fuck me it's "thanks for yer service" weekend where I have to inform everyone "wrong holiday mate I am only dead on the inside"
— John Cole (@Johngcole) May 23, 2024
On this #MemorialDay, may we come together as a nation to pay tribute to our fallen heroes, to speak their names, and to remember their stories. Let us stand united in renewing our commitment to uphold the values for which they fought—freedom, justice, and peace. pic.twitter.com/zevWk0zD8n
— KAMALA NATION (@KamalaNation) May 26, 2024
5 things to know about Memorial Day, including its evolution and controversies https://t.co/pad7wMu9bE
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 23, 2024
Going back to at least the medieval church calendar, there’s been a community tradition of scheduling a ‘holiday’ approximately once every six weeks. And from what I’ve read of medieval history, decrying the behavior of people who chose to celebrate every sacred holiday with feasts, festivals, and avoiding their religious duties goes back just about as far…
… 3. HAS MEMORIAL DAY ALWAYS BEEN A SOURCE OF CONTENTION?
Someone has always lamented the holiday’s drift from its original meaning.As early as 1869, The New York Times wrote that the holiday could become “sacrilegious” and no longer “sacred” if it focuses more on pomp, dinners and oratory.
In 1871, abolitionist Frederick Douglass feared Americans were forgetting the Civil War’s impetus — enslavement — when he gave a Decoration Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery.
“We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation’s destroyers,” Douglass said.
His concerns were well-founded, said Ben Railton, a professor of English and American studies at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts. Even though roughly 180,000 Black men served in the Union Army, the holiday in many communities would essentially become “white Memorial Day,” especially after the rise of the Jim Crow South, Railton told the AP in 2023.
Meanwhile, how the day was spent — at least by the nation’s elected officials — could draw scrutiny for years after the Civil War. In the 1880s, then-President Grover Cleveland was said to have gone fishing — and “people were appalled,” Matthew Dennis, an emeritus history professor at the University of Oregon, told the AP last year.
By 1911, the Indianapolis 500 held its inaugural race on May 30, drawing 85,000 spectators. A report from The Associated Press made no mention of the holiday — or any controversy.
4. HOW HAS MEMORIAL DAY CHANGED?
Dennis said Memorial Day’s potency diminished somewhat with the addition of Armistice Day, which marked World War I’s end on Nov. 11, 1918. Armistice Day became a national holiday by 1938 and was renamed Veterans Day in 1954.An act of Congress changed Memorial Day from every May 30th to the last Monday in May in 1971. Dennis said the creation of the three-day weekend recognized that Memorial Day had long been transformed into a more generic remembrance of the dead, as well as a day of leisure.
In 1972, Time Magazine said the holiday had become “a three-day nationwide hootenanny that seems to have lost much of its original purpose.”…
While Trump is playing golf at his course in Jersey today….Obama is at Alexandria National Cemetery paying tribute to American heroes that served and paid the ultimate sacrifice to secure the freedoms Trump love to cry about at his rallies….what a leader looks like?? pic.twitter.com/bQ8IXZ6Wsy
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) May 25, 2024
Says the guy that held up hundreds of military promotions for almost a year pic.twitter.com/qQEZ9Aha9T
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) May 25, 2024
It's Memorial Day Weekend. More than six hundred thousand men and women including a few personal friends and acquaintances of mine have, over the course of this nation's history given their lives in her service. Sometimes for great and noble causes, sometimes not. But all of them served all of us.
— soonergrunt (@soonergrunt.bsky.social) May 26, 2024 at 1:54 PM
Please take a moment when you get a chance and think about that. And then hug your loved ones. Because all of the parades and flag waving and the Indianapolis 500 and barbequeing and everything else aside, that's really the only reason any of us ever did this, and it is the most important thing that
— soonergrunt (@soonergrunt.bsky.social) May 26, 2024 at 1:55 PM
none of them will never do again.
Honor the dead, but don't stop fighting like hell for the living.
Thanks.— soonergrunt (@soonergrunt.bsky.social) May 26, 2024 at 1:56 PM
Trivia Man
Gathering with friends and family is an excellent way to remember and tell stories of those no longer with us. Just what Sooner Grunt says.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Let’s also remember those whose service, and sacrifice, was unwilling.
TBone
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: 👍
Baud
I don’t really have any connections to fallen heroes, except for a shared love of defeating Nazis.
eclare
@Baud:
Same. My dad was in the army, in the 1950’s, but in Europe. He said it was the best thing to happen to a poor boy from Mississippi.
eclare
Fuck. Latest eta for power is 8 am. I will have to throw out dairy.
And of course I grocery shopped yesterday. I still don’t understand what happened, and none of the locals have anything either.
Raven
Andy Stein, RIP
https://flic.kr/p/sMVDrH
Baud
@eclare:
That sucks.
K-Mo
Thank you for your service, John.
(And now you say “You’re Welcome.”)
eclare
@Baud:
Usually the local stations are all over outages. Silence. It’s weird. I need to research who my council people are, they oversee the utility, and contact them tomorrow.
At least I didn’t have a lot of potato salad ready for a picnic in the fridge.
TBone
Twenty-one minutes. Ken Burns address to Brandeis grads 💙 Minutes well spent:
https://angrybearblog.com/2024/05/i-am-in-the-busy-of-history-it-is-not-always-a-happy-subject#more-147367
Raven
Memorial Day is for the dead, Veterans Day is for the living.
K-Mo
@Raven:
I honor my uncle Ken who served in Korea but died years after on Veterans Day. But also, funerals, memorials and other commemorations of the deceased are often times when I exchange expressions of appreciation and gratitude with my (living) loved ones.
Aside from all this, I also thank veterans for their service every day, no matter how pedantic they may be.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Chief Oshkosh
@Raven: Thank you for showing one good way to observe the day.
eclare
So I checked the outage map for MLGW, Memphis Light Gas and Water, and there is a big outage in my area, no others. So it isn’t weather related, must be some kind of equipment failure. I wish they would say something. The cover up is always worse than the crime.
Liminal Owl
@TBone: 💜
Betty
We lost a cousin in Vietnam, ten days after his twenty first birthday. It seems to be hitting my brother especially hard this year. So many tragic losses.
JWR
Locals are saying at least 50 killed. :(
eclare
@Betty:
I’m so sorry.
Suzanne
If it makes you feel any better, I typically don’t thank anyone for their service.
(Not because I feel a particular lack of gratitude toward military personnel, more because I feel like we should thank schoolteachers and nurses and myriad others for their service, as well. And I don’t really feel like perpetuating any rhetoric that singles out the military for special thanks.)
Mr. Suzanne’s dad passed away on Memorial Day last year. So it’s a bit weird.
eclare
@JWR:
Oh god…
And you know those images are all over the Middle East. Biden is great, but he really needs to wake up on this. We are complicit.
Ben Cisco
I honor my brother-in-law, who made it back from the ‘Nam after being exposed to Agent Orange; he was a slow-motion casualty of that war.
RIP Donald.
eclare
@Ben Cisco:
RIP. I remember seeing the memorial in DC, after reading scathing reviews. It took my breath away. So monumental, so stark. It’s so fitting. Everyone should see it.
frosty
Sounds like the Druid/Pagan/solar holiday calendar: solstices, equinoxes, and the quarter points in between. But of course, that’s what the early church appropriated for their own holidays.
OzarkHillbilly
Thinking of you Uncle Joe.
Kay
@JWR:
We should have enforced the red line we announced. They dropped 400 pound bombs on tents full of civilians – a “safe zone” that Israel itself announced and herded people into.
I do not know what we’re waiting for – are they really planning on coming out again and saying 6 more weeks of negotiations will do it? We’re losing even Germany now:
Someone needs to intervene with Biden and Blinken. We’re well into “wrong side of history” territory here. People are going to look back at this and say “and the response to this slaughter was to go after the student protestors opposing it?” – it’s fucking delusional.
Lyrebird
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks Ozark and @Raven: and others.
Virtual candles to you!
Our Uncle Joe lived and returned from WWII but not as the same person who went there.
JWR
@eclare: In addition to this one, major attack, Al-jazeera says that:
If you ask me, I think Bibi is of the opinion that a slightly slowed attack on Rafah won’t generate as much critical attention as would going balls-out bombs away.
OzarkHillbilly
A smile for the day: ‘A real angel’: 911 operator helps man revive mom from cardiac arrest
Kay
@JWR:
You see how well our going after the ICC instead of enforcing our own red line worked. How many times are we going to do this? How many times are we going to violate our own laws and principles in the (futile) hopes of placating the government of Israel? Every single time we intervene to protect them from consequences they double down on the war crimes.
Suzanne
@Kay: The video that came out over the weekend — of IDF soldiers burning the books in the library in Gaza — is not helping, either.
It’s really difficult not to draw the conclusion that Bibi aims to make Gaza uninhabitable and reduce its civilian population.
satby
@eclare: answered you in the early link. If it’s still cool to the touch, make something once the power comes back on. Homemade ricotta cheese if it’s 2% fat or more. Flan, cooked pudding, cheesecake. May be able to save some of it that way.
Good luck!
eclare
@JWR:
I don’t think he cares either way. It’s full on elimination of Palestinians at this point.
OzarkHillbilly
@Lyrebird: No thanx to me. He died 13 years before I was born. The family rarely spoke of him.
eclare
@satby:
Thanks! I’ve decided the cheese is prob ok, or will show signs if not, but the half and half, sour cream, and Reddi Wip (no judgment, I like it on berries) are out.
At this point just hoping the 8 am projection holds. Not holding my breath.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I love how people keep saying “the Arab world” is watching, as if only their own “tribe” believe they’re human beings. The whole world is watching. Why did we bother with the “red line”? All it does is show that we won’t enforce under any circumstances.
I think this is a response to the ICJ order – a “fuck you, no one will stop us”. They’re right too. No one will stop them. They can anniliate that population.
frosty
My only connection to someone who died in service is Ms F’s uncle, a B-17 pilot. He died on April 5, 1945 when he lost an engine on takeoff, and his plane crashed and exploded with a full bomb load. Just a little over a month before V-E Day.
My dad trained as a USAAF gunner, but late in the war so he didn’t even get posted overseas.
Kay
@Suzanne:
The only people who have suffered any consequences or condemnation from the United States for this are the American students protesting it. We all collectively decided to kill the messenger.
Suzanne
@Kay:
Thanks to social media, we can watch this shit unfold from everywhere, at every moment.
I think this war has caused a generational shift in how much of the world sees Israel. I think that will have long-term consequences.
Steeplejack
RIP, Uncle Dean.
I was 12 when he died. I still have a few very clear memories of him. He was nice to us kids and had a great laugh.
eclare
Latest eta on power is 9:30. Still no statement from MLGW on what caused this outage. Stupid. Around 7500 customers out of power, assuming an average of three per residence, that’s around 23,000 people.
Cheese may have to go too.
Betty
@eclare: I recall pro-military types hating it because it had such a big impact on people who visited it.
eclare
@Suzanne:
I agree. Israel is doing long term damage to its survival.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I listened to an interview with a ME expert who resigned from the State Department over this. She’s an Arab language(s) speaker and stationed abroad in various places. She said both the Obama Administration and the Trump Administration allowed more dialogue and debate and dissent on Israel policy than the Biden Administration does. This is a blind spot. Someone needs to get through to them. Supposedly Harris is aware of how bad it is. I hope she can get in and influence them but VP’s are really not powerful (as Biden knows).
pat
This Memorial Day, Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago? A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France…. God help us. — Gen. John Kelly, remembering Donald Trump
p.a.
As long as Israel is the tail wagging the American dog, they don’t have to care about the rest of the world. If/when that changes…
But I think that will take a generation, if it happens at all.
pat
Jonathan Swan & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: Whatever the verdict in his 2016 election interference criminal case, Donald Trump will be a dick about it. “If the past is any guide, even with a full acquittal, Mr. Trump will be angry and vengeful, and will direct attacks against everyone he perceives to be responsible for the Manhattan district attorney’s prosecution. He will continue to level the attacks publicly, at rallies and on Truth Social, and privately encourage his House Republican allies to subpoena his Democratic enemies.”
realitychex.com, my first stop of the day.
eclare
@Betty:
My friend and I burst into tears upon seeing it, it has that much impact.
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven:
It’s right there in the names. Not sure why it’s so challenging for so many.
OzarkHillbilly
@eclare: I would not worry about the cheese. It was good cave food, no matter how long I was underground.
Kay
@p.a.:
I don’t agree, and I don’t think the US agrees. I think both countries have to care about the rest of the world.
p.a.
@eclare: IIRC the “scathing reviews” were basically from the usual suspects on the right of that generation, in part perhaps because the artist was a young female Asian-American. An “embarrassing scar of disgrace” or some such. A culture war issue, and the right, as usual, was wrong.
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks! Plus I am a big believer in the smell test.
satby
@eclare: you may be able to get reimbursed by the utility. Or so I’ve heard. I
sdhays
Some legal catnip for Watergirl (and perhaps others):
Who knows if that’s really the plan, but it’s good for Cannon to be worried that’s the plan.
eclare
@p.a.:
That makes sense. Thank you.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@eclare:
My wife’s father, I never met him as he died of brain cancer her senior year of high school, was a “Depression Era boy” from Central Misery with a similar story albeit in WWII. He had 5 brothers and they all were scattered around the globe and after the war, with two exceptions, stayed scattered and from her accounts, also considered it the best thing to happen to them.
My uncle, poor boy from WV, was a REMF in WWII (a fantastic term related to me by who, at the time was the oldest O-5 in the army and my boss at the Pentagon, he’d been the youngest E-8 in the army during Vietnam and was the embodiment of leadership, one of the best bosses I ever had and we still keep in touch after all these years). Okay, back to my uncle. He was on the division’s newspaper team and was assigned to cover some of the lower-level trials at Nuremberg. I still have the photos and some of the type written pages he saved when he got out.
He didn’t go back to the exact town in WV after the war but up the road to Martinsburg. GI Bill gave him a good life.
REMF = Rear Echelon Mother Fucker. Watch ‘The Americanization of Emily’–James Garner’s character is a REMF. Also, ‘Crapgame’ from ‘Kelly’s Heroes’ albeit closer to the front lines.
O. Felix Culpa
An interesting story about the process of joining a US military band, “the journey of one euphonium player, Ada Brooks, from her audition for the West Point Band through boot camp in the Ozarks, to her first concert”: NYT gift link.
eclare
@satby:
After the four day outage last year, there were instructions in the news to get reimbursed for WIC, etc but nothing about the utility.
And now the inevitable: going to go drive my car nowhere to charge my phone. USA#1
raven
@O. Felix Culpa: I have to share that with my neighbor who was with the Ft Gordon Band. I often see him loading up for events with his full Highlander Kit going to events!
OzarkHillbilly
@eclare: I suppose you should know that I have an iron stomach so maybe not the best person to listen to.
raven
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The vast majority of us were REMF’s. I tell my grunt buddy “you fuckers hated the signal corps until you needed a fire mission or a dustoff.
sab
@Kay: Israel is going to end up with only the oilgarchs as its friends. When they lose even Germany that’s bad.
My guess is Biden and crew are trying to keep the northern border (with Lebanon) from blowing up.
raven
What Do I Owe the Dead of My Generation’s Mismanaged Wars?
Phil Klay
Anyway
@eclare:
Maybe drive to Dunkin or Starbux, get a beverage and charge your phone … hope the power is restored soon. So frustrating.
stinger
@frosty:
Yes and yes.
Sure Lurkalot
@pat: Former Trump chief of staff sez what? God help us?
Kelly “served” for 2 years in the Trump administration and wasn’t exactly a profile in courage nor exempt from reprehensible actions and views, as outlined in Wiki (controversy section)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kelly
Nothing like pulling the fire alarm 5 years after you were the fire starter’s mouthpiece.
prostratedragon
This new version of the Gadsden flag is a real clucker.
O. Felix Culpa
@raven: Cool!
OzarkHillbilly
@raven:
Thanx.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Sure Lurkalot:
To paraphrase a saying here:
Fuck John Kelly.
It’s like hearing Comey, another Profile in Fecklessness.
twbrandt
My father was drafted into the Navy during WWII. The Navy discovered he could type, and he wound up as part of Admiral Nimitz’s staff in San Francisco and Hawaii. After he was discharged he attended the University of Michigan on the GI Bill. As a kid living in poverty during the Great Depression (his father died when dad was 13, forcing my grandmother to work as a domestic to feed the family), the war was the best thing to happen to him.
Kay
@sab:
The protestors (or, organized opposition to this policy- it’s not just protestors) don’t have any hope of changing US policy. They think the US is actively a detriment to any hope of peace – we are so slanted towards Israel it’s impossible for us to act in good faith in this conflict so our involvement just inflames and prolongs it. They hope to bring other countries around and isolate the US and Israel. There’s some historical precedent to this – the US was very late to anti apartheid in South Africa.
eclare
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Great stories! Rear echelon mother fucker. Love it.
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly:
I do too. I was one of two people on a trip to Peru who did not get sick. There were ten of us.
catclub
An in-car charger is also a thing, so I’ve been told.
eclare
@Anyway:
I imagine the ones near me are packed.
eclare
@twbrandt:
Just curious, how did he learn to type?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@twbrandt:
Two of the aforementioned 6 brothers from a tiny-ass farm in Central Misery were like that. GI Bill opened up their lives. One became a doctor, the Spielberg family were his patients when “Little Stevie” was growing up. The other became a VP for GE. Him I knew. Rock solid (R) who thought Ronald Fucking Reagan was the second coming and yeah, I’d bash heads with him when we got together.
Come to think of it, my uncle was the only (R) in the family and that included his siblings and his kids who gave him shit about it until the day he died.
But their stories, and gazillions of others like them, are instructive on the efficacy of public support for education. Prior to the GI Bill, a whole lot of talent was going undeveloped in this country.
Ruckus
@Lyrebird:
Almost no one who served during a war comes back the same.
Even if you didn’t see fighting. I changed. I think for the better.
I wonder how many my age knows someone who served during that war, and didn’t come home.
What really struck me was how many wars and their timing that humanity goes through. That there always seems to be people that want war, but without the risk for themselves, often people in power.
Kay
My father was a veteran but he hated the army. He was the opposite of a joiner so that didn’t surprise me. He did love the VA though. Apparently they had coffee for a quarter and he would sit and just enjoy the heath care bustle around him. He didn’t need the quarter coffee- he had a pension and comfortable retirement – but he just liked hanging out there.
TBone
@Liminal Owl: isn’t that a fabulous, uplifting speech? And he reminds us how important it is to VOTE like our lives depend upon it, leaving NO doubt about which way he’s urging us onward 💙
He made the absolute best of those 21 minutes.
eclare
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
And nutrition. The school lunch was a product of discovering so many men of fighting age were malnourished in the WWII draft. Especially in the south.
Warblewarble
Biden and Blinken have been more targeted on those who question “Israels narrative of the war in Gaza “, to quote Blinken, and to making threats against the IJC. The zionist tail really does wag the dog.
schrodingers_cat
My grandfather was a volunteer in the ambulance corp for the navy in British India during WWII. I have one photograph of him in his uniform. If I find it I will post it on Twitter
He was pro-British while my grandmother was a follower of Nehru and Gandhi.
satby
@SiubhanDuinne: because performative patriotism is all they have, no actual understanding of the military, or history, or even of civics.
sab
@Kay: We have had an almost complete news blockout of the protesters’ side.
One exception is our local Spectrum Cable news. They interviewed a Palestinian American professor (Cleveland State) who was protesting at CWRU next to the protest wall. She loves America, is grateful that her family was allowed to immigrate here, but is horrified by what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank.
CWRU of course insisted in editing what was on the protest wall, amd then had contracors come spray paint over it (spray painting the protestors in the process.) Typical. As a graduate alumna I am disgusted but not surprised.
raven
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: When LBJ (pick LBJ) grudgingly signed the Vietnam “Servicemen’s Readjustment Benefits Act” (GI Bill) in 1966 he noted
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
I follow you on Twitter, I would love to see that.
twbrandt
@eclare: as I recall, he took some business classes at his Detroit high school which taught him how.
raven
@eclare: The GED was originally a military program. Vets couldn’t take advantage of post secondary benefits if they didn’t have a secondary credential.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: me, too. I seldom throw out dairy or meat during/ after an outage; I go on a cooking binge. Exception would be day or longer, but those usually result in spontaneous neighborhood barbecue potlucks.
Kay
@sab:
I think the opposition is broader and deeper than people know – not in terms of numbers, I agree that there aren’t enough of them to move anything inside the US politically, but their theory of the issue – how to effectively oppose this policy- is better thought out and substantive than they are given credit for. I think they did move Spain and Ireland – Irish opposition groups specifically cited the US protests as inspiration to pressure their own government to recognize Palestine. “Recognition” doesn’t mean anything legally (yet) but it’s a powerful message – to see how powerful you only have to look at how ferocious Israel’s response was. They (organized opposition) think France is the next domino. That’ll be big.
schrodingers_cat
@eclare: Buy ice and put the freezer contents in a cooler.
TBone
Rebekah Sanderlin, who leads Care Teams (for grieving vet families). The profile in courage here is also worth devoting a few moments to:
https://digbysblog.net/2024/05/27/memorial-day-2024/
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
For all that served and all those that didn’t/haven’t, there can be a huge difference between did and didn’t. War changes you, and far more if you served in a war zone. I doubt that many that served during a war will forget that, even if they didn’t see war up close and extremely personal.
schrodingers_cat
@eclare: What is your Twitter nym? Have I followed you back?
Thanks.
oldgold
My Dad served in WW II as a teenager. Shot in Bastogne and again in Colditz just days before the war ended.
I miss him this Memorial Day, but glad he never had to experience the presumptive candidate of the Republican Party celebrate the Reich.
lowtechcyclist
@eclare:
I have been there often over the years, and it’s every bit as striking as you say.
Almost directly across the Reflecting Pool from the Vietnam Memorial is the largely overlooked Korean War Memorial, which I find quite moving in a completely different way.
Tdjr
@Ruckus: My father was a medic driver in WWII. Prior to the war, he was studying architecture at Texas A&M. After the war, he would never drive again. My mom did all the driving. So yeah, he was changed.
We didn’t even know his unit was in a tank platoon until after he died.
Nukular Biskits
Good (late) mornin’, y’all!
Moving slow this morning. Been gardening, cutting grass, moving dirt, planting for the past 4 days.
My problem with Memorial Day (well, not with the day itself but with a lot of the people supposedly “celebrating” it) is the nonsense about all those who lost their lives did so “in the name of freedom” or “to protect out freedoms”.
That’s jingoistic BS that trivializes their sacrifices, IMHO, and conveniently whitewashes this country’s history of engaging in wars of convenience.
/rant
artem1s
@TBone:
Thanks for posting this. If you haven’t please take 21 minutes to listen.
You may not agree with everything Burns says in his address and may get tripped up by some of the mentions of the Gaza issue. But the call out at the end about the temptation to ‘both sides’ this election is important to note. Something Burns has studiously avoided in his documentaries is taking political sides on an issue. Sometimes to the point of ‘white washing’ in my and other’s opinions.
I heard him speak at a commencement not long after The Civil War became ‘must see’ TV. His address then was entertaining and scholarly, pointing out the importance of liberal arts education and the arts, etc. He did touch on the importance of understanding and knowing actual history and not just the big picture stuff we get in grade school – that there impact on individual lives was just as interesting and worth knowing as the historical figures we mythologize. But no specific call out on the dangers of politicizing racism and anti-antisemitism thru gerrymandering and voter suppression.
This Brandeis address was wholly different. It seemed to start as the usual admonition about not remembering our past, but went in a completely different direction than I expected it to go. The thing to remember when you listen to this is that Burns is an insider with journalist, MSM and the FYNYT bothsiders, and High Broderists of The Village. He gets invited. To a lot of richy rich events. He gets invited to speak at places like Brandeis for a reason. He’s usually pretty milquetoast and safe choice for campuses that are afraid they might offend the Richy Riches. He’s picked a side and made it clear that there isn’t really a choice in this election. And the country is, as he quotes Lincoln, on the verge of committing suicide.
I’d love to see a front pager post the whole transcript for discussion.
Betty Cracker
My family members all survived their wars, so I think of a young man from Cedar Key to put a face with a name on Memorial Day. I remember reading about his death at the time, and signs along the highway to Cedar Key still bear his name today.
Before joining the military after high school, Marine Lance Corporal Brian Buesing was a talented mechanic who worked on half the boat engines in town, according to neighbors. He was killed at age 20 in Nasiriyah, Iraq in 2003.
Timill
Yay! Rosie’s fundraiser has finally hit the goal.
TBone
@artem1s: thank you for articulating why his urgency is so striking!
zhena gogolia
@TBone: Wonderful.
Ruckus
@eclare:
It says nothing more – and nothing less than they gave their lives. And that is exactly what it should say. That is why I think it is extremely fitting. It could be fluffed up, made a lot fancier but that excuses the reality of war, that people die in war.
It should be stark. That is the point. It should be stark.
They died.
A lot served, they served, they died. That is the entire point of it.
They served. They died.
It may or may not have been simple to them but the memorial is about that they served, they died.
Juju
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Comey is worse.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I just remembered something about my uncle, the only (R) in the family and how he remained one until the day he died.
He wasn’t per se. His last vote in a presidential contest was in 2008 (he died in 2011) and he announced he was voting for Obama.
Now, he didn’t put it exactly like that, he said “I’m voting for the black fella”. We all rolled our eyes and collectively groaned but also almost died of shock. And were happy to accept that little victory no matter how it was verbalized.
Soprano2
@Raven: Yep, that tweet of John’s is hubby’s biggest gripe, that people don’t understand what the holiday is for.
schrodingers_cat
@eclare: I just posted it. There is a better close-up but I can’t find it right now
Photo of my grandfather in his St John Ambulance Corps uniform in Mumbai, 1945.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Party label isn’t as important as voting conscience. We do need to have two parties. The problem is Republicans voters can’t paychologically cross over. There are no equivalents to Reagan Democrats. Even though I disagree vehemently with the choice that Reagan Democrats made, they did cross over to discipline Democrats.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker:
The losses are particularly painful when individualized like that. I think also of raven’s buddy, Andy Stein. They were so young.
My sons were military age when Shrub started his grand Iraqi adventure. I told them to keep their passports current, just in case. No way was I going to have them be cannon fodder for Halliburton. There are wars worth fighting. This wasn’t one of them.
schrodingers_cat
@pat: Ah the General whose idea it was to separate children from their parents as the DHS secretary. Where is the so called cancel culture when you need it.
artem1s
@TBone:
well, by my recollection it became standard campaigning for the GOP and specifically Bush Crime Family a long time before TIFG got around to it. First Karl Rove invented a pack of lies to discredit John McCain and glorify their whole pack of draft dodgers so they could secure the nomination in 2000. It would be impossible to list all the ways the W administration showed their disdain for those who had to go fight in the two “Wars to make Dick Cheney Rich” and preserve the civil rights of the Texas oil industry. Then when they were in danger of losing their death grip on power, they employed a CABAL of Swiftboaters to invent lies about a twice decorated veteran of the Vietnam War so they could continue to dishonor those who were being paid a pittance while fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan so Blackwater
private securityreavers could make hundreds of thousands a year escorting dignitaries in the Green Zone (and pillaging, raping and murdering civilians). Donald Trump is only following the successful pathway to the WH and power the GOP laid down two decades ago.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: Cool photo. Thanks for sharing it.
Baud
@artem1s:
Agreed. The only thing you left out were the purple bandaids.
Soprano2
@Kay: I agree, it’s bad. Israel has pissed away every bit of sympathy they got when 10/7 happened with their unrelenting attacks on civilians. I get tired of the cries of “that’s antisemitic” every time they’re criticized for these attacks. People would be criticizing any government for these actions! At this point I don’t know what our government is thinking. They shouldn’t be legitimizing killing 100’s of people to get one alleged Hamas fighter, because it appears that’s what Israel is doing, saying “we thought there was a Hamas fighter there so we had to drop a huge bomb on everyone”.
brendancalling
@Baud: My great-uncle Willy (who I got to meet, thankfully) escaped Germany as the war was ramping up) by stowing away on a U.S.-bound ship. He was turned away at the US, but was allowed into Canada. He then got into the US via the land crossing, signed up for the US Army, and went right back to Europe to kill Nazis. He caught shrapnel in so doing.
He was also a very, very funny man, fond of the same kind of long, pointless jokes that I enjoy.
Baud
@brendancalling:
Awesome. Go Willy!
Baud
@Soprano2:
As did we after 9/11.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Kirstjen Nielsen, head of Homeland Security when we were separating children from their parents, does seem to have been effectively cancelled. Hillary did that by backing out of a speaking engagement when she learned that Nielsen would be part of the panel.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Dapper.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I agree, young people see them as just another country, not special. Israel holds up the shield of antisemitism to justify horrible acts. They cannot see that they’ve become what they established Israel to escape. They seem determined to annihilate the Palestinians in Gaza as collective punishment for 10/7.
Baud
@sab:
More people have cancelled Hillary than Nielsen.
sab
@Baud: Not successfully. We hear from Hillary all the time. Can Nielsen even find a real job?
Kay
@Soprano2:
No statement from the United States yet.
This is former Senator Leahy 5 days ago on his law. He’s wondering why the United States refuses to enforce our own laws:
The US enforced Leahy law violations on Ukraine units. We support Ukraine and have a good realtionship with their leaders. There is absolutely no reason we can’t do the same with Israel, other than irrational, blind “blank check” support of Israel and bias against Palestinians.
TBone
@artem1s: true dat. My Viet Nam vet dad had specific plans in place to get my brother to Canada should the need have arisen during those years.
Baud
@sab:
I don’t know what she’s up to. But aside from Hillary not being on a panel with her, I’ve seen no evidence that she’s suffered in any way for her actions.
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
My freezer is full of ice, I love ice. I’m not worried about one day, I’m worried about more.
Especially since our utility has said nothing about this.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: He was a pretty good looking dude. I used to call him saheb (sir), that’s what everyone around him used to call him as he was their boss at the port authority (Bombay Port Trust)
His handwriting was beautiful too. I miss him. He was a gentle soul.
Harrison Wesley
@Kay: I doubt that the United States government is going to do anything to put the brakes on Israel. Even if Biden and his team wanted to (and I haven’t seen any evidence that they do), the Republicans smell “Dems in Disarray” in the water and will hammer ANTISEMITIC SELLOUT if the President even lifts a Collins-level furrowed brow of concern.
So. We stay out of it or actively go after peaceniks, all the Palestinians are gone from Gaza and the West Bank by the end of summer, we swim around the fishbowl for a few months to clear all the unpleasantness from our heads, we have our election, the Dems beat the Morlocks, and then we all go out for cake.
sdhays
@sab: I don’t really care, do you?
(Well, it would be nice if she was significantly suffering for her actions, but I have little faith that’s happening.)
Warblewarble
While Rafah burns, the US. stands back and stands by. Sometimes it’s the silence says it all.
TBone
My Great Aunt Odeena from Alaska wrote this for her husband. She taught school on all the military bases where they were assigned. She was a real pistol! She had the scar of a barracuda bite on her heel. Uncle John taught me how to shoot a shotgun, fish, as well as garden and revere nature (running themes in our whole family)
Strange Lt. Col., Ret. John Gray
Passed away June 13, 2014 at Broad Acres Nursing Home, Wellsboro, PA. He was born February 19, 1917 in Gray’s Valley, PA, to the late John Cooley and Alice Gray Strange. He was predeceased by brother Edson Cooley Strange and wife Marion White Strange. He is survived by his wife Odeena Jensen Strange, daughter Shelley and husband David H**, sisters-in-law, Elizabeth Jensen Campbell and Hildred Jensen Yost, one grandchild, two great grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews. John graduated in Forestry from Penn State University in 1939 where, while on the cross country track team he qualified for the next Olympics. He continued training in Hawaii where he was sent as a draftee. He was there on December 7, 1941. He became an officer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after training at Ft. Belvoir Virginia. From there he went to England and France. He was wounded in France and received the Purple Heart. After the war he returned to civilian life but continued in the Army Reserves. When asked to help fill the need of Engineers in the Army he returned to active duty. John was in Korea and during the Christmas season he went on leave to Tokyo. On the military plane in Seoul a teacher from the Army dependents school came aboard. She asked him if the vacant seat next to him was taken, No, so she sat. They chatted and it turned out she taught his commanding officer’s son. Thus introduced, they enjoyed Tokyo and later Korea together. Back in the U.S. they married in Odeena’s church in Berkley, CA. John had various postings in the United States, two in Korea, and the most unusual was to Afghanistan in the sixties. He looked it up on a map to find the location. His assignment was overseeing the completion of the road from Kabul to Kandahar. Upon retirement from the Army the Col. Became a Resident Engineer for Gannett Flemming Corp. Finally in retirement in Gray’s Valley he enjoyed his membership in Corey Creek Golf Club playing with his senior friends. He was a lifelong member of the Sullivan State Road Baptist Church. He enjoyed hunting, fishing, gardening, and family visits. Friends are invited to John’s graveside service at the Sullivan State Road Cemetery on Wednesday at 11:30 AM.
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t post anything, there is nothing to follow. I don’t even remember my nym! But I like your posts.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: But Kelly is getting tongue baths from the media. It is very difficult to cancel white dudes.
sab
@TBone: My Korean War dad had specific plans to get us to Canada in 1965. He even had a job offer in British Columbia, but Mom stopped that. “We aren’t moving kids from Florida to Canada in December!” And Mom had a Canadian grandmother and Canadian cousins.
My brother missed the draft by a year, in 1973.
ETA My dad was high school class of 1942. Only a handful of his classmates survived the war. He survived WWII and Korea.
schrodingers_cat
@eclare: Aww thanks. You are too kind.
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
The Korean War memorial was dedicated after we saw the Vietnam. I should get back to DC for a vacation, it’s such a great reminder of what makes our country, good and bad. The changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier is…well, there are no words.
NutmegAgain
I confess, I still think about my dad today, although he survived.* (If he hadn’t, I and my siblings would not be here.) But I also think a lot about all the guys he served with who were not so lucky. *He served in the USAAC during WWII, flying the hump and a lot of other things. The plane he was in crashed, but they all survived. It’s my understanding that 1 in 4 of those flights crashed carrying supplies to China from India, and a lot of people died.
Glidwrith
@Betty Cracker: My family members survived as well, though one generation back they left pieces of themselves literally behind. One saved his men when crossing a bridge under fire. The other was one of three survivors of two platoons that were ambushed by Rommel.
TBone
@sab: praise his name!
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
White dudes get cancelled all the time. They just become media stars when that happens.
eclare
@Ruckus:
That is it. To be confronted with the names of all who died, for no reason, it’s overwhelming.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I guess we have different definitions of cancelled. Kelly should have been shunned from civil society for his actions but he is being lionized by the media now for his words.
JWR
@Baud:
Which is what Biden warned Israel about shortly before the full-scale war began. Sadly, they’ve done exactly as the U.S. did in response to 9/11. Nation states sure are childlike in the way they think. Just wind them up tight and let them go go go!
sab
@TBone: The Navy sent him to medical school during WWII, and he re-enlisted in the Air Force for Korea. I only learned this year that he stayed in the Reserves for the next twenty years and retired as a Colonel. He never mentioned it to us kids. I think the reserve duty was a survivor’s remorse payback. I had always wondered why he was involved in things like the local Red Cross blood bank when that had nothing much to do with his day job as a doctor.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
He’s against us so he’s always going to retain his value.
Kay
@Harrison Wesley:
Well, we’ve already actively gone after student protestors, so somehow we mustered up the courage to denounce the 19 year olds. Real profiles in courage we are, sending our billion dollar, bloated police force out in riot gear to smash their heads into the pavement. That’ll show em – we do NOT want this discussed.
I tend to agree with you that the US will do nothing, but the US is not the only country in the world. I think we’ll see other countries step up. The countries the US cares about. We already are.
Cacti
I’ll enjoy the day off, and those who want to spend their time arguing about the true meaning of
Christmaserr Memorial Day can have at it.TBone
@sab: the men in my family who survived to come home were similarly tight-lipped, except when my dad sat down with Great Uncle John and a tape recorder. Dad only ever spoke of his experience to my mom, always when he thought we were out of earshot. He inspired my former stance as a strict pacifist in The Before Times.
We are truly lucky for having survivors.
Baud
@Cacti:
Appreciate you stopping by. Have a great day.
TBone
@Cacti: we have art, science, and holidays because that’s what makes this nation worth defending. I’m celebrating with gusto, my ancestors would expect nothing less.
raven
The Band played Waltzing Matilda, Bob Kerrey
TBone
@Baud: 😆
TBone
@raven: always reminds me of the movie On The Beach 😊
raven
@Cacti: Hi asshole
Baud
@JWR:
True. It’s why we’re currently struggling to deal with MAGA , right?
Anyway
@catclub: Cars don’t make coffee, so I’ve heard
Cacti
@raven: You were the villain in Vietnam and your loss was deserved. You fought for colonial oppression of an impoverished people. Your “service” and that of your cohort deserves zero thanks from anyone.
But do enjoy your holiday and your discount on the early bird special at Denny’s. 😉
Kay
Netanyahu and Co changed their story. They first said it was a targeted strike that killed three Hamas leaders. They now say it was a “tragic mistake”.
Just insulting levels of gaslighting from both the US and Israel. Fantasyland. The US discussion just gets further and further from reality. That never, ever ends well.
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
He looks so regal.
raven
@Cacti: Yea motherfucker, I need your sorry ass to explain shit to be. Crawl back in your fucking hole.
Jackie
@eclare:
My dad also lucked out in the Army Air Corps; he injured his back and after surgery, they discovered Dad could type so he spent the rest of his military stint being an office grunt.
He learned to type in Business School, prior to enlisting.
TBone
I stole this. Lifted directly from comments at a different blog some of us don’t like. But this was a good reminder. Sorry about the caps.
AN OLD WOMAN WALKED UP AND TIED HER OLD MULE TO THE HITCHING POST.
AS SHE STOOD THERE, BRUSHING SOME OF THE DUST FROM HER FACE AND CLOTHES, A YOUNG GUNSLINGER STEPPED OUT OF THE SALOON WITH A GUN IN ONE HAND AND A BOTTLE OF WHISKEY IN THE OTHER. THE YOUNG GUNSLINGER LOOKED AT THE OLD WOMAN AND LAUGHED, “HEY OLD WOMAN, HAVE YOU EVER DANCED?”
THE OLD WOMAN LOOKED UP AT THE GUNSLINGER AND SAID, “NO,… I NEVER DID DANCE… NEVER REALLY WANTED TO.”
A CROWD HAD GATHERED AS THE GUNSLINGER GRINNED AND SAID “WELL, YOU OLD BAG, YOU’RE GONNA DANCE NOW,” AND STARTED SHOOTING AT THE OLD WOMAN’S FEET.
THE OLD WOMAN PROSPECTOR — NOT WANTING TO GET HER TOE BLOWN OFF –STARTED HOPPING AROUND. EVERYBODY WAS LAUGHING. WHEN HIS LAST BULLET HAD BEEN FIRED, THE YOUNG GUNSLINGER, STILL LAUGHING, HOLSTERED HIS GUN AND TURNED AROUND TO GO BACK INTO THE SALOON.
THE OLD WOMAN TURNED TO HER PACK MULE, PULLED OUT A DOUBLE-BARRELED SHOTGUN, AND COCKED BOTH HAMMERS.THE LOUD CLICKS CARRIED CLEARLY THROUGH THE DESERT AIR, AND THE CROWD STOPPED LAUGHING IMMEDIATELY.
THE YOUNG GUNSLINGER HEARD THE SOUNDS, TOO, AND HE TURNED AROUND VERY SLOWLY. THE SILENCE WAS ALMOST DEAFENING. THE CROWD WATCHED AS THE YOUNG GUNMAN STARED AT THE OLD WOMAN AND THE LARGE GAPING HOLES OF THOSE TWIN BARRELS.
THE BARRELS OF THE SHOTGUN NEVER WAVERED IN THE OLD WOMAN’S HANDS, AS SHE QUIETLY SAID, “SON, HAVE YOU EVER KISSED A MULE’S ASS?”
THE GUNSLINGER SWALLOWED HARD AND SAID, “NO M’AM… BUT I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO.”
THERE ARE FIVE LESSONS HERE FOR ALL OF US:
1 – Never be arrogant.
2 – Don’t waste ammunition.
3 – Whiskey makes you think you’re smarter than you are.
4 – Always make sure you know who has the power.
5 – Don’t mess with old women; they didn’t get old by being stupid.
Posted with love from a stubborn, old mule.
Cacti
@raven: Okay Jurassic Park. Go chase some kids off your lawn now.
eclare
@Jackie:
Interesting. I took typing in high school.
TBone
@Cacti: son, you need to wipe the spittle off your chin and take it walking.
Another Scott
@TBone: :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Warblewarble
The killing goes on,not any surprise when Blinken reassured the Senate that the US. is more prepared to go after those who would bring war crinminals to justice,and to sheild the war crimminals by every means.
Cacti
@Kay: I really enjoyed Hillary Clinton crawling out of her crypt to wag a finger at the college and call them names for opposing the latest slaughter she supports.
A real mystery why she wasn’t a hit with the kids in 2016. 😒
Eyeroller
@Jackie: I don’t know how my father learned to type, but he worked as a clerk for a department store for a few years, then sometime in 1940 decided we were going to get into that war eventually and he’d prefer not to be drafted, so he enlisted. He was a very fast and accurate typist so was slotted quickly into a clerk typist role, which of course keeps one out of the infantry and at least a little ways from the front. When his older brother was drafted, my dad told him to tell them he could type, which my uncle could barely do. My uncle sometimes stayed up all night to peck out payrolls, but he did it. My dad was accepted to OCS in 1942 but his brother stayed with a unit that went into Italy.
Isaac Asimov wrote about how whenever he’d arrive on a base, he’d ask for access to a typewriter to “write a letter home” and would immediately be set up as a clerk-typist.
Cacti
@TBone: So which part was untrue?
eclare
Latest eta on power is 12:30. This has been delayed since about 3 am.
Sure Lurkalot
Short Memory, Midnight Oil
Conquistador of Mexico, the Zulu and the NavahoThe Belgians in the Congo short memoryPlantation in Virginia, the Raj in British IndiaThe deadline in South Africa short memoryThe story of El Salvador, the silence of HiroshimaDestruction of Cambodia short memory
Short memory, must have a, short memory
The sight of hotels by the Nile, the designated Hilton styleWith running water specially bought short memoryA smallish man Afghanistan, a watch dog in a nervous landThey’re only there to lend a hand short memoryWake up in sweat at dead of nightAnd in the tents new rifles hey short memory
If you read the history books you’ll see the same things happen again and againRepeat repeat short memory they’ve all got itWhen are we going to play it againGot a short, got a short, got a short, got a shortThey’ve got a short must have a short they’ve got a short aahShort memory, they’ve got a.
schrodingers_cat
@eclare: Thanks eclare. He had a quiet dignity about him.
PaulB
Your weekly reminder that responding to trolls is a complete waste of time. Just report them to the blogfather or WG and let them give him another timeout.
ETA: Letting a troll take over a thread like this on Memorial Day is downright offensive.
To put things back on topic, to those who served in any capacity, thank you. Reflect on their sacrifices and vow to not let those sacrifices be in vain.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: ❤️❤️❤️🤗
Jackie
@eclare: This was in the ‘30s. I’m pretty sure high school typing classes back then were female only – much like Home Ec was.
Cacti
@PaulB: Hey, your fellow Social Security recipient started this one.
Another Scott
@sab: My dad was a Lt. in the ’50s. Volunteered for the Navy before he was drafted. He was in the reserves after his stint – 10 years I think. I think it was required for officers back then.
More recently, there was a 4-star AF guy who lived farther down the neighborhood from us. Those guys never really get to retire. We would often speculate that our street got plowed pretty quickly in the winter because of him. ;-)
My MIL’s first husband, and love of her life, was on a bomber that went down in Europe early in WWII. She didn’t remarry until 10+ years later.
War has huge costs, even for the survivors. It’s important to remember.
Cheers,
Scott.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@sab:
An interesting analysis of battlefield casualties:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5x62aw/during_ww2_how_did_casualty_rates_compare_between/
I’d encourage everyone to read:
https://www.amazon.com/Old-Soldiers-Never-Library-Wales/dp/1910901199
It’s very accessible. Written by a Welsh soldier who fought in the trenches on the Western Front throughout the entire war and obviously lived. A veritable unicorn. It’s sobering if for nothing else the seemingly random nature of who lived and who died.
His account made it into book form in no small part because part of the time he served was with Robert Graves, he of ‘I, Claudius” fame.
Jackie
@Eyeroller: That’s a great story! 🥰
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
You can see that. So proud.
Harrison Wesley
@Kay: The ‘mistake’ trope is over-used. I’m much taken with the new fable that the weapons / targeting / operators / AI/ WTFever were ‘imprecise.’ It’s just got that savoir-faire, that je-ne-sais-quoi, that grey-poupon.
And to truly show the spirit of bipartisanship (and who among us doesn’t love a little bipartisanship?), the Speaker of the House, Jesus’ Very Own Beloved Mike Johnson said we can tell the ICC and UN to pound sand, since we’re governed by The Merkin Constitution, not some limp-wristed ‘international law.’ After all, that stuff only applies to third-world…uh, Global South countries and Axis of Eviloids like Iran.
Eyeroller
@Jackie: I don’t think high schools, at least most of them, taught typing even to girls in the 1930s. Young women would go to “secretarial schools” or “business colleges” which taught typing, stenography, simple bookkeeping, etc. for a year or so after high school. But quite a few men could type (cf. Asimov)–maybe they were self-taught? Or they may have taken a typing class at one of those “business colleges”; it’s possible my dad did that when he moved to Memphis in 1939, since it would be a useful job skill for a lot of men as well.
Now that I think about it, I believe my dad probably took a typing course in college. He was a business major so it would seem natural (back then). He dropped out after two years, went back on the GI Bill after the war.
Warblewarble
“A tragic mistake”, so thats allright then. Rinse and repeat.
frosty
@PaulB:
Delightful pastries now. Christ what an asshole.
Kay
@Harrison Wesley:
Yes. More profiles in courage. We boldy stand up to the prosecutors. We’re really brave when it comes to scolding lawyers.Congress is going to throw some paper at them.
But even that doesn’t explain why we’re violating our own laws on Israel’s behalf. I won’t hold my breath for any member of the media to ask Johnson or Schumer or Blinken that. Ask them why we won’t enforce the Leahy laws when we have enforced them against every other recipient of aid except Israel.
The students have some gallows humor they repeat on social media. “We asked- are Palestinians… human? Our political and college leaders answered “no, and fuck you for asking”.
I think that’s why human rights laws and norms don’t apply to them. They must not be human.
wjca
Not unlike my father. Drafted (he was in a war-critical job, but someone messed up the paperwork) into the Army Air Corps. The standard IQ test showed him very high, so he got routed into cryptography.
He used to say he “spent the war on Pacific beaches: Waikiki, San Francisco [where he met my mother], Santa Monica, Johnston Island.” He also told a story of the time he pissed off some high ranking officer (colonel?). When threatened with consequences, Dad told him, “You’ll have to talk to General Arnold. There’s nobody between him and me.” Needless to say, nothing came of it.
WaterGirl
@Cacti: I see that you woke up and decided that today was a good day to be a total dick.
What kind of person wakes up and thinks that Memorial Day is a good day to shit on veterans?
Jackie
@Eyeroller: Yes, my Dad went to business college after high school. He was an awesome typist! Before electric typewriters were available, his fingers just FLEW over the keys – and rarely make errors. When I was a kid, watching him type with such rhythm was mesmerizing!
RaflW
Just seeing that 22 have been killed by tornadoes & severe weather in the US today, and thousands killed in that massive land slide in Papua New Guinea.
GOP climate denialism is deeply infuriating and utterly immoral.
Harrison Wesley
@Kay: I thought the deal with the Leahy laws was that IDF said it was following them, and our betters in DC looked at our own internal reports and decided it was all too confusing or too vague or too difficult or too…..something something mumble mumble.
wjca
And all those guys were a significant part of why the US boomed for the next 3 decades or so. Certainly not the only reason; being the only major developed nation who’s infrastructure hadn’t been trashed was even bigger. But significant. And with ripple effects for a couple of generations thereafter.
Anyway
@Sure Lurkalot:
Plus John Kelly was being paid big $$$ by companies that would benefit from housing/”incarcerating” individuals targeted for deportation — major conflict of interest for a DHS secy — and never disclosed that. Of course IOKIYAR…
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: Guessing he showed up here because his original plan of celebrating the day by putting banana peels in front of the old folks’ home didn’t pan out.
Harrison Wesley
@Kay: Palestinians human? Next you’ll be trying to tell me that Santa Claus was Turkish.
trollhattan
“Human Scum”?
Donald, the unhinging, seems to have wrapped up and is arriving at the terminal.
https://i0.wp.com/digbysblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screenshot-2024-05-27-7.46.17-AM.png?w=584&quality=80&ssl=1
Josie
@WaterGirl: Hopefully, John will notice his hateful personal comment to Raven and act accordingly.
Tony Jay
@Soprano2:
To be honest, I think it’s worse than that. Palestinians in general (not just in Gaza) are IMHO being retrospectively punished for The Holocaust. That’s what the incessant propaganda of the Israeli Right has been leading to for years. “Once we were weak, helpless, compliant with those who thought us lesser. Evil people were allowed to hurt us. Only by being strong in the way that we define strength can we ensure that evil people will never dare hurt us again”, but atrocity of 10/7 punched a huge hole in that shibboleth that the Gaza slaughter was supposed to patch-up, but it hasn’t worked, because it couldn’t work. It just created more problems that the Israeli Right isn’t capable of comprehending, never mind solving.
By tying resistance to the expansion of Greater Israel to antisemitism, and by painting all opponents of the Israeli Right’s long term ethnic cleansing project as just like the Nazis, the Israeli Right successfully painted a big old swastika on the faces of every single Palestinian, and made killing them an act of therapeutic Nazi-punching for a lot of their supporters.
It’s that kind of maximalist extremism and pro-Greater Israel exceptionalism that the actual State of Israel’s traditional allies in western government and media are finding so embarrassing, so much so that they need to pretend it’s simply not happening. But that’s not a viable policy either. The Far-Right are the same the world over and in every time period. They won’t compromise and they won’t accept limits on their freedom to act out their extremist fantasies until the power is taken away from them.
Eventually, someone (whether the Israeli public or Israel’s external backers) are going to have to bite the bullet and say “No More!” or else the fallout of this will be a genocide on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and after that there are no good futures, for anyone involved.
Soprano2
@Cacti: Wow, fuck you.
Geminid
@trollhattan: Devoting much of a Memorial Day message to disputing a rape charge is definitely a Stable Genius move on Trump’s part.
Soprano2
@Kay: Strange how these tragic mistakes keep happening. Almost seems like they aren’t mistakes at all.
Tdjr
@PaulB: I like the pie!
Kay
@Tony Jay:
Same with fundamentalist religious. They’re all, every flavor, corrosive to democracies. Israel isn’t unique in that either.
Tony Jay
@Cacti:
Ah, dickery. The bastard cousin of fuckery and the lamentable hobby of many a couch-based commando.
At least Eversor has the excuse that he’s incapable of better.
frosty
@Geminid:
Ugh, why did I follow the link and read that?
Tony Jay
@Kay:
Which is why fundamentalist, nativist religion and the parties of the Far-Right are so often snuggled up in bed together, entwined like two snakes on blue-pill benders. They draw their venom from the same sacks.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Oh, please. It’s completey incoherent to say “we had super good intelligence pinpointing where the Hamas leaders were but we somehow missed the huge fucking tent village, the village we called a “safe zone” and herded people into”. Pick one, Israel. You’re insulting our intelligence. I’m sure Biden will repeat it, along with his usual weak, vague handwave to “civilians” – just sort of any civilians anywhere, where he refuses to discuss them with any specificity because to do so would make them human.
I hope he doesn’t say anything. He just makes it worse.
Cacti
@WaterGirl: Hello there hall monitor.
This particular spat was instigated by one of the people you like. No surprise you ignored that completely. 😉
Kay
@Tony Jay:
So true. Those insane murderous settlers are just as fatal to Israeli democracy and freedom as our Christian fundamenalists are to our freedoms. They don’t share democratic values.
kalakal
My father volunteered in 1944 ( he was in a ‘protected profession’ – he worked in a ship yard’ ) and served with the Black Watch in Europe – when the war ended all the draftees were demobilised and he had 4 years to go. He was sent to Palestine ( as it then was was) and stayed there until the UN Mandate of 1948 and the creation of Israel .He never really spoke of any of it but would spit blood at the mention of Menachem Begin and other members of the Irgun and Stern Gang. He was one the people first on the scene of the King David Hotel. He never showed any interest in regimental reunions but did like his old pictures of the armoured cars and motorbikes.
MagdaInBlack
@Tony Jay: I do so hope that mention does not summon that gremlin too.
Cacti
@Kay: But Biden said Israel is doing everything it can to protect civilians. Surely he wouldn’t lie to us. 😒
Kay
@Soprano2:
Are they bombing from space? The whole area is the size of Baltimore. How do they miss a huge settlement that they created? They cut off internet in Gaza two days prior to the bombing. I think they thought there wouldn’t be video. Surprise! Every news agency in the world has it.
Gloria DryGarden
@eclare: I second someone else’s suggestion, (I wrote their nym, but autocorrect adjusted it) to use the dairy in a cooked project. Cheese will hold. Yogurt will hold fine. Sometimes a fridge stays pretty cold for many hours.
I want to add that if it’s milk, and you have a little active yogurt culture, you can make homemade yogurt. Homemade ricotta is divine, by the way, and pretty easy.
if your power isn’t already back on by now, what about finding frozen items, or ice cubes, and putting some in the fridge, sort of like in a camping cooler.
my neighborhood used to have frequent no reason power outages.
Cacti
@Tony Jay: That is some grade A Boomer babble.
Suzanne
@Kay: FWIW, I think Biden has a couple of things going on in his mind:
1) I think he thinks that he will have greater influence on Netanyahu and a potential successor if he hold Israel somewhat close, at least in public.
2) I think he has…. Not sure of the right word? Affection? Connection? Brotherhood? None are quite right….. but he feels a greater bond of common humanity with Israel due to its founding after the Holocaust. Lots of Americans of that generation seem to feel that way. It’s not an urge borne of malice.
But I do think both of these impulses are clouding his response. Evidence suggests that Netanyahu is not able to be adequately influenced. And our allegiance should be to a greater goal of a peaceful, dignified resolution to this conflict that protects the human rights of both Israelis and Palestinians.
Harrison Wesley
@Suzanne: President Biden has publicly self-identified as a Zionist. I’m not sure what options he’s left himself, assuming that he’s considering any.
Tony Jay
@Cacti:
Cut. Paste. Wibble.
Sea lions can’t fish in deep waters, m’laddo.
@MagdaInBlack:
In a very real sense, isn’t he always with us? I mean, colonicaly?
Sister Golden Bear
@Another Scott:
My father volunteered for the Navy to avoid getting drafted, and specifically chose to be an enlisted man for that reason, despite being a college graduate. (If not, he would’ve been recalled during the Korean War a few years later.) He’d learned to type in business school, so he ended up as a typist in San Diego during his service.
Suzanne
@Harrison Wesley: If I’m being real, I don’t think there’s a good outcome to be found for this conflict, at least in this generation. The best that I think the U.S. can do is stay the fuck out of it entirely. Not one more bullet.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I would agree with you except for his public statements on Palestianians. Arab Americans think he has actual animus towards them, perhaps because of his love of Israel, perhaps just because he’s an old war on terror guy and their knee jerk is “they are all terrorists”. I agree with them. I hear it too.
So it’s two fold. Love of Israel and Israelis, bias against Palestinians. I think both things are in play.
The same is true of the religious Right in the US, just more extreme. They don’t just love Israel. They think strikes against Palestinians are a Judeo Christian war against the Muslim hordes. They love Israel but they also hate Palestinians. They are not at all shy about saying this. This is “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. I think “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” never, ever works out for people and it won’t work out for any of us, either.
That’s like the Third Rail in US discussions of I/P. The missing piece. The animus towards Palestinians. It’s part of it. We cannot discuss this, IMO, w/out that piece. It’s real.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Why do we think we’re the ones to solve this? My God, we’ve shown over and over we just make it worse. Let someone else try something different. Some country that has some credibility regarding the rights of Palestinians.
Cacti
@Suzanne: I think suggesting it not being borne of malice gives a benefit of the doubt that is unearned by Biden’s long and well documented public career of giving full throated support to all manner of western colonialist and imperialist violence in that region of the world.
I don’t think Biden sees the natives of the middle east as fully human in the same sense as a European Christian or an Ashkenazi Jew. The fact that he’s asking the votes of Arab-Americans while also asking them to accept that their families in the old country are expendable to him illustrates this in the most morbid way possible.
Cacti
@Tony Jay: It’s especially cute that you think of yourself as “deep waters”. 😆
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
I agree with you. The shift is indeed generational.
Kay
I would just suggest that the same people who want the protesting students arrested and jailed will absolutely be coming after you should you oppose something they support.
They’re not your friends. Donald Trump pulls this out and God forbid wins, these same “reasonable centrists” will be shutting down your opposition to him and his “roundups” and such. Because they’re groveling ass kissers, by nature. They can’t wait to go along with Daddy.
Juju
@Cacti: Your ignorance is showing. Before you make offensive and uncalled for comments and criticism, do a little bit historical research. If you did you would find out that Raven, by himself did not start the war. If you did further research you would know that he had a choice if he was drafted, go to war or go to prison. That’s a terrible choice to be given. He did what he had to do, and then cursed those who gave him the terrible choice, when he could. I’m assuming you are on the younger side of life, but criticizing someone because they are older is also incredibly stupid. It’s what happens to humans if they manage to live. If you are lucky, it will happen to you too. I just hope you learn enough along the way to figure out being an ignorant asshole is no way to go through life.
Harrison Wesley
@Kay: I gather that Ireland and Spain have been threatened with “severe consequences” for recognizing Palestine as a state (I guess Norway will get a dose of that, too). I find that disturbing, because I’m not sure what “consequences” Israel could deliver….but the USA could certainly deliver some.
Cacti
@Juju: Thank you for thinking I’m young.
Tony Jay
@Cacti:
Isn’t it just?!?
I wonder if there’s there an emoji for how seen I now feel? Probably not. There are limits to even that scale of majestic profundity.
rikyrah
My father was A poor Black kid from Jim Crow Tennessee. He volunteered before Pearl Harbor. Came back from WWII with a love for France. Used the veterans points to test for the Post Office, and wound up working for the VA Hospital in X-Ray. When diagnosed with lung cancer, he went and asked the VA doctor that he thought could help him. He stayed in the VA for almost three months, post operation. That doctor saved his life. He lived 30 years more. He told me repeatedly that if it hadn’t of been for the VA, he would have died, and I would never have been born.
Juju
@Cacti: If you are not, you seem to be a case of arrested development.
Anotherlurker
@Juju: I doubt he will learn anything. My impression is that he is a spoiled brat who likes to use edgy buzz words to insult those he deems unworthy. He is sadly under educated in the real world and hasn’t had to make a difficult, life changing decision in his sheltered, pampered life.
Kay
@Harrison Wesley:
The US and Israel want a two state solution BUT NOT LIKE THAT! Or THAT. Or THAT. Not like… anything. Please. It’s the definition of bad faith negotiations. Good for Ireland and Norway and Spain for going their own way and ignoring our belligerent demands they stay silent. I’m hoping Denmark joins.
Juju
@Anotherlurker: I’m a former teacher. I have a tendency to give the benefit of the doubt. In regards to said commenter, I will no longer.
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: as an early childhood Para (assistant teacher) I appreciate this. We work hard in education. And there is some sacrifice. We paras make 1/3 of what teachers make. And the teachers are considered low income. They just began starting paras at $20/hr last year; it took me 10+ years to get my pay up to that. I come home exhausted, unable to think, and I catch frequent colds from the kids. This year I had 4 flus that were each about two weeks. Now that I’m a substitute para, that’s unpaid sick time, just lost work. It’s sweet, it’s “right work,” and I’m grateful I don’t have to plan and jump through all the hoops the teachers do.
regarding thanking military veterans for their service, I read somewhere an article that said instead of thanking them for their service, to say I forgive you. Because people who served often carry guilt and emotional scars from what they were part of. That sounds like a too deep tricky conversation that might trigger some people’s ptsd. So, I have not implemented that, but it sure made me think.
WaterGirl
@Cacti: I didn’t get an email about whatever commenter that was, but I did get one complaining about what a dick you are and asking for you to be banned.
To which I replied that we don’t ban people on Balloon Juice for being dicks and assholes.
So I sometimes end up being your (reluctant) defender. Have you ever considered thinking about living your life in such a way that dozens and dozens of people don’t want you gone?
Anotherlurker
@Juju: Your teacher’s instinct is spot on. As you said, some deserve the benefit of the doubt. This guy doesn’t. He has shown his true, nasty colors too many times.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Wow, powerful story.
Kay
@rikyrah:
ha! He took the postal test! When I was there veterans they got a 15 point bump which basically meant they always got hired.
My father loved the VA too. Highest praise from him, compulsively neat person : “it’s clean”.
Hated the army though. Not a joiner and kind of eccentric and prickly – not an easy person. the only organization he ever believed in was his union.
Geminid
@Harrison Wesley: Israel isn’t going to do anything to those countries. They noisily withdrew their ambassadors, but they’ll quietly send them back in a few weeks.
As for the U.S., this weekend Norway hosted a multinational working group session on financial support for the Palestinian Authority. State Department official Kurt Campbell was slated to attend for the U.S. Reports are that Israel asked the State Department to boycott the meeting on account of the Norway’s action, and Campbell went anyway.
These three nations are just the latest of over 140 who have recognized Palestinian statehood. That’s a non-factor in our relations with the other ones, and it will be a non-factor in our relations with Spain, Ireland and Norway.
Cacti
@Juju: Thank you for Boomer-splaining the world to me. I’ve definitely never heard any of your fresh insights repeated ad nauseum for the last half century by that age cohort.
I’m truly sorry for my sins against Boomerdom. I’ll go say 5 Hail Mick Jaggers and watch Forrest Gump for my act of contrition.
Cacti
@WaterGirl: Well of course you didn’t get an email complaining about one of the cool kids club.
But if you scroll up a bit, you’ll see that he went out of his way to attack me personally after I’d said nothing to him at all.
Ironcity
@wjca: Wasn’t part of the reason for the GI Bill we had a pent-up supply of early 20s healthy (sort of, saving the physically disabled and PTSD cases) ex-service members that had to be managed on reentry to the civilian economy? A good way to do it was to encourage some/ a lot of this tidal wave to spend 4 years or some other amount of time out of the labor pool in college/schooling/something.
Juju
@Anotherlurker: I usually scroll by what this person writes, and I have never before replied to anything he has written. This time I couldn’t help but reply. There is no reason to insult someone for shits and giggles. Life is too short for such garbage. I will admit I did read the last comment to me, and apparently he has common sense and decency confused with being born in the boomer era.
Gloria DryGarden
@rikyrah: ❤️
WaterGirl
@Cacti: What? Are you 8? You have no agency? He called you an asshole, so you had no choice but to escalate by a factor of 10? And make it extremely personal?
Only children blame their behavior on other people.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ruckus:
True! My dad came back with a wife and me. One of us was worth it. ;-)
karen gail
For the first 18 years of my life Memorial Day was May 30th; it was a ritual. Early morning we would load up trunk of Grandpa’s car with pots of geraniums and a picnic basket; Great Grandma and I sat in back seat. We visited every cemetery where relatives were buried, planted flowers and Great Grandma told the history of relatives and friends. Some died in wars, some died from diseases, some died defending their homes from invaders; most of the trappers that stopped by had come from Canada and native tribe people trade for tools that her great grandfather bought and brought form white relatives in the east. She told stories of women defending against white men who believed their “God” gave them the right to take what they wanted. She said the family left the highlands to get away from white men taking their land and claiming it was their right as English, only to once again be fighting the same battles years later.
Some of the stories Grandpa told were about young men going off to die because someone believed they had the right to force others; he pointed out the graves of those who died in civil war, those who returned from civil war changed. He told stories of family members who were poor and forced to fight in WWI and WWII. He also had stories about young men dying and being changed by Korea and Vietnam; so many of those who died or were changed had no choice, often the draft board would give some of the young men the choice of prison or military.
I am not sure where we gathered the lilacs by the end of the journey through cemetery after cemetery the trunk held empty clay pots and lilacs the empty picnic basket sat in back seat and I sat between my grandparents in front seat as grandpa remembered sons and grandsons who had gone to war across the sea. He didn’t believe the story that they were dying for freedom; he believed they were dying to make men rich.
Warblewarble
When you’re a zionist they (the US.) lets you do it.
Tony Jay
@Juju:
No, no, you misunderstand. For cutting edge hipsters like Weaksauce Willie it’s always 2014 somewhere, and Tom Clancy based street-jive is always as fresh as a librarian’s gusset.
‘Boomer’ – Technomilitarist Geek slang for someone you’ll never see coming until they blow you to atoms.
So it’s a compliment, really. Like when that weird, smelly guy in stained tracksuit bottoms and a suit jacket picks you to sit next to on the bus because you look so damned approachable.
Cacti
You sound like you do speak with some authority on this. So how many velour tracksuits do you own, and what was the worst reaction you received? 😆
Jess
Hey! That’s my work buddy!
Juju
@Tony Jay: The fact that he would use the phrase “cool kids” , and as an adult would think that matters, tells me everything I need to know about him.
I don’t worry too much about my era designation. When I was born I was in one group, but the powers that be redid the dates and I was moved to another group. I guess this person is obviously not a boomer, but also obviously doesn’t realize that eventually he and his cohorts will become the boomer replacement if they live long enough.
I snickered at Watergirl’s comment. It made me think of that asshole child we all grew up with that if you said don’t touch me, would put his index finger close enough to look like he was touching you, but not actually touching you, and think he was being so very clever. Just tedious.
PaulB
Children, and sociopathic trolls who got exactly the response they were looking for. Cacti’s first post on this thread was specifically designed to elicit exactly such a response, to start a flame war. (Not to mention, as the troll himself noted, “So which part [of Raven’s response] was untrue?”)
And then there’s that whole “cool kids club” remark, which is very revealing.
John’s blog, John’s rules, but this particular individual has been trolling here for years. His only saving grace is that he’s a lazy troll, disappearing for days or even weeks before his need for validation drives him back here again. How pathetic is it that someone can be so desperate for attention that they feel they have to troll to get it? That’s just sad. And even more sad on this day and this thread. I’d feel sorry for him, except that his own behavior precludes any possibility of that emotion.
And, with that, I’ve given him far more attention than he deserves, so moving on.
Mai Naem mobile
@rikyrah: thats a very cool story to have about your dad.
Gloria DryGarden
I’m really moved by all the stories, how people’s relatives were affected by war, by the gi bill, by the VA. It’s amazing how many stories we won’t get to hear, because returning soldiers would never talk about it. I wish we could hear kalakal’s relative’s story of what really happened in early Israel, and at the king David hotel.
A friend who didn’t go to nam said he’d been told some of what happened over there, but he said he won’t repeat it, implying it was sickeningly awful.
I was close to 2 people who were prepared to draft dodge by moving to Canada. Both managed to fail their medical tests, instead.
my Scottish great uncle served in WWII. I was chatting to him about backpacking and was going to tell him how we used to dress our foot blisters so they wouldn’t hurt and we could keep walking. I opened with, “I’ve walked miles on blisters” and he replied “ so have I me dear, so have I,” in his lilting accent. I shut up. Normally I was a clueless self centered teenager, but that one sentence gave me a personal look into what it was like. And I know, only a slice of it.
It was like opening a book right into a soldier’s life in war; the countryside, rain, grey skies, carrying everything on your back, walking too far in too much pain, sticking it out, and knowing that death, and killing, were on the schedule.
(I’m not sure a semicolon was the right punctuation mark there; I need help.)
Separate topic, sort of: all the discussion of I/P and all the civilian devastation , the mutual attempted genocides, it makes me want to break out sobbing.
Tony Jay
@Juju:
It is tedious. I think that’s the performative point of it. Funny thing is, there are far more annoying people here. Poor clumping sea lion can’t even do that right.
Oh, hang on. Found some lint-dusted nuts at the bottom of a pocket in my favourite cords.
@Cacti:
Emojilarious! Cowabunga! Bazinga! Namedrop. Droll aside. Could you be any more amazing?
@Juju:
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Tedious. But what can you do? At least everyone is on the same page now.
Juju
@Tony Jay: A dream I have and am saving for, is to visit the British isles and do what I want until I run out of money. If I actually do that, I would like to meet you and have a meal with you and your wife. That would be fun and something to look forward to, which I really need right now.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
I get my healthcare from the VA. And I like the healthcare that I get.
It isn’t perfect but then what is?
I have had a very small number of docs at local clinics that deserved a swift knee in that area of the male human body that no one likes to have treated that way, but it is a very minuscule number. I believe it is that clinics are staffed by contract docs who come in once a week for a very short time. But most of my docs at the hospital I use are first rate, like their jobs and are very good at it.
Cacti
@PaulB: I need the validation of the BJ comment section…so much that I disappear from it for days, weeks, (sometimes even months) at a time. 😂
Your reasoning is unassailable. 🤣🤣
Gloria DryGarden
@PaulB: moving story
@karen gail:
Gloria DryGarden
@Gloria DryGarden: oops
it was Karen Gail w the moving story. And Paul I was writing to agree with. Forgot to watch the edit timer.
self reflection, helps one know when one is saying harmful or mean things personally to a whole group, or to an individual.
without self reflection, not sure; might just lead to bully as victim.
My dad used to say mean hurtful things, and make put downs. When I hear or read that sort of thing, I think of it as bullying, and it resonates. So it is personal to say something snarky to a whole group, and it’s not accurate to say “I didn’t say anything to that person”
I liked al-anon for self reflection. You know who else doesn’t have much self reflection? Mtg. Djt(TIFG). Etc. the list goes on.
K-Mo
@SiubhanDuinne: Or Google it. For example, here’s Wikipedia:
“Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for honoring and mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. It is observed on the last Monday of May.”
Tony Jay
@Juju:
Give it a few years and you’ll be mobbed off the plane by ragged natives clanging broken laptops together and singing Barbara Streisand songs to welcome the rich tourists and their generous tips.
Bring working batteries. You’ll be made Hereditary Archbishop of Hull and Goole before you’ve descended the plane steps.
Hamlet of Melnibone
Folks, just pie him and move on.
Pink Tie
Honoring my dear Uncle Jim, who died before I was born. He served in Korea and was my mom’s favorite sibling. Alcoholism runs in the family, and ONE time I was told that the day Jim died, he had been at every bar in their small Ohio town, and died when he wrecked his Jeep. My mother denies all of this, and the person who told me pretty much recanted everything (I think after I asked mom about it, which I should never have done). I believe that the combination of inherited substance abuse tendency + small town boredom + the trauma of being in combat doomed my poor uncle. He was really young.
Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen (1920)
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
sab
@Hamlet of Melnibone: Yes. He’s been in my pie filter for years, and I have long since stopped peeking at his comments through the toggle button. There was no point. This thread has been a pastry cart for me. Always glad to see Avalune’s and others’ pastry icons.
Pink Tie
@Cacti: ad *nauseam
sab
Is ours the only household that spends most of Memorial Day every year watching Band of Brothers?
PaulB
Dear heart, I know that such things as logic and reason routinely escape you, but can you at least *try* to not be stupid in your replies? I’d point out the flaw in your response, but I don’t need to, as it’s glaringly obvious.
Thanks, ever so.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
I’d bet this person just likes the attention. And being a nice normal human doesn’t get anyone all that much attention. But being an annoying asshole does. Sure it’s not good attention, but if one is the kind of person that requires attention, pretty much any attention will do. And for sure, in a reasonable adult situation, attention is not the same as acting like a 5 yr old and screaming and throwing stuff attention is.
Ruckus
@Gloria DryGarden:
I took my draft physical in the first half of Vietnam and NO ONE failed, not the guy in woman’s panties, not the assholes, not the well overweight guys, no one failed, because the physical was BS. One of the telling bits was that the urine and blood samples were placed in racks with no labels on the containers. They were never going to be tested and the only way to get a 4F seemed to be weighing over 300 lb. And in my lifetime I’ve met very few 300 lb 18 yr olds.
wjca
Or have heel/bone spurs. Can’t forget those.
emjayay
@eclare: So some veteran’s group had to put a more traditional statue near it. I think maybe it has a female nurse in it though (?)
Speaking of more traditional (but not entirely) memorials the Korean War one on the Mall that actually came later is IMO pretty effective. I first saw it at night during a snowfall.
The worst one is the WWII one, which I think came after those other ones. It’s big a very traditional designed by committee nothingburger.