long time now. Even while other folks were comfortably ensconced in garrison. Your humble scribe did three interbellum deployments to the bad place, and looked the wolf in the eye each time on multiple missions in Indian Country. And this naval officer is by no means feeling relieved that he finally has a mission at last.

Been busy, Mr. Peters. Busy long time.

Thanks for finally noticing.

There's more - go read it.

Posted by bryan at 08:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at Znet, we can read more moonbattery from the likes of Paul Street:

Well, gee, but it seems that Iraq and the Islamic world has soldiers of the United States Empire flooding in, “intent on killing” Iraqis and Arabs in general. This is indeed very much the intent that is drummed into the heads of US soldiers in their boot camps, where they are encouraged to mercilessly butcher “sand-niggers” and led to believe that they will be avenging 9/11 in Iraq even though the Iraqi people, including Saddam Hussein, had nothing to do with the jetliner attacks. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed because of this racist war indoctrination ordered by the imperialist War Pigs in Washington D.C. Insofar as al Qaeda now has a presence in Iraq, of course, this is pretty much entirely due to the illegal and murderous US occupation of that once sovereign nation.

The bloody war masters in the White House, the Pentagon, and the Justice Department will not mind, I hope, if impartial observers deem the American invaders to be illegal combatants and therefore fit to be murdered, tortured, and imprisoned indefinitely without right to counsel or even formal charges.

I was unaware that we were training our sailors and soldiers nowadays about "sand niggers" and drumming that intent to kill into their heads in training.

Good god!

I'm surprised that CNN and the New York Times hasn't picked up this story yet.

Posted by bryan at 08:39 PM | Permalink

I was having a rather shitty evening yesterday for a variety of reasons - and then I went back and read this recent post by Dooce about pooping at work:

Internet, I was a work pooper. Now that I work from home I am still a work pooper, but that doesn’t really count. I once dated a guy who refused to go poop in a public place including work, and if he had to go poop he’d take a fifteen minute break, drive home, poop, and then drive back to work. That relationship didn’t last very long for several reasons, one of them being his poop policy (if he felt that way about pooping, he’d never get used to my farting), and another reason being that he always, and I mean ALWAYS, asked if I had come yet within the first 20 seconds of initiating sex. I understand the meaning of “hurry it along,” but show me a woman who can come in less than 20 seconds and I’ll show you a liar.

If you are a woman and you can come in less than 20 seconds PLEASE SHARE WITH THE WORLD YOUR SECRET, YOU BITCH.

I always found it funny as well when I would enter the bathroom at work and someone would STOP PEEING in the middle of their pee session, as if I hadn’t ever heard the sound of pee hitting porcelain in my life and would be offended by the sound of it IN A BATHROOM. Are coworkers arrogant enough to think that we don’t know they pee and poop? JESUS TOOK SHITS, PEOPLE. And, I know this will be hard to believe, but so does Oprah.

Nothing like some poop conversation to cheer one up...

Posted by bryan at 08:30 PM | Permalink

Over at Castle Argghhh is a post about Tom Friedman's December 23rd Column in the New York Times that I believe clearly lays out what the stakes are in Iraq:

There is much to dislike about this war in Iraq, but there is no denying the stakes. And that picture really framed them: this is a war between some people in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world who - for the first time ever in their region - are trying to organize an election to choose their own leaders and write their own constitution versus all the forces arrayed against them.

Do not be fooled into thinking that the Iraqi gunmen in this picture are really defending their country and have no alternative. The Sunni-Baathist minority that ruled Iraq for so many years has been invited, indeed begged, to join in this election and to share in the design and wealth of post-Saddam Iraq.

As the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum so rightly pointed out to me, "These so-called insurgents in Iraq are the real fascists, the real colonialists, the real imperialists of our age." They are a tiny minority who want to rule Iraq by force and rip off its oil wealth for themselves. It's time we called them by their real names.

However this war started, however badly it has been managed, however much you wish we were not there, do not kid yourself that this is not what it is about: people who want to hold a free and fair election to determine their own future, opposed by a virulent nihilistic minority that wants to prevent that. That is all that the insurgents stand for.

Friedman goes on to conclude:

We may lose because our Arab allies won't lift a finger to support an election in Iraq - either because they fear they'll be next to face such pressures, or because the thought of democratically elected Shiites holding power in a country once led by Sunnis is anathema to them.

We may lose because most Europeans, having been made stupid by their own weakness, would rather see America fail in Iraq than lift a finger for free and fair elections there.

As is so often the case, the statesman who framed the stakes best is the British prime minister, Tony Blair. Count me a "Blair Democrat." Mr. Blair, who was in Iraq this week, said: "Whatever people's feelings or beliefs about the removal of Saddam Hussein and the wisdom of that, there surely is only one side to be on in what is now very clearly a battle between democracy and terror. On the one side you have people who desperately want to make the democratic process work, and want to have the same type of democratic freedoms other parts of the world enjoy, and on the other side people who are killing and intimidating and trying to destroy a better future for Iraq."

I believe whether you supported the decision to goto war or not - if you can't see and understand the stakes before us in Iraq then you don't understand at all the world that we live in today.

Posted by bryan at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

For all of the criticisms of the United States for being "stingy" - for wanting to build an empire - for spending too much on our military - for only donating $350m to relief efforts - for spending more in a day of the war on terror than we donated to the relief effort - how can you not look at these pictures of the sailors of the United States Navy rendering aid in East Asia and see through all of that rhetorical smokescreen?

We're only able to provide aid like this because we have invested in the military that we have today. Had we drawn down as far as some other countries have - we wouldn't be able to provide this sort of aid.

Only $350m? What's the pricetag for the carrier group and the amphibious group that are over there now?

Take a look at the faces of the these men and women. They are there to help - there's no intent or desire for "empire" in their eyes - no matter what the Socialist Alliance or Claire Short has to say about it.

Posted by bryan at 09:21 PM | Permalink

New Bedford, Massachusetts, just twenty miles from my home, buried five of their own last week in the worst loss of a fishing vessel in nearly fifteen years:

Five fishermen lost at sea when their boat capsized in a storm were remembered as heroes Sunday in a memorial service that also touched on the question of whether fishing regulations may have unduly put them at risk.

About 300 friends, family and politicians including U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy filled the 173-year-old Seamen's Bethel to honor the sacrifices of men who accepted the risks of the sea to make a living and feed others.

''Five more men of courage and determination have gone from our midst and will not return to shore,'' the Rev. Kenneth Garrett, the church's chaplain, said from a wooden pulpit carved in the shape of a ship prow.

''I often wonder what is the true price of a pound of scallops,'' said Christopher Gaudiello, a fisherman who was a friend of one of the victims.

The Dec. 20 loss of the boat Northern Edge was the worst loss of life aboard a single vessel at sea in New England since six crew members of the Gloucester-based Andrea Gail died in the ''Perfect Storm'' in 1991.

Swells reaching 15 feet high rolled the Northern Edge onto its side, spilling the scalloper's crew into the ocean about 45 miles southeast of Nantucket. Lost were Capt. Carlos Lopes; Ray Richards; Glen Crowley; Juan Flores; and Eric Guillen.

Senator Kennedy was also on hand and spoke of the call of the sea:

Kennedy spoke of the passion his brother, former President John F. Kennedy, felt for the sea a passion he said the crew of the Northern Edge shared.

''The call of the sea is strong and irresistible, even with the knowledge of that danger,'' Kennedy said.

For whatever reason, I have spent the last few days re-reading Sebastian Junger's incredible novel The Perfect Storm. If you've not read it, you should - it's a fascinating look at the lives that modern day fisherman lead - and the incredibly dangerous world that they work in.

Posted by bryan at 09:00 PM | Permalink

At jkOnTheRun, James writes of his wishlist for Mobile Technology in 2005. My favorite wishlist item of his:

Apple iTablet.

I would love to see Apple come out with a Tablet PC based on OS X. My reasoning is somewhat devious- in addition to being curious what sort of Tablet Apple would release (and it would be innovative no doubt), it would also be the perfect vehicle to bring the Tablet PC concept to the masses. Apple knows how to market and I am confident they would show a lot of consumers how a Tablet can benefit them, something MS and the Tablet PC OEMs don't seem to know how to do. It would create huge excitement in a genre that needs it desperately.

I can only hope this comes true!

JK, by the way, is hands down the best mobile technology weblog on the web today.

Posted by bryan at 12:59 PM | Permalink

Over at the Tsunami Tragedy Blog, sponsored by the Socialist Alliance of Queensland, comes another wonderful and helpful post:

Like any bully the United States takes pleasure out of destroying other people’s things. Like any true sociopath the US is incapable of feeling remorse, sympathy, or of learning from it’s mistakes. Like any true psychopath the US cannot grieve for the people of South Asia. The United States can only see bottom lines and profit margins.

Is Coca-Cola donating free Coke to the survivors? Are Reebok and Nike donating free shoes? Is Wal-Mart pitching in? Well, no. But, the United States is forming a Relief Coalition.

This is sick.

Oh, the bully must be in charge. The sociopath must have things his way. The psychopath will crush all opposition. And if you don’t want to play with him, then he’ll take his ball and go home.

News reports state that American troops will be sent into Thailand. Oh, that’s great. Another front on the war on terror? Time to clean up against the rebel Muslims in the South of the country?

I guess it's damned if we do - damned if we don't. A few days ago, this blog wrote, quite strongly, that we weren't doing enough - now they're criticizing us for sending Marines and others over there to help. A no win situation?

Hypocritical, I call them.

Posted by bryan at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I note that the domain moonbatnews.com is available.

Anyone interested in helping with a group blog to showcase nothing but their own comments, news, and photographs?

Could be alot of fun. Leave a comment if you're interested.

Posted by bryan at 10:22 AM | Permalink

Over at Chapomatic, Chap has gone wading with the Left over at left2right.

I particularly liked this broadside:

Okay, Frankly0, how do you arrange for such purchases? Where does the money go? How does it get funneled? Since Congress hasn't made a separate appropriation, who gets money taken from them to make it work? What needs to be bought and how do we get it there? Since the strike group is racing at top speed, their logistic capability will be limited to equipment on hand until they get boots on the ground. Who writes the contract to lease the ships for the heavy lift?

Wouldn't it make sense that these types of questions take more than thirty seconds to answer?

Even if you were correct about the reason for the money going to a larger number, I get a similar answer timewise using anecdotal experience and rules of thumb. Would it not make good fiducial sense to figure out where to spend the money so that the people who have that money taken from them (me, for instance) get that money used effectively? I haven't checked with more than two of my NGO friends, but they also have a finite time frame to get into gear as well--unless they're already on the ground it takes time to start rolling and flowing logistics.

[...]

Is that going to be automagically all better now that some hubris-laden arrogant functionary at the UN decided to publicly complain that he didn't get everything he wanted?

Has your heart become so hard that you are unable to see any competence or good in others?

I'm glad he's on our side.

Posted by bryan at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at that Home of the Moonbats, ZNet Blogs, comes this gem from the comments:

The obscene corination [sic -- bryan] of the messianic Imperial War Wizard George II, and the sick spectale of some military "ball" surrounding him that costs more than the "aid" they were shamed into grudgingly giving, is the equivalent of having the slaves in the old/new/same South having to do soft shoe for massa, while death and destruction abound. Again, I am ashamed to be an American, and are doomed to be so for the forseeable future.

"Imperial War Wizard George II"?!

And that, my friends, is the platform behind which the left believes they will conquer in the 2006 midterm elections.

Anyone want to make a bet?

Posted by bryan at 09:47 AM | Permalink

Over at Trying to Grok, Sarah, in the following post, linked to the Dissident Frogman:

In September, my mother came to visit. We went to France, Italy, and Flossenburg. In France, my relatives asked what I wanted to do there. I said I wanted to see the American soldiers at St. Avold. They said, "Oh, do Americans work there?" To which I solemnly replied, "No, I'd like to see the soldiers who died for us." I wanted to see Joe and Tommy.

I had never read the Dissident Frogman before this morning -- in the post linked by Sarah above he has a few words about "Joe and Tommy":

There's nothing really spectacular on "Utah", "Omaha", "Gold", "Juno" and "Sword". Just a few, discreet monuments in the dunes.

With names. Lots of names.

However, once you've been told - by those who survived - what happened here, it changes everything. On Charlie, Dog, Easy and Fox sectors at "Bloody Omaha" for instance, took place one of the most outstanding exploit of the liberation of Europe, carried out by 34,000 young - so young - heroes. They won, but many were wounded and many died.

To the eye, Bloody Omaha is just a sandy beach.

No white crosses, no huge memorial, no visible signs of those who sacrificed themselves and fought for freedom. No sign of those who fell for it.

Yet I remember "Joe" and "Tommy", heroes with no names but so many faces, who came here one day, fighters for a just cause, in a liberation army.

I was told about them, I read books about them, I saw pictures of them, and I watched interviews and movies. I heard their stories. The Joe and Tommy who got through this, told me about their brothers who didn't.

And they show me why they didn't fall in vain.

[...]

The kid I was that day on Omaha beach wanted to thank Joe and Tommy, but couldn't.

More than 30 years later, having reach adulthood with their memory still fresh in my mind and not besmirched by their progeny, I understand I can.

And I hope I did.

I am Joe, I am Tommy.

Of all of the places in Europe I would like to see on my first vacation there - the only one I could not stand to miss is Normandy.

Posted by bryan at 09:24 AM | Permalink

It's hard to believe that this was twelve years ago - but here's a great poem to kick of 2005:

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.
The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A river sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more.
Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I
And the tree and stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
And when you yet knew you still knew nothing.
The river sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing river and the wise rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the tree.
Today, the first and last of every tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river.
Each of you, descendant of some passed on
Traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name,
You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca,
You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me,
Then forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of other seekers--
Desperate for gain, starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru,
Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the tree planted by the river,
Which will not be moved.
I, the rock, I the river, I the tree
I am yours--your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,
Need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts.
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me,
The rock, the river, the tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

- Maya Angelou, On the Pulse of the Morning, 1993

Posted by bryan at 12:00 AM | Permalink