Two Out of Three Ain't Bad
For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.
And always look on the bright side of life...
--Bright Side of Life, Eric Idle
And death's the final word
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.
And always look on the bright side of life...
--Bright Side of Life, Eric Idle
_______________
Monty Python's Bright Side -- one of the all-time great crucifixion songs.
Ready for some gallows humor? Enjoy the always spot-on The Onion for their coverage of U.S. troops based in Iraq being transferred to Afghanistan (U.S. Troops Excited to Finally Return to Afghanistan).
To whet your palate:
Ready for some gallows humor? Enjoy the always spot-on The Onion for their coverage of U.S. troops based in Iraq being transferred to Afghanistan (U.S. Troops Excited to Finally Return to Afghanistan).
To whet your palate:
While most remained enthusiastic about the trip home, a small percentage of military personnel expressed concerns that Afghanistan had drastically changed since they were called off to war. Others worried that it would now be awkward to interact with local warlords.
. . .
"We had our entire lives ahead of us," said Tagle, who "pretty much grew up" in Kandahar. "Anything was possible. Going to college. Maybe starting a family someday. Even making the world a better place."
Added Tagle, "It's funny the things you picture for yourself when you're young."
Wicked.
Labels: afghanistan, bright side of life, crucifixion, monty python, the onion
posted by Lisa at 10:10 AM
14 Comments:
Into the darkness and the hush of the night
Slowly the landscape sinks, and fades away,
And with it fade the phantoms of the day,
The ghosts of men and things, that haunt the
light.
The crowd, the clamor, the pursuit, the flight,
The unprofitable splendor and display,
The agitations, and the cares that prey
Upon our hearts, all vanish out of sight.
The better life begins; the world no more
Molests us; all its records we erase
From the dull common-place book of our lives,
That like a palimpsest is written o'er
With trivial incidents of time and place,
And lo! the ideal, hidden beneath, revives.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The better life begins...
Such a comforting poem, Dale -- thank you.
Oh, Lisa,I don't know what to say about the Onion piece. Also, couldn't bring myself to view the clip at the side of the Onion's page, "Army holds annual bring your daughter to war day". Great job on holding up the blog fort while the cat's away! ;-)
Long-time RN,
Thanks! Yeah, even though it's satire, The Onion may be one of the few outlets where you can find the unvarnished truth today.
Afghanistan is the bomb...... actually after eight years of the village idiots in charge, we're just so deliriously happy to simply be charging in the right direction......
paper tiger
Just like a paper tiger
Torn apart by idle hands
Through the helter skelter morning
Fix yourself while you still can
No more ashes to ashes
No more cinders from the sky
All the laws of creation
Tell a dead man how to die
O deserts down below us
And storms up above
Like a stray dog gone defective
Like a paper tiger in the sun
Looking through a broken diamond
To make the past what it should be
Through the ruins and the weather
Capsized boats in the sea
O deserts down below us
And storms up above
Like a stray dog gone defective
Like a paper tiger in the sun
We're just holding on to nothing
To see how long nothing lasts
O deserts down below us
And storms up above
Like a stray dog gone defective
There's one road to the morning
There's one road to the truth
There's one road back to civilization
But there's no road back to you....
Beck
I know a lot of guys in the military who voted for Obama because they were sick of going to Iraq all the time... But there's another front to this whole TWAT (the war against terror) thing and Obama didn't say anything about ending that one.
Grant L and Dale,
Thanks for the poem. I've put you back on the duty roster, nice to hear from you. I worry about you.
Thanks for the TWAT acronym, I like that as much as my construct -pwot. Somehow TWAT has a real ring to it. I'm glad you are on station.
jim
GD,
I respect your opinion immensely BUT what makes you think/say that we're moving in the right direction???????
A retrograde is the only correct manuever in this goat screw.IMHO.
jim
i was being somewhat sarcastic Ranger..... my points spins off the Bush administration's botched strategy against the al qaeda and their host, the taliban.
in 2001-2002 timeframe, taliban lost Afghanistan and al qaeda was on the ropes.
that was accomplished with a very small footprint of boots on the ground and air support for the "northern alliance".
bozo.... i mean dubya and his merry pranksters decided that Iraq was the way to press, drained resources off Afghanistan and "charged" in that direction.
several years later, we are dealing with a resurgent taliban that controls territory in Afghanistan, slop over into a neighboring sovereign country,and al qaeda happily blooming on the border.
now.... to Obama's credit, and unlike the Bush administration, the strategy to deal with this is not DoD-centric..... there are DOS and other aide civilians "surging" into Afghanistan to do the things necessary so the taliban are not an attractive alternative to the GOA.
however, and this is where i have skepticism..... NATO conventional military approach?
i don't think we have good historical precedent for conventional effectiveness in Afghanistan.
but to recap.... if we want to do something militarily against the conditions that spawned 9/11, at least go to the right place.....
that was the thrust.... uncertain outcomes.....
i suspect you might be something bordering on pacifist, however neither Obama nor any other American politician could survive politically without addressing what is happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
after that, there is only the hope for effective prosecution of the campaign.
G.D.,
I fear there may be no "effective prosecution of the campaign" now. Afghanistan is vast, and the goodwill for Americans is shrunken.
I like All's "Paper Tiger", which I thought described GWB, in a way [though he's not my kind of cool]:
"So he can't feel a thing
So killer cool (Stubborn weakness he calls strength)
For him, to bend is to break (Hide the rust beneath new paint)"
G.D.,
A final question: do you have any acquaintance with the "Compass Rose" in SF?
st. francis hotel......The hotel is distinctive for a historic lobby master clock, the first in the Western United States, and celebrity chef Michael Mina's self-named lobby restaurant, which was formerly the Compass Rose and before that the Patent Leather Bar, designed by Timothy L. Pflueger. The hotel displays a small collection of photographic prints produced by Ansel Adams to advertise the old Patent Leather Bar, and keeps some quaint old traditions such as an official hotel historian and the only known silver coin cleaning service for guests.
compass roseanybody that knows lyrics from the All band has to admit to this........
oops.... that last url got all screwed up....
there are two there: compass rose andadmission of All lyrics......
G.D.,
Thanks for the great Iggy vid! (Was that Japantown off to the side?)
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