How The West Was Won?

I went to bed last night when the big news was still the Alabama tornadoes. This morning the headlines are that Osama Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan and buried at sea. Before sunrise there was a celebratory crowd at the gates of the white house and at ground zero. The president says justice has been served. If OBL’s goal was to lure us into jihad he clearly won a long time ago. To be clear, I'm glad we got him, but his death is only a side note to the fact that the United States of America has spent 10 years starting and fighting in 2 wars in 2 countries that had less to do with terrorism than the governments of their geographical neighbors, Iran and Pakistan. I can only say I'm surprised by all the public celebration. Could the last two days have happened without what has happened in the last ten years? I don't know. It's a question worth asking.

Discussing this with my mother this morning she said hindsight is 20/20. It certainly is, if our eyes are open. Now more than in times past America has been needing some good news but the planet's dilemma of world powers clashing is no football game. There are no winners, and there will be no winners. There's no score to keep no matter how hard we crave it to be so. This isn't a movie. There are no happy endings and there is no form of heroic justice. It is war, not just the military's war, our war, and it continues without a clear end.

Right now around the globe, as people die, military and civilians, even because of our efforts, we revel in patriotic colors. In a few days we'll go back to Trump's hyperbole, Snookie's face paint, and Charlie Sheen's psycho-babble, because it's what makes us happy. We are too quick to party. What may come next could show that we, in the global war on terror and the terrorists alike, have only begun to battle. There's nothing I would love more than to be as wrong as a person can be.



Afghanistan

American Military Casualties (05/1/11 11:23 am EDT), Total In Combat:

American Deaths

Since war began (3/19/03): 4452
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) 4311
Since Handover (6/29/04): 2876
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 224
Since Operation New Dawn: 15

American Wounded Official Estimated

Total Wounded: 33023
Latest Fatality April 29, 2011


As of April 21, 2011, there have been 2,340 coalition deaths in Afghanistan as part of ongoing coalition operations (Operation Enduring Freedom and ISAF) since the invasion in 2001. In this total, the American figure is for deaths "In and Around Afghanistan" which, as defined by the U.S. Department of Defense, includes some deaths in Pakistan and Uzbekistan and the deaths of 11 CIA operatives.

In addition to these deaths in Afghanistan, another 29 U.S. and one Canadian soldier were killed in other countries while supporting operations in Afghanistan. Also, 62 Spanish soldiers returning from Afghanistan died in Turkey on May 26, 2003, when their plane crashed.

During the first five years of the war, the vast majority of coalition deaths were American, but between 2006 and 2010, a significant proportion were amongst other nations, particularly the United Kingdom and Canada which have been assigned responsibility for the flashpoint provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, respectively. This is because in 2006, ISAF expanded its jurisdiction to the southern regions of Afghanistan which were previously under the direct authority of the U.S. military.



Casualties in Afghanistan as of Aug 10 2010:

Afghan troops killed 8,587
Afghan troops seriously injured 25,761
Afghan civilians killed 8,813
Afghan civilians seriously injured 15,863
U.S. troops killed 1,140
U.S. troops seriously injured 3,420
Other coalition troops killed 772
Other coalition troops seriously injured 2,316
Contractors killed 298
Contractors seriously injured 2,428
Journalists killed 19
Journalists seriously injured unknown
Total killed in Afghanistan 19,629
Total injured in Afghanistan 48,644


Iraqi Casualties
As of March 31, 2011
US Soldiers Killed, 4,444
Seriously Wounded, 32,051
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq 1,487
Journalists - Iraq 348
Academics Killed - Iraq 448
Other Coalition Troops, 318

Sources: DoD, MNF, About.com and iCasualties.com


Iraqi Civilians
100,000 to 110,000
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

All Downhill

Older video, fall 2010. Longboarding hills at Ft. Bragg.

All but the very first shot (the bike) are mine, with captions, overdubs, and music from Sun Hotel added.


Lyrics:

little island in the street
you pay the rent and the heat
while i am lying through my teeth
i just sneak out after you fall asleep

it's been this way since the fall
and i don't need a crystal ball
to show you how i love you
and show you how i want to
but i've been waiting so long
to sacrifice my favorite song
and show you how i love you
and show you how i want to
as soon i get home from church
i'll laugh until the future hurts
to show you what i'm gonna do
just to get even with you
i'll never leave the suburbs
and i'll play your passion in reverse
to show you how i love

it's the biggest compliment now that you've gotten so old
it's my brand new testament that i'm gone shove down your throat
and it's one of my best friends pissed at the suburban clones
forget religion i've got a prison at home

The Kids In Sumar

Music, Neko Case, Vengence is Sleeping. Video, I took, the kids in Sumar Iraq.

Counterflow

Part One

Counterflow: So Love May Find Us. This is a long song/short film cut into two parts. Youtube and every other site I've looked at have a 15 minute time limit. The song is almost 20, so here's 10 and 8 in two parts. The footage and photos are mine, the music - Australian band extraordinaire ,"The Church."

Part Two

Iraq And Magic Tricks

mySpace Oddity

Ok, here's the Youtube version with some enhancements.

Myspace Oddity

Had the idea since downloading the chords to Bowie's "Space Oddity." Seemed an obvious crossover, a folk parody. I know my mom won't get it, but most will. I love you mom.

And I fancy myself a film maker as of late. I spent more time on lighting, editing (or lack there of), and camera position than I did practicing the song. This was take two maybe, so yes, that's me, in my room, this past weekend. Amazing the things you can get done with no car on a rainy day. Enjoy.

Tame Impala

The best band I've heard in a while. From Perth, but intergalactic. Yes, the vocals are like Beatles, the guitars are like Hendrix, but after that initial impression the songs are so good! I haven't listened to a single band nonstop for a week in over 10 years till now.

Blue Velvet and North Carolina

I posted here previously about Wilmington NC. This, while watching Twin Peaks during the same period, and knowing nothing of the David Lynch connection between the DVD series and Blue Velvet the movie, which was filmed in Wilmington. Note the owl in the window in my old post by clicking on the link embedded in the word Wilmington above. If you've seen Twin Peaks, you know what I mean.

As I watched this movie again recently, for the second time, I was really fascinated. Not only at how good it was, but with my memory of how much I hated it the first time I watched it, 8 or 9 years ago.

Blue Velvet, filmed in 1986, was made just a few years prior to the production of Twin Peaks, also filmed on location (the Town of Twin Peaks is fictional) in Washington state. Featuring many of the same actors, both are centered around Kyle MacLachlan, the lead investigator, slowly unraveling unsolved crimes and serving as David Lynch's doppelganger both in facial features but also as the vehicle for Lynch's imagination. In Blue Velvet the story begins with the discovery of a human ear, just as Twin Peaks begins with finding Laura Palmer's body on a rocky lakeside, right off the bat, right in the first chapter of the film. There are more than a handful of similarities between the two works which are obvious to those who have seen both. These elements serve as the David Lynch stamp as much as they serve the aura of the plot and footage.

The further slice of irony is that on the same evening I switched to watching Blue Velvet after trying to watch the 1981 Pink Floyd film The Wall, I used to love. Both movies probe madness and the darkest back rooms of the human mind, but Blue Velvet holds a counter balance, a parallel line of mystery through out the movie that The Wall lacks. I later watched the special features on The Wall DVD and was quite pleased and satisfied to hear a recent day Roger Waters himself say that it's a "...flawed film, not a single chuckle or smile..." I agree, though when I was 16 I didn't see it that way.

When Blue Velvet first came out, the large level of violence (for 1986) and other shock elements caused the movie a lot of negative reviews. I don't want to spoil the movie by adding too many details, and yes, I watched the BV Special Features as well, so many of my exo-film facts come from that.

The formula of the quirkiest of all American characters wrapped around, and eventually with, vice filled plots has served Lynch and his fans well, but is certainly not for all viewers. As an additional note: This film also showcases the talent of Dennis Hopper who recently died. Mostly known for his roll in Easy Rider and Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet is an additional testament to his abilities. Unfortunately his difficulties with drugs and alcohol kept him back from what could have been as he fully admitted in a recent recast of an excellent interview Teri Gross had with Hopper on NPR, which by the way, didn't mention Blue Velvet.


The following, I took from my two trips to Wilmington. These shots weren't in my original Wilmington post, but now in light of the movie, are much more interesting.

This fountain, as seen in the film, is in the middle of an intersection and is indeed something to take a picture of, as I did, as Lynch did, but this drive-by shot is only interesting to me now because of it being in the movie, and recognizing as I watched the movie.

One of the famous film quotes, by Dennis Hopper, "...Heineken! Fuck that! Pabst Blue Ribbon!" occurs in this very doorway, only 25 years earlier. This I also discovered through watching special features in a chapter titled "Barbary Coast." Blue Velvet is officially "set" in nearby Lumberton, but shot in Wilmington.




This last one is from the movie.

Barbie In Iraq: Update

I previously reported on Barbie In Iraq, from Iraq, in my 09 April 09 post. Here is an update of sorts, from AKO.


U.S. Army Soldiers hand out hundreds of pink backpacks filled with school supplies and toys to students at a girl's school in Iraq, March 25, 2010. The Soldiers, assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division's Company C, 1st Battalion 38th Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, delivered about 2,400 backpacks throughout the day. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Bryce Dubee (Photo by U.S. Army)

Attack On Global Energy Resources (1985)

GI Joe, a VHS tape from 1985. The plot, perhaps so rediculous then, 25 years later, not so cartoonish. The irony is obvious.

Needing An Oil Change?

I feel sick watching the news. I have been a news junkie in times past but I can't stomach the images, and the rhetoric that have been the product of newscasts in recent months. The humorless irony of those who preach a political "federal hands off" perspective now, without batting an eye, up in arms because the feds aren't acting fast enough to jump in and clean up a corporate mess is enough to make me doubt there is anything at all real about the theory of common sense. There are drill baby drill folks out there that would have objected with all their hearts to the government regulating this industry and/or requiring the very same safeguards that would have prevented this disaster - now - turning on a dime, requesting to have their cake and eat it too, and blaming Barack Obama's administration for not "doing enough."

The contradiction is apparent, and even more apparent is the fact that this is a bigger disaster than anything any foreign terrorist has ever inflicted on the USA. Yet we will continue to lube, gas, and fuel up - because we have to. We are in the words of George W. Bush, "...addicted." No kidding. The gulf coasts of 4 + states, and the east coast of North America will soon be ruined and the raw spilled petroleum sludge will destroy life and lifestyle alike, and there's nothing we can do about it except continue to drill for more...

...because we have to, we need it, like a junkie in Trainspotting, looking past the dead baby on the floor and requsting another hit. Too dramatic? Not really.

Or do we NEED it? What will it take to make the earth's society look at itself and see we need to find something better than petroleum, the petro-dollar and drilling for more and more oil - when it comes to energy? There's such a lucrative machine so dug in, and deeply in place, that will not likely budge. We have gone to war over it, and now blood spills for oil again, as it is proving to be the real weapon of mass destruction. The highest price is not at the pump.

Si, Como No?

Photos from my recent trip to Flagler Beach - where I grew up.

Beach House

I'm In Love. With what - not sure, but sure of something akin while listening to Beach House.

HWY 301: Wide Open Road

An old video by the Triffids, a little known Australian group that surfaced in the early eighties and whose vocalist seems to have absorbed an obvious Brian Ferry M.O.

Also some recent photography of Highway 301 which runs through my hometown in Florida and up through North Carolina. These were taken in early May after my trip home, as I came back to Bragg as the sun went down. The video and pics seemed to go well together as a blog.


A singlewide and my shadow.

A red truck that reminds me of Leo in the early nineties series Twin Peaks.

Truck trailers.

The impressionistic solid center/outer smear effect in most of these pictures I discovered while in Iraq, taking shots of the landscape from the back seat of a speeding humvee. I pick a subject in the center and try to hold a point, moving the camera on an imaginary axis as I go by. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, this is one that worked well, a house and van along 301.

White house and white wild flowers on the lawn.

Distant fixture, swirling fields.

Yardsale

Powerline

Mile 33

Dog in the driveway.

A near empty BP station.

An All American Amber Field.

EFMB Fort Bragg

EFMB is an army abbreviation for Expert Field Medical Badge. It's a competition available to soldiers of all ranks in medical occupations. At this competition, in Ft. Bragg, ranks from Private through Major were in attendance. I did well on the written test and felt pretty confident about testing on "the lanes," but missed the mark on the land navigation test, something I haven't done since basic training, 3.5 years ago, and is done with army, methods, maps, compass and protractor. The Test Lanes are much as it sounds. Soldiers progress along a path, in this case, the North Carolina forests of Bragg, and demonstrate skills and competence in various tasks, medical and military alike. The photos are of the train up and course orientation in fairly casual situations. The actual testing went unphotographed and involved a far more serious scene and stressful scenarios.


I enjoyed the experience, and look forward to my next attempt, perhaps in August. Doing things like this competition, and other forms of non-deployment training and and self development have been unavailable till coming to Fort Bragg. The first three years of my army career were spent in Basic/AIT, then assignment to a line unit - a military police unit that had the development of medics low in its priorities. Then there was 15 months in Iraq. Now I'm working at Womack Army Medical Center and I've had time to sharpen my skill set in clinical and field environments.