This is the kind of think that keeps me going. Thanks to NDW for (indrectly) linking me up with this image.

Waching the 24-hour news like a good info-junky, observing the fog of war, I can't help but balk at the resemblance between the war coverage and a football pre-game show, right down to the drawings on screen and the "tale of the tape" run-ups. I'm just waiting for John Madden to pop up with some commentary: "And here comes the MOAB -- you know Jim that's short for 'Mother of all Bombs' -- and boom! That's gotta hurt."

Plenty of Hummer commercials too. Yeah, baby. "Like Nothind Else."

A fragment of conversation coming back up to mind, maybe from St Pats. "This war is more fucked up than incest. It's like watching your dad go over and kick the crap out of your neighbor's dog, and then being told to 'stand up for the family' when you try to raise a voice in protest."

I just re-read a bunch of my own postings here, and it was kind of boring. I'm really getting tired of mouthing the same basic sentiments dressed up with whatever "news" makes it through to us today. I'm starting to feel like everything is pretty predictable, which is not really a very good feeling. Like the great Marvin Gaye, I just want someone in charge to answer me, "what's going on?"

Brits training in Kuwait... a kind of strange visual resemblance to Baywatch, no?

If you've become a radiation mutant with a deformed hand, remember to close the window. No one wants to see that shit.

Lately I've been countering this growing sense of zombification by perusing direct postings from the field, real words from real people in real places as an antidote to the more or less plastic reality that surrounds me. Today this site from Kuwait is reporting that the US has already entered Iraq. I suppose that's referring to the DMZ, so we knew this. They also have live pictures from the area (where I got the running gas-mask guys here) and are reporting rumors that the "official" push will begin at 4:15am tonight, which makes it 8:15pm eastern. Sounds about right, providing that sandstorm dies down. Precisely 24 hours after the prez's little ultimatum, at least that's on-target.

I'm a little demoralized, politically. Even the rage is beginning to dissipate. I'll probably watch the jolly little war on CNN just like everyone else. God, what a tragedy. I don't even belive in God, but it's still a tragedy.

I shared the "give the statue of liberty back" site with Frank today, being as how we'd joked about spreading that idea around in Jest. His response was quite good:

... I had seen it before but now I posit another sarcastic commment/prediction: the use of french words in US military vocabulary. I mean, most of our military organization was done by the French and therefore many of common vocab words are French ones. For instance the word "sortie", (a mission) is the from the french verb "sortir" to go out. Will we have "Freedom" instead of "triage" units? Will combat units "freedom" instead of "rendez-vous" at a given pick-up point? Keep your eyes peeled, young Koenig, the stupidest is yet to come.


Wars aside, the rest of life continues to go well. Went to see comedian Rick Shapiro last night w/Sasha. Holy shit, that man is channeling something. Maniac rants against all things mediocre, scum-bellied sweaty-chested honesty, and a way of snapping back from tangents that makes Spaulding Grey look like an ameteur. Sign him up as the official comedian for the subculture of truth. We can still laugh, so we are still alive. On that note, here's another good ready.gov parody (link from doc).