To the people who care about supporting the troops the slogan does mean more, and many of those who want to believe that they are supporting the troops have been convinced by the marketing techniques used by the GOP that by voting for that party they are indeed doing so. One of the reasons for Bush's low approval ratings is people like this who have found out that they've been suckered.
Needless to say, the people who are using the phrase as one of their marketing tools are indifferent to the actual welfare of the troops, whether during or after the conflicts in which these troops are to be used.
Greg, good military planning means that one has considered the possibilities, no matter how unlikely, unattractive, unappealing,or unflattering--or even unthinkable, and given some thought to the question of "What if this happens?"
One reason we are in the spot we are in now is because the men giving the orders prefered not to do this.
There is no militia in Iraq that can operate long range artillary for any length of time. The only option would be if they got rockets like Hezbollah has been shooting at Israel. And the likelyhood of several thousand of these rockets suddenly appearing in Iraq without some warning is pretty slim.
If there is any warning of these types of rockets coming into Iraq...
You clearly have greater faith in the effectiveness of our intelligence operations in a non-friendly country where we do not have enough translators and interpreters than I can muster. Israel's current experiences with Hezbollah, if not our own in Iraq prior to today's date, should suggest the unwisdom of assuming we know everything that's happening everywhere.
It wouldn't be Diembienphu, it would be Khe Sahn... The fact that we'd prefer the latter to the former should not blind us to the possibility that it might be the former. Because denying the possibility and failing to consider it as a possibility (which is what Bushco has been doing) is a good way to turn it from a possibility into a probability.
As for the other states in the area--plan for the worst, and hope for the best. Adopting the technique of planning for the best and denying the worst is what has gotten us where we are today.
The problem is not whether the Anabasis is still being taught to officer cadets and to serving officers who are students at the Command and Staff colleges. The problem is that the civilian authorities responsible for coming up with the objectives and grand strategy these officers must make plans to achieve are blind and deaf to these issues. Their appreciation of military history may be described as Gingrichian at best. If they think about Xenophon and the Ten Thousand at all, it is in terms of the civilized Greeks' triumph over the treacherous Persian wogs, without considering that these were mercemary soldiers signed on for into Cyrus the Younger's wild goose chase purely for personal gain--the same mindset that makes Dunkirk look to some like a military triumph rather than a desperate, disorganized evacuation that was so unanticipated that voluntary civilian assistance was needed to pull it off.
Much of the training that produces military planners revolves around the question "What if?"--because "What ifs" can ruin you. Rumsfeld and the neocons have read the exciting, quotable bits of writers like Clausewitz--not the dull parts where the old Prussian explains what forced marches do to your troops in terms of fighting effectiveness, and all the other grim details about actual management of armed forces so that they are fighting forces. Their school of military thinking seems to me to be the Jiminy Cricket school, with the theme song "When You Wish Upon a Star".
Greg, John, please consider the military term "defeat in detail". I'm not saying Graydon is right, but his scenario is a picture that must be considered--if only to make sure that it can't happen. Which is part of what responsible leaders (have we got any?) must do.
When Athens fell, the other Greek democracies could see the writing on the wall, and elected kings.
Um, not so much.
For more than one reason, too! (The Classical Studies Geek uncoils from her lair--be afraid!)
TomB, to the ancient Greeks of that period, a king was a somewhat different creature that we tend to think of--your post suggests something along the lines of Louis XIV in a chlamys.
First of all, most of the Greeks would have seen a king as someone who was from, traditionally, a specific kinship group; they weren't elected or appointed to the job, unless there was a large pool of viable candidates, in which case a suitable selection was made by the Responsible Authorities (as in Sparta) or by winner-take-all-methods (as in Macedonia and Epirus, who were only sort of Greek, really). In addition, by the era of the Peloponesian war, there were very few kings left in Greece; they'd been replaced by tyrranies, oligarchies, and sort-of democracies. The remaining kings, such as those of Sparta (but excepting Macedonia and Epirus--see the not totally Greek note above), had pretty limited fucntions, many of which were religious--when the Athenians moved into the Daring Modern Age of what they called democracy, they made sure they had a public office, called the Archon Basileus, who took over responsibility for those religious functions, because it would have been too risky to let them lapse--the gods would have done something about the failure to observe the proper rites in the proper season.
The Spartans did install either tyrannies (one-man rule, preferably through puppets, AKA Men We Can Count On) or Oligarchies (AKA A Group of Men We Can Count On) everywhere they could after they smacked the Athenians down*; they did it for the same reason we've had such an effection for the Despotes Dependabiles**--it's easier to make sure a single Man In Charge behaves the way we want, than to get along with a democracy, where people get ideas of their own, which may not be ideas we find convenient.
*The Athenians called their oligarchs the Thirty Tyrants, just to show how they felt about the whole thing; once the Spartans had gone back home to enjoy clean living uncorrupted by dangerous modern notions, they killed them, and then went after Socrates, because several of the Thirty had been friends of his, and he was suspected of giving them Dangerous Notions about how Democracy is Bad, because people of no particular family merit or wealth who aren't under the thumb of the upper classes will get dangerous ideas about their right to run things. YMMV as to whether he was guilty of this, but it's worth noting that The Republic does not describe a democracy, and that Plato was related to more than one of the Thirty.
**Yes, that was two dead languages at once. With poor choice of declension on the second word, too. I'm rusty on the languages.
Karl T., these people are experienced and can offer a wide range of services as well as referrals to printers--it might be worth contacting them and discussing your mother's project, just to get an idea of how much help you need with this and what it will cost. They can provide references.
JESR, that compliance rate doesn't surprise me; I saw a lot of IEPs (Individual Education Plans, for those of you not into education-speak) when I worked childhod claims here in Disabilityland, and it seemed that most of the school personnel preferred the plan that was simplest and cheapest, and that medication was the preferred option whenever the data could be made to look like ADHD (restlessness and inattentiveness are not always a sign of this condition; sometimes the child has severe emotional problems instead, or other conditions, but the hope that A Pill Will Fix This is pretty strong, and results in both overdiagnosis of the condition, and the reluctance to acknowledge actual cases of ADHD--because people realize how much it is overdiagnosed). There are lots of children getting what they need from the public schools only because their parents were willing to go head to head with the school authorities for 99 falls out of 100, and too many others who aren't, because their parents either don't know what to ask for, or have been cowed into shutting up.
Nicole, I've seen that a lot--and it's scary how fast we can go from "I feel fine" to "Um, not so much..."; individual tolerances vary so much, and so do individual reactions, which is why self-monitoring is key. Of course, if you haven't had much exposure to opportunities to overheat, it's really easy to miss the signs, or to think you've taken enough precautions, when you haven't. I've learned the hard way with heat exhaustion myself--and have had to snatch myself up by the scruff, figuratively speaking, a time or two.
Good on you for skipping the roof--it's a dangerous place to be when you're already hot. Here in Nashville, roofers in the summer prefer to be at work by 6AM, and to knock off in the early afternoon, for that very reason.
Good luck with the rest of the work!
Nicole, in situations like yours, one thing I have found that helps get the hard-headed to take sensible precautions is the statement: "If you make yourself sick because you refused to use good sense, people will lose time taking care of you and less work will get done."
Volunteers are often less prudent about these things than people being paid for their work; in some cases, they have less experience with the bad results of overdoing*, and in others, they feel they have a mssion, and mustn't slack.
*Not just the personal results, but the effects of lost time on a project, accidents with severe injuries, and so on.
Re: the hot water bottle with ice in it--
anything chilled applied to parts of the body where there are a lot of blood vessels and not a lot of insulating tissues can help--the best areas are the neck, hands & wrists, and feet & ankles. It doesn't have to be ice--I've used a jar of pickles from the refrigerator in a pinch.
I'd be interested in trained opinions on the tepid (but not frigid) bath as a tool--is the water effectively pulling heat away from the body core as a heat sink, or does it actually promote hypothermia in the long term, with bad effects? (Yes, I know there are a lot of people out there who Aren't Into Baths, or who find the idea of sitting in the tub for long periods a sinful waste of time. This isn't about cleanliness, or about time management--it's about body temperature management.)
On the topic of sending children who are expected to have a below-average performance or have special needs to other schools--
As long as the children are being sent to other schools in the same district it's perfectly legal, as far as I know. Therefore, if you have a county-wide district rather than simply a city-wide district, the administrators can indeed send the child out of town without breaking any laws, as long as they stay in the district.
It's also probably a state-by-state thing (with state laws varying greatly on this), but it may also be possible for a small district to end up reimbursing a larger one for allowing it to take advantage of a special program in the larger district that would be prohibitively expensive for the smaller district to set up, especially if a very small number of students was involved.
School districting arrangements vary widely from state to state, for good reasons--an arrangement that makes sense in a small, densely populated state might not work very well in a place like Wyoming. However, all districts are required to provide, one way or another, for the needs of all students, although too many of them need to be backed into a corner by determined parents in order to make sure that these really are the best arrangements possible, and not just the arrangements most convenient for the district.
A friend was in the USArmy when they made the transition to the Hummer from the Jeep, and can still bitch about the drawbacks of the Hummer for half an hour at a time. Highlights include "When you get stuck behind one, you can't see for sht, even if you're in one" "Rural Europe in a Hummer, or Sergeant Adams, we seem to be stuck between these two buildings; please explain to the locals how to file for damages" "We're stuck on something in the road, who wants to get out and look under the damn thing and see what it is?". There are others, but I think the drift is plain. The hummer has a lot of good points as a military vehicle, but it was not, and is not, an unalloyed joy.
I have relatives in Montana*, and acquaintances in rural Minnesota and Wisconsin; I can see how a large 4-wheel drive vehicle is advantageous to them, just as my cousins in Missouri, who breed cattle, find a ten-cylinder diesel truck helpful when it comes time to pull large pieces of equipment or trailers loaded with bovines around. However, these aren't people living in a tightly-packed urban environment--they aren't even people who live in the suburbs, in fairly mild climates, who might go camping a couple of times a year. Most SUVs aren't going to people whose lives actually require them; they're going to people who just want them and I feel free to mock them for this.
I suspect, from his description of uses he's found for a Big Truck, that Greg lives in an environment where a real need can be demonstrated.
*Havre, where the border crossing guards north of town checks for drugs, wepaons, and terrorists, but wave the weather by without even checking for a license plate.
Ooo, ooo. Fidelio's gonna knit us a mohair Xopher.
. . .
"Fidelio made me a homosexual."
"If I get her the mohair, will she make me one too?"
Nah, I don't knit in hot weather; also I tend not to finish my knitting projects, and if I started something like that, I'm sure you wouldn't want me to leave the poor thing incomplete.
I'm impressed by everyone's restraint on the possibilities of the mohair pun, especially given Xopher's coiffure.
*aims death-ray of yarniness at Xopher, adjusts setting to mohair*
I expect one reason the fans at Mariners games go for "Louie, Louie" is that the band that made it infamous, the Kingsmen, was a Seattle-based band.
Here in Tennessee, the UT/Vanderbilt football rivalry is ornamented by a Vanderbilt cheer, typically used after UT has either scored, intercepted a Vanderbilt pass, recovered a Vanderbilt fumble, or prevented Vanderbilt from scoring*, that goes "That's all right, that's OK, you'll all work for us some day."
*All of these happen a lot--it was regarded as a dire sign, right up there with blood on the moon, or rivers flowing backwards, when Vanderbilt beat UT, in Knoxville, in 2005.
I get teh distinct impression that Ken's personal experience with drugs is, in fact, limited to antibiotics and occasional painkillers. What he's had to say doesn't suggest anyone with much knowledge of, or experience with, medicating complex health problems, and it certainly doesn't sound as if he has much depth of knowledge where the world of pharmaceuticals is concerned. While I could wish there were less of a knee-jerk reaction in American society where both painkillers and stimulants are concerned, I don't regret that we are expected to rely on professional guidance when it's time to treat conditions that require constant monitoring, or careful calibration as to the exact amount of medication required. I'm also glad that well-trained and clueful medical professionals are aware that some times medication, or medication alone, isn't the best treatment for certain problems, and that the ones I've dealt with for my own health problems have been prepared to go after the cause of the problem, and not just try and mask it with painkillers.
Teresa: I've heard that there are some very odd people in neurology and neurosurgery--and some of the people telling me this have been neurologists! Maybe they're so seduced by the complexity of the field that they convince themselves that dealing with the actual patients won't be a problem. However, it seems that every branch of the medical profession has its members who are not adjusted to the world with actual humans in it--and I have worked with several of them here in the disability business, including a pediatrician who's not able to cope well with actual children. They cry, you see, and this is upsetting.
Susan: Other specialities that attract members who'd rather not deal with people include radiology and anesthesiology, I'm told, although the only anesthesiologist I've dealt with closely was a dear.
Antibiotics aside (since they can breed superbugs that spread), why does stopping idiots from hurting themselves justify any restrictions on medicine? It's not like idiots are an endangered species that actually need to be protected.
Because one of those idiots might be me. It might be someone you are fond of. It might even be you.
Medical diagnosis and treatment is at least as complicated as rocket science. While I don't support the notion that we, the patients, should consent to be passive recipients of care from the Wise Ones, when and as they choose, I do have to admit that there are moments when I should shut up and defer to expertise. I also feel, having some knowledge of the history of drug production and dispensation in the last couple of centuries, that I'd someone with a Big Stick making sure the treatments provided were effiacious and reasonably safe.
Greg, my brother-in-law has had the unpleasant good fortune of being treated by a brilliant neurologist with the social skills of a seed case from a sweetgum tree, or possibly an armload of branches from a honey locust tree. He was great at dealing with the disease, but the effort involved in dealing with him was taxing. Thre are more than few physicians who meet that description out there.
As for the one you had to deal with, it sounds like it may be past time he retired. I hope you gave your referring physician an earful about the encounter.
Teresa, I have to agree about that. Given the range of possible side effects and drug interactions out there, getting some input and monitoring of what you take for your condition, and whether you should be taking that, given what else you already have to take is a good plan...my hair curls at the thought of leaving it to chance, and in individual's own ideas about What Would Be Good For This, and it's pinned up in a pretty tight bun today. A pharmacist, even more than a doctor of medicine, could probably explain why counting on the experts here is a good plan, but it is.
I think our legal approach to a lot of medications is idiotic, especially painkillers and stimulants*, but I no more think I should be able to prescribe freely for myself, all across the board, than I should be expected to diagnose all of my medical problems. Calibrating the combination of medications someone with a single complicated illness, like lupus or the other autoimmune disorders will get the best results from is a complicated process that requires continual adjustment--making sure these medications don't mix badly with the others drugs the patient needs just adds to the fun. It's not a game for amateurs. Care to figure out what you need to take to treat that pesky cancer, beyond Really Good Painkillers? I'm not saying that taking what you're prescribed in blind faith, without question or discussion is smart either, of course.
And yes, I'd have liked having something more effective for the headache I had Monday than ibuprofen, without getting tagged with "drug-seeking behaviors."
*But the way we advertise medications is as bad. Grrr. Also, Tylenol: grrrr.
Of course Rush is blindingly stupid--he always has been. He was raised in a town in Missouri where his father was someone important, grew up with the conviction that he was entitled to better treatment than other people, and never got behind the idea that he would have to work to get anywhere in the world. He dropped out of the local state university after one year, because they expected him to show up to classes and do the work necessary to pass them. He would still be an announcer at some small radio station in the midwest if he hadn't become blindingly lucky, and if he hadn't been helped along by people who knew a useful tool when they saw one. He's a spoiled brat who has never absorbed the concept that the rules that apply to me and thee must also apply to him.
Make up a fake label for his pills? That's work! As far as Rush is concerned, work is something other people do.
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