Remembering is not enough

Here's why:

[R]emembering is not enough. Beneath the beauty of the lilies lies the ugliness of war. For the act of memorializing to be truly honorable, that harsh reality must be kept central. The human longing for an end to war must be revivified generation in and generation out - not just as a dream, but as a mandate. The waste, futility, and cruelty of war must focus our perceptions of it.

Just because we necessarily make something noble of war, by thinking gratefully of those who served to the point of death, does not remove the indictment of what killed them. War is a crime. Among its victims are its heroes. Yet in the modern era, they have been vastly outnumbered by men, women, and children for whom war was only catastrophic, in no way valorous. Memorial Day belongs to that legion of the dead also.

It's the ending of an article by James Carroll published in the Boston Globe.

And it's heartbreaking.
~~~

Something to think about this Memorial Day

I've read two articles today about the hugely distressing rate of suicides among both active military personnel and veterans. One is entitled "Memorial Day -- Remembering Military Suicides" and here's part of what it says:

How does it happen? After surviving harrowing combat, why would a young soldier decide to take his or her own life? The Army is spending $50 million to figure it out, and we may get an answer in a couple of years. But for some, that will be too late.
...
These soldiers who want to kill themselves are imprisoned by their experiences. Terrified by nightmares, they can't get out of the fog created by drugs and medications designed to alleviate their pain. Their intimate relationships fall apart, and they get into trouble with the law. Their lives spiral out of control right in front of them. They get talked to, and subjected to lots of lectures about responsible behavior.

Another is entitled 10 Things We Must Remember on Memorial Day and these statistics are offered:

Every day, five U.S. soldiers attempt suicide, a 500 percent increase since 2001.
...
Every day 18 U.S. veterans attempt suicide, more than four times the national average. Of the 30,000 suicides each year in the U.S., 20 percent are committed by veterans, though veterans make up only 7.6 percent of the population.
...
Female veteran suicide is rising at a rate higher than male veteran suicides.

These are terribly disturbing statistics. And we need to be disturbed.
~~~

In memory of ALL who served and died

Quote of the Day

This one is from the BBC website:

There is no confusion about this. Israel attacked the Gaza activists, not the other way round. They attacked an unarmed ship in international waters.

-- Andrew Collingwood

So when are we going to quit supporting and justifying Israel's actions no matter what?
~~~

A little history goes a long way

Oh, my. Here's an article by Tom Turnipseed (whom I've admired for some time now) entitled Immigrants R Us . I simply cannot begin to do it justice with an excerpt. It's short and easy to read so please do go on over there.

The article is also generating quite a number of comments that are thought-provoking.
~~~

This says it all, folks:

On this Memorial Day weekend, I want to ask all you xenophobic people out there who support the draconian Arizona anti-immigration law the following: Did our fighting men and women suffer and die so that someone could stop you on the street and say, "Show me your papers, Comrade"????

Oh? You think it won't happen to you because you're white? (Notice what a racist attitude that is, friend?)

Well, how about this: "First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the...."

You know the rest of it.

If you don't, look right here.

There are different versions, by the way, of that famous quotation. You can read about its origins and history right here.
~~~
UPDATE - Here are a some links that might be of interest:

Xenophobia

Draconian

Comrade
~~~

Saturday limerick blogging!

This one is a classic:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean -
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

Don't know who wrote it. Have always truly appreciated it!
~~~

Something about water and hope

Would you like to read a genuinely hope-inspiring and very short article? Then I'd like to recommend one published on Alternet entitled "Saving Water, the (Really) Old-Fashioned Way".

Reading this will take almost no time and you truly won't regret it!
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Something interesting about the oil

From an article in The Guardian entitled "The Real Cost of Cheap Oil":

Big Oil's real horror was not the spillage, which was common enough, but because it happened so close to the US. Millions of barrels of oil are spilled, jettisoned or wasted every year without much attention being paid.
...
Big Oil is usually a poor country's most powerful industry, and is generally allowed to act like a parallel government. In many countries it simply pays off the judges, the community leaders, the lawmakers and the ministers, and it expects environmentalists and local people to be powerless. Mostly it gets away with it.
...
The only reason oil costs $70-$100 a barrel today, and not $200, is because the industry has managed to pass on the real costs of extracting the oil. If the developing world applied the same pressure on the companies as Obama and the US senators are now doing, and if the industry were forced to really clean up the myriad messes it causes, the price would jump and the switch to clean energy would be swift.

I wonder how many people realize this. I certainly didn't.
~~~

Ah, technology!

Ya gotta admit, this is funny:

With the iPhone in my right hand and the iPad in my left hand, it's like having two guns blazing.

-- Masayoshi Son, Softbank chief executive, at a launch event for the iPad, which just went on sale outside the U.S.

I found it right here.
~~~

Quote of the Day

This one is from Sojourners:

I’ve bled for my country, I’ve sweated for my country, I’ve cried myself to sleep for my country -- which is a lot more than some people who are passing judgment on me have done. I would rather go sit in prison than go to Iraq.

- Patrick Hart, U.S. Army sergeant with almost 10 years on active duty, who went to Canada rather than face a second deployment to Iraq.

There's something tearingly sad about this.
~~~

A quote of the day

Again, from the TIME magazine website:

I don't think there is any doubt, unfortunately.

-- Carol Browner, White House energy adviser, saying the Gulf of Mexico oil leak is the worst spill in U.S. history

I wonder what the true long term consequences of this will be. I am so far persuaded that they will be quite dire.
~~~
UPDATE: Please go right now and read an AP article entitled "Workers describe failures on oil rig". Here's the first part:

As the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig burned around him, Chris Pleasant hesitated, waiting for approval from his superiors before activating the emergency disconnect system that was supposed to slam the oil well shut at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

The delay may have cost critical seconds. When Pleasant and his co-workers at rig owner

Transocean finally got the go-ahead to throw the so-called deadman's switch, they realized there was no hydraulic power to operate the machinery.

Five weeks after the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers, the blown-out well continues to gush oil, pouring at least 7 million gallons of crude into the Gulf.

Dozens of witness statements obtained by The Associated Press show a combination of equipment failure and a deference to the chain of command impeded the system that should have stopped the gusher before it became an environmental disaster.

There's more. And it's both painful and disturbing. Very.
~~~

For your edification:

Today's QuickVote

This suprises me, actually. It's from the CNN web site:

Should the federal government push BP aside and take over the Gulf oil spill cleanup?

No - 56%
Yes - 44%

Seems to me that BP is making a dog's breakfast of the whole thing. And the stakes are very high indeed.
~~~