Archive - May 2007

Time for bed. Up at 4:15 to shower and head to the airport. All packed and ready to go.

I leave tomorrow morning. In hours. Too much to do still.

I hope to do updates when possible from internet cafes and the like.

I will be hanging with Russ and Lisa at their house for 10 days or so and doing some hiking/camping with them - potentially in the Udzungwa mountains. John Garbe will be rolling into town sometime around then and we'll chill with him too.

On the 15th, more friends (including Hannah of my Mt. St. Helens trip fame) will arrive and we will go on Safari for a few days (living the Lion King according to Russ and Lisa). After that (around June 21), John, Russ, and I will take the long walk up Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Following that, we'll figure out what we want to do with the last days and get on a plane on June 30. On July 1, I'll be back in the States.

Ciao.

My last political post before my trip. On Memorial Day, I take issue with a soldier. A friend of mine sent me a link to a story in the Des Moines Register which features a letter from a story that claims the media is losing the Iraq War. It set me off. Here was my reply:

Thought provoking? I'm just thinking about the Iowan educational system and its failure to teach this soldier how to think.

From the article:
------

"Hello media, do you know you indirectly kill American soldiers every day? You inspire and report the enemy's objective every day. You are the enemy's greatest weapon. The enemy cannot beat us on the battlefield so all he does is try to wreak enough havoc and have you report it every day. With you and the enemy using each other, you continually break the will of the American public and American government.

This is absurd. The enemies greatest weapon is their willingness to die. Their use of our media is indeed a tool, but certainly not their greatest one. And for these assholes who think that just because they have seen some good from a mission they accomplished that we are somehow winning the war is akin to me saying that all Americans hate Bush because I cannot find one who supports him still.

Oh - and the enemy is beating us on the battlefield. Look at the numbers, we kill more of "them" (whoever "they" are) but we did that in Nam too. Winning on the battlefield is about achieving a goal via a strategy and we have neither ... therefore we are incapable of winning on the battlefield. Say what you will about the troops on the ground, but they are dying for nothing until Bush and the generals figure out an actual goal and a strategy to get there.

"So we really set the enemy back that night but all the enemy had to do was turn on the news and be reassured that the enemy's agenda (objective) was still going to be fed to the American public.

No - this guy has no fucking clue what he is talking about. He demonstrates no understanding whatsoever of what it takes to win a guerrilla war and I hope to high God that he is not representative of the military training our troops are getting. It is just pathetic.

Ooooh, they uncovered a weapons cache. I laugh when local police brag that they have intercepted x kilos of heroine or cocaine or marijuana as though this was in some way going to help the U.S. or keep some kids of drugs or even impact the price on the street. This is not winning. Do you have any idea how many weapons cache's have been found? Yet our soldiers still die every day next to 10x more Iraqi civilians from these bombs. Weapons are not the limiting factor in Iraq, there is effectively an unlimited supply of them thanks to Hussein's massive stockpiles and the Bush Administration's total failure at destroying/guarding them.

Winning is not possible without a strategy and we have none. Strategy cannot succeed without a goal and we have none. We will not have one so long as Bush is more worried about domestic politics and partisan hackery than anything else. So long as he puts only the most qualified Christian Fundamentalist Republican friend of his into power rather than the most qualified person, this country will be fukt. Not that he or the other Christian fundamentalists care, they love the Bible more than the Constitution (something perhaps shared by many Americans, but certainly not this one).

The anger of this email is not directed at you, but rather at the unlettered soldier who does not understand basic military concepts like strategy and probably somehow blames the media for what happened in Vietnam. People who attack the media for reporting on a war lost by the President get no respect from me. They ignore the 900 lb gorilla (the President's failure) to attack insects because they don't like the message. That is bullshit.

Q: How frustrating is it that your best long jump photo comes from a test shot of a different teams' athlete when you are just checking exposure?

A: Very.

I'm getting ready for bed after an exhausting day (something new and different). Woke up at 6:15 this morning to drive to Des Moines with Michelle. Spent the day at the NCAA Regional track meet at Drake University. They have an amazing track complex - it hosts an incredible track meet each year called the Drake Relays.

The Gophers are not doing as well as hoped, but the weather was still good for photos. Michelle has been a great assistant, taking photos when not taking care of many other things that I ask of her. I imagine she will put one of her better photos up on her blog shortly.

I am staying in a suite tonight at the Comfort Inn Des Moines and it is aptly named. King-size bed, large room, desk, and a couch. I can get used to this traveling photographer gig. Tomorrow is the down side of said gig though - looks like we'll get lots of rain.

I am soooo running out of time. On top of it, I forgot to wish my Mom a Happy Birthday on her birthday, so I wanted to make sure everyone knows what a jackass I am. I leave town on Tuesday morning and I have no idea how I will get everything done by then.

I literally have over 6,000 images to edit before then as well as whatever I shoot this weekend in Iowa for the Gophers track team. Oh yeah, I cannot pass an opportunity to shoot, especially my first chance to travel with the Gophers.

More tennis photos! This gallery has photos from the Macalester - Hamline matchup at the end of the season.

Remember a time back when we had a more competent and independent Attorney General? Well, if you remember anyone else, you do. Though Gonzalez almost definitely has to be a better singer than Ashcroft, it turns out that Ashcroft has more respect for the Constitution than Bush. This is akin to saying that the Emperor was more destructive than Darth Vader.

When there were Dept of Justice questions about the legality of the NSA wiretap program, the acting Attorney General, Comey, refused to certify it as legal. The Bush Administration attempted to intimidate Ashcroft, in his hospital bed, into illegally signing it.

These people are insane.

Though I took these photos last month, I only now had the time to edit and post them. This is a gallery of Macalester women's tennis against Hamline.

TV news programs have been using Christopher Hitchens to question whether Falwell's memory should be honored. View him on CNN and Fox News.

Hitchens is brilliant in his description of Falwell - though his constant interruptions of Ralph Reed do trouble me (via the Fox News link). Don't get me wrong, I snickered throughout as Hitchens muttered at Reed (especially when he he made fun of Reed calling him Dr. Falwell). Nonetheless, I do think we need to allow others to speak without constant interruption.

This is not to say people should never be interrupted, but I thought he interrupted Reed too much. At any rate, I take great issue with Hitchen's claim that Falwell committed treason when he said that the U.S. deserved the 9-11 attacks (due to feminists and gay rights and blah blah blah). Treason is a word like genocide. It should not be tossed around lightly.

If Falwell was treasonous, it was via his total disrespect for the freedoms supposedly enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Falwell never had respect for separation of church and state and would have loved to set up an unamerican theocracy based on his misreading of the New Testament. This is a greater crime in my mind than saying that the U.S. deserved 9-11 attacks.

Nonetheless, it still is not treason. A free society must allow people to challenge the status quo and the government. You cannot just bandy about terms like treason (as does Ann Coulter, for instance) in order to disenfranchise ideas you don't like. Treason should be reserved for those who are trying to actually sell out the country and subvert the few democratic processes we actually have.

I don't think Falwell qualifies, no matter how much I loathe him. I'm thrilled to see Hitchens get air time to challenge Falwell's reverence because he was a destructive person who encouraged hatred and prejudice against those he did not like. He may have been a force against alcoholism and drug abuse for some, but this does not forgive him for his demagoguery. It just shows that he was not as evil as Cheney.