quadrennially yours...

february 29th doesn't come along every day, y'know.

which is good, since this year it coincides with me being sick. yes, i got the flu shot, therefore it isn't the flu. i insist. regardless, for the last 48 hours, maybe 72, my head hasn't been right. (far longer than that, you say? oh, very funny. ha. ha.)

while awake i've been sneezy, achy, dizzy, sleepy, and a couple more of the seven dwarves. while sleeping...i've had some really weird dreams.

he (disentangling from she): i'm going to have to get some sildenafil citrate to keep up with you.

she (still smiling): what's that?

he: generic viagra.

she: generic? why generic?

he: for what we're doing, cheap is more appropriate.

she: that was not nice. not nice at all.

he: you can't have tawdry without audrey.

she: yeah, well you can't have odd without todd.

he: my name's not todd.

she: my name's not audrey.

[pause]

he: i have to go.

she: me, too...

for the record, i was not the "he" in this dream. also, i don't know any "todd and audrey" couples. nor was i aware that i was aware of the generic name for viagra. who notices that kind of thing? and who has dreams like this? bizarre.

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since monday, i have experienced several episodes of back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back sneezes. much to my discomfort, and much to the amusement of those around me. to them i say one thing: snot funny. it's fortunate i wasn't operating heavy machinery during any of these sneezures.

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in other news...

the president of the california fish and game commission, daniel richards, recently traveled to idaho, where he hunted, killed, and ate a mountain lion. he couldn't do these things in california, because they're illegal there.

apparently dozens of california lawmakers have called for daniel's resignation, saying his actions aren't consistent with his position with the state. he has declined to quit, essentially telling the lawmakers to go fuck themselves. i may be slightly exaggerating that last part.

legally, daniel is correct. he participated in a legal (in idaho) activity, broke no laws in doing so, and seemed to really enjoy it. good for him.

me, i have no quarrel with hunters, mostly because they carry guns, and people with guns are dangerous. what i've never been able to understand, though, is why so many of them get so much joy from killing.

i bet they wouldn't enjoy it so much if the quarry were shooting back. which is kind of what's happening in afghanistan, where u.s. military personnel recently burned several copies of the koran.

this was bad form, and a bad idea, in that it set off riots and killings in that country. recognizing the danger that riots and killings pose to u.s. forces, barack obama apologized to the afghan president, and told him it wouldn't happen again.

unless of course one of the gop candidates wins the presidency in november. then there'll probably be koran burning parties at the white house every week.

rhetorical query: if afghan troops, occupying america for the last ten years, were burning bibles willy nilly, what do you suppose the reaction amongst christians would be? someone should ask the gop candidates that question, i think.

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disconcerting moment of the day: a tweet from someone named megan calhoun (@social moms) showed up on my twitter feed today. the tweet said, "I'm happiest when ________ (fill in the blank)."

the disconcerting part: i couldn't fill in the blank.

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grotesquely overrated: filling in blanks.

quietly underappreciated: weeding out the daily surfeit of choices.

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note to the lovely mrs. spaceneedl: i don't know if you bought it, or i bought it, or if it was a cruel gift with purchase...but we have to promise~~promise!~~each other never to buy this institutional-grade toilet paper again.

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seen today on facebook: "Collective sob ladies...Davey Jones has passed away. How come I always got stuck with peter?"

i have no further comment on this post.

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why so serious, son?

"You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan.' Even if the plan is horrifying."

so, apparently the war in iraq is over.

you might have heard about it last week~~but then again you might not. the 'news' didn't get a lot of play in the press, and celebrations were muted.

VJ-day it was not.

"The last convoy of heavily armored personnel carriers slipped out of Iraq under cover of darkness and strict secrecy to prevent any final attacks. The 500 soldiers didn't even tell their Iraqi comrades on the base they were leaving.

"The fear spoke volumes about the country they left behind - shattered, still dangerous and containing a good number of people who still see Americans not as the ally who helped them end Saddam's dictatorship, but as an enemy."

officially, the last u.s. soldier killed in the conflict was a young man named david hickman, from greensboro, NC. speaking about hickman's death, and the outcome of the war, a friend said, “There aren’t enough facts available for me to have a defined opinion about things. I’m just sad, and pray that my best friend didn’t lay down his life for nothing.”

if we don't find horror in that kind of numb ambiguity, it's likely our souls are full of novocaine.

and sadly, plenty of facts are available. to recap, there was no link between iraq and 9/11. there were no WMDs. in fact, there was no justifiable reason at all to wage war there. in the end, there was just a surfeit of carnage. huge deficits. and a middle eastern country left wide open to the kind of threat we were warned to fear beyond all rationality.

did you know: the u.s. spent twice as long fighting in iraq as it did fighting WWII. would anyone like to make the case that saddam hussein was twice the threat of hitler, et al?

in lieu of that, it would seem that a langourous conflict in iraq, along with an endless "war on terror" was actually part of someone's mind-boggling plan.

and we haven't even mentioned afghanistan (aka, the place empires go to die). that plan, ten years later, is still reaping grimly, with no end in sight.

in both cases, despite all evidence to the contrary, there are still plenty of people who insist not enough time, money, and blood have been squandered. as if a pyrrhic nonvictory that laid waste to three countries (yes, the u.s. among them) isn't enough. what would satisfy them, one might wonder?

particularly since the u.s. is leaving behind a significant military presence, in the form of nearly 53,000 military contractors. plenty of money still to be made on that front.

to sum up, the u.s. spent nearly nine years at war with a third-rate dictator; hundreds of thousands of people were killed and trillions of dollars were spent. america became known for torture, prison without trial, and irradiating/strip-searching hapless air travelers.

for that horrific cost we earned the opportunity to sneak out of iraq under cover of darkness.

not to worry, though. it was all according to some sort of plan.

In the end, many of the departing troops wrestled with a singular question: Was it worth it?

Capt. Mark Askew, a 28-year-old from Tampa, Florida, said the answer will depend on what type of country Iraq turns into years from now - whether it is democratic and respects human rights.

"People are asking themselves: `Was this worth it?'" he said, speaking to his troops before they set off to Kuwait. "I can't answer that question right now."

"hell no, we won't go..."

everything old is new again.

the '60s have come back around, complete with a divisive war, a dissenting congress, and a despicable president.

instead of fading away, echoes of time past get louder.

the '60s got ugly. assassinations and riots and kent state, all symptoms of a sick nation at war with itself. and it can happen again. it is happening again. because we never really healed from--or learned from--the last time.

how big a leap is it from spying on americans to firing on them? nixon had no compunctions in that regard. would dick cheney hesitate for a moment to order troops to fire on unarmed civilians? he'd probably pick up a rifle himself.

take a look at the four dead at kent state...


real subversives, huh? a clear and present danger to the ohio national guard and the nixon administration. no wonder they had to be killed.

flash forward to 2007...the bush administration is taking on water from all sides. in overwhelming numbers, the american people oppose bush policy at home and abroad. there is a distinct whiff of desperation in presidential press conferences. along with the suggestion that opposition is fine, so long as it doesn't attempt to halt administration activities.

the pieces are in place for another great, self-inflicted wound. a whole series of them. to go along with those of the past six years.

surely we won't go there again. or maybe it's inevitable.