Ann Coulter - Yellow journalist

From Editor & Publisher:

9/11 Widows, New York Papers, Respond to Coulter's 'Slander'

By E&P Staff Published: June 07, 2006 7:55 AM ET updated 10:00 AM ET

NEW YORK Syndicated columnist and author Ann Coulter appeared on the Today show on Tuesday, promoting a new book. Host Matt Lauer asked her to explain certain remarks in the book aimed at activist 9/11 widows, including her charge that they were nothing but "self obsessed" and celebrity-seeking "broads" who are "enjoying" their husbands' deaths "so much."

After she defended these statements, Lauer closed by saying, "always fun to have you here." It's not known if he meant this ironically or not.

Elsewhere in the book, Coulter refers to the widows as "witches" and asks, "how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies"?

In response, a group of five 9/11 widows, who may have been the prime targets of Coulter's remarks, issued a statement denouncing Coulter's views. The New York Daily News on Wednesday featured a smiling Coulter and this headline on its front page: COULTER THE CRUEL. One story inside was topped with "Massive Chip on Her Coulter " and another called her a "a model of meanness."

The Star-Ledger in Newark, meanwhile, carried a story today with the headline "For 9/11 widows, book adds insult to injury." It featured interviews with some of the widows. The New York Post headlined a story: "RIGHTY WRITER COULTER HURLS NASTY GIBES AT 9/11 GALS."

Side note: I hate the New York Post's headline writers.

The Post interviewed one of the widows, Mindy Kleinberg of East Brunswick, N.J. -- part of a group Coulter dubbed "The Witches of East Brunswick." Kleinberg said, "We are trying to make sure that nobody else walks in our footsteps. And if she [Coulter] thinks that's wrong, so be it." Newsday (Melville, N.Y.) carried an Associated Press story.

On a separate matter -- charges that she knowingly voted in the wrong precinct in Florida last year -- Coulter said on Fox News Tuesday night that reporters who wrote about the case are "all retarded" and accused Palm Beach officials of having a sexually transmitted disease. "I think the syphilis has gone to their brains," she said. "This is all false, I'm telling you."

Universal syndicates Coulter's column. A spokesman there told E&P it had no response to the latest firestorm.

So it seems like Coulter's plan is working. I'll grant that the 9/11 widows have capitalized on their status as victims, but let's be frank. Coulter is selling books not because she has many compelling arguments, but because she's a mean-spirited hack who can call people names.

"How do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies?" she asks. Hey, great question. As long as we're tossing hypotheticals around, how do we know you're not a member of the Ku Klux Klan, Ann?

Of course, the far-right's favorite blonde hellion has been at this for quite a while. Here's a collection of quotes from the she-beast: The Wisdom of Ann Coulter.

Here's a good one: "I am emboldened by my looks to say things Republican men wouldn't."---TV Guide 8/97.

Well, I am emboldened by my looks (which were specifically designed for newsprint) to invite Ms. Coulter to feel completely free to shove shards of broken beer bottles into her eyes. I hope that someday soon she's a victim of cannibalism.

Yes, that's mean-spirited and uncalled for, and I should really take the high road if I'm going to criticize. But you know what? I'm not selling books filled with libellous drivel and making the rounds on the morning show circuit. So I don't care.

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Hail to the Chief

While I reserve this space for angry, drunken tirades about how our country is screwed up, I spend my working hours churning out stuff like this piece on our chief of staff, who's retiring next week. When I get out, my best guess is that I'll have written somewhere around a thousand of these.

Chief of staff 'humbled' by Soldiers

Gold says combat command provided lifetime of memories.

.. Gold has seen the results in action.

Before arriving at Fort Knox to take on his current job, he served as the commander of the 1st Armored Division's "Bulldog" 3rd Brigade, which participated in the initial ground war in the first Operation Iraqi Freedom and in the subsequent occupation of western Baghdad, including the district of Abu Ghraib.

He said the success of those missions is proof that the Army's system for recruiting and training Soldiers is far from broken.

"My time over there left me a lifetime of memories," he said. "I am humbled, and will remain humbled, by what is standing in our formations today... a mixture of generations X and Y.

"I said this in Iraq before I left. History will show that this mixture of generations is equal to, if not better than, any other generation of Americans -- to include Tom Brokaw's World War II generation that my dad was a part of."

Gold said he was amazed to watch today's Soldiers perform under incredibly difficult conditions, including extreme heat, harsh living conditions, and an always hostile environment.

The rest can be found here.

See? I'm not some kind of defeatist loon. I was rather torqued, however, at the fact that my subject in this story got to read it prior to publication, and since he's the chief, the changes he made stuck. It's a matter of backgrounds, of course, but field grade officers usually have a different idea of what makes a story "flow," so there are passages in the final copy that I feel are stilted and repetitive. But hey.

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Ingredients: Mechanically-separated Abu Musab al Zarqawi

I had an e-mail from CENTCOM waiting in my inbox this morning:

Title: COALITION FORCES KILL ABU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI
Release Date: 6/8/2006
Release Number: 06-06-08P
Description:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Gen. George W. Casey Jr., Multi-National Force-Iraq Commanding General, announced the death of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in the following statement during a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad June 8:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Coalition Forces killed al-Qaida terrorist leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and one of his key lieutenants, spiritual advisor Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman, yesterday, June 7, at 6:15 p.m. in an air strike against an identified, isolated safe house.

"Tips and intelligence from Iraqi senior leaders from his network led forces to al-Zarqawi and some of his associates who were conducting a meeting approximately eight kilometers north of Baqubah when the air strike was launched.

"Iraqi police were first on the scene after the air strike, and elements of Multi-National Division North, arrived shortly thereafter. Coalition Forces were able to identify al-Zarqawi by fingerprint verification, facial recognition and known scars.

Al-Zarqawi and al-Qaida in Iraq have conducted terrorist activities against the Iraqi people for years in attempts to undermine the Iraqi national government and Coalition efforts to rebuild and stabilize Iraq. He is known to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iraqis. Al-Zarqawi's death is a significant blow to al-Qaida and another step toward defeating terrorism in Iraq.

"Although the designated leader of al-Qaida in Iraq is now dead, the terrorist organization still poses a threat as its members will continue to try to terrorize the Iraqi people and destabilize their government as it moves toward stability and prosperity. Iraqi forces, supported by the Coalition, will continue to hunt terrorists that threaten the Iraqi people until terrorism is eradicated in Iraq."

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We Army types give the Air Force a lot of crap (I used to bug them at DINFOS by calling them the "Space Force." They hated that, for some reason). But they're damn good when it comes to turning terrorists into finely-processed Alpo.

John at the Castle suggests the "Go Code" might have been "Pickle."

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In completely unrelated news, I saw Ann Coulter in several news clips last night. I'll save my comments on her for later, but I couldn't help but think that in her gesticulating and movement she resembled someone I'd seen before...



Yeah, that was who it was. I miss the Muppet Show.

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In Defense of The Press, Part I

The press is currently the favorite whipping-boy among conservative blogs. Alleged botched, slanted, left-leaning coverage is now the leading issue on the right side of the blogosphere, having surpassed the Iraqi insurgency as the primary target of hatred. Ironic, perhaps, since one of the main allegations leveled by right-wing blogs toward the media is that the media ignores the reprehensible actions of the insurgents and focuses its energy instead on scandals involving our own troops.

Oddly enough, the men who founded our country thought having a free press was pretty important -- the protection of the press was included in the very first amendment made to the Constitution. Despite how the children over at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler howl for journalists to be hung, there's a very critical role for the press and modern-day media to play in making democracy work. Simply, the press acts as an additional and independent set of checks and balances for the rest of the government -- making sure the populace is fully informed about the actions of those they elect to represent them. Examples of this in action are too numerous and well-known to bother citing.

America's military is made up of individuals who are all paid with tax dollars, meaning that each and every soldier, sailor, marine, and airman is a public servant, from the lowliest private to the most decorated general. The military is accountable to the public for its actions, and the public, having no choice but to fork over a third of its collective income to the government, has a right to know what its investment is up to and how well it is performing its job, which in the military's case is primarily the security of those same citizens. Hence the title, Department of Defense.

Naturally, for many reasons, security and safety primary among them, the public cannot possibly be immediately privvy to everything the military does. However, that does not change the fact that the military (and the rest of the government) operates under a public trust. When that trust is broken, the People (as in, "We the People") have a right to know.

Enter the military's public affairs branch, and the Defense Department's Principles of Information:

"It is Department of Defense policy to make available timely and accurate information so that the public, the Congress, and the news media may assess and understand the facts about national security and defense strategy. Requests for information from organizations and private citizens shall be answered quickly. In carrying out that DoD policy, the following principles of information shall apply:

"Information shall be made fully and readily available, consistent with statutory requirements, unless its release is precluded by national security constraints or valid statutory mandates or exceptions. The Freedom of Information Act will be supported in both letter and spirit.

"A free flow of general and military information shall be made available, without censorship or propaganda, to the men and women of the Armed Forces and their dependents.

"Information will not be classified or otherwise withheld to protect the Government from criticism or embarrassment.

"Information shall be withheld when disclosure would adversely affect national security, threaten the safety or privacy of U.S. Government personnel or their families, violate the privacy of the citizens of the United States, or be contrary to law.

"The Department of Defense's obligation to provide the public with information on DoD major programs may require detailed Public Affairs (PA) planning and coordination in the Department of Defense and with the other Government Agencies. Such activity is to expedite the flow of information to the public; propaganda has no place in DoD public affairs programs."

A lofty set of rules, to be sure. The first set of these I saw were signed by then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

Due to my own current involvement in the Army's public affairs program, I'm going to decline further comment at this particular time. However, I've seen enough to know that reporters are right not to trust everything spoken from an official podium.

And why would they? The goals of the public affairs branch and those of the press are inherently different. Given the press' role as a watchdog for the rest of the government, I prefer that they err on the side of cynicism. State-run media, as a general rule, have not been historically very helpful.

In many cases, and the military is one of them, the press is the only means by which a government agency can be expected to be held accountable to its masters -- the citizens whose tax dollars fund it. So go ahead, Rottweiler and whoever else would blame the media for every misstep in Iraq -- string all the journalists up and see what happens to this free country you love to extoll so much. Refuse to acknowledge the fissures and failures that continue to plague the human endeavor called government, and line the press corps up against the wall. Do it, and see what happens to your Free Country.

I think you'd be in for some very frightening surprises.

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Ratings

In my last post, I referred to several failures on the part of the Bush administration as if they were stipulations of fact. The one I imagine riled the most military nerves would have been the claim that George W. Bush's administration has failed to show any measurable progress in Iraq. For the folks over at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, that's probably enough to qualify me for inclusion into their oft-recited motto:

Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required.

They sell T-shirts, in case you don't click the link above.

But I thought I might offer readers the chance to evaluate my claim. Here are several measures whereby the United States might have shown progress in the past year in Iraq. Rate each on a scale of 1 - 10, with 1 being "no progress," and 10 being "goal accomplished":

1) Ability to reduce the number of troops in the region
2) Efficacy of the Iraqi National Army
3) Efficacy of the Iraqi police force
4) Ability of the newly-formed Iraqi government to make laws
5) Ability of the newly-formed Iraqi government to enforce laws
6) Strength of the anti-American insurgency
7) Level of personal freedom of the average Iraqi
8) Amount of national treasure, per annum, spent on efforts to "stabilize" the region.
9) Number of civilian Iraqi deaths, per month
10) Number of United States military casualties, per month.

That rating system provides for a possible 100 points. Please leave the score you assess in the comments section.

Why? Because... it's Evolution, baby!

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Update: Since I mentioned nicedoggie.net, I thought it might be appropriate to add a corollary scale. Additionally rate each item based on the complicity of the press, with 1 being "no involvement," and 10 being "completely responsible."

The world will be better off, of course, when all journalists have been lynched, since every alleged failure over the course of this war can be traced back to the anti-American free press... which strangely was guaranteed by the hallowed constitution.

Like clockwork

After having screwed the pooch on illegal immigration, after increasing the national deficit ceiling to $9 trillion, after admitting to an extensive domestic spying program, and after failing to show much measurable progress in Iraq, the Bush administration is predictably anticipating the 2006 elections with a bi-annual revisitation of the gay marriage issue.

Poll numbers for George Bush have been in steady decline for a while now, even in GOP stalwart states such as Utah. But that's not yet a cause for concern, because the embattled administration can reliably pull out their silver bullet issue of the Sanctity of Marriage, and thereby mobilize huge swaths of single-issue voters.

I knew this was going to happen. As November nears, expect to see well-publicized debates between our representatives on issues that are increasingly non-war-related. It doesn't take a Nostradamus to predict what these will be -- flag burning, gay marriage, and abortion.

In other knee-jerk reaction news, I'm mulling over the possibility of resigning my membership to the MilBlog ring.

In general, the reaction to the allegations of Marines slaughtering Iraqi civilians in Haditha has been reprehensible, and I'm uncomfortable with the idea of being associated with a group of people who in many cases are busying themselves with shrugging the incident off, making excuses for the Marines involved, or claiming that those killed were probably insurgents who had it coming anyway.

This prominent blogger says taking the Haditha citizen's accounts of what happened is stupid.

This one says he needs incontrivertible evidence before he'll even consider the possibility that "our troops" did anything wrong.

CDR Salamander says: Acknowledge, Accept, Analyze, Act -- and suggests a scale of "credibility" with those who have never deployed at the bottom and those who have faced hostile enemy fire at the top.

Greyhawk posted about the difference between "provoked" and "unprovoked," suggesting that since a roadside bomb exploded before the alleged massacre, then it actually was provoked.

Most have made the disclaimer that "the facts aren't all in," and that they're reserving judgment until such time as they are. Funny, the facts didn't all need to be in on things like, oh, weapons of mass destruction or Hussein's ties to al Qaeda before we started sending tanks over there. It's an interesting shift in the requirements for justification.

Personally, I think this "circle the wagons" reaction is disgusting. It's not only a blatant display of a collective refusal to acknowledge what seems to have happened, it's also a perfect opportunity for right-wing blogs to take pot-shots at their favorite straw man, the "Left-Wing, Pinko, Defeatist, Islamo-Fascist-Hugging, Hippie Media."

It's such a common anthem -- a story arises in the press that indicates our service members aren't the glowing paragons of virtue that appear in recruiting commercials, and the automatic reaction is to shoot the messenger.

I'm going to go through the blogroll and do a culling. This site gets about 50 hits per day, so I'm a pretty small fish in this pond, but I'm determined to eliminate any indication of support for bloggers who are not interested in truth, but only in advancing their own grassroots propaganda movement.

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Haditha

Only the dead have seen the end of war.
-- Plato

War is the continuation of politics by other means.
-- Karl Von Clausewitz

November 19, 2005: 24 civilians, including women and young children, in the Iraqi city of Haditha are dead. Implicated in their deaths are Marines from Company K, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. Prior to the deaths of the civilians, a roadside bomb exploded as the Marines' convoy passed by, killing 20-year-old Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas. According to various reports, the Marines responded to small-arms fire from multiple directions immediately after the explosion that killed Terrazas.

An official statement was released immediately following the subsequent deaths of civilians.

According to The Washington Post:

The first account of the killings there was a false or erroneous statement issued the next day, Nov. 20, by a U.S. Marine spokesman from a Marine base in Ramadi: "A U.S. Marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another.''

However, since that first report, other events of November 19 have come to light. Time magazine reported that it had obtained a videotape from a Haditha journalism student that contradicted the Marines' official statement. Via the Associated Press:

The charges against the Marines were first brought forward by Time magazine, which reported this week [in March] that it obtained a videotape two months ago taken by a Haditha journalism student that shows the dead still in their nightclothes.

According to eye witnesses who spoke to The Washington Post, after the bomb exploded, two squads of Company K Marines allegedly went from house to house, finding unarmed civilians inside and summarily executing them:

In the house with Ali and his 66-year-old wife, Khamisa Tuma Ali, were three of the middle-aged male members of their family, at least one daughter-in-law and four children -- 4-year-old Abdullah, 8-year-old Iman, 5-year-old Abdul Rahman and 2-month-old Asia.

Marines entered shooting, witnesses recalled. Most of the shots -- in Ali's house and two others -- were fired at such close range that they went through the bodies of the family members and plowed into walls or the floor, physicians at Haditha's hospital said.

A daughter-in-law, identified as Hibbah, escaped with Asia, survivors and neighbors said. Iman and Abdul Rahman were shot but survived. Four-year-old Abdullah, Ali and the rest died.

Ali took nine rounds in the chest and abdomen, leaving his intestines spilling out of the exit wounds in his back, according to his death certificate.

The Post could not independently verify these reports, but the death certificates issued from the Haditha hospital seemed to support the witnesses' claims, and according to CNN, the Pentagon's own investigations into the incident have determined that the civilians were probably killed "without provocation."

The Haditha hospital's death certificates also indicated that some of the bodies had been charred, supporting allegations that the Marines had used grenades during their alleged assault, in addition to point-blank rifle fire.

Company K has since rotated back to the United States, and Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, Capt. Luke McConnell and Capt. James Kimber, both company commanders, have been relieved of command as the Defense Department and Naval Criminal Investigative Service conduct their official probe into the incident.

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These, as far as I can tell, are the facts of the case. The appropriate officials are currently conducting their investigations, and once these have been completed, it may be easier to put together a coherent timeline of events.

However, the volume of damning evidence is hard to ignore. A videotape of the bodies, death certificates issued by the hospital, and photographs that contradict the first official statement do not paint a pretty picture of what the Marines did in Haditha on Nov. 19.

Haditha, it seems, was known for its high volume of Improvised Explosive Devices. Some also say that insurgents in the area notoriously used women and children as human shields. But the ferocity that the two squads are reported to have used against the three households is unfathomable -- particularly if reports that there was only a single AK-47 between the three are accurate.

No event happens in a vacuum, particularly not now, in an age where information can be passed around the world over in mere seconds. The world is screaming for justice, and perhaps justice will eventually be done. I doubt, however, that whatever justice the U.S. military eventually decides upon will be sufficient to recoup the credibility, trust, and respect America has lost as a direct result of this carnage.

It isn't as if there's any of that to spare, anyway. And no investigation, no amount of individual punishment, will do anything to patch the widening hole out of which credibility, trust, and respect are currently hemorrhaging. Whether the U.S. has earned the world's distrust or not is immaterial, practically speaking. Despite the fact that it was an incident that involved a relatively small number of people, Haditha, like Abu Ghraib and My Lai before it, will become one of the ugly scars on the memory of America's involvement in Iraq... and it will be one that is a long time in healing.

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UPDATE: Some heated discussion over the distinction between "provoked" and "unprovoked" and how it relates to the Marines' alleged actions is going on over at Greyhawk's place, in the Comments section.

UPDATE II: Open Post at Mudville.

Terri Blair story

Okay, it's almost a week after the fact. But I work for a weekly paper, so that's the way it goes. Here, finally, is the story I did on the Terri Blair win over Sumya Anani for the Women's IBA Welterweight title.

PRO BOXING - Blair retains crown with ninth round TKO

By SPC. IAN BOUDREAU/Turret staff writer

The fight was billed "Retaliation," but Sumya Anani didn't get a chance to avenge her March 25 loss to Terri "The Road Warrior" Blair, who defeated Anani by a technical knockout in a remarkable ninth round finish at Louisville Gardens Saturday, retaining her International Boxing Association champion title in the women's welterweight class.

Blair, who improved to eight wins (five by knockout), 10 losses, and two draws, took an early beating from the more-experienced Anani (25-3-1), who connected a powerful hook to Blair's head in the first round. Through the ninth round, Anani led on all three judge's scorecards.

Anani, widely regarded as the most feared fighter in women's boxing, was more aggressive throughout the match, with Blair stepping back or around as Anani pushed forward.

However, Blair--a southpaw from Paintsville, Ky., fighting in her adopted home town--was dishing out enough punishment to wear the visiting Kansas native down.

By the eighth round, Anani was hunched forward, and after lunging forward with a jab, she stumbled and fell to her knees as Blair counterattacked.

On her feet again, Anani quickly went back on the offensive, managing several hits to Blair's head and body. Blair kept her distance, though, and sent the wobbling "Island Girl" to the mat twice in the ninth with stunning blows to Anani's head.

The third and final knockdown came during the final second of the ninth round. Referee Robert Dixon halted the fight, declaring Blair the victor by technical knockout.

The victory occurred in an appropriate setting.

The Gardens is located on Louisville's West Muhammad Ali Boulevard. A native of Louisville, Ali battled George Foreman in the legendary "Rumble in the Jungle" on Oct. 20, 1974, in the Congo. On the line was the world heavyweight title, and Ali was a heavy underdog after three years of suspension from boxing.

However, after apparently dominating five rounds, Foreman was sapped of energy in the humid heat of the outdoor ring. In an interview displayed in Louisville's nearby Ali Center, Foreman said Ali whispered to him, "Is that all you got, George?"

Ali went on to win by knockout with a combination of a left hook and a straight smash to Foreman's face, sending him down for 10 counts.

Blair, who was born in Paintsville a year later, said the win should quiet any discussion of her March win by TKO over Anani for the IBA title as a fluke.

"I beat her legitimately," she said.

There was no ill-will between the two fighters, though. Immediately after she was declared the victor, Blair rushed over to Anani's corner, where the two hugged.

It was Blair's first time fighting in her new hometown. She dedicated the match to her grandmother, Renia Blair, who passed away at the age of 76 Tuesday in Paintsville to a sudden heart attack.

After hearing the news, Blair immediately headed home for the Friday funeral, missing a press conference scheduled that day and just barely making it back to Louisville in time for the official weigh-in.

Despite--or perhaps, because of--her emotional week, it was Blair who hefted the women's IBA welterweight title belt after the final bell sounded.

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Memorial Day photos

Subtitle: A Day Late and a Buck Short.

Anyhow, here are two shots I took over the Memorial Day weekend.



A 21-gun salute battery was fired during Fort Knox's Memorial Day ceremony Monday.



The local VFW left a wreath at Louisville's WWII memorial.

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UPDATE: Open Post at Mudville.

Summer's here

I'm sitting in my room under a ceiling fan that's on full blast. It's 11:20 p.m., and I'm still sweating.

Earlier this week, my roommate and I found a notice on our garage. It seems the Vine Grove natives are unhappy with our rainforest project (they call it a "lawn," and they want it mowed). We've been working to fix that problem for the past few days, and with nearly two and a half acres of three-foot grass to take care of, it's taking us longer than we had expected.

I went out around noon today to do a segment, and after an hour I was drenched. I hate summer.

This, of course, is peanuts compared to the 100-plus degree weather my comrades are suffering through in the Sand Box. I can't imagine that's much fun. A year of constant heat, dust storms, and sniper fire.

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, and I'll be shooting the Fort Knox ceremony. More later. I'll be here, sweating profusely.

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Terri Blair wins by knockout

I snapped these photos from one of the white corners during the Terri Blair win tonight.



I probably won't use this one because of the blur, but the action is intense -- punctuated by the sweat flying off the left fighter. Since my flash sucks, I was betting that there would be little to no chance that I'd be able to get it to fire at the right time, so I used available light and the fastest lens I could manage. Naturally, a lot of the photos came out pretty blurry.



Here's Terri -- I think this was during the first round. I was seriously unsure of how things were going up until around the seventh, when Blair definitely had her opponent reeling.



Strangely, while I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to get my own ancient flash to fire in time, I did somehow manage to snap one in sync with a different photographer's flash. The effect is neat.

The ninth round was brutal -- it started off with Blair's opponent lunging forward and losing her balance, hitting the mat. She got up and decided she was still in the fight, but trying to regain lost ground with sheer ferocity wound up costing her. Blair kept her at a distance, and when she'd lunge, Blair would come in for a crushing left. Here, she's down for the third and final time.



Here's another one I won't be able to use in the paper... but again, the effect is nice. Basically, this was an instance where I tried to make my resentful flash work, but it didn't go off. The highlight from the spotlight creates another neat image. It sort of says "Million Dollar Baby," doesn't it?



I'll have to go over my hastily-scribbled notes for more details on the fight. But the most important facts are that Terri Blair defended her title, winning by three knockouts in the ninth round.

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Thursday night musings

My roommate drives a beat up old Chevy pickup. It has a new engine, but the driver's side windshield wiper falls off regularly, the front end has been hit by something large, and the tailgate is missing.

We were heading up to a place called TK's Bar in Louisville. It had just finished storming, so the streets were slick with hot rain. I had rolled the passenger window down so I could smoke, and I watched the lightning flash in the angry clouds headed east. We passed by the Dixie Highway's usual suspects -- low-rent strip clubs, redneck bars, abandoned used car dealerships, bait shops, body shops, fast food joints, and other monuments to dreams gone sour.

The bar was a nice place -- apparently, a happening joint, as the DJ pumped up some popular club anthems once the karaoke requests dried up. I ordered a beer and leaned on the bar, sipping the familiar Newcastle.

Lately, it's been hard not to think of things here as transitory pieces of scenery. I've finally reached the point where the light at the end of the tunnel is visible, even if it's still more than a year distant. "This too shall pass," I've heard. It makes sense now.

I joined the Army because I thought it would offer a unique first experience in journalism, which it most definitely has. But now, as I head into the final leg of my military tour, I wonder what the indelible mark it leaves on me will look like. Have I grown overly resentful of the U.S. government? Have I developed an undue contempt for people in general, thanks to being an enlisted soldier? Was it my joining the Army that has so radically altered my perceptions, or was it the times I've lived in? Does it matter?

The girl my roommate drove to TK's to meet finally showed up. She was beautiful, but hammered, and 19 years old. I looked at her, with her tight black shirt hiked up over her belly showing off the bejeweled navel piercing and thought about how she was two years older than my little sister. I turned back to the bar and ordered a Bass.

Jeffrey Gettlemen is two years older than I am. He works for the New York Times. Where will I be in two years? Where will my little sisters be? I've missed out on seeing them grow into young adults already.

It's like being part of a big entropy experiment... the elements of my life I thought I'd never be without have continuously spread apart just as I've drifted away from our original point.

My roommate's drunk young friend left us for another table of her friends, and we headed out to the parking lot and climbed back into the beat-up old truck.

It's time to focus. I'm not old, yet. But I'm not getting any younger.

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I always thought this was a stupid slogan

We really walked straight into this one:



Mike Peters, Dayton Daily News.

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Hamsters

Television advertising campaigns are generally shaped not only by the product being pushed, but also by the whims of small groups of shaved monkeys who corporations keep in locked rooms called "focus groups."

Focus groups are shown numerous ideas, which are generated by teams of lobotomized writers who work deep within the musty bowels of advertising agencies. The ideas the monkeys react most positively to (the formula is: [feces throwing + screaming] * time) are processed into sitcoms, new products, and advertisements.

Evidently, this month the monkeys have determined that we will buy things when companies appeal to our desire to be masculine. At least four companies have adopted campaigns that reflect this:

Burger King: "I Am Man, Hear Me Roar." A musical number that depicts men everywhere shuffling off the coils of feminine oppression by, among other things, throwing a minivan off an overpass and into a large dump truck, which is being pulled by a strongman in a unitard who is struggling to reach a cheeseburger dangling at the end of a fishing pole -- which is held by a busty model wearing pink. This is to the tune of something called the "Manthem."

Miller Lite: "Man Laws." Comedian Eddie Griffin leads the "Men of the Square Table," whose number includes the likes of Burt Reynolds (too bad Charles Bronson couldn't have made it) and ex-Steelers running back Jerome Bettis. The men hammer out the details of various Man Laws, such as "It is forbidden to name any pet 'Fluffy,' 'Snowball,' or 'Mr. Whiskers.' "

TGI Friday's: Something along the lines of "We've got the meat you've been craving." Four dudes sit at a Friday's table and get their orders -- one screams, "BEEF!" Another chimes in, "PORK!" The third roars, "RIBS!" The fourth loser picks up some broccoli and sings "VEGETABLE MEDLEY!" The others look at him as if he just said he'd like to make out with Elton John. Realizing his mistake, the fourth picks up a different item from his plate. "SAUSAGE!" he screams, and everyone seems pleased.

Dodge: A fairy flies around a cityscape, trying to turn things into crap from Candyland. Everything transforms until she encounters the new Dodge Caliber, which resists her efforts at sissification. A hard-assed looking dude with a pitbull shows up and makes fun of her, and she zaps him with her wand, changing him into an effette Easter-season J.C. Penny model and his dog into a poodle.

It's weird that these ads have all come out around the same time. However, I for one am glad that the focus group monkeys have finally told me what products I need to purchase in order to be a true man. Pass the Mitchum!

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Pseudo-promotion

I've been promoted... sort of.

No rank has been gained -- I'm still a lowly specialist, which is Army for "shitbag." Instead, I've garnered some new real estate on the paper's masthead: "Section A Layout and Design Editor."

The other interesting fact is that the title comes with no new responsibilities; since our associate editor (colloquially referred to as the "ass ed") was sidelined after an automobile accident last Thanksgiving, I've been taking on her duties.

Those who read this space regularly know that I gripe a lot. I need you to suspend your disbelief for a moment and believe me when I tell you that I'm not a very complaintive person -- the last thing I want to do (other than, maybe, be covered in venomous tarantulas) is bitch about the recognition I get. I'm a pretty agreeable person in real life. No, seriously. Scout's honor.

Basically, it took six months of doing the job for me to wind up talking to the Boss about this title issue, and it only happened then when another staffer sort of forced my hand during lunch last Wednesday.

The end result of this is that I've got a new unwieldy title. The awkwardness of it comes from the fact that the people I work with are all GS-7s and GS-9s, and while I have only a vague notion of how civilians work out their rank structure, it seems pretty apparent that 9s don't tend to work for specialists.

Hence the invention of my new name.

Don't get me wrong, though. I used to work with this guy, who is now in Taji, Iraq, and will be for another 16 months. Like I said, the last thing I want to do is bitch about the place I work.

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