Music of the Day: Kim Waters, Tell Me So

It remains to be seen if I'll be able to drag myself, literally, to the slaughterhouse today--again, with the lower back pain! Lumbago is what it used to be called, a word which has more or less fallen out of general use except by semi-retired people who do crossword puzzles, where the term for the medical condition of lower back pain can be helpful in solving a puzzle. My own particular brand of lumbago over the last few weeks means that I'm having serious second thoughts about an impeding visit to see Dear Old Mom in a distant un-named state of our great union. Sitting on a plane for five hours sounds like a form of torture that would make waterboarding seem like child's play. This morning, getting from closet to kitchen meant stopping seven or eight times to catch my breath and to repeat this little mantra in my head: "Stop dragging your left leg. Pick it up, fool."

Here's a measure of today's pain--before I made coffee I strapped an ice-pack on my lower back and tightly cinched up the back brace so that I could reach our samovar. Wonderful. In a while I'll slam some Motrin and then gingerly get into and out of the shower where, I'm sure, I'll pass on washing my feet--they're too far away, I can't reach 'em! Bah!

As for MLB, her condition improves slightly each day, but each day also has its own cycle of ups and downs and, now and then, sidewinders. Two visits to docs this week produced mixed reviews--some improvement noted, but the latest chest x-ray was not markedly different than some previous ones, so while MLB is qualitatively better in terms of coughing, sleep, eating habits, activity levels and such, the crud in her lungs is still the crud in her lungs. She won't be going anywhere for a while; she was planning to accompany me on my visit to see Dear Old Mom, but that plan is down the tubes. And the jury is still out on my plan to see Dear Old Mom this month; when I told her of my pain and my thinking, she was understanding but disappointed. Rumor has it she went to the hairdresser in advance of my visit and for Dear Old Mom to get out of the house and go anywhere, save Wal-Mart, is semi-miraculous.

Okay, enough of this whining about back pain--off to the slaughterhouse it is for me. Here's hoping we don't have a stampede today; there's no way I could hustle my old self out of the way.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM'S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Gordon James, In Joy

Lots of yammering, bloviating, and harrumphing the last couple of days about the soon-to-be-former governor of New York, Mr. Spitzer and his alleged proclivity for hot young babes, and paid-for sex. This is not a new story; in fact, it's the same old story, just with a different name and a different face this time. Why people are shocked is a mystery to me, unless those who are shocked just haven't ever paid attention to human behavior before. Mr. Spitzer is doing what people have always done--bad, dumb, stupid, irrational, self-destructive stuff. That he's the Democratic governor of New York is almost immaterial and irrelevant. . . .

What's interesting to me, and what is also salutary about this story, is that it has taken Ann Coulter's attention away from her near-endless bashing of Senator McCain and her shrill harping that he's not a "true conservative," and her childish threats to "vote for Hillary." The Spitzer story has given Ms. Coulter something else to sink her teeth into for a while, which is good--maybe she can regain some mental balance and finally come to realize that Mr. McCain will be the nominee of the Republican party and that he had better damned well win if we're to have any chance of defeating the crazy people who wish to blow us up here, there, and everywhere.

Maybe next week some other Democrat will self-destruct and Ann will be further distracted--I hope so because I think she's become unhinged of late.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM'S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Billy Joe Walker, Jr., Luis

Here's something I came across today while reading Atkinson's book The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944. The context of the passage is, as the title suggests, the fighting in Italy during World War II, but please think about this passage in relation to our current situation in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere around the world where American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines fight in the "global war on terror." See if this fits in your head the way it fit in mine. . . .

The passage quoted, below, appears on page 263 of Atkinson's book, to wit: "At 9:30am on Thursday, November 11, [General Mark] Clark drove through the hills below Naples to Avellino, where a new American cemetery was to be dedicated on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the armistice ending World War I. Sunlight glinted from hundreds of white crosses and stars of David, perfectly arrayed in a former potato field.

"'Here we are, a quarter century later, with the same Allies as before, fighting the same mad dogs that were loose in 1918,' Clark said, speaking without notes at the flagpole. 'They gave their lives that the people at home could pursue the life which we have always wanted--a happy life--and that their children could go to the schools and churches they want, and follow the line of work they want. And we are fighting, first, to save our own land from devastation like this in Italy.'"

"He drew himself to his full height, a ramrod in a peaked cap. 'We must not think about going home. None of us is going home until it's over. . ..We've caught the torch that these men have flung us, and we'll carry it to Berlin and to the great victory--a complete victory--which the united nations deserve.'"

We have been down this road before, in Iraq and elsewhere around the world; our men and women in uniform have "caught the torch" so that "the people at home could pursue the life which we have always wanted--a happy life." It's not about "blood for oil," it's not about Halliburton, and it's not about a neo-conservative cabal acting under the direction of a handful of rapacious Jews. When you hear people say those things, think of that potato field and those crosses and stars of David and think about what our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines do to "save our own land from devastation." You'll catch the torch, too. . . .

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM'S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Kenny G, G-Bop

Take a few moments, search out the Drudge Report, and read today's piece about the killings in Jerusalem. You will learn all you need to know about Hamas. Remember that the "hero" who did the deed was shooting at unarmed people, which is the definition of Islamic "heroism." It's also the definition of "heroism" for every tyrant that ever lived--to attack and kill the defenseless--whether in South America, Vietnam, Nanking, South Korea, the Warsaw Ghetto, et. al. Tyrants use their weapons not to free people from oppression, but merely to maim and kill and destroy and terrorize.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM'S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Jay Soto, Midnight Drive

Things are a-stirrin' south of the border. Recently, Colombian commandos killed one Raul Reyes and twenty three other FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) rebels and now FARC's erstwhile supporter, Mr. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, is threatening war with Colombia. FARC is an organization whose "origins dated to the communist agitation of the 1920s in rural Colombia, which came in the wake of the Russian Revolution, though in Colombia there had always been more banditry than Marxist philosophy, so that the fall of the Berlin Wall had little effect" in Colombia (see Robert D. Kaplan's 2005 book, Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond, page 50). Mr. H. Chavez, friend of American film "stars" Danny Glover, Kevin Spacey, and Sean Penn, has become since his election in 1999 a petty tyrant and an open enemy of the United States, despite the fact that his country exports a huge percentage of its oil output to the U.S. He has nationalized the petroleum industry, the communications industry, and the electrical industries in his country and he hopes to continue implementing what he calls "21st Century Socialism" in Venezuela. This includes "alleviating social ills" while "attacking globalization and undermining regional stability." Aside from "undermining regional stability," the Chavez plan sounds an awful lot like our own Democratic party, but it's the business of "undermining regional stability" that makes Mr. Chavez so interesting. He's doing just that now, as noted above, threatening war with Colombia because the Colombians protected themselves by killing members of an organization that has been conducting depredations in their country for decades.

Admittedly Colombia is no paradise and, historically, no paragon of political stability or of rational, peaceful democratic governments--but it's better than it used to be and Colombia is now closely aligned with the United States in a number of important ways--drug interdiction and eradication in Colombia and as an active participant in the global war on terror (GWOT). So, the latest development here is that things are heating up south of the border, but really, this is the same old story--a thug and minor tyrant, Mr. Chavez, threatens a neighbor that is friendly with the United States. While we are focused on, and perhaps obsessed with, our presidential election we might want to pay attention to the sabre-rattling by Mr. Chavez, because if he thinks he can get away with aggression against one neighbor, other neighbors may suffer a similar fate. It's an old tactic of tyrants, but when things are bad at home, they look to place the blame elsewhere and even though Venezuela sells massive amounts of oil to us, 38% of the people in Venezuela live below the poverty level and there's a 20% annual inflation rate--things are bad at home in Venezuela. And while it seems bizarre, Mr. Chavez is a friend of Hamas and Hezbollah and al-Qaeda, so his bona-fides as an enemy are quite well established.

Keep an eye on Venezuela and Colombia.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM'S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.