Bomb ’em With Butter

I feel transformed after watching CNN’s “Behind the Veil” last night. I have spent words trying to point out that the U.S. is not blameless, and should re-evaluate its role. While that may still be true, it is also the case that nothing the U.S. has ever done can even remotely be compared to the incredible, seemingly bottomless evil of the Taliban. I’m surprised to hear myself say this, but the Taliban must be eliminated. That’s all there is to it. They simply cannot be allowed to continue their presence on the face of this earth. I can’t even put into words how profoundly disturbing that documentary was. Shot covertly by a female Afghani reporter working under cover, re-assembled into a documentary overseas from smuggled tapes. The world needs to see this documentary to understand. I complain about propaganda, but this documentary is not propaganda. It is the real thing, from the front lines of true and bottomless suffering.

So.

Carpet bombing is not going to work. Ground forces are going to be lost in droves, if history is any lesson. But there is this rising meme floating around: “Bomb ’em with butter.” In other words, fight this war culturally. Give strength to Afghanis to resist against the Taliban, and to align themselves with the Northern Alliance. Send in food, medicine, shelter. Build beautiful mosques for them to pray in. Restore their right to listen to music (that’s right, the Taliban made music illegal), to watch movies (ditto), to read newspapers (ditto again). Protect their 12 year old girls from rape by Taliban soldiers. Give them information, a full belly, a good night’s sleep. Give them a taste of what life could be. Fight this war with culture and solidarity. Create an uprising so large that the Taliban will be squished into irrelevance. Then gather up what’s left of them and throw them into a pit with hungry lions.

It sounds almost strange, but I actually think we’re going to end up doing something like this. It may be the only way.

Please, please watch this documentary. It’s airing again tonight on CNN.

Derailment Dream

There’s a light on the dashboard of our car that just won’t go out no matter how many times we visit the mechanic. Last night Amy dreamed that a new light suddenly came on. The one that alerts the driver that the body of the car has become detached from the chassis and is hurtling forward off its axles.

My five-year-old, 8-inch plecostamus died recently. I put it in the freezer so Amy could photograph it if she gets a wild hair. Yesterday bought a new one, a young one, just three inches. Will grow it up from a “pup.” This will be the last fish I buy from the old Chinese lady at the dank, smelly aquarium shop across the street. She’s going out of business and retiring. Most of her tanks were empty when I went in yesterday. It’s the worst aquarium shop ever, but I like going there because it’s fun trying to communicate about fish with someone who speaks almost no English at all. Goodbye, old pleco. Goodbye, dank, smelly aquarium lady.

Navel Lint

Amy said:

“If we go to war I’ll take pictures of it. Then I’ll have something to focus on besides my navel lint.”

Doesn’t that kind of sum it up? Suddenly everything has focus. After how many years of peace time, we have grown complacent. Sitcoms, books, music, all ending up with nothing to say, recycling the same old tropes endlessly, and it’s all been spreading out into brownian motion, losing focus, intensity fading. Now suddenly there’s nothing but focus. It may be coming from the spirit of revenge, it may be less justified than people think (given the degree of our hypocrisy), but it’s undeniable that the country is feeling united more than most people alive today can remember. Everyone has something to think about now. Whether that thinking will amount to anything, whether people will come to realize just how responsible the U.S. is for world anger, is another question.

It is all about anger disguised as righteousness. Think about the last time you had a real knock-down drag-out fight with someone, how your ability to see clearly became clouded. How winning became the only important thing — more important even than being correct. The entire fucking human race is now standing face to face in exactly that kind of argument. One of us is going to have to sleep on the couch.

Devour

Forgot to say… took John and Jamie to the East Bay Vivarium on a lark and while we were there they fed a live, full-grown rabbit to a 30-foot python. The second it was in the cage that sleeping snake pounced, subsumed the whole rabbit head into its jaws, and wrapped its snake body around rabbit body. The rabbit squirmed and kicked for about five minutes before it was dead. They my phone rang and I talked to the DSL tech while watching the python detach its jaw, get end-to-end with the rabbit, and just engulf the rabbit’s body with its own. It was an awesome and disturbing thing to witness. The whole episode was about 18″ away from us behind the glass.

Anthrax

Just watched a 20/20 piece on biological warfare and anthrax. They say it’s about as easy to make as moonshine. I almost couldn’t finish dinner. For years, bio warfare has been my greatest fear. Now the news media is legitimizing that fear. It’s not just me being paranoid. I’m really scared. They say gas masks are already sold out in all the stores. Cant’ believe I’m writing these words.

Warm ‘n Tender

Was digging through an ancient “misc docs” dir and came across this “found poem” I’ve been saving for years. Taken from the side of a “Warm ‘n Tender” doll box, circa 1993:

Fill me with warm water
I’ll fill you with love.

Fill my tummy
with warm water
oooh…ahhh.

Squooshy, Mooshy
Wiggly, Warm
Hug.

Feet to the Fire

Something that’s coming out of my discussion with Aunt Geri, regarding me being so critical of our country.

As a technology journalist, one of my most important jobs is not to let companies get away with crap. When a company releases a product with bugs, I make it known in the press. When they have unfair licensing agreements, I let the world know about it. That is the value of the media. That’s what Consumer Reports is based on. Keeping people informed about their options, about who is being fair and who isn’t.

I think that being critical of one’s government (no matter what country you’re in) is not just a right, but an *obligation* of the citizenry. If people accept what their governments and media machines spoon-feed them, they’re sunk. Without being critical, the greedy and power-hungry will get away with murder. I applaud anyone who is critical of corporations and critical of their governemt. In fact, I’m *proud* (yes, there’s something I’m proud of ;) to be critical of my government. I feel that it is my civic duty.

Hold the bastards’ feet to the fire!

War Machine Gears Up

Just heard that congress is putting together a “down payment” of $20 billion to put U.S. armed services on highest readiness. The goal will probably be to eliminate entire states (countries) that have provided harbor to terrorists. This may mean total elimination of Afghanistan and/or other countries that stand in the way or show hints of harboring.

We are not going to seek out a few terrorists and kill them. We are going to destroy millions of innocent lives. We are not just going to sink below their level. We are going to sink far below it.

I am sick to my stomach about what lies ahead.

Postcard

My thoughts from yesterday can be summarized like this:

Someone sent a postcard as big as our souls directly to the heart of America, and we haven’t even bothered to read what’s written on the back.

Pandora’s box

The issues I had installing logjam, and my correspondences with its developer resulted in a pretty interesting discussion about SSL assumptions / mistakes Mandrake made with 8.0, and the related issue of how much security is desirable for a public service like LJ. Read it here.