An Excursion

Well, the first title for this particular post was to be "Dan Piraro gets it", based on this comic from about a few weeks ago, but alas, the comic syndicate or some bout of paranoia on his part prevents me from lifting a copy of the strip and linking to it from my photobucket account. I hope you enjoy the satisfaction that I felt when I saw the strip printed in The Houston Chronicle, no less, the only daily newspaper that (dis)serves the fourth largest city in the country, which is also known in some circles as the "Petro Metro".

There has been rhetoric spewed forth by activists and campaigning politicians who are focussed on the war in Iraq and its origins which refers to the fact that the M1 tanks and Humvees cruising around that country should be flying an Exxon Mobil flag instead of Old Glory. While this is amusing and inflammatory, it lacks irony due to the outlandishness of it as a concept. While Facism is technically defined as a nation state which is essentially controlled by corporate/commercial interests and entities, those entities will never let it be blatantly known (i.e. with the display of a flag on war vehicles or vessels) that they have this influence and are actively asserting it. Instead, they will use the cover of the nation state's political and nationalistic identity to conceal that influence and the degree of the corporation's role in the running of the country.

What I do find darkly ironic is the fact that another of the huge multi-national oil corps that are deeply embroiled in the run up to and have a huge vested interest in the ultimate outcome of the situation in Iraq (I really can't think of any other way to put it - war isn't appropriate any more, and all the other buzzwords - insurgency, conflict, uprising, sectarian strife, are all too narrow in their scope for me, even though 'situation' does have a sterile quality to it) essentially took their logo and name from one of the oldest and most common of military insignias signifying rank: Chevron.

On to the excursion from which this post gets its name:

A couple months ago I was able to venture up to Anna Lee's farm for an annual festival that spans several days around the beginning of May essentially celebrating Spring (although it's usually pretty much Summer by then here in Southeast Texas). This particular visit I was able to catch up with an old friend from the Alley who has also since moved on and is working up in Little Rock at Arkansas Repertory Theater as the Prop Head, Linda and I reminisced about some of the haunts that we used to frequent down on Galveston Bay where she lived when she worked at UH Clear Lake before the Alley. We commiserated about places that have since closed and she recommended one that I hadn't known about.

I decided to drive down to the Bay area and visit some of the sites of haunts gone and hopefully some of the haunts themselves. First stop was the bar we went to the most, simply known as The Point, a nod toward the geographic feature that it was located on, Morgan's Point in Barbour's Cut. A few years ago a trip down there was organized that I didn't make it to, but it was just as well since I got a phone call that day with the sad news that it was gone. Since I was in the general area I decided to swing by and got verification for myself: The site of many a beer and sun soaked afternoon was no more than a cement slab and the small pier that stretched from the patio out into the bay (I guess it's really the ship channel that far up). Folks were still using the pier to fish for Reds, which I found slightly comforting. Next was a tiny little bar by a small boat launch on an inlet bayou a few miles inland, called Mike and Edna's Red Lantern, if memory serves me correctly. Another cement foundation greeted me behind a metal white rail fence along the two lane highway right before the bridge over the bayou. I had to turn around and drive by it again to confirm that it was the right location.

With a slightly heavy heart about the loss of these local watering holes, I headed South to try and find the bar that Linda had recommended, Sneakin' Out. She gave me a few landmark locations and roads that would hopefully lead me to said bar (with a great name), but they were curiously far apart. I followed Red Bluff Road over many twists and turns only to find housing development upon housing development. I then continued down highway 146 to Baycliff and followed one of the local streets to the Bay. No establishment with the name that Linda gave me, but a couple interesting looking places, one of which I couldn't pass up called Junior's Hideout. It was essentially a shack with a covered concrete tarmac out back for grilling and sitting. The bar was in two sections and there was a great cooler behind it - wood doors with glass windows so hazy you could barely tell what beers were behind them. Along with the unique decor was the group of local folks in the bar. There were two women who I can only guess were mother and daughters with three young girls in tow. The kids were hurling plastic darts at an electronic dartboard with mixed success. After a little while the women shepherded the girls outside to the patio area. I inquired of the few others in the bar about the existence and location of Sneakin' Out. One of them was able to give me some directions that would take me further down the road that the Red Lantern was on.

Before leaving, I was treated to some local rivalry and angst between this fellow and a woman who had just returned to town. She came into the bar with another guy and they sat down for a beer or two. The first guy sat at the bar for a few moments and then went out back, only to return less than a minute later. He went right up to her and started talking about how great it was to see her now that she had gotten back to town since she had never bothered to say goodbye or anything after he loaned her some money and his leather motorcycle jacket. The exchange got more and more heated until the girl and the guy she came in with got up and left followed by a continuing stream of invective from the first guy. He sat down and apologized to me in case he had offended me, to which my reply was 'no problem, it's your and her business.' Not long after I thanked hime for the info and headed back North.

Wending my way back up 146 toward Barbour's Cut but going inland on Red Bluff road to Genoa-Red Bluff I found no Sneakin' Out (possibly another casualty of times gone by), but did Find the Genoa Cove Social Club, another unique watering hole with a colorful cast of characters. The highlight of this encounter was the combination of the number of golfers in the population of the Sunday afternoon crowd and the proximity (right across the highway) of the local landfill mound to the bar. As the afternoon wore on, the trash talking about how high anyone could drive a ball up the hill that day got more and more animated. One of the crowd went off to get his clubs so that the challenge could be realized. After about 45 minutes (during which there were many jibes about how his wife (who was apparently cooking steaks for their dinner) wasn't going to let him out of her sight once he got home (especially not with his clubs in tow)) he appeared and the fun began. The climax of the proceedings came when one of the guys drove a ball across the road with out much lift. It hit the far side curb and began to bounce around on the roadway, eventually making its way in front of a car and getting hit by it. The driver slowed and then kept going, only to reappear go in the other direction and turning into the bar parking lot. He got out and asked in an animated way what the fuck the deal was, only to be met with quizzical looks and questions about no one knowing what he meant and earnest denials that anyone on the patio had been hitting golf balls across the highway (in spite of the bag of clubs in plain sight. The driver sized up the number in the crowd, decided it wasn't worth it and got back into the car and drove off, much to the amusement of everyone there (and, truth be told, I couldn't see any damage to his car when he hit the golf ball or when he drove up).

Soon after I said my goodbyes and made my way back to Houston, unsuccessful in my quest for the bar Linda had told me about but satisfied with the bars that I had found and the people that I had met.

Arthur has asked the question several times about why most people are not more aware of what's been happening to their basic rights and freedoms over the past eight years, and more subtly over the past several decades. Chris Floyd has pointed it out in numerous posts (I'm going to paraphrase him here):

The typical American is too wrapped up in the struggles of everyday life to be bothered with staying informed and forming critical opinions concerning the machinations and high crimes of this administration and of this country's government and ruling elite over the past several decades, perhaps even centuries. The ruling elite even goes so far as to manufacture conditions that contribute to and further distract people from what is actually going on. Spending money they don't have with credit they aren't eligible for and they can't afford to buy crap they don't need and don't really want even though they've been momentarily convinced they can't live without it even though in less than six months they'll have either a) broken it and thrown it away b) relegated it to the garage or the attic or c) given it to charity for dispersal to a disaster victim that will look at it and say 'what the heck am I supposed to do with this?!?

Worry about money not paid back or focus on spending more than one can afford on equipment to play an elitist game that wastes more land than any other in its sprawling courses across the world are only two of an infinitismal number of factors that keep our eye off of what should bear closer watching: the fact that there a re a very tiny amount of people in the world who control a hugely disproportionate amount of the world's resources and power and will do whatever they can to keep and expand that ownership and power, including letting people die in natural disaster and premptively going to war with country after country.

I don't blame the people who are distracted. I'm one of them and am easily distracted myself - witness the drastic downturn in posts here since my self inflicted employment realignment. It's hard work to stay informed and form opinions about these things, but it is important.

D'oh!!! (Or: The guile of the Dragon and the seething frustration of American and Western Multinational Oil Barons)

AP (via Raw Story):

Iraq and China are close to re-signing a $1.2 billion oil deal that was called off after the 2003 U.S. invasion, an Iraqi Oil Ministry official said Thursday.

Saddam Hussein's government signed a deal with the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. to develop the billion-barrel al-Ahdab oil field, despite U.N. sanctions that barred direct dealings with Iraq's oil industry.

Beijing was waiting for the sanctions to end when the U.S. invasion overthrew Saddam. The two countries restarted talks in October 2006.

"We are expecting that the next round of discussions, due to be held in April, will finish the negotiations," the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it had no information about the talks.

Mmmmmm hmmmmmm.

Officials with CNPC and China's Commerce Ministry could not be reached for comment.

Really?

Meanwhile, in another part of town...

On Wednesday, another oil official said that Iraq's Cabinet has given the nod to the Oil Ministry to sign agreements with international oil companies to help increase the nation's crude output.

The two-year deals, known as technical support agreements, or TSAs, are designed to develop five producing fields that would add 500,000 barrels per day to the country's 2.4 million barrels per day output.


"But that's not enough! That sixth field in Wasit should have been ours as well!!!"

Sorry, chums.

In memoriam

Breaking cover and revealing my geek/gamer roots, but one must give the appropriate props to one of the masters...

Courtesy of Penny Arcade:

Does anyone have any more questions?

Because I sure as Hell don't.

BBC:

The CIA has for the first time publicly admitted using the controversial method of "waterboarding" on terror suspects.

CIA head Michael Hayden told Congress it had only been used on three people, and not for the past five years.

The Horses have left the Barn. Repeat, the Horses have left the Barn. Operation Horse Secure Padlock is no longer a viable option.

He said the technique had been used on high-profile al-Qaeda detainees including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

George W. Bush:

Mon., Nov. 7, 2005

PANAMA CITY, Panama - President Bush on Monday defended U.S. interrogation practices and called the treatment of terrorism suspects lawful. “We do not torture,” Bush declared in response to reports of secret CIA prisons overseas.

Almost Forgotten

For all practical purposes, the event that has by all reasonable reaches shaped every single development worldwide for the past 90 years finds itself with fewer and fewer people that have an active memory of participating in it, albeit tangentially:

AP:

Harry Richard Landis, who enlisted in the Army in 1918 and was one of only two known surviving U.S. veterans of World War I, has died. He was 108.

Landis trained as a U.S. Army recruit for 60 days at the end of the war and never went overseas. But the VA counts him among the 4.7 million men and woman who served during the Great War.

One has to reflect on the apparent fact that we as a race of beings haven't really learned much from past horrors that we have inflicted on each other when the last vestiges of a generation that endured them are passing away like a wisp of smoke and all we can do is mention them in passing while focusing on persecuting similar and even greater horrors on the latest fellow members of the human race that happen to be in the way of "progress":

Seattle Times:

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military faced complaints Tuesday from its Sunni allies over claims that more civilians had been killed by American forces — amplifying tensions as the Pentagon tries to calm anger over an airstrike last week that claimed innocent lives.

The latest deaths occurred Tuesday when U.S. soldiers — acting on tips — stormed a squat mud-brick house in the village of Adwar, 10 miles south of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The predominantly Sunni area is home to many former members of Saddam's regime, and has been the frequent site of American raids.

The U.S. military said a gunbattle broke out after the troops came under small-arms fire by two suspected terrorists. It acknowledged a woman was killed and a child was wounded, but said it was not clear who shot them.

Two other men were killed and the military described them as insurgents.

But Iraqi police, relatives and neighbors said a couple and their 19-year-old son were shot to death in their beds. Iraqi police also said two girls were wounded and one later died.

How does that catchy phrase go about history and those who ignore it being doomed to a predetermined path of repetition?

WTF, Over?

Ummmm, try swallowing this without choking:

A chilling report prepared by a group of top military commanders from the US and its NATO allies declares that the alliance must be prepared to launch a preemptive nuclear first strike because of “asymmetric threats and global challenges” posed to the West.

“The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction, in order to avoid truly existential dangers,” declares the report, which is titled “Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership.”

Captain Patrick Ramsey: "Attention on deck. Von Clauswitz will now tell us who the true enemy is."

Lieutenant Commander Hunter: "In my humble opinion, sir, in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself."

--Crimson Tide, 1995

WOPR: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

--Wargames, 1983

The more countries and coalitions that profess to having the "right" to a first strike option when it comes to the use of Nuclear weapons, the closer the world comes to the vision of Robert Oppenheimer upon seeing the first successful test of an Atom Bomb in New Mexico in 1945:

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

--Interview about the Trinity explosion, first broadcast as part of the television documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb, produced by Fred Freed, NBC White Paper, 1965

If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of the nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The people of this world must unite or they will perish.

--Acceptance Speech, Army-Navy "Excellence" Award, November 16, 1945