Homecoming

Sergeant Richard L. Ford is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetary.

On a day of blue skies and boisterous winds that hinted of spring, Ford became the 314th service member killed in the Iraq war to be buried at Arlington. Ford, of East Hartford, Conn., died Feb. 20 in Baghdad from combat wounds. He was 40 years old and on his third tour of duty in Iraq.

Godspeed, Sergeant Ford.

Another Blunder

Grim assessment of prosects in Iran courtesy of Spengler writing in Asia Times Online:

Washington had the opportunity at the turn of 2007 to isolate and neutralize the Mahmud Ahmadinejad regime in Tehran, but through stupidity and arrogance has made war the most probable outcome.

[...]

It is pointless to read the signals out of Washington to divine US intentions. A generous interpretation of the confusion on the Potomac would be that matters have become so complex that the moment Washington sends one sort of signal, it is compelled by the next turn of events to send a different one, to the point that no one can make sense of what the US wants to communicate. A less charitable interpretation would be that no one is in charge, and that different agencies of government are pursuing their own agendas without accountability to a central authority.

In the end it does not matter much which interpretation we choose, for Washington has done everything possible to destroy the prospects for a diplomatic solution. Whether it was possible to begin with, the historians will have to debate. For the time being, Bush has snatched war out of the jaws of peace.

Can You Hold?

One term that keeps appearing in the stories about Walter Reed is "medical holding company", which is simply a temporary company for persons passing through between permanent assignments. I was in two holding companies during my brief military career: four days at Oakland Army Base waiting to ship out to Vietnam and just over two weeks at the 90th Replacement Battalion in Long Binh. The extended stay at the latter occurred because they pulled me and some other infantrymen out of regular processing to serve as iternal security guards for a couple weeks.

The memory I have from both experiences is being in limbo, unattached and unconnected to anyone who cares. I was just there, being processed, but other than moving me through the system, no one paid much attention to me. During the two week guard stint, I was pretty much on my own as long as I stayed in the battalion area and showed up for duty. It wasn't bad duty but I could not receive mail since I had no permanent address. What made it bearable was that it was good time not in the field and the fact that I talked my way into access to the battalion library.

The sense of being cast adrift comes back to me as I read about the soldiers at Walter Reed and other military hospitals. I had no particular needs when I was on hold so the indifference wasn't a big deal. Had I really needed something--like the wounded from Iraq--I would have been shit out of luck. They sure are.

Maybe If We Buy More Yellow Ribbon Magnets

When I met with my Congressman's staff a week ago, I asked about care for wounded soldiers and veterans in facilities other than Walter Reed Hospital. If conditions at the premier Army medical facililty were as bad as described by the Washington Post, I wondered what other, less prominent facilities were like.

The answer is in, from today's Washington Post, not my Congressman.

Oliva is but one quaking voice in a vast outpouring of accounts filled with emotion and anger about the mistreatment of wounded outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Stories of neglect and substandard care have flooded in from soldiers, their family members, veterans, doctors and nurses working inside the system. They describe depressing living conditions for outpatients at other military bases around the country, from Fort Lewis in Washington state to Fort Dix in New Jersey. They tell stories -- their own versions, not verified -- of callous responses to combat stress and a system ill equipped to handle another generation of psychologically scarred vets.

[...]

Across the country, some military quarters for wounded outpatients are in bad shape, according to interviews, Government Accountability Office reports and transcripts of congressional testimony. The mold, mice and rot of Walter Reed's Building 18 compose a familiar scenario for many soldiers back from Iraq or Afghanistan who were shipped to their home posts for treatment. Nearly 4,000 outpatients are currently in the military's Medical Holding or Medical Holdover companies, which oversee the wounded. Soldiers and veterans report bureaucratic disarray similar to Walter Reed's: indifferent, untrained staff; lost paperwork; medical appointments that drop from the computers; and long waits for consultations.

[...]

Sgt. William A. Jones had recently written to his Arizona senators complaining about abuse at the VA hospital in Phoenix. He had written to the president before that. "Not one person has taken the time to respond in any manner," Jones said in an e-mail.

From Ray Oliva, the distraught 70-year-old vet from Kelseyville, Calif., came this: "I wrote a letter to Senators Feinstein and Boxer a few years ago asking why I had to wear Hospital gowns that had holes in them and torn and why some of the Vets had to ask for beds that had good mattress instead of broken and old. Wheel chairs old and tired and the list goes on and on. I never did get a response."

Welcome home from the war, guys. America loves you. Just don't ask for anything.

New Life for an Old Enemy

Asia Times Online has an interesting two part series on Al-Qaeda's resurgence. Part one is here and part 2 is here. I was going to post an erudite, mildly snarking post about how BushCheney has so thoroughly and completely bolloxed the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked the US on 9-11 and how Al-Qaeda could not possibly have contemplated moving their operations to Iraq four years ago. But I haven't, so go read the articles.

Eyes Wide Open, Part 3

The Eyes Wide Open memorial to American and Iraqi dead made its third appearance in the Phoenix area this weekend. This installation is at Crash Arts, located at 817 W. Madison Street in Phoenix and will be on display from noon to 4:00 pm today as part of the 19th annual Art Detour. Art Detour is a BFD here, drawing thousands of people who would otherwise go nowhere near some of these places.

I volunteered for a couple hours yesterday morning. Crowds were slow during my watch but began picking up as I left around noon. Along with the opportunity to see Phoenix art spaces, patrons will also get a strong dose of reality at Eyes Wide Open.






The indoor venue gives the memorial a much different feel from the earlier installation at Encanto Park. This installation has a more somber, almost sepulchral, feel than the outdoor setting. I felt a sense of passage and change as I walked among the boots. The arrangement is no less respectful or moving for being in a confined space, just different.

The second installation was last Monday and Tuesday at Arizona State University. I didn't make it for that event. You can find pictures of it here.

Thanks to Cheri Lippmann of Code Pink Phoenix for organizing and coordinating the exhibit. She and other volunteers from the End the War Coalition put a lot of effort into this. It would be nice to think that we'll never have to do this for another war.

postcript

Crash Arts is located near the Central Arizona Shelter Services center so the area is frequented by many homeless individuals, including veterans. The juxtaposition of Iraq war casualties with our domestic walking wounded is a stark reminder that our national priorities create collateral damage here at home.

More Blogrolling

Ever since the Great Blogroll Massacre at Daily Kos I've been spending more time reading smaller blogs instead. Among the blogs I've been reading are The Needs of the Few by Evil Spock, Blue Gal and Shakespeare's Sister so I figured it's time to add them to my highly valuable blogroll.

Give 'em a visit.

From a Bygone Era

I recently read The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff. It tells the story of the print and electronic press as the civil rights movement developed in after World War II. The story begins with the near complete absence of news about black Americans in the mainstream media. In the early postwar era, only black owned newspapers covered the happenings of their community. Roberts and Kilbanoff highlight the pioneering contributions of the black journalists and publishers of that era.

As the civil rights movement grew, however, black journalists were largely excluded from the story, except for isolated instances like the Emmett Till murder trial (where they were greeted with “Good morning, niggers” by the local sheriff). All too often, black journalists were singled out by white mobs and could not get close enough to the events to report.

In their absence, the white mainstream media began paying attention, coverage was limited and spotty at first, led by a few courageous southern editorialists and publishers but as the story developed, other media soon joined in. The Race Beat profiles many of the reporters such at Claude Sitton of the New York Times, Hank Fleming of Newsweek, Jack Nelson of the Atlanta Constitution and later the LA Times and John Chancellor of NBC who made civil rights their beat.

The story is gripping and detailed but moves along well. Having grown up in the south and experienced some of the events first hand, The Race Beat offers an interesting view of that experience. Even more, it shows how television came into its own as a news medium. The civil rights era was a time when television news was just emerging and reporters were not only covering the story but becoming part of it, either by telling the world what was going on and occasionally coming under attack by those who did not want them reporting on the story. It was also an era of dramatic photography splashed across front pages of newspapers and in Life magazine feature stories.

What impressed me most about the narrative was the correspondents’ dedication to, first, understanding the events they were covering and, second, to making sure that story went out over the air and into print. The black press and its reporters, who were often barred from the scene still managed to provide important information, reporting on what they could see and where they could get. Often, their reports provided background and detail from a community where white reporters had limited access and one with which most Americans were wholly uninformed.

Reading this book, I am struck by the contrast between the “race beat” reporters and today’s correspondents. Forty years ago, the press was far more aggressive in its work, it seems to me. Yeah, it took a while for the civil rights story to emerge but once it did, the press was diligent in getting the story out. Contrast that with today’s media which operate more as megaphones or stenographers for the corporate-industrial government that more than ever seeks to manipulate and conceal information. The media still show occasional signs of life–Dana Priest’s stories in the Washington Post about secret prisons and the neglect of veterans at Walter Reed come to mind–but those few instances only highlight the contrast between then and now.

Milestones

This humble blog achieved a few milestones this week. In addition to the Carnival of the Liberals, I recorded my 3,000th visitor since adding a sitemeter in February 2006. Not exactly a significant volume in the world of big box blogs but welcome nonetheless. February was the second record setting month in a row--over 800 visitors dropped by in the past two months. And this blog is now averaging about 20 hits per day. At this rate traffic should be into the middle two digits in a year or so.

One of our visitors this past week was notable. After posting this piece on my meeting with Representative Shadegg, someone from the US House of Representatives checked it out three times in short succession, spending 18 minutes during one visit before clicking over to my profile. Here's hoping that what the visitor found there reinforces the message our group delivered to Rep. Shadegg last week. On the other hand, I'm probably on some sort of watch list which more than likely puts me in good company.

Speaking of company, courtesy of Kindea, I have learned that Unsolicited Opinion is a "C-List Blogger" based on the number of links in the past six months. I have some good company, including Evil Spock, Harp and Sword and Whole Wheat Radio.


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As long as we're talking abour ratings, Technorati ranks Unsolicited Opinion at 297,641 in blogtopia (y!sctp!) based on links. Pretty far down the list but it's a damn big list with over 50 million blogs in 2006. That puts this blogtopian backwater in the top one percent. I'll go with that.

So there you have the fruits of almost three years of blogging. I'm not making any money at it but I am having fun and, most important, I have the opportunity to put my ideas and opinions out for anyone to see.

I Hereby Announce...

St. John McCain announced yesterday that he will run for president. However, he will not formally announce until April so we will have to live in suspense for a few more weeks.

In keeping with the spirit of St. John's statement, I feel that it is only proper that I announce now that at some point in the future, I will consider and perhaps futher contemplate declaring my inclination to pursue a line of thought that may precipitate a pronouncement on some topic to be determined at an appropriate time as defined by criteria that are relevant in the circumstances.