A Healthy Alternative to Work

Some people might be busily taking down their trees and decorations this weekend, but for me, it's still Christmas - at least until Monday.

It's been absolutely great to see the family again, and I've been able to sleep in, eat well, and hit up the old watering holes a couple times (bagging a "Ducci's Drinking Team" T-shirt last week).

I don't have cable TV in my room at Knox, so I've once again gone on a television news binge now that it's available. Naturally, the number one issue at the moment is the Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster. The death toll, according to some networks, has topped 100,000 people from Sri Lanka to Sumatra, hitting every low-lying coastal area in between.

Unfortunately, the death toll is only going to climb higher - standing water and decomposing corpses are going to make epidemics out of malaria, cholera, and Dengue fever, and it's impossible to tell how many will die from exposure to the elements, lacking any of the fundamental requirements for life.

I've been rather disgusted, however, by the sidebar story the media have tacked onto this tragedy. In an effort to "localize" the tsunami story, most networks have done a could this happen to YOU? segment every hour or so - citing the fact that the Atlantic coast, like the Indian Ocean, doesn't have a tsunami warning system.

I suppose we've got to temper any horror and pity we feel with a healthy dose of fear, right?

Christmas Mass tonight back at old St. Mary's. Mom and Dad insisted on photos afterwards, so here's one of me and the sibs:




























Hope your Christmas is merry. Time for more wine. Except for Rizzo (far right).

By the way, Jesus appears 48 times in this picture! Can you find them all?

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One of the things I have learned over the course of my 24 years as a human being is this: No matter how hungover you are, DO NOT drink an entire carton of Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice.

You will see it again if you do.

Home for the holidays! I can't believe I'm really here - along with the entire clan... including Rizzo and Animal, who just got back from a semester in Austria.

I'll be sure to have stories posted about our adventures in C-land over the holidays, of which there are sure to be many.

For now, though, it's just nice to be home, relaxing, and enjoying time with the family. Hope your Christma-- er, holidays are all set to be great.

-- Gonz.

Here's my contribution for this week's Turret:

Another pro sports soap opera?

By SPC. IAN BOUDREAU/Turret sports editor

The Lakers' Karl Malone said it best, responding to headline-hunter Kobe Bryant's accusation that Malone had made a pass at his wife during a game, by saying "This is a Hollywood soap opera, and I'm not going to be a star in another Bryant soap opera."

The Bryant case is a whole separate issue - but while we're on the subject, I'll say that his accusation sounds just slightly hypocritical, since marital fidelity isn't exactly something he's famous for.

Malone's response speaks, really, to the entirety of professional sports. It's turned into a soap opera, complete with seedy plotlines involving drugs, sex, and strange celebratory dances in the end zone.

Here's yet another perfect example.

Baseball has taken another gut shot, with Boston pitcher and free agent Pedro Martinez signing with the New York Mets for four years and about $52 million, after plying as sweet a deal out of the Red Sox as could be asked for by an aging, injured, six-inning pitcher.

National sports writers are busily trying to reason out the eventual results of this merger, and most seem to be convinced that the Mets will live to regret this over-generous contract.

The 33-year-old Martinez, who has a history of injuries, is most likely going to end his career as a pitcher well before any four-year contract expires. In fact, if he's required to submit to the standard MRI in the initial physical, he might not pitch for the Mets at all. His injured shoulder n an ongoing problem since before 1999 n isn't going to be improving, that much is clear.

It seems to me that it might have been in Martinez' best interest to finish out what he must know is a career in its final seasons with the team he helped to win this year's World Series. He's been, without a doubt, an outstanding pitcher, but those days - as he should well realize - are gone.

Martinez, in his own way, is joining the ranks of players who are turning sports into this melodramatic tragicomedy about individuals instead of teams. Major League Baseball is full of these, including, as we now all know, Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds, albeit for very different reasons.

All of this makes the success of the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers this season a breath of fresh air. Of the three 12-1 teams in the NFL (the others being the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots), the Steelers have consistently demonstrated a team ethic throughout this remarkable season.

They've rallied behind a rookie quarterback, the sometimes-shaky Ben Roethlisberger, whose success is in no small part due to his offensive teammates (as well as to the Steelers' tough D, which seems pretty adept at keeping opponents from scoring).

They've put in Jerome "The Bus" Bettis to replace injured starting running back Duce Stanley and, as USA Today's Skip Wood reports, the 12-year veteran has added 684 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns to his stats this season.

So Ron Artest, Kobe Bryant, Barry Bonds, Pedro Martinez, and the entire National Hockey League can have their drama, their intrigues, and their controversy. I'm going to keep my eye on the Steelers. It's definitely a good time to be a Pittsburgh fan.

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Well, well, well. I’ve been a horrible blogger lately. I haven’t posted anything worth writing home about in months, really. What’s wrong with me? Am I depressed? Lonely? Untrained?

The truth is, there’s been this creeping sense of social nihilism that’s grown steadily in me - much like the cancer that’s sure to eventually metastasize throughout my body thanks to several years of heavy smoking - that began growing during this year’s presidential election.

I’ve written about that whole business before, so scroll on down if you care to find out why I’m lacking in motivation.

Add to the indelible corruption of American politics the disillusionment that comes with joining an Army you no longer give a shit about (who’s willing to screw you out of whatever it can get its bloody fingers on off of you), the requirement to ‘bow and scrape’ to ‘superiors’ who know less about what you’re doing than you do, and the constant interference of ‘supervisors’ into your personal life, and what do you get?

It’s me against the U.S. Army, ladies and gentlemen. I’m here to bolster my resume, not to clear out the Persian Gulf of ‘insurgents.’

Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to watch first hand. Bu this! This is complete and utter bullshit!

See, here’s how it works. Army newspapers are invariably functions of Army Public Affairs Offices. Public Affairs Offices are, naturally, headed up by public affairs officers.

Some DoD regulation, somewhere, discusses how we are not to withhold information just because it would be embarrassing to the Army or out of fear that publicizing such information would portray the Army in a ‘negative light.’

Let’s talk for a moment, shall we, about the soldier who was goaded by a journalist to ask a pointed question about vehicle armor in Iraq of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, during his visit to the Middle East.

The question was, as I recall, something along the lines of ‘why do we have to scrounge scraps of metal out of Iraqi junkyards to weld to our vehicles when a huge defense-spending budget is in the works?’

Military newspapers and many conservative media outlets, once it came out that the soldier who asked the question had been primed by a member of the media, took the opportunity to decry th sleaziness of the press and the character of the SOLDIER HIMSELF.

I don’t give a shit WHO asked the question. It’s something Rumsfeld, as defense secretary, should have a ready answer for. And what did he say?

Sorry, you’ve got to go to war with the Army you have now, not the Army you wish you had at some point in the future. A paraphrase, yes, but FUCK YOU.

The Stryker is supposedly the vehicle of the transitional Army. It can hold two infantry squads. They have an "up-armor" kit that supposedly protects it from RPG attacks. You know what it looks like? A fucking fence.

It’s bedtime for Gonzo, and I’d just like to say this, as a member of the Federal Government: fat can be trimmed. And it doesn’t necessarily involve screwing soldiers over. You could easily fire a couple of those GS civilians that don’t seem to be doing shit.

Thanks for reading this drunken rant. I’m off to bed. I have to teach an "immediate DeCon" class tomorrow for ‘Sergeants’ Time Training.’"

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I just got off the phone with an old friend of mine, who at one point was a high school girlfriend and is now a dyed-in-the-wool friend. She’s living in Maryland now, and after several ups and downs, has finally found a real niche for herself.

I’ve had a couple breakups over the course of my 24 years, and in general, I’d recommend that people avoid - at all costs - trying to be friends with someone you’ve dated. Particularly if it’s been for over a year, which, incidentally, all my relationships have been.

But I’m glad Kate and I are still friends. We had to take a year off, and afterwards, we sort of met each other again. Sort of like strangers with history.

The important thing is, we’re now great friends, and she called me up tonight to tell me about her latest adventures in the greater Baltimore area.

I told her on the phone that it’s great to hear from her these days, because she’s so full of joy, and that she exudes it over the phone.

I felt pretty envious talking to her. Joy is something that, for me, frankly, has been pretty damn elusive for the past while now.

One of the things she talked a little about was her roommates, and how they all are willing to accept her as she is, and how she has no pressure from any of them to change, or to be anything other than she is.

Wow. Ever heard of anything any more unlike the Army?

I’m so sick of this garbage. I’ve already outpaced my idol HST in time-in-service. Why can’t I leave and move to Manhattan now?

You make friends in the military, no doubt. But this is a different society than the one most of you are living in. You meet people, and the first thing that you know about them is the fact that they’re going to, in a relatively short amount of time, leave and go somewhere else. You might become really good friends with them, but it’s all predicated on that fact - the fact that it’s temporary.

Joy? Not common. Happiness, as Denis Miller once said, comes in small doses. It’s a cigarette, or a day off, or a passed inspection or PT test, or a seventh beer. It’s not getting deployed, it’s getting passed over for a bullshit detail, or having an obnoxious supervisor not show up for work.

This is fucking depressing. I’m getting close to the half-way mark in my enlistment, and the only thing I want is to not be fucked with until I get out.

Is just living life too much to ask?

Apparently.

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I normally consider myself a pretty non-sentimental person, but this pulled at the old heartstrings:

Marine sacrifices finger to save wedding band.

The worst part is, after severing his finger, the doctors at thte field hospital lost the damn ring!

Meanwhile, my hair has gotten way too long, and I haven't gotten around to cutting it. Mind you, when I say "way too long," I don't mean I've gone back to the Jim Morrison look I tried to pull off when I was 16. At this point, it's just long enough for me to get some purchase on the grey hairs that seem to have started colonizing my head since about halfway into my tour in Korea.

What else is going on... oh yes. Ukranian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko is calling for an investigation into his dioxin poisoning.

Dioxin, as you probably know if you've been following this story, is a byproduct of a group of defoliating chemicals that includes Agent Orange, which was used by the United Staes in the Vietnam war to deny concealment to the enemy. The result, in Yushchenko's case, has been severe disfigurement, pancreatitis, and nerve damage. Here's a before-and-after AP photo:


(From CNN.com)

What will the results of this be? Tune in Dec. 26 to find out.

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Here's my column that ran in the Turret today:

MLB steroids
controversy isn't
McCain's job

Since sports has had a rash of page one headlines for the past few months, I suppose it would be silly to expect things to go back to normal any time soon.

The latest bad news, of course, are the leaked BALCO hearing testimonies that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, in which both Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi and Giants outfielder Barry Bonds admitted to using illegal steroids.

This issue has gone all the way to the top. Sen. John McCain of Arizona is putting pressure on baseball owners, threatening government intervention if a tougher steroid-screening program isn’t enforced.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who just underwent surgery to remove a melanoma from his forehead, said he’d welcome government intervention on testing.

While it’s clear that baseball is in dire need of tightened rules on steroid testing, I don’t think that it’s a federal issue, at least at this point.

First off, baseball is made up of private institutions, and drafting a federal law that applied only to baseball would be legally tricky at best.

Second, baseball owners are perfectly capable of putting a halt to this spreading disease themselves, without the aid of government intervention.

Besides, the government has already done its part by outlawing steroids.

While the Constitution demands a court order to draw a blood or urine sample from a private citizen, organizations are allowed to require such sampling for membership. Major League Baseball already requires members to undergo tests through the season, and counsels players on their first positive test.

Selig would like to see the Major Leagues adopt the minor leagues’ system, which tests players year-round and suspends first-time offenders, according to a story in Monday’s USA Today.

There shouldn’t be any resistance to this at all, since everyone who’s involved in baseball has a vested interest in seeing this issue resolved.

Fans want it to go away because it’s harder to respect players who cheat.

Owners, sponsors, and advertisers want it solved, since they’ll make less money when disenchanted fans quit attending games or watching them on TV.

And Barry Bonds should want the issue resolved – although, in his case, it might be too late.

Set to break one of the most cherished records in baseball – most career home runs – Bonds is now in the less-than-enviable position of the cheater who’s been caught.

Now that his steroid use has come to light, it really doesn’t matter what records Bonds breaks, whether he knew what he was taking were illegal steroids or not. Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron certainly didn’t benefit from chemical forearm enhancements and under-the-tongue supplements, and neither should any other player, whether they’re breaking records or not.

It’s unfortunate, because Bonds was correct in 2002, when he told the AP that "It takes more than muscles to hit homers."

It also takes young eyes, reflexes, body control, and strength – to a degree that the 40-year-old Bonds should be losing.

Better living through chemistry, as the saying goes.

Owners should realize that it’s in everyone’s best interest to stamp steroids out of professional sports, and it shouldn’t take a U.S. senator to do it.

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A gunman shot and killed at least five people, wounding two at a Columbus nightclub last night. Two of the dead are members of the band Damageplan, including Dimebag Darrell, formerly of Pantera.

Holy shit.

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New post on the MLB steroids controversy over at Smokin' News. Check that stuff out, yo.

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There's a new post up at Smokin' News. Check it out... sooooo political.

It’s not as if I was in need of any proof, but it’s become more and more clear to me that this rural, down-home lifestyle is not what I’m suited or wired for. Even Cortland, N.Y. is a metropolis compared to the greater Fort Knox/Radcliff, Kentucky area.

Recent meanderings through the area have convinced me not only of the fact that I have little to nothing in common with the indigenous people, but also that I have no desire whatsoever to attain any commonality with them.

I know I’ve ranted about this before, and I apologize for repeating myself. This is ridiculous, though. Today, after work, while the Finch and I stopped by the Shoppette to pick up beer and cigarettes for the night, we found a huge Suburban, rather new, and covered with U.S. Army and bass fishing stickers. To top off the effect, the rear brake lights had covers shaped like leaping bass.

I have nothing against Suburbans or fishing (the U.S. Army and I have unresolved issues, but that’s for another time), but the combined effect of the ubiquitous bumper-stickers and the country-boy ethos made me want to lock myself in my room and hunker down for the weekend.

That’s where I am now, and the new "Dawn of the Dead" is running on the DVD player. The reason I might like zombie flicks now could be because of the recurring theme of mindless hordes trying to eat the brains of the ones who can still think for themselves.

Could be a little harsh, yes. But this is Kentucky, and unless I’m very mistaken, this is a state that fought on the Union side during the Civil War (albeit hesitantly). However, more people here are interested in emulating the Dukes of Hazzard than learning how to pronounce the English language.

So I’ve given up the hope of meeting people here. You Kentucky women (and the rest of you, who I didn’t give a damn about even when there WAS hope) can keep your General Lee-painted Mustangs, trucker caps, "bluegrass," and hideous manner of speaking. I want nothing from you.

I’m going to go read about the bombings in Madrid. I’ll say this right away – I’m sure glad that whole new prime minister/troop withdrawal deal kept terrorism off the streets of Spain’s capital... oh wait...

Cheers. Here’s hoping there’s enough beer on hand to survive the weekend.

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