Elsie Kay and I were on our way to lunch yesterday. I was checking out the stickers on the car in front of us when a light bulb flipped on in my head. The light bulb was basically the realization of the way a particular word is being ignored in the ramifications it has on one of the most divisive battles going on in America today. The word in question is Symbolism.

There is quite a bit of tension between the Left and the Religious Right over the implications of this word, mainly in regards to the symbolism surrounding the displaying of the 10 commandments on Government property.

Those of you that have supreme faith in the Magic Man above are convinced that we on the left HATE the 10 Commandments. That's just hooey. We don't think that "thou shalt not steal" is a bogus rule to live by. We don't see "Thou shalt not kill" and think to ourselves "what a crock of sh*t". What we see is the support of a set of rules that, when displayed in or on Government property, is tantamount to hanging a Bible from the walls of our Court buildings. What we see is the State endorsement of a particular religion. Whether or not you know it, that's unconstitutional.

The epiphany I spoke about earlier was a based on a particular sticker I saw on the car in front of us. The sticker was of a rainbow. For those of you that don't know, the rainbow sticker symbolizes, for lack of a better way of putting it, gay pride; or, the proclamation that one is not afraid of standing up and admitting that they are gay.

I seriously doubt any one reading this blog is thinking, "Man! I f*ckin' hate rainbows!” but some of you ARE thinking that homosexuality is a sin. What you believe about the holiness of homosexuality is not what I'm getting at. My point is that this is a perfect example of people not having a problem with the literal aspect of something while the SYMBOLIC meaning it caries with it is something else entirely.

In a perfect world rainbows would be rainbows and good rules to live by would be just that. The thing is, as hard as it is to believe, we are not living in a perfect world. The religious right needs to understand that those of us against the posting of the Ten Commandments on Government owned property are not attacking your religion but making an effort to protect the rights of those of us that don't believe in the religion that those words represent. We can dress it up with the phrase "Separation of Church and State" which is the principal our complaints are based on, but the thrust of the argument we're making is that the U.S. Government CAN'T be allowed to play favorites when dealing with the beliefs, religious or otherwise, of our nation's citizens (which is the reason for the separation of Church and State in the first place).

I propose that until we can agree that the posting of the 10 Commandments is a symbolic endorsement of Christianity, any place they are displayed by the Government they should be flanked by a pink triangle on one side and a rainbow on the other. I have a feeling that we'd find out that the idea of symbolism isn't too hard to understand after all.



Moody

Whoa... This was one of those weekends that make you glad to see Monday come because you need the rest. That's not exactly true, it wasn’t the whole weekend that was brutal. It was more Saturday's fault than Sunday's. Saturday was the day that St. Louis celebrates Mardi Gras. While Saturday was the day all of the damage was done in its defense I'd just as soon forget Sunday because Sunday brought the hangover that was earned the day before.

Saturday, Sunday, blah blah blah. What I'm trying so say is that this weekend was hard and I've been out of the political "loop" for the last two days.

To hold everybody over until I can get "caught up" on our nation’s politics I'm going to post some of the pictures I took on Saturday while I was "getting caught up" in the debauchery that is Mardi Gras.

Don't get exited, this is going to be a PG version of the events of this past weekend. Without any further ado, here’s Mardi Gras.


This is Team Hubris (a.k.a. my friends) approaching the festivities.


The STLPD enjoying some down time before the day gets too crazy. Yeah, yeah, I know, I take pictures just about as well as I write.


While this picture is not too exciting I figure I'll take this chance to give proof that BossDann's vision of Winston is about as delusional as his political theories. (Winston Smith left and Crushawn Fundlebee right)


This guy was moving quickly so I couldn't get a better picture but he was screaming' around on roller blades which adds a whole 'nother dimension to his costume.


The dark side of Mardis Gras. This was before noon mind you. The best part was that no one was covering her up to keep thousands of people from seeing her like that but when I went to take this picture her friends just about went into hysterics. (I know, I should be ashamed of myself, but come on, that shit's hilarious)

The next two pictures are of the crowd after the day got going. I'm telling you guys, If New Orleans is out of the question for you but you want to rock out on Mardi Gras and your close enough, St. Louis is the way to go.





This next picture is of Elsie Kay and friends at a bar after we left the party for quieter surroundings. She's the one on the right.


There may be more pictures at a later date but the rest of them were bigger than one meg so I'll have to read up on the ins and outs of picture posting before that happens.

Tomorrow this blog will return to its standard topic. I apologize for getting so incredibly off topic over the past few days.

Still a little foggy,

Moody

The picture above is me after a long night of dancin' and sweatin' :)

I've noticed that come Friday the Blogstream world hustles and bustles with "Friday Fun Facts". If you couldn't guess I'm not really a Friday Fun Facts kind of a guy. With that in mind I'm going to make this Friday a sort of "personal" day. I don't mean to say that I'm taking the day off. What I plan on doing is telling those of you that give a shit a little bit about who I am as a person.

As I typed that it dawns on me that I have absolutely no idea of what you guys would want to know. So Okay, here's what I'm going to do, I will answer five questions about myself that any body that wanders by this post wants to ask.

I'll pick the five questions that seem the most personal and answer them. I'll also be posting pictures of myself and, pending their permission, pictures of Winston, Elsie Kay, and Road Kill. They are my: good friend, girl friend, and Dad respectively. Among those will be pictures taken by me of people that have no connection to our little community whatsoever. (except for having the misfortune of being my friends)

If this post works out like I hope it will then it will be followed by me answering five questions on randomly selected fridays in the future.

I only plan on posting one picture with this entry so the rest of the pictures I refered to will be in my Gallery. (at least those I've been given permission to post)

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Heres a fun fact for those of you that really feel you must have one: I enjoy Republican blogs, which is not to say I agree with them. Following is a list of the ones I frequent (in no particular order). All but one of the following blogs is in my "blogs I like list". I don't keep Mr. etc.s blog in my BM list because his theories are just too insane.

Hoodo's (Right On Q): You are not likely to have as legitimate a debate with a Concervative as you are here (quality writing as well)

NV lobbyist's (Western Politics): If you want a view of our Government from the eyes of a lobbiest then this is the blog for you. (In my experience this blogger has no prejudice against a good idea no matter where it comes from)

R.E. Knowlton III's (Young Broke and Republican): This new comer has won me over with his funny, well informed, and long winded rants on anything and everything that wanders into the political arena.

fastluck's (Political Pontifications): This guy is an old school conservative not a Bible beating new schooler.

BossDann's (Right Park): This is some pretty partisan shit but is delivered with an entertaining theatrical flare.

Heather Kovar's (Seeing Red): This is standard Repug stuff but with a forum that offers the added bonus of being a place to debate with all kinds of people, which Mrs. Red perpetuates with kindness (no one gets kicked or blocked)

Mr. Right Opinion's (Mr. Right Opinion): this is where you find the most fringe ideas of the Neo-Con agenda.

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Don't get me wrong, I LOVE a good liberal blog but there are far fewer of them here, no matter, here are the ones I read on a regular basis:

Winston Smith's (Minestry of Love): If you are soft at heart stay the !@#$ away from this blog. If you can take a joke then this is easily one of the funniest blogs I've read here at Blogstream.

Renegade's (Outside the Box): Meticulously researched near radical liberal views. (right up my alley)

lagniappe 's (OH REALLY? FACTOR): I always seem to wind up thinking "I wish I thought of that" (except for a particular poem ;)

I'd mention Whit's blog but anybody reading this already knows his "hot shit".

Thank you to those of you that still remeber my Friday questions "program" and double thank you to those that choose to play along.



The lovely lady on the right is my rather drunk Elsie Kay (it was New Years Eve, what do you expect?) And yes, if you go to the gallery, one of my friends IS doing the "Shocker" (no dumb ass, not to a girl). :D

Moody

After taking a day or so for everyone to get their stories straight a small novelty car comes pulling out of the White House to the sound of circus music. The car stops in front of a podium, clowns pile out and the show begins.

Holy freaking God, in my first post on this subject I mentioned the outrageous pile of B.S. that would be shoveled into our gullets by the ass clowns in the White House and as expected, I was not proven wrong in the least. Our “fearless leader” has been recorded as having said that he will veto any and all attempts made by Congress to delay or block the sale of portions of our ports to Dubai Ports World (DPW from here on). At virtually the same time White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, said at a press conference that King George the Lesser played no part in this decision and had only found out about the sale a couple of days ago…

Wow, we are possibly giving access to our ports to a nation that still recognizes the Taliban as a legitimate Government and the President didn’t know anything about it. I suppose I should be upset about it but I just can’t keep from laughing at the sheer buffoonery of this progression of events.

If that isn’t retarded enough, our completely unaware President comes out a few days later and now knows enough about the take over by DPW that he’s threatening to drop the veto hammer on anything that pops out of the “Wack-A-Mole” game that is Congress. (At least in regards to this particular situation) We all know that G-Dub is a little on the slow side so I’m forced to wonder how he was educated so quickly on the investigation into this sale and the implications of its completion. Mr. McClellan tells us that Dubyuh asked his cabinet if it was cool and they gave the nod of approval… That’s it? …. Yep, that’s it. For most of our past Presidents this may have seemed like a reasonable option but we have to remember that George’s cabinet members are responsible for some of the biggest screw-ups in modern U.S. Government. I’ll just give you a couple names to remind you: Donald Rumsfeld, who was the architect of the war plan for Iraq and who G-Dub hardly allows to speak in public these days and Michael Chertoff, our Homeland Security czar who was just lambasted by the Senate for his massive failings in the Katrina disaster.

How does the “leader of the free world” explain his stance? Using a weird piece of backwards logic the White House shows their support for this deal by telling us that to not let it go though would offend Arabs world wide…Hahahaha… You’ve got to be F’in kidding me. In this stunning turn of events our exalted President has now professed to be worried about the emotional state of the international Arab community. G-Dub is such a sweet heart. He runs out and blows the asses off of 10’s of thousands of Arabs and then is a big enough man to open his heart and consider their feelings when dealing with the security of one the most vulnerable points in our national defense.

How did we get to this point in the most recent saga of our President’s idiocy? Here is something to think about. With out making any claims that this is the reason for our current scenario I will tell you that last month the White House appointed a Virginia man, David Sanborn, as the administrator of the Maritime Division of the Transportation Department. Why does this matter you ask, because once again a Bush appointee has financial links to a company garnering U.S. favor. Mr. Sanborn’s previous job was as the head of operations for Dubai Ports World’s European and Latin American divisions. Don’t forget that the company that DPW bought chunks of our ports from is based in London… which is in Europe ;)

Stay tuned folks. I have a feeling that the guys that graduated Magna cum Laude from Clown College are just getting warmed up when it comes to the tomfoolery surrounding this important story. The jerk store is a little busy right now so they have deferred their latest shipment to a close friend of theirs. My phone is ringing and I’m just a little surprised by who is on the other end. Hey Bush and company, The Ringling Brothers called. They ran out of you.

Moody

Over the past week two articles have been written describing efforts made by Generals in Iraq and Afghanistan to educate their troops on the cultures of the nations in which they’re fighting. (John Kifner, New York Times 2/16/06 and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post 2/21/06)

The NY Times article tells of Maj. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley's initiative to have select officers actually learn the language that the majority of Afghanistan speaks. While this may seem fairly obvious to most of us it was something that the War Hawks in Washington have reserved for intelligence and special ops personnel so far. In addition, every officer in Gen. Freakley's 10th Mountain Division will be given Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid's seminal book "Taliban". As sad as it is, programs like this have not been commonplace in the military training our servicemen and women receive for this war until very recently.

The article that showed up today in the Washington Post explained the details of a more comprehensive plan being undertaken in Iraq. Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. (the U.S. commander in Iraq) has set up a counter-insurgency training school just north of Baghdad. This school, or COIN as it referred to, was set up for the same reasons General Freakley is handing out books in Afghanistan, to teach the young men in our military how to do their jobs with out alienating the local population. Every officer heading to a combat command in Iraq is required to attend, so with any luck the benefits of this program will become evident through out Iraq.

The reasons I wrote this entry are two fold. First I wanted to make sure more of us knew that there are people getting paid with our tax dollars that aren't trying to win a "who can be the most retarded" contest and secondly, to illustrate how disconnected the White House and Department of Defense were and are in concerns to the war in Iraq.

I think it's pretty obvious that three years in to this war is probably a little on the late side for training of this sort, which goes to show how ignorant our leaders were to the requirements of winning a war of this nature. Also, I’m sure it probably seems to most of us that the counter-insurgency school in Iraq would be more effective if it were conducted in the U.S. during the soldiers training for deployment. Guess what. The gentlemen running this program agree entirely. Then why isn’t it, you ask? Because after three years of pushing the higher ups back home in the U.S. for this to be part of initial training they were forced to start this program in Iraq on their own. (I should tell you that Gen. Casey is a four star general, so when I say "higher ups" I think we know who is being referred to.)

In closing I would just like to say that if this war is going to end with us having made any kind of lasting difference it will be because we have intelligent men like Generals Freakley and Casey taking steps in the right direction. It won' be due to anything done by the masterminds that sent our young men and women over there unprepared and who continue to be short sighted in their vision of what is going to make this a successful campaign.

Here are the URLs to the articles I’ve referenced in this entry:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/20/AR2006022001303.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/nyregion/16fort.html

Just “copy and paste” these URLs into your address box. You may have to register to see these articles but it is free so don’t worry if a “sign in” window pops up.

Moody