crucial

respect to the deserters

iraq

At an Army base in Alaska last year, "there was one guy who literally
chopped off his trigger finger with an axe to prevent his deployment,"
Dr. Thomas Grieger, a senior navy psychiatrist said in an interview.

New york times, mon april 9th, 2007

Respect.

More respect then I give to the Buddhist monk in Thailand who cut off
his penis because it wouldn't sit still during meditation.

Interesting: The desertion rate during the Vietnam war was 5% (NYT)

the silence of 911

I'm in the US right now, watching TV. Everybody is trying to simulate grand emotions with their 911 specials. Synthesized strings, swirling motion graphics, firemen, hugs.

One of the most amazing things about 911 itself was the complete SILENCE of the everyday. Newscasters didn't have scripts and talked like actual real people sitting in front of cameras. As I walked about the streets of lower manhattan the next day I saw everybody else just walking around the streets. Nowhere to go, just wandering around looking, pretending to go somewhere or still obeying the body's routine of walking somewhere. But there was nowhere to go, and you couldn't stay at home anymore. I slipped past the National Guard and got down onto Wall Street. 8 inches of fine white ash on the ground, my footsteps muffled exactly like walking in a Minnesota blizzard. Total silence. There was nothing to do (we all tried to give blood, but the blood banks were overflowing). What ever projects you were doing before came abruptly to hiatus just like all those commercials on TV. No commercials for days. No jokes. No politics. No bullshit.


Like a rift in time.




Then the bullshit gradually resumed, then came Osama and the Rise and Fall of George and all that. None of that squabbling concerns me right now. Once a year everybody should just shut up for the day.

Great moments in Hip-Hop : "Israel Disses UN"

israel lebanon iran

A great moment in Hip-Hop history today on the front page of news.google.com:

Israel Disses UN, Bombs Lebanon

A'ight peeps, we have arrived.

You know at the very beginning when the soldiers were kidnapped and Israel started bombing I thought "I have a really bad feeling about this one..." I don't like where this is going.

Somehow Condi knew to announce that it was the birth pangs of the new middle east. Bush has been encouraging Israel to attack Syria while they are at it. And now Hizbollah says it will be Israel's last war. Bernard Lewis, the old nemesis of Edward Said says that Iran might nuke Israel on August 22nd.... But the man is 90, so of course he is hoping the Apocalypse starts soon so he doesn't miss it. These scholars always get a bit nutty when they get old.

To be honest, I don't give a fuck about the middle east. More people are dying every day in Iraq. Africa needs severe attention. I don't care about any of the three religions involved or this little scrap of real estate. By historical rights it should be Palestine. If people were smarter then they could coexist. Old story. It doesn't matter what I say, someone with passions inflamed will step forward to argue with me.

You can't argue with me, I don't care. There are worse injustices and bigger dangers on earth.

But something about that area gets these men all riled up with that epic sense of history.