OK, Lileks, OK. I won't sit this one out. You're right.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:14 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I may have found a lead on why they call the man who's messin' with your wife "Jody". Based on Bunker's comment, I googled "jody" and "music" and came up with a funk song from the 70s called "Trackin' Down Jody" by Darker Shades Ltd. It's about trying to find a guy named Jody and killin' him (I don't know who he is / but all I know / Jody could be the man / livin' right next door). That could be where it came from, or it could've already been a popular expression that was made into a song. Who knows! But you can listen to the song clip here.

MORE TO GROK:

So my guess that it was already a popular expression seems to be right. Amritas dug up the real meaning, found here. Well done, linguist.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:00 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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(via Tim) A 19-year-old Marine is going back to Iraq for his second tour because of his sense of duty to his country. Shockingly enough, some of his peers don't even realize that we still have troops in Iraq; America's short attention span is this Marine's biggest fear: "It gets to me. It's almost like 9/11. Everyone started throwing flags up on their cars, but now it's fading out. Same old news every night." So he's volunteered for two more tours, going back a little braver, a little wiser, and a little stronger because he's a Marine and that's what Marines do.

He's also another servicemember who has parents who'd rather use their appearance in the newspaper to express their distrust of the current administration instead of pride and gratitude for their brave child. His mother: "'I don't know if there are weapons of mass destruction,' she said. 'If this is based on a lie, I'm gonna be really [angry].' Getting rid of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was a good thing, she said, but, 'Is that worth the lives that have been lost over there? I have no idea. I don't want to lose my only son for a cause that might be a lie.'"

Her son's response?

Isaiah doesn't think highly of the folks who constantly question when troops expect to find weapons of mass destruction.
"I think they should shut their mouths. You can't even find an AK-47 in someone's home because they can hide it so well," Schaffer said. "They really don't know what they're talking about."
He stands firmly behind the president--and wishes Americans would stand just as firmly behind him and other troops.
"President Bush sent us over there for a reason. And from a Marine's outlook, you start something, you finish it," he said.
"God willing, we'll finish it."

Godspeed, Marine. As my husband's company says, "Get 'er done!"

Posted by: Sarah at 08:53 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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The office is empty and slow today, so I've been doing a lot of reading.
Here's another great Solzhenitsyn quote 30 pages later:

One thing is absolutely definite: not everything that enters our ears penetrates our consciousness. Anything too far out of tune with our attitude is lost, either in the ears themselves or somewhere beyond, but it is lost.

That's how I feel when I try to explain something to someone who leans Left.
I feel it might have entered their ears, but never their consciousness.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:14 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 I'm glad to see you're getting something from the book!

Posted by: Mike at March 03, 2004 10:34 AM (3b89y)

2 "I feel it might have entered their ears, but never their consciousness." Of course, the feeling is mutual, since it's SO obvious that Iraq had no WMDs, had nothing to do with 9/11, nothing to do with terrorism, and was a SOVEREIGN nation with a democratically elected leader with 100.0% of the vote that was overthrown by Bu$h (who got, what, 0.1% of the vote from his rich white male buddies?) so that America could have a 51st state to suck more oil from for its endlessly growing fleet of SUVs. The ENTIRE WORLD knows this. Only idiotic AmeriKKKans, addicted to FOX News, buy into the transparent lies of their leader. Seriously, I'm coming to believe in the "Two Americas" worldview, though in fact maybe the real number is more like three, given the large number of apathetic, ignorant people out there.

Posted by: Amritas at March 03, 2004 02:07 PM (kUxEJ)

3 Sarah, Don't waste time giving explanations to them. Write it on a 2x4 and wack them on the head. At least you'll know you've made an impression.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at March 04, 2004 10:07 PM (CSxVi)

4 I'd skip the writing and just start whacking.

Posted by: Amritas at March 05, 2004 02:15 AM (oC8m2)

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Posted by: rape videos at January 07, 2005 11:59 PM (Gvqsk)

6 hi guys

Posted by: casino at August 30, 2005 03:25 PM (DKl3T)

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I've been enjoying my reading of The Gulag Archipelago, as much as one can enjoy reading about imprisonment in Stalinist Russia. I hit a passage today that struck me with its simplicity. It's in the chapter on the Bluecaps:

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good, or else that it's a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to see a justification for his actions.

Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble--and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.

Ideology--that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jocobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.

Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, nor suppressed. How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers do not exist? And who was it that destroyed these millions? Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago.

Many have condemned President Bush for his label of The Axis of Evil; they thought it simplistic, sanctimonious, or ridiculous. Yet there is indeed evildoing in this world today; it's not confined to the twentieth century. And I agree with Solzhenitsyn that ideology is often the way that individuals justify their actions.

Would a Palestinian strap on a bomb and blow up a bus if he hadn't been told from day one that the Jews are the source of all of his suffering and he would be rewarded in heaven? Would one of Saddam's henchmen have been more likely to say "hang on a minute" when instructed to kill someone in a plastic shredder if he weren't backed by the Ba'athist ideology? And would individuals actually be stupid enough to do this yesterday if everyone else around them weren't doing it too?

The old question is If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you? You're supposed to answer No, but a group ideology makes it hard to not jump. But maybe that one person who refused to jump would make a couple of others see their error, and someday the whole ideology might come tumbling down.

Posted by: Sarah at 07:37 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Reader Tracey sent a link to a wonderful article she says puts the "smackdown" on John Kerry. I agree. The author describes herself:

I'm the daughter of Lt. Col. Roger J. "Black Bart" Bartholomew, a First Air Cavalry rocket artillery helicopter pilot who was killed in Vietnam on Thanksgiving Day 1968, when I was eight years old. I'm a former journalist with a military newspaper, a U.S. Marine widow, and I am appalled at Mr. Kerry's latest assertions that our president "has reopened the wounds of Vietnam."

Anyone who has praised my strength lately needs to go read Ms. Armstrong's article. Then you can see what real military-family strength looks like.

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Sgt Hook has a tribute to our soldiers called Who Is Defending You.
Go read it. And make sure to click on all the pictures.
"That's an order!" as he would say.

And if you've never read the story of Rick Rescorla, do so as well. He survived the battle at Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam, only to die in the WTC. He's a true American hero.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:53 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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When I'm bored at work and I can't take any more gore from LGF, I like to cycle through knitting blogs and find patterns and tips and look at the photos of what everyone else is knitting. My co-worker thinks it's hysterical that I'm constantly ohhing and ahhing at other people's knitting online. But I've never actually written about my own knitting. If Bunker Mulligan gets to write about golf and Charles Johnson gets to write about cycling, then may I be permitted a tangent into handicrafts?

Last night though I faced a knitter's dilemma. I'm making this sweater, and I've finished the back and had about 8 inches done on the front. And then I realized I'd made a mistake at about inch 5. I struggled with my two choices while the sweater sat on the coffeetable for three days: leave it as it was with a mistake in the pattern or try to rip it out to inch 5 and risk not being able to put it back on the needles. Last night I finally decided I had to face the music; since the mistake was on the front and not the back, it would be best to rip it out. I unraveled it back to inch 5 and tried to put everything back on the needles. Unsuccessfully. So I had to rip the whole thing out and start over again. It takes a long time to knit 8 inches of cables, but I think I did the right thing. I feel better knowing that it won't have a mistake, because it bothers me to look at every other project I've done where I've left a little flaw.

Plus it's not like I'm in a hurry. I've got 14 months to kill and lots of projects in mind. Like a sweater for the husband; he's got two so far from me: one that doesn't fit and one that he doesn't really like. He needs another.

MORE TO GROK:

Tim got a little stressed out yesterday about the state of the world, and he asked me how I cope. "Have you ever tried knitting?" I asked him. "Knitting?" he replied. "No...I've tried drinking though...." Ha.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:45 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Dear Stars and Stripes,

There are more battalions over in Kuwait than 1-77. Why are all of your articles about 1-77? Not that I have anything against them -- one of our best friends is with 1-77 -- but I'd still like to hear you talk about all of the units instead of just one. Thank you.

A jealous wife who wants to read about her husband,
Sarah

Posted by: Sarah at 04:22 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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What's that old saying? When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me? Somebody assumed big time about Baldilocks...

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In an unexpected turn of events, Porphyrogenitus has joined the Army! What an exciting new start for him, and I wish him the best of luck with his enlistment. I'm proud of you, soldier.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:49 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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President Bush and Chancellor Schroeder just met, and David compares the President's greeting from 2001 to this significantly colder recent one. He also found a shockingly honest interview with David Frum. My favorite exchange:

Frum: I have studied the European press. We had exactly three good days after the 11 of September.

Interviewer: And shouldnÂ’t you ask yourself why it is so?

Frum: No, the Europeans should ask themselves that. You were good at crying at the graves of the dead Americans. But when it came down to us Americas feeling threatened by Islamic fanatics, then as now, that was already too much starting in December 2001. And then these unspeakable books turned up on the bestseller lists in France and Germany, these conspiracy theories surrounding the 11 of September. That says quite a lot.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:35 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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My husband called this morning, and it was the first time that I didn't take notes. Not much has changed, so we just got to spend the time talking about nothing, which was nice. He also told me a funny story. He tried to call me several times on Monday but never got through (normally it's my day off, but I traded with my co-worker) and didn't know where I was. He joked with his soldiers that I must be at Jody's house since he couldn't find me; "Jody" is the Army word for "the guy your wife's cheating on you with." His soldiers immediately responded with a chorus of "No way, sir! We've met your wife and she'd never do that! She's too nice!" Husband explained that he was just kidding, but he thought it was sweet of them to come to my defense. At least I know they like me, and no one said, "For real? Maybe she is?"

By the way, I have no idea why they use the name "Jody". It sounds like a girl's name to me anyway, but that's the standard joke; if you talk about Jody, everyone knows what you mean. Do any of you out there know where that name came from?

Posted by: Sarah at 03:14 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Lileks imagines a startlingly creepy scene of how we'd react today to a jumper from the Empire State Building. Would we really do that? Sadly I think many of us would.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:37 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Oh my god! Explain to me again how Islam claims to be the Religion of Peace? I'd wager these kids might disagree...

(Not for the weak of stomach.)

Posted by: Sarah at 02:24 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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A while back I wrote a post about how bloggers are like gods to me but most people would star at you blankly if you said the name Glenn Reynolds. Tim pointed out to me today just how elite we bloggers are: Between 2 and 7 percent of American adults blogging.

What the heck does everyone else do while blow drying their hair?

Posted by: Sarah at 08:46 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Chief Wiggles isn't the only one to start up an organization for Iraqi children. Reserve SPC David McCorkle has started American Aid for Children of Nineveh, Iraq since he's been deployed.

His is an inspiring story: a 44-year-old man loses 125 pounds after September 11 so he would qualify for the Reserves and then deploys for a year in Iraq. And then he spends $5000 of his own money to start a charity for Iraqi schools.

My favorite quote: “I want to raise awareness and understanding of what issues the children face here, and take him to Disney World." That sentence betrays SPC McCorkle's American-ness: wanting to do something big for the child's common good as well as something fun to lift his spirits. It reminds me of a quote I read a long time ago where a soldier looked out into the Iraqi desert and suggested building an amusement park there.

Something that brings the lasting joy of democracy and education, as well as the momentary thrill of a roller coaster.

Posted by: Sarah at 07:44 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I've been trying to hang a shelf in our living room for weeks now. I'd guess it's a 30-lb shelf, which is hard to hang by yourself. Plus the walls are made of saltines, so the first time I got it up, it just pulled two big chunks of plaster out and came right back down. I finally got some toggle bolts and spent the morning struggling with the stupid thing. But when I got it up, I felt a sense of elation. I think I even did that Tiger Woods arm thing. I went upstairs to get dressed, and then I heard a crashing noise. "Oh no!" I said aloud and went racing down the stairs, expecting the worst. I rounded the corner, and there was the shelf, hanging right where I'd left it. I cautiously looked around the house, and I can't figure out what that noise was. But now I'm spooked; I'm sure the shelf is going to come crashing down any moment now.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:00 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Kim du Toit has only been here a few days, and he's already sick of pork and schnitzel. Think of how we feel, Kim!

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Sgt Mom has some advice for Hollywood filmmakers when it comes to making movies about the military. My husband and I went to see the movie Basic this summer, and about ten minutes into the movie I did a double-take and turned towards him. He was slouched down in his chair groaning, "I know, I know." For him, it was pure torture to watch a movie where a Sergeant wears Specialist rank, where they're riding in a Blackhawk and no one's wearing a Kevlar, and where there's a female Ranger.

Incidentally, one of the things that bothered him most about the show was that (spoiler...) the characters were able to switch identity by swapping dogtags. He grouched, "They look at your ID card; no one ever looks at your %#$@ dogtags to find out who you are." On the Saturday that he deployed, the SFC in charge shouted to the group, "Line up over here where you'll get weighed and have your dogtags checked!" I leaned over to husband and said, "If you switch with someone, no one will ever know who you really are..."

Posted by: Sarah at 02:17 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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