A Healthy Alternative to Work

Double-posted from Smokin' News.

We, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all others who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on receiving the degree of Doctor of Civil Law from Oxford University, June 19, 1941

Millions of Iraqi citizens demonstrated their position on democracy and freedom yesterday, braving threats of car bombs, mortar attacks, and outright murder to travel – on foot – to polling centers across the country.

At present, precise turnout figures for the 14 million eligible Iraqi voters are unavailable, but the Associated Press reports that election officials said the turnout was higher than the anticipated 57 percent. That means that at least 8 million Iraqi citizens ignored not only the threats to their lives made by “freedom fighters,” but also the messages sent by the insurgency's leaders.

“We declare a bitter war against democracy and all those who seek to enact it,” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said in a Jan. 23 Internet recording. “Democracy is also based on the right to choose your religion, [and that] is against the Rule of God.”

Osama bin Laden declared that anyone who took part in the Iraqi elections “are apostates who should not be prayed over upon their deaths. They cannot inherit, and they must not be inherited from [after their deaths]. Their wives are divorced from them, and they must not be buried in Muslim cemeteries.”

These leaders of the violent anti-American faction in Iraq – who have been called insurgents, freedom fighters, rebels, terrorists – have been disavowed by the citizens of Iraq. Regardless of the long struggle ahead required to nurture a democratic Iraq into stability, the people have spoken: theirs is a love of freedom, not fascism. No longer can bin Laden and Zarqawi be considered the heads of the “populist resistance” or the “minutemen” of Iraq. Instead, the people’s overwhelming support for the democratic elections has cast them into a very different – and much more accurate – light: they are terrorists.

Not grassroots organizers of a movement against American imperialism, not the voice of the people who want to throw off the yoke of American expansionism. Their goals are diametrically opposed to the goals of the Iraqi people.

And yet, there are still those who refuse to see the success of the Iraqi elections for what it is. Writers on our own shores feel the need to trivialize what so many Iraqis risked life and limb to accomplish yesterday, to turn it into yet another machination of the Big Bad Bush conspiracy theory.

Take The Nation’s John Nichols, for example. In this article, he claims that the entire election has been a “charade.” To wit:

That democracy has been denied in Iraq is beyond question. The charade of an election, played out against a backdrop of violence so unchecked that a substantial portion of the electorate-- particularly Sunni Muslims--avoided the polls for reasons of personal safety, featuring candidates who dared not speak their names and characterized by a debate so stilted that the electorate did not know who or what it is electing.

I figured that since I'd trumpeted my "productive day" so much a post or two ago, that I'd supply the links to the articles, which are now up on the Turret's website.

So here we go:

BBB site helps Soldiers avoid scams

Knox's top Soldier heading to OCS

Endurathon's overall winning team from Knox

And in Sports:

Pittsburgh: Don't beat up Big Ben

Wrestling team hones skills

So that's fun. Anyway, I'm glad it's Friday. I'm meeting with the Canadian liason officer on Monday for a feature story and photo shoot on his family, but there will be weekendblogging to do in the interim.

Mahalo.

-30-

It always warms my heart to hear the rantings of someone who's become so caught up in their own notoriety that they've become unable to say anything coherent.

Take Pulitzer Prize-winning "journalist" Seymour Hersh, who appeared on a Democracy Now! radio broadcast, raving about how the United States has been taken over by cultists.

Hersh never fails to disappoint, at least not when it comes to packing as much bias, innuendo, and uncheckable "facts" into his articles. The radio interview - it's really more of a monologue or diatribe - is no different. To wit:

"I can tell you one thing. Let's all forget this word 'insurgency'. It's one of the most misleading words of all. Insurgency assumes that we had gone to Iraq and won the war and a group of disgruntled people began to operate against us and we then had to do counter-action against them. That would be an insurgency. We are fighting the people we started the war against. We are fighting the Ba'athists plus nationalists."

This is wrong, of course. The people we began the war against were Iraq and the Iraqi Army and Republican Guard. America won that fight, and now the Iraqi Army and Republican Guard are being retrained and helping the United States in its efforts against Musab al-Zarqawi and his gang of thugs.

Michael Moore would call them "minutemen," but nothing could be further from the truth. Zarqawi, the bin Laden-appointed "prince" of al Qaeda in Iraq, recently had this to say: "We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology... Democracy is also based on the right to choose your religion against the rule of God."

It's clear even back here at Fort Knox, Ky., that the war has changed dramatically - shifted gears, so to speak, from a ground war to a house-to-house police action, with occasional flare-ups of activity.

Since Knox is the Army's home of cavalry and armor, the command likes to emphasize the role of the M1-series Abrams main battle tank in the Iraq theater. I spoke about it with the public affairs officer, who wondered what we could do to get more tank photos into the paper. I suggested that it seemed to me that we were past the point where the Abrams would typically be used - namely, making large-front pushes to take over territory.

Tacticians will cite exceptions, of course, and it's true that America's heaviest ground-based weapons platform has been used since operations shifted to counter-insurgency. But generally speaking, the blitzkrieg mode is over, and now the "war" has changed. It doesn't involve maps of entire countries, with broad red arrows sweeping over hundreds of miles of terrain anymore - instead, major activities are establishing security and stability.

What I'm getting at is that we're no longer at war with Iraq - we're at war with Zarqawi and those others who would seek to prevent democracy from taking root in a country that's been traditionally absolutist. I think it's crucial that when the word "war" is thrown around vis a vis operations in Iraq that this distinction is understood implicitly.

So back to our friend Hersh and his desire to eliminate the usage of the word "insurgents" when it comes to who we’re fighting in Iraq. Since the blitzkrieg is over, and we’re finished fighting the nation of Iraq, and since the only Iraq that exists right now is the one whose infrastructure is being administrated by the United States, and since we’re fighting groups that seek to drive the United States out of Iraq, I’d say that by Hersh’s own definition of the word, we are fighting insurgents.

Hersh also lists a couple "facts" in his Democracy Now! interview:

"On the other hand, the facts -- there are some facts. We can’t win this war. We can do what he's doing. We can bomb them into the stone ages."

Characteristic. To Hersh, "facts" are just whatever things he happens to believe.

And I’d venture to guess that it’s the same impulse that leads people to believe Hersh whenever he says anything: he makes statements that are convenient to believe if you’re in the Evil Government Conspiracy camp, so there’s no sense in checking facts – we wouldn’t want to weaken our belief system, would we?

I also noticed that Hersh couldn't resist bringing up the story he did on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam... a story he did 35 years ago, and the only work he's done that's given him even a shred of journalistic credibility.

Basically, Hersh is attractive to those who feel the need to believe in a dark corporate-cultist conspiracy that’s taking over our country. As Max Boot said in this commentary in the L.A. Times, speaking on comparisons of Hersh to Bob Woodward:

"Hersh, on the other hand, is the journalistic equivalent of Oliver Stone: a hard-left zealot who subscribes to the old counterculture conceit that a deep, dark conspiracy is running the U.S. government. In the 1960s the boogeyman was the ‘military- industrial complex.’ Now it's the ‘neoconservatives.’ ‘They overran the bureaucracy, they overran the Congress, they overran the press, and they overran the military!’ Hersh ranted at UC Berkeley on Oct. 8, 2004."

See, life is more exciting if there’s a Big Bad Wolf to be looking out for... and it’s also more convenient. When all problems can be blamed on a nefarious "neoconservative cabal" that’s overrun the government, well, not only can we group everyone who disagrees with us into that disparaging category, we can also paint ourselves to be the downtrodden and repressed – definitely an advantageous position to whine from.

And this mentality is by no means confined to Sy Hersh and his disciples. If I hear the words "librul media’s agenda" one more time, I can’t promise I’ll be able to keep from becoming violent.

As I said, people create these groupings because it’s convenient. The only reason the word "agenda" exists in terms of politics is because of laziness.

Okay, that’s definitely enough for now. Stay tuned!

-30-

It’s 1:26 a.m. as I start this, which, for a Wednesday morning, is much too late to be up.

However, I wanted to get some thoughts on paper... or the screen... or however you want to couch the phrase.

I wrote my ass off today at work. Since the Turret is becoming more and more short-staffed, thanks to military-to-civilian initiatives coupled with training requirements from the Army side, I’m pegged to do A-Section stories in addition to my normal duties as sports editor.

Well, today I wrote five.

Okay, five isn’t a huge number or anything, but it reminded me of my internship with my hometown daily. Journalism is theoretically a fun line of work – there’s the high-impact events, the important people, the free parking passes into Mike Tyson fights – but when it comes down to it, if you don’t like deadlines, you’re not cut out for it.

Me, I thrive off of deadlines. This isn’t something to brag about. The reason I like deadlines is because I thrive off of last-minute pressure... that knowledge that in half an hour, the story you just came back to the office with the notes for will be useless. The knowing that you need to be finished by this specific time, and that time is basically now... that’s what makes me an effective worker and writer. It’s that pressure.

Because normally, I’m a procrastinator. If it can be held off till tomorrow, why bother doing it now?

But today, being deadline day, I was a machine. I did three interviews, three photo shoots, and compiled countless piles of notes and research into a sports commentary on why the Steelers still kick ass, a personality feature on the Fort Knox "Soldier of the Year" (who’s heading to Officer Candidate School, Infantry Officers Basic Course, Ranger School, and Special Forces training by the end of the month, with photos), a piece on a new program by the Better Business Bureau to equip soldiers with the information they need to avoid being scammed, a focus on two lieutenants who won the Inaugural Infantry Challenge Endurathon (with photos), and a roundup of the Fort Knox high school wrestling team.

Plus I laid out a six-page sports section and helped the Finch lay out an 18-page A-section. And I wrote a blog about homosexual cartoon characters during an abbreviated lunch.

And I still got about six games of Freecell in, took lunch, and smoked a pack of Camels (one New Years’ resolution hasn’t really started yet).

Look, I’m not trying to toot my own horn here. But I felt productive today – I felt like a bona fide journalist. Sure, it’s piddley stuff for the most part, but I’m happy with the copy I turned in today, and I’m proud that I didn’t quit doing it for 13 straight hours.

Thanks for reading, if you’ve made it this far. If you've skipped to the end, I don't blame you - I'm just happy to have been re-confirmed into the profession I chose years ago. I might be cut out for this after all. And that's a damn good feeling.

-30-

I haven’t touched much on politics or the world lately, and really, there’s plenty around to talk about. I just haven’t been thinking about it. There’s so much research to do on each issue, so many different opinions to take into consideration, that it’s tough to jump right back into the fray.

However, this recent upset over cartoon characters supposedly promoting homosexuality has me laughing my camouflaged ass off. A recap:

The We Are Family Foundation has created a music video featuring about a hundred popular cartoon characters (there are a hundred? When I was a kid, there were probably 20, and they came in groups of four, like The Real Ghostbusters) that’s all in the name of promoting tolerance for diversity of race, religion, and - here’s the kicker - sexual identity.

Naturally, good old-fashioned folks like Dr. James Dobson of "Focus on the Family" have responded rather negatively. This has sort of snowballed - snicker - with former cartoon/homosexuality charges, like the story that came out a year or two ago about the character SpongeBob Squarepants being incredibly popular with the gay community, and the Jerry Falwell charge that the purple baby-talking Telletubby is in fact, queer.

I’ll pause here to let readers wipe the tears out of their eyes.

I read a commentary in this morning’s Courier-Journal suggesting a couple other cartoon characters that the Moral Majority might want to forcibly out, including, but not limited to, Bert and Ernie, Sylvester the Cat, Statler and Waldorf, and Chip and Dale.

I suggested adding Batman and Robin to the list, but I haven’t heard back yet.

Anyway, in all fairness, what Dobson apparently was criticizing was the We Are Family Foundation’s efforts to coopt innocent cartoon characters into supporting a specific agenda. I think there’s a point to that, but the "Focus" has been lost.

The trouble (at least in this instance) with Dobson, Falwell, and the rest of them, though, is that by pitching such fits they turn these things into actual news items. Thanks to efforts like these, everyone is out looking for underlying messages about sexuality in cartoons and other children’s programming.

And I don’t mean examining the underlying principles of the programming. I remember seeing, back in the ‘80s, an episode of Captain Planet (possibly the worst superhero cartoon ever made) about overpopulation. Captain Planet would always show up at the end of the episode to give you the moral, in case you’d missed it, and on this one, he and the crew advised kids to encourage their parents to keep their families small. That’s proselytizing.

What we’ve got in this case is just labeling based on stereotypes. SpongeBob’s show is drawing fire for all sorts of little "innuendo," including one male friend who lives alone, takes bubble baths, and listens to classical music. Wow. He must be gay.

The purple Telletubby is gay, according to Falwell, because it’s purple, has an inverted triangle coming out of its head, and carries a "magic bag" that looks an awful lot like a purse.

Would it be too much to ask to leave cartoons out of this? Hijacking normally innocent media to trumpet some agenda is ridiculous, no matter what side you’re on.

But I did find this:

Just out of curiosity, I did some research on sponges. According to oceanicresearch.org, most sea sponges are hermaphroditic. So they can bat for whatever team they want, depending on how they’re feeling a certain day and who’s around.

-30-

One of my supervisors walked into the newsroom earlier during the NFL season and said to me, "Man, I wish someone would just go and break both of Tom Brady's legs. I'm so sick of hearing about him."

Watching Brady take his Patriots to decisive victory over the homestanding Pittsburgh Steelers tonight, wrapping up the AFC championship and securing a berth at Super Bowl XXXIX, I thought about that statement, and about how much I agreed.

But even though the Steelers won't be going to the Super Bowl this year, I suppose we Pittsburgh fans still should be grateful for a record-setting season. I mean, 15-1! Never before in franchise history have the Steelers accomplished a regular-season record like that, not to mention the 14-game winning streak that took them to the playoffs.

All this with rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, too. This is his first loss starting since... well, since early in his senior year at Miami (Ohio). I think that would give him something like 28 straight starting victories as a quarterback.

The Finch pointed out that because of the interceptions he threw this game, he'll be blamed for the Steelers' loss tonight. This is probably going to be true, and it's garbage. The guy is a rookie, and a rookie quarterback has never made the start that Big Ben has made this year.

He's going to become one hell of a quarterback, and when he's got as much experience in the NFL as "MVP" Peyton Manning has, well, you just watch.

But let's not forget the rest of the supporting cast. Where to start? Jerome "The Bus" Bettis? He's probably going to retire before too long, but I think he's probably got a couple more seasons in him. What a guy. Goal line, short to medium yardage -- shove The Bus down their throat. He'll pick up five.

How about Hines Ward? Plaxico Burress? Antwaan Randle El? Duce Stanley!

Head coach Bill Cowher's been around 15 seasons, and isn't going anywhere. He's by far the coach who's got the longest time with his team in the league these days.

So yes, Big Ben and the Steelers have finally fallen, and there will be many hungover workers in Pittsburgh tomorrow. But Steeler Nation should be proud to look back on one hell of a season of football, and they've got more to look forward to.

-30-

Taco Bell was much farther away than the Finch and I had initially estimated. We trudged up the street, laughing about the evening and smoking cigarettes, and I blew off some more steam about Mike. By the time we reached the restaurant (using the loosest sense of the term possible, of course), all the strip-mall parking lots were empty, lights were off, and the doors to Taco Bell were locked.

But we could still see employees milling around in the back, and the drive through lights were on. We decided to try our luck there.

We walked up to the intercom on the menu, and were actually surprised when nothing happened. No one came on to ask us what we wanted, even after repeated attempts at "Hello?" and multiple series of taps against the speaker. Nothing. We walked around to the window, and knocked on that until a manager showed up.

"We can’t serve you because you aren’t in a car," she said.

"What difference does that make?" I asked. "You mean to say you can’t serve us just because we don’t have a car?"

"That’s right," she said. "You need to come into the restaurant."

"The doors are locked," Finch said. "We had to come around this way."

"That’s because we’re closed," she said, and shut the window.

This caused us no small amount of dismay, but having no choice, we headed back in the direction of La Quinta. It was late - or early, depending on how you look at it - and it had gotten cold.

When we got back to the room, we were still hungry, and so were Mike and Numb-Nuts, who had apparently gotten tired of using the one Italian word he knew - bella - on Sarah, who had decided to resign herself to cuddling on the bed with Tim and not speaking to anyone. We set off in search of an all-night gas station.

Back out in the cold, the four of us found a BP station down the road a bit, and loaded up on chips, microwaveable pizzas, Gatorade, beef sticks, and other junk food. It took us only a short while to tramp back to the hotel, where we found Tim and Sarah in much the same state they’d been in when we left.

We set about cramming pizzas in the microwave, and quickly discovered that they weren’t as microwaveable as we’d initially thought. They still got hot, but upon exit from the oven, they were rubbery and dripping.

We ate them anyway, and I caught a glimpse of Sarah cringing into Tim’s side as we devoured our half-ruined food.

Finch and I eventually left the rest to Numb-Nuts and Mike, and headed outside for a smoke. I’d swiped a room keycard, since I wasn’t sure that anyone would be around to open the door by the time we got back. High-carbohydrate food has a sleep-inducing effect on the inebriated.

When we went back inside, however, the card wouldn’t open the door. We tried over and over, putting it into the slot every way possible, but to no avail. Despite the late hour, we began pounding on the door.

At first, we could hear voices inside, arguing over who was going to answer the door. But no one came.

Finch kept pounding, and I used my cell phone to call the guys’ phones inside. Nothing worked. No answer at the door, and voicemail on the cell phones.

We walked to the lobby and tried to call the room from the courtesy phone by reception. No one picked up, even after seven or eight attempts.

Both Finch and I were getting extremely agitated. It was 5 a.m., and we were tired and wanted to sleep. We knew they must have heard us banging on the door, and failing that, then the room phone must have gotten some attention. We decided to head back to the room and try knocking some more.

Nothing.

I took out my cell phone again and began calling all the guys’ phones again, leaving the most evil messages I could think of.

"You piece of shit," I said to Mike’s. "You deserve to die a horrible death. You’re a sorry excuse for a human being, you drunk bastard!"

Our hands were getting sore from pounding on the door, and we walked back to the lobby.

"Our card doesn’t work," I told the girl at the front desk.

She looked uncomfortable.

"One-oh-five," I said. "Come on. I didn’t register for the room, but our friends are in there and have passed out. All our stuff is in there."

She fidgeted some more. "I shouldn’t do this," she said, finally, "but okay."

She took my card and swiped it through whatever magnetic gadget they use in hotels. I grabbed the card back, and Finch and I barreled back down the hallway and opened the room door.

All of them were passed out in various places in the room, and half of a demolished pizza was creeping its way off the kitchenette counter top into a runny puddle on the floor.

By this time, Finch and I were much too pissed off to stay, so we grabbed our coats, the unopened food, and took off in the car.

We pulled into a gas station on the Dixie Highway, and I went in to grab something to drink. When I got out of the store, Finch was gone.

I looked around, standing just outside the brightly-lit doors, looking for his rental Nissan. I didn’t see it anywhere.

"The bastard left me here," I thought, and began dialing Knox-area cab companies, giving them a general idea of where I was. The dispatcher was not helpful.

"You’re still in the Louisville jurisdiction," she said. "Call one of their cab companies to take you back."

"Are you kidding me? And pay sixty bucks just to get back to post? Are you insane?" I was getting desperate and I was exhausted.

"No," she said.

"Okay, who should I call, then?"

"We don’t give Louisville cab numbers out," she said blandly, and hung up.

I swore, and started asking some of the gas station patrons for a lift, but they were all on the way to work in Louisville – in the opposite direction of Fort Knox.

A truck driver was parked near the side of the lot, checking the air in his tires. I walked toward him, thinking maybe he was headed south. Then something caught my eye.

It was a Nissan, the same model as Finch’s rental, pulled into the dark beside the gas station.

I looked closer. It was Finch’s rental. I walked over, and saw that he’d parked, cranked the driver’s seat back and gone to sleep.

I opened the door and got in, stashing my Gatorade in back. Finch didn’t seem to be up for moving, so I cranked my seat back and dozed off.

Continued from last post...

The Finch and I eventually broke away from the other guys and made our way over to "Lucky Strike," a combination restaurant, sports bar, and The Big Lebowski. It’s full of insanely attractive people, sofas, tables, big-screen TVs, and bowling lanes. The music is low enough to mix with the general roar of the patrons and the crash of bowling pins, and the lighting is low enough for anyone to feel as if they fit into the gang of genetic elite that frequent the place.

We found ourselves a place at the bar, sitting on stools with our backs to the lanes. I ordered up another round of Truth Serum, and the Finch and I talked shop for a while. It was standard lower-echelon-type stuff: the incompetency of our leadership, the non-job-related tasks we find ourselves doing, standing up for ourselves... probably very working-class French Revolutionary nonsense, now that I think about it.

I eventually found myself talking to a blonde in a black cocktail dress who had sat down a stool away from me. We made small talk for a while, and at one point, my friend Mike showed up.

He sat on the stool between us, plunking down at the bar to watch Sports Center on ESPN. Under normal circumstances, I probably would have shrugged it off, but given that I’d had enough Truth Serum to roil the adrenaline glands perched atop my kidneys, I decided that the best course of action would be to kill him.

I thought better of it within an instant, of course, and compromised by just telling him that I was going to kill him. Finch picked up on the hostility, and made the wise decision to forcefully suggest a hasty egress from Lucky Strike.

We headed outside and up South Fourth Street, where cabs lined both sides of the street to pick up the inebriated patrons of the bars. We grabbed one and told him to take us back to La Quinta. On the way, I told Finch that it would have been completely within my rights to have torn Mike’s head off his shoulders for having  sat between me and a girl. It made sense at the time.

I learned later that my friends’ adventures didn’t end when the Finch and I left. The three had all eventually filtered in to Lucky Strike – all save Numb-Nuts, who didn’t make it in after being stopped by a bouncer, who he decided to hip-flip onto the pavement.

Mike got a call, while he sat at the bar, from Numb-Nuts, whose phone was being held by a Louisville Metro police officer, who had taken it upon himself to put handcuffs on poor Numb-Nuts.

Mike went outside, and somehow convinced the cop to let Numb-Nuts go ("I can control him, sir, don’t worry"), and they set about to finding a cab back to the hotel.

When the Finch and I got back to the room, we found the three of them, plus a girl named Sarah who Tim had miraculously convinced to come back with him. They were on one of the two beds, and Numb-Nuts was harassing them. Mike was watching R. Lee Ermy on the History Channel.

Finch and I determined that we needed some Taco Bell, but neither of us was about to drive. We’d noticed one up Preston a little way, and set off walking.

To be continued...

I know I’ve told stories about exploits in Louisville in the company of Numb-Nuts before, but this past weekend warrants another rendition of a tale that is most assuredly retold over and over again in college towns across the United States.

It all started on Friday, when the Finch and I went to Tim’s promotion ceremony. His command had gotten him promoted to specialist, and the airfield folks had gotten a cake for the occasion. I shot some photos while we were there, and after the brief to-do, Numb-Nuts and Mike came over and said they were going to Louisville’s Fourth Street Live to celebrate that evening. Numb-Nuts was reserving a hotel room, so there would be no chance for irresponsible driving.

Eventually, we all piled into Finch’s rental car, a Nissan painted a noncommittal shade of green or blue, and headed up the Dixie Highway.

We arrived at the hotel, a La Quinta on Preston highway, and the other guys began to get ready for their night on the town. I was already incredulous, since I had a hard time believing that four guys could take an hour and a half to prep and preen to be seen on Friday night in public. I spent quite a while ripping on Tim for his use of scented Bath and Body Works skin cream, and for his bringing two different shirts to Louisville to choose from once he got clean.

In the end, we eventually made it to the two-block strip designated by the City of Louisville as the new "hang-out bar scene," "Fourth Street Live!". The cold and the rain had kept the crowds low, and we had gotten there relatively early – it wasn’t even 11 p.m. We went upstairs to Parrot Beach for a couple drinks.

Parrot Beach is a Caribbean-themed bar that is normally hopping with dance-clubbers and yuppies. They play the latest hits on the hip-hop and R&B stations, and have a lot of room under the thatched Tiki roofs over the bar and DJ stand for patrons to dance. The five of us sidled up to the bar, and Numb-Nuts ordered a round of Yagerbombs. We toasted to Tim’s promotion, and afterwards, Numb-Nuts dared me to go to the DJ booth and request a shout-out to Tim, who, he said, had just been promoted to "VP of Marketing for ‘ING Corp.’"

In case you missed the last story, Numb-Nuts generally feels that it’s necessary to invent some kind of ‘cover story’ to impress women at bars. I don’t hold with this philosophy for two major reasons; the first is, my story is good enough already – I’m a journalist in the Army, a sports editor, and I spent the past year in Korea. The second reason is because I know that lying to girls to pick them up will only cause trouble later, since at some point they’re going to wonder why you, as the young CEO of some Internet startup company, are driving a 12-year-old Acura Integra with a horribly-bent front end.

However, I did think that it would be funny for the DJ to proclaim the lowly Tim as the new Vice President of Marketing for the fictitious "ING Corp.," so I sauntered over the booth and asked the pudgy DJ if he gave shout-outs.

"When I get on the mike, I will," he said.

"Great," I said. "Well, when you get a chance, let everyone know that my buddy Tim just got promoted to VP of marketing. Cool?"

"Cool," he said, and went back to spinning up Drop it Like it’s Hot by Snoop Dogg.

I went back to the bar. Finch and Mike had headed downstairs to TGI Friday’s to get something to eat, leaving Numb-Nuts and Tim to their own devices. They had hailed some women over, and were busy explaining to them how they were some variety of high-power white-collars. One, a frizzy-permed brunette named Katie, was talking with Numb-Nuts, while the other, a rather plain dirty blonde named Susan whose breasts were pouring out of a skimpy faded pink top, was simpering over Tim.

"This is our friend Ian!" Numb-Nuts screamed over the beat.

"You work with these guys?" Katie asked.

"Sort of," I said. "Not in the same department."

To explain myself, I’ll say that my answer was basically true. We all work for the Army, but I work for a different directorate than my two compatriots. In fact, we all work for different directorates. I figured that pointing this latter fact out would be difficult in a club atmosphere, and I didn’t want to make my buddies look like dicks right off the bat anyway. "Directorates" is really just another word for "departments," anyway, right?

The girls started dancing with their respective meatheads, and I slunk away, looking for another gin and tonic – which will henceforward be referred to as "Truth Serum."

I found Finch, who’d finished his dinner of Jack Daniels’ Chicken Strips (or whatever the hell they call them) at Friday’s, and we spent a while talking about the ins and outs of the job at the Fort Knox Public Affairs Office (please let me know if you’d like to take up a personal issue with me. We’ll stand at 300 meters, and both be given an M16A2 and a 20-round magazine. Whoever falls first loses).

Eventually, our group headed over to the "swanky" club known as the Red Cheetah, a monument to the decadence of our society. I watched as my friends found random women to dance, dryhump, and make out with, and me, being me, just stood and took in the scene: the gut-thumping beat of the techno music, the red lights that lit the place up with a seedy whore-house vibe, and the couples, threesomes, foursomes, and lonesomes dancing and grinding to whatever the DJ spun.

After a couple more doses of Truth Serum, we left, and Numb-Nuts and Tim decided to head back to Parrot Beach. Once I got there, I spotted Katie and Susan across the bar, while I was ordering a Jack and Coke out of exasperation. I walked over to them, since my conscience was heavy.

"Hi," I said, patting Katie’s little red leather jacket on the shoulder.

"Hey," she said, giving me a patently quizzical look.

"Look," I said. "I’m sure you’re already aware of this, but if you remember the two guys I was hanging out with earlier, I’d like to make sure you know something about them."

She nodded, and Susan broke off her conversation with another barfly to listen.

"They’re both completely full of shit," I said. The Truth Serum had begun to have its effect, and after watching my "buddies" (a favorite term of the Army’s) in action, I didn’t care.

"Do you think I cut my hair like this for aesthetics?" I went on, scrubbing the skin-tight sides of my head. "We’re all in the Army. My friend Tim did get promoted, but just to the rank of specialist – my rank."

"We knew they were full of shit," Susan put in. She said it off-handedly, as if it was just part of the job.

I stammered a bit.

"Well, yes, I figured you would have... it wasn’t a great story... I just wanted to tell you for my own conscience’s sake."

"How cute are you?" said Katie, fingering the gold Crucifix I had worn. "Honesty is appealing," she said.

"Yeah, well...." I mumbled. I hadn’t come to Fourth Street to hook up. I’ve spent far too much time deriding Gretchen Wilson and her followers to bother even thinking about picking up women in Kentucky. Tangentially, I should mention that Wilson is, according to Entertainment Weekly, a native of either Illinois or Indiana – I can’t remember which, but the point is, she’s from north of here.

"Have a nice night, ladies," I said, breaking free. "Nice to meet you both."

I wandered away, fully feeling the effects of the Truth Serum. I was proud of myself, though, for not only having refused to play into the shallow lies of my comrades, but for going beyond and actually calling them on their own bullshit.

The evening would wear on, winding through several of the bars on Fourth Street...

To Be Continued.

I found this article on The Nation’s "Editor’s Cut" today: "Lunch with Michael (Moore)." I knew this guy was an intellectually dishonest clown before I read this, of course, but it’s funny to watch him drive the point home so well. I’ve inserted my comments in italics between notable passages.

And let's move on and figure out how to connect with 70 million. Those are our people.

Good luck, you treacherous buffoon.

Just watched "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," and, predicably, he led with today’s story of CNN’s Tucker Carlson (of bow-tie-wearing "Crossfire" fame) not having his contract renewed. CNN will most likely can Crossfire, which has had declining ratings since last year, and embarrassed themselves by bringing Stewart on the program last fall.

Stewart, as some of you may know, made a complete fool out of Carlson, intimating that he (and "Crossfire" and basically all of the mainstream media) were "hurting America" by reducing the public debate to partisan hackery.

Carlson countered by saying that Stewart had been John Kerry’s "butt-boy" (I’m not making that up), and was falling short in his own "responsibilities to the public" by asking the Democratic candidate soft-ball questions.

Stewart pointed out that "The Daily Show" and "Crossfire" have completely different objectives – "the show that leads into mine is about puppets making crank calls" – and that he doesn’t have the kind of responsibility the hosts of "Crossfire" do.

I’m on Stewart’s side, but I didn’t particularly like his take on the recently-appointed replacement attorney general, Alberto Gonzales.

Not that Stewart’s view is in any way special. Critics from all over the place are condemning his advice to the president that the Geneva Conventions are outmoded and "quaint" vis a vis prisoners captured in Afghanistan.

This was probably a bad thing to say, but the problem, as I see it, is this: a serious logical jump was made by those reporting this incident when they say that Gonzales’ dismissal of the Geneva Convention in regards to the rights of Taliban or al Qaeda fighters is de facto support of Abu Ghraib-style torture.

Bear with me on this. The reason that the Geneva Convention does not apply to these "Prisoners of War" is because they do not qualify as POWs under the very definition thereof set forth by the Convention itself. A Prisoner of War, as defined by the Geneva Convention, must qualify as a soldier, which means they must wear a recognizable uniform, carry their weapon(s) openly, and report to an established and recognizable chain of command.

Thus, fighters who do not wear uniforms, conceal their weapons, and don’t have any established chain of command are ineligible for Geneva Convention protection. That does not mean, however, that they can be tortured or treated inhumanely. All it means is that it isn’t the Geneva Convention that protects them.

Clear? Or have I become a "fascist" by saying this? Someone’s bound to pull that term out, right?

-30-

Well, here I am, back at Fort Knox, and well into the "swing of things" once again. We published a dinky 16-page version of The Turret yesterday, and all things considered, I think it turned out rather well.

I whipped up this sports commentary Tuesday - "Cheering your team can be hazardous." See what you think.

And juniperflux recommended this MasterCard commercial to me: Proud Owners of 90% of New England. The Denis Leary cameo is, indeed, priceless.

Word from my old unit, the 2^nd Infantry Division in Korea, is that they’re earmarking individual troops to go help with the disaster relief effort in the Indian Ocean. There’s been a lot said about the United States’ contributions to this effort, and predictably, there are those for whom every step taken has been wrong – either we’re not sending enough money (stingy!), or we’re not sending aid through the "proper channels" (namely, the guys in the United Nations, who did such a great job with Oil For Food), or, there’s the Indian government who told the U.S. to basically butt out.

Of course, there are also those who believe that the earthquake and resultant tsunami were actually caused by a U.S. nuclear weapons test – at least that’s the story circulating around Egypt.

Well, more later. I need to clean the old room up and put something together on the Snowboarding Adventure we went on while I was home. Welcome to 2005, my interesting friends.

-30-

Ah. A new year has begun, and it’s called 2005.

Personally, I’ve never held with the New Year’s Resolutions crowd. I find resolutions either too lukewarm or impractical to keep, but I have decided on a couple this time around.

The first is to quit smoking. I love to smoke, and I do it a lot, but it certainly isn’t doing me any good. I’m short on motivation to quit, however, since I don’t see the ten years of life I gain by putting them down as anything to look forward to. But, on the other hand, the chronic coughing and diminished lung capacity are both things I could do very well without, as well as the rather large monthly bill one rings up by spending three dollars a day on Camels.

The second is one for Nancy Reagan, and that’s to "Say No to Drugs." I don’t really think there’s any moral implications involved in recreational drug use – but I’d like to quit while the memories I have of it are happy and positive. I’ve never been big on drugs, but I’ve eaten or smoked or snorted whatever’s found itself in front of me, and the times I’ve done them have been fun. But the risks are too high these days, and the potential for something strongly negative happening just gets worse as time goes by. So no more drugs for Gonzo. At least for a while.

I think I’m also going to cut down on the booze. No, I’m not going to quit drinking, that would be far too drastic a move for me to make. I don’t think I have any problem with alcohol, but it’s also expensive, and the hangovers that plague me on Saturdays aren’t getting any better as I get older. So yeah, I’ll go out to the bar for a beer or two or maybe a Jack and Coke, but the whole getting hammered thing has to get lowered a couple notches.

Fourth, I’m going to pick my writing back up again. I’ve been horribly lax in blogging and writing lately, and I think it’s been because of a combination of post-election boredom and general down-ness, courtesy of the U.S. Army. I almost forgot, for a while there, how much I love writing - even the basic "getting-thoughts-on-pape r" variety. Expect more activity, both here and on Smokin’ News.

I think that’s pretty good for a set of resolutions. Ambitious, yet attainable. That should be the rule for resolutions, don’t you think?

In other news, my family got me two Tom Wolfe books for Christmas, which I’m in the process of devouring. Right now, I’m reading "A Man in Full," after which I’ll move on to "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (published in 1968), which is, by all accounts, the quintessential book on hippies.

This afternoon, Dad and I went out to Murphy’s for a pint and some conversation. It was good, since I always feel as if Dad and I get shortchanged on hang-out time while I’m home. My dad is an incredible guy – now working as an ER doctor in a city just south of here – and one hell of a family man. I’ve treated him pretty poorly over the years, but I’ve got loads of respect for the guy. It’s a shame that we don’t hang out more these days, since we’re both fanatics about blogging, politics, and society. He leans slightly more to the right than I do (imagine that), but we both operate off of the same core principles of common sense and natural law.

Tomorrow I head back to Fort Knox and indentured servitude. At least that’s what it feels like. This vacation has been more therapeutic than a dose of methadone to a heroin addict. I don’t like the idea of heading back to the Army, but I’m at peace with it, at least. There’s always the overarching feeling of dread when leave comes to a close, but this time, at least, I know what I’m going back to and I’m going back to it with a refreshed mind.

I hope everyone’s New Year’s was fun and exciting.