Photos of War

I listened to Neal Conan on NPR while driving to lunch today. I understand why he needs to talk about it - the majority of the American populace is composed of craven lunatics with no sense of reality.

There is never a way to truly understand a person's sacrifice in war by simply looking at an amputated limb or a flag-draped box. I can feel sympathy for them, but I can never truly understand how much that person suffered. Not knowing how they suffered, I cannot know how reprehensible their death or permanent injury was. To never show such photographs is to completely dishonor their sacrifice. To have the parents of this man wish to so dishonor their son's sacrifice by not wanting the photograph shown is even more reprehensible.

These soldiers volunteered for service knowing that war existed and that they might die. Not once were they ever shown what a dead body looks like when hit by a grenade or a .50 caliber bullet. Those things leave holes in bodies, spray blood and body parts on the landscape, and expose interior body parts that most would prefer not to see. That preference has led to a misunderstanding by the general Americans populace that death is clean and quick. It is for the same reasons they don't want to know where their meat comes from - there's just too much blood. Americans revel in Gore movies (what we call Horror movies now - good grief). Those that claim that the scenes in movies and war are different have never seen the photographs. Those movies are made by people who have seen them and make them exactly because they make you squirm. It's about time the American people squirmed to real images of what war looks like. Un-doctored, unstaged (like the Civil War photographs were), raw, screaming, in your face reality. Not for kicks, but for edification.

Americans - it's no wonder the rest of the world hates us: we are apes that pick our butts and sniff and then claim we've never heard of butts.

To APR: well done. It's time for someone to tell the military to go to hell so that people can put a true face to the deaths that have occurred on both sides of these wars. The steps taken to elicit at least the comments of the most affected individuals warrants praise. These dead people are listed in military parlance as, "Non-operational assets." Does that sound like they give a shit? No, not really. So, again, Nice job.

To the editor of whatever newspaper that claimed that their nine-year old might see the paper and be horrified: That would be a good thing. Death such as what occurs in war should be viewed as horrible. Does that mean that you should also tell that same nine-year old that wars should never be fought? I bet you wouldn't do that. Oh, you'd tell us that you would so you could make all the politicians and pansy-asses out there happy, but there is no way you ever got to be a news editor of any stripe without exulting in blood and mess - whether or not you think it's a good or a bad thing. "If it bleeds, it leads," is an axiom that has never been truer than in today's media. Yes, even on NPR. How dare you take the right of your readership to teach their children away from them by withholding the photograph.

To the man who said that these dead people are fighting for our freedom: guess what? these wars were never about our freedom. It was for someone else's freedom and our safety. I always disagreed with the stated reasons we went there, but never disagreed that we need to go there. However, I believe we've been there too long. We fought there, gained their freedom, and have since tried to turn their cultures into America Light. Is the American military so incompetent that they can't teach military tactics to military personnel from other countries that we need to be there years after the original governments have been destroyed? (I know one person who was able, with about 40 others, to train the Contras in about 14 months.) The answer to that is obviously, yes. If you believe otherwise means that you believe in American Imperialism. Yes - colonialism by proxy. The only people who've threatened my freedom since 2001 are those within the United States government. Remember the Patriot Act? Do you know the differences between liberty, freedom, and safety? No? Hmm...thought the Marines only recruited smart people. My fault for assuming.

To the people who equate these photographs as being against war just as pictures of car crash victims are against drunk drivers: I seem to remember a film in high-school that depicted just such a thing as part of the Driver's Education course (yeah, California actually cared back then). I've completely forgotten the name of the film, but I bet it's still being shown in the now private courses. Besides, as one comedian said it, "20% of all accidents involve alcohol. Well, damn it, get all those sober people off the road and let us drunks drive in peace!" You may not like that comment, and I do not endorse drunk driving, but it is illustrative of how little the analogy fits this situation. Those films were never meant to deter drunk driving, they were meant to encourage safety. Publishing the photographs accomplish the same thing.

Excuse me, but your language is slipping.

It's no wonder the rest of the world can't figure us out. Look at our idiomatic expressions, most of which have nothing to do with anything grammatical.

I'm not going to list them out, but here are a couple of pet peeves of mine. The use of any of these in my presence is likely to get you at least a glare. If they are used in my direction, the conversation is over. If it's by a politician, you've just lost my vote forever (and I don't care if that means I need to vote the Perot ticket again or not). If it's in a book, I do not put the book aside lightly, I do, in fact, throw it away from me with great force (unless I'm supposed to review it because then i haven't a choice, do I?).

"Taken cared of" - The only person I have allowed to use this in my presence is my wife, for obvious reasons. If you mean something completed in the past say, "It has been taken care of." Yes, jerk, there is a 'be' verb in there. Anyone claiming, "It ends in a preposition!" can keep their Latin grammar to themselves. If you don't know what I mean, then you don't know the history of your own language.

"a myriad of" or "myriads of" - That is so CRAPTASTIC! No one should be allowed to get away with this and live. It's an adjective, which means:

1. It does not take a plural or possessive because it ain't a noun
2. It cannot be used in a preposition in primary position because it is an adjective of numbers and can therefore only modify other adjectives or nouns to indicate how much of those exist
   

So, "A myriad...," is fine. It points to some specific thing that comes in many varieties (whatever varieties might exist for that thing). "The myriad," is also acceptable. It points to the many varieties that this specific thing exists in. I know these seem the same to most out there, but if you can understand the difference between them, there is still hope for you. The rest of you, learn sign language and shut up.

This next one, my friends, is the one that set me off tonight.

"horribly underfunded" - did this politician want top say, "underfunded," "greatly underfunded," or did she really mean that the people funding this project failed to underfund it adequately?

Loose lips may sink ships, but sloppy language destroys the means by which we convey ideas to one another. Screw with it, and it'll screw you.