After watching The Nightmare Before Christmas, (perhaps the only good modern Christmas movie, sent to me this past week in a generous surprise package by a YWA reader - and thank you, I'll be sending a personal note), I can tell you that, if you haven't watched White Christmas, "insectile" is a good descriptor, which I hadn't thought of before, and which aptly describes Jack Skellington's legs, too. So, if you've seen Nightmare but not White Christmas, think of Jack's legs, and you'll be very close to a picture of Vera's. I always thought of her as resembling a prancing pony. The movie is worth watching just to see her dance. There really is something non-human, but utterly fascinatingly attractive about it. Like watching Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, stroll up the hill silhouetted by the moon.
My favorite Christmas may always be the one I spent in San Francisco at the Cannery. Years ago when I lived on Fisherman's Wharf, I took a couple of nice bottles of wine and some plastic cups down to the Cannery where the wharf's homeless people gathered to celebrate Christmas eve. They gathered at some tables in the courtyard and shared whatever they had - cigarettes, mostly. Some beer. And one old woman had a coloring book and crayons. A couple of street artists were there. One, a musician, who played his guitar for the group, and one, a very good magician, who got drunk and gave away the secrets to his card tricks. Taking nothing away from the incredible skill required to seemingly pull cards out of thin air (and do it while drunk!), I was disappointed to learn how it's done, and I tried desperately to get him to keep the secret. Alas, the alcohol told him otherwise.
Anyway, it was a very peaceful, caring and sharing evening, the likes of which I have not seen elsewhere or when for a Christmas eve celebration. A great memory.
Okay, that's all out of the way, now on to the news. It hasn't gotten any better, of course. Hope you enjoyed your respite. Hope you had one.
I've been unable to log in to tblog today until just now, so here's a collection of post-Christmas items:
Go visit The General...he's got a nice portrait of Jesus with a mullet.
And, hey...
Getcher shirts here:
And other stuff you can buy - sorry, I'm late with the Christmas gift ideas. Maybe there'll be a next year.
Bush calls for Compassion at Christmas
I absolutely agree with looking at the bigger picture and evaluating the overall health of a forest. But, what I would like to know is how you can determine the overall health of an ecosystem without considering the environmental impact of your management practices or monitoring individual species population dynamics. Hm?
Democracy in Action makes it easy for you to voice opposition to the nomination of Alberto The-king-is-above-the-law -and-the-Geneva-Conventio ns-are-quaint-and-obsolet e Gonzales for U.S. Attorney General. Although no nomination by this president is going to be a good choice.
From Apostropher:
Step Two: Play the first 10,000 digits of pi.
Step Three: Profit.
I listened to this for much longer than it probably deserved.
I don't know what it "deserves", but it captured my ear for a good long while. And, speaking of pi, did you ever watch the movie? If not...
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Sources said a strong nexus between Iraqi forces and the resistance is what allowed them to carry out the most devastating attack on US troops since the beginning of the invasion. US forces have imposed a curfew in Mosul and have launched a military operation in the city, but, the sources say, this will have little effect on the problem, for the simple reason that the US-trained Iraqi military is heavily infected with people loyal to the resistance groups.
[...]
While various analysts ponder the insurgents' strategy in the lead up to next month's elections, and opine that their primary goal is to disrupt those elections, the resistance says it has a different agenda. In a message to Asia Times Online from the Netherlands, Nada al-Rubaiee, a member of the central committee of the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance, a group that is part of the Iraqi national resistance movement both inside and outside Iraq, said, "Everything in the resistance movement is clear ... There is agreement on one issue; that is, getting freedom from foreign occupying forces and their handymen."
No. No. I'm sure that's not it. They are evil people who don't want the Iraqis to be free.
According to Nada, the attack was very organized - so much so that a video of the bombing was even prepared and will soon be released.
Are we winning?
Amerika's offshore prisoner camp:
Prisoners were experimented on
And:
The Advisory Committee oversees the production of the official State Department publication Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS).
More proof that commie rag is going down!:
• More than a half million troops serving overseas will have little holiday happiness, especially the 138,000 in Iraq.
My saddest Christmases came when I was ages 19, 20 and 21 serving in the Army in World War II. The 86th (Blackhawk) Infantry Division took me far from my South Dakota home, first to Texas and California for training, then to France, Germany and the Philippines.
[...]
Despite unhappy holidays, nearly all of us who served in WWII were proud, determined and properly armed and equipped to help defeat would-be world conquerors Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Hirohito in Japan.
At age 80, I'd gladly volunteer for such highly moral duty again. But if I were eligible for service in Iraq, I would do all I could to avoid it. I would have done the same during the Vietnam War, as many of the politically connected did.
"Support Our Troops" is a wonderful patriotic slogan. But the best way to support troops thrust by unwise commanders in chief into ill-advised adventures like Vietnam and Iraq is to bring them home. Sooner rather than later. That should be our New Year's resolution.
James Wolcott quotes some more America-haters.
No, the goons are not being deported. We're keeping them in Washington high office for now. But Frogsdong has something to say about the privatization of Social Security:
[...]
An on-the-ground study of Iraqi casualties between April and September by Nancy Youssef of Knight Ridder newspapers demonstrated that "Operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis — most of them civilians — as attacks by insurgents." But you’re not told this by U.S. TV’s "embedded" reporters, who’ve traded their reportorial independence for access to the boom-boom footage that drives what Time magazine has labeled the "militainment" proffered by American television. In fact, embedded reporters are enrolled in what the Pentagon calls "information operations" — a counterpart to military operations designed to exact the rosiest possible picture of the U.S. occupation from accredited reporters. Those who don’t toe the Pentagon line, and who report negatively on the occupation of Iraq and the indiscriminate effects of U.S. forces’ combat there, are simply blacklisted.
I think that's why they're called "media whores". How to get better information, or 4 Ways to Find Out What’s Really Happening in Iraq by Doug Ireland
Iraqi Christians, that is.
"Many of the things that are happening in Iraq (news - web sites) now push us to leave,
whether it be the bombing of churches or the threatening of Christians or pressuring our women to cover their heads," said Alfonse, 33, attending Christmas mass with his family at the Alliance Church in central Amman.
And, gee, I wonder what ever became of that grand idea that Christians here in the States had for embarking to Iraq, Bibles in hand. Perhaps I should ask the guy at work who signed up to go convert some Muslim. He's still here.
And....
Juan Cole has the Iraq war report summary for Christmas Day, plus a look at the happy Christmas we brought to Iraq's Christians:
But Iraq's approximately 700,000 Christians actually are having to hide their celebrations for fear of violence from radical Muslim extremists. Borzou Daragahi reports that most Iraqi Christians are declining to put out Christmas lights or symbols, and many are attending daytime masses or none at all for fear of car bombs. Many masses have even been cancelled by the churches. Christians had been relatively safe under the Baath regime.
No comments:
Post a Comment