Even More Pictures

Who wants more pictures? Hey, I better hear somebody saying they do. Come on.
Okay. There are more pictures here, and there are actual cheetah pictures here.

Let's start with the sunken pirate ship. Well, okay, it's not really a pirate ship, but piracy is quite popular in the Horn of Africa. You can see this one from the observation deck at the cheetah refuge.

Speaking of observation decks, look at this one. It's pretty cool, huh? You can sit up there, look out over the cheetahs, and enjoy the (not at all) cool breezes that blow in off the (extremely humid) ocean. Sarcasm aside it's a very nifty building, and if you had time it would be perfect for sitting up there at dusk and sipping a daiquiri or something. How they built this on three-dollar donations I have no idea.

This picture is also from the observation deck, looking south...um...east? I think. Mostly south. I get all turned around here, believe me. Anyway, that's a tiny little village in the distance, and you can see the minaret of the local mosque.

Unfortunately, when you get close this is what the tiny little villages look like. Actually, this is not at all the worst picture I took. If you want some pictures of terrible grinding poverty, believe me I have them. I also feel guilty taking them.

Here's a nifty Acacia tree of a species I don't know (okay, I spent some time looking for it; it's either raddiana or tortilis; it looks like abyssinica, but that species has not been reported in this country). What with the gazelles and all I just think this picture looks very "Africa;" certainly it's nicer than the previous one.


Finally, here is a picture of the "main street" on our camp. Actually, nobody calls it main street, nor do I, but it's as close to a "main street" as this place has. On the right is the exchange, barbershop, and other stuff; on the left is the gym. Up the hill keen-eyed observers may be able to detect the flag of the country I'm in right now... but I'm not betting on it.

What Time Is It, Exactly?

We get The Tonight Show here. It actually comes on at night: The Tonight Show starts at 23:30, and it's followed at 00:30 by The Late Show with David Letterman. If I time things right with snacks in the chow hall, sometimes I can watch both monologues.

Armed Forces Network achieves the remarkable feat of having The Tonight Show on at, well, night, not by playing last night's show today, but in fact by replaying the show from the night before that—making it in fact the "Twonight Show."

And I'll just go ahead and apologize for that joke right now.

Anyway, tonight—which is to say Sunday night, I think—Jay did Headlines. One of the headlines was a small blurb from some newspaper's "police blotter" gutter. This is the sort of thing that in no way qualifies as news, but someone at the city desk heard this exchange over the police scanner and put it in the blotter to see if anybody got a chuckle. Think about this, now; it leaves so many open questions. I'll have to paraphrase but you'll get the idea:

Police received a call from the 19500 block of Some St. The caller complained that her neighbors were making a lot of noise, and requested that they stop as it was 3 am. Police informed her that it was in fact 3 pm.

Further Thoughts on Florida

So it looks like the first big storm of the season is Florida bound, taking a path almost eerily similar to 1999's hurricane Irene, which features in Lauderdale (which I've begun editing this evening). Hurricanes are bad things generally, and this one will no doubt wreak its share of havoc across the southern part of the state.

I invite you to please consider, however, how much worse the damage would be were the Florida Straits dotted with oil derricks. Consider how fragile the coral reef south of the Keys, and the entire Keys/Florida Bay ecosystem, is, and how much damage a single accident at a rig in the Straits could do to that ecosystem. The oil companies, some energy lobbies, and at least half of Congress wants to put oil rigs there. Think about how much worse the next Ernesto or Irene could be if they succeed.

Then, please, consider what might happen were the Straits dotted not with American oil rigs, but with those operated by a Chinese-Cuban consortium. How good do you think the safety records at American-run oil platforms are? How good, in comparison, do you think a Cuban-Chinese one would likely be? Do you know what the Chinese have done to their environment? How much less care would they be likely to take with someone else's environment?

American policy toward Cuba makes a Cuba-China connection in the Straits quite likely; they're already sinking test wells.

Floridians: is the Cuba policy you have supported for almost fifty years worth this? Is it?

Some Kind of Paradise

I am a Floridian. Some Kind of Paradise, by Mark Derr, almost makes me happy about that. But it also makes me far too sad to really claim any joy.

I have not always claimed to be a Floridian. When I went to college and introduced myself, I disclaimed any attachment to the state where I'd spent over half my life. Instead I said I merely lived there, but was really from someplace else. I had at that point no intention of returning.

That I'd spent half my life in the state and still couldn't call it home is pretty remarkable. More remarkable is the change I experienced in my attitude to Florida over just the next few years. I studied the state. I examined it in several ways, it's development and politics particularly. I became interested in it. But most importantly, I suppose I missed it.

It's hard to understand why. I don't especially like it there. Winters in Florida are wonderful, of course, and autumn isn't bad (though that season is best experienced in the southern Appalachians). I love the afternoon thunderstorms in the summer, but the heat and humidity serve to chase me indoors most summer days and I can't set foot outside in the spring for the pollen. The state is a huge mass of sprawl; even small communities far from major urban centers smear across the landscape like seagull droppings on wet sand. The major urban centers themselves are choked with traffic, unfriendly to pedestrians, and generally high in crime. Our schools are lousy. Our politicians are among the most ridiculous in the country. Frankly, to my mind, there's very little to recommend the place. Once I finally moved away, when I went to college, I was glad to be rid of the place.

And it was only once rid of the place that I started to appreciate it. Perhaps that's not the right word, appreciate. Instead I developed a morbid fascination with it, an attachment I couldn't fully explain and didn't expect. I moved back to the state, voluntarily, and stayed for two years. When I again had a chance to leave, with the Air Force, I managed to move first to a city only 20 miles from the state line, and although I ultimately made it halfway across the continent I moved right back to Florida the first chance I got.

And now that I'm thinking about leaving again, as I do every few years, I find myself inexplicably drawn to stay. For it isn't Florida itself that I love. It's the idea of Florida, an idea that loom large in Some Kind of Paradise.

I'm a practicing cynic, especially about the environment and double especially about Florida. I shouldn't have any sense of idealism about my home; the place is doomed. I don't think Florida can save itself and I don't believe any of the ten million people who will move there in the next 20 years know it needs to be saved. If they did, they wouldn't move in, but they don't care or don't understand what's wrong with the place. They are responding not to Florida as it is, but Florida as they want it to be.

And that, my friends, is the truth of Florida: she is a temptress. She calls to me as surely as the sirens did to Ulysses, as surely as she called to Ponce de Leon and Pánfilo de Narváez with tales of riches and a fountain of youth, as surely as she calls every summer to millions of Disneyfied tourists, as surely as she does to the thousand people who move in every day. Florida is most attractive to us when we're nowhere near her, when all we can here is the beautiful song, the eternal, unyielding sales pitch: "This is paradise."

It's some kind of Paradise, all right, but not the sort theologians and supplicants imagine. In truth I don't suppose Florida has ever lived up to expectations. The natives were violent and uninterested in welcoming white explorers—who did plenty to foster the natives' antipathy. Even upon settling the place and beginning to tame it, the Spanish found Florida devoid of the riches they sought, and the Fountain of Youth passed into myth.

The state's early settlers found a place of unmitigated difficulty, with fierce wildlife, poor soils, and resources that, though valuable at one time or another, were difficult to extract profitably. The climate kept out all but the hardiest souls until the state was finally tamed by railroads and the dream of transcontinental travel, and of winter retreats, became reality. Even then the state was never paradise for more than a handful of wealthy part-time residents; the vast majority of the state's population struggled to survive in a harsh and unyielding environment.

Parts of the state remained untamed until man in his infinite wisdom decided that Lake Okeechobee and the rivers that drained it, particularly the Everglades, were obstacles to be surmounted—or in this case to be dredged. Thousands were enticed to come to Florida to the most fertile land on Earth, to a place where one had only to cast seeds upon the ground and watch crops of all manner grow in rich soil without a hand to tend them. This fantasy died a quick death when the Everglades muck turned out to be nigh infertile without constant infusions of nutrients, but the name "Florida" had made its way into the national consciousness as a place where untold wealth might be had.

Very soon land speculators began to carve the state up into townsites and developments, and everyone was offered a chance to own a piece of paradise. This boom lasted only a few years before it collapsed, preceding the national Great Depression by three years and leaving hundreds of land promoters and other scoundrels penniless and thousands more people stuck with deeds to worthless, undeveloped and often unusable land.

And what of today? What is it about my Florida that keeps calling me, that keeps calling thousands of families a week to pull up stakes and move south? It's still paradise, but in an altogether different form. I guess the truth is, I no longer understand it. I've spent most of my life in paradise, and I don't like it. If this is Paradise, I'll be damned.

This is a wonderful book. It falls short in some ways, soars in others, but it has the siren song at its core, and anyone who's heard it knows it will always echo in their heart and mind.

Some Kind of Paradise

I am a Floridian. Some Kind of Paradise, by Mark Derr, almost makes me happy about that. But it also makes me far too sad to really claim any joy.

I have not always claimed to be a Floridian. When I went to college and introduced myself, I disclaimed any attachment to the state where I'd spent over half my life. Instead I said I merely lived there, but was really from someplace else. I had at that point no intention of returning.

That I'd spent half my life in the state and still couldn't call it home is pretty remarkable. More remarkable is the change I experienced in my attitude to Florida over just the next few years. I studied the state. I examined it in several ways, it's development and politics particularly. I became interested in it. But most importantly, I suppose I missed it.

It's hard to understand why. I don't especially like it there. Winters in Florida are wonderful, of course, and autumn isn't bad (though that season is best experienced in the southern Appalachians). I love the afternoon thunderstorms in the summer, but the heat and humidity serve to chase me indoors most summer days and I can't set foot outside in the spring for the pollen. The state is a huge mass of sprawl; even small communities far from major urban centers smear across the landscape like seagull droppings on wet sand. The major urban centers themselves are choked with traffic, unfriendly to pedestrians, and generally high in crime. Our schools are lousy. Our politicians are among the most ridiculous in the country. Frankly, to my mind, there's very little to recommend the place. Once I finally moved away, when I went to college, I was glad to be rid of the place.

And it was only once rid of the place that I started to appreciate it. Perhaps that's not the right word, appreciate. Instead I developed a morbid fascination with it, an attachment I couldn't fully explain and didn't expect. I moved back to the state, voluntarily, and stayed for two years. When I again had a chance to leave, with the Air Force, I managed to move first to a city only 20 miles from the state line, and although I ultimately made it halfway across the continent I moved right back to Florida the first chance I got.

And now that I'm thinking about leaving again, as I do every few years, I find myself inexplicably drawn to stay. For it isn't Florida itself that I love. It's the idea of Florida, an idea that loom large in Some Kind of Paradise.

I'm a practicing cynic, especially about the environment and double especially about Florida. I shouldn't have any sense of idealism about my home; the place is doomed. I don't think Florida can save itself and I don't believe any of the ten million people who will move there in the next 20 years know it needs to be saved. If they did, they wouldn't move in, but they don't care or don't understand what's wrong with the place. They are responding not to Florida as it is, but Florida as they want it to be.

And that, my friends, is the truth of Florida: she is a temptress. She calls to me as surely as the sirens did to Ulysses, as surely as she called to Ponce de Leon and Pánfilo de Narváez with tales of riches and a fountain of youth, as surely as she calls every summer to millions of Disneyfied tourists, as surely as she does to the thousand people who move in every day. Florida is most attractive to us when we're nowhere near her, when all we can here is the beautiful song, the eternal, unyielding sales pitch: "This is paradise."

It's some kind of Paradise, all right, but not the sort theologians and supplicants imagine. In truth I don't suppose Florida has ever lived up to expectations. The natives were violent and uninterested in welcoming white explorers—who did plenty to foster the natives' antipathy. Even upon settling the place and beginning to tame it, the Spanish found Florida devoid of the riches they sought, and the Fountain of Youth passed into myth.

The state's early settlers found a place of unmitigated difficulty, with fierce wildlife, poor soils, and resources that, though valuable at one time or another, were difficult to extract profitably. The climate kept out all but the hardiest souls until the state was finally tamed by railroads and the dream of transcontinental travel, and of winter retreats, became reality. Even then the state was never paradise for more than a handful of wealthy part-time residents; the vast majority of the state's population struggled to survive in a harsh and unyielding environment.

Parts of the state remained untamed until man in his infinite wisdom decided that Lake Okeechobee and the rivers that drained it, particularly the Everglades, were obstacles to be surmounted—or in this case to be dredged. Thousands were enticed to come to Florida to the most fertile land on Earth, to a place where one had only to cast seeds upon the ground and watch crops of all manner grow in rich soil without a hand to tend them. This fantasy died a quick death when the Everglades muck turned out to be nigh infertile without constant infusions of nutrients, but the name "Florida" had made its way into the national consciousness as a place where untold wealth might be had.

Very soon land speculators began to carve the state up into townsites and developments, and everyone was offered a chance to own a piece of paradise. This boom lasted only a few years before it collapsed, preceding the national Great Depression by three years and leaving hundreds of land promoters and other scoundrels penniless and thousands more people stuck with deeds to worthless, undeveloped and often unusable land.

And what of today? What is it about my Florida that keeps calling me, that keeps calling thousands of families a week to pull up stakes and move south? It's still paradise, but in an altogether different form. I guess the truth is, I no longer understand it. I've spent most of my life in paradise, and I don't like it. If this is Paradise, I'll be damned.

This is a wonderful book. It falls short in some ways, soars in others, but it has the siren song at its core, and anyone who's heard it knows it will always echo in their heart and mind.

Pictures without cheetahs

It's time for more pictures. Enough of this deep thought. If you missed the earlier pictures you can find them here.

I think it's appropriate to start a photo post lacking deep thought with this picture. This is our incongruously well-painted bollard. I think it's there to stop vehicle traffic on the main pedestrian drag. Trust me when I tell you nothing else on this base, including walls, is this competently or intricately painted.


If you're still wondering whether Smitty is a huge tree nerd, I offer the following photos as further evidence, if any were needed, that the answer is yes. Below we have Acacia nilotica, which are all over the western half of the base. They're nice and wispy and, if I was here in the spring, they'd have pretty yellow flowers. No thorns, either.

As opposed to, say, this plant. It's called the Toothpick Tree, or the Karroo Bush. You can't beat the latin name for descriptiveness, though: Acacia horrida.


And here is a picture of my favorite tree in the entire Horn of Africa. It's called the Doum Palm, or, in Somali, the 'aw (that apostrophe is a full-on consonant, a glottal stop; it can even come at the end of a word). This is one of the only palm trees in the world that forms branches, and the only one to do so as part of its regular growth habit. Thus this would make a fine shade tree, the only palm of which that is true. This is a lousy picture, but if you do a google search for Doum Palm you'll get better ones.


Yes, that's right. I said I like these palm trees. I'm determined to get a better picture.

Finally, here is a lizard. It's just a lizard, nothing special, but it was at the cheetah refuge and I was amused by it.

Sunday Musing

Ah, well. It's Sunday. Don't ask me how I know this; normally I can't tell Tuesday from Friday and don't think it matters. I think the weeks go faster when you wake up and suddenly realize, hey, it's Friday already. I usually realize that because they play different music over the excruciatingly loud speakers right outside my tent on Fridays and Sundays. Also, on Sunday, we have steak for dinner. Without fail. It's kind of nice, although the steaks are usually medium-well, which is just fine since I'd rather have medium-well steak than have half the base falling out with food poisoning. Probably what the cooks are thinking, too. That said, it isn't dinnertime yet. It's not even lunch.

Lately I've been feeling a little… off. Not sick, just, not right. Mistake-prone. Distracted. Partly this is because I'm bored off my botty, but that's not the whole matter. Last night I went over… well, everything, everything I've been deliberately not thinking about the last few weeks (it's been five already! Only fifteen more to… uh… let's not think about it). Like, when or if I'm going to get word from the AF about separating; when, whether, where to move; whether to go to law school; what to do if I don't; how I'm going to try to sell this book; and a couple other things I won't belabor here. I didn't flee to Africa to avoid these matters, but there's not much I can do about them from out here. Consequently I've avoided even the one thing I could be doing here, which is thinking and praying about them.

I only decided on one thing last night. I decided that, since I went to bed so much earlier than usual (ten-thirty! I haven't gone to bed before midnight since the first week I was here), if I got up at a reasonable hour I'd go to church.

I don't go to church regularly. I haven't gone to church regularly since I lived in Valdosta in 2001-2002. In fact I'm still a member of the church in Valdosta. I miss it there. I felt at home at that church.

There was only one Methodist church in Del Rio and I only went a few times. The place had a strange country-club vibe—everybody was a white Anglo, though Del Rio as a whole is maybe 20% white Anglos. It felt like conscious segregation, whether it was or not, and I had trouble hearing the message through the blinding whiteness. Yes, I'm aware that I'm a white Anglo, but I still felt weird.

Tampa has been another matter; although there are dozens of churches I could attend in Tampa, the ones I've been to haven't felt especially… haven't felt right. I don't feel at home at Hyde Park, didn't feel moved at Palma Ceia, haven't found where I fit in at First in downtown. I don't especially feel like driving fifteen miles into the burbs, either, so I haven't bothered; call me a sinner for that if you want, it's true enough for other reasons.

So I haven't gone to church more than a couple times a year for, oh, four years. The other day in the library—which is where I'm sitting right now as I compose this—I happened upon a book called Planted by Robert Gay. I skimmed it, didn't read it, so I won't put it on the book list. Mostly I didn't read it because of the first chapter. The later chapters that I skimmed made sense.

The book encourages its readers to find a church where they can be comfortable, and plant there. Become a member, but not just a come-on-Sunday-and-doze member, but an active member of that particular Body of Christ. A good message, one I should listen to. The book also encourages an understanding of what it means to keep the Sabbath—that you aren't living in sin if your job requires you to work Sundays, because the meaning of keeping the Sabbath holy is taking time to rest and recharge spiritually—and if you can't do it on Sunday, do it on Tuesday. Or if you have to work half a day on Sunday, fine, but spend the other half in communion with the Lord and not the lawnmower.

All good messages. And one I suppose I need to hear, if only to keep it in my heart until my return. The chapel here on camp is not the church God wants me to be planted in, I'm fairly certain of that (I'm not sure God means this part of the world to be inhabited by humans at all, to be frank). But I can at least attend. If nothing else, if I do nothing else, I can hear the word and the sermon and find meaning there, more meaning than I'll find lying on my cot in the tent for twelve hours a day because I don't sleep well enough to feel rested. No question but that my faith could use a recharge—I haven't, after all, been keeping the Sabbath.

But the first chapter of that book, the first chapter… planted. Get planted. Robert Gay is a pastor in the Florida panhandle, and since he has one of those names that sounds odd when used in reference, I'll just call him 'the pastor'. The pastor probably didn't intend for that first chapter to be taken the way I took it. But maybe he did. Maybe my readers have input here.
The chapter starts with a passage from the 92nd Psalm:

Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.

The pastor says, "God wants His people to be planted in a local church." No problem there; he knows whereof he speaks, much better than I do certainly, and I've no quarrel with the notion. Why would Christ have referred to the Church as His body, as his bride on Earth, if He didn't intend for his followers to go there, to worship there, and to have fellowship there? I've tried to make Hyde Park feel like a church family to me, but it doesn't work.

It's the next section that troubles me. Faith isn't meant to be easy, but this is… well, here it is.

The word planted conveys the meaning of being stationary or permanent. When something is planted, it does not move around… It is in a fixed location… I believe the Father is saying to His children today, "Get somewhere and plant it!"

This is probably the single most challenge passage I've read in a spiritual book in several years. Why? Because I am not happy where I am. How can I heed a message to plant there if I am dissatisfied? Am I to take it that my dissatisfaction with the place where I live (Tampa, not Africa; work with me here) is a product of my failure to find a local church?

I'm okay with that notion. But I'm struggling with two things. One, I don't feel at home at the churches I've attended there. I should, I suppose, continue to look. Two, I don't think I'm supposed to stay in Tampa long-term. In fact, I've never felt happy staying anywhere long-term. I don't think being "planted," at least geographically, has ever been satisfying for me. More on that one later. For now, back to the first point, not having found a church home in Tampa that seems a reasonable fit.

For so long, in the body of Christ, we have had those who would bounce around from church to church. Many times we have referred ot spiritual floaters as "church-hoppers" or "cruisamatics." [I've never heard either of those terms before.] They cruise around to all the churches in the city usually causing problems wherever they go. This is not the plan of God for any believer in the Body of Christ.

It may be that I'm pushing this paragraph to be deeper than the pastor intended it to be. One could interpret this paragraph this way:

Wherever you find yourself, plant there. Find a church in the city of your residence, get comfortable, become a member, give of yourself, grow spiritually through your membership and service.

If that's right, then I don't feel too bad. I don't consider myself a church-hopper in the sense the pastor's using it above. I don't walk to the nearest church as soon as I move in and make it my church home right away. I also don't think there's anything wrong with that. I intended to find a church home in Tampa. I just didn't. But if the pastor's injunction is simply that—find a church home in your community and plant there—I can work with that. I need to, certainly.

For some reason, though, my mind cannot resist the following interpretation of the above:

Settle down in some community and never leave. God hates it when you move from city to city.

Okay, maybe I'm adding a little editorial bent to that. But you get my drift.
It shouldn't be any particular secret that I'm considering leaving Tampa once I'm out of the service. A number of places come to mind, Charlottesville, Chapel Hill, Atlanta. I've given thought to Austin, but it's farther than I wish to go. I've considered returning to Clemson, but although I have strong emotional ties pulling me back it would just be an attempt to "go home again," and would result in heartbreak as such attempts always do. Asheville would be nice. Let's face it, the list of cities I would like to move to runs into the dozens, possibly the hundreds, and after I've moved there and lived there for a few years I will get itchy, and the list of places to which I'd like to move will start to expand again, and I'll pick up and move.

And I feel like—feel, don't know, but believe in the depths of my being—that the pattern will repeat.

This does not upset me in the slightest. It isn't that I grow weary of places; I simply don't feel anchored geographically. I don't want to be anchored, geographically.

I don't hate Tampa; don't think that. I don't hate any place I've lived. For God's sake, I love Del Rio. Love it. Nostalgia plays a part in that, and I was ready to leave the town when I did. But I made it my home. I made Avon Park my home. I made Valdosta and Clemson and Fort Lauderdale my homes—although I will admit that I hated Fort Lauderdale. Only place I've ever hated, although it took me a long time to get to like Jacksonville, and I'm still ambivalent at best about Orange Park. Jacksonville I could move to. Orange Park, no. But it's home, so I don't hate it. I don't expect to hate any place. I just don't expect to stay.

I could have stayed in Valdosta longer. Since Valdosta is also the last place I had a church home, there may be something to the notion that I feel compelled to move since I don't have a spiritual home in which to plant myself, and that if I had said spiritual home, I would be inclined to stay.

But that's speculation only. Valdosta is a nice town. The church there was a wonderful church, and if I hadn't spent most of my year there in a 12-hour-a-day job I think I'd have done more as a member of the church than I did. But although part of me likes the notion of going back there, I don't really think Valdosta would be able to keep me long-term. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

This is more troubling, I guess, than I let on earlier. At one point in my life I was going to get in to politics, something that obviously would have required me to pick someplace and stay there long term. Lack of desire to stay someplace is not what's made me quit my political ambition, but it is a new feature, or at least if it's an old feature it's only recently that I've recognized it.

I haven't gotten anywhere, just rambled. So I'll go back to my interpretation of the pastor's statement:

Settle down in some community and never leave. God hates it when you move from city to city.

Regardless of whether I'm interpreting the pastor's words correctly, the question remains. Do I have it right? Are we meant to settle in one place and not leave? Obviously jobs move us from time to time, and I don't imagine God wants us to accept poverty rather than move to follow a job. But moving just because… well, I want to.
Faith is, as I said, not meant to be free of challenges. Is this a challenge? Or is it just my feeble mind giving vent to a fear I won't admit to?

Cheetah Refuge

So, I went to the cheetah refuge the other day. Wednesday, I think it was. All the days blend together here. The refuge is run by the French, or at any rate it's set up by the French, and a French conservation group funds it, with donations from visitors. Nearly all the visitors are from the base.

This isn't a national park or anything like that. These cheetahs were pets or circus attractions or what-have-you, abandoned by their former captors and brought here by conservationists to something approximating their natural habitat. They don't run free, and that's a little upsetting to some of the folks who visit there. But life in their enclosures is a fair site better than life chained in someone's basement.

For a three-dollar donation, and the trouble of finding someone to cover your shift at work, you can go to the cheetah refuge. Then you have the rest of the evening off, which is nice. It's well worth it. This was my first trip outside the wire since the excursion several weeks ago to retrieve my lost luggage at the airport, and thus the first time I've actually been able to see any of the local countryside. And, since I had the evening off for the first time, I also had a chance to drop by the cantina after we got back and have a frosty beverage. That was nice; haven't had one of those in weeks.

I imagine, since it was a cheetah refuge I went to, you're expecting to see pictures of cheetahs. So here they are:

Here's the first cheetah we saw.

And here's the second cheetah we saw, a little closer.

This cheetah had recently finished her dinner.

Here's dinner! These guys get to roam the refuge freely; you can walk right up to them and pet them, although you probably shouldn't since even ungulents have sharp teeth.

These two cheetahs get to live together.

Here's the last cheetah. She was very friendly, but even cheetahs sometimes blink.

She made up for the blink by posing very nicely for us.

Then it was time to go sit in the shade. Can't blame her; it's hot out here.

My Word What Is Wrong With This Woman?

Today's Orlando Sentinel has this disturbing article about Katherine Harris' latest outrage, namely the fact that she has called for a theocracy in America.

It is, as I said, disturbing, but the article in the Sentinel records the responses of several state religious and political leaders, some of whom made rather priceless comments. Harris made her own priceless comments, my favorite being that the Founders didn't intend this to be a nation of secular laws. She noted that we have to elect Christians to government or else we'll "legislate sin."

What makes me chuckle is the notion that Harris probably doesn't even recognize that her statement was anti-Semitic--or indeed that the view she seems to hold, that only Christians are fit for government, is itself anti-Semitic. Not to mention anti-Muslim and everything else, but my understanding is that it's okay to be anti-Muslim in the U.S. since everyone else is. [/sarcasm]

Rabbi Rick Sherwin says that, "Anybody who claims to have a monopoly on God doesn't understand the strength of America." I'd like to refer you to a post on the other blog where I mentioned the notion that somebody has a monopoly on truth or owns God.

I also like that Rabbi Sherwin and others point out in the article that when Harris says the Founders didn't inted the U.S. to be a nation of "secular laws," she is leaving open only the option of a theocracy. A theocracy implies a state religion. A state religion is what the Pilgrims fled to America to avoid. Does Harris have so little understanding of American history? She claims that the separation of church and state is "a lie," but it's hard to see where she gets that from. The first amendment prohibits the institution of a state religion by banning any attempt by the government to infringe upon our right to observe our own religious beliefs. It does not ban religious people in government, but it does ban religious government. Harris doesn't seem to understand that, either. I doubt she's alone.

The best comment of all, though, came from the normally staid Larry Sabato of UVA, who said of Harris' comment: "It's insane. But it's not out of character for Katherine Harris."

That sums up Harris and her bewildering campaign as well as anyone ever has.

The Wonderful Economy

Robert Reich has an interesting post up on Political Wire today that should be required reading. He doesn't cite sources, which irritates me, but the gist of his statement is that despite the overall economic growth the Bush administration is touting this week, median household income has in fact dropped by a thousand dollars over the last five years. Median household income is a more telling statistic than the overall size of the economy, since, as Reich points out, this economy's growth has remained concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people, almost entirely those at the top of the food chain. That the rest of us weren't really seeing any income growth doesn't surprise me, but that the median household income has actually dropped is news to me and something the Bush administration would be keen not to let out.

Since Reich didn't bother to tell us where he got his numbers, I looked online for something, and found this article by EPI, which indicates that between 2000 and 2004, median household income of non-elderly households actually dropped by over $2,500. That's damned ugly I don't mind saying. The article also shows that real incomes have dropped for every income group except those in the top 5%; this reflects what Reich wrote in his article.

These are very unpleasant numbers. The Democrats would do well to make them public, but I caution that they would do much better--anyone would do better--to come up with a way to turn the situation around. Anybody can sit here and complain about this, as I'm demonstrating right now. I would suggest, though, that the people who would take power in Congress after this election should start now by offering a real solution to income stagnation.

I'm offering fair odds on whether that will actually happen or not; five to one nobody says an intelligent word about it all campaign season.

So Many Books

It occurs to me that there are several books over there on the right that I have not reviewed. Before they get any farther down the list I thought I’d give them each a quick review.

I'll starting with V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. This is the comic book series (graphic novel, if you prefer; this format is a collection of several comic books into a book-length narrative) on which the recent movie (that I dearly loved) was based, and of course I was intrigued and wanted to read the comic. It’s pretty darn good. It’s also pretty darn different from the movie in a number of ways, not least the fact that V, in the book, is very much an anarchist, rather than simply a liberator of a captive populace, although the regime against which he’s fighting is equally oppressive. Most of the key events from the book made it into the movie. V is an altogether more difficult character in the book, though, a more complex protagonist. I enjoyed this but unless you are a comic book fan or a fan of the movie it’s probably not worth your time.

Next up, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I’m not going to review this book because you should already know what it’s about, and that it’s very good. And if you haven’t read it I will track you down and make you do so; ask Smittygirl if you don’t believe me.

Then we have Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, which I picked up a while ago in the bookstore on a whim. I really enjoyed reading this book, but it wasn’t an easy read. No book that encourages you to ask questions about where you’ve been, to search for patterns in your life and identify the myriad ways you’ve been reacting to your life the way you did when you were a child. FMSHL argues that we react to most events in life based on the way we saw the world as children, and we have to learn to break away from our habits and our childhood understanding to really live as adults. The book is targeted at the midlife-crisis crowd, but I found that much of the book had a lot to say to me.
Frankly, this book deserves a longer review and some discussion. It’s not the sort of thing I can recommend without knowing whether you need to read it or not. But I found it a thoroughly engrossing read.

A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, was outstanding. It’s my favorite of Bryson’s books, at least of the books I’ve read. Any outdoorsy person should read it, especially if you’ve ever considered hiking any part of the Appalachian Trail. I’ve hiked on perhaps as much as a mile of AT over the course of my life and probably will never attempt any significant stretch of it, mainly because as Bryson points out much of the trail is not especially scenic and there are lots of other scenic hiking trails to go on. But you have to admire what the man attempted to do, and this book is a fascinating and at times hilarious read. This one’s very highly recommended.


Basket Case is one of Carl Hiaasen’s more recent novels, and he’s as funny and entertaining and off-the-wall as ever. Hiaasen is my favorite Florida crime author by a wide margin (a club that includes John D. MacDonald, Elmore Leonard, Tim Dorsey, Randy Wayne White, and a few others) and this book is in keeping with my expectations. But there’s an upsetting difference between this and nearly every one of Hiaasen’s earlier books (apart from Stormy Weather): this one doesn’t take place in the real world. Hiaasen skewers south Florida most effectively when his characters operate in a real city; Basket Case, though it manages a good satire of south Florida, is weaker for taking place in some ill-defined mythical town.

The Sir Apropos of Nothing series was a lot of fun. You can read reviews of the Peter David series from the esteemed Lucky Bob here, here, and here. On his recommendation I decided to bring the series out to Africa with me to read. I’m glad I did. I don’t usually read fantasy literature. Actually, apart from Harry Potter, I don’t read any fantasy literature at all. I’ve never even read The Lord of Rings trilogy (although I did enjoy the movies). You have to wonder about a person whose introduction to an entire genre of literature comes from a series of books that satirize the genre. I like to think the eponymous hero of the series would rather appreciate that.
I’m not likely to start reading fantasy literature any time soon. I don’t dislike it, it’s just not my thing. But this was an excellent series, and I went through the books pretty quickly. They are all quite funny, though I think the first book is funniest because it’s newest. The third book might have had the most laugh-out-loud moments, though, in particular the exchange about Ho, and Who Ho is. Had a good laugh at that; actually, had to go look up the whole Who’s on First routine for another good laugh.

These books were more than just simple fantasy, though, because the protagonist is quite the introspective fellow at times, and we are treated to some very interesting viewpoints on the notion of heroics and chivalry and fate, and when Apropos descends to darkness it’s not hard to see just about any of us doing the same thing. Absolute power indeed.
This was a fun series of books, and while as I said I’m not going to start reading a bunch of fantasy novels now, I would encourage anyone who wants something unique and humorous that’s not completely throw-away to give these books a look. You'll certainly enjoy yourself. As for me, I'm sort of hoping the adventures of Apropos aren't yet over.

So Many Books

It occurs to me that there are several books over there on the right that I have not reviewed. Before they get any farther down the list I thought I’d give them each a quick review.

I'll starting with V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. This is the comic book series (graphic novel, if you prefer; this format is a collection of several comic books into a book-length narrative) on which the recent movie (that I dearly loved) was based, and of course I was intrigued and wanted to read the comic. It’s pretty darn good. It’s also pretty darn different from the movie in a number of ways, not least the fact that V, in the book, is very much an anarchist, rather than simply a liberator of a captive populace, although the regime against which he’s fighting is equally oppressive. Most of the key events from the book made it into the movie. V is an altogether more difficult character in the book, though, a more complex protagonist. I enjoyed this but unless you are a comic book fan or a fan of the movie it’s probably not worth your time.

Next up, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I’m not going to review this book because you should already know what it’s about, and that it’s very good. And if you haven’t read it I will track you down and make you do so; ask Smittygirl if you don’t believe me.

Then we have Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, which I picked up a while ago in the bookstore on a whim. I really enjoyed reading this book, but it wasn’t an easy read. No book that encourages you to ask questions about where you’ve been, to search for patterns in your life and identify the myriad ways you’ve been reacting to your life the way you did when you were a child. FMSHL argues that we react to most events in life based on the way we saw the world as children, and we have to learn to break away from our habits and our childhood understanding to really live as adults. The book is targeted at the midlife-crisis crowd, but I found that much of the book had a lot to say to me.
Frankly, this book deserves a longer review and some discussion. It’s not the sort of thing I can recommend without knowing whether you need to read it or not. But I found it a thoroughly engrossing read.

A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, was outstanding. It’s my favorite of Bryson’s books, at least of the books I’ve read. Any outdoorsy person should read it, especially if you’ve ever considered hiking any part of the Appalachian Trail. I’ve hiked on perhaps as much as a mile of AT over the course of my life and probably will never attempt any significant stretch of it, mainly because as Bryson points out much of the trail is not especially scenic and there are lots of other scenic hiking trails to go on. But you have to admire what the man attempted to do, and this book is a fascinating and at times hilarious read. This one’s very highly recommended.


Basket Case is one of Carl Hiaasen’s more recent novels, and he’s as funny and entertaining and off-the-wall as ever. Hiaasen is my favorite Florida crime author by a wide margin (a club that includes John D. MacDonald, Elmore Leonard, Tim Dorsey, Randy Wayne White, and a few others) and this book is in keeping with my expectations. But there’s an upsetting difference between this and nearly every one of Hiaasen’s earlier books (apart from Stormy Weather): this one doesn’t take place in the real world. Hiaasen skewers south Florida most effectively when his characters operate in a real city; Basket Case, though it manages a good satire of south Florida, is weaker for taking place in some ill-defined mythical town.

The Sir Apropos of Nothing series was a lot of fun. You can read reviews of the Peter David series from the esteemed Lucky Bob here, here, and here. On his recommendation I decided to bring the series out to Africa with me to read. I’m glad I did. I don’t usually read fantasy literature. Actually, apart from Harry Potter, I don’t read any fantasy literature at all. I’ve never even read The Lord of Rings trilogy (although I did enjoy the movies). You have to wonder about a person whose introduction to an entire genre of literature comes from a series of books that satirize the genre. I like to think the eponymous hero of the series would rather appreciate that.
I’m not likely to start reading fantasy literature any time soon. I don’t dislike it, it’s just not my thing. But this was an excellent series, and I went through the books pretty quickly. They are all quite funny, though I think the first book is funniest because it’s newest. The third book might have had the most laugh-out-loud moments, though, in particular the exchange about Ho, and Who Ho is. Had a good laugh at that; actually, had to go look up the whole Who’s on First routine for another good laugh.

These books were more than just simple fantasy, though, because the protagonist is quite the introspective fellow at times, and we are treated to some very interesting viewpoints on the notion of heroics and chivalry and fate, and when Apropos descends to darkness it’s not hard to see just about any of us doing the same thing. Absolute power indeed.
This was a fun series of books, and while as I said I’m not going to start reading a bunch of fantasy novels now, I would encourage anyone who wants something unique and humorous that’s not completely throw-away to give these books a look. You'll certainly enjoy yourself. As for me, I'm sort of hoping the adventures of Apropos aren't yet over.

Let's Not Go Katherine Harris Crazy

The thing that really scares me about Katherine Harris is not, frankly, any single thing she's done during this wild and crazy campaign season. It's not her own lies, her own covering up, her own making up of wild stories about trees falling on hangars. It's the fact that there are still people in Florida who plan to vote for this woman!

Please, please, save us from ourselves! If you are a Republican, please vote for one of Harris' opponents in the primary on September 5. I frankly don't care which one. Just don't make us sit through another two months of this woman's conspiracy-driven insanity.

The Beautiful View

A while back I tried to upload a picture of the beautiful view from the front door of my tent, but for whatever reason it wouldn't take. Ha ha, tonight it took! So here is a picture of... well, of the beautiful view from the front door of my tent. Keen observers will note another new picture on the blog, more in keeping with my new "view."

In defense of this location I'd like to point out that there are in fact a few points on the camp from which I can get a view of the surrounding landscape considerably more interesting than this one. At some point I hope to take such a picture, but it requires being out and about at dawn or dusk and that almost never happens. But eventually, dear readers, eventually...

Change Is For The Worse

Well, the honeymoon is over.

I guess it was only a matter of time. Most U.S. military deployed locations gradually become more repressive over time, and I've experienced this first hand at both Manas and Al Dhafra (though on the strength of climate alone Manas will probably always be the most desirable deployed location, at least for my money). The current place has been pretty loosey-goosey in some respects, while still making room for a number of inane restrictions. Still, this is what I'm used to and so it wasn't that big a deal. I can deal with some of the restrictions here in exchange for some of liberties we've enjoyed.

Foremost among them was the ability I had to check my email and update this blog from work. Generally I write posts (like the one from this morning) ahead of time and simply upload them at work, although there have been slow days where I've had time to write a post or two at my desk in between other things. That said I don't have a problem with uploading posts at the MWR tent.

The gmail thing is a bit of another matter. I shouldn't be that concerned about it. I can't check the account at work in Florida so being able to do so here was a bit of a gift. I've enjoyed it. I have literally hundreds of minutes of downtime during my shift at work and am not frankly wasting the government's time by checking email at work any more than the government is wasting my time by making me be there when there isn't anything to do. It's tit for tat.

Well, the tat got taken away today. This is especially vexing as I'm expecting word in the near future about a new addition to my extended family--two of them, actually, although one is two months away--and the going on that front has not been especially smooth lately. Since I can't take phone calls from home I've been looking to the webmail to keep me up to date if anything develops during the eight hours a day I'm at my desk.

Oh well. Might as well get used to it now. The policy isn't going to change. I can hardly wait for October, when yet another new restriction is put in place, namely one requiring all Air Force members to wear the Air Force PT uniform at all times except when in another uniform. I'll have to wear the PT uniform to go take a piss in the middle of the night (oh, you can bet I won't actually be doing that). I only have one pair of shorts and two shirts; I can buy more, but since I'll be getting out of the service in a few more months it's an utter waste of money. That and they aren't actually selling the PTU in the exchange here. I don't plan to stop going to the gym every day, so it will be interesting to see what happens given the three-day laundry turnaround in this place. Bad policies sometimes cause unfortunate side effects, and one of those will likely be the rankest pair of gym shorts anyone has ever seen. Perhaps I'll spray them with Lysol every night. I plan to burn them before I come home regardless.

This is how my life has felt for the past five years in the military. None of the petty restrictions put in place are of the sort that make existence untenable or life not worth living. Instead, they're small annoyances that suck joy from existence, that make each day just a bit more drab and lifeless. At least I have only a brief time left in this small space.

The Ambien Diaries

I have long believed that pharmaceuticals tend in most cases to create as many problems as they solve, that for every symptom cleared up another is produced. I suspect this belief of creating a perverse sort of placebo effect for me, whereby because I expect limited benefit or unpleasant side effects, that is precisely what I get.

I suppose I should be more amenable to medicine, especially when I ask for it. I've had a lot of trouble sleeping lately—well, ever since I arrived, although to be honest I haven't slept really well, night after night, in years, and sometimes wonder if I ever will again. I used to. I used to be able to fall asleep within minutes of deciding to do so, too. Then again there are lots of things I used to be able to do and there's no profit in dwelling on the past.

I'm not certain of the root cause of my sleeplessness here and in truth there is unlikely to be a single cause. It's said that mefloquin, the anti-malarial prophylaxis I'm taking, can give you difficulty sleeping the first couple weeks, but I started taking it the first week in July and my body should be used to it by now.

(That said, the drug information sheet that comes with mefloquin points out that there are other anti-malarials available, and if you A) have trouble remembering to take a weekly pill (yes!); B) have been depressed within the past year (hello!); or C) have a generalized anxiety disorder (oh, waiter!), you should seek out one of the alternatives. Nice of the docs back home to inquire into my medical history before writing the prescription.)

There's the matter of my daily schedule, which is a bit unusual, since I work 1400 til 2200, go to the gym at 2230-ish, eat a meal at midnight, and go to bed around two. Nothing inherently wrong with that but it's not what I do at home. And of course there are plenty of other stressors in my life that could be affecting my sleep, though those have been around for a while.

Regardless of why I can't sleep, I can't sleep. So I went to the doctor. I first went to the doctor a week ago and asked for some help, and they told me to come back in another week because I was probably just getting used to the mefloquin. I resisted the urge to point out that if I went another week without sleeping it wouldn't matter what the cause was because I'd be completely batshit crazy. I waited four days, and went back this past Monday.

As I expected, I got a prescription for a week's worth of Ambien. This is what I wanted. Valium gives me a hangover, and though I could cut the pills in half I have a really large knife and it would be like using a 2x4 to swat flies—it would do the job but there'd be a lot of collateral damage. So I took a pill Monday around two-thirty.

And woke up bolt upright in the bed and wide awake at seven thirty. Five hours, that's pretty good. I got up, went to the latrine, came back, and collapsed into bed again and slept until at least nine. And I was still tired, so I stayed in bed until ten-thirty reading. Then I got up to take in my laundry and have some lunch.

Tuesday night I took a pill around two. I was asleep within twenty minutes, but once again I was very suddenly jerked awake, at around six-thirty or so. I didn't have to pee, either, which is weird because you always have to pee when you get up in the morning here. I say you because I mean everybody, not just me. But I got up and went to the latrine anyway because the act of walking there in the morning is usually enough to get things working. I decided, since I was up, I'd have breakfast, which I never do (lunch is my breakfast), and had a nice meal and went to the exchange to buy… something, I don't recall. And then I came back to my little hooch and promptly fell asleep again. I woke up around eleven and read for a while, then got some lunch and went to work.

Wednesday night I felt tired, although I'd slept plenty the previous two days, so I didn't go to the gym and took the pill around midnight. And I slept until ten, and then stayed in bed and read until one.

So in the last three days (it's 0100 Friday morning—which is to say Thursday night by my schedule) I've slept 25+ hours and spent most of the rest of my non-working awake time lying in bed. This is hardly normal and certainly not a pattern I wish to continue. Consequently I'm debating whether to take the pill tonight or not—or whether to simply take the pill an hour later and not worry about it. And there's the matter of do I really need the pill? How long should I lie in bed not sleeping before I decide to take it? And how the hell will I know? It's dark in the tent, literally so dark you cannot see your hand in front of your face if everyone has their lights off.

Sleep isn't supposed to cause stress.

Pattern Recognition

I finished reading a book. It feels like it's been a while since I did that; I guess it has been about three weeks.


Since the book I'd been expecting to read was still in transit to me when I finished the last one, I borrowed one from the library here. The library has lots of romance novels, and crime novels, and spy thrillers, and military thrillers. None of which I'm much interested in. But I happened to spy a book by William Gibson, he of Neuromancer, called Pattern Recognition, which I decided to pick up and read.

I had to go back and reread my review of Neuromancer, because I liked Pattern Recognition somewhat and wondered what was different, since I recall not liking the earlier book as much.

I think in large measure Neuromancer suffers from my tendency to compare it to Snow Crash, which was written later but is, as far as I'm concerned, far superior in most respects. That and characterization was lousy.

That was not the case with Pattern Recognition. The book is helped by having a cast of characters whose motivations are much more clearly understood than those in Neuromancer; I found it much easier to care about Cayce Pollard than I ever did about Case or Molly.

I still have trouble with some aspect of Gibson's place descriptions. I don't mean to say his setting descriptions, which are nothing if not evocative; I mean his description of geographic space, of the relation of one neighborhood or place to another. I don't know what it is and I don't know how to describe it; it may just be me, or it may be something genuinely odd about Gibson's writing. In either case it's unsettling.

I don't have much of a review. It's Gibson's first "present day" work, which is interesting, but moreso to his fans than to the rest of us. It has been criticized for its frequent "tangential interruptions," to quote one reviewer, which surprises me because Neuromancer was the same way. I guess when Gibson goes off on a tangent about a near-future world of his own creation that's okay, but when he does so about the present world it's a tiresome interruption. I don't understand why that would be so and frankly like the fact that the story wanders a bit. Life wanders a bit, and Gibson's wanderings are interesting.

There are some conceits here; the protagonist is a little... unusual. She has some quirks I guarantee you've never imagined before, and that can take some getting used to. I suppose Gibson likes characters who are a little off the scale; in this case all of them are. If you can get past that, this is an enjoyable read.

Pattern Recognition

I finished reading a book. It feels like it's been a while since I did that; I guess it has been about three weeks.


Since the book I'd been expecting to read was still in transit to me when I finished the last one, I borrowed one from the library here. The library has lots of romance novels, and crime novels, and spy thrillers, and military thrillers. None of which I'm much interested in. But I happened to spy a book by William Gibson, he of Neuromancer, called Pattern Recognition, which I decided to pick up and read.

I had to go back and reread my review of Neuromancer, because I liked Pattern Recognition somewhat and wondered what was different, since I recall not liking the earlier book as much.

I think in large measure Neuromancer suffers from my tendency to compare it to Snow Crash, which was written later but is, as far as I'm concerned, far superior in most respects. That and characterization was lousy.

That was not the case with Pattern Recognition. The book is helped by having a cast of characters whose motivations are much more clearly understood than those in Neuromancer; I found it much easier to care about Cayce Pollard than I ever did about Case or Molly.

I still have trouble with some aspect of Gibson's place descriptions. I don't mean to say his setting descriptions, which are nothing if not evocative; I mean his description of geographic space, of the relation of one neighborhood or place to another. I don't know what it is and I don't know how to describe it; it may just be me, or it may be something genuinely odd about Gibson's writing. In either case it's unsettling.

I don't have much of a review. It's Gibson's first "present day" work, which is interesting, but moreso to his fans than to the rest of us. It has been criticized for its frequent "tangential interruptions," to quote one reviewer, which surprises me because Neuromancer was the same way. I guess when Gibson goes off on a tangent about a near-future world of his own creation that's okay, but when he does so about the present world it's a tiresome interruption. I don't understand why that would be so and frankly like the fact that the story wanders a bit. Life wanders a bit, and Gibson's wanderings are interesting.

There are some conceits here; the protagonist is a little... unusual. She has some quirks I guarantee you've never imagined before, and that can take some getting used to. I suppose Gibson likes characters who are a little off the scale; in this case all of them are. If you can get past that, this is an enjoyable read.

Books For Thought

A meme thing of sorts, from the lovely and talented Ayzair:

1. One book that changed your life?

I don’t know its title. I don’t know that it was ever finished, much less published. I only ever read one chapter of it. But it was a book, being written by my best friend, Richard Osborne, in the 8th grade. I went over to his house for a party. Might have been his birthday party, actually. I think I spent the night. It was an interesting night. In any event, Richard had the pages of the book he was writing tacked up on his wall. I scanned them. It would have fit in with the “potboiler” style of crime or mystery novels, or at least it seemed that way to me. The protagonist was assaulted, I don’t recall by whom, on his way home from a restaurant. Could have been a scene from a noir novel. The hero managed to flick a toothpick at one of the bad guys and have it spear the guy through the palm. That’s one hell of a toothpick-flick.
In any event, after reading over the pages tacked to Rick’s wall I decided that didn’t seem so hard and I could probably write a book.
And so I did.
I’ve written three, now, although only the most recent one is publishing material. Still, if I hadn’t read Rick’s book, hanging there on the wall of his room, I may never have bothered trying to write my own. And then where would I be?

2. One book you have read more than once?

I’ve read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash at least four times, and it’s my second-favorite book. I’ve read most of P.J. O’Rourke’s books multiple times, including Parliament of Whores about a dozen. The first book I read multiple times was Beasts in my Belfry, by Gerald Durrell, which I probably read for the first time when I was eight.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?

Well, Keller’s Outdoor Survival Guide comes readily to mind, although the book is geared towards surviving in a large temperate wilderness, not on a finite desert island. I think what I’d want most is a large book full of blank pages, and a pencil. And a knife, to sharpen the pencil.

4. One book that made you laugh?

Many books have made me laugh, but I’ll pimp my favorite book, Straight Man, by Richard Russo.

5. One book that made you cry?

I don’t know. I honestly don’t; it’s not that I don’t cry often, it’s that I can’t think of a book that made me do so. Probably We Were Soldiers Once, And Young, by Hal Moore.

6. One book you wish had been written?

The Infallible Tell-tale Signs Given Off By People When They’re Lying

7. One book you wish had never been written?

Probably could have saved a lot of trouble if Das Kapital, and the ideas therein, had remained forever locked in Karl Marx’s skull.

8. One book you are currently reading?
Some Kind of Paradise, by Mark Derr, which is a history of Florida that focuses to some degree on the impact of human habitation on the state’s ecology. I don’t find a lot of time to read it or I’d be done with it already, because it’s enjoyable and well written.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?

Many many dozens of books could be listed here. I’ll go with The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, in a tie with a book I need to reread, On Liberty by John Stuart Mill.

10. Now tag five people.

Actually I don’t know five people with blogs who haven’t already been tagged, so I’m only going to tag two: Lucky Bob, and Malda laire. If she even reads this…

Books For Thought

A meme thing of sorts, from the lovely and talented Ayzair:

1. One book that changed your life?

I don’t know its title. I don’t know that it was ever finished, much less published. I only ever read one chapter of it. But it was a book, being written by my best friend, Richard Osborne, in the 8th grade. I went over to his house for a party. Might have been his birthday party, actually. I think I spent the night. It was an interesting night. In any event, Richard had the pages of the book he was writing tacked up on his wall. I scanned them. It would have fit in with the “potboiler” style of crime or mystery novels, or at least it seemed that way to me. The protagonist was assaulted, I don’t recall by whom, on his way home from a restaurant. Could have been a scene from a noir novel. The hero managed to flick a toothpick at one of the bad guys and have it spear the guy through the palm. That’s one hell of a toothpick-flick.
In any event, after reading over the pages tacked to Rick’s wall I decided that didn’t seem so hard and I could probably write a book.
And so I did.
I’ve written three, now, although only the most recent one is publishing material. Still, if I hadn’t read Rick’s book, hanging there on the wall of his room, I may never have bothered trying to write my own. And then where would I be?

2. One book you have read more than once?

I’ve read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash at least four times, and it’s my second-favorite book. I’ve read most of P.J. O’Rourke’s books multiple times, including Parliament of Whores about a dozen. The first book I read multiple times was Beasts in my Belfry, by Gerald Durrell, which I probably read for the first time when I was eight.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?

Well, Keller’s Outdoor Survival Guide comes readily to mind, although the book is geared towards surviving in a large temperate wilderness, not on a finite desert island. I think what I’d want most is a large book full of blank pages, and a pencil. And a knife, to sharpen the pencil.

4. One book that made you laugh?

Many books have made me laugh, but I’ll pimp my favorite book, Straight Man, by Richard Russo.

5. One book that made you cry?

I don’t know. I honestly don’t; it’s not that I don’t cry often, it’s that I can’t think of a book that made me do so. Probably We Were Soldiers Once, And Young, by Hal Moore.

6. One book you wish had been written?

The Infallible Tell-tale Signs Given Off By People When They’re Lying

7. One book you wish had never been written?

Probably could have saved a lot of trouble if Das Kapital, and the ideas therein, had remained forever locked in Karl Marx’s skull.

8. One book you are currently reading?
Some Kind of Paradise, by Mark Derr, which is a history of Florida that focuses to some degree on the impact of human habitation on the state’s ecology. I don’t find a lot of time to read it or I’d be done with it already, because it’s enjoyable and well written.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?

Many many dozens of books could be listed here. I’ll go with The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, in a tie with a book I need to reread, On Liberty by John Stuart Mill.

10. Now tag five people.

Actually I don’t know five people with blogs who haven’t already been tagged, so I’m only going to tag two: Lucky Bob, and Malda laire. If she even reads this…

A Brief Note on the Current News

We've seen essentially no effects here from the recent events in London. We are subjected to several hours of Fox News each day, though, especially in the chow hall, so I know what's been going on, and I know that, back home, all it has produced is the impotent ramblings of the shouting class (remember when political pundits and talk show hosts used to be called "the chattering class?" What an inappropriate term for what they do now).

I don't like listening to these people shout about whether one political party or the other is better at defeating terrorism. I'll be honest with you, though. I don't think the people in power are doing a great job at much of anything. But I also think the people out of power tend to say stupid things most of the time. What are we to do?

I don't know about you, but as for me, I only pay attention to the television in the gym, where they have the sports channel on instead of the news channel. People shouting on cable news aren't solving anything, and are actually making matters worse. There's no way to get real information out of that format and I'm sick of it. Regardless of what happens, in Lebanon, in Israel, in Iraq, in London, or in the sky, these people are going to sit in an air-conditioned studio with their pancake makeup and fancy clothes and scream at each other like toddlers on a playground. They accomplish nothing. They solve nothing. They help nothing. They serve only to galvanize the support of people without time to think around positions that are ill-formed and offer no real hope of results. So my advice to you is to turn the damn television off and ignore it. Or, watch sports. It's not burying your head in the sand. It's censoring the one portion of American media that actually needs to be censored.

We will survive this. And we'll do it better if we can convince these assholes to just shut up and get back to work.

Oasis II

I like this Oasis water. Today's bottle reads:

Good Morning! If you are pregnant, drink water before sleeping to reduce the chances of morning sickness.

This wasn't funny in and of itself, except that I kept thinking about how I have to stop drinking water, out here, at least two hours before bedtime, or else I'll have to get up to pee in the middle of the night. You drink water all day; it takes the body a while to get rid of it all. And I was thinking to myself, pregnancy tends to smoosh your bladder around a bit. Drink too much before sleeping and you probably won't sleep at all.

Then I turned the bottle around. It lists the mineral content and a little guarantee, and then notes that it was

Produced by OASIS PURE DRINKING WATER FACTORY L.L.C.

My water comes from a factory.
Of course, the same could be said for Dasani or Aquafina or any of the large American bottled water producers, but they'd never call it a "factory." They'd say there a "processing facility" or something, but not a "factory." Factories are dirty, smoky, and filled with pollutants, right?

Lately the base has been taken over by boxes of Aquafina bottled water. This is an unfortunate thing. I imagine some politician came over here and saw that we're all drinking foreign water, and decided that an American company needed to supply water to the troops overseas. Because, you know, that foreign water's tainted.
So we've been invaded by Aquafina.

It pains me to say that this is by far the worst water available on base, on all counts. To begin with, it has the least competent packaging of any of the waters we drink (Masafi, Oasis, Makkah, and Emirates being the most common local ones); the cardboard boxes are inadequately sealed and fall apart, and the bottles themselves have these horrible sealed caps on them. All the other water bottles have standard sealing rings; you break the seal, take the cap off, and a ring of plastic stays on the bottle. This is what you normally see on plastic bottles.

Not Aquafina. Aquafina's bizarre little seal pops off the bottle and falls on the ground, almost without fail, forcing you to bend over and pick it up and then find a trash place to dispose of it. It will come as no surprise that there are now little Aquafina rings on the ground all over the base--at least the locals who've been hired to keep the place clean do a good job of picking them up. But they shouldn't have to.

And when you do take the seal off the bottle, there's this weird little tab of plastic left on the lid, which gets in the way when you try to put it back on the bottle. Pointless, stupid, bad packaging. No reason for it.

It gets worse, though. The local bottled waters--not really local, they're all from the UAE or Oman--all taste... like nothing. They're clean. They all have mineral content, but they don't taste like anything--no chemicals have been used to treat them, and they just taste like clean water that's been pulled out of a spring. This is what Zephyrhills water (which I will never drink for constitutional reasons) tastes like, back home.

Not Aquafina. It tastes like the chemicals that were used to treat it. After a few weeks of Oasis and Masafi, it tastes decidedly off. I assume this is what Americans are used to, but as I said relative to our other water it tastes quite bad.

The bottles have huge labels on them, covering easily 60% of the surface area. Consequently I have to tear the labels off before I can make sun tea in them. And when I did make tea in them the other day, all three bottles came out very weak and nasty. I took the labels off. The bottles are only 500ml, the same size as Emirates and smaller than the other brands, so that's not the reason (I prefer Emirates for tea). And it was 108 degrees that day and plenty sunny. There was no reason why the tea should have been weak. It must be the chemical crap in the water. Makes me wonder if I should use bottled spring water when I make iced tea at home.

Yep. It's Oasis water for me. Wonder if they have it back in the states?

Headsongs

One of the things I like about the old church hymns I sang growing up are that every now and then one filters out of the airwaves and lodges in my brain, and unlike most of the catchy pop garbage on the radio, the hymns are actually nice to have rattling around up there for a while. They're pretty music. I generally know all the lyrics, or at least one whole verse, which means the song doesn't stay stuck for long. Compare this against something like, say, Tom's Diner, where you know only the first eight or ten words but they repeat ad infinitum and you can't get rid of them.

The last couple days I've had a very nice old hymn rattling around in my head, which has been pleasant. I don't recall the name but I had the entire opening stanza; the words and tune to this hymn have just in the last hour or so completely vacated my mind, crawled off into whatever dark corner old song lyrics occupy in my brain and flitting out into the airwaves to catch some other unsuspecting person off guard. I don't know what tune will take its place, but I hope it's a good one.

It was quite a nice thing to have in my head there for a few days, given what it replaced. What it replaced was a hilarious little ditty from an episode of Futurama that, while funny, grew extremely irritating after three or four days. Those who know the tune can sing along with Fry, Leela, Bender, Robot Santa, and the happy Neptunian elves:

We are free and fairly sober,
with so many toys to build;
the machines are kind of tricky
prob'ly someone will be killed.
But we gladly work for nothing…
Which is good because
we don't intend to pay…

The elves are back to work today!
Hooray!

We have just a couple hours
to make several billion gifts;
and the labor isn't easy.
And you'll all work triple shifts.
You can make the job go quicker
if you turn up the controls to super speed…

It's back to work on X-mas Eve.
Hooray?!

And though you're cold and sore and ugly,
your pride will mask the pain!
Let my happy smile warm your hearts.
There's a toy lodged in my brain!

We are getting awf'ly tired,
and we can't work any faster,
and we're very very sorry.
Why you selfish little bastards!
Do you want the kids to think
that Santa's just a crummy
empty-handed jerk?

(No! Sorry!)
Then shut your yaps and back to work!

Now it's very nearly X-mas,
And we've done the best we could.
These toy soldiers are poorly painted,
And they're made from inferior wood.
I should give you all a beating
but I really have to fly.
If I weren't stuck here frozen
I'd harpoon you in the eye!
Now it's back into our tenements
to drown ourselves in rye.
You did the best you could, I guess,
and some of these gorillas are okay.

Hooray! We're adequate!

The elves have rescued X-mas day!
Hooray!

Gullywasher

Last night we had a real, honest-to-goodness, thunderstorm. It rained for at least half an hour, probably longer.

I was in bed at the time, but since I tend to just lie there awake for at least two hours every night (I still haven't got myself adjusted to a schedule) I happened to be awake when the storm came up.

When I was walking back to the tent from my shower I noticed that the moon, although almost full, wasn't visible anywhere. There were a few bright clouds in the sky, but it looked like the sky was clear with just these few clouds, which were obscuring the moon. Quite an interesting illusion; the few bright clouds I could see were actually just the thin patches in the cloud cover, where the moonlight was visible. Just as I was getting into the tent I saw lightning flash across the sky.

Still, there's been dry lightning here before; it is, after all, a very dry country. I lay in bed and read for half an hour or so, and when I turned out the light and closed my eyes I listened to the wind pick up, and then the first few tentative raindrops on the vinyl of the tent. I assumed that was all there would be. The rain stopped. The wind kept blowing. Minutes passed. I idled away the time thinking about things I plan to do when I get home.

Then there was a tremendous clap of thunder. It was so loud, and so close, it sounded like an airplane had crashed at the airport a few hundred yards north. I was just assuring myself it was thunder when the rain started—-just a little, light rain, and then a drizzle, and then rain, and then a downpour. And then it was raining so hard I wondered whether the tent might cave in.

This sort of rain went on for twenty minutes or more, and then slowly died away. I fell asleep while it was still raining softly.

If it rained every night like that… well, this would be a very different place, for starters, but I might get some halfway decent sleep, too.

Madness, I Say

Somebody stole my shower poof!

No, no, no, the sponge I wrapped in netting and used in the shower in place of a washcloth. It's gone!
I'm fairly sure I left it in the bathroom and it was stolen from there, since I can't imagine why anyone would invade my little tentspace and, seeing plenty of far more interesting things, make off with a shower poof. So of course it's mostly my fault.
Still, somebody had to steal it out of the shower tent, didn't they?
What manner of man, really now, what manner of man steals a shower poof? I use that to clean my naughty bits, as well as the rest of me. Would you steal a washcloth or sponge somebody else has been cleaning his naughty parts with? I wouldn't. It's very disturbing.
Fortunately I bought another shower poof at the base exchange this morning, for all of 85 cents, so it's not a big deal. But it is a bit disturbing...