American Gladiators is BACK

I'm really torn here. NBC has just announced that American Gladiators (or "AG" as we call it around my house) is coming back. As you hopefully already know, AG was syndicated and has been playing on ESPN Classic, to my great delight.



The NBC exec said they "are going to make it better, faster, and stronger." He also said that shows like Fear Factor have "raised the bar." Eating maggots with Joe Rogan, the perpetual yeller, is a raised bar? Wow.



The question, obviously, is whether they are going to bring it back in all of its spandex glory or whether it'll suck, like most things on network TV. They better keep Assault and The Wall. And Nitro, for that matter. You think he's still available?



Honestly, I don't even recognize "Malibu" in the photo here, but his unitard (complete with cutouts), his permed, wavy, dirty blonde hair, massive pecs and smouldering pout are mind-melting. You can joust me anytime, Malibu!

The War Is Over! (If you want it.)

This past Sunday seven soldiers returning from Iraq published an op-ed piece in the New York Times. The eighth soldier was shot in the head during the drafting of the piece and is expected to survive.

I've copied the text of the article here:

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)


The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.


A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.


As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.


However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.


Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.


Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.

The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.


Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.


At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.


In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.


Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.


Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

Will we ever learn from history? We don't even have a "domino theory" kind of reason to back up this madness. We had no reason to go into Iraq, and we have every reason to leave.

Those few remaining war supporters that I know (generally located in the South, go figure) seem to be the ones that STILL believe that Iraq was somehow connected to 9-11. They either think that Iraq aided Al-Qaeda, or, they just want to kill all of the "towel head" Muslims that were responsible for the 9-11 attacks. People, Iraq had nothing to do with it. The majority of bombers were Saudi Arabian. You know, our allies? There is, was, and will be no connection to Iraq. Invasion of Afghanistan? At least there were actually terrorist training camps there and a government that actually DID support and harbor Al-Qaeda.

There is absolutely NO valid, responsible, informed, and intelligent reason why both Americans and Iraqis are dying on a daily basis for a pointless war.

It is so disheartening to see the leaders of our country go down the exact same path of their predecessors, from the Gulf of Tonkin to training the South Vietnamese to take over for our soldiers. We just traded the jungle for the desert.

Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats we JUST elected to power in November have already wimped out on us. To quote John Lennon again, Revolution, anyone??

The Feminist Question, Part I

"Feminism" is a dangerous and dirty word. My boss last week told me that his 12-year-old son asked what a feminist was. Part of his explanation was that "a feminist won't let a man hold the door open for her." Whaaa?????



I have to deal with alot of men. Both in my job and at home. Most of the men that I consider (or considered) to be superiors, or role models, or just people whose opinion I trusted, have at some point said something to me that let me know they did NOT consider men and women equal.



Women don't make good managers. Women are too emotional. A woman could never be President. It's always qualified: "not YOU, but other women." My point, conversely, is, that's what all the other men are saying to all of the other women. And frankly my dear, if women ran the world things would not be the cluster*uck they are now. You think egos and hot heads are a recipe for peace?




When I first became an attorney, my boss sat me down and told me that I should not spend my career "trying to act like a man." To illustrate his point, he used a female attorney that I had been dealing with as an example. She was aggressive and antagonistic, a real bona fide bitch. I don't think anyone, man or woman, should act the way this woman did. But his only point was that she was trying to play the man's game like a man. Be sweet and nice and don't ruffle any feathers and you'll be better off. I was very disheartened and disappointed. I came to the sad realization that a lot of people including liberals (how are you liberal if you can't embrace change??) and, the worst, other women, are anti-woman.



I consider myself a feminist. On a basic level, it means that women are equal and should be treated as such. Fairly simple concept, at least to me. On a personal level, what it means to me is that I can do anything you can do, Fred. I can fight in a war, if I so choose. I can be a construction worker. I can be a mechanic. I can be the President. I can be anything. That is the beginning and the end of what feminism means to me. It doesn't mean that I'm offended when a man opens the door for me or that I am a combat-boot wearing militant. It means is that I, and every other woman out there, is just as intelligent and capable as any man. Moreso, it means that I should not be denied opportunities simply because I am female.



But society does not agree. I suppose its natural, women haven't even had the right to vote for a whole 100 years yet. Women were considered property longer than slaves. Only twenty five years ago a judge I know was one of only three women in her law school class, and was harassed on daily basis for her entire term there. Our society seems to take hundreds of years to evolve past prejudices, racial and gender-based alike. Women are not even a true "minority" as we're half of the population, but we're still more underrepresented than any other group.




Feminism IS a dirty word. People don't like to hear it and look at you differently if you've branded yourself with that term. My question is, why? Is it simply that we've all grown up in a society that has very different gender roles for men and women, and people are uncomfortable when you question those roles? Can one be a woman and intelligent and strong at the same time? Does agressive=manly and submissive=feminine? I know what I mean when I say I'm a feminist, but others do not. That is what scares me.

Fresh Start

I was pretty unhappy with my old blog at this address, the fact that I failed to maintain and update it on a regular basis, and the fact that it sucked. Plus, there were some fairly unflattering pictures of me posing next to my new car, Rita the Red Rabbit, a year ago.

So here were go again. The game's the same, but the name has changed.

I like this forum (blogging) for several reasons. It seems somewhat less narcissistic than myspace or facebook (I'm talking out my ass here, I only have a vague idea of what facebook even is) in that it's hopefully a bit more anonymous and less about collecting "friends" and posting ridiculous pictures. The best part about blogging is that in order for you to read it, you have to come to me, which makes it less intrusive and less "in your face" than emailing or traditional communications.

So come on down, all are welcome, to glimpse into the depths of my distorted, hazy, sometimes completely irrational mind. Enjoy the show. And the Kandinsky.