Aw jeez.  Here we go again…

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican presidential hopeful John McCain Monday warned that plans by his Democratic rivals to withdraw from Iraq were “reckless” as the US general running the war prepared to testify to Congress.

Oh yes.  Gosh darn those Dems.  So reckless!  Says the crotchety old git with the serious anger-management problem…

The doddering fool who “mis-speaks” on a daily basis regarding Iraq, the economy, health care, lobbyists, what-have-you… 

The out of control rage-aholic who lashed out at (trophy wife  and heiress) Cindy during the 1992 Senate campaign,  calling her  a “cunt” and a “trollop” in front of reporters when she had the gall to play with his hair and say he  was  getting “a little thin on top”…

Oh my, yes.  Compared to those reckless Dems, THIS guy’s abso-frickin’-lutely presidential.

*

The presumptive Republican nominee then added:

You goddamn kids, get off my lawn! And where’s my onion belt, goddammit! Grrrr…

*Tild sez:  About the picture –if it fit for Gonzo, it sure as hell fits for McCaintankerous.

~

Posted: April 10th, 2008 under 2008 Presidential campaigns, Democrats, George W Bush, Iraq, John McCain, Republicans, War.
Comments: none

Via Badtux, snarkiest and most esteemed of all penguins:

Brilliant. But the inevitable backlash has already begun. Badtux reports:

BTW, the Lebanese dude who made up that list is now being Freeped big time. Go by and give him some love — let him know that all Americans aren’t Freepers.

Go and read the comment thread for samples of that vaunted Freeper tolerance and reason.

Posted: August 17th, 2006 under General, War.
Comments: none

In the current issue of the New Yorker, a short story about the final days of the Spanish Civil War and a Francoist captain’s decision to surrender to the soon to be defeated Loyalists.

“When asked if the heroic deeds of the National Army were his reason for betraying the Fatherland, he replied that they were not, that the real reason was that our objective at that time was not to win the war against the Popular Front.

“When asked what our objective was, if not to win the Glorious Crusade, the accused replied, ‘To kill them.’ ”

After which he was found guilty of treason and collusion with the enemy, and sentenced to death.

Both the stamp and the signature are illegible.

The former Captain Alegría had, at last, spoken of the usury of war to his superior officers.

Read First Defeat (1939) by Alberto Méndez.

(Translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews.)

Posted: July 30th, 2006 under En El Mundo, General, Military, Spanish Civil War, War.
Comments: none

Remember the good old days? Remember when we could enjoy the delicious ironies of Randy Newman songs like “Political Science” and part of our enjoyment was knowing that the song narrator’s hilariously psychotic worldview was recognizable –hey, we’ve all had thoughts like this!–but at the same time was a worldview that could never, never, ever, not in a million years, gain any traction here in the real world?
Ahh. The good old days…

Political Science

No one likes us-I don’t know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let’s drop the big one and see what happens

We give them money-but are they grateful?
No, they’re spiteful and they’re hateful
They don’t respect us-so let’s surprise them
We’ll drop the big one and pulverize them

Asia’s crowded and Europe’s too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada’s too cold
And South America stole our name
Let’s drop the big one
There’ll be no one left to blame us

We’ll save Australia
Don’t wanna hurt no kangaroo
We’ll build an All American amusement park there
They got surfin’, too

Boom goes London and boom Paree
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it will be
We’ll set everybody free
You’ll wear a Japanese kimono
And there’ll be Italian shoes for me

They all hate us anyhow
So let’s drop the big one now
Let’s drop the big one now

link to the lyrics and to the Randy Newman discography and to the rest of his exhaustively thorough (but it’s heaven to me) website.

A personal note (not for the squeamish):

Randy Newman has always been up at the top (where it’s lonely, as he first told us so long ago) of my short list of singer/songwriters/and a few others to whom I would give myself as an eternal love slave.   What a deal!
Alas, there’s never been any takers.

Randy Newman is top of the list because he frequently uses the device of the unreliable narrator in his songs, and if there’s anybody who’s a pushover for that, it’s me.

~~~

UPDATE:  Unreliable narrators are everywhere!  Look at ‘em, all over the place, in many of my favorite songs, literature, movies, and even blogs.

BTW…   I’m yours, Giblets. Command me!

~~~

Posted: July 29th, 2006 under Politics, Randy Newman, War, the Tild Record Collection.
Comments: 2

Naah. Not what you might be thinking.

Groucho Marx.

Irving Berlin.

In 1972 Groucho Marx was 82 years old, and bored.
He had not yet begun to decline into illness and senility, which marked the last 5 years of his life until his death in 1977. He was still mentally sharp, and retained a wealth of memories spanning back to vaudeville at the turn of the century. So, in one of the ways he decided to occupy his time in addition to showing up frequently on Dick Cavett’s late night talk show, he made a series of appearances in a one-man show titled An Evening With Groucho. The format was simple: accompanied on the piano by Marvin Hamlisch, Groucho sat in a chair in the middle of the stage and told stories and sang songs for a couple of hours.

Fortunately for us, one of those shows was recorded live at Carnegie Hall and released as a double album by A&M Records.
I have that album. Hadn’t listened to it or even thought about it for years, until yesterday, when unbidden I suddenly remembered a song Groucho sang called Stay Down Where You Belong. It was written in 1914 by Irving Berlin, who apparently was later embarrassed by the song’s anti-war sentiment.
The song is sung by the Devil, lecturing his son who’s bored in Hell and wants to go up to Earth to have some fun:

The Devil said ‘Listen lad,
Listen to your dear old dad’.
‘You stay down here where you belong.
The folks above you, they don’t know right from wrong.

To please their kings they’ve all gone off to war,
But not a one of them knows what they’re fighting for.
Way up above they say, that I’m a devil and I’m bad,
But the kings up there are bigger devils than your dad.
They’re breaking the hearts of mothers,
They’re making butchers out of brothers.
You’ll find more hell up there,
Than there is down here below.

I thought for sure the album would be on CD by now and still be in print, but it turns out it’s not available in nearly any format, and my vinyl double album is considered rare and hard to find.

I found a free download of the whole thing here.

And If I ever figure out how Word Press lets me post mp3 files, I’ll put up a clip from it, but in the meantime enjoy the complete transcript of the performance.

Posted: July 22nd, 2006 under General, General, War, the Tild Record Collection.
Comments: 2

 

The caller ID reads “US MARINE CORPS”.

I reach for the phone, and in the fraction of a second it takes for the words “US MARINE CORPS” to register in my brain, I become every mother who has ever existed. Or at least every mother who’s ever existed since that first fateful day when Moonwatcher showed up at the cave door, recruiting for the Great War Against the People Who Live On the Other Side of the Sand Dune From Us or whatever the hell it was.

 

CALLER: Hello, may I speak to [my eldest son; the one who graduated from high school last month]?

 

ME: Uhh, hello. Is this the Marine Corps?

 

CALLER: Yes, ma’am. I’m [whatever he said his name is]. I’m assigned to the High School. And, despite what you may have heard…

 

He sounds tired and a little bit defensive. How many times today has he launched into this little spiel?

 

CALLER: …we actually have spoken face to face with only a third of the seniors.

 

There were 801 students in the EPHS Class of 2006. One third of 801 would be 267.

 

CALLER: Still, by the end of this year I’m required to make contact by phone with everyone in the class I haven’t spoken to yet.

 

Required. He’s required to contact everyone. He’s just doing his job, after all. He’s just following orders. I wonder how much time this statement buys him before the mothers start slamming the phone down or start screaming NEVER! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! Or maybe I’m imagining that every mother in Eden Prairie would react to this call like I’m reacting.

 

CALLER: Is [Eldest Son] home?

 

ME: No. He’s at work right now.

 

Eldest Son is actually in the next room, simultaneously eating a bowl of Cheerios, playing Battlefield 1942 online with seven of his buds, text-messaging a (female) friend, and watching an mp4 of “Downfall” on his iPod. He doesn’t have to leave for work for another 45 minutes.

 

ME: I realize you still have to talk to him personally, but please let me just shorten this process. All you really need to know is: This is not going to happen.

 

I don’t know how to put it any more emphatically.

 

Bessie to the sexton: “Curfew must not ring tonight!”

Gandalf to the Balrog: “You. Shall. Not. Pass!”

 

ME: And I want you to know that I have all the respect in the world for the people in uniform; the people who are laying their lives on the line for all of us every day. You deserve better than what you’re getting. A LOT better. We owe you so very much… The least — the LEAST we can do now is to get you out of harm’s way as soon as possible. I stand with Jack Murtha on this: if I could bring you all home tomorrow I would. And that’s all I have to say about that.

 

I hope he liked the little Forrest Gump flourish at the end there.

 

CALLER: Ma’am, I understand what you’re saying, and I do appreciate it. I will ask you tho if you could please do one thing for us.

 

What? Bake them some cookies?  Send body armor?  Arrange for a soul transplant for Donald Rumsfeld?

ME: Sure.

 

CALLER: Ma’am, will you pray for us?

 

ME: Absolutely. Doing that already. Every day.

 

CALLER: Thank you. Well, I won’t keep you. I’ll have to catch [Eldest Son] another time then.

 

“Catch him” ? You’ll have to “catch him”? Hey buddy — I’m praying for you all, no question about it, but try “catching” any child of mine in any other way than by phone, and you might have to “catch” the bag containing your nuts which I will be throwing in your face. Trust me, you do not want to mess with me in this regard. Hoo-fucking-ya.

 

[End of phone call]

 

Yeah, I’m good at bluster — especially the internal, unspoken kind as just illustrated above.  But don’t think for a second that I don’t know just how empty all that tough talk is. We still have a volunteer army and he’s 18 and if he decides he wants to join, there’s not much I could do about it.

But, the chances of him or his brother wanting to enlist are roughly equivalent to the chances of Dick Cheney winning the Nobel Peace Prize, so I’m not too worried.

I’m also not terribly worried–yet– about the draft being reinstated. It won’t happen until the administration can figure out a way to include a loophole exclusively for wealthy Republicans so they can keep their own precious children out of it ; their kids being so much more valuable than ours and all.   Hoo-fucking-ya  indeed.

 

Posted: July 19th, 2006 under Chez Tild, Children, General, Military, War.
Comments: 4