Monthly Archives: May 2004

No Window Seat For Me, Thanks

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There’s been excitement galore around the office today – a huge new shopping center opened up nearby and the parking lot is visible from our windows, high over a typical vista of mid-American stripmalls.

We’d gotten used to seeing a giant empty lot, then a giant empty hole, then a giant empty store, and so on. This went on for almost 2 1/2 years, owing to some zoning hangup or other. Then it seemed that loading up the store and getting it stocked took forever – we got used to seeing a vast expanse of parking lot, with freshly painted spaces.

Today, there’s a giant full lot, with overflow parking in our lot. The Oscar Meyer Weiner car was there. A psychedelic RV with some sort of bug or character thing on the roof was there. We’ve been watching people jockeying for parking spaces all day and hoping to see a couple of good fights break out.

Whilst all that drama was going on (honestly – some people here spend a lot of time looking out the window), a small UFO smacked into one of the windows behind our team and shattered the outer pane of the double-pane safety glass. We assume it was a bird, but no body was found, so UFO it is. No one sits in that area, and the window was kind of behind a bank of desks. Still, it was unnerving. Everyone talked about it – “Did you hear it? I didn’t hear it.” “I did, but I didn’t know what it was.” “I didn’t, and I sit right there!”

For the record, I heard it – it went “THWOCKKK.”

One of the agents taped the area off with crepe paper and the building supe was called – we didn’t know until later that there was a very sturdy plexiglass inner pane, held in place by a very solid frame. Since we’re on a high floor, safety was a concern – especially when the guys came to remove the shattered glass (some of which would inevitably fall multiple stories to the loading dock area). By then, some proper “CAUTION” tape (available at Archie McPhees!) had been put up.

They removed the frame with the plexiglass and knocked the shattered safety glass out – using Batman-like suction cup handle doohickeys – and for a while we had an open window (floor to ceiling) with nothing to stop a jumper from pulling a “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore” swan dive.

Kind of eerie. But it was nice getting some fresh air for a change and my allergies improved temporarily – so I’m hoping for more UFOs.

The House O’ Big Inflatables or: Lawn Blimps Over Schaumburg

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This is the infamous House O’ Big Inflatables. The people that live here apparently subscribe to the More is Better mentality when it comes to cheap plastic crap and tasteless seasonal decor. This is a tiny image of the giant bunny inflatable they had up after Valentines Day. It stayed up for about a month and a half; all the way through Lent everything.

At Christmess, they had 11 (eleven) large inflatables. Last year, they had 10. The year before, they had 8 or 9. This is all on a normal sized front lawn. There’s very little lawn visible (or snow-covered front yard) during the holidays. The display casts an eerie glow – late at night, it can be a disturbing and soulless place to drive past.

After New Year’s this year, they took down the Christmessiest and somewhat religious inflatables (let’s call them “lawn blimps,” why don’t we?) and left up a couple of generic “Winter Holiday” ones.

Then Valentine’s Day was in the offing – there was some type of heart thing.

Easter came and went – the bunny was on the lawn from about February 15. After Easter, much to my outraged aesthetic sensibilities, a palm tree and a parrot appeared. I suppose this was to herald the coming sauna-like summer, but then we had a cold snap and a lot of rain. Sometime in early May, they finally took them down.

So far this month, there’s been bare lawn, which is nice since their grass hasn’t seen the light of day since… September, when all the Halloween crap appeared. In the fallow weeks between Halloween and Thanksgiving, a bright green faux-cactus sprouted; it was soon joined by the giant turkey in a Pilgrim hat. I guess it was a Christmess cactus, because it remained all through December.

The rest of the year, they display a handpainted flag on a wooden signboard with some sort of rah-rah “support our troops” theme (you can just see it). I feel like they’re reserving fire for the Fourth of July, as there’s nothing up for Memorial Day (yet). Maybe that’s too touchy a subject these days – but next year, there may well be an inflatable Troop to Support.

I’m expecting great things for Arbor Day, but have no idea what they’ll do for the dog days of August (oh, wait, maybe that’s when the cactus showed up last year).

I’ll try to get a picture of the Lawn O’ Inflatables at Christmess and post it. It’s really quite… something.

You know, I really do live in a nice neighborhood. Really. For a burbclave.

And for the record, the only decorations visible on the outside of the house might be luminarias on Christmas Eve – real, burning luminarias in brown paper sacks I’ve folded myself. Not those tacky nasty plastic ones. So there.

Iraq Abuse/Rape Story Breaking

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A couple of major news organizations have picked up the “Iraqi prison rape” story – The Seattle Times and The Guardian (UK).

And if the U.S. military has no jurisdiction over these freelance cowboys, you can be sure no one else in Iraq does. So I guess they can do anything they like. This is a prescription for further trouble.

That’s actually a blog entry from my old hometown paper – bloggers are go! It’s a commentary on the item in the Guardian, which seems to be the first “major” running the story.

One civilian contractor was accused of raping a young male prisoner but has not been charged because military law has no jurisdiction over him…

…Colonel Jill Morgenthaler, speaking for central command, told the Guardian: “One contractor was originally included with six soldiers, accused for his treatment of the prisoners, but we had no jurisdiction over him. It was left up to the contractor on how to deal with him.”

She did not specify the accusation facing the contractor, but according to several sources with detailed knowledge of the case, he raped an Iraqi inmate in his mid-teens.

Okay, there it is. It’s not just the granola press (and I say that as a former granola) and a business-news radio program reporting this anymore. It’s so strange how this story seems to have been buried. Maybe they know it’s likely to inflame the Middle East even more – but covering it up just makes it fester.

Maggie Moo

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Ice Cream Cow

One of the biographical panels from Maggie Moo’s Ice Cream in Sugar House, Salt Lake. It depicts Maggie driving off to seek fame and fortune, fabulously accesorized. Despite the cartnoonyness, the ice cream really was good there.

Shadows of the Centuries

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We bought a lot of books in Mesa Verde National Park, partly because there’s not much to do after nightfall, and partly because the ruins are so interesting that you feel compelled to learn as much as you can about them. It’s a strange park, Mesa Verde; it’s the only one in the National Park Service that’s organized around ruins rather than natural scenery. At first glance from your “hotel” (translation: motel) room at Farview Lodge there’s just a long expanse down the mesa toward the canyons, and on a clear day you can see Shiprock, 65 miles away. The fascination lies in the solitude; the entry road to the park winds up and around in a way that teases the traveler. The park reveals its secrets gradually – you don’t see any ruins until you’ve driven in at least 10 miles or so (and the really dramatic ruins are all the way at the ends of the peninsular mesa tops, looking down into the canyons that make the southern edge of the mesa look like a many-fingered hand). Something about it makes you want to know more. How were the ruins started? How did the park come to be?

This book, Mesa Verde: Shadows of the Centuries tells the story of the original stories, and of the founding of the park. What’s more, it brings all the characters involved with the process to life. It was recommended to me by the ranger that took us on both our excursions (Cliff Palace and Balcony House). It confirmed something that I suspected – that the arduous and sometimes hair-raising trip up to the mesa (now made easier by the modern highway, but it’s still hair-raising for flatlanders) is part of the classic experience shared with travelers since the beginning of the park. And the ladder-climbing and tunnel-squeezing is also part of that classic experience – we follow in the footsteps of ladies in long divided skirts and sensible lace-up boots, and cowboys in their own kind of boots, and dudes in 19th-century traveling clothes.

The story of the park’s beginning was the story of personalities, and now I have a greater appreciation for the heavy toil, years of committment, and incessant politicking that was required to make Mesa Verde a part of the National Parks.

I enjoyed this book very much, because it added to my understanding of Mesa Verde – a very special place.

Fishing Poll

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Statistics for the current poll:

STATISTICS
What do you think of gay marriage?

All your drag bridesmaid are belong to us. 0 %
(0 votes)
It doesn’t affect me, but it’s kind of icky. 0 %
(0 votes)
Congratulations, where are you registered? 85 %
(6 votes)
It’s against God’s law and threatens my family. 0 %
(0 votes)
Who is this God person, anyway? 14 %
(1 votes)
Total votes 7

Thanks for your participation! I’ll leave it up for a while yet.

No More Rape Rooms?

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This chonology probably couldn’t be more damning. And how strange that the phrase “rape rooms” is used repeatedly, yet it doesn’t seem to have entered the public consciousness – although it has entered the blogosphere.

Maybe it’s entered the public subconsciousness (or unconsciousness, in the case of the fr33pers), and that’s all that’s needed. There couldn’t possibly be rape rooms in Iraq anymore (and of course there were before, right?) because we’ve been repeatedly told there aren’t.

A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba listed some of the wrongdoing: ‘Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.’ – Seymour M. Hersh, Torture at Abu Ghraib, The New Yorker, posted April 30, 2004

“Because we acted, torture rooms are closed, rape rooms no longer exist, mass graves are no longer a possibility in Iraq.” – remarks at “Ask President Bush” event, Michigan, May 3, 2004

On my Friday evening commute, I heard the following intro while listening to :NPR business show “Marketplace.” The audio of the full story that follows is available on the link.

Marketplace has learned that an employee of the San Diego based Titan corporation has been implicated in the rape of a teenage boy in the Abu Ghraib prison. This appears to take the story of abuses at Abu Ghraib well beyond the well-publicized offensive photographs. The head of the coalition provisional authority – Paul Bremmer – has said those who took part in the abuses will be brought to justice. But that’s unclear. Earlier this month, Marketplace confirmed excerpts of documents that graphically describe the activities alleged at the prison. Graphic is an important word here. What we’re about to report may be disturbing to many. Our own Stephen Henn spent the last two weeks trying to trace evidence that the Army – or the private contractor, the Titan corporation – took action to hold the alleged rapist accountable.

It’s strange, but there don’t seem to be any “major” news organizations following up on this allegation, one which I consider to be the biggest bombshell of the abuse story thus far. Although there was a story earlier today about how coalition forces are seeking immunity from future prosecution under Iraqi law. Which is only fair, since according to the Marketplace story, all the contractors are already immune. The alleged rapist is apparently still drawing a salary and is working in Iraq… and he’s paid by our tax dollars. Sweet gig, eh?

But remember? There are no rape rooms in Iraq. However, it’s likely there are plenty of rape hooches.

And the media not following up on bad-news bombshells from Iraq is apparently nothing new.

Be that as it may, Marketplace is now following the money. It’s always a good idea to follow the money in an investigation – at least, it is in the movies.

The spoils of war add up to more than capturing expansive palaces and luxury cars. As Marketplace reporters have discovered, not all of the $22 billion being spent to rebuild Iraq is going where it should. Who’s watching the money as it streams through Baghdad? Just about no one, and bribes and black marketeering are rampant, witnesses say. A leading anti-corruption group claims that at least 20% of U.S. money spent in Iraq is being lost to corruption. From Halliburton subsidiaries charging double for gas, Iraqi officials and Arabic translators unrestrained from pocketing millions of dollars, or even members of the interim governing Council accusing each other of taking tens of millions in bribes.

That grinding sound you hear is that of a very large can of worms being opened.

However, our determined, courageous, morally clean but somewhat clumsy President wants us to focus on the future of a post-war Iraq. Pay no attention to the naked man behind the curtain.

There are no more rape rooms in Iraq. There are no more rape rooms in Iraq.

I feel much better now.

Operation Enduring Oops

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Adam Felbers has a solution to our problem in Iraq:

The latest revelations out of Abu Ghraib are so mind-bogglingly horrifying that we need to act now, and act hard. What’s notable about this is that if we have any intention of getting the hearts and minds of the Arab world while said organs are still in their hosts’ bodies, we’re going to have to use Bush administration tactics.

We have to go into Commando Apology mode. Give it a neat-sounding mission name like “Operation Iron Contrition,” or “Operation Enduring Oops.”

Excellent gambit! We could also drop thousands of personalized Hallmark(tm) greeting cards over Baghdad: “We’re sorry, Mr. (blank). Really. Our bad.”

I really, really wish Adam Felbers’ blog was syndicated in both fulltext and excerpt. I keep missing the good stuff.