July 07, 2007

NICE

A stinging quote from Matt Sanchez:

When Time magazine interviewed a bombmaker claiming to be responsible for “rising American casualties,” they forgot to ask the “sophisticated and tenacious enemy” the tough questions like, “What’s your exit strategy?” or “How broken is the insurgency?” “Could you define victory?” or even the most basic, “Why are you doing this?” The fact that the press demands accountability from one side and offers servility to the other is a very cunning strategy to win an asymmetrical war.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:55 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 85 words, total size 1 kb.

July 06, 2007

MY HEAVEN + MY HUSBAND'S

Yes, yes, sweet, awesome, holy crap.
We just bought tickets to attend Stitch N Pitch at Busch Stadium. That's right, knitting and baseball acting like they're peanut butter and jelly. Too cool. We'll be going with my friend and her mom, the awesome lady who taught me to knit ten years ago, and a girl I met through my knitting class here whose husband is deployed. She's flying from Montana; we're coming from both coasts to converge on the StL for the best idea to hit baseball since the hot dog.
Best idea we've had for a vacation since we followed Feasting on Asphalt.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:20 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 114 words, total size 1 kb.

IN COLD BLOOD, FAYETTEVILLE STYLE

Last night I finished reading Under the Sabers: The Unwritten Code of Army Wives. It was a fascinating book and a very compelling story. I now understand where a lot of the material for the TV show Army Wives is coming from, and I got a lot out of the book. But I can't help but feel that the title is a misnomer. Even the new title -- Army Wives: The Unwritten Code of Military Marriage -- doesn't quite fix the problem.

The book traces the lives of different Army couples from right before 9/11 to the start of OIF. It centers heavily on the five murders at Fort Bragg in the summer of 2002. In this sense, it's more like Fayetteville's In Cold Blood than just a book about Army wives. It's the story of gruesome murder, with information and insight on the military intertwined.

I came away from the book with the same feeling as when I read While They're At War. There may be some valuable insight into the military in the book, but the stories themselves are quite atypical. The average Army wife isn't an active anti-war protestor, nor does she get stabbed and burned alive by her husband. The average Army wife just takes care of her kids and her household while her husband is away. Most of what she overcomes is molehills, but it's a minefield of molehills spread out over years. But I guess that doesn't sell books. These fantastical stories are a vehicle to give people a peek at military life, but it seems a bit dangerous to me to name a book about murder, adultery, and horror as the "code of military marriage."

I liked the book, don't get me wrong. But just like Truman Capote's tome shouldn't be used as a guidebook to visiting Kansas, neither should this book be all you know about military life.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:53 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 326 words, total size 2 kb.

July 05, 2007

HMM

Interesting article on Scooter Libby, sent by Oda Mae: Bush Got It Right... Unlike Mr. Clinton

Posted by: Sarah at 10:52 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 18 words, total size 1 kb.

HEH

Frank J's Brief History of the United States of America is worth a chuckle.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:32 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 16 words, total size 1 kb.

PASSING THE TIME

Watch out, Vera Bradley; I'm quilting my own bags now.

fakeverabradleys.JPG

I love my new sewing machine.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:13 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 22 words, total size 1 kb.

ODIOUS MAN

I kept wanting to watch the movie United 93, and my husband kept coming up with excuses why he didn't feel like seeing it. He wanted to watch something funny, he didn't feel like a movie tonight, there wasn't enough time before bed. Finally I flat-out asked him why he obviously didn't want to see the movie. He replied that he just didn't want to see anything made by Oliver Stone. Ah-ha. Mix up, honey, Stone didn't make this one; he made the other one. Problem solved, and we watched the movie a few days ago.

I don't blame him. I read the book Case Closed a few weeks ago, and all I could think of the whole time was that I spent money in the theater to see JFK when I was 13, and I actually thought it was true. I was just an idiot kid, and it was all up there on the big screen, for pete's sake, so how was I to know that Stone based that load of crap on "evidence" that had been debunked years earlier? The man is just dishonest to the core. I can't believe I wasted any brain cells thinking there was a JFK conspiracy.

So I love it that, even though Stone can twist and turn a story into anything but the truth, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad still won't let him make a documentary about him. Because

"It is right that this person is considered part of the opposition in the U.S., but opposition in the U.S. is a part of the Great Satan," Mehdi Kalhor, media adviser to the president told the Fars news agency.

Even folks who hate the US are still considered enemies with respect to jihad. Nice. It's a shame that lesson will likely go right over everyone's heads.

Looks like Oliver Stone will have to find some other story to twist up into bullcrap.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:08 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 320 words, total size 2 kb.

July 04, 2007

AND THAT'S WHAT IT MEANS

Lileks posted for the 4th of July. I wanted to excerpt it, but 1) I can't even pick one part that's better than another and 2) if I excerpt it, you might not go read the whole thing.

Trust me, you're gonna want to read it twice.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 57 words, total size 1 kb.

TODAY, AND EVERY DAY

Neal Boortz hates the 4th of July.

Trust me, you don't want me to work on the 4th of July. I'll just go into one of my insensitive rants about how Americans .. most Americans anyway .. no longer have any real love of freedom. Security is the word today, not independence. Oh, to be sure ... we want to be free to chose where we work (as long as we don't have to negotiate our own salary), where we live, where we worship and what's for dinner. Beyond that ... all too many of us want to government to step in and relieve us of the responsibilities and consequences of choice.

Reading assignment? Sure .. I have one for you. Go buy the book "1776" and read it. Read how American patriots in 1776 marched across frozen ground without shoes --- leaving a trail of blood --- just to fight for independence from Great Britain. Today? See how many people you can find today who would make that sacrifice for freedom.

Will get the book. And will think about what freedom really means today.
But 4th of July for patriots is like Valentine's Day for soulmates: superfluous.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:09 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 206 words, total size 1 kb.

July 03, 2007

SAD

Must read Michael Yon: Bless the Beasts and Children

Posted by: Sarah at 04:56 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 11 words, total size 1 kb.

July 02, 2007

OUR DIMPLED CHAD

Over the weekend, we were very optimistic about taking a pregnancy test. We thought the fifth month just might be the charm. But if our pregnancy test had been an election ballot, we would've been looking at a dimpled chad.

pregnant.JPG

That photo is not staged; that's my husband trying to figure out what in the heck was going on. One line means no, two lines means yes, but what does one dark line and one line that's barely perceptible to the naked eye mean? We wanted to find out if we were having a baby or not, and instead we got "Pat Buchanan."

Incidentally, if something is advertised as 99% effective, why does it need to be sold in two packs?

Another test and two more days later, and we're pretty sure we're not pregnant. I was on the phone with my mother, sniveling about how every month that passes brings more likelihood that my husband will deploy before this baby ever shows up, and my mother said the most perfect thing she could've said in this situation: She said that she would obviously do whatever she could to help me if my husband is gone when this baby comes, but that she wanted us to know how proud she is of us, that we've chosen a very difficult lifestyle and that she admires and respects us for making this family sacrifice for our country.

I thought about what she said later in the day, and I thought about the book report I wrote for SpouseBUZZ that morning, and I realized that she's right. We've chosen this life, and we can un-choose it any time we wish. But what we can't do is stick with this choice and then complain about it. Would I want to get out of the Army in order to have my husband here next year? No. So that's our choice. It's important to us to be in the Army, so it has to be important enough to stop complaining about the situation.

So if he's here, he's here, and if he's not, he's not. That's the way it has to be, and there's no sense in talking about it or dwelling on our so-called bad luck.

But can we at least get some better luck in reading those danged home tests?

Posted by: Sarah at 04:13 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
Post contains 392 words, total size 3 kb.

June 29, 2007

1,2,3 WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?

In keeping with yesterday's theme, what do Rosie O'Donnell and jihadists have in common? They both dress their kids up like insurgents.

Quiz: Which one is Rosie's kid and which one is the Palestinian?

rosie_kid.jpg

Would you be able to tell if the skin tones were the same?

The Palestinians mean it when they dress their kids up like this. I have no idea what Rosie was thinking. Supposedly she's anti-war, but the fact she dressed her kid up with bullets suggests that maybe there is something she'd be willing to let her kids fight for. Obviously it's not the United States, though.

(found via One-Sided Exposition)

Posted by: Sarah at 03:34 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 118 words, total size 1 kb.

June 28, 2007

THE BEATLES

What do Lileks, Annika, and I have in common? We don't really get The Beatles.

I discovered The White Album when I was 12, and then heard everything else. That's doing it quite backwards, to say the very least. And I was a fan back then, from age 12 to about 15, buying cassette tapes and hanging out in freaking head shops downtown looking for memorabilia. But somehow a weird resurgence of Beatlemania hit my high school in 1995 and the Fab Four completely jumped the shark when the annoyingly popular girls from my school were camping out on the sidewalk outside Best Buy all night to buy the Anthology album. And got interviewed for the newspaper for it. I kinda dusted my hands off and thought, "Well, OK, that was fun while it lasted." I stopped listening to the most popular band of all time because they got popular. Heh.

But now, even though I'm old enough to not pick my music based on what's cool, I still can't listen to The Beatles anymore. I just don't feel the music. When I was 13, songs like "Mean Mr. Mustard" were cool because they were weird for the sake of being weird. Now they just feel weird.

I still very much enjoy the song "I Will." That's about it. I've come to think Quentin is right: I'm an Elvis fan, and you can't be both.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:06 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 239 words, total size 1 kb.

June 27, 2007

HOORAY

Today I joined a group.

I went into a craft store to look for something for my mom, and naturally I cannot go in a craft store without sneaking into the yarn section. There I found a table with five older ladies knitting and crocheting. I immediately joined their club.

They call themselves the Fairy Godmothers, and they meet twice a month to knit and crochet little caps and sweaters for the preemies in the local hospital. I got patterns from them to get started on, and I can't wait until the next meeting.

I made five friends today. They're all my mother's age, but who's counting?

Posted by: Sarah at 08:08 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 109 words, total size 1 kb.

ONE-SIDED BRIDGE BUILDING

Here's a fascinating blog post about a church that invited someone from the local mosque to speak to the congregation.

The stated purpose of the visit, from my church’s perspective, was printed in the newsletter: “In an increasingly fragmented world in which followers of other religions are often viewed with fear – how wonderful it would be to build bridges.” But when we’re told flatly, “Touch Mohammed and there will be riots,” it’s obvious that it’s less about bridge building and more about schooling us as to how we are and are not to behave to avoid what Muslims who think like our speaker believe are the reasonable consequences of offending Islam–or even the more “aberrant” consequences. Ironically, this pattern reminds me of radical feminists, whose aim is to curtail the behavior and speech of people, particularly men, whom they deem offensive. In both cases, this reveals an absolutely infantile grasp of human relations that insists you tightly align your behavior with their proscriptions because they simply cannot handle, or respond appropriately to, what you might say or do. Our speaker, in answering my questions about the Mohammed cartoons, asked vehemently and self-pityingly why we could not leave Mohammed alone, why Islam cannot have even one thing that is sacred from the opinions of others (my words). I remember pathetically wondering this myself when my sister wanted to play with my toys–when I was about eight. But this begs for control of the behavior of others rather than planning for measured responses of one’s own.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:41 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 265 words, total size 2 kb.

June 25, 2007

NOT HAPPY

So far I have been a fan of the Army Wives TV show. I think they do a decent job of portraying what our lives are like. But last night's episode didn't sit well with me at all.

In a nutshell, there was a situation where a sergeant took the lieutenant colonel's husband hostage because he was mad about events that happened in Afghanistan. It wasn't the hostage situation that I thought was bad; it was the events in Afghanistan.

According to this story, a "patrol" (no idea how many soldiers) was ambushed and was heavily outnumbered. This guy, the hostage taker, was wounded by shrapnel, so they left him in the Afghan village to be taken care of by the locals and went back to the FOB for reenforcements. But "because of the heat", they couldn't get back to rescue him for days, so the Afghan family took care of him. Once he was rescued, he vowed to come back and help the family. So this sergeant, his lieutenant colonel, and three other soldiers went back to the village to take medical supplies and food, only to find that 12 "heavily-armed" insurgents were burning down the house and raping the 10-year-old daughter in the middle of the street. Because they were outnumbered 12 to 5, and because "the Rules of Engagement are clear: do not interfere with civilian affairs", the lieutenant colonel told them to maintain their positions and stay hidden while they watched a child get raped and murdered.

OK, where to begin. I know I am not a soldier, and I know neither I nor my husband can possibly know all of the strange circumstances that arise in battle. But I cannot imagine any situation of any kind where a unit would leave a wounded soldier behind in an Afghan household. Period. And not for days on end because of the heat! It also seems ridiculous that a lieutenant colonel would roll around Kandahar with a four-man team. My husband's LTC had an entire platoon of entourage at all times, at least 20 men. It seems a bit of a stretch to me that anyone besides Special Forces types are going anywhere in our war zones with only five people! I just don't think that's realistic. So they would've never been outnumbered if they'd taken a proper number of soldiers on this mission.

Finally, the Rules of Engagement thing is not exactly the way my husband describes it. He quoted me a common rule of thumb: a unit might be authorized to use deadly force in circumstances where there is loss of "life, limb, or eyesight." He thinks the rape of a 10 year old in broad daylight would be grounds for a fight, especially if this child belongs to a family who is a known supporter of the American military operation. Again we go back to them being outnumbered 12 to 5, which I don't see ever happening, but my husband did say that in times when you might be extremely outnumbered, there might be cause to not intervene. But this whole "do not interfere with civilian affairs" thing was junk to him because, as he quipped, all al Qaeda types are civilians, so not intervening in civilian matters would apply to everything!

Yeah, yeah, Sarah, all this is just details. But this is the stuff that matters, in my opinion. Most of the people who don't like Army Wives are saying they don't like it because officers don't hang out with enlisted, because you wouldn't get a citation for not mowing on your first day in housing, because a female officer wouldn't be dancing drunk in a jody bar. They think all that stuff gives us a bad impression to civilian viewers.

What about the civilian viewers who now think that American soldiers will sit back and watch a 10 year old get raped and murdered? That our Rules of Engagement won't let us step in and prevent insurgents from killing an innocent family and burning their home? That we are married to men who sit by and do nothing while vile insurgents ruin people's lives? That's a far more dangerous picture to paint for civilians than whether we have all-rank tea parties.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:53 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 712 words, total size 4 kb.

USEFUL IDIOT

Dear Cameron Diaz,

The next time you're in a country to "participate in a television show that celebrates Peru's culture," make sure you learn a little about the culture before you show up. Like learning that your Chairman Mao purse might tick the locals off, you know, since the Shining Path spent a decade killing Peruvians. And when you apologize with "The bag was a purchase I made as a tourist in China and I did not realize the potentially hurtful nature of the slogan printed on it," you reveal just what a dumbass you are. If you can't understand the hurtful nature of Mao Zedong, you really need to get a clue.

Sincerely,
Sarah

Posted by: Sarah at 08:46 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 119 words, total size 1 kb.

WORKER BEES

When I have a knitting class scheduled, I have to call in to the store in the morning to find out if anyone has signed up. I am always amazed at how put-out the cashiers seem when I call. I am always cheerful and it only takes them a second to look it up. But I always get gruff, one-word grunts from these sullen people. Is there anyone in my class today? "Hang on. Nope. Click." Do they not know how rude they sound?

I work for Michaels. I make about $50 per month, which is so low it makes me laugh. I can spend that in supplies for the class. But I love teaching people to knit, and Michaels gives me that opportunity. So I do everything I can to make people happy in the store. I take people's email and phone numbers and go home to find information for them. I type up patterns for them. Currently I am helping an elderly lady change her lace pattern to a larger size. Not easy. And she already knows how to knit, so I get nothing out of it. I don't get paid to do it, and she'll never take a class from me. But I want her to have a good experience in the store. That's part of my job, right? They didn't hire me to be stingy and grumpy.

I taught my mother-in-law to knit when she visited, but she was having trouble with a stitch once she got back home. We were unable to figure out the problem over the phone, so she decided to drive up to her local Hobby Lobby to ask for a little help. She brought her needles and yarn and just wanted someone to watch her to see what she was doing wrong. They refused to help, saying it was against store policy to spend time helping customers on individual projects. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? My mother-in-law put the yarn back on the shelf that she was intending to buy and left. They could've taken ten seconds to help her purl and then would've made $15 in sales. Instead they got nothing.

I don't understand most workers. Yeah, it may just be your crappy minimum wage job to answer the phone, but your grunts and gripes aren't even worth eight dollars. Take some stinkin' pride in what you do instead of doing the bare minimum, and think about something larger than yourself for five minutes. You represent a company, and they don't owe you a paycheck for mediocrity.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:32 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 433 words, total size 2 kb.

THEY HATE US

At the risk of repeating myself for a third day and using again the phrase Aristotelian gods, here is a prime example of lefties looking down their noses at us country bumpkin Republicans and saying that they know so much better than we do what's good for us:

Even with the low poll numbers, liberals still feel stymied in conveying just how bad this administration is. It's been the ultimate frustration to consider the people who don't see Bush's malevolence: In 2004, rural America cited national security as their number one reason for voting for Bush. But people in the major cities, where there's actually a chance of being victimized by terrorism, people voted against Bush. Frustrating. In the cities, where most people are utterly at two with nature, people cited Bush's raping of the environment as a major reason to vote against him. In rural America, where people fish and hunt and generally do things outside, they voted for Bush. Sooooo frustrating. On Sutton Place and in Harvard-Westlake, where kids go to college after high school, they vote against Bush. In rural America, from where the majority of tragically killed kids in Iraq soldiers come, they vote for Bush.

And if that's not enough, let's throw a big heaping tablespoon of malice in with the condescention. Malice and condescention pie, yummy.

You could argue that even the world's worst fascist dictators at least meant well. They honestly thought were doing good things for their countries by suppressing blacks/eliminating Jews/eradicating free enterprise/repressing individual thought/killing off rivals/invading neighbors, etc. Only the Saudi royal family is driven by the same motives as Bush, but they were already entrenched. Bush set a new precedent. He came into office with the attitude of "I'm so tired of the public good. What about my good? What about my rich friends' good?"

This is how they see conservative values, folks. We're worse than fascist dictators. We really don't believe in things like supply-side economics; we just make policy like that up because we want to screw as many people as we can. We want to help rich white guys and blow up the levees around black guys. Bwahahaha.

The comments section would be funny if I didn't know it was true. They really think we don't care about the troops, hate Mexicans, look to our "pastors" for voting advice, seek to destroy the Constitution, and that AM radio is the same thing as Hitler's Beer Halls.

I really don't understand how human beings' brains can be hardwired so differently.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:56 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 429 words, total size 3 kb.

June 24, 2007

THE VILLAGE

If you haven't seen the movie The Village and you still plan to see it, don't read this post.

I don't do scary movies. I hate them. But when I saw the preview for The Village years ago, I always wanted to be brave enough to watch it. I finally did yesterday, and I'm really glad I did. It wasn't really that scary...at least not in the way a horror movie is supposed to be. On the contrary, the ending reveals something far scarier than monsters.

The Shyamalan™ ending isn't nearly as gut-socking as the revelation of opening the Box of Secrets: Utopias only work at gunpoint. A select few act as "Aristotelian gods" (what a delightful new phrase I've learned) and decide how the masses should live, but the only way they can enforce their society is through manipulation and fear. And though they think their society more moral and just than the outside world, it is a society based on lies. These things play out in the real world; I just didn't expect such a lovely allegory in this movie.

And naturally I found the exact opposite of the River Kwai experience when I looked up reviews of the movie: people hated it. Obviously I don't have the same opinion on what makes a compelling story as the majority of movie reviewers! But I personally think if they hated it, they missed the forest for the trees.

Or maybe, if I may be so snarky, they're the type of people who really think we could live in peace and harmony if we halted all progress, with some college professor to lead the way.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:57 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 279 words, total size 2 kb.

<< Page 77 of 179 >>
124kb generated in CPU 0.0452, elapsed 0.1817 seconds.
64 queries taking 0.1565 seconds, 313 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.

Search Thingy