The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by sean Bosker:

Mark D., thanks for the link to Sassoon's declaration. I hadn't heard of him either. When I read all these voices from the near and distant past referring to circumstances similar to those we face, I feel comforted and I feel despair.

The comfort comes from knowing that others have felt this way, that I'm not crazy for thinking about how awful the lies are or how our politicians are decieving us. The despair comes from the fact that I'm shocked, over and over, by how these things are perpetrated. You'd think I'd stop with the shock and outrage, but I swear the duplicity and dishonesty and meanness are a constant revelation.

In Stoppard's play, "The Real Thing" the character Henry gives a speech about a war resister who is a prisoner and has written a very poorly crafted political play. Henry has this to say about it, and about bad writing:

" Because it's balls. Mary's part is the least of it - it's merely ham-fisted. But when he gets into his stride, or rather his lurch, announcing every stale revelation of the newly enlightened, like stout Cortez coming upon the Pacific - war is profits, politicians are puppets, Parliament is a farce, justice is a fraud, property is theft... It's all here: the Stock Exchange, the arms dealers, the press barons... You can't fool Brodie - patriotism is propaganda, religion is a con trick, royalty is an anachronism... Pages and pages of it. It's like being run over very slowly by a travelling freak show of favourite simpletons, the india rubber pedagogue, the midget intellectual, the human panacea..."

Sorry, I didn't make the link live:

http://mediamatters.org/comments/latest/200510070011

Has anyone heard this horrific radio interview with an American 'intelligence officer'? He described tortuing detainees in great detail, and the DJ thanks him for his service. It's shocking, and I can only hope it's not true.

http://mediamatters.org/comments/latest/200510070011

I thought the press got the red blue thing from the crips and the bloods.

Great post, Jim. This is my favorite kind of scholaship, one phrase leads you to another until you've pieced together a fascinating picture that sheds light on both the past and the present. Thanks for writing it all down.

I've added Flashman to my shopping cart on Amazon, it looks fantastic. I never, in a million years, would have heard of this book anywhere else.

About the Japanese self-defence force recruiting ad, I showed it to my wife and she was horrified. She's Japanese. Despite the cute Broadway musical dancing, the flag that is shown is not the current Japanese flag. The flag is the nishoki, the red circle with the rays, which was the flag during the empire. It is an extremely nationalistic symbol, and is not the red circle on a white field, which is the actual flag of Japan.

They are also singing "Love Japan, love peace." But they are not using a singular personal pronoun, they are using a collective voice. It's very revisionist. My wife found the whole thing to be "sneaky, and disturbing, with a lame dance."

I saw this on another board and it killed me.

From the WSJ:

Rep. Baker of Baton Rouge is overheard telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

I thought all that bible stuff wasn't Christian anymore and that the holy ghost is the invisible hand of capitalism.

Now the Republicrats are talking about not rebuilding New Orleans. Given that people are still dying of thirst, I think discussions about whether or not to have a New Orleans are a bit premature.

" Hastert wasn't the only one questioning the
rebuilding of New Orleans. The Waterbury, Conn.,
Republican-American newspaper wrote an editorial
Wednesday entitled, "Is New Orleans worth
reclaiming?"

"Americans' hearts go out to the people in Katrina's
path," it said. "But if the people of New Orleans and
other low-lying areas insist on living in harm's way,
they ought to accept responsibility for what happens
to them and their property."

I completely agree with Graydon's characterization of Bush's lack of direction here. Suddenly, his advisors are out of ideas and he's stuck. Remember the footage of Dubya on 9/11, gazing from the Pet Goat book, utterly stupified by news of the attack? That was 7 minutes, this is four days.

He's still waiting for someone to tug at his sleeve and whisper instructions in his ear. The tiny microphone that he used during the debates is just emitting static and the commander-in-chief is in standby to standby mode.

Meanwhile, Rumsfeld may be finally figuring out that if 40,000 troops can't restore order on our own soil, then maybe, just maybe, lowballing the troop numbers in Iraq was a bad idea after all. Nah, Rummy's looking at the refugees and wondering why they just can't love freedom.

If anyone is interested, there's a blog by people still trapped in NO who run an isp.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/

:: conjures up bootcamp memories ::

The wide arm pushup:

Arms spread out wide, until wrists are at a 45 degree angle. Do them on your fingertips for a painful variation.

The diamond pushup:

Put your hands together on the floor so that the space between your thumbs and forefingers is in the shape of a diamond.

The triangle pushup:

These really killed me. Stand up straight. Then bend forward like you're going to touch your toes. Lean forward until your palms are flat on the floor and your butt is in the air. Then bend your arms until your nose touches the floor. Push your self back up until your arms are extended. Oh, the pain.

The regular pushup:

Hands planted on the ground, shoulder width apart, directly under your shoulders. Lower yourself down, keeping your back straight and your butt flat in line with your back. Eyes looking directly down, not in front of you, so your neck is in line with your spine. Lower until your back breaks the plane of your arms, do not touch the ground, lift yourself back up until your arms are straight. The starting positionis known as the "Front leaning rest"

one, two, three, ONE
one, two, three, TWO

etc.

Request permission to recover, sir!

Seeing all these poor folks with nothing but the clothes on their backs keeps reminding me that I have yet to assemble a "go bag".

As angry as I am at the government's lack of preparedness, I myself am woefully unprepared for an emergency.

Jim's suggested list for a go bag.

On a somewhat related note, there is a zine of Science Fiction short story podcasts. Some of the readers of Making Light have stories on it.

escape pod

At the risk of sounding self-righteous, I'm amazed by the excuses that the looters give. Even the cops. Stuff like, "It must be legal, the cops are doing it." Or the idea that since there aren't enough cops to stop the stealing, the cops might as well steal too.

The bright side of the looting is that we won't have to look at any flapping flag graphics while they call all the victims "America's Heroes".

I was sort of giddy at the idea that the hurricane had shifted and NO was going to escape major damage. I was wrong. I apologize about my silliness above, it's not a good time for wisecracks.

I know this is terrible, but I can't stop thinking of stupid headlines like: Katrian and the Waves Tour New Orleans.

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