War is hell!

A week ago Sweetie and I shlepped downtown for the 4:30 movie at the Ojai Playhouse.  I love going to the Playhouse.  Since its extensive renovation, my only complaint is that some guy usually opens the men’s room door into my back as I stand in front of the urinal.  Progress sometimes occurs in small steps.

The movie, Afghan Star, chronicled the adventures of five everyday Afghans as they competed for the title “best new singer in Afghanistan.”  Three young men and two young, vibrant women made it to the finals, having been winnowed from hundreds of sometimes comical, sometimes pathetic contestants.  A home-grown TV station sponsored the contest. Votes were cast at each stage of the competition by anyone with a cellphone and a desire to be counted.

The entire country seemed to be caught up in the excitement.  Befitting the political mess in Afghanistan, there was ample opportunity to cajole, threaten and cheat in order to make your favorite singer a winner.  People were glued to TV sets, placards were everywhere, handouts extolling your favorite singer’s virtues littered the landscape.  It was exciting, meaningful, happy.

The camera also captured the sorry state of the country, focusing on bullet holes in what once were attractive buildings, dirty street urchins making a living by recharging car batteries used to power TV sets equipped with home-made antennas and, sadly, the continuing less-than-second-class status of women.  Death seemed to be lurking around every corner.

Yet there was a certain hope that permeated the film.  A hope that things could be different, better.  Flashing back to 1980, a video of an Afghan dance hall highlighted men and women in daring western dress, swinging to rock music, smoking, drinking and looking as happy as our kids did.  Much has changed since then.

I watched and found myself thinking about the war and our part in it.  I thought back to my tirades about the war in Iraq.  How we should have never been there.  How we needed to get out now.  How our then-president had cheated us, let us down, been out of touch with reality.  How I was elated when Obama took over.  How I hoped that we’d all come home.  How it wasn’t our war.  How I hadn’t given much thought to his belief that it was Afghanistan where we were really needed.

Now it’s Obama’s turn in the box and I’m torn.  Why do we need to be there?  The place is a hell hole.  The government is run by crooks.  The country is divided among egotistical warlords.  Religion is taking its toll on human freedoms.  The Taliban are everywhere.  Money needed here at home is being pissed away without meaningful improvement in Afghan lives.  And, worst of all, our kids are being killed along with the poor, unfortunate Afghans.

But then there’s the hope, the possibility of an Afghan Star.

Euphoria

Sweetie has a cold.   She probably got it from one of our kids who was here for the holidays.  Me…I’m constantly swallowing to check my throat.  Is it scratchy?   Is my head hot?  Am I getting it too?  So far no, but the week is young.

The grandkids were in and out of the house during the holidays.  Collecting Chanukah presents at our house, then down to the grandparents in Ventura for Christmas cheer.   Pretty good haul, though Isaac never did get that sweatshirt with the spooky eyes sewn into the hood.  Maybe next year.

With Sweetie on the couch and me not feeling like doing much, I’ve been watching the news and reading the pundit predictions for the incoming Obama administration.   They continue to marvel at the public’s high expectations.  A certain euphoria and comparisons to the second coming are easy to find.  How can that be?

The Israelis and Hamas further complicated an already severely agitated world.  Iraq hanging on by a fingernail.  Kabul virtually the only place in Afghanistan where the Taliban are not in control.  Pakistan and India waving nukes at each other.   Somalia,  Ethiopia and Zimbabwe troubled hotspots.   Blagojevich trying to sell the Cubs to Venezuela (why not…and you can throw in the Bears for good measure).

An economy that needs several more Christmas shopping seasons before it straightens itself out.  A stock market that lost eight years of gains in 2008 and gets vertigo whenever it inches up a bit.  Auto companies that can’t endear themselves to the American driver.  A school system that is running on fumes.  Nearly eleven million people out of work.  Forty million without health care.  Madoff skips out with $50 billion and no one in the SEC seems to have a clue.

And the media.  If real tragedies weren’t enough, the media will create them.   Turning good news into bad news is a real art.  I was scanning the NY Times home page the other day.  Lots of bad news…as usual.  I worked my way down to the bottom of the page.  I was breathing hard when I spotted this little gem.  ”Amazon reports best Christmas season ever.”  And that was it.  No point highlighting good news I guess. 

And today,  the piece de resistance…

 Attention Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks customers, starting tonight, you will lose your favorite Comedy Central shows on TV and online because of a dispute with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.

What!  No John Stewart!  No Stephen Colbert!  No Tina Fey!   No!  This can’t be.  What is Obama going to do about this?  It’s worse out there than I thought it was.

So why the euphoria?  Then I stopped and smelled the roses.  You know that little trinket I got almost four years ago?  I told you about it a month ago.  You know, the one that counts down the years, days, hours and minutes to the end of the Deluder in Chief’s term.  I look at it nearly every day.

 And I smile.  It’s euphoric.

 

If the shoe fits…

Poor George Bush.   Takes time off from the crumbling economy to fly to Iraq to tell everyone ”Hang in there, I’ll remember you.”   And some guy throws a shoe at him.  So much for fond farewells.

The shoe guy, Muntadhar al Zeidi, had this to say…”This is your farewell kiss, you dog!  This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”  Nicely put but hardly politically correct.  What Mr. al Zeidi fails to mention in his soliloquy are a couple of related items that I offer for your consideration.

While the Deluder in Chief was promoting, prosecuting and making excuses for the ill-conceived and poorly planned war in Iraq…

He turned a federal surplus into a raging deficit.  The American economy entered free-fall.  People lost their homes.  Retirement assets lost 40% of their value.  And at least 8% of us will be jobless.

The SEC was tiptoeing around Bernard Madoff as part of the Administration’s goal of regulation abandonment.   And the biggest investment fraud in American history cost us $50 billion in a blatant Ponzi scheme.

The reconstruction of Iraq was overseen by virtually no one…at a cost of $100 billion.  And it failed.  A new draft report shows that the Administration was informed enough to know about the failing effort.  So what did they do?  They simply put out inflated measures of progress.  Mission accomplished.

And lookee here.  A new Senate bipartisan report says that the Administration not only knew about the atrocities at Abu Grahib.  They produced them.   The torture wasn’t the fault of a few misguided psychopaths.  It resulted from actions committed by high ranking officials in the Bush cabinet including Rummy, Dickie and Alberto.  Actions that some would say should lead to criminal indictments.  As the Times reported…

…top officials, charged with defending the Constitution and America’s standing in the world, methodically introduced interrogation practices based on illegal tortures devised by Chinese agents during the Korean War. Until the Bush administration, their only use in the United States was to train soldiers to resist what might be done to them if they were captured by a lawless enemy.

The officials then issued legally and morally bankrupt documents to justify their actions, starting with a presidential order saying that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to prisoners of the “war on terror” — the first time any democratic nation had unilaterally reinterpreted the conventions.

Yet in spite of the potential benefits of maintaining a low profile in the remaining days of the Bush legacy, it goes on.  Like new regulations that can be rushed into place just in time for the Deluder’s departure.  Regulations that impact the environment, our privacy and a woman’s right to govern her own body.

Yes, I can hear some of you say “Enough already.  We know he’s a jerk and good riddance to him.  Why do you have to keep beating on a dead horse?”  Maybe because those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.  Or maybe because it was so awful that even I can’t believe it.

Yes, Mr. al Zeidi had the right idea when he threw the shoe.  Too bad it took us eight years to see it.

 

Missiles be damned

A beautiful day.  Warm and sunny.  Picked nearly five gallons of kalamata olives from one of our trees.  Big surprise.  Thought I’d be lucky to get a couple of quarts.

Olive trees are deceptive.  They bloom in the spring and, like a good quarterback, give you all kinds of false moves before you know how big the crop really is.  Yoram likes to cure olives so he came and got them.  Can’t wait to sample a few.

Sweetie and I cleaned up, got in the car and began our drive to Santa Barbara.  Our old friend Lenny is a two-month resident of a very nice senior housing complex and had invited us to visit, meet his new girl friend and have dinner.  We looked forward to the drive and the visit.

We drove through Ojai and swung north onto 101 along the coast.  The sun was low in the sky and glimmered off the calm Pacific waters.  It was tough on the eyes but so beautiful.

We listened to NPR and continued to savor the ongoing news about the election, the winners and the losers, and the bright prospects for the future.  It was time for Robert Siegel, Michelle Norris and All Things Considered.  I love listening to Siegel.  He sounds so squeaky clean, refreshing and up.

Siegel introduced a guy whose name is lost to me.  Pretty decent credentials and very authoritative.  He focused on Russia’s president Dmitri Medvedev.  During Dmitri’s speech to the Russian Federal Assembly on Wednesday, he warned the incoming Obama administration that if the U.S. went ahead with the development of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, the Russians would put short range missiles on their western border.  Tit for tat.

Siegel’s guest emphasized the importance of Obama’s response to this challenge.  Surely, he said, this was Obama’s chance to show his toughness, his military prowess, his muscles.  The world would be watching and listening.  I turned to Sweetie.  “Has nothing changed?”

I continued to drive and, at the same time, daydream a bit.  Dangerous on the 101 but I couldn’t help myself.  I thought about Obama and drafted a note that he would send to the Russian president.

Dear Dmitri,

Thanks very much for welcoming me to the world.  You know, I’m only the president-elect.  That other guy, the one who thought of that lame-brained missile defense system, hasn’t packed his bags yet and is still screwing around with the war, foreign relations and other things he hasn’t learned much about in nearly eight years.

I understand your concerns about having missiles planted in your neighbor’s back yard.  I would be pissed too.  But you know what…I’m going to be a little busy starting the end of January.  The economy over here is in the crapper…I understand yours is also a bit messy.  Lots of good folks are out of work.  A bunch of poor people don’t have health care.  There’s a misbegotten war that needs to end.  And I’ve got to change the sheets in the White House bedrooms.

So I tell you what.  I’m going to put the missile idea on the back burner for awhile.  When I get the time, you and I can get together…either at your place or mine.  We can have a beer or some Stoli, your choice.  We can show each other pictures of our kids.  We can talk about the importance of peace in the world and how you and I can work together to make that happen.

Meanwhile, let’s keep in touch.

Love to you, your lovely wife and the kids.

Your buddy,

Barack