Veteran’s Day & Remembrance Day
I came upon a blogger from the Maritimes - in that way we travel the Internet. A click here. An e-mail there. A hyper-link here. Another blog link. I’ve been enjoying Lisa’s blog - and wishing for more time to sit at the keyboard. Lemons & Lollipops
While visiting there, I found this gem that she had linked from YouTube. Please click, watch and listen.
A Pittance of Time
Canadian Sunset on Flickr by the Lone Primate
November 11th, 2006 at 9:42 am
If you come across a veteran that has served at a rank below that of Lieutenant (pronounced Left-tenant above the 49th parallel), thank them profusely for a job well done. If you find a general (or a former Secretary of Defense, for that matter), kick them in the groin for using the grunts as cannon fodder because the guys in charge didn’t have the foggiest idea of what was going on — especially since they were hundreds of miles away.
The preceeding was a unpaid political announcement in favor of the real heroes of war (and it ain’t the guys with stars on their shoulders).
November 11th, 2006 at 9:58 am
Thanks for posting the Canadian flag and tribute from Terry Kelly.I found it very touching and I don’t care what country we are from we are all linked unfortunately by war.Both my Grandfathers and my Father fought overseas so it is close to home for me!I can not get through a remembrance day service without tearing up.
My own personal philosophy however tends to the pacifist side and that being said ,I ll close with one of myfavorite lines..”War! What is it good for? absolutley nothing!”
November 11th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Speaking of the Canadian flag, I have one that I’ve had since my days at NAU (it flew in the back window of our dorm apartment, while a Union Jack flew in the front window — even though we had a Greek Cypriot, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China and a red-blooded American living there; living with foreigners was the only way I could stay on campus all year).
It has been hanging on a window in every home I’ve had ever since, as a tribute to a country I greatly admire. (I’m even a big puckhead, and watch The National online every weeknight.) But it has seen better days; it is faded, and the Diva Dog managed to put a big tear in it a few years ago. So it is time to part ways with it.
However, I’m not aware with protocol with flag disposal as regards the Maple Leaf. Here in the USofA, our flag — when it is in this kind of condition — is to be burned in a special ceremony (as opposed to being burned in protest on the street). Is this true for the Canadian flag as well? And if so, who do I send it to? (Inquiring minds want to know.)
November 11th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
In answer to Kirk Dooley & Mutt, according to the federal government:
Disposal of Flags
When a flag becomes tattered and is no longer in a suitable condition for use, it should be destroyed in a dignified way by burning it privately.
I’d like to thank Karen for featuring my photo in her blog, especially today on November 11th. It’s quite an honour.
November 11th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Thanks for the info, L.P. But to make sure the flag is disposed of in a dignified manner, I think I’ll send it to the Canadian Embassy or to the Consulate office Canada has here in Phoenix.
November 14th, 2006 at 12:58 am
Now that our side has a majority in both houses they should actually USE the subpoena power and launch a REAL independent investigation into 9/11.
One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying “We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]”. Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I’ve ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases. After leaving a Koran on a barstool at a strip bar after getting shitfaced drunk on the night before, then writing a suicide note/inspirational letter that sounded like it was written by someone with next to no knowledge of Islam, they went to bed and got up the next morning hung over and carried out their devious plan. Nevermind the fact that of the four “pilots” among them there was not a one that could handle a Cessna or a Piper Cub let alone fly a jumbo jet, and the one assigned the most difficult task of all, Hani Hanjour, was so laughably incompetent that he was the worst fake “pilot” of the bunch. Nevermind the fact that they received very rudimentary flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, making them more likely to have been C.I.A. assets than Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. So on to the airports. These “hijackers” somehow managed to board all four airliners with their tickets, yet not even ONE got his name on any of the flight manifests. So they hijack all four airliners and at this time passengers on United 93 start making a bunch of cell phone calls from 35,000 feet in the air to tell people what was going on. Nevermind the fact that cell phones wouldn’t work very well above 4,000 feet, and wouldn’t work at ALL above 8,000 feet. But the conspiracy theorists won’t let that fact get in the way of a good fantasy. That is one of the little things you “aren’t supposed to think about”. Nevermind that one of the callers called his mom and said his first and last name, more like he was reading from a list than calling his own mom. Anyway, when these airliners each deviated from their flight plan and didn’t respond to ground control, NORAD would any other time have followed standard operating procedure (and did NOT have to be told by F.A.A. that there were hijackings because they were watching the same events unfold on their own radar) which means fighter jets would be scrambled from the nearest base where they were available on standby within a few minutes, just like every other time when airliners stray off course. But of course on 9/11 this didn’t happen, not even close. Somehow these “hijackers” must have used magical powers to cause NORAD to stand down, as ridiculous as this sounds because total inaction from the most high-tech and professional Air Force in the world would be necessary to carry out their tasks. So on the most important day in its history the Air Force was totally worthless. Then they had to make one of the airliners look like a smaller plane, because unknown to them the Naudet brothers had a videocamera to capture the only known footage of the North Tower crash, and this footage shows something that is not at all like a jumbo jet, but didn’t have to bother with the South Tower jet disguising itself because that was the one we were “supposed to see”. Anyway, as for the Pentagon they had to have Hani Hanjour fly his airliner like it was a fighter plane, making a high G-force corkscrew turn that no real airliner can do, in making its descent to strike the Pentagon. But these “hijackers” wanted to make sure Rumsfeld survived so they went out of their way to hit the farthest point in the building from where Rumsfeld and the top brass are located. And this worked out rather well for the military personnel in the Pentagon, since the side that was hit was the part that was under renovation at the time with few military personnel present compared to construction workers. Still more fortuitous for the Pentagon, the side that was hit had just before 9/11 been structurally reinforced to prevent a large fire there from spreading elsewhere in the building. Awful nice of them to pick that part to hit, huh? Then the airliner vaporized itself into nothing but tiny unidentifiable pieces most no bigger than a fist, unlike the crash of a real airliner when you will be able to see at least some identifiable parts, like crumpled wings, broken tail section etc. Why, Hani Hanjour the terrible pilot flew that airliner so good that even though he hit the Pentagon on the ground floor the engines didn’t even drag the ground!! Imagine that!! Though the airliner vaporized itself on impact it only made a tiny 16 foot hole in the building. Amazing. Meanwhile, though the planes hitting the Twin Towers caused fires small enough for the firefighters to be heard on their radios saying “We just need 2 hoses and we can knock this fire down” attesting to the small size of it, somehow they must have used magical powers from beyond the grave to make this morph into a raging inferno capable of making the steel on all forty-seven main support columns (not to mention the over 100 smaller support columns) soften and buckle, then all fail at once. Hmmm. Then still more magic was used to make the building totally defy physics as well as common sense in having the uppermost floors pass through the remainder of the building as quickly, meaning as effortlessly, as falling through air, a feat that without magic could only be done with explosives. Then exactly 30 minutes later the North Tower collapses in precisely the same freefall physics-defying manner. Incredible. Not to mention the fact that both collapsed at a uniform rate too, not slowing down, which also defies physics because as the uppermost floors crash into and through each successive floor beneath them they would shed more and more energy each time, thus slowing itself down. Common sense tells you this is not possible without either the hijackers’ magical powers or explosives. To emphasize their telekinetic prowess, later in the day they made a third building, WTC # 7, collapse also at freefall rate though no plane or any major debris hit it. Amazing guys these magical hijackers. But we know it had to be “Muslim hijackers” the conspiracy theorist will tell you because (now don’t laugh) one of their passports was “found” a couple days later near Ground Zero, miraculously “surviving” the fire that we were told incinerated planes, passengers and black boxes, and also “survived” the collapse of the building it was in. When common sense tells you if that were true then they should start making buildings and airliners out of heavy paper and plastic so as to be “indestructable” like that magic passport. The hijackers even used their magical powers to bring at least seven of their number back to life, to appear at american embassies outraged at being blamed for 9/11!! BBC reported on that and it is still online. Nevertheless, they also used magical powers to make the american government look like it was covering something up in the aftermath of this, what with the hasty removal of the steel debris and having it driven to ports in trucks with GPS locators on them, to be shipped overseas to China and India to be melted down. When common sense again tells you that this is paradoxical in that if the steel was so unimportant that they didn’t bother saving some for analysis but so important as to require GPS locators on the trucks with one driver losing his job because he stopped to get lunch. Hmmmm. Further making themselves look guilty, the Bush administration steadfastly refused for over a year to allow a commission to investigate 9/11 to even be formed, only agreeing to it on the conditions that they get to dictate its scope, meaning it was based on the false pretense of the “official story” being true with no other alternatives allowed to be considered, handpicked all its members making sure the ones picked had vested interests in the truth remaining buried, and with Bush and Cheney only “testifying” together, only for an hour, behind closed doors, with their attorneys present and with their “testimonies” not being recorded by tape or even written down in notes. Yes, this whole story smacks of the utmost idiocy and fantastic far-fetched lying, but it is amazingly enough what some people believe. Even now, five years later, the provably false fairy tale of the “nineteen hijackers” is heard repeated again and again, and is accepted without question by so many Americans. Which is itself a testament to the innate psychological cowardice of the American sheeple, i mean people, and their abject willingness to believe something, ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous in order to avoid facing a scary uncomfortable truth. Time to wake up America.
November 14th, 2006 at 7:38 am
Well, an enlightened one to me signifies the Buddha - so I should be honored.
When you say “Our side” am I to assume you are speaking of the Democratic Party?
Interesting for sure, but the original post was about veterans, not about the politics that helped create them.
How about some links for those who are interested in reading more.
Thanks.
November 14th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
While, as a registered Democrat (one of about a dozen in my congressional district), I might agree with what the “Enlightened” one might have said (but after a few sentences into his 10,000 sentence paragraph, I gave up reading it — break it up, my friend, if you want to be taken seriously), I figure that it would be just like what the GOP tried to do to Clinton, and would dothe Democrats and the country absoultely no good. Let’s just move on, making sure we don’t throw away the freedoms our vets have sacrificed for so nobly throughout the history of this Republic.
And leave the political rants for City Lights, where they belong. This is too nice a neighborhood for that. (And I’ll take the blame for this one going off in the tangent it has. I apologize to everyone for that. As they say Down Under at the local Starbucks, “Mea Cuppa.”)