calimary
calimary's JournalIran wouldn't be such a pain in the ass now. The Iranians were all tied up dealing with Saddam.
Say what you will about Saddam (and yes, most of it will be terrible and well-deserved). Nevertheless, he kept 'em busy at the border they shared. It was kind of an oddly ingenious happenstance way to keep the Iranians contained - they had their hands too full with him and the Iran/Iraq war. Besides, it rendered Saddam spread too thin to cause too much more trouble. Look at Iran now - with nothing checking them next door any longer?
WORST PRESIDENT EVVVVVERRRRRRRR!!!!
Still just stunning and bewildering.
Thanks for posting this, sheshe2!
I can't imagine the fortitude - the courage - the FOCUS - of these medical people, when all Hell was breaking loose upon them! They are heroes. Seriously. "Look for the helpers." Good advice from Mr. Rogers (and his mom)!" I'm just stunned. Still. Lo these many days later. It's just so incomprehensible what happened - and why someone(s) felt motivated to do this. And then you think of the rapid response people - how instantly they snapped to attention, how they put concerns for their own safety aside and charged ahead. After all, who knew what on earth might happen next? They just plowed forward, immediately tending to the urgent business at hand. I just marveled. Horrified. But one just stops and marvels at that. Thoroughly surreal.
I love the series "M*A*S*H" and there are so many scenes in which the cast of Army medics abruptly shifts gears and - where a second ago they were hanging out in the mess tent or busy with other activities and the minute more wounded are announced in the compound, ZOOM! There they go, zero to 60. No - zero to 600! And all business.
They are marvels. Every last one of those first responders, rapid responders, triage workers, and all the other helpers. Marvels ALL.
Really a TERRIFIC essay, JDPriestly!
You just connected dots all over the place throughout most of the last century. REALLY well-explained. A tour de force!
Excellent collection, n2doc! Well, the cartoonists certainly get it,
even if dumbfuck doesn't.
One thing I enjoyed (the ONLY thing, really) from the whole sordid event was noting that of the five living Presidents, there were MORE Democrats, for a change! As it SHOULD be!!! I remember having to cover the reagan library opening, and Jimmy Carter commented that he was the only Democratic former president there - surrounded by reagan, ford, bush1 and richard nixon! Talk about a fucking Rogues' Gallery! Oh yeah, and Ahnold thrown in for good measure, too. Such imperious, obscene, shameless, bloated excess like I'd never seen before. Just more Millionaires On Parade, and with a touch of Old Musty Hollywood - like that whole miserable eight-year plague of him was. I was SO glad to get outta there when it was over! It reminded me of how much of a relief it was that the whole presidential library thing happens AFTER that particular presidency is in the PAST.
Well, that's just part of the equation, dontchaknow.
It's all about being the most macho, the biggest bully on the block, the "Mine's BIGGER" "We're Number One! We're Number One!" thing. Nobody bothers to think any farther than that. It's all about spoiling to have somebody try to knock the battery off our obviously-bigger-than-yours shoulder. It's like being with a bunch of dogs. There's ALWAYS that Alpha Male dynamic that is damn near inescapable.
That's why romney and mccain and dubya fancied themselves as President. They figured they just simply had it coming because THEY needed to assert their Ultimate Dominance, and grab the ultimate Mr. America crown. Of course, with them, there was also the weasely little "gotta top Daddy and assert MY head of the family status now" that afflicted all three of them.
That's why so many old farts in their comfortable easy chairs wanna play war. Many of them never got the chance - when they HAD the chance. How many of 'em took a pass when Vietnam was raging? How many of 'em are too young ever to know war, and wish they had a chance to play Rambo with REAL shootin' irons mowin' down the bad guys like they do in the movies. How many of 'em have a John Wayne complex or a Clint Eastwood complex or an Ironman complex or a Zero Dark Thirty complex - just wanting and needing really badly to prove how virile and macho they are? I'll bet "Carnival cruz" from Texas has the biggest hard-on for war in the entire Senate. And I'll bet he's never served either. They all LOVE war, especially those who never served. I guess they figure they score their he-man certifications if they can agitate for war even while they pansied out when they had the chance as young men. They wanna roar for war without ever having to get their hands dirty, or their bodies bloodied and broken.
And remember, when you fight that war in that nice plush easy chair from some fancy office in Washington DC, you enjoy all the "glory" of war without the muss n fuss of having to get your hands dirty forcryingoutloud.
The right to choose, the environment, and voting rights.
If I'm forced to choose only three.
I'd also add civil rights and massacre machines - and our being held hostage by them.
But for me, a woman's right to choose ranks first. On any list. Across the board. And non-negotiable. Any more than I'd push to start legislating the penis and scrotum and all personal matters thereof.
Sounds like it. That last hospital stay clearly took something HUGE out of him.
Frail and shriveling - like both my parents became as they each neared the end. And that whole advancing age thing is nothing to sniff at - which leads me to suspect that he may not bounce back. It may well have been his own personal good-bye. Strategically it's a good stage from which to exit.
Besides, the old man is a more sympathetic character because, as much as he irked us, to MANY here and elsewhere, he wasn't nearly as bad as his miscreant worthless minimally-coherent son. There will be thoughts evoked by those pictures from today - that will ooze along the lines of "gee, too bad we didn't just stop with bush1" and "aw, poor ol' dude, he's not doing too well, is he" and so forth.
I LOVE some of the comments on here!
For example:
Matthew Remick Colleran "The fact that there is a Library named after somebody with, at best, about 100 words in his weekly vocabulary is stunning."
Here's another one!
Evelyn Shobin In case you haven't seen Andy Borowitz' tweet yet:
Andy Borowitz: "A George W. Bush Library is like a Mel Gibson Synagogue."
FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!
DAYUM but I love Andy Borowitz!
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