Voices from the front lines

I read several moving blogs today written by soldiers serving behind enemy lines in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The insights provided are incredible. Images of their daily lives, that are both frightening and funny at the same time. In this post, from ruminations of a soldier medic, you can feel the confusion and intensity of a first time firefight:

“Every one looked at every one else as we started hearing booms. They started getting louder, so we all started throwing on our body armor and helmets. My guys all went outside to investigate. At this point, I was kind of scared, but I didn’t really know what to expect. This was the first time something like this has happened to me. I ventured outside cautiously to find out what was going on. The shooting, the booms, all the sounds you don’t want to hear-they just kept escalating. They weren’t going away.”

There are a lot of perspectives that we have a hard time understanding about these soldiers. They are all serious, hard working, dedicated, and well, so young. From Eighty Deuce on the Loose in Iraq:

“OK, heres where the Infantry guy thing comes into play. First off, consider our situation. We are a bunch of males, many of which are straight out of high school. We now live together, work together and pretty much spend 24/7 with each other. And to make matters worse, you coup us up inside a Humvee for 10’s of hours at a time. Its going to get crazy. “

Some of the stories are funny. Gallows humor at times, but there are many belly laughs out there. Bill and Bob’s Excellent Afghan Adventure is full of them:

“There is an old saying that the only difference between an Army story and a fairy tale is that a fairy tale starts with ‘Once upon a time,’ and an Army story starts with ‘No shit, this really happened…’ “

While funny at times, Bill and Bobs’ writer uses real statistics in his skewering the of media and the New York Times in particular, on their sensationalist story about Global Terror War veterans and the violent crimes some have committed since returning from theater.

I found many that had unique photos from behind the lines, which were particularly fascinating to me, because I have seen so few of them on the news. Army of Dude (best. name. ever.) has tons of photos, as does Leave the Gun (is it a Godfather reference? – “leave the gun, take the cannoli”). Finally, how can you not like a guy called Dude in the Desert. Simple. Easy.

These stories are not being told in the mainstream media, and these soldiers “outside the wire” know it. Their insight is invaluable in us really understanding the war in Iraq, the forgotten war in Afghanistan, and any other place our kids are dying. Read their stories, understand their emotions, and support our troops. Not by buying a new magnetic sticker for your SUV, but by listening to them, by recognizing their sacrifices, and by respecting them.

These are serious young people, and they are serving in chaotic and dangerous places because they said they would. They have earned your respect.

Here’s a couple of ways you can support our troops:

Learn more at 1000 Reasons, or over at Vet Voice.

Send em some love over at Soldiers Angels or AnySoldier.

Get the facts straight over at FactChecker.org

Support Peace

New heroes

Someone mysteriously sent me a terrific book, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder. Not a book I would ordinarily seek out, it has changed my mind on many issues, and opened my eyes to many other important ones.

Only because quoting the back of the book saves me an hour or so of rewriting it…

“Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life’s calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most.”

Paul Farmer is genuinely inspiring, as you can see in this YouTube video talking about his foundation Partners in Health. PIH offers help to places of the world that nobody else is. Here are some ways that you can help.

Is the United States headed for fiscal crisis?

This video is about David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States. He’s the nations top accountant, and runs the General Accounting Office, the agency responsible for auditing the books of the federal budget.

David believes that current record deficits, coupled with the crippling weight of entitlement programs like Medicare will soon bankrupt the United States. He has given up on congress, and has taken his message to you, the average man. It’s short, so please watch the video, it certainly is eye-opening.

David Walker resigned this past Friday, citing an inability to get this message out as one of his reasons.  His next position will be as the president and CEO of the newly founded Peter G. Peterson Foundation.  The foundation’s mission statement from their web site:

The mission of The Peter G. Peterson Foundation is to enhance public understanding of the nature and urgency of selected key sustainability challenges that threaten America’s future, to propose sensible and workable solutions to address these challenges and to build public will to do something about them.

“As comptroller general of the United States,” said David Walker, the federal government’s top accountant, “there are real limitations on what I can do and say in connection with key public policy issues, especially issues that directly relate to G.A.O.’s client – the Congress.”

“While I love both my job as comptroller general and the GAO,” said Walker, “I love my country more. And I believe that leading this foundation represents a unique opportunity and will be good for my country. My new position will provide me with the ability and resources to more aggressively address a range of current and emerging challenges facing our country, including advocating specific policy solutions and courses of action.”

Sounds like a good man left an untenable situation to me.

Good news continues for Obama, not so much for Clintons

In continuing trends, the good news continues from the Obama camp. In the latest primaries Obama has cut deeply into Hillary Clinton’s base, and continues to win convincingly in red states, where he was not expected to do well. The 2 million member strong SEIU Union gave Obama a critical endorsement, and this just in from the New York Times:

“Representative John Lewis, an elder statesman from the civil rights era and one of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most prominent black supporters, said Thursday night that he planned to cast his vote as a superdelegate for Senator Barack Obama in hopes of preventing a fight at the Democratic convention.”

Over in Clinton’s camp? Bill has been accused of misusing campaign mailing lists to garner millions in consulting fees in trade for lists of supporters. Mark Penn, Hillary’s chief strategist was tied to controversial nuclear firm, Exelon, and shown to have accepted nearly a $250,000 in consulting fees from them.

Hillary is also being railed for missing a critical vote on the FISA Bill extension, including immunity for Telecoms who aided in warrentless wiretaps on United States citizens. Obama missed the vote to be fair, and he was in DC. Mrs. Clinton was campaigning in Texas, as her new strategy is to bank everything on Ohio and Texas.

The Clinton campaign is losing the financing race badly, and Hillary has vowed to take the Democratic nomination even if she does not win the popular vote, but persuades enough superdelegates to vote for her at the convention, her campaign advisers say. She even had her own surreal Coast to Coast Town Hall meetings – that nobody noticed.

This election is starting to look one sided to everyone but the Clintons. I hope they start to notice soon for all our sakes.

The Folly of Attacking Iran. Lessons from History

Did you know that Iran had a functioning democracy before the United States removed it, and put the Shah of Iran back in power? Did you know that the United States and Iran actually have much in common, including strategic long term interests for both countries?

JustForeignPolicy.org is touring the United States with the experts in the video below and others, building a movement against military confrontation with Iran, and for real diplomacy.

Find out more, sign the petition, and join them at:

http://www.FollyofAttackingIran.org

Watch the video:

When did the comics get all serious?

One of my favorite webcomics is Penny Arcade, written and illustrated by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. The content material focuses mainly on video games, the gaming industry, and the gamer sub-culture. However, over the past year or two some more serious topics have come up, as the characters have, gasp, grown up a bit…. Click the strip above for a larger, more legible version.

Some of my favorite “real” paper comics tackle serious issue too. Funky Winkerbean, a strip I have read for many years, recently “killed off” a character, and reset the entire clock on the comic. All of the characters have been fast-forwarded 15 years or so, and their lives moved further into adulthood accordingly. Throughout however, Batiuk has covered topics like teen pregnancy, adoption, and U.S. servicemen returning home from Afghanistan with devastating injuries.

Doonesbury is always high on my list, but we have always expected serious topics from Gary Trudeau. His own characters are now dealing with issues like the massive number of brain trauma injuries to soldiers serving in Iraq, the elections, and the current administration. Trudeau’s characters are iconic, maybe none more so than Uncle Duke, the character based in part on late “Gonzo” journalist Hunter S. Thompson.

Trudeau ’s cast has aged gracefully, at the same time introducing new cast members to introduce us all to the new issues of today. He even has a blog for U. S. Soldiers serving in the middle east called The Sandbox. Here’s a great Washington Post article on Trudeau. I am still mystified as to why his web site is still on Slate. It’s so…. 1999.

Zits features Jeremy Duncan, a now 16 year old aspiring rock musician, and his parents, “who don’t understand anything“. The fanciful ways that the strip bends and distorts reality reminds me very much of Calvin and Hobbes. The character often morphs into younger, older, zanier versions of himself, much like Calvin. I cannot express, now that I have my own near-teenage son, how much I can relate to Jeremy’s gigantic feet. Have you priced sneakers lately?

A newer comic with great characters, including an always smoking version of the creator, is Stephan Pastis’ Pearls before Swine. The characters are flawed, but lovable, and if you look closely you will see a lot of subtle gems hidden amongst the simpler humor. Here is today’s strip, for Valentines Day:

I have a very soft spot in my heart for Calvin and Hobbes, likely the best strip ever, and I also love Peanuts, but I have left them off of my list for one simple reason – they are not being drawn today. While both are incredible works, but the one thing I like most about the comics is tomorrow’s strip, the promise of a continued relationship. What is goingt to happen to our friends? Will it be a light day, or a grave day? We know these characters, check up on them every day.

Like real life, the comics tug at our heart strings, and invite us along on great and wonderful adventures.

But do they always have to be so darn serious?

Election Results – Good for Obama, McCain, Bad to worse day for Hillary. Huckabee still nuts.

Barack Obama and John McCain came out the big winners in the “Potomac Primaries” of Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. today. The Obama tide continues to turn as he took over 75% of the vote in D.C., and 65% in VA and MD. I suspect that insiders in the Democratic Party are noticing these large margins of victory. Obama has also started to eat into Hillary Clinton’s coalition of voters, as her support continues to erode.

McCain took all three primaries in slim wins over crazy pastor, and believer that the earth is only 9,000 years old, Mike Huckabee. Mr. McCain himself is a confirmed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder sufferer, after being tortured in a Viet Cong Prison for several years during the Vietnam war. While that makes him a noble, loyal warrior to be thanked for his service to be sure, do we really want someone known to be that unstable to be in charge?

Rev. Huckabee on the other hand is just plain crazy. He has said “I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ”, and he means it. He also thinks that wives should just “submit” to their husbands. On a lighter note, he has vowed to be the anti-obesity president, a self titled “foodaholic” himself, who has lost over 120 pounds.

The Clinton campaign continues to struggle, with even Yahoo getting snarky, “As the votes were counted in her latest setbacks, her deputy campaign manager stepped down. Mike Henry announced his departure one day after Patti Solis Doyle was replaced as campaign manager with Maggie Williams, a longtime confidante of the former first lady.” Hillary’s top two campaign staffers are out, they have suffered 10 losses in a row, and they are running out of money. No wonder she has been railing at MSNBC over Chelsea being slighted. She has focused her energies on winning Texas and Ohio.

Mike Huckabee still has the coolest endorsement ad ever though. Chuck Norris approved.

The Problem

J.J. Cale is best known for writing hit songs – for other people. Over the years he has penned many classic rock songs, including “After Midnight”, “Call Me the Breeze”, and “Cocaine”. He is a musician’s musician, having been an inspiration to Eric Clapton, The Grateful Dead, CSNY, and many more.

His newest album, a joint effort with Eric Clapton, The Road to Escondido, finally produced a Grammy for J.J. Cale. The politically charged record is an outstanding representation of his work.

Another song of Cale’s was set to a video recently. It’s his song “The Problem”. I agree that the video is a bit amateurish, but the message is clear.

Pimps and pundits

The Clinton’s are STILL up in arms about last weeks comments from MSNBC anchor David Shuster. The reporter, David Shuster, had said Thursday that Ms. Clinton had been “pimped out” to make calls to superdelegates on behalf of her mother. OK, he said something unfortunate. What next?

Shuster apologized. MSNBC apologized in a very public statement by Keith Olberman, telling the Clintons, “We are, literally, dreadfully sorry.” So we all move on, right?

Not Hillary Clinton, who continued to lobby for further repercussions for Shuster, and threatening to pull out of a scheduled debate on MSNBC in a lettter to the network. The Clinton’s are clearly angry, and as they have always done, scurried to protect 27 year old Chelsea Clinton.

Barbara Walters was not on the View the afternoon that Chelsea Clinton called the view anchors. However, she has made the most sensible statement about this yet – GET OVER IT! Here was her statement at the time :

“It was as if she was advocating more than just his being suspended. Perhaps I feel this because of the years, and all of you, we are live, and sometimes you say something unfortunate. You apologize, he’s getting suspended, he apologized, MSNBC apologized. Drop it already! It’s OK. He made a mistake.”

I agree. Chelsea is 27, out of college, out of grad school, and campaigning for her mom. Let me repeat that, CAMPAIGNING for her mom. She is openly calling superdelegates to ask for their vote for her mom, appearing at campaign rallies, and generally putting herself in the spotlight. Commenting that she is out there is fair game too.

I certainly understood the protection and privacy for Chelsea back when Bill Clinton was president – she was only 10 or 11 years old when he took office. But if she is going to be a political wonk as an adult, then she has to be prepared to take her lumps.

Chelsea Clinton is NOT your average campaign staffer making calls. Hillary DID “pimp her out”. I agree that the term is regretful, but the reality of the situation is what it is. Chelsea has been activated as a campaign resource by her parents. Hillary did ask her to go out and sell the family name.

Enough already Mrs. Clinton, can we get back to the issues please?

McCain Response to the Obama “Yes we can” video

I just got this new link to John McCain’s response to the Barack Obama “Yes we can” video. It is entitled john.he.is. All I can say is, wow.