El Blog Que Es Un Poquito Màs Macho Que Fernando Lamas. A Companion to the Assassin Bug: On Baseball, Jews, Baseball and Jews, Politics,Politics and Baseball, the Musical Genius of Susanna Hoffs, Books, Plutocracy, and Piano Music, scribbled by an unapologetic liberal. Lately, including posts on parenting, divorce, moving, and my bad attitude. Contact at themetabug@gmail.com
and give a hand. Or a few bucks.There are NO veterinary schools in Haiti. The Christian Veterinary Mission is teaching young Haitians to be veterinary agents, helping them take care of the livestock that is so important to their livelihood.
And I’m glad that you’re interested in the thrilling story about Genius Mutt defying death after eating a chocolate cake.
But people! In all of this political talk flying around, NO ONE is talking about the proper use of the military. It would be nice to have this discussion before we get stuck in another stupid quagmire that costs the lives and health of those willing to sign on that line.
It is the unanimous view of the Meta-Bug editorial staff that the draft needs to be reinstated. We don’t like the draft. We don’t like the fact that having a large standing army tends to get overused. We wouldn’t like the increased military spending that would accompany a universal draft. We don’t like the possible militarization of society that could occur with a universal draft. We don’t like having permanent military bases in places where they are not wanted or not necessary. We think that young Americans should be supported in becoming the adults they want to be, and that it should be done through education, that the money would be better used paying for universities and trade schools rather than uniforms, food supplied by contractors, and weapons.
Above all, I don’t want my children in the military.
But we are in love with our military might. For a large number of Americans, being big and powerful is part and parcel of our patriotism. We stand astride the globe, ready to go anywhere at a moment’s notice (damn the exit strategies!).
If that is going to be the case, everyone needs to take part. Senators’ sons. Kids of Congressmen. The President’s Progeny. Especially the President’s Progeny. And they shouldn’t be dragged off to the draft board kicking and screaming. They should be at the recruiter’s office, waiting at the door ten minutes before opening time. (On time in the military is 10 minutes early.)
Will they answer the call?
Call it what you want, but the reality is that we are going to enforce a Pax Americana and whatever the Republican-majority Congress and the Commander-in-Chief feel is an American view of the world. We will do it as much and as far as we are able. We are the modern version of Rome, by design or default.
What we are not–for better or worse–is Sparta. We engage in pieties to assuage our guilt over our “all-volunteer” armed forces. We use them without really thinking about the consequences of sending them into harm’s way. Fewer than 1% of American families have any skin in the game, and as I’ve so often heard, “Well, they signed up for it.” The last time there was a draft, the country was in the street. The idealist in me would like to say that it was over an unjust and unjustified war. The cynic in me says that the only reason anyone cared was because it was their own lives on the line that time.
tRump is pushing an agenda that could easily lead us into war. He is backing both the US and Iran into a corner. If he’s a tenth of the man he says he is, and if his offspring are not just fleas on those 10% coattails, he will encourage them to join the Armed Forces. Not the Air Force (too cushy) or the Navy, but boots-on-the-ground expeditionary forces, either the Marines or the Army infantry.
Let’s see how patriotic these plutocrats are.
Y’know that old joke, the one where various people are having a discussion about when life begins (conception, etc), and the old couple has the punchline about life beginning when the kids move out and the dog dies. At this point in my life I’m still not looking forward to when the kids move out, nor do I want the current canine to croak, but when my previous dog died, I have to admit that I was in no hurry to get her replaced.
I had had my own dogs since my junior year in college. After around 35 years of owning various hounds, arctic breeds, retriever crosses, herding dogs, my 16 year-old Australian Cattle Dog, Maddie, was euthanized on a 4th of July. This was just slightly less than a month before my best friend died after a bout with a cancer caused by the radiation that had cured his previous cancer around 20 years earlier. When Mike died, we had been friends for nearly 4o years.
It’s not an astounding revelation that you don’t get to go back to sixth grade and make another decades-long best friendship. You’re just stuck with that permanent sense of loss that occurs when you realize nothing can ever be the same again. I will never have a best friend who was around since I was 10. I suppose that this isn’t astounding. We all know it will happen. Everyone gets to this point, some reach it quite early in life.
Mike had just turned 50, and I was just about to do the same. Plain and simple, I didn’t want another dog. As a veterinarian, I had usually counseled clients to get back into the saddle (more often than not a new pet helps ease the pain of the loss of the old one), and although I had always followed that advice myself, when my best friend died I decided that I was done. I wasn’t in the mood for any more loss. Life brings enough loss without going out and purposely adding to it.
But Jolee bugged me. And bugged me. And then bugged me some more. And went after this the way that only a child who wants a dog can. Then she started finding dogs on PetFinder.com. She worked on my guilt about the divorce. And then I broke. I should’ve known better. I’m a veterinarian, the guy who is on the other side of the exam table when the exasperated parent–usually a mother–comes in and says, “I told them they could have a dog if they would help take care of him!” To which I usually answer, “And you had what evidence to actually believe this claim?”
The truth is that no matter how much kids promise, they are going to fall short. Usually they are going to fall way short. And then they will probably leave for college before the dog dies, which means you’re stuck with the difficulties of caring for the old dog, with his arthritic joints, incontinent bladder, bad eyesight, and failing cognitive abilities. The kids are alright: they do have good intentions. They just have really poor followthrough combined with an inability to accurately assess their desires and capacities. There are a lot of stories about the strong bond between a child and a dog. But no one writes stories about when a child’s interest in the dog gets hijacked for interest in something else (sports, hormone-induced wackiness, cars, music, delinquent behavior. . .) The problem is that it takes forever to say no, but just a few moments of delusion or weakness to say yes. And in general, parents love to say yes.
But I’m digressing. This is about my son’s birthday, my dog Kaleb, who is a total maroon, and the chocolate cake. Every 16 year-old should have a chocolate cake for breakfast on this momentous occasion. Took it out of the refrigerator, put it on the counter, put the 17 candles on (one for good luck), and went upstairs to brush my teeth. Return downstairs, and Genius Mutt is licking the last bits of crumbs off of the floor.
To be continued. . .
Remember that statement? The one that didn’t mention the 6 million Jews that were systematically murdered by the Third Reich? The one that dog-whistled to neonazis, white supremacists, and anti-Semites all over the nation? The one that Weasel Kushner was also unimaginably mute about?
I’m not sure Netanyahu has taken it to heart that most American Jews can’t stand Trump. That 76% of professed Jews, including Zionist Jews such as myself, voted against the nascent dictator.
I wonder how Bibi’s feeling today, now that, seemingly on whim, Trump has reversed himself on the matter of Israeli settlements.Maybe Trump’s getting back at the American Jewish community for opposing him.
I hope that the hawkish Jews who voted for Trump finally realize that they can’t count on his support of Israel’s right. After the events of recent days, I can’t see why any of our allies would feel that they can count on Der GropenFuehrer. He has no core principles, other than his narcissism, and toadying to that is not even a guarantee of a good outcome. Just ask Chris Christie.
Feeling betrayed, Mr. Prime Minister?
Official transcript of remarks:
“I’d like to think about some black people that were very, very important in my life.
“Michael Jackson, maybe my favorite black person, he was a big, big fan of Trump and the Trump empire, we were going to work on some projects when he was tragically killed by his doctor. His doctor, do you know, graduated magna cum laude and was the son of poor farmers? You see what black people can do when they’re not getting handouts from lying Hillary and her friends?
“Then there’s Sheriff David Clarke, who predicted I would get more of the black vote than Romney, he was right, I got 8% while loser Romney only got 6%. That’s a 33% increase! He’s not politically correct. We’re tired of politically correct. David, great guy, he says things not politically correct about the black community, which in Wisconsin, let me tell you, takes a tremendous amount of guts. Tremendous amount. Clarke likes me, a terrific guy. I wanted to make him National Sheriff. I might still.
“But, hey, this is about history.
“Who can remember childhood without Aunt Jemima? I can’t! Best pancakes, teriffic syrup, ever. Bigly . I was so happy to have those pancakes in the morning. I even called the black women who served me “Aunt Jemima”. It also made it easy because I could use one name for all of them. Those ladies were terrific, they really loved me.
“And entertainment? When Americans started having talking movies, what was the first one? The Jazz Singer. We had Al Jolson, who by the way was Caucasian and Jewish, I also like Jews, I hired my Jewish son-in-law Jared to be an advisor, I really wanted him for treasurer, but .. Anyway, when Al Jolson sang in the movies what did he do? That’s right, he put on blackface. That’s how much we admire black people, that when the first person sings in movies, that person should be black, even if they’re not.
“Bill Cosby. Who has done more to make Black people look like real Americans than the Huxtables? Except for Omorosa who I think actually had more TV viewers than Cosby, I know I read that somewhere.
“Look around. There are African-Americans everywhere. They have been at the forefront of sports. They have worked for Trump organizations. They even worked at my casinos, which means I was able to teach them to count money almost as well as Jews, as well as helping them not be lazy, and it’s really sad that they’re born with that laziness trait, but I’m willing to help them with this disability and do I ever get credit? No, the fake news stations just try to make it look like I have a bad relationship with the blacks.
“And peanuts! Would peanuts exist if George Washington Carver hadn’t invented them? What would American kids eat for lunch ? He does great work, that Professor Carver. Lots of people say so. I think we will be seeing more and more of him. And it shows that Black people can overcome their laziness and make something of themselves. Entertainers, sports figures. Boxers. But not tenants. They don’t make good tenants. Don’t rent to them. Unless the court forces you to. Then do it. But don’t admit wrongdoing.
+
— Drumpf on Fox and Friends on Dec. 2, 2015.
In his first military action, Twittler managed to both keep his promise to violate the Geneva Convention and to screw up bigly. According to a senior military source in contact with NBC, “almost everything went wrong.”
Once again, our new president was firing from the hip, shooting without thinking first. Only this time, they were real guns, and at least two Americans were killed, one sailor and one 8-year old child. William Owens will be mourned and honored, as he should be. However, as the daughter of a American-borne, radicalized jihadist, there may be few in this country that mourn the death of Nawar al-Awlaki. I hope that we, with all of our power, remember that no child chooses the circumstances of his or her birth.
Article 51.2 of the Geneva Convention states: “The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.” The article does not say that collateral deaths are a war crime. It says that you can’t target civilians. Reasonable precautions have to be taken, and a small, even important target cannot justify, purposeful slaughter of non-combatants.
The Founding Fathers were against having a standing army, in the belief that its existence encourages its use. I think we no longer have the luxury of not having one, but if we are going to follow the intent of the Framers, as many suggest we do, we’d be far more in tune with their vision by being substantially less bellicose. And until the burden currently borne by military families is spread evenly among the population, the desire to flex our muscle should be tempered with much greater empathy and foresight than have been shown in the last 16 years
I confess without shame that I am tired & sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. Even success, the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies […] It is only those who have not heard a shot, nor heard the shrills & groans of the wounded & lacerated (friend or foe) that cry aloud for more blood & more vengeance, more desolation & so help me God as a man & soldier I will not strike a foe who stands unarmed & submissive before me but will say ‘Go sin no more.’
–William Tecumseh Sherman
The Meta-Bug 