Afghanistan

Image by andreas N from Pixabay

This is: A weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.   

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in an intersectional meltdown. Intended for H. sapiens who are — in the words of the late, great bon vivant, polymath, and pic-a-nic basket expert, Professor Y. Bear — "Smarter than the av-er-age bear." 

About

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlereader  

"I don't think the Taliban will ever come back to take Afghanistan, no. 

                                                                                              -Hamid Karzai

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

Not long ago Uncle Joe blew his lifeguard whistle and ordered Americans out of the pool, so to speak, in Afghanistan. You may have heard something about the fact it didn't go very well. Some of our swimmers are still trapped there even though the pool's closed.  

{Afghanistan is so, like, yesterday's news.} 

True dat, Dana. 

Rather like the latest social media kerfuffle — featuring a whistleblower testifying at a Senate hearing — that's apparently already in the rearview mirror of my favorite high tech Robber Baron, Lord Zuckerberg. 

And more importantly, is Dog the Bounty Hunter is still trying to catch Brian Laundrie? 

So, what's up with all those American citizens... and green card holders... and deceived Afghans... who missed the last bus out of the graveyard of empires (GOE)?

How did such an important story fall off the radar screen of the American media faster than a UFO? On a related note, whatever happened to the people we locked up at Gitmo and didn't torture, merely interrogated in an enhanced sort of way? 

Gitmo has been a thing, well, off and on, for as long as Afghanistan. It was established about the same time we started teaching the locals of the GOE how to all get along so they could develop their hooge hoard of mostly untapped mineral wealth instead of having to rely on poppy farming.  

                                                  Advertisement

Are you an old-school junkie? Synthetic opioids just not the same thing? Insist on products derived from Afghanistan-certified opium™. Look for the ACO logo, your guarantee of a fentanyl-free recreational pharmaceutical. 

{Excuse me, my favorite pathetic pasty patriarch, are you allowed to say true dat? Is that racist?}

I don't think so but you might be able to build a case for cultural appropriation.

Now, where was I... oh yeah, Afghanistan.

{Right, and what about Iraq? Whatever happened to Iraq?}

As for the current state of the state of Iraq, There's a State Department Travel Advisory in effect.  

Iraq - Level 4: Do Not Travel

Do not travel to Iraq due to COVID-19, terrorism, kidnapping, armed conflict, and Mission Iraq’s limited capacity to provide support to U.S. citizens.

As for Afghanistan, I googled the phrase — what's going on in Afghanistan today? — and "About 407,000,000 results (0.56 seconds)" were returned. 

{Ain't Google somethin'? Looks like you were wrong, Sparky.}

Technically speaking maybe, but when I started scrolling through the hits there wasn't much to find about the current state of the American (and Americanized), um... strandees? 

{I'm guessing most western reporters aren't begging to be assigned to the Afghanistan beat.}

True dat. But Al Jezera is there, as you might well imagine, but don't seem to be devoting much coverage to our strandees, as you also might well imagine.

The Associated Press had stories about people like "... 100 students, alumni, and faculty members of the Afghanistan National Institue of Music..." making it out. Apparently, there's Hadith about music lovers having molten lead poured into their ears on the day of judgment but...

{Ouch.}

But nothing about the unfortunate folks I'm interested in. 

Devoted columnist that I am, I shall continue to slave over my hot keyboard and mouse with my arthritic fingers, in service to my readers, by checking the Afghanistan web page of the Associated Press early every morning this week.

After all, the AP supplies news to the news media... who are free to ignore it, or publish it "below the fold."    

Monday, 10.11.21: The US is going to provide humanitarian aid to a "desperately poor Afghanistan." 

"In their statement, the Taliban said without elaborating that they would 'facilitate principled movement of foreign nationals.'"  Fingers crossed?

Tuesday

Nothing from the AP but the Wall Street Journal reports that Aman Khalili, "An Afghan interpreter who helped rescue then- Sen. Joe Biden in 2008 when his helicopter made an emergency landing in Afghanistan has escaped from the country."

He's not here, but he and his family made it to Pakistan — because some U.S. and Afghan veterans snuck him out.

{I believe that should be sneaked.} 

I don't care.

Wednesday

Spain's defense ministry manages to extract 160 locals they had employed while in Afghanistan.  

Thursday

Move along folks, nothing to see here.

Friday

5:40 am: No news is good news? Oh... Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller has pleaded guilty to demanding someone take responsibility for the Afghanistan S.N.A.F.U. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

{Wait-wait-wait. What about Gitmo?}

Oh yeah, sorry. Looks like 39 people are still locked up there. But Uncle Joe promised back in February to shut it down — by 2023. Sounds like a job for Vice President Harris... once she finishes fixing the Mexican border crisis.  

Scroll down to share this column or access previous ones. If you enjoy my work (and the fact I don't run advertisements or sell merchandise), please consider buying me a coffee via PayPal or a credit/debit card.    

Feel free to comment/like/follow/cancel/troll me on Facebook or Twitter. I post my latest column on Saturdays and other people's work on other days.

  

Sweet Home Chicago

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

This is: A weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise and haunt them after they've become grups or I'm deleted.  

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups could result in an intersectional meltdown. Intended for H. sapiens who are — in the words of the late, great bon vivant, polymath, and pic-a-nic basket gourmet, Professor Y. Bear — "Smarter than the av-er-age bear." 

About

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlereader  

"I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money." -Barack Obama

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

Our former Community Organizer in Chief recently turned up in Chicago and got his picture taken while participating in a ceremonial groundbreaking. I wonder if the pharaohs of Egypt participated when the ground was broken (the sand was shoveled?) for new pyramids or shrines? 

Did they have to stand around in the hot sun waiting for artisans to do rough cuts of their image in stone with hammers and chisels? The details, of course, could be added later before being published in periodicals like the Cairo Gazette or Memphis Monthly.    

Mr. Obama, who was born in Hawaii, lived in Chicago for roughly 18 of his 60 years on Earth. Since somehow being elected, twice, president of a nation hip-deep in systemic racism, he now lives in at least four different places as best I can tell.

The groundbreaking in question was for his sorta/kinda presidential library that's called the Obama Presidential Center. It's more museum/shrine/tourist attraction than library. Follow the link for a detailed description or to give a donation.  

And in case you're unaware, local community organizers and their allies have been trying to prevent this $500,000,000 complex from being built at its chosen location since 2017 and still haven't given up.

{Ain't that ironical... Wait, whaddya mean "sorta/kinda" presidential library?} 

Well, Dana... it's um, complicated.

Long story short, the presidential library/museum system is run by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), a federal agency. They're in charge of the other presidential libraries, which are public-private partnerships. 

A given president's supporters raise the dough and build the facility which is then donated to The Fedrl Gummit who maintains and staffs it. Over the years the facilities have kept getting larger and more elaborate, rather like The Fedrl Gummit, and more expensive to run and maintain, rather like The Fedrl Gummit.  

I found a highly informative article on the Politico website that was written back in 2017 when it was announced that the Obama Foundation ("...inspire, empower, and connect people to change their world"), Mr. Obama's private non-profit, will build, own and operate the Obama Presidential Center. 

The author, Anthony Clark, who literally "wrote the book" on the presidential library system thinks this is mostly a good thing (others do not) since "...what were intended to be serious research centers have grown into flashy, partisan temples touting huckster history."  

Yes, indeed. 

Also, the foundation will pay to have all of Mr. Obama's records digitized and then turn them over to NARA for safekeeping. Scholars won't have to visit the center to access these records like they do at the other libraries, they will be stored elsewhere.

{But, um, doesn't that mean that they're a privately run museum, not a library?} 

Well, the center will include a branch of the Chicago Public Library... as well as a 225ft. tall tower that appears to be an enormous pigeon coop, meeting spaces, an auditorium, a recording and broadcast studio, a restaurant, and a food court.

{A food court?}

I got that from an anonymous source, it might not be accurate.

I also wrote sorta/kinda since if ya go a-googlin' you'll discover that most of the media call it a presidential library, even in stories that go to explain that it really isn't. I know it's hard to believe that the purple press occasionally generates ambiguous and/or inaccurate information, but there you have it.

{But why are some community organizers fighting a half-billion-dollar investment in their neighborhood?}    

Why? they have a problem with the where and how. 

Although there's an empty plot of land available nearby, on a bus line, and adjacent to local businesses "pairing the greatest need with the greatest opportunity" according to the University of Chicago, the site chosen is a chunk of historic Jackson Park.  

Designed by Fredrick Law Olmstead (of Central Park fame) in 1871, it's listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

The city is renting 20 acres to the Obama Foundation for 99 years for ten bucks and no taxes. The center can charge for entry, parking, and third-party use and the Obama Foundation gets the money. Certain roads will be closed and a lot of very old trees cut down. It gets worse...

{Hey, that links to the same site the phrase "local community organizers" links to.}

Because that's where the all devilish details can be found if a given gentlereader is curious. As to why that site, and not the one that would be more likely to benefit the neighborhood, the Obama Foundation refuses to comment. 

Sweet home Chicago. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Addendum: The tower. What I at first thought were thousands of pigeon coops at the top of the tower are actually the words from one of Mr. Obama's speeches that includes the inspirational phrase, "yes we can." 

 From the video: "Our goal is not just to create a monument to my presidency..."

Scroll down to share this column or access previous ones. If you enjoy my work (and the fact I don't run advertisements, sell merchandise, etceterise), please consider buying me a coffee via PayPal or a credit/debit card.    

Feel free to comment/like/follow/cancel/troll me on Facebook or Twitter. I post my latest column on Wednesdays & Saturdays, other things on other days.

O Canada (Oh America)

Two countries (and two videos) for the price of one!

Photo by Bianca Ackermann on Unsplash

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted. Reading via monitor/tablet is recommended for maximum enjoyment.  

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in an intersectional triggering. Intended for H. sapiens who are — in the words of the late, great bon vivant and polymath, Professor Y. Bear — "Smarter (and cooler) than the av-er-age bear." 

About

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlereader  

"I personally think our national anthem is not patriotic enough. There is another poem by Dwijendralal Ray called 'Dhono Dhanne Pushpe Bhora,' which is more soul-stirring as a national anthem." -Victor Banerjee

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

I was reminded that we have upstairs neighbors (so to speak), the Canadians, from the minimal and brief coverage given to the recent reelection of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.   

O Canada, I'm embarrassed to say that my knowledge of any and all things Canadian is as scant as the scant news coverage given to Canada here in the states. 

{Scant-scant-scant-scan...}

Dana, what are you doing?

{Ever notice how some words almost cry out to be mindlessly and rapidly repeated till they become a noise?}

Of course, it's a phenomenon called semantic satiation, a phrase coined by Leon Jacobovits James in his 1962 doctoral dissertation at McGill University in Canada. 

{       }

Ever notice how often people say, "I should look that up?" Well, I often actually do. 

{       } 

And believe it or not, Justin Trudeau graduated from McGill University in 1994, and, I visited the Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum in Niagra Falls, Canada — in 1994. 

{Fascinating.}  

Right? Anyways, the news stories reminded me that I've always wanted to know more about Canada other than the fact our upstairs neighbors are normally very quiet, unlike our downstairs neighbors, who are busy devolving into a narco-state.

Good news for junkies impacted by the crackdown on big pharma though, literally tons of opioids, fentanyl, and other drugs are crossing the border these days. Not to mention a plentiful supply of cheap, unskilled labor to fuel our economy.  

I've always wondered why Canada's national anthem is called O Canada, not Oh Canada. I've failed to find why, but I did find out that Canada didn't officially have a national anthem till 1980. 

Not only that, the tune was written by an American Civil War veteran, and the original lyrics were written, in French, by a judge from Quebec. The song was supposed to be Quebec's national anthem.

Thirty years later the lyrics were "translated" into English by another judge. He played fast and loose with the words and rendered them in such a way as to reflect his political and spiritual beliefs.

Nowadays, there's a third version, a bilingual one that's officially endorsed by the Canadian government. I got all this information from a website devoted to "Canadiana" that's quite interesting. 

The article includes an eye-opening video. I learned, or rather was reminded as I'm old, that Canada was caught up in violence triggered by identity politics back in 1968, the year Mr. Trudeau's father became prime minister.  

Some of our normally quiet and reserved neighbors were fighting, figuratively and literally, over identity politics and were singing two different national anthems long before we Citizens of the Republic were.

{What are you talking about?} 

Whoopi and Billy, of course.

Go a googlin' and enter the names of two of our leading public intellectuals thusly: Whoopi Goldberg v. Bill Maher (or vice-versa). You will receive no shortage of hits that are variations of a theme.

Bill Maher fires back...

Bill Maher hits back...

Bill Maher slams back...

Bill Maher slaps back...

Etceterac...

At Whoopie Goldberg. 

{Bill Maher is abusing a black woman?}

Nah, they're just having a virtual spat — that is to say, verbally arguing without having to be in the same room — over the fact the NFL is playing two national anthems these days.

{Really? Why? And what...} 

Look it up. One for white people, one for black people. 

It's a tempest in a teapot. Celebrities, an organization of millionaires owned by gazillionaires, social media, and the purple press jockeying for an appropriate political position — and the pursuit of profits. 

When I'm king I shall impose a royal compromise. Henceforth, America's national anthem will be America the Beautiful. 

The lyrics were written by a highly accomplished woman, Katharine Lee Bates, the tune by a rather ordinary man, Samuel A. Ward.   

Ms. Bates was a professor of English literature and wrote one of the first college textbooks on American literature. She may have been a lesbian. She definitely was a "...social activist interested in the struggles of women, workers, people of color, tenement residents, immigrants, and poor people" according to Wikipedia.

{But she was white!}

About 70% of NFL players are black. Do you know of any white football fans/people that care? 

 

Speakin' of googlin', I googled America the Beautiful and the first hit was a video of Ray Charles — singing America the Beautiful. 

{Who?} 

Gasp! Begone from my largish head philistine!

{Nope-nope-nope, I checked out the lyrics, too many God references. Clearly another case of systemic theism.}

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share this column or access previous ones. If you enjoy my work (and the fact I don't run advertisements or sell merchandise), please consider buying me a coffee via PayPal or a credit/debit card.    

Feel free to comment/like/follow/cancel/troll me on Facebook or Twitter. I post my latest column on Saturdays and other people's work on other days.