From The Earth Bound Misfit, a gloomy observation (complete with graphic language) that I increasingly share:

As for this, I'm pretty much convinced that humanity has fucked things over past fixing. If you ever saw the beginning to the movie Serenity, it mentioned that humanity fled Earth, pretty much after fucking things up beyond all repair. The reality is that we'll probably fuck up the planetary ecosystem past the point of no return long before we develop the technology to flee the planet.

Which, in a way, may explain why we've not found any hints of intelligent life. For any species that develops to that point probably fouls its own nest and dies off. Just like bacteria in a Petri dish does and just like we're doing.

Cats and Sundays

Stolen (shamelessly, but with attribution!) from the always-good Earth Bound Misfit:

Think about this cartoon tomorrow.  The bride says that the best thing about being retired is this leisurely Sunday night feeling that we now can enjoy.

I Am Not Reassured

When in doubt, I never go wrong in referring to a post from the Earth-Bound Misfit.  Especially when it deals with government overreach--in this case, warrantless surveillance:

"You Can Trust Us to Do the Right Thing." When you drill down through the bullshit, rationales and rhetoric defending the NSA's hoovering of essentially everything that goes across the telecommunications networks, that's what they are saying: That we can trust them not to overstep the boundaries between what is legal and what is not.

First, I question the premise for that. The NSA may be adhering to what is legal, but only because the Congress expanded the definition of what was legal for them to do. The NSA gets wiretapping authorization from a court which has turned down less than a dozen requests out of 30,000. You're eight times more likely to catch a ball during a major league baseball game than the government is to get a warrant request denied by the FISA court. Congressional oversight, at least until the current brouhaha erupted, has apparently been about as effectual as scolding a clowder of feral cats.

Second, the "trust us" advocates are, in my view, deliberately ignoring the bedrock principle of the Constitution and our entire system of government, which is this: Government cannot be trusted to do the right thing.

The Founders were some of the smartest and well-educated men and women[1] in the American Colonies. They had a far deeper understanding of human history and abuse of power than 98% of the people in Congress today. They understood the truth that power corrupts. Hell, they lived through it. They were well aware that Prime Minister Pitt said as much in 1770. They were aware that politicians, in particular, grow to regard their perquisites of power as their just due. They were well aware that powerful people tend to conflate their wants and desires with what is proper for their office.

So when it came time for them to design a government, they did not choose the "trust us" form. They wrote a Constitution of limited powers. After pushback from the states, they immediately passed the Bill of Rights to protect citizens from an intrusive government.

Our government has been pushing to limit the rights and liberties of Americans ever since.

But hey, if you don't have anything to hide, right?

 

Home for a Soldier--A Different Take on a Heartwarming Story

 From my local newspaper, the Chambersburg Public Opinion:

GUILFORD TOWNSHIP -- Saturday's groundbreaking ceremony didn't just mark the beginning of a new home for Marine Sgt. Zachary Stinson, but also a new life post-injury for he and his family in a community that has rallied to support them.

While life for Stinson, his wife, Tesa, and their daughter, Olivia, has been forever changed since he lost both his legs on Nov. 9, 2010, to an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan, they've been thankful for all the love and support they've received from family, friends and even people they've never met as they continue the move forward.

"It's completely amazing to see all these faces," Stinson said at Saturday's groundbreaking. "This has been incredible. I couldn't ask for a better place to call home."

Their next step forward includes a new specialized home with the help of Homes For Our Troops, a nonprofit organization founded in 2004 to help severely-injured veterans and their immediate families.

Since 2010, the family has mostly lived in hospitals and temporary homes, Stinson said. A home in North Carolina where they lived right after he got out of the hospital just didn't fit their needs. And while their current townhouse in the Shippensburg area is better, Homes For Our Troops will build one that provides more freedom and independence.

With the help of local volunteers, including Stinson's mother-in-law Tracy Burk, who organized many fundraisers, Homes For Our Troops hopes to have everything completed in three to four months.

"Today, we are surrounded by heroes," said spokeswoman Ashley Twigg. "Homes For Our Troops at its heart is a grassroots organization. It's our boots on the ground in every project that determines its success."

In this country, there are more than 50,000 members of the military who have received a Purple Heart, said Homes For Our Troops President Tim McHale. For the 15,000 recipients who have been classified as severely wounded though, life is never truly the same.

"That's why we are here today," McHale said. "He's sacrificed so much. Every day of his life Zach Stinson knows what Afghanistan is like and it will never be in his rearview mirror."

This story is being played out all across these United States, in communities large and small.  It will be taken by many as proof that people do care, that there is genuine concern and support for our soldiers and their sacrifices.

With that thought I do not disagree--it shows the best in all of us.

But I take another message from this: that our government, who was quite willing to place troops in harm's way, has dropped the ball on then taking care of those troops.  Bottom line is that if we put troops in harm's way, and they get harmed, then we have the moral obligation to take care of them. Forever. No brainer. I've previously blogged here about the Earth-Bound Misfit's common-sense take on this:

If we, as a nation, are unwilling to shoulder the financial burden of caring for our military retirees and veterans, then this is what we should do: Stop making so many veterans by getting into wars. When the shooting starts, there are going to be maimed veterans who will need care for the next eighty years. If that cost is unacceptable to the politicians, then stop sending men and women off to fight. No fighting, no combat veterans to care for-- that should be a simple enough equation for even most politicians to grasp.

Awesome as Homes For Our Troops is, it is an organization that should not exist.  ALL OF US--via the Veterans Administration--should be paying for and administering this program.  Injured vets should never have to rely upon the goodwill and charity of others.

Affording the Disabled Vet

May as well continue with the Memorial Day theme.

My local paper, the Chambersburg Public Opinion, carried an Associated Press article on Monday:

Almost Half of New Vets Seek Disability

A staggering 45 percent of the 1.6 million veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now seeking compensation for injuries they say are service-related. That is more than double the estimate of 21 percent who filed such claims after the Gulf War in the early 1990s, top government officials told The Associated Press.

What's more, these new veterans are claiming eight to nine ailments on average, and the most recent ones over the last year are claiming 11 to 14. By comparison, Vietnam veterans are currently receiving compensation for fewer than four, on average, and those from World War II and Korea, just two.

It's unclear how much worse off these new veterans are than their predecessors. Many factors are driving the dramatic increase in claims — the weak economy, more troops surviving wounds, and more awareness of problems such as concussions and PTSD. Almost one-third have been granted disability so far.

Bottom line is that if we put troops in harm's way, and they get harmed, then we have the moral obligation to take care of them.  Forever.  No brainer.  I've previously blogged here about the Earth-Bound Misfit's common-sense take on this:

If we, as a nation, are unwilling to shoulder the financial burden of caring for our military retirees and veterans, then this is what we should do: Stop making so many veterans by getting into wars. When the shooting starts, there are going to be maimed veterans who will need care for the next eighty years. If that cost is unacceptable to the politicians, then stop sending men and women off to fight. No fighting, no combat veterans to care for-- that should be a simple enough equation for even most politicians to grasp.

And here's another almost-unnoticed fact from the AP article if you clicked over.  If you are deemed 100% disabled, you get $2,769 a month. That's $33,228 a year, not a whole lot if you are totally disabled.  Locally I occasionally read about fundraisers to build or fix up homes for vets now wheelchair-bound, and I gotta say, "This community spirit is commendable, but why isn't it the government fixing up this person's house to accommodate disability?"  He or she got hurt on the government's auspices.

 

More Gay Marriage...and Ultrarunning

As usual, the Earth-Bound Misfit nails it:

First off, let's be clear on one thing: The vote on North Carolina's Amendment One, just like their earlier one, was nothing more than an exercise in hatred. Nobody has ever shown how allowing gays to marry would diminish the rights of straight people to marry. No, this is a matter of a bunch of old, bigoted (mostly white) folk using the cudgel of government to pass judgment on the private lives of other people.

The matter of gay marriage will go, ultimately, to the Supreme Court, which will have to decide if equal rights and equal protection under the law means what it says when applied to gay people. I imagine that one of the topics of discussion will be the lack of proof that allowing gay people to marry harms, in any way, straight people.

The efforts by the homophobes on the Right to push gays and lesbians back into the closet will fail, just as their earlier pushes to marginalize women and people of color have failed. They will lose in the courts and, ultimately, they will lose in society at large.

Meanwhile, out on the trails, the issue sexual orientation matters not a bit.  People are just people.  Maybe we should be the model for society.

 

Cause and Effect = Hard, I Guess

As usual, the Earth-Bound Misfit gets it right on our obligations to those who served in America’s armed forces.  She is commenting upon reports that the White House is sending out feelers about possible budget-balancing cuts to military retiree benefits (profanity left in for emphasis):

If we, as a nation, are unwilling to shoulder the financial burden of caring for our military retirees and veterans, then this is what we should do: Stop making so many veterans by getting into wars. When the shooting starts, there are going to be maimed veterans who will need care for the next eighty years. If that cost is unacceptable to the politicians, then stop sending men and women off to fight. No fighting, no combat veterans to care for-- that should be a simple enough equation for even most politicians to grasp.

 

If we don't want to pay for so many military retirees, then cut the size of the armed forces and cut back on the global presence that we have had since the end of the Second World War. If, on the other hand, you want to have that global presence, then suck it up and realize that when someone on active duty completes a twenty-year career and retires, you're going to be paying him or her retirement benefits for possibly another sixty years. Shut the fuck up and pay for it.

Simple cause and effect seems to be a difficult concept for The Very Serious People in DC to grasp. 

   

What We Have Lost

Just An Earth-Bound Misfit had a great post on Tuesday, pondering the milestone event that is represented by the death of bin Laden.  We indeed have lost a great deal:

What I want to ruminate on, now, is what we have lost. We, as a nation, have spent trillions of dollars on both the Iraq and Afghan wars. Without 9-11, Afghanistan would not be a concern of any nation other than its neighbors. Without 9-11, George Bush and his cabal would not have been able to gin up a phony casus belli. Without 9-11, we would not have had to send over five thousand men and women to die in Asian land wars, not to mention the tens of thousands who have come back with devastating injuries to their bodies, brains and psyches.

We have lost or given up a lot of our civil rights. It is now acceptable that the government can monitor the telephones and e-mails of anyone it chooses. It is now acceptable that, without a warrant, the Feds can snoop through our bank accounts and library records. There are cameras in many places which automatically record into a database every vehicle which has passed by. The Feds now conduct warrantless "sneak and peek" searches, no matter what it happens to say in that pesky Fourth Amendment. The Federal government has claimed the right to hold anyone it wants, wherever it wants to, for as long as it pleases them, without granting them access to family or attorneys and without any form of judicial process.  The Federal government (as well as state and local governments) now treat public protests, a right enshrined in the First Amendment[6], as though they were terrorist events and treats protesters as national security threats to be tracked as though they were cooking up PETN in their kitchens.

///SNIP///

In the meantime, and in no small measure due to the fecklessness of the Bush Administration, we are locked into a land war in one of the most inhospitable and inaccessible places on the planet. In Year Ten of the war, the best that the commanders can say at the Five O'Clock Follies is that "tangible progress" has been made. Many more American fighting men and women will be killed and maimed. At least another trillion dollars will be spent. There is no end in sight for this war.

So one may make the argument that, even as his corpse is being chewed by crustaceans at the bottom of the sea, that bin Ladin won his war.

Dick Cheney…and Ultrarunning

One of my favorite reads is Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I. She gets pretty irate abut stuff and sometimes drops a lot of f-bombs, and I say, “I wish I’d said that.”

Well, she just did it again in this post.

A tantalizing excerpt. After quoting a USA Today piece about going after a Guatemalan human rights abuser, she says:

What about our own war criminals? What about the National Security Council of the Bush Administration, which discussed, with great specificity, what torture techniques were to be used?

No, we won't go after our own war criminals. We'll let other nations do that. Which is why you probably have not seen any of the senior cabinet members of the Bush Administration, other than maybe the Secretary of Agriculture (whoever the hell that was) take any foreign vacations since they left office.

This whole Obama “we’re looking forward, not looking back” thing is really just looking the other way. What a disappointment.

Sure, the torture of captives in Iraq and Guantanamo has very little to do—directly—with Ultrarunning. Probably nothing. But when I run trails I want to be comfortable in my own skin, to know that I’m one of the good guys. And if my President, the guy I voted for with a feeling of hope, wants to continue to sweep this utter moral failure under the rug, then I can’t rest easy.

This probably sounds utterly stupid, but for me the fact that the United States of America not only tortured prisoners, we continue to ignore what was done, kinda diminishes the whole wilderness thing. I mean, how can I blissfully run my trails and act like there’s nothing wrong? Conflicted doesn’t even begin to cut it.