Reviving Infrastructure

While the above photo may look like trying to undo some of Bush's neglect, it's actually from a three-pronged article in the LATimes about the Stilwell Road, the modern view of the road by India and China, and one old Veteran's memories of the racism involved in building it. Well worth a read.

More than 1,100 American troops died building the road in what is now Myanmar. Today China and some in India see the long-neglected route as their lifeline.

Evelio Grillo is one of the few vets still alive to tell the tale of the Stilwell Road.

Grillo also tells of boneheaded officers who ordered him to measure the road with lengths of chain for hours on end until someone finally pointed out that the Army jeeps had odometers.

Why do I have no trouble at all believing that? Similar experiences with officers, no doubt.

More than half a century later, China now is working to resurrect it as the first major overland trade route since World War II with India, where business leaders, politicians and bureaucrats also are pressing their government to formally commit itself to the road as a link between the world's two most populous nations.

The road's western end, close to the Indian state of Assam, has been swallowed up by the jungle, and portions of it can be traveled only on foot. In the east, the upgraded section near the Chinese border is busy, but most of the traffic consists of small traders and tourists on short visits to gamble, or to see transsexual burlesque shows in Myanmar.

Yeah, that's my idea of the dream vacation too...

Squeezing the hand of his son and namesake, California Superior Court Judge Evelio M. Grillo, the old vet smiles at the memories of winning enough poker pots from his war buddies in Burma to buy his mom a house in Tampa, Fla.

But he'd rather forget most of his two years at war. Grillo had to suffer the indignities of racial segregation on the 58-day passage to India aboard the Santa Clara, where the only comforts were reserved for the white officers.

Grillo remembers most of them as vulgar racists, and wrote in his memoir, "Black Cuban, Black American," that the road builders assumed that the white men giving them orders in Southern drawls had been selected because they were "deemed to know how to handle black men."

The black GIs had to bunk in the ship's windowless, foul-smelling hold, stewing in the "stench cooked up by the sweat, the farts and the vomit of 200 men," he recalled in the memoir.

Been there, done that. And then the ship left the dock...

The men who built the road weren't honored for their feat until 2004, when the Defense Department marked African American History Month at Florida A&M University.

Figures. Enjoy, if such is the correct word, the rest.

The GOP's White Supremacy

Good piece at HuffPo on a subject that makes me feel all warm and tingly: the death, a much deserved and painful one I hope, of the Repuglican't party. Here's a coupla excerpts:

Let's be thankful for one thing about Bush's presidency: the white male leadership of the Republican Party showed the world once and for all that its cronyism, corruption and discrimination completely outweighed any shred of competence. And that it can no longer count on white votes to carry its divisive, prejudiced agenda, both because there are proportionately fewer white voters, and because outside of the Deep South and Appalachia, white voters are increasingly disgusted by the Republican Party. GOP leaders, not all stupid, have seen this coming for some time now, as one predominantly white suburb after another has fallen to the Democrats. And so for years they have been hanging their hopes on the perceived social conservatism of African-American and, especially, Latino voters. The 2008 elections put the final nail in that coffin, as even with the specter of same-sex marriage, supposedly conservative non-white voters stayed away from the GOP in numbers larger than ever before despite the stock Republican gay-baiting. For those of them who did want to take a stand, in California, Florida and Arizona, for instance, they voted against same-sex marriage rights and for Democrats. This presents a challenge for progressive Democrats, certainly, but one that pales in comparison to what the fast-shrinking GOP faces. Another fiasco by Republicans this year was their latest attempt at swaying Jewish voters away from the Democratic party, especially in Florida, this time with accusations that Obama, among others, is weak on Israel, and hints that he was a Muslim. The result: just 1 in 5 Jewish voters picked McCain. Perhaps the fact that there are only three Republican Jews in Congress (versus 42 Democrats) should have been a hint that there was far more work to do there than simply brandishing the specter of Islam in the White House. And that the party's rush to out-Christian itself is probably unlikely to appeal to people who are, well, not Christian, including Jews, Muslims, and agnostics, to name a few.

It is no coincidence that at the same time, the GOP has shriveled into a more uniform party than at most times since the 1960s. Like a restricted country club that would rather die than change, the Republican Party is marginalizing itself for the sake of the white men who run it. "Barack The Magic Negro" and Palm Beach aryanists are just the more bizarre manifestations of a party that has wallowed for so long in the privileges of its white male supremacy that it does not even realize that everyone has left the plantation, and they are not coming back.

Pick yer own goddam cotton, assholes. I hope you rot in hell.

Gifts for the Blessed

This one's time is slightly past, and I apologize for my tardiness. It's funny anyway.

Mark Morford

11 skewed ideas to make your holiday a bit more fun, strange, blasphemous

2) Wi-Fi detector shirt
Because few things say "I never want to have sex and really love being 34 and living with my parents" than a battery-powered T-shirt that actually shows the signal strength of the Wi-Fi connection around your very being. Matches perfectly with your "Meh" or "got root?" megageek hoodie. Watch hot girls avoid you like water shuns oil! Fun at all those parties you will never be invited to.

3) Gasoline storage tank
Genius! Fill your backyard reservoir with cheap gas right now, then chortle gleefully when 2010 comes and your friends are all paying 10 bucks a gallon to fill up their wimpy Prii, and suddenly there's you, roaring out to the Home Depot parking lot and burning donuts in your '96 Camaro filled with $1.19 unleaded. Dude! Foresight!

Note to Bustedknuckles, who was the first to bring this thing to my attention: They've discovered it in Frisco. Now everybody will want one!

5) Giant 1/3 scale remote-controlled tank
Military fetishists! Rural backwoods survivalists! Dick Cheney! Now is the time to pull out that last ten grand from the bomb shelter and get yourself a huge remote-controlled tank, an exact scale replica of the ones they used to thwart Commies and crush Saddam and run over Falun Gong believers in China. Apocalypse is nigh, after all. Why not destroy the lawn first?

Be sure to photograph yourself next to your Tiger 1 or Joseph Stalin 2 (biggest gun ever!) and send it in to the site for manly posterity. Chicks really dig that stuff. "My, you've sure got a giant turret, Ned!" she will surely gasp. "Does it spin around and rumble and shake my bowels? Can we keep it in the house? Will it terrify the dog and ruin the garden?" Hell yes, baby.

Truth is, no matter how bleak and economically depressed our country may be right now, in comparison to some of these developing regions, we are blessed beyond belief. We are packed with gifts and miracles, plenty to go around. What, you were saving up for a new Chrysler Sebring? As if.

Truth is. me'n Mrs. G opted out of the whole gift deal this year. Her family decided to forego gifts for the adults years ago and it's been a blessing. Mrs. G managed to get presents for 5 kids for $33, and it was all stuff they wanted. The woman is a genius, and not just for marrying me...

We are not going to be much help at consumer-spending the nation out of the depression the Repugs got us into. Tough shit.

Mozilla

If you use Firefox this article may be of interest.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Big Three Automakers Face Bankruptcy, But Vow to Rebound
Shown: 2009 Chrysler Cerberus, a thrifty 40 mpg sedan based on East Germany's popular Trabant.

White House Issues Blistering Rebuke to NY Times for Article Blaming Bush Policies for Mortgage Meltdown
Claims story was based on faulty intelligence.

From "The Year In Pictures":

Hitler's Gold Bookmark Found
Discovered in current owner's copy of new Ann Coulter book.

Palin Receives Blessing Against Witchcraft
But after Katie Couric interview.

QUOTE OF THE YEAR
“I don't know what his beef is.” — President George W. Bush, after dodging shoes thrown at him by a man who shouted, “This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq.”

Beijing ends 500 years of tradition as it sends the navy out to attack pirates

Times Online (UK)

From the dockside of the Yalong Bay base the three decorated vessels that weighed anchor and slipped off into the tropical seas yesterday afternoon might have been any normal coastal patrol.

For Beijing – and for governments watching across the globe – it was the beginning of a new era in world naval history. The interests of China now extend far beyond its borders but this was the first time in more than five centuries that it has travelled outside its territorial waters to defend them.

The last time a Chinese military fleet set sail for anywhere as far afield as Africa with the prospect of a fight at the other end, the ships were 400ft (122m) wooden junks and the commander was a Ming dynasty court eunuch called Zheng He.

— Zheng He is also known as Cheng Ho, or the Three Jewel Eunuch Admiral

Sounds more like the No Jewel Eunuch Admiral to me...

I will assume that today's Chinese sailors are fully equipped, and I wish them well. The whole world is watching this development. Please read the rest.

This is why ...

You ain't seen much of me for the last few days. I been playing Norm Abram* again.

*For those who don't know, Norm Abram of The New Yankee Workshop.

Banks Of The Ponchartrain

I'm not sure who everybody is, but the lovely and extremely talented Mary Black is Nanci's backup vocalist. From GainControlAgain, whom I think assumes we know this stuff.

From 1990 Irish TV.

Me like furrin TV!

Nanci Griffith

"Barack Obama has little in common with George W. Bush, thank God"

Here's Daddy Frank on Obama's choice of Rick Warren as his inaugural invocationalist. Pops has been on vacation or something and sounded off on this kind of late to my way of thinking, but better late than never, which is when I want to hear about this shit again.

You can go read what he has to say, but there's a slight upside:

There is comparable anger and fear on the right. David Brody, a political correspondent with the Christian Broadcasting Network, was flooded with e-mails from religious conservatives chastising Warren for accepting the invitation to the inaugural. They vilified Obama as “pro-death” and worse because of his support for abortion rights.

Stoking this rage, no doubt, is the dawning realization that the old religious right is crumbling — in part because Warren’s new generation of leaders departs from the Falwell-Robertson brand of zealots who have had a stranglehold on the G.O.P. It’s a sign of the old establishment’s panic that the Rev. Richard Cizik, known for his leadership in addressing global warming, was pushed out of his executive post at the National Association of Evangelicals this month. Cizik’s sin was to tell Terry Gross of NPR that he was starting to shift in favor of civil unions for gay couples.

Cizik’s ouster won’t halt the new wave he represents. As he also told Gross, young evangelicals care less and less about the old wedge issues and aren’t as likely to base their votes on them. On gay rights in particular, polls show that young evangelicals are moving in Cizik’s (and the country’s) direction and away from what John McCain once rightly called “the agents of intolerance.” It’s not a coincidence that Dobson’s Focus on the Family, which spent more than $500,000 promoting Proposition 8, has now had to lay off 20 percent of its work force in Colorado Springs.

Anything that causes the religious right to start crumbling and financial discomfort to the agents of intolerance is a step in the right direction.

By the historical standards of presidential hubris, Obama’s disingenuous defense of his tone-deaf invitation to Warren is nonetheless a relatively tiny infraction. It’s no Bay of Pigs. But it does add an asterisk to the joyous inaugural of our first black president. It’s bizarre that Obama, of all people, would allow himself to be on the wrong side of this history.

I'm kinda wondering if Obama is even smarter than we give him credit for. Perhaps he knew that turning over Warren's rock would expose some of his (and others') crap to the light. Where it cannot live.

Clean Coal. Yeah, Right...

This video accompanied an article at Treehugger. There are many more to see.

The Noose Tightens

A little post-Christmas cheer from Newsweek Online. I love the title, but need to add 'If Only!'.

Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and other top Bush officials could soon face legal jeopardy.

Go read. I'll cut to the chase:

But for those interested in tougher sanctions, one other possibility looms. Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of "The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld," points out that over 20 countries now have universal jurisdiction laws that would allow them to indict U.S. officials for torture if America doesn't do it itself. A few such cases were attempted in recent years but were dropped, reportedly under U.S. pressure. Now the Obama administration may be less likely to stand in their way. This doesn't mean it will extradite Cheney and Co. to stand trial abroad. But at the very least, the threat of such suits could soon force Bush aides to think twice before buying plane tickets. "The world is getting smaller for these guys," says Ratner, "and they'll have to check with their lawyers very carefully before they travel." Jail time it isn't—but it may be some justice nonetheless.

I think they should have to check with their lawyers to see if it's OK to go out in the front yard of their fortified undisclosed-location compounds, but that's just me.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

We're headin' for home today. I thought this was a fitting 'get outta town' song.

Emmylou Harris & The Hot Band Life in Budapest 1988

Leaving Louisiana

The next time I'm in Paris ...

I'm inviting myself to dinner at Chris' relatives' house. Anybody who serves two cheese courses is #1 with me.

All I want for Christmas ...

Is this. I can put it in the back yard and plink .22 rounds off it from my kitchen window. It's even bronze so it'll last a while. Beats shooting at the neighbors. Heh ...

Fellow Citizens ...

There is no such thing as 'clean coal'.

Merry Secular Humanist Progressive XMas!

Seasonal Forgiveness My Ass

Guardian (UK)

'Tis the night before Christmas and the season of goodwill. The mood is forgiving. Our faces warm with mulled wine, our tummies full, we're meant to slump in the armchair, look back on the year just gone and count our blessings - woozily agreeing to put our troubles behind us.

As in families, so in the realm of public and international affairs. And this December that feels especially true. The "war on terror" that dominated much of the decade seems to be heading towards a kind of conclusion. George Bush will leave office in a matter of weeks and British troops will leave Iraq a few months later. The first, defining phase of the conflict that began on 9/11 - the war of Bush, Tony Blair and Osama bin Laden - is about to slip from the present to the past tense. Bush and Blair will be gone, with only Bin Laden still in post (my em). The urge to move on is palpable.

Yes, the new year would get off to a more soothing start if we could all agree to draw a line and move on. But it would be wrong. First, because we cannot hope to avoid repeating the errors of the last eight years unless they are subject to a full accounting. (It is for that reason Britain needs its own full, unconstrained inquiry into the Iraq war.) Second, because a crucial principle, one that goes to the very heart of the American creed, is at stake. And third, because this is not solely about the judgment of history. It may be about the judgment of the courts - specifically those charged with punishing war crimes.

This is why there must be a reckoning. Bush will do all he can to avoid it: and it is wholly possible that one of his last acts as president will be to cover himself, his vice-president and all his henchmen with a blanket pardon. Even if that does not happen, Barack Obama is unlikely to want to spend precious capital pursuing his predecessor for war crimes.

But other prosecutors elsewhere in the world should weigh their responsibilities. In the end, it was a lone Spanish magistrate, not a Chilean court, who ensured the arrest of Augusto Pinochet. A pleasing, if uncharitable, thought this Christmas, is that Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush will hesitate before making plans to travel abroad in 2009. Or indeed at any time - ever again.

The rest of the world needs to STFU about this and very quietly issue arrest warrants. Give it a little while 'til the criminals think all is forgotten, then invite them to come over...

It would be best if we could chew these shitstains out of our national skivvies ourselves, but if we are unwilling to do so I'll settle for somebody else doing it.

O Holy Night

Sometimes even I remember that Christmas was supposed to celebrate the birth of our savior. Too bad the goddam religionists fucked that all up too.

Merry Christmas.

Celtic Woman, starring the angelically lovely Chloe Agnew, performs "O Holy Night," from the Celtic Woman concert at Slane Castle, in Ireland.

This song was never broadcast on television, or released in the DVD of the concert.

An Alternative Christmas

The other day, our friends Bev and Bentley gave us a copy of a hilarious CD called "Bah! Humbug: The Alternative Christmas Album". Funnier'n shit!

I tried to find "The Man Who Slits The Turkey's Throat At Christmas" and a coupla others at YouTube, but no luck. These will have to do. These are not your father's Christmas songs. Unless he hangs out with me, that is! Please enjoy these in the spirit in which they are intended. Heh.

Bill Barclay - The Twelve Days of Christmas

Tom Lehrer - A Christmas Carol

That time ...

It's that time of year again, when all the holidays converge. I actually do enjoy Christahanukwanzaa, just the whole idea of the fellowship and goodwill these holidays promote. Too bad we can't have that feeling all year long; the world would be a better place.

As all the regulars here know, I'm not a religious man. Got no use for organized religion and the ceremony that goes along with it. I am, however, a big fan of Jesus Christ. I don't worship him, don't think he's the Son of God, but I do agree with his philosophy. If more people would take his advice (peace, love, goodwill), we'd be a lot better off.

Christmas to me is a time to be with people you care about, helping out others who aren't as fortunate, and good food and drink. Last year, we took you to Germany with us for a traditional European Christmas with my family, but this year we're staying home and doing a quiet celebration with those we care for.

Billy Squier - Christmas Is The Time To Say 'I Love You'

And I generally don't wish for presents or material things but I would like the world to be a better place. My wish is to see our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan to spend next Christmas at home with their families and I most desperately pray the people in those lands are blessed with peace in the new year.

I also wish for tolerance here at home. After 8 years of divisiveness and hate, I would hope people (especially the religious ones - remember Jesus?) opened their eyes in the new year. To accept peoples' differences instead of hating them for it.

John Lennon - So This Is Christmas

I wish for prosperity for those who don't have it, for those who are struggling to put food on the table and shelter over their heads. As we feel no qualms about dumping money and resources into places that are in "the national interest", the health and prosperity of the world is in our national interest. As we've seen with this financial crisis, too much of what we do is global for us to ignore or exploit those in foreign lands who need our help. Yes, we're not doing well here but believe me, we're still doing far better than others.

Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas

And in closing, on behalf of my family, Gordon, and the rest of the staff here at the Brain, I wish you all a happy holiday, regardless of which one (or all/none) you observe. I wish you all health, prosperity, and, most of all, peace.

In the 21st Century, after ten thousand years of recorded human history, you would think we could take peace for granted by now. You would think we'd have matured as a race at this point but even the most 'civilized' of us still have the taste for war and oppression. We've collectively done such amazing things, things we take for granted today that a mere century ago would have been thought a miracle. You would think we could settle our differences by a means other than death and destruction. It's time we looked to the future collectively, not as a group of 200 disparate political entities but as a mature race of humans, dedicated to protecting the only place we have to live and those who share it with us. I pray we grow up.

Happy Holidays.