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Chelsea Lane

Last night, election night, I spent a good deal of time stranded at Chicago's O'Hare airport waiting rather impatiently for a flight to wing me home to Minneapolis. Matthew and Natascha were hosting what I'll call the LME Election Night Love Fest (hey, we're all liberals and it ain't a liberal event unless there's incense, illicit drugs, tie-dye, and an orgy...one that features various gender lines being crossed) at my house. Okay, it was a bunch of wonky Minnesotans (part of what I so love about Minnesota) staring at the TV and drinking. I wanted to get home to enjoy the communal (word chosen deliberately as code to other lefties...y'all know we're really communists, right?) experience of an election night and was anxious to see election returns start rolling in.

I could have parked in front of a TV monitor in the airport and watched the early returns. But my political addiction pales in the face of my craving for nicotine. So, of course, I was sitting on a dirty sidewalk out front of O'Hare, sucking down diesel fumes and a few Camels.

When you have a lighter at the airport you are the most popular boy in town. I got to meet alot of people. 

Best among them was Chelsea Lane. We were compatriots in the pursuit of emphysema.

She's a month shy of 22, cute as hell, in that bouncy, giggly, almost 22 kind of way.

She was killing time waiting for the flight to take her home to Springfield. Taking her home for the first time in nearly two years. She had just spent three months in South Carolina. Three months during which she was debriefed in regard to her 18 month hitch in Iraq.

That'd be Sgt. Chelsea Lane. I don't know what her last name is.

She had signed up before Iraq. She didn't much like being there. She shared, in an eerily calm manner, the stories of sleeping with her weapon, getting hit with gas attacks, and losing more than one of her "combat buddies" in the fighting in Baghdad. A couple of times she got one of those thousand yard stares...the kind where you know the movie in her mind is playing a horror that you cannot, will not, will never be able to conceive of. She was scared while she was there. She is scared to go back and is hoping, hard, that she will not. She was in the Reserve. She hadn't thought part of the deal was a year and a half in combat. Or had hoped. Or something. And I learned, in the course of our short conversation, that scared or not, she was braver than I will ever be. 

When she spoke of her friends, her comrades in arms, she would bounce and glow and act like a 21 year old girl talking about her very best friends. Except these were friends she shared blood and bullets with. Some were friends who came back scarred forever, some came back with flags draped over the wodden boxes bearing them home. And though she is scared to go back...though her experience there led the Army to put her under a psychiatrist's care (to their credit this is something they are doing with most returning soldiers) during her debriefing...if called, she will of course return. She will return because it is her duty. She will return because she is a soldier. She will return because, "all of 'em are still over there and if they need me I'm sure as hell gonna be there for 'em."

So, last night once I finally parked myself in front of one of the airport TV's...once I made it home to the company of friends and acquaintances and warmth and joy...once I got to drink in a long awaited and (to my mind) much needed shift in the nation's political landscape, much to the enjoyment of the LME posse...and as I put my head on the pillow to fall blissfully asleep...I did not think of the 'wave' or the Pelosi Era or the outcome of the First 100 Hours or Tester or Webb or any of that.

I thought, instead, about a young, pretty woman with a gorgeous smile that could quickly be doused by a thousand yard stare. I thought about her as she gathered her things to go to her gate, twitchily awaiting the last leg of the long journey home to family and friends. To the way her face lit up when she said "Nice talkin' to you. And Happy Thanksgiving!" as she turned to disappear into the terminal.

I thought, as I closed my eyes, of the happiest thing I had encountered on a politically happy day. A happy thing that made this whole election yee-hah seem, well, stupid and trivial.

Chelsea Lane is going home.

I Love YouTube

Grace

               

I originally posted this over on LiberalMediaElite.com. I know it's got a political undercurrent, maybe even an overcurrent (assuming there is such a thing). But, I think it's important and I hope you'll give it a look.

Michael J. Fox was interviewed by George Stephanopolous in a segment that ran this weekend on This Week. Various websites have run clips of the interview. This link takes you to the full piece. It's long, just over 24 minutes. And, at times, it's hard to watch as Michael's stress level goes up and his symptoms become more pronounced. But if you've ever wanted to see an embodiment of "grace under fire" this is it. Watching any part of the interview gives you an idea but you cannot appreciate the full impact of this man's struggle against his disease and the physical and emotional burden it puts on him...without a word of complaint from Michael.

I know it's long. But watch it. I knew, as I was viewing it just now, that I was seeing powerful television. I did not know the full extent to which it had hammered me until it was over and I started crying.

            

9/11

More human remains discovered today at Ground Zero.

Jesus.

I feel so clean

Hey, y'all.

I've been wanting to kill off my political rantings here for quite sometime, keep this as my personal gig, but sheer laziness has kept me from firing up a new blog.

My homeboy Matthew Foster has, for awhile, owned the domain liberalmediaelite.com. Lovely name, yes?

Matthew, Natascha, Kevin, and my ownself are banding together to blog politically over yonder at liberalmediaelite.com.

Why, you ask, should you read it? As Matthew so succinctly put it, 'cause there just aren't enough political blogs and, as a special bonus, we say fuck alot.

Family Values

Carol Sherwood, the wife of Pennsylvania Republican Don Sherwood, issued a support letter on behalf of her husband's campaign (the letter and mailling was paid for by his campaign and the actual mailing...stuffing it into envelopes, etc, was done by his staff). No big deal, yes? No. Big deal.

Don Sherwood has admitted to a five year affair with a woman in her 20's (he's in his 60's) that ended when she called police to come to her aid because he tried to choke her to death. he claimed it was a big misunderstanding...that he was giving her a back rub. We can safely call this a spectacularly large divergence of opinion. She filed a civil suit that was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. The choking and other allegations of abuse made by his concubine are controversial (the Congressman denies them), the affair and it's length, is not.

So, his wife issuing a letter saying that his opponent is "not the kind of man I want representing me in Congress" (as opposed to your husband who fucked around with a college girl for five years and then tried to kill her)...

...well...it's kinda funny.

And really, really creepy.

P.S: According to www.electoral-vote.com Sherwood is getting creamed in the Pennsylvania 10th district race.

Sex Ring?

Chris Shays is losing it. He was, in my mind, one of the more admirable and level-headed Republican officeholders in the country. But he's definitely coming uncorked. Dig it, he calls AbuGhraib a "sex ring" not torture. It carries the implication that the prisoners were there on an opt-in basis.

He ends saying we follow the Geneva Conventions, period. 'Course that had more meaning before his Prez from his Party said he got to interpret the GC however the hell he wanted. Prior to that, though, whether Abu Ghraib was torture or a sex ring, it would have violated the Geneva Conventions.

Enjoy...

The Boy King - a sadly continuing series

From the Boston Globe: "Three US senators yesterday blasted President Bush for claiming that he has the power to disobey a new law requiring that anyone he nominates to be director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency be experienced in disaster relief.

"After signing the law last week, Bush issued a statement saying that under his interpretation of the Constitution, Congress cannot set limits on who he nominates as FEMA director."

Well...since I still have nightmares about the bloated bodies I saw in New Orleans the week after Katrina hit I have got to say that I don't give a fuck about the Boy King feeling that his imperial power is being infringed upon.

You shit head. Congress finally found the cajones to take steps to avert another Heck-of-a-Job cronyism nightmare. Of course you issued a signing statement. Of course, you said you'd ignore it.

Anyone want to take bets that the embattled Senate Republicans who accidently found the conscience to pass this bill have the stones to push back now that Little Lord Bushie has told them he's going to ignore it?

Doubtful. I say that not out of general derision for Senate Republicans...well, I do, but I've got a reason in this instance. While Bush should have the sense to show some fucking humility on this particular topic bear in mind that Senate Republicans, who control the committee that would confirm Bush's nomination for FEMA, can make this a requirement without legislation simply by having the balls not to confirm the next crony nominee he sends their way. But they wanted to outsource that responsibility back to the guy who already had shown he doesn't think it necessary. In the same way the Senate (Dems included) outsourced the responsibility for declaring war in the obscene vote to give the Prez a metaphoric blank check on Iraq way back in 2002.

I Understand The Stakes

I'm watching the Prez at his press conference in the Rose Garden. Let's recap:

1.) North Korea - it was Clinton's fault. His policy didn't work. So I changed the strategy.
2.) Iraq - I understand the stakes.
3.) Iran - I understand the stakes.

As to point #1...um...no bombs made or tested under Clinton. Bomb made and tested under Bush. I dunno. Sounds kinda like the strategic shift didn't work. Doesn't matter if Clinton's didn't work.

As to #'s 2 and 3...I would expect the President of the United States to understand the stakes of actions and activity in the Middle East. I don't particularly care that he understands the stakes. I expect the President to do something to address those stakes.

I cannot get over, and this ain't the first time, how petulant and angry he gets...and this was before anyone asked a question, as if he was pissed that he even had to explain himself. He shouts. He furrows. His face scrunches up.

You're the President, dude. You work for us. Not only are we allowed to question your choices, we're supposed to.

Tastes Like Chicken

Foley, Foley, Foley...

The gift that keeps on giving.

Thank you, Santa.

In a later post we'll discuss how the bumbling Republican Leadership reaction to the scandal is a clear sign that their support for outsourcing has come back to bite them in the ass. I am convinced they've outsourced political strategy and communications to the Democrats. 'Cause my, oh my, how they've blown this up worse than it needed to be.

But...first lets have fun with the ranking House Pedophile.