Such a week

Julia Child

Gay Marriage in Calif.

Prepping for the Korea trip

Planning for the move back to SLO, when I get back from Korea

Planning out the next year (I may get to go to Monterey for 6 Mos)

Pondering some things

So, this may get a bit long.

Julia Child died yesterday. Unlike Bresson I knew she was still among the quick. I never cared for her voice, but her quiet passions, and her cooking, were inspirations to me on the subject of food.

Which is part of why I grow peppers, and basil, and shallots, and tomatoes,and lavender, and onions, and melons, and squash, and corn, and...

She understood food, and eating. Not for her the tin-fiddles of fat-free pudding. Eat less, but eat well.

Above all eat well.

Gay Marriage

The Court did the right thing. I don't like it, but the question was not on the consitutionality of California's marriage laws, it was about separation of powers. I may (in fact I do) think Newsom was right. I cheered to see the people getting married, and I knew this day would come.

It had to. Ponder this... Newsom is the executive branch. He did what I was decrying Bush's legal counsel for saying Bush could do; set aside a law with which he disagreed. As precedent it's horrible. It means the executive is also the judicial. It means that Lockyear, or any local DA, can go to his boss, the Governor, the Mayor, and convince him that setting a law aside is a good idea.

Or the city council can. So long as the law doesn't touch federal issues the 10th amendment ought to cover them. It's an invitation to anarchy.

Until then If this be error
The other stuff, well Korea is three weeks. I get back on the 6th of Sept., I have a PT Test, a russian test and perhaps a physical, in the week which follows and then Maia and I head back to SLO, Baby snakes, and horses going with us, and someplace to board the dogs (we can't keep them where we'll be when we get there. We'd like to find a place we can, but there is no place for the interim. One more thing to be annoyed with the last landlord about).

If I get the scores I want, on the language test, I apply for Intermediate Russian at DLI, and come home on the weekends. If I get the scores I expect, I go to a two-week refresher, test again, and then apply.

So, that's the present wrap up. I have some more involved/political stuff percolating, but the pot's not full yet.

Me hanging my ass in the wind

Iraq:

An Najaf

Sadr (who bothers me, he bothered me when he was a new face on the block, and nothing I saw while I was in Iraq made him look any better, nothing I've heard of him since has done so either) has tried to give himself a win/win situation (for certain definitions of win).

If he gets killed, he's a martyr and gets some of what he wants. This presupposes a sincere religious belief in behind some of his aims. I think this much is true.

If the US/Iraqis back off, he's pulled an Hussein and lost a battle, but since he's still at large (a la the outcome of the Gulf War, where we stopped when we said we would, did what we promised and he claimed victory because we didn't break the rules and chase him out).

If we attack the Shrine of the Imam Ali, all hell breaks loose and we probably reap a whirlwind of our own sowing.

Can it be fixed?

Maybe. I think I have a solution, but I'm not there and I have a rocker, not a bird, on my shoulders, so the odds are slim I'd be listened to.

Invest it. Go back to renaissance type war.

Clear all the houses in An Najaf which are in 60mm mortar range of the Shrine, take photos of the condition, give a copy to the owners. Promise to pay them if they are damaged (we do this in Germany all the time. If Reforger chews up a guy's field, Finance pays for, cash, on the spot).

Invest the shrine.

Offer an amnesty. If they walk out, right now, we take their picture, fingerprints and parole.

If they wait, they get tried when they come out.

And then we wait. They get hungry, they get thirsty, they can come out. They get arrested, they get tried, and they end up in jail.

Sadr, he gets arrested and then he gets tried. Rebellion, treason, whatever the appropriate charge is. He gets convicted. And he gets prison, so he can't be martyred.

It would be expensive, and it won't be quick, nor all that satisfying, because they will kill Marines. They will destroy houses, and markets and schools and all sorts of things.

But if anything happens to the shrine... they will have done it, and the whirlwind will be less.