Monday
9/02/03
The Whippany Zone
So it’s Saturday night, around nine thirty or ten, and from somewhere in the distance I hear Frank Sinatra. It sounds like he’s trying to engage a small group with a bit of patter just before he breaks into Fly me to the Moon. "Strange…" I think to myself. I check my watch. Yup, still 2003. Stranger still, I’m listening to this voice in the lobby of a Marriott in Whippany, N.J.
In any case, I followed the singing (now it was about that pesky Summer Wind) around a corner, through the lounge, and into the Auld Shebeen Pub where I was greeted by a mostly empty bar being crooned to by a balding middle aged man complete with microphone and rumpled tux. (His collar was open with tie swinging freely, suggesting, I assume, an after hours feel in your favorite saloon.) A Sinatra impersonator. In the flesh, right in front of me. Ah, but really an impersonator? I don’t know what he considered himself, and I not sure what label is accurate for two notable reasons. One: you would never mistake my guy for Sinatra, as he looked much more like the cranky cop on The Rockford Files than the Chairman, and Two: My guy sounded great.
I’m willing to bet that the lookers do a fine of job standing around with that Sinatra smirk that says "Yeah, I just bitch-slapped Lawford, what about it?", but my guy sounded like the real thing. He had that throaty rumble of the mature Frank that always sounded in danger of breaking up just before the next lyric suddenly took off and soared. We moved on to All the Way. Great stuff. In any case, never being one to simply enjoy something for what it is, I began to wonder…
In the summer of 1990 some friends and I saw Frank at Radio City. We had, admittedly, gotten the tickets pretty much as a goof, but when the date finally came around, we were all actually exited to go. As it turned out, the crowd was an interesting mix that we didn’t expect. There was, as you would imagine, a fair number of older, stodgy looking white people, but the balance of the crowd was younger, made up entirely of twenty and thirty somethings, who were clearly there to enjoy themselves in a completely irony-free way. So we sat and relaxed. And thoroughly enjoyed.
At the time, Sinatra broke up his show into different parts, during one of which he took on the persona of the lonely saloon crooner doing torch songs. Angel Eyes. What’s New? One for my Baby. Yes, by that point in Frank’s career he was sort of a parody of himself, but no matter, it sure looked like he was having a good time, and I know we did too.
Which brings us back to the Whippany NJ Marriott and my guy. He had the whole tired crooner thing down pat. Urbane yet slightly rumpled around the corners. Gregarious yet slightly weary. Singing for a few people who were willing to listen even though they had never heard of him. I wondered, looking at him, how long he had been doing this? He must have realized long ago that he had real talent and a great voice, but I wondered when this act became the gig.
He looked over at our table where we were waiting for dinner and my youngest had his hands planted firmly over his ears. My guy chuckled and said "Hey, look at this kid, now that’s the kind of fan I’m used to!" Essentially he is Frank, only instead of making fun of drunks in Vegas for a couple million a year, my guy is on the wrong side of the Twilight Zone, living the persona for real in Whippany, NJ.
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The Whippany Zone
So it’s Saturday night, around nine thirty or ten, and from somewhere in the distance I hear Frank Sinatra. It sounds like he’s trying to engage a small group with a bit of patter just before he breaks into Fly me to the Moon. "Strange…" I think to myself. I check my watch. Yup, still 2003. Stranger still, I’m listening to this voice in the lobby of a Marriott in Whippany, N.J.
In any case, I followed the singing (now it was about that pesky Summer Wind) around a corner, through the lounge, and into the Auld Shebeen Pub where I was greeted by a mostly empty bar being crooned to by a balding middle aged man complete with microphone and rumpled tux. (His collar was open with tie swinging freely, suggesting, I assume, an after hours feel in your favorite saloon.) A Sinatra impersonator. In the flesh, right in front of me. Ah, but really an impersonator? I don’t know what he considered himself, and I not sure what label is accurate for two notable reasons. One: you would never mistake my guy for Sinatra, as he looked much more like the cranky cop on The Rockford Files than the Chairman, and Two: My guy sounded great.
I’m willing to bet that the lookers do a fine of job standing around with that Sinatra smirk that says "Yeah, I just bitch-slapped Lawford, what about it?", but my guy sounded like the real thing. He had that throaty rumble of the mature Frank that always sounded in danger of breaking up just before the next lyric suddenly took off and soared. We moved on to All the Way. Great stuff. In any case, never being one to simply enjoy something for what it is, I began to wonder…
In the summer of 1990 some friends and I saw Frank at Radio City. We had, admittedly, gotten the tickets pretty much as a goof, but when the date finally came around, we were all actually exited to go. As it turned out, the crowd was an interesting mix that we didn’t expect. There was, as you would imagine, a fair number of older, stodgy looking white people, but the balance of the crowd was younger, made up entirely of twenty and thirty somethings, who were clearly there to enjoy themselves in a completely irony-free way. So we sat and relaxed. And thoroughly enjoyed.
At the time, Sinatra broke up his show into different parts, during one of which he took on the persona of the lonely saloon crooner doing torch songs. Angel Eyes. What’s New? One for my Baby. Yes, by that point in Frank’s career he was sort of a parody of himself, but no matter, it sure looked like he was having a good time, and I know we did too.
Which brings us back to the Whippany NJ Marriott and my guy. He had the whole tired crooner thing down pat. Urbane yet slightly rumpled around the corners. Gregarious yet slightly weary. Singing for a few people who were willing to listen even though they had never heard of him. I wondered, looking at him, how long he had been doing this? He must have realized long ago that he had real talent and a great voice, but I wondered when this act became the gig.
He looked over at our table where we were waiting for dinner and my youngest had his hands planted firmly over his ears. My guy chuckled and said "Hey, look at this kid, now that’s the kind of fan I’m used to!" Essentially he is Frank, only instead of making fun of drunks in Vegas for a couple million a year, my guy is on the wrong side of the Twilight Zone, living the persona for real in Whippany, NJ.
Thursday
8/27/03
So What Exactly is Major Combat?
I have no doubt that the Bush administration will be quietly ignoring a very sad milestone that they’ve achieved for themselves today: More U.S. troops have now died in the absence of "major combat" than did during the "war" itself. What, I wonder will be their response, if there’s any at all, to such a landmark. Will the media ask for any sort of comment? Will the media wonder if perhaps the White House has any sort of message for the troop’s families? Will anyone wonder aloud if, perhaps, just maybe, we’re not on the right course?
I suspect we know better. The so-called liberal media has long since been cowed by this administration’s united front that shifts so easily between smug dismisivness and the shameless portrayal of many questions as, in order of severity: irrelevant, impertinent, inappropriate, and dangerously unpatriotic.
One of the masters of this front is Donald Rumsfeld. I must admit that before this nightmare of perpetual combat began with the hunt for Ossama bin Laden (Who? Huh?), Donald Rumsfeld struck me as a refreshingly plain spoken, no-nonsense sort of guy. A guy known for his love of precise language. Plainspoken and nonsense-free are of course two fine attributes when one has a clear agenda and nothing to hide. These qualities are, however, a double-edged sword when things aren’t going so well. We have seen this man scold reporters for using the terms "guerrilla warfare" and "quagmire", only to be embarrassed by the truth later on. He dismisses entire lines of questioning out of hand, and, as Gary Trudeau has so enjoyably noted in a recent series of strips, he allows his increasingly uncontrollable frustration to quash even the semblance of a dialog with those who would dare hint that things are less than rosy.
So where does this leave us? What new horrible milestones will we have to endure before the spell is broken and middle America stands and says "Enough"? I really don’t know, but in what was a pretty subdued country before we got there, it still looks like Major Combat to me.
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So What Exactly is Major Combat?
I have no doubt that the Bush administration will be quietly ignoring a very sad milestone that they’ve achieved for themselves today: More U.S. troops have now died in the absence of "major combat" than did during the "war" itself. What, I wonder will be their response, if there’s any at all, to such a landmark. Will the media ask for any sort of comment? Will the media wonder if perhaps the White House has any sort of message for the troop’s families? Will anyone wonder aloud if, perhaps, just maybe, we’re not on the right course?
I suspect we know better. The so-called liberal media has long since been cowed by this administration’s united front that shifts so easily between smug dismisivness and the shameless portrayal of many questions as, in order of severity: irrelevant, impertinent, inappropriate, and dangerously unpatriotic.
One of the masters of this front is Donald Rumsfeld. I must admit that before this nightmare of perpetual combat began with the hunt for Ossama bin Laden (Who? Huh?), Donald Rumsfeld struck me as a refreshingly plain spoken, no-nonsense sort of guy. A guy known for his love of precise language. Plainspoken and nonsense-free are of course two fine attributes when one has a clear agenda and nothing to hide. These qualities are, however, a double-edged sword when things aren’t going so well. We have seen this man scold reporters for using the terms "guerrilla warfare" and "quagmire", only to be embarrassed by the truth later on. He dismisses entire lines of questioning out of hand, and, as Gary Trudeau has so enjoyably noted in a recent series of strips, he allows his increasingly uncontrollable frustration to quash even the semblance of a dialog with those who would dare hint that things are less than rosy.
So where does this leave us? What new horrible milestones will we have to endure before the spell is broken and middle America stands and says "Enough"? I really don’t know, but in what was a pretty subdued country before we got there, it still looks like Major Combat to me.
Monday
As per 8/22 the boys and I went, oddly enough, panning for gold over the weekend. And what did we find? Even more oddly we found a little bit of stuff that looks like gold. Some of it I’m sure is iron pyrite, but I’ll be darned if we didn’t find one chip that has flecks of what looks like the real thing in it. Of course I have no idea how to even tell or not… anybody?
Anyhow… here’s a story from today’s news that makes me think that someone must have given the go-ahead to the oil companies for a little just-in-time-for-the-big-Labor-Day-driving-week bonus gas price hike. Just a little "go on, make something up about a pipeline or whatever, we're not gonna say anything" annual thanks from an appreciative White House. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid. Either way, it’s enough to make you wonder just a little.
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Anyhow… here’s a story from today’s news that makes me think that someone must have given the go-ahead to the oil companies for a little just-in-time-for-the-big-Labor-Day-driving-week bonus gas price hike. Just a little "go on, make something up about a pipeline or whatever, we're not gonna say anything" annual thanks from an appreciative White House. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid. Either way, it’s enough to make you wonder just a little.
So last week the family had visited a pretty snappy attraction called Nature’s Art, at which we engaged in a little pastime I’m willing to bet almost no one else has. One of the activities at this place, as unlikely as it may seem, was panning for gold. There was an actual indoor slough, complete with sand and chunks of iron pyrite waiting to delight the little panners.
In any case, for reasons that now escape me, we came home with two of our own pans, complete with maps of the U.S. detailing each area’s potential geological goodies. Turns out that our area of southern New York and down into New Jersey should be just loaded with garnet and gold.
Well, possibly maybe just a little. But just enough that today’s activity with the boys is going to involve water shoes, bathing suits, pans and the Ramapo river. Wish us luck... and I guess if this site never gets updated again and we all disappear to the Caribbean, you’ll know why.
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In any case, for reasons that now escape me, we came home with two of our own pans, complete with maps of the U.S. detailing each area’s potential geological goodies. Turns out that our area of southern New York and down into New Jersey should be just loaded with garnet and gold.
Well, possibly maybe just a little. But just enough that today’s activity with the boys is going to involve water shoes, bathing suits, pans and the Ramapo river. Wish us luck... and I guess if this site never gets updated again and we all disappear to the Caribbean, you’ll know why.
Thursday
Kids, Cars and Clams
So we survived. Epic traffic jams, sold out events and rain. Two hyperactive little boys in one small hotel room and even a blackout. We actually had, on balance, a fine time up in Mystic. It really is the quintessentially all-American-summer-car-trip destination.
We started out with a little bit of dinosaur action at Dinosaur State Park, where they have a small but entertaining museum built over a large set of Dinosaur tracks. Of course it rained on us, but no matter, the family went on the accompanying nature walk with barely a whine. Well, with rather a lot of whining really, but I’m just concentrating on the positives today. I’d say the folks and kids agree: it was an average 3 out of 5 on the family fun scale.
We then moved along to Mystic itself and had a fab seaside lunch at, go figure, the Sea View Snack Bar. Fried clams, extra tartar sauce and root beer, all with a great view of the harbor and about twenty or thirty youngsters learning to sail in the afternoon breeze. Its was the kind of scene that sort of sneaks up on you and reminds you out of the blue just how damn lucky we are to be Americans living in the twenty first century. Really almost enough to make you wonder what everybody in the world is so pissed at us about. Almost. But anyway, it was time to amuse the kids, so off to the hotel we went for mandatory jumping on beds and pool time.
The next day greeted us with a shining sun and a chance to visit the Mystic aquarium. It turned out that the "penguin contact" floating-around-and-touching-penguin-thing was already sold out, but I figured it was just as well since they look kind of like big Central Park pigeons to me anyway. The aquarium itself is really top notch, though. They have a great big outdoor Plexiglas-sided pool with beluga whales, and lots of indoor tanks with appropriately creepy whatevers swimming around. They have all the requisite sharks, sea lions and jellyfish, and, best of all, unlike Coney Island’s, this aquarium is a clean and pleasant place to be. In fact, when it came time to hide from the sun and have some lunch, there’s even a quiet, shaded café with quick service, decent food and reasonable prices. Oh, and the behind the scenes private tour is very cool. All in all, I’d say it gets an enthusiastic 4.5 out of 5.
Now of course because things were going so well, I decided that we would have to close out the day with an activity that I wanted to do but was sure to make the little ones wriggle with despair. So off we went to see the Nautilus.
"But you see, it’s not just a submarine, but the world’s first nuclear powered submarine." I said in a well-practiced enthusiastic tone.
"Awwww…" came the inevitable reply. "We’re exhausted!"
"Yes," I said, "Do you know why you’re exhausted?" I knew not to wait for a reply. "Because both of you were up last night fighting about beds and pillows until eleven o’clock." At this point I’m completely familiar with that blank look of total incomprehension in the back seat. "Good. So now we’re going to go see a big, impressive submarine."
Well sort of. If you’ve ever been in a submarine, you know that they’re small inside. Tiny really, and the Nautilus is no different, especially because they don’t even let you see most of it. In the end, the attached museum is more interesting, if only because you can look through some real periscopes. I’d say a 3 out of 5 for me and barely a 2 of 5 for the kids.
After that, we made it back to the room just in time for the lights to go out.
"Cool." said the boys.
"Yeah, great." said the folks. But, it turned out that, dinnerwise, Abbots still had both power and lobsters to offer us, so off we went. After a great deal of direction asking and spousal tension we finally arrived at the well secluded Abbots, only to find that of course everyone else in the state had already decided to go there and enjoy the power and lobsters. So off we went. Again.
As unlikely as it may seem, we did eventually find dinner, the world kept turning, and a bright, sunny new morning invited us to visit Nature’s Art. Nature’s Art is a place that is an amazing synthesis of kid activities, museum and bastion of capitalism. In fact it was sort of refreshing that they had given up any pretense that the whole enterprise was anything else than a finely tuned machine designed to relieve parents of their money. Their roadside marquee reads, I kid you not, "An Interactive Science, Nature and Shopping Experience".
Well, the kids of course were in heaven. They can dig for fossils. They can pan for gold in an indoor stream. They can dig for gems with lighted miner’s helmets. There’s a real paleontologist who will talk to you about anything you want to know. The kids can pick their own whole geodes of any size and have them cut open on the spot to reveal what’s inside. So, in other words, the place really is a lot of fun, which only exposes me for the curmudgeon that I am. Parent rating: 4 out of 5, kid rating: an enthusiastic 5 of 5.
There was of course mini golf played on this trip also, but Lord knows there isn’t a single interesting thing to say about that… suffice to say that we finished up the trip with a stop in New London to see Fort Trumbull. It’s pretty much what one would expect: newly refurbished visitor’s center, big granite fort, big iron cannons, big flag. Re-enactors in period costume firing muskets and such. All in all, a pleasantly mild way to spend an hour or two. Kids and parents agree: 3 out of 5.
So here’s my favorite part of the trip though: we’re siting stopped in traffic on I-95 going back south. God does 95 suck. If you’re from California, just imagine sitting on the 405. But anyway, I couldn’t for the life of me remember if I-84 meets 95 as an escape route, so I hopped off at exit 65 to look for a map. While there, it occurred to me that the Merritt Parkway couldn’t be that far, and sure enough, after fifteen minutes of wiggling our way northwest we found ourselves on the Merrit, speeding home at a satisfying 75 mph.
I was very proud of my self indeed, and despite getting my Lovely Bride’s "Um, yeah sure, you’re a real hero" look, I decided that I was suddenly ready to do the whole thing over again. And in fact we are. It seems that next week we’re going to the Land of Make Believe somewhere in New Jersey. Now I just know to bring a map.
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So we survived. Epic traffic jams, sold out events and rain. Two hyperactive little boys in one small hotel room and even a blackout. We actually had, on balance, a fine time up in Mystic. It really is the quintessentially all-American-summer-car-trip destination.
We started out with a little bit of dinosaur action at Dinosaur State Park, where they have a small but entertaining museum built over a large set of Dinosaur tracks. Of course it rained on us, but no matter, the family went on the accompanying nature walk with barely a whine. Well, with rather a lot of whining really, but I’m just concentrating on the positives today. I’d say the folks and kids agree: it was an average 3 out of 5 on the family fun scale.
We then moved along to Mystic itself and had a fab seaside lunch at, go figure, the Sea View Snack Bar. Fried clams, extra tartar sauce and root beer, all with a great view of the harbor and about twenty or thirty youngsters learning to sail in the afternoon breeze. Its was the kind of scene that sort of sneaks up on you and reminds you out of the blue just how damn lucky we are to be Americans living in the twenty first century. Really almost enough to make you wonder what everybody in the world is so pissed at us about. Almost. But anyway, it was time to amuse the kids, so off to the hotel we went for mandatory jumping on beds and pool time.
The next day greeted us with a shining sun and a chance to visit the Mystic aquarium. It turned out that the "penguin contact" floating-around-and-touching-penguin-thing was already sold out, but I figured it was just as well since they look kind of like big Central Park pigeons to me anyway. The aquarium itself is really top notch, though. They have a great big outdoor Plexiglas-sided pool with beluga whales, and lots of indoor tanks with appropriately creepy whatevers swimming around. They have all the requisite sharks, sea lions and jellyfish, and, best of all, unlike Coney Island’s, this aquarium is a clean and pleasant place to be. In fact, when it came time to hide from the sun and have some lunch, there’s even a quiet, shaded café with quick service, decent food and reasonable prices. Oh, and the behind the scenes private tour is very cool. All in all, I’d say it gets an enthusiastic 4.5 out of 5.
Now of course because things were going so well, I decided that we would have to close out the day with an activity that I wanted to do but was sure to make the little ones wriggle with despair. So off we went to see the Nautilus.
"But you see, it’s not just a submarine, but the world’s first nuclear powered submarine." I said in a well-practiced enthusiastic tone.
"Awwww…" came the inevitable reply. "We’re exhausted!"
"Yes," I said, "Do you know why you’re exhausted?" I knew not to wait for a reply. "Because both of you were up last night fighting about beds and pillows until eleven o’clock." At this point I’m completely familiar with that blank look of total incomprehension in the back seat. "Good. So now we’re going to go see a big, impressive submarine."
Well sort of. If you’ve ever been in a submarine, you know that they’re small inside. Tiny really, and the Nautilus is no different, especially because they don’t even let you see most of it. In the end, the attached museum is more interesting, if only because you can look through some real periscopes. I’d say a 3 out of 5 for me and barely a 2 of 5 for the kids.
After that, we made it back to the room just in time for the lights to go out.
"Cool." said the boys.
"Yeah, great." said the folks. But, it turned out that, dinnerwise, Abbots still had both power and lobsters to offer us, so off we went. After a great deal of direction asking and spousal tension we finally arrived at the well secluded Abbots, only to find that of course everyone else in the state had already decided to go there and enjoy the power and lobsters. So off we went. Again.
As unlikely as it may seem, we did eventually find dinner, the world kept turning, and a bright, sunny new morning invited us to visit Nature’s Art. Nature’s Art is a place that is an amazing synthesis of kid activities, museum and bastion of capitalism. In fact it was sort of refreshing that they had given up any pretense that the whole enterprise was anything else than a finely tuned machine designed to relieve parents of their money. Their roadside marquee reads, I kid you not, "An Interactive Science, Nature and Shopping Experience".
Well, the kids of course were in heaven. They can dig for fossils. They can pan for gold in an indoor stream. They can dig for gems with lighted miner’s helmets. There’s a real paleontologist who will talk to you about anything you want to know. The kids can pick their own whole geodes of any size and have them cut open on the spot to reveal what’s inside. So, in other words, the place really is a lot of fun, which only exposes me for the curmudgeon that I am. Parent rating: 4 out of 5, kid rating: an enthusiastic 5 of 5.
There was of course mini golf played on this trip also, but Lord knows there isn’t a single interesting thing to say about that… suffice to say that we finished up the trip with a stop in New London to see Fort Trumbull. It’s pretty much what one would expect: newly refurbished visitor’s center, big granite fort, big iron cannons, big flag. Re-enactors in period costume firing muskets and such. All in all, a pleasantly mild way to spend an hour or two. Kids and parents agree: 3 out of 5.
So here’s my favorite part of the trip though: we’re siting stopped in traffic on I-95 going back south. God does 95 suck. If you’re from California, just imagine sitting on the 405. But anyway, I couldn’t for the life of me remember if I-84 meets 95 as an escape route, so I hopped off at exit 65 to look for a map. While there, it occurred to me that the Merritt Parkway couldn’t be that far, and sure enough, after fifteen minutes of wiggling our way northwest we found ourselves on the Merrit, speeding home at a satisfying 75 mph.
I was very proud of my self indeed, and despite getting my Lovely Bride’s "Um, yeah sure, you’re a real hero" look, I decided that I was suddenly ready to do the whole thing over again. And in fact we are. It seems that next week we’re going to the Land of Make Believe somewhere in New Jersey. Now I just know to bring a map.
Tuesday
8/12/03...
August... what I had neglected in my earlier musings about the beginning of the end of summer is the old fashioned family-car-vacation. (Not that I'll miss this particular year in the least anyway. First it wouldn't stop snowing, and then it wouldn't stop raining. Then it was sunny for a few weeks, but now it's been dark, rainy and humid for so long that all sorts of plants we have are literally rotting in the ground. Grrrr... this years blows)
Hey, but anyway, tomorrow my lovely bride and I are tossing the kids and what I'm betting what will be a surprising amount of our belongings in the back of the van and setting off for Mystic Connecticut. Yeee haw. We're gonna see us some submarines and some dolphins and we're gonna play us some mini golf. You know the drill& just like when you were a kid and you and your siblings had to sit in the back seat on the way to visit a house where George Washington's secretary's half-brother may or may have not slept. Or signed something. Or whatever.
Anyway, I'm sure this trip will provide plenty of blog fodder for a long time to come, but until then here's a story about our very first family-car-trip.
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August... what I had neglected in my earlier musings about the beginning of the end of summer is the old fashioned family-car-vacation. (Not that I'll miss this particular year in the least anyway. First it wouldn't stop snowing, and then it wouldn't stop raining. Then it was sunny for a few weeks, but now it's been dark, rainy and humid for so long that all sorts of plants we have are literally rotting in the ground. Grrrr... this years blows)
Hey, but anyway, tomorrow my lovely bride and I are tossing the kids and what I'm betting what will be a surprising amount of our belongings in the back of the van and setting off for Mystic Connecticut. Yeee haw. We're gonna see us some submarines and some dolphins and we're gonna play us some mini golf. You know the drill& just like when you were a kid and you and your siblings had to sit in the back seat on the way to visit a house where George Washington's secretary's half-brother may or may have not slept. Or signed something. Or whatever.
Anyway, I'm sure this trip will provide plenty of blog fodder for a long time to come, but until then here's a story about our very first family-car-trip.
8/11/03...
Always, Always Question Authority.
Something interesting was brought to my attention today... the sort of thing that gives me a little twitch in one eye and the urge to write a letter. So, today's blog is a letter I sent to my representative and both senators:
Re: The 'Office of Special Plans' and Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski
August 11, 2003
Rep. Eliot L. Engel
Dear Rep. Engel,
As a constituent of yours, I feel I must voice my concern about the Office of Special Plans created by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. It is becoming more apparent by the day that this rogue group has been operating as a leading architect of the strategic and political machinations that justified a war with Iraq.
As elucidated by a former senior Pentagon Middle East specialist, Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, this group has been allowed to operate without oversight of any kind, and has railroaded not only its institutional rivals, the CIA and FBI, but also the American people.
Worse, this group's arrogance is matched only by its incompetence. There was no specific exit plan, no plan in place in case the Iraqi people didn't rejoice at the notion of our occupation, and the CIA's concerns about an ensuing guerrilla war were ignored entirely.
When hearings are opened into this administration's deceit in the fall, I strongly urge you to make full use of Karen Kwiatkowski and her comprehensive knowledge of the abuses of power that have left us in this sorry state.
Sincerely,
Evan Selinske
Aug 7
Oh That George!
I had just gotten around to nosing through Bush's June 30 press conference this morning, and then it occurred to me that the fine folks at the Daily Show had probably done most of the work for me. It can't be very much fun for them, slogging through Bush's garbled words, all the while trying to figure out if he really means what he says or is even trying to say what he means, but the rewards can be great.
So, rather than taking the time to go on a rant that would only mirror this fine piece of satirical journalism, I offer up it's link instead:
rtsp://st21g1.services.att-idns.net/v1/494/1742/2597/dailyshow
/headlines/8015_headline_300.rm
Just paste to your browser and enjoy.
|
Always, Always Question Authority.
Something interesting was brought to my attention today... the sort of thing that gives me a little twitch in one eye and the urge to write a letter. So, today's blog is a letter I sent to my representative and both senators:
Re: The 'Office of Special Plans' and Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski
August 11, 2003
Rep. Eliot L. Engel
Dear Rep. Engel,
As a constituent of yours, I feel I must voice my concern about the Office of Special Plans created by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. It is becoming more apparent by the day that this rogue group has been operating as a leading architect of the strategic and political machinations that justified a war with Iraq.
As elucidated by a former senior Pentagon Middle East specialist, Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, this group has been allowed to operate without oversight of any kind, and has railroaded not only its institutional rivals, the CIA and FBI, but also the American people.
Worse, this group's arrogance is matched only by its incompetence. There was no specific exit plan, no plan in place in case the Iraqi people didn't rejoice at the notion of our occupation, and the CIA's concerns about an ensuing guerrilla war were ignored entirely.
When hearings are opened into this administration's deceit in the fall, I strongly urge you to make full use of Karen Kwiatkowski and her comprehensive knowledge of the abuses of power that have left us in this sorry state.
Sincerely,
Evan Selinske
Aug 7
Oh That George!
I had just gotten around to nosing through Bush's June 30 press conference this morning, and then it occurred to me that the fine folks at the Daily Show had probably done most of the work for me. It can't be very much fun for them, slogging through Bush's garbled words, all the while trying to figure out if he really means what he says or is even trying to say what he means, but the rewards can be great.
So, rather than taking the time to go on a rant that would only mirror this fine piece of satirical journalism, I offer up it's link instead:
rtsp://st21g1.services.att-idns.net/v1/494/1742/2597/dailyshow
/headlines/8015_headline_300.rm
Just paste to your browser and enjoy.
