One of Those Questions I Probably Shouldn’t Ask

It is true, I know a bad idea when it occurs to me. But …

… I’m sorry, I just don’t get it. That is to say, sure, right, yes, I get the first part. However … well, you know: Really?

Body image? Really? That’s the smug fallback?

So, yes, I will go ahead and ask: Is this really the best way to go about it?

What am I missing?

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Image Note: Via Facebook, 30 May 2015. Transcript of image: “Every guy thinks that every girl’s dream is to find the perfect guy … Please. Every girl’s dream is to eat without getting fat.” With Facebook user note: “Just a reminder, gents, it’s not always about you ;)”

Your Morning Misty Memory

This is just for the hell of it, because I had cause to think of it the other day. Never mind.

Hart Seely for Slate, circa 2003:

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is an accomplished man. Not only is he guiding the war in Iraq, he has been a pilot, a congressman, an ambassador, a businessman, and a civil servant. But few Americans know that he is also a poet.

Until now, the secretary’s poetry has found only a small and skeptical audience: the Pentagon press corps. Every day, Rumsfeld regales reporters with his jazzy, impromptu riffs. Few of them seem to appreciate it.

But we should all be listening. Rumsfeld’s poetry is paradoxical: It uses playful language to address the most somber subjects: war, terrorism, mortality. Much of it is about indirection and evasion: He never faces his subjects head on but weaves away, letting inversions and repetitions confuse and beguile. His work, with its dedication to the fractured rhythms of the plainspoken vernacular, is reminiscent of William Carlos Williams’. Some readers may find that Rumsfeld’s gift for offhand, quotidian pronouncements is as entrancing as Frank O’Hara’s.

Your Morning Metal (The Lonely Ones)

Rally up! There’s a lot goin’ on.

Pain is the cross we bear, sentenced to life because we dare to ask why things ain’t fair. We’ll take our share of pain, hide our scars, pretend we’re sane. ‘Cause ain’t it all a game? And in the end it’s the memories that remain. Out in the wild we’re stronger. The more they’re right we’re wronger. There comes a time to walk away, when our night becomes your day. We are the lonely ones, lost alone and gone astray. We are the guilty ones, exiled, and sentenced far away. So, since we have the name, maybe we’ll play this little game. But we won’t feel no shame; we’ll fight this fight alone as our feelings turn to stone. We’re callous to the bone; it’s the only way to survive this danger zone. Out here you got to be stronger. Out here you’re right when you’re wronger. And if you fight and live to tell, you’ll fight again this life in Hell. We are the lonely ones, lost alone and gone astray. We are the guilty ones, exiled, and sentenced far away.

―Widowmaker, “The Lonely Ones” (1992)

Madness for a New American Century

Trevor Timm for The Guardian:

The New York Times detailed many of the Republican candidates’ nebulous “criticisms” of the Obama administration, most of which assume a fantasy world in which Obama is not sending the US military to fight Isis at all, even though he’s authorized thousands of airstrikes per month in both Iraq and Syria. Most of the candidates, while competing with each other over who can sound more “muscular” and “tough”, are too cowardly to overtly call for what they likely actually want: another ground war in the Middle East involving tens of thousands of US troops.

The vague, bullshitt-y statements made by Republican candidates would be hilarious if it wasn’t possible that they’ll lead to more American soldiers dying in the coming years. “Restrain them, tighten the noose, and then taking them out is the strategy” is Jeb Bush’s hot take on Isis. Thanks, Jeb – I can’t believe the Obama administration hasn’t thought of that! Marco Rubio’s “solution” is even more embarrassing: according to The Times, he responded to a question about what he would do differently – and this is real – by quoting from the movie Taken: “We will look for you, we will find you and we will kill you.”

Rubio has also called for “strategic overhaul”, but his radical plan seems to be virtually indistinguishable from what the Obama administration is actually doing – yet another sign that Republicans tend to live in a fantasy land where Obama is an anti-war president rather than someone who has bombed more countries than his Republican predecessor. (That is not a compliment, by the way.)

This is one of those things where we won’t be able to say we weren’t warned. Consider that Mr. Rubio’s campaign slogan is “A New American Century”.

Just think about that for a moment.

They really are promising us a war.

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Image Note: Top ― Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) announces his candidacy for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination on 13 April 2015. (AP Photo) Right ― Logo of the Project for the New American Century.

Timm, Trevor. “Republicans’ ‘plans’ for Isis would drag us into Iraq for another ground war”. The Guardian. 27 May 2015.

SourceWatch. “Project for the New American Century”. 19 February 2012.