13 May 2004 Culture Shock I understand Don Rumsfeld is in Baghdad this morning, a surprise trip to visit the leadership of the occupying forces. I don’t know what the motivation is, or the action-items he wants to achieve. I would not want to be on the receiving end of the visit. The debacle in […]

  Major General Gen. Antonio M. Taguba is going to testify to Congress today. He will be questioned by the Senate Armed Services Committee about the scathing report he wrote documenting the systematic pattern of abuse against the detainees in Iraq. He will presumably be asked about the OGA, who is apparently responsible for some […]

  Well, I must say that things don’t make a great deal of sense this morning.   Secretary Rumsfeld was pretty impressive on the Hill yesterday, and he said many of the right things, and seemed sincere in his apology to the abused Iraqis, and even offered some of them compensation. So the Department seems […]

  I really enjoy the Cadillac car commercials that use the old Led Zepellin songs as the background. They make me quiver, just like in the old days, and I applaud whoever came up with the campaign to replace the old-fogy image of the marque. My son thinks they are pretty hip cars.   The tunes still […]

  Secretary Rumsfeld is being summoned to the Hill to talk about the horrors of Abu Ghraib. He is in deep kimchi with some members of Congress, and is expected to get a tough grilling from the Armed Service Committees in extraordinary Joint Session.   Uncle Don will probably get through this, and some of […]

  At 7:25 p.m. on May 6, 1937, the German airship Hindenburg was nearing the mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air station in New Jeesey. It was completing its flight across the Atlantic from Germany. Souls on Board were 36 passengers and 6l crew.   That is an astonishing ratio, if you think about it, […]

  I cannot write about the present today.   It is too ugly. The revelations of the treatment of the prisoners in Iraq sadden me. I think they are true, and what is more I believe it is deliberate and systematic.   It will breed more violence, and bring more recruits to the ranks of those who wish to […]

  It is hard to be a self starter. I am always worried about it, the starting.   Like this morning. It is the second day of a new job. The stress and the tension of showing up at someplace new is gone. I know where to go, I know how to get there and […]

  Thomas Hamill is free today, and that is the only good news I can think of this morning. I have a new job to start, a new universe of people to meet and remember. I got up earlier than usual to brew the coffee and puzzle my way through a new week.   It […]

  The big revolving door continues to turn. It is a comfort, since there is so much that looks like it is just going south on us. Four more of our kids are dead in Iraq, but I am listening to the early news.   The publicity debacle over the treatment of Iraqi detainees is […]