What the hell, was that September just then? Fricking amazing. This is truly the meltaway year. We’re almost down to the chewy caramel center. (I think of September as mostly nougat, frankly.)
Well, I suppose it’s safe to say that we won’t be posting a September podcast. Yes, we recorded one. Yes, we still have a computer and internet access. No, I didn’t leave it in my other pants. It’s still under construction, okay? It’s in far more capable hands than mine, I might add. And I am confident that those hands are hard at work, editing wav files, and not shuffling cards or clicking a remote or (God forbid ) tapping on a phone. (This would not be a good time for me to get a text with a link to some lame video.)
I guess it’s hard to deny that we have essentially departed from our monthly podcast schedule. That is, in part, due to our titanic laziness, but also to the fact that our Ned Trek productions have become much more ambitious in recent months, demanding more and more resources, elaborate sets, casts of thousands, pricey special effects, craft services for the crew, exotic oils for Marvin (my personal robot assistant), you name it. It isn’t easy to produce an epic. Nor is it easy to produce a hack-job podcast, but (and this is important) doing so is easier than the thing with the epic. Are you following that? Good.
I have to think that more than a few of you are wondering, “Well … he’s got time to write this stupid blog post. Why doesn’t he just use that time to finish the podcast, or write a song, for pity’s sake?” Good question. We in Big Green have always been of the belief that timely and accurate reporting is key to the success of any band. If you don’t know what we’re up to, we won’t know either, and THEN where will we be? In Coventry, that’s where! (Actually, I hear that’s quite pleasant this time of year.)
Anyway, where is this getting us? Must get back to finishing that September … I mean, October podcast. Stay tuned.
Abortion in Texas. There’s one answer to this latest court ruling that will close dozens clinics immediately: vote the jerks out, ladies, or they’ll continue to eat your lunch and stick their beaks into everything you do. Up to you, now. Will the extremists on the right continue to the carry the day? Only if we do nothing.
Well, shut my mouth. There appears to be some kind of celebration taking place up the street from the Hammer Mill. Maybe we should mosey on over there. Or maybe not. This street’s getting a little rough. (I don’t mean crime-wise. I mean the pavement’s in pieces, as in potholes the size of a Buick … some with Buicks stuck in them.)
The media, as always, is in the tank for this war. On the morning after bombing began in Syria, the first voice you heard on NPR’s 6:00 a.m. newscast was that of a retired general who had “crafted” America’s bombing campaign during the Gulf War – a man who thought we weren’t bombing Syria hard enough. That’s NPR, no surprise, but don’t expect any better from the liberal media. Rachel Maddow, while a war skeptic, gave a thumbnail recent history of the Iraqi Kurds and the Gulf War that might have been torn out of a Bush campaign media release. Our only role in that saga, according to this telling, was liberating freedom-loving Kuwait and helping the Kurds preserve evidence of Saddam’s pogrom against them.
Oh, hi. Yep, it’s that time of year again. The ba-roke period, as our dear departed friend Tim Walsh used to say. Fighting the cat for scraps, except that we would never do that. In times of want, we have occasionally resorted to eating doll house food. Dibs on the plastic baloney! (Hey, don’t scoff … it’s actually not that much worse than tofu baloney.)
The response to ISIS is another instance of decision-making driven by decades of bad policy. We are, in essence, seeking to deal with a mess of our own making, to put it charitably, and in so doing making an investment in future crises while bankrupting ourselves in the present. The money and arms flowing to ISIS emanate from Saudi Arabia, other gulf states, and abandoned resources in Iraq, not to mention oil payments from third countries, like Turkey (our NATO ally). Many if not most of the weapons are stamped “Property of the U.S. Military”. Working with the Saudis to arm and train “moderate” opponents of the Assad regime is akin to working with the Pakistanis to arm and train “moderate” opponents of the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s. How did that turn out again?
Apologies to Paul Simon. Actually, except for the Gatorade part, that sounds like the story of my life just lately. Trying to tidy up the cavernous squat house we call the Cheney Hammer Mill ahead of the coming winter months. Nothing worse than a dusty house when the snow is up to the rafters – ask anybody who’s spent a few frigid seasons here on the dark side of the year. So, just plying the old broom across the brick floor.
I can’t say which part of Obama’s proposed campaign against ISIS seems the most confused and misguided. It may be the notion that we should fund the training of “moderate” Syrian opposition forces in Saudi Arabia, of all places. First of all, there is no meaningful moderate opposition in Syria. The lead forces opposing the Assad regime are hyper-religious extremists. They have walked off with many of the weapons we have dropped on the so-called moderates, just as billions of dollars worth of weapons have gone missing in Afghanistan (probably falling into the hands of the Taliban or worse). Any effort to train the “moderates” will be symbolic at best and will likely result in yet another stream of jihadist heading from the gulf to the conflict zone.
Sorry. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m hip deep in finishing the script for our next episode of Ned Trek, as featured on the THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast. And though I write for a living, writing has always been a teeth-pulling process for me, resulting in sleepless nights, even more sleepless days, and other trepidations too numerous to … to enumerate. Am I making sense? (Possibly not.)
At the close of the Cold War, it was understood that expansion of NATO would be seen as provocative by Russia, but because Russia was in a weak position, their economy destroyed by massive privatization, shock therapy structural adjustment, guided by some of our Chicago-school fanatics, we felt free to ignore their concerns. That worked so long as our drunken ally Yeltsin was in command. But now that the extremely powerful Russian presidency (which we supported under Yeltsin) has been inherited by a sober ex-KGB officer, and the Russian economy has been lifted somewhat by oil revenues, they have found the confidence to voice their objections. And, of course, we’re shocked, shocked!