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"He came here to make a difference"

"It's one of those experiences that really gives one hope," writes Major K of his visit to the Mini-NCO Academy set up by 1st Brigade with the help of their MiTT Team a few weeks ago. "This Academy was the brain-child of SFC R. of the Louisiana National Guard's 256th Brigade.  He saw the need and took the initiative to fill it.  When the Academy was first set up, SFC R. and the rest of the MiTT Team were teaching all of the courses.  Now, the courses are taught exclusively by Iraqi NCO Instructors.  Several of these instructors are female. One of the most important things that is infused in these NCO candidates is to think on their feet and take the initiative rather than waiting for orders from an officer." (Major K. photo)

"As we stood at the back of the classroom watching one of the classes being taught by a graduate of the Academy, I thought to myself, 'Maybe this whole revamp of the Iraqi Army might just work,'" writes Major K in his latest post from the front of the War on Terror in Iraq:

As anyone who knows anything about the military will tell you, Non-Commissioned Officers(NCO's) are the core of any competent military force.  Most of the outside world knows them as "Sergeants."  In the US Army, it is said that NCO's are "the backbone of the Army," and it is true.  Tough, competent, professional NCO's are what the Iraqi Army has been lacking for many years.  The culture of the old Iraqi Army was one of an aristocratic officer corps and subservient but tightly controlled enlisted force with no real NCO corps in the middle . . .

I then looked over at my interpreter, Jay, who was born in Iraq but has lived in the USA for over ten years, and he was wiping away tears of joy from his eyes.  As a young man, he had taken part in the Shia uprising in the south after Desert Storm.  He fled to the US not long after, having a price on his head.  He was touched to the core and deeply moved at seeing this small but profound step forward in his native land.  He is a US Citizen now, and will return to his family in the US at the end of his year-long contract here.  He came here to make a difference and serve both of his countries.  Seeing this little Academy let him know that he is.

A few tears of joy here as we read Major K's essay. Tears of appreciation, too, as he managed -- in a brief but eloquent blogpost --  to teach us so much that we didn't know but need to know about the military, both what makes our own so effective and the debilitating legacy that left Saddam's enlisted force with no incentives for initiative.

As Hugh Hewitt said the other day, reflecting on the MSM's monumental "failure to capture the true story in New Orleans even with all of the combined resources of all the MSM working around the clock":

Why would anyone believe that American media is accurately reporting on the events in Iraq from the Green Zone, in the course of a bloody insurgency fought in a language they don't understand? If the combined forces of old media couldn't get one accurate story out of the convention center, why for a moment believe it can get a story out of Mosul or Najaf?

I'll stick with Michael Yon, Major K, and Training for Eternity when it comes to Iraq.

Like Major K's Iraqi-American translator Jay, the frontline bloggers are the ones who will make a difference and serve both countries in the war between truth and propaganda.

Update: Truth trumps propaganda at Beth's My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

"I named him Mikey because he was so tiny"

With winds gusting to 46 mph and sheets of rain throughout most of the day at Chelsea-by-the-Sea, Baby knows the right thing to do.

Mikey, cousin to Baby (above) and Tiny (below), has gone to meet his maker this sad day. We try to find comfort in knowing he meets up once again with his former cohort, Bram -- the best dog (greyhound) on the eastern seaboard ever was -- and Mummy herself, the best mother ever was. Says Susie:

They have been waiting for this sweet soul.

Mike was an orange tabby with extra thick undercoat of fur.  It tended to clump up wicked bad during humid summer months, and some of his cutest days -- and probably most comfortable for him -- were when his coat had just been shaven, with only a lion ruff around his adorable face and plume at the tip of his tail. Always the third man out amongst Susie's corps of alpha cats, Arthur and Daisy.  A calming presence amongst warring factions. God bless, little one.

Unaware of the news that her cousin Mike, whom she never met, has died this day, Tiny tensely awaits news of the next meal.

We had been about to post about the Humane Society's campaign [via Pajamas Media star Tammy Bruce's brand new blog] to save animal companions from the next natural disaster when we received the news of Mike's passing. He was fourteen years old, getting on towards venerable. Nephew Chris had found the little fellow on the roadside, an abandoned, flea-ridden orphan way back when.  Susie recalls:

I named him Mike, because he was so tiny, he was microscopic. I always thought of him as a Wednesday's Child . . . full of woe.

'Reminds us of Sweet Pea, the Mother of All Chelsea Cats -- Tiny and Baby's mom -- a feral that let us feed her and had her babies in the closet in our attic but never could let herself be petted.  Some early psychic wounds, whether human or feline, never heal. We can only do what we can to ease their journey, even as they bring joy and sorrow to ours:

I stayed with him, and hugged him, and petted him, until the little body started to turn cold. It doesn't take long. I knew it was time to go . . . That sweet soul, who hung on for as long as he could, but longed for release from the earthly coil.

God bless, precious orange kitty.

Update:  Mikey is remembered among all things bright and beautiful at the Friday Ark at Modulator.

"A smorgasbord of information and ideas"

"Why do good people turn bad? What does evil really mean? Why is the world so crazy? These are questions I seek to answer with this series," says writer James D. Hudnall of his graphic-novel series Shut Up and Die! (Illustration is by Robert Ortaleza, emails Hudnall).

"It's like a smorgasbord of information and ideas," says professional graphic-novel writer James D. Hudnall of Hud's Blog-o-Rama, subject of the latest Pajamas Media Profile:

I think this particular venue is a great idea because it consolidates a lot of the better blogs together in one place where people can go. You can pick from a wide range of things, and it's like a smorgasbord of information and ideas.

Hudnall's words recalled one of our earliest -- among many -- posts about why we blog and why we read blogs:

Before the internet, Robert Bartley's editorial page of the Journal -- snail version -- was the cream in our coffee, but now our cup runneth over. At a click of our wireless mouse, we have not only the Journal (online subscription costs about half the regular) and just about any other newspaper we could want (mostly free of charge), but, even more importantly -- to stretch our breakfast metaphor to the breaking point -- the "pastry shop" of the blogosphere, with opinions of every stripe, grassroots filters for every taste and just plain delicious reading -- and viewing (lots of clever and beautiful graphics out there) -- to chew on between sips of coffee.

And, of course, cat blogging.

Between sips of coffee this morning, we checked out Hud's Blog-o-Rama and found this tasty tidbit:

The media is always lying to you. Either by intent or by default. Because the truth is a very slippery subject and often what the are selling you are cheap shots and simplistic versions of reality designed to sell whatever point they are trying to make.

Normally, the ludicrous protestors we saw last weekend would be ignored like the extremeists who haunt bus stations talking about the end of the world or the next Soviet Invasion. But the press gave credence to the incredible.

You almost have to turn on the Sci-Fi channel to get accurate news these days.

Or turn to the blogs of Pajamas Media and beyond.

Update:  "The internet and the blogosphere have created a much wider field of competion against which to judge the work of those who make their living writing and reporting. And a very good thing it is," notes Goomp in the comments.

"Cindy, you've changed"

"Cindy, you’ve changed since the Kerry campaign contacted you in early July of last summer. You’re not the same grieving mom, especially after you started traveling on the road to support John Kerry's campaign," writes "Mom of Two Soldiers" Linda in an "Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan" first published at Free Republic. Beth of My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has all the details, including verification of Linda's story and full text of the letter, which chronicles Sheehan's conversion from Bush supporter to Bush basher in the summer of 2004. Here's the part that caught our eye in Linda's follow-up letter to Beth:

She met with the President on June 18th and was excited about meeting with him.

The following week, "Fahrenheit 911" was released in Vacaville. [Sheehan daughter] Carly and many others were initially upset when they viewed it. That changed the tone immensely.

About a week or so later, [Cindy] stated she had been in contact with the Kerry campaign, that they had contacted [the Sheehans]. On July 4th, in Berkeley, Cindy Sheehan made her first speech to an antiwar group at a Berkeley church . . . By July 31st they were taping the television advertisements that were supportive of John Kerry.

Cindy Sheehan's reported conversion following the screening of Michael Moore's Bush-bashing crockumentary "Fahrenheit 911" in her hometown made our blood run cold as we recalled the obscenely obdurate obtuseness of the porcine provocateur's response to 9/11:

Boston, New York, DC, and the planes’ destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST Bush! Why kill them?

Roger L. Simon presciently pegged "The Sheeple Effect" only days before Cindy succumbed in June of 2004:

What bothers me is that the public is going to swallow this kind of propaganda which, although it is miles below Riefenstahl aesthetically, is nearly her equal in factual distortion.

As we wrote last fall, in one of dozens of posts on the festering, fly-infested oeuvre of the "big, fat useful idiot":

Looking back at the post-9/11 Moore mouthings, in the wake of the damage his  demagoguery has done to the administration's and the nation's credibility among the weakest-minded of our own citizens and leftist fellow travelers around the world -- not to mention Osama's adoption of Moorish rhetoric in his latest Bush-bashing tape -- we realize that Michael Moore is right up there with George Soros trying to undermine our democracy. We, the citizens, are too stupid to figure things out for ourselves, of course. Moore is, in fact, telling all who will listen that Americans are "the stupidest people in the world." Soros and Moore know what is best for us, and each wants to be a kingmaker -- one via ill-begotten billions, the other with Riefenstahl-lite propaganda that assumes the cluelessness of its audience-- and each has made remarkable inroads while the rest of us were preoccupied trying to keep the world safe for democracy.

On the other hand, if Mother Sheehan and her scruffy band of aging hippies are the best "these people" can come up with, the world may be safer for democracy than we thought.

Technorati tags:  Cindy Sheehan, Mother Sheehan

Making the world safe for the enemies of democracy

Cindy Sheehan as the Mother of God in "The Assumption of the Virgin" by Anthony van Dyck (1627. Oil on canvas. The National Gallery of Art, Washington) and as the Self-Appointed Leader of the Free World being arrested by DC police officers while "the whole world is watching" (Inset photo by Evan Vucci, AP).

"Were we able to psychologically profile the demonstrators, we'd find that most of them have a great deal in common: Disappointing lives, failed relationships and the desperate need for a cause of any kind," writes Ralph Peters in the New York Post [via Lucianne] re why Cindy Sheehan and her fellow anti-Americans -- like the Islamicist terrorists themselves -- hate us. As Mother Sheehan was lifted upward and gently carried off by two virile young members of the heavenly host DC Police Department yesterday -- arrested, as she had intended, for demonstrating without a permit -- her worshippers intoned the hippie anthem of old, "The whole world is watching." Her beatification was complete.

"Peters describes their acting out behavior as 'Protest Therapy,'" notes Dr. Sanity, "but participating in these protest circuses is far from 'therapeutic,'" she adds:

Unfortunately, the attention the participants receive -- from the media and from other unhappy little souls of the left -- only reinforces their underlying narcissism and encourages exhibitionistic and childish behavior that contributes little or nothing of substance to their own or to other people's lives.

Actually it's much worse. While our military are over there making the world safe for democracy, these self-absorbed remnants of Sixties radicalism are in effect making the world safe for the enemies of democracy.  We took heart from the common sense and courage in this email Beth posted today at her blog, My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, from a reader calling himself MGySgt who is serving over in Iraq at Al Asad:

I think you would be amazed at the morale of the young military people here. I know I am. I’ve been in for over 28 years and I have seen good and bad. These youngsters are getting the job done in a way I would never have imagined. They go on convoys, get shot at or have IEDs go off, then they return still in high spirits. The trick here is to convince the bad guys they have been beat. The idiots at the peace rallies are what’s really hurting since the stated goals of the insurgents is to break down public support for the war in the US. I heard the other day that 52% of the people back home think we are losing. I would be worried if it was 1995 and this was the case, but Bush doesn’t govern via polls like Clinton did. That’s one thing we all appreciate about the president; he sticks to the plan.

"Did you get that? Peace rallies serve THE INSURGENTS. Protesting the war is NOT 'supporting the troops,' and no one with a shred of common sense believes it does," exhorts Beth in a rousing salute -- with Marine-style graphics -- to the leadership of our superb troops in harm's way. As we've blogged before, the real issue is, whom do we select as our peers.  Whether you're a self-absorbed anti-American protest queen like Mother Sheehan or a self-sacrificing man in uniform like Beth's Marine correspondent or -- like most of us -- something in between, everyone wants to be a worthwhile member of a worthwhile group.  If we can't succeed in the mainstream, we seek out what Peter Rowbotham calls a "system of honor that is an alternative to mainstream moral orders."

Technorati tags:  Cindy Sheehan, Mother Sheehan

Tomorrow's another day

Animal magnetism via Lucianne. No caption necessary.

Meryl Yourish's Carnival of the Cats is the cat's meow at InstaPundit.  InstaWife Dr. Helen is there too, not to mention the anti-Sheehan "Freedom is not free" babes, proving once again that pretty women are where it's at. Sorry, Cindy.

Someday maybe we'll write about the iMac G5 hell we've been through these last few days -- while others worried about the roofs over their heads, flooded thoroughfares and clean drinking water -- but it's just too raw at the moment. After all else failed, we had to back up our files and completely erase the hard drive -- only a couple of months old, fergossake -- and start from scratch.  It took hours what with half a dozen tech support episodes interspersed with endless wait-on-hold Musak moments. Brain fatigue has set in.

It takes a disaster

"Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning" went the old saw. We learned it at Goomp's salty old knee way back when he was teaching us the ways of the sea. But this morning's strikingly pink sky (East Boston in the middle ground, Boston skyline in the distance from the sidewalk in front of our house) gave way to clear blue sunny skies all day long in Chelsea by the Sea. Not a storm cloud nor even a fair-weather cloud in sight. 'Must have been our own projection of stormy developments along the Gulf Coast -- the "psychological landscape" we recall from one of those wordy French theorists we read in the original back in undergraduate days.

It takes a disaster.  Before 9/11, the nation would never have had the political will to send our military to Afghanistan, let alone Iraq. Before Katrina, the nation would never had the political will to engage the decades-long deferred debate over what to do about the Crescent City's sinking futures. Who among us THEN would have dreamed of giving our blogging all, first to Flood Relief and then to PorkBusters?

"A number of boats were knocked loose from their moorings in Lake Charles and tossed against a railroad track near the centre of town," said this BBC caption accompanying an article surprisingly unsympathetic to global warming hysteria. Our hearts wrench at the sight of these two tempest-tossed sloops, each about the same size as the sweet little Redwing 30 that took us down east, to Fairhaven and Nantucket in our salad days. We had a mooring and two anchors at WinthropYacht Club during a hurricane scare that never developed into anything in the Seventies. It's not as bad as leaving your kitties behind, but it's painful, even so.

Now there's Rita, and it's not the eyes of Texas upon us but our own eyes upon Texas. We'd never thought one way or the other about Houston.  Our conception of Texas was at least as fantasmagorical as that of those foreigners -- including Osama's number two, Ayman Zawahiri -- who were reputed to see all Americans in terms of the glitzy, over-sexed characters of the "Dallas" TV series of the Seventies. Our own image of Texas was all about cattle and oil and the explosive marital mix between easterner Elizabeth Taylor and oilman Rock Hudson, together with all the other figures of various economic and ethnic backgrounds that animated George Stevens's larger-than life 1956 epic "Giant." Pathetic, huh? What a thrill to see grownups like Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R. Texas) comin' on TV to talk about what needs to be done in the wake of the latest assault by Mother Nature on the state she represents.

Googling Houston a bit before Rita landed ashore yesterday, we found the President's father, G.H.W. Bush, had long held the imperatives of Mother Nature close to his heart against town fathers and developers deep in the heart of Texas who would have turned Houston's natural streams into concrete channels:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers executed a flood mitigation project for Brays Bayou, which required clearing out all riparian vegetation and straightening channels in favor of a concrete waterway. After the lining of White Oak Bayou with concrete, local residents were in outrage and were determined to prevent the similar lining of Buffalo Bayou.

One such advocate was Terry Hershey. She was appalled by the channeling and concrete lining designs because they would change the natural meanders and ecological composition of the Bayou. Vowing to preserve the integrity and wildlife of the Bayou, Hershey took her case to congress with then congressman, George H. W. Bush. Terry and Bush successfully thwarted the city’s flood control plan through a bulwark of federal opposition.

Then there's the disingenuous global-warming "argument," always at the ready to bash the younger Bush. We were stunned to see the BBC coming out in favor of reasoned discourse on the issue [via Arts & Letters Daily]

But is it global warming? What is the evidence that the growing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are changing weather systems in such a way that hurricanes become more powerful, or more frequent?

It's very dangerous to explain Rita or Katrina through global warming, because we have always had strong hurricanes in the USA -- the strongest one on record dates back to 1935.

If the BBC can tack against the wind and tide of willful disinformation, there may be hope yet for the rest of us seekers of wisdom and truth.

A sphinx moment on the terrace

Untroubled by weather extremes in Texas and environs -- Is it edible? -- Tiny enjoys an early-morning sphinx moment on the terrace, even as Ur-catblogger Laurence Simon -- Father of the Carnival of the Cats -- emerges unscathed from his Houston bunker after Hurricane Rita turns right at the last minute.

Opportunist that she is, Tiny would surely appreciate Neil Cavuto's observation on Fox News this morning echoing Francis Bacon's "The folly of one man is the fortune of another." His point was that reinvestment delays precipitated by New Orleans's cascading levee disaster -- brought on by decades of political corruption leading to failure to plan and build for the inevitable 100-year-plus storm -- will be the flipside of booming economic growth in other Gulf ports whose infrastructure was spared by the storm, just as the "Galveston hurricane of 1900 destroyed that city's status as the dominant port in the area, leaving Houston an opportunity to fill the vacuum."

Like cats, free enterprise abhors a vacuum. And if you DO do like cats -- or dogs, birds, snails, etc. -- be sure to head over to the Friday Ark at Modulator.

Homefires

Even as hurricanes and political storms whirl about us "out there," Tuck does his part to keep the homefires burning down Chelsea, repairing the gutter on the east side, part of his ongoing maintenance of the cladding of our totally awesome 1840's Greek Revival house. Just below him in the photograph are the newly replaced clapboards -- purchased from Home Depot -- that will help keep us warm and dry in the oncoming monsoon season.

This just in under the radar, a secret visit from the most beautiful girl in the world. We shall say no more. We know what we know. We're the doting aunt of her Barney I and Barney II. Hair by Maurizio.

Shaking up mindsets

"Yes, the amounts of pork we're identifying are chump change in comparison to the overall fiscal fiasco that we call the federal budget. But the exact dollar amounts saved by trimming specific pork projects aren't the point," writes New Zealand Bear re the efforts of us PorkBusters trying to get our Senators and Representatives to come out and tell us where they stand in the pork-for-Katrina debate:

To me, the point is to take a step --- a small one, granted -- towards a culture of greater fiscal responsiblity in Washington. If we can hold our representatives on Capitol Hill accountable for the small bits of pork, then perhaps that example will also make them think twice about the larger boondoggles that plague our government.

Think of it as a "broken windows" policy for the national budget. Just as urban police departments crack down on decay and neglect as a way to discourage the larger problem of serious crimes, we're stamping down on pork in the hopes that by so doing, we shake some sense into Congress and get them to take their responsibilties to the budget more seriously.

It might not work. But then again, maybe it will. Let's give it a try with our best efforts, and find out.

As we said in his comments:

It's so yesterday to say there's nothing we can do. How do we know -- and how can we live with ourselves -- if we don't try? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. When old saws come streaming to mind, you know you're on to something. This is about shaking up mindsets, and the "Broken Windows" analogy is perfect pitch.

Oh, yes, and there's a lovely InstaLanche in there, too.

Also this email from Crystal Patterson, internet operations manager of "Kennedy for Senate." [Was there ever any question? --ed]  It sounds like the senior Senator from Massachusetts is up to speed on the blogospheric imperative:

Hey!  I run Senator Kennedy’s campaign website, and I oversee all of our online outreach and organizing.  I got a heads-up that you were looking for some answers on some of the budget decisions that are going to have to be made because of Katrina (and as it stands now, probably Rita as well).  I wanted to get back to you and let you know I should have an answer for you shortly.

PS – I have a group of bloggers that I keep in contact with, especially in Massachusetts.  Can I add you to that list?

You sure can, cutie pie. She wants to convert us, and we want to convert her.  This could get interesting.

Technorati tag:  porkbusters.