October in New England: Conflicting Signs, Competing Realities

This town where I live, this quintessential small New England village is beautiful in the Fall. Sometimes I forget how beautiful. Yesterday was a crisp clean October afternoon. It was Saturday and I was driving through town to get my groceries for the weekend. I was away from my computer and out into the real world. Comforted by the surprise of the cool fresh air and the reassuring solidity of this unchanging historical reality which surrounds me. Clean white wood frame houses, tall slender church steeples rising up into a cloudless blue sky. And then there are the people, some of them my friends, up on ladders, painting their houses, in their yards raking leaves or playing with the kids. I wave at some of them as I pass and they wave back. Joggers jogging, lost in their zone. Young lovely mothers pushing baby carriages, thinking about the future.

I forgot how beautiful it all is. How beautiful and powerful and overwhelming this particular reality can be. I'm on my way to the store and I'm driving through this great undeniable reality, and I am comforted by its immutability.

There is of course another reality, an alternative reality, a competing reality, that not-so-reassuring reality I left behind me on my computer. And it seems so far behind me now, so foreign to this glorious day, so infinitely removed from this crisp bright Saturday afternoon. I comfort myself with the thought that that other reality I left behind me is nothing more than a virtual reality, an insubstantial two-dimensional reality, that exists only on my computer screen or in my overwrought imagination. It's not a real reality like the one I'm out in now. It has not the same weight nor credibility of this sumptuous October afternoon in New England. I am temporarily comforted by this thought. I think about those dark, looming existential threats that I left back home on that now-darkened computer screen, and they seem as inconsequential and amorphous as children's fantasies, as foolish and spooky as Halloween ghosts. What power do they have here? I ask myself. What have these hypothetical specters of creeping sharia and pending Socialistic doom to do with this real tangible world I see around me now? Do these people who I pass on my way to the store look frightened or vulnerable? If I stopped and asked one of them if they were living in fear of al Qaeda right now, what would they answer? If I stopped and asked that man who is raking leaves in his front yard if he's worried about America losing its national sovereignty or the encroachment os Islam into our Judeo/Christian culture, what would he say? These are the normal people living in their normal world. That alternative reality is as absurd and out-of-place here as a Transylvanian vampire.

I take in a deep breath of New England air and smile. I feel better now. I'm back in the real reality. It's a beautiful day and I'm on my way to the store to get groceries for the weekend and I'm happy and healthy and I'm not in any pain, and that other reality is as faraway and impotent as some old movie I saw long ago. To waste my life worrying about the threats from that other reality is as foolhardy as wasting my life worrying about being abducted by UFOs.

But then I start seeing the signs. Just one or two at first. Then more and more of them, until they seem to be everywhere. They are the signs of Obama. And they are from that other reality I thought I had left behind but hadn't. And my Saturday afternoon is suddenly not so pleasant anymore, not quite so invulnerable as it was just a minute ago. I had asked myself, How could all this that I see out my window, how could all this great American reality actually change? And the answer is in the signs. How many people in how many different worlds looked around them in history and asked these same great questions? How could all this change? It is incomprehensible.

Then I see another little sign, tacked up on a telephone pole. An innocuous little sign, weather beaten and torn at the edges -- it's been up there for quite a while now. "No room in this town for hate" it reads. And I shudder to myself. This is the sign that advertises our vulnerabilities and our weaknesses. This is what makes this beautiful little town of mine so friendly and pleasant and so blind to the steady encroachment of that other less friendly reality. We have no room here for hate. And without hate we are vulnerable to those who hate us. We are, this sign proclaims, a community determined to be tolerant and just. We are fair-minded and trusting. We don't just welcome the Other into our midst, we eagerly embrace them. And if you are different than us, we say, if your culture is different than ours, and if your values are different from ours, no matter, we will embrace you just the same. Our survival is secondary to our tolerance.

It occurs to me that these different signs are all coming from the same places, these Obama signs and these 'no hate' signs. They were put up by the same people. They are making the same statement and they are proud of their statement. They want the world to know that we care, that we recognize our culpability in the evils that have beset mankind and this great green planet of ours, and we are going to make amends. We are going to change. You just wait and see.

These are the competing realities that are fighting for the dominance of my soul on this beautiful Saturday afternoon. I am in the world of the reality of the normal people for a little while, and sometimes I feel so out of place, my bleak alarmist pessimism seems as fantastic and incongruous here in this bright sunlight as that misplaced Transylvanian vampire. If only I could stay in this reality forever...

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Every Day Heroes

Meet Staff Sgt. Jo Turner AND Spc. Cheryl Ivanov:

The Story:

When Staff Sgt. Turner and Spc. Ivanov first deployed to Afghanistan as combat medics attached to an Afghan National Army (ANA) brigade, they had a hard time earning respect -- especially from Afghan soldiers, who had never seen women in combat before. Yet all that changed as they proved themselves time and again during high-risk missions and during life-saving operations in the midst of battle.

During one patrol, Kandak soldiers were ambushed by insurgents; without hesitation, Turner, who was driving a Humvee for embedded trainers, drove her vehicle directly into the firefight while another soldier manned the weapon in the turret and helped cut off the enemy’s direct line of fire. In another incident, the team responded to an attack on a nearby Kuchi camp. Upon arrival, they saw that instead of hitting the intended American base, insurgents had hit the camp instead, wounding and killing several civilians. Turner and Ivanov quickly began providing medical care to the civilians despite the rockets still crashing down in the area.

Besides providing medical support for the ANA, Afghan police, and U.S. personnel during missions, Turner and Ivanov serve as mentors to ANA healthcare providers and conduct classes for Kandak medics. They also serve in a humanitarian role by coordinating medical assistance for Afghans in nearby villages - an opportunity to make friends with locals and gather intelligence, which has led to actionable information. Ivanov and Turner have both earned Combat Medical Badges for their work under fire. ( here and here)

And in a National Guard story:

Oregon Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Jo Turner (left) and Spc. Cheryl Ivanov are battle buddies who stick together and help each other cope with the emotional and mental stress of combat operations in Afghanistan. (Photo by 1st Lt. Amanda Straub, 41st Brigade Combat Team)

Breaking gender barriers in war:

Female combat medics earn respect from Afghan Army

By 1st Lt. Amanda Straub
41st Brigade Combat Team

GARDEZ, Afghanistan (1/26/2007) – Oregon Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Jo Turner, and Spc. Cheryl Ivanov have found a niche in a "Good Ol’ Boys’ Club" while serving in Afghanistan.

Turner, from Springfield, Ore., and Ivanov, from Coos Bay, are female combat medics deployed with Oregon’s 41st Brigade Combat Team. They are attached to the Afghan National Army’s (ANA) 3rd Infantry Kandak, 1st Brigade, 203rd Corps. They provide medical support during missions.

Both women have earned Combat Medical Badges because of their work under fire. They drive armored Humvees for the embedded trainers assigned to the 3rd Kandak during patrols and provide medical support to the ANA, Afghan police, U.S. military personnel and civilians.

Turner and Ivanov also mentor ANA healthcare providers and conduct classes for Kandak medics. They say that because they are women, it was a challenge to earn the respect as an embedded trainer among the Afghan soldiers....

This really IS a great write-up, and you can find the rest on these two Every Day Heroes here.

Thank YOU, Staff Sgt. Turner and Spc. Ivanov for your service.

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Myth vs Fact

Myth	Fact
Islam: Religion of peace.	Malik's Muwatta Book 21, Number 21.19.49: Yahya related to me from Malik from Ibn Shihab from Humayd ibn Abd ar-Rahman ibn Awf from Abu Hurayra that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Whoever hands over two of any type of property in the way of Allah is called to the Garden, with the words 'O slave of Allah! This is good!' Whoever is among the people of prayer, is called from the gate of prayer. Whoever is among the people of jihad is called from the gate of jihad. Whoever is among the people of sadaqa, is called from the gate of sadaqa. Whoever is among the people of fasting, is called from the gate of the well-watered. (Bab ar-Rayyan)." Abu Bakr as-Siddiq said, "Messenger of Allah! Is it absolutely necessary that one be called from one of these gates? Can someone be called from all of these gates?" He said, "Yes, and I hope you are among them ."
Tafsir

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What the World Thinks of America: One American's Response

What the World Thinks of America

Foreign poll favours Democrat but shows hostility to US

From The Guardian.co.uk
Julian Glover
Friday October 17 2008

People around the world are pinning their hopes on Barack Obama in next month's presidential election, according to an international survey published today. It shows that America can no longer count on the friendship even of its closest neighbours and allies after eight years of the Bush presidency. Only a minority in the countries surveyed describe relations with the US as friendly.

Julian Glover reports that a newspaper poll around the world on the US election favours Obama.
The research, carried out by eight leading newspapers including the Guardian, finds overwhelming support for the Democratic candidate. He would win by a landslide in every country surveyed, including Britain, where he is ahead of the Republican candidate John McCain by 64% to 15%.

Support for Obama is stronger than backing for John Kerry in 2004, when the Guardian participated in a similar polling exercise. Then, the Democrat was the preferred candidate of 50% of British people.

The poll, conducted by papers including France's Le Monde, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun, Canada's La Presse and Mexico's Reforma, also shows that opinion of America has dropped sharply since the start of the decade. In France 75% say their view of the US has got worse or much worse since President George Bush replaced Bill Clinton in 2001; in Canada 77%; in Switzerland 86% and in Japan 62%.

People everywhere have turned to Obama. He would win by a simple majority in six of the eight countries surveyed, including Canada, where he leads McCain by 70%-14%, and Japan, where the margin is 61%-13%.

French voters are even more hostile to the Republican candidate, who gets the backing of only 5%, against 68% who hope Obama will win.

In British results, from ICM/Guardian polling, 67% of voters say their opinion of the US is worse than it was before the Bush presidency began. Only 21% say it has improved.

But the special relationship endures. People in Britain are more likely than in any of the other seven countries surveyed to say relations are friendly: 49% think this is the case, against 18% who say relations are tense and 30% who say they are neutral.

Support for an Obama presidency is strong among all types of voters in Britain - 64% want him to win. He is most popular among more prosperous voters, where he has 71% backing, and least popular among people at the bottom of the socio-economic scale, 54% of whom want him to become president.

Elsewhere, only in Poland and Mexico, both emerging democracies, is there any hesitation about the prospect of an Obama victory. In Poland he leads by 43% to 26% and in Mexico by 46% to 13%.

Many people now fear rather than warm to America. In France 25% of voters say relations with the US are tense, against 38% who say they are friendly and 39% who think they are neutral. In Japan only 16% say friendship and 19% tension, with 62% neutral. In no country does a majority think relations should be described as friendly.

Even America's two neighbouring states are sceptical of US intentions. Only 23% of Mexicans describe relations as friendly and 28% say they are tense. In Canada, which has just re-elected a Conservative minority government, voters are strongly supportive of a Democratic presidency; 43% say relations with the US are friendly and 14% tense.

The survey also finds strong opposition to any attack on Iran and - in the six countries questioned on the issue - majority support for a rapid withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
The possibility of military intervention in Iran is opposed by a majority everywhere except in Poland and Britain.
In Britain 47% say the next president should specifically rule out an attack, against 42% who say options should be left open.

Read the rest here

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One American's Response

Obama and the Peace of Vichy

When the German Army mounted its Western Offensive in 1940, it had 2.5 million men and 2,500 tanks. Whereas the French Army had the ability to mobilize 5 million men, the German army supported by motorized infantry units and aircraft easily secured victory. Germany's subjugation of France took just six weeks, and on June 14, 1940 German troops marched into Paris.

The shocking and ignoble surrender was made official when the French formally signed the infamous Second Compiegne Armistice on June 22, 1940. Under the terms of the armistice the Germans were to continue to occupy Northern France, while the southern unoccupied third of France was ostensibly left free to be governed by the French. A collaborationist Government was formed under the aged WWI War hero, Marshal Phillipe Petain, and its new capitol was to be in the small town of Vichy, in central France, a name forever to be associated with her dishonor. Pétain and the Vichy regime willfully collaborated with the German occupation to a high degree. The French police and the state Milice (militia) organized raids to capture Jews and others considered "undesirables" by the Germans in both the northern and southern zones.

The text from the Guardian article above is highlighted in yellow for a reason. This is why they hate America and love Obama. They hate America because we are unwilling to subject ourselves to the tyrants of this world like Hitler and Ahmadinejad. And this means war. And war means fighting and the disruption of civilian lives and the possibility of death. For some, the fear of the consequences of defending themselves is more onerous than the shame of capitulation. They have therefore embraced the cowardice of Chamberlain as their role model, and attempted to disguise their weaknesses by pretending that they are some higher form of civilized behavior called Multiculturalism.

And as it was then, so it is once again. Resignation, accomodation, and capitulation. That's the tried and true European plan for dealing with the tyrants of this world, the Hitler's and the Mussolinis, and now the mad mullahs of Iran and their apocalyptic visions of nuclear destruction. And America -- that is, that once proud and bold America, that may just be slipping from our grasp -- is thwarting their plan of unending appeasement by its promises -- indeed, by its threats -- to intervene, to once again fight for its survival.

So they want their Obama. Their universalist grand appeaser, the open friendly face of compromise, the last great hope of the fragile status quo. The world, this same cowardly Old World that still speaks so grandly of its noble traditions of honor and glory, yet so easily bartered its integrity for a coward's peace, is unhappy with us Yanks once again. We're rocking the boat.

They don't hate us because of Bush; or even because of Iraq; they hate us because we are one of the last bastions of hope for freedom and democracy in the world and we're willing to fight for it, to put our lives on the line for it. We're an embarrassing reminder, we represent something they have long ago abandoned: manly honor and moral integrity. So they want an nonthreatening Muslim-friendly Chamberlain to represent them in the world court and to sue for peace with the Devil.

For at least two generations now we Americans have been taking it on the chin from ignorant, self-righteous student activists and disillusioned psuedo-intellectuals from here at home and from around the world, brought up on that pervasive academic witches brew of those Marxist-driven, Moscow-coordinated, sanctimonious and cynically manipulated student protest movements of the 60s. We -- and you -- are now living with the bitter fruits of their destructive labors. Cynicism and disillusionment have become a refined art form throughout Old Europe and the UK, the motley uniform of the latest anti-capitalist, anti-American, antiwar avant-garde. To be wise is to be cynical, distrustful, and anti-American.

To be wise in 2008 is to vote for Obama and appease the Devil and hope for a few more years of diminishing freedom and tenuous peace. It's an old familiar hope, an old familiar plan. It's called the Peace of Vichy. - rg

Excerpts form The New Barbarians and Resignation, Accomodation and Capitulation.

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Poor Little Rich Michelle

Cross posted from Monkey in the Middle

“I know we’re spending — I added it up for the first time — we spend between the two kids, on extracurriculars outside the classroom, we’re spending about $10,000 a year on piano and dance and sports supplements and so on and so forth,” Mrs. Obama tells the women. “And summer programs. That’s the other huge cost. Barack is saying, ‘Whyyyyyy are we spending that?’ And I’m saying, ‘Do you know what summer camp costs?’”

Poor Michelle Obama. She and her candidate hubby Barack only make a combined income of $481,000 a year. Yet they can't afford piano lessons, sports lessons, dance class and summer camp for their daughters.

Poor, poor Michelle. Her candidate hubby had only 2 best sellers, bringing in millions of dollars in royalties. Yet they are having trouble saving for their daughters' college education.

What will they do?

Trying to look like a middle-class family, Michelle Obama made the statement above. But let us look at the facts.

FACT: They make $481,000 in combined income. This puts them in the top 2% of all US taxpayers. Middle class they are not.

FACT: Michelle Obama doesn't do housework. She has had maids, nannies, and gardners. The average American can only dream of those luxuries.

FACT: Michelle and Barack Obama went to the best schools in the nation. Universities that cost $50,000 a year. Most Americans if they go to college, can only afford city or state schools.

FACT: Michelle and Barack Obama send their children to the best (expensive) private schools in the Chicago area. Most Americans send their children to public schools because they cannot afford the tuition to the private schools.

FACT: The Obamas are rich! They are not middle class. They do not struggle to make ends meet. They do not worry how they can afford gas and food, let alone the luxuries of piano and dance lessons for their children.

Michelle I have some advise for you. I know how you can afford all the luxuries for your daughters. You can send them to the YMCA. They have dance, music and sports all in one place. They have reasonable fees and a great staff to help you. You can even join and use their gym equipment instead of the expensive health club you and Barack use. But then again, with the elitist attitude you and Barack have, you'd probably decide not to. After all you would have to associate with real Americans. The Middle Class and poor.

UPDATE: (Hat tip to Jem of America Needs Sarah Palin) Since writing this, it has come to my attention the indulgences that Michelle Obama has.

Michelle Obama ordered lobster apps, two whole steamed lobsters, Iranian caviar, and Champagne at the Waldorf Wednesday afternoon when she was there with her dear hubby for a meeting.

You can view the room service check here. And they want to be considered Middle Class? Not in this plane of existence.

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