Sunday, August 7, 2011

Who Burn the Fires...

This has been a very sad weekend for United States forces in Afghanistan. There's going to be a lot of words in the next days about sacrifice, and selflessness and service to country and all of them will be true, well-meant and then forgotten. When all is said and done, only the families and friends (and comrades) of those who have died will remember them. So all the best the rest of of us can do is hold them in our thoughts as they hold their loved ones in their hearts.

The news cycle cannot sate our attention span or come close. Some of what we treat as news is actually noise but since it comes from places where we used to get our news, it looks the same. I don't pretend to know anything, not just on what happened but on the whole universe in which we live. I'm not one of those azzholes who doesn't know what he doesn't know-I'm keenly aware of how little of this world I understand and I'm not alone in that.

And this is another event that we'll talk about with and to one another for hours and not only never get to the end of it, but we won't even approach the beginning of it. I'll offer you, again, an opportunity to make the acquaintanceship of Andrew Olmsted-someone I never met while he walked the earth and who paid with his life for his service in Iraq.

A lot of news this weekend has been about Standards and Poors Downgrading the US Bond Rating and who's to bless and who's to blame for that. We've had coverage of the Governor of Texas praying (I hope for a break in the drought that is killing his state; got yer back, Lips, but don't have rain to share) and of Tiger Woods' driving though seemingly not into a light pole.

The events of Saturday will have faded by the time you read this. The people who have helped get us into the situations we are now constantly and continually in that require the repeated use of men like those who perished this weekend will wring their hands and point their fingers while remaining Waist Deep in Big Muddy. We will watch them posture and pose and jockey for positions nearest the TV camera. And, maybe if we're not too entranced, we can think of the wavering millions, needing leaders who get gamblers instead.
-bill kenny

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