messiestobjects

Heave A Sigh Of {enter appropriate positive/negative emotive response here}, As Istanbul And I Are Now Officially Becoming Acquainted.

So I don't have to kill anything. I made it! WOO HOO. I can't tell you how nice it has been to just wander around the streets of a real city... stopping in some random little shop to buy a sweater because my dumbass forgot to bring one, having a cappuccino, not thinking about the possibility of getting bombed. I made it!!!! It's almost too good to be true. Istanbul is a real sweet city, too. I mean, I arrived in the afternoon, and it's really cold and wet and I didn't get a chance to really see anything real yet, but so far it's dollars to turds better than Interzone.
A huge weight has lifted from my shoulders. I'm back in the real world. I'm actually sitting in a lovely little cafe, having a glass of wine... I forgot about civilization.
So that's all... likely I won't be posting all that often, as I don't have a comfortable little spot in my own space anymore, and anyway I'll be too busy travelling. So say goodbye to the era of painfully near-daily random subjects and pointless sermonizing, at least for the time being, as we re-enter the mode of sporadic travellogues.

No Witty Title This Time. If I Am Still In Baghdad Tomorrow Night, I'm Killing Something, And Singing 'Happy Birthday To Me.'

So, this time, it really could possibly be my last post from Baghdad. No, really, it seriously could be. In fact I'm almost %90 sure that it is. My last post, I mean, from here. If it's not, more sensitive readers may wish to avoid this site for a few days, as the only reason it is not my last post from Iraq is that I missed the plane again, and any further posts from Baghdad are likely to be laced with extremely angry, profane, shocking, and inexcusable language, which I suspect could burn the eyes right out of your sockets. You have been duly forewarned.
So this is a hell of a way to spend my 34th... yes yes please comment on how much you wish me a happy birthday. Please? Seriously, everybody who reads this has to pay the price of admission by saying happy birthday in the comments of this one, and be creative. Don't just say 'Happy Birthday'. Say instead, 'Have a Happy Birthday while you're stuck in Baghdad, sucka!' And so forth. Since my birthday will consist of just sitting by myself on a couch and reading junk on the internet, as I have all week, with a pit of nervousness about getting the hell away from here tomorrow, I could really use the encouragement. If you're reading this one for the first time a week or a month or a year from now, and you've totally missed my birthday, it's not too late. You may still say happy birthday to me, and I will credit you retro-actively. You're welcome.
I wish that I had something to write about Baghdad, here in my last post while I'm here. Something insightful, or stupid, or whatever. But I've been holed up in an Army happy camp all week, and have had little contact with any of the things which keep me in touch with what's going on in the Interzone, or with my Iraqi friends. I do know that Karrada street is still on lockdown, almost one week after that soldier went missing. Which makes me wonder if he was really what the lockdown was all about in the first place. I've heard rumours that they are going to keep that part of the city under wraps for a full month... weird. Anyway, I already tried to do a final post from Baghdad last Monday night, about the emotions I was feeling on the verge of leaving forever, and look where that got me. So that will have to serve, and this past week will have to be classified as filler. Just killing time, and amusing myself. See you in Turkey! Or else...!!!!

OK Fine, I'll Tell You How It's Going, But You'll Be Sorry You Asked.

Yeah... sorry about yesterday's sermon. It was a tad preachy, I know, and I was certainly out of my depth. I feel pretty strongly about the subject, but I'm not certain how the subject feels about me! Anyway, I got to put up a picture of a hot astronette, and that makes it totally worth it.
I managed to get my flight to Turkey rescheduled for this Tuesday, so we'll try again. I'm a bit anxious, though, because Yahoo weather calls for thunderstorms in Baghdad on Tuesday, and often when there's bad weather, such as light rain or dust particles, Iraqi pilots get nervous and cancel flights. It's as if a light smattering of water is the equivalent of the 'Great White Death' blizzard of '49 over here! I swear if I don't get on a plane again this Tuesday, someone is getting... well, I'm going to misdirect my petty anger at someone completely undeserving, I'm sure. Oh, and, Tuesday is the 31st. Halloween. So that's good.
My Aunt Mary wrote to tell me that "instead of complaining about late night comedy, why don't you actually spend some time writing about your future plans, your goals, what it is that you are actually thinking about doing?" Ouch! Well, I knew I was in over my head with trying to defend Space Tourism. But still, I don't have to be told to shut up and start talking about myself twice, so here it is, Future Plans: Turkey for the month of November. Germany to see friends for Krampus fest the first week of December, and possibly Egypt on a group hypertrek afterwards. And ultimately Thailand. My goal in Thailand is to do some serious beach time, and get lasik eye surgery. Thailand is cheap, so I could conceivably spend months there and not spend very much money at all, which makes it the perfect place to relax and figure out what's next. There are a few other major events in between, which I have refrained from divulging here because I don't want to jinx anything... I think I mentioned several posts back of my distaste for talking about things too soon, and there are so many things that could go wrong that I'm really not going to test the fates here. You will just have to wait until said events are over and done with before I say a word, and if said events fail to come to pass, you may never know what happened, and that's just the way it has to be! Right. Cryptic enough for you? Sorry about that... ask a question I don't want to answer, get a vague response. It's almost mathematical. I'm rather pathological that way. Honestly, you'll all be much better off if you just stop caring, really. It's not worth it. I'm weird and narcissistic, and there are better ways to spend your time.
In other news about me... well I was given the oportunity for one final good deed in Baghdad, so I have to hope I'm not a total lost cause just yet. I was talking to the manager of Freedom Rest, and she mentioned that she was having a hard time finding good people to work here. I told her that I had recently been forced to lay off several Iraqis from GBG, who were likely still looking for a job, people I'd known for years and knew to be good people. So the upshot is I made a few calls and got the last few ladies who were unable to work up north in Kurdistan jobs here at Freedom Rest! So I'm feeling pretty smug and proud of myself, which means I'll be getting hit by a shovel to the face at any moment. Stay tuned for a detailed description of the scars which the spade will leave on my nose.

Sermon On The Mount Of Space Tourism And Exploration

Something that really bothers me is when I hear otherwise-intelligent people making denigrating jokes about the idea of Space Exploration, or in the particular instance that has set me off on writing today’s rant, Space Tourism. Now I don’t actually know if Lewis Black can be safely bedded in the intelligence camp or not; he seems a little too coked out or something to retain much hold on his objectivity, but he is a regular on John Stewart’s show, and you have to respect that. I was watching the Daily Show yesterday, here on one of the two big plasma TVs which they have in the lobby of Freedom Rest. Incidentally, the mini-palace compound that is Freedom Rest is just a few blocks down from Saddam’s Presidential Palace (now the US Embassy), and served at one time as an Officer’s clubhouse for the former Iraqi President’s more favoured staff. Now my friends Darren and Steve, who were awesome enough to let me stay here until I can get out of country, run the place and oversee a team of people dedicated to making sure that soldiers here on R&R have fun. There’s a guy here whose job it is to fill up water balloons. I think I’ve mentioned that one before. The first time I came over here to visit a while back, Darren was refereeing a Sumo Suit match… that’s pretty much what it sounds like, where the contestants wear these really large padded suits which resemble sumo wrestler blubber and attempt to roll each other around the mat. Now as cool as all that is, let’s change the subject and talk about what a waste of money space adventuring is. (Yes, in case you missed it, there was definitely some snark in that last sentence. The Government spends a lot on Morale, Welfare, and Recreation programs for soldiers… which in and of itself is not a bad thing, but come on, it produces a resume which claims ‘water balloon filling’ as job experience?! Anyway, I won’t even get into the overall waste of money that is the war in Iraq; I think we’re all on the same page as far as that goes at this point.)
Anyway, Mr. Black was making fun of Anousheh Ansari, who returned recently from her 8 day sojourn aboard the International Space Station, saying that the reason she spent the $20 million for the experience was so that she could basically yell nyah nyah at the world’s poor from really high up. It was funnier the way he said it, I suppose, but as I’ve already said that sort of narrow minded joke telling irks me. I understand the fact that a lot of people consider Space Exploration, and more importantly the money that Space Exploration costs, a huge waste. I understand the fact, but not the why. Miss Ansari is an Iranian-American, and was the main sponsor of the Ansari X-prize. A real hero, as far as I’m concerned. The Ansari X-prize was an award of $10 million to the first non-government organization that could build a reusable space craft; it had to be launched and reach an altitude of 100 kilometers, the true boundary of space, twice within two weeks. The X-Prize has done more to spur competition in the private sector for reaching space than anything before or since, and has directly led to the possibility of affordable space flight for those of us who were too dumb in high school to understand that you had to get really really good grades to become an astronaut. With cheap spaceflight, a whole new frontier will open for the world, and the possibilities are awe-inspiring. I honestly believe that, for my (hypothetical) grandchildren to survive, we as a species have to keep moving forward. In a world where large sums of money are spent on infinitely more questionable purposes, it seems like the relatively small amount of money spent on furthering our understanding of the Universe should be beyond ridicule. It is, after all, merely a continuation of the greatest endeavour of the human race. Without exploration, we are nothing, and further, when man is brave enough to push at his boundaries and go where few have gone, invariably he comes back with knowledge that can change the face of what we thought we knew about the world.
Something I hear or read about a lot as an argument against spending money in Space is that the world has too many problems, more attention should be focused on poverty and yadda yadda. All this is true, but why start with bashing Space? There are so many other wastes of money and resources going on, that Space Exploration is a very small fraction of where the world’s money is going, and it has such tremendous possibilities. Compared to other wasteful government spending, for instance, space funding, which usually takes up less than 0.5% of the US Government budget, doesn’t even make the Heritage Foundation's top ten list of wasteful spending! And as far as someone like Miss Ansari spending a cool $20 mil on her lifetime dream goes, well, to hell with Lewis Black. I wonder if he, or even John Stewart, spends the same percentage of their worth on charities that she does? I mean, she was on the board of directors for the Make-A-Wish foundation, for god’s sake! It doesn’t make sense to make a joke at her expense in that manner. Even if you believe that she, or people like her, are morally bankrupt for spending that kind of money on something that you consider frivolous, you have to understand that for those who dream of a better future, Space is the catalyst that can make it all happen, the dream of man come true. It’s the highest ideal worth spending on, certainly more worthy than much of the other 99.5%! Well, that's an opinion, not a fact, but go take a look at that list and tell me that funding for space programs should be cut before any other single thing on it.
By the way, I’ve been trying really hard not to use Star Trek phrases here, (Final Frontier, etc.)  because I hate that anybody with an enthusiasm for space exploration is often lumped in with the Trekkies… I actually rather despise Star Trek. It’s just another easy joke for those wishing to minimize the awesomeness of the whole endeavour. Irony, sarcasm and wit are fine tools, but not when they are misdirected at the dreams of mankind. Save them for simian Presidents and pig-headed Secretaries of Defense and State. Speaking of which, don’t you think it’s rather amazing that Bush is getting impatient with Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki? That takes a lot of chutzpah, even for him. Bush illegally invades Iraq, his boy Bremer disintegrates the Iraqi army, they have absolutely no discernable plan for running the country, and everything goes to hell over a period of three years, so they throw up this poor guy al-Maliki and a few months later are trying to shift the responsibility for all of the chaos to him. They are getting impatient with him for not cleaning up their mess quickly enough, a mess which to all appearances is beyond fixing. I think that someone just needs to punch the man in the face, seriously. It’s way overdue.

Socrates Didn't Know Jack, Yo! Or wait, Maybe That Was His Point?

So I finally got around to reading a 14 page article on Time.com which Jeff had sent me a link to a week ago... it's titled Life in Hell: A Baghdad Diary. It's pretty interesting. Although I have to say that his description of the flight descent into the Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) seems a tad exaggerated. I mean, it's true that planes can't begin their descent until they are pretty much right on top of the BIAP, and that they do the whole more-exciting-than-usual corkscrew drop thing, but every time I've done it, it's pretty smooth and I've never noticed anyone screaming or panicking. Of course, I usually sleep through the whole thing, so I guess it could be true. (Hey, it's my blog, I'll make myself look cool if I freaking want to, okay? So you see Ken, don't go basing your opinions of me based on my own self-congratulatory drivel; I don't often tell the stories that make me look like a snivelling coward!) And I've already talked about the road-formerly-known-as the most dangerous in the world, so I won't get into that again. But I believe that the intention of the author of the article was to set the mood for the rest of his piece on the utterly depressing, frightening, violent and chaotic aura of Baghdad, and which I don't believe is an exaggeration at all.
Beyond all of the depression and anger which the truth of his journalism stirs up in me, it's also interesting because I can see alot of paralells in the worsening situation and likely eventual disintegration of Iraq, and the shorter, less important story of GBG. I won't outline GBG's demise here again; all 5 longtime readers of this site already know it, and quite likely wish they didn't. Anyway, my subject here isn't really GBG, I just think a lot about how both the larger issue of the bushoglio in Iraq and the absolute mess that Phil made of his own company have affected my outlook on life, being so caught up in both events simultaneously. Since I've been given this extra week in Baghdad, and all of my former ties here are effectively severed, I find that I am able to approach the whole sordid mess a bit more philosophically, and here is what I've come up with: George Bush is an evil, stupid man. Phil Bloom is an evil, stupid man. I am a stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid bloody idiot, for ever getting involved with either of them. And that all we are, is dust in the wind, dude.
Well, I'll keep working on it.

The Mundane Details Of A Life Delayed

Well, my old camp is almost completely disassembled now... Darren came over and picked me up this morning and brought me over to 'Freedom Rest', which as I mentioned before is a sweet little R & R compound inside the IZ where soldiers come to hang out when they get a few days off. In some ways it reminds me of Chiemsee, if only because it's a nice large building that is set up with loads of fun activities. And Steve and Darren are in charge of having fun, which seems to be the natural order of things.
Anyway, it looks like the travel office will not be open until Friday, and so it's doubtful that I'll be able to get tickets for Saturday, and even if I were able to, the office with the Visa stamp I need doesn't open until Sunday. So I have to resign myself to sitting around until Tuesday... grr argh. What a waste. I'll be spending my 34th birthday in Iraq, after all.
So that's all. Unless something changes, I will refrain from posting further about how bitter I am, because I realize that it's boring. I only do it now because I wanted you to know that at least I am safe, and additionally am in fact situated nicely in the Interzone, and not glancing furtively out from behind a thick curtain on a window in a house in the Red Zone.
Here's a picture I took this morning of what's left of my old camp.

I Could Be In Istanbul Right Now! Sighhh. At Least I'm Not Headed For The Red Zone.

Well, Scott and Jeff left for the airport this morning, and I am the last guy in the camp. My caravan and the two right next to mine are the last ones left, and they will be unhooking my power and water in about an hour... I love being last man standing! Anyway, Darren and Steve were able to get me a room at their camp for a few nights, so I can stay inside the Interzone until my flight, which I still don't know the time and date of, because the travel office is closed for the holiday. I'm hoping Saturday, but it could possibly be next Tuesday. Grr. But at least I don't have to stay in the Red Zone, so that's nice.
Anyway, those guys work at an Army R&R camp, so it actually shouldn't be too bad of a wait. They have an olympic size swimming pool, a library (of sorts) internet, game room, etc etc... unfortunately the weather has recently dipped down into the 80's so it's a bit too chilly for me to go swimming, but the rest of it should keep me busy.
More later, if I get the chance.

GAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

It's always the thing you don't see coming. So, I'm still in Baghdad. I didn't even make it out of my room this morning. S called me and said that all the roads in Karrada district, where he and H live, are closed and the Green Zone was locked down, also. A soldier has gone missing and so the US Military started a door-to-door search at 7:30 last night in the Karrada district, and at some point a major gunfight broke out so the Iraqi police closed all the streets and issued a curfew, and no one can get in or out and it's still going on as I write this; it is 9am.
So aside from stranding me here for perhaps another week, I'm sure that US soldiers, already pretty well hated by most Iraqis at this point, are out there winning the hell out of hearts and minds by kicking down doors and scaring the crap out of people. By the way I really have come to hate that phrase, "Winning hearts and minds." It sounds nice, but so far it seems that it's mostly been used as an insidious form of Bush double-speak around here. Karradah district is one of the few areas of Baghdad that is still relatively safe... several of my employees were from that area. I'm sure that after today it's all downhill for Karrada. I mean, stuff still happens there, but not nearly as much as in many other areas. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that when a soldier goes missing, the army will go to any lengths to find him, but I think that what's going on out there right now is not a good idea. They've been searching for 14 hours now; I can't imagine how many families they've scared the total hell out of and are right now trying to talk their sons out of angrily going out and joining the insurgency.
Sooo... I don't know how to even begin to approach the next week. That house I wanted to stay at in the Red Zone, if I couldn't have made it through immigration, was in Karrada. Not that I can't stay in my caravan in the Interzone for another night or two, but after that my caravan will likely have to be removed. On the bright side, I can get that Visa stamp now because the office should open in a day or two, so the next time, as long as there are no police actions going on, I should have no trouble.
I will keep you posted.

As Long As It's Just A Coda, And NOT An Encore!

So I lied... one more post from Baghdad. I hope only one more. Because I'm actually a bit nervous about whether or not I can make it out of the country... See, because I no longer have my DoD badge, in order to make it through immigration at the airport I have to have a visa stamped in my passport, which I don't. A DoD badge acts as a visa; you don't need the stamp because the badge shows that you're here working for the US Government. When I had mine taken away, I actually fell into illegal immigrant status. Which is really not a big deal, because normally you can pay a guy downtown 50 bucks to get a Visa stamped in your passport a couple of days before you leave, but it's the end of Ramadan. At the end of Ramadan is a 3 day holiday called Eid (eed) which is rather like Arabic Mardi Gras. After a month of fasting and not smoking or touching women, Eid could be translated as "almost anything goes!" Those wacky Muslims really know how to party, right!? And so anyway the Visa office was closed... They are sure to give me some trouble at the airport, but S assures me that he's got a friend up there that, with a little help from my friend Ben Franklin, will be able to get me through. Ahhh... I'm going to miss certain things about Iraq!
Steve and Darren came by one last time last night to doss all the stuff Scott, Jeff and I are leaving behind... Scott and Jeff are actually leaving the day after I do, now, but they are flying to Dubai. Scott is going from there to Greece and Jeff is headed to Rome. I may meet up with them at Krampus fest in Germany the first week in December.
Anyway, if you're wondering what the heck 'doss' means, it's one of those words that nobody knows who coined it, but came into widespread use, in this case in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, at the employee housing for the resort I worked at there. The word itself never gained in popularity at Chiemsee, but they did in fact use the doss system there, also. In Garmisch, there was such a regular turnover of employees, that every day you could count on walking down the hall and finding a pile of stuff that someone had ditched when leaving employment in Garmisch to continue their travels. Mostly it would be clothes they didn't feel like carrying, but often it would also include used ski equipment, hot plates, books, etc etc. Stuff not needed anymore. These piles came to be called doss, and the act of rooting through them and taking what you wanted out of them became the act of dossing. It was a great system, I got alot of cool junk that way.
Anyway, Steve and Darren dossed a bunch of our stuff and we split a bottle of absinthe that was brought from Germany and had been sitting in someone's closet here for years for just such a special occasion; Absinthe will always be a fondly remembered tradition among ex-Chiemseers. Fortunately, between the five of us, one bottle wasn't enough to elicit any ear-cutting madness, and we parted ways happily. I went to sleep, but kept waking up at hourly intervals as I often do when I'm excited about going somewhere the next morning. I decided to just give up on sleep, and now it's 5:30 am. So it's going to be an interesting day... especially since our Iraqi engineer, N, sub-contracted some badged people to dismantle the camp after I lost my badge, and if I can't make it out today, I may not have a caravan to come back to! Well, if that happens, I'll be staying at N's house out in the Red Zone, so wish me luck.

Way Too Self-Aware To Honestly Attempt Writing Crap Like This. Or, So Long, Baghdad, And Thanks For All The Dust.

Well, this is likely to be my last post from Baghdad, so I better make it a good one, right?
Um.
Sorry, I can't take that kind of pressure.
I leave early tomorrow morning, and arrive in Istanbul in the afternoon. That's all I have to say about that for the moment.
I am having really mixed emotions about leaving; On the one hand I'm ecstatic and simply can't keep my stomach from jumping around in that exuberant manner it has when something really great is about to happen. On the other hand I'm also way too relieved about leaving someplace I've lived for such a long time. ... Oh wait, guess I'm not feeling all that mixed after all.
I guess I have to say, though, that I am getting pretty nervous about what's next. I have some big travel plans, and one of those big life-events staring me right between the eyes, but I don't have a job or an idea of where I want to live while I work at that job lined up, and that's kind of scary. Sure, I've saved a little pile of money, but I know only too well how quickly money can disappear.
I've also been thinking a lot these past few days about the depressing situation in Iraq. I've seen it go from pretty bad to really bad to awful to god-awful to absolute s***. In the early days I had hopes that things would get better gradually, if not extremely realistic hopes. Now I don't think anybody really believes that it will for decades, and what's worse is that America's presence here, and therefore MY presence here, is directly related to the failure of Iraq. I often think about whether the very tiny amount of good I tried to do helps get me get out of being a part of the problem, and then I wonder if the very tiny amount of good I tried to do even comes close to mattering when I've been getting paid to do it. It's a really depressing thought, on my last day here.
I don't deny that I came for mostly self-serving reasons, but that didn't bother me when it seemed that things could possibly get better here; after all, everybody in the world goes where they think it will help them do better in life. Now that Iraq pretty much seems to be a dead dream, it feels worse.
Ok dammit, there are those mixed feelings rearing their ugly heads after all. I'm happy that my Iraqi friends don't think I'm a bad person for coming here, and that they like me and stuff, and that I was able to help them out in the end. I'm just not sure that it's enough so that I can feel justified about it, ever, and hope that I am able to sleep at night for the foreseeable future.
The only reason that I am being so open about my inner conflict and contradictions is that I understand the larger context of it; If you are American, you are also reaping the benefits of this mess. Wartime economy is good economy, although apparently, Bush has managed to blight even that part up. And you are also suffering the consequences of it, the National culpability and guilt. Granted, if you didn't throw yourself into the thick of it, the way this idiot did, you are not reaping either in a personal way, unless you voted Republican in which case all you get is the guilt, but the context is there.
On November 7th vote Democrat and help to end this nightmare!


P.S. If all this strikes you as utter bull**** rationalization, please don't tell me so; people need their illusions.

P.P.S. For all my talk of being in Iraq, it ain't nothing compared to stuff like this.

Miscellania Minutiae Mania

It's another Keith Olbermann special comment... my favorite part about this one is the last paragraph; the idea that the next President can use Bush's own New World Order policies against him is wonderful. But in reality, with everything else our miserable excuse for a President has done, there's no reason to believe he won't vote himself in for a third term. Think that is a silly thing to be afraid of, do you? Don't forget, Franklin D. Roosevelt did it. He served for three full terms, and I believe was elected for a fourth! Think you that Bush won't try to claim that America needs him as much as we needed FDR? Well sure, it sounds like sci-fi, but so does having a monkey for a President. A sci-fi sitcom. As a reminder of what grape ape is capable of, here's a picture link of him effectively destroying our Constitution. He's signing that odious military tribunal piece of crap.
Moving on, because the more I think about it the more I want to slit my wrists; I was transferring all of my computer files from my work computer to my tablet PC yesterday in preparation for getting the hell out of Dodge; the screen on my tablet is differently shaped than my work screen, and when I went to my blog, my page was all crazy lookin'! The banner was way off center, html code was peeking out from behind it; it was all afright. Apparently I was using a fluid layout for the main column, and on wider screens that just jacks it all up! So for anybody who uses a widescreen, or any other differently shaped monitor, and were wondering why I seemed to be lacking in pattern recognition skills, well, that's why. It's all fixed now, I think, but you have to clear your web browser's cache to view my repaired layout in all it's glory.
Otherwise, things are moving along nicely. I'm packing up and getting pretty excited about leaving. There is a certain amount of tension in my shoulders and neck which won't go away until the plane takes off because I'm paranoid about more harassment from the Castle, and just want to get out of here before they get another chance. Scott and Jeff have quit their jobs, also, because they were staying at my camp due to the fact that their company had been unable to provide them with housing, other than a dilapidated caravan on a street with no security, no water, and broken windows, and so they are calling game and heading out within the next two weeks. We hung out with Steve and Darren one last time; they are planning on leaving Iraq for good in December. We also went over and said bye to Rodney and Barney, two other guys from Chiemsee who are still working over at the camp where I used to work before making the mistake of choosing employment with GBG. Rodney is the Irishman who actually hooked me up with my first job in Iraq, so I'm not sure whether to be grateful or hateful! Well, it is what it is, and I suppose he meant well. I thanked him, of course.

Act III Scene 10.... and Cut!!!

I have no idea where to begin on this one. Today has been the craziest day. I got arrested! It was totally sweet. I was awoken by my cellphone at around 7:45am, by Scott calling to tell me to look out the window because the camp was crawling with about 20 soldiers doing their whole police raid schtick. I ran outside, only to discover that we were being harassed in a major way. The guy in charge, a Lieutenant Colonel Davis, was the most stereotypical military guy ever. Total jerk. When I actually mentioned that in some circles what the JASG was doing could be considered harassment, he decided to bust Scott down for some reason, and not me, saying that this was not harassment. Harassment would have been him dragging us out of our rooms and stripping us down and doing lots of other extremely uncharitable things. I was thinking, oh, so he's obviously harassed people before, then, since he seems to have such a fine sense of the degree of it. It's good we're in such professional hands. And he had another guy with him, who played good cop to his bad cop. It was hilarious! They made a few false accusations, I got irate, and they cuffed me. Took me to the clink. Then, because they had nothing, they let me go. But they took my DoD badge, because of course they can do whatever they want, really. And they made all of the Iraqis leave the camp, because without my badge, I'm not allowed to have Iraqis under my supervision. As a result there is no one left to do any work, and no chance of getting anybody in to do any without my badge, so GBG's whole asset removal plan is effectively neutered, and I bought my plane ticket! I'm out of here on tuesday the 24th. I'll tell you, I am ridiculously happy to have the matter settled! I'm finally leaving!
But these JASG military guys, man. They are a riot. Good Cop was asking us what our plans were when we left here, and I said I wanted to go to Thailand, and he asked if I was some sort of Hippie or something. I'm not kidding, I swear. When Jeff said that he had plans to hit Europe, Bad Cop went nuts and said "What! Why you wanna go there?! Buncha lefties! Just tell me this; you're not going to France, are you?" Jeff responded instantly with "I'm going to France first! I've just now decided, thanks to you." Bad Cop had a field day with that, let me tell you. He told Jeff that when he got to France, he should declare that he was there to take over the country, and watch how fast they all throw their guns down and surrender. You can't make this stuff up, folks, because it's so clichéd that it doesn't seem possible to actually exist out there in the real world without it being a movie about some hick or other. I wanted to ask him if he was going to torture us if I said that it's thanks to France that we had a successful American Revolution, but I was already in cuffs at that time, so I bit my tongue. Not that any of this has anything to do with anything. They weren't there to put the also-recently-neutered Habeas Corpus on a trial run; they just wanted to mess with GBG. Which is funny, you know, because if they'd just showed up and said, hey man, we're shutting you down because we hate GBG, I'd be ecstatic and say ok great! I'm outta here! Noooo problemo, hombre. Which is essentially exactly what happened, except that they got to play their favorite game of exercising military authority and getting their jollies from other people's powerlessness. It was really amazing to see all the sterotypes on display, in 3D. I shouldn't have lost my temper with Bad Cop, but even though I knew he was just trying to get a rise out of me, I couldn't let it go, I couldn't let him say whatever ignorant thing rolled off of his tongue next and sit there and take it. I think I may, as it turns out, have a real problem with authority. Go figure. I was such a nice, quiet boy. But you know, Scott and I were talking about it afterwards, and he said it very well; people who actually want authority over other people are generally bad people. So sometimes, having a problem with authority is probably the right way to be.
Anyway, it was really sad to see the last few Iraqis go, but I'm not worried because I know that they will be ok. Saying goodbye to S was hard; I've been working with him for a long time. But he's got a good job waiting for him in Kurdistan, so it's all good. Generally speaking, I have to say I'm feeling pretty good and relieved that it's finally all over. What's totally awesome about the whole thing, is that while the JASG was hup hup hupping around the camp, looking for guns, or Iraqis, or key making machines, (They confiscated our bleeding key making machine! Said it was a security risk!) and I was sitting on the side of a curb, hands cuffed behind my back and trying to swat flys away from my face with my knee, I got a great Deja Vu: The last scene of 'Monty Python & The Holy Grail'! That's exactly what it felt like. Quest over, stop the camera!

The Subject Of This One Is Pixies. You Can Tell Because I Use The Word "Pixies" An Awful Lot

I did something today which I haven't done in years: I listened to the Pixies. I. Totally. Love. The. Pixies. If I'm ever told to pick my favorite band of all time, it will be them. The first time I ever heard them was sometime in the autumn of 1990. I was living in the Benjamin Franklin House in Philadelphia with about 7 other roomates in a small 2 bedroom apartment on the 25th floor. See, two friends of mine and I had just graduated from high school and had also just turned 18, and we were like, way dumber even than now. So we did the big exciting move to the big exciting city thing. Man we were stupid. I mean, Philadelphia? What were we thinking!? Anyway, I won't get into it too much, but that was probably the most miserable time I've ever known, a definite failed experiment in life's freakshow laboratory. We had so many roomates because none of us had any money and we figured we could spread the rent between us. Only, if 8 people have $0.25 each, you still can't pay rent. Math has never been my strong point. And, my roomates were mostly Art School students (OF DOOM!), who also were probably not very wise about all that crazy junk, either. Well, long story short; due to a nifty little aspect of Pennsylvania law, we stayed there for like five or six months rent free, because it's illegal to evict people in the cold months of winter. You gotta wait until it gets warm enough out for your deadbeat tenants to sleep in the street. Ka-ching.
Anyway, the first time I ever heard the Pixies, their video for 'Head-On' came on that alternative music show, 120 Minutes on Mtv, and I was sort of like, huh, that's a crazy little ditty. One of the roomates, a total art school goth/industrial Tim Burton character-lookin' twig of a poser, whom I was completely awestruck by at the time, was all like "Gawd... I hate the Pixies. I'm going to go back into the room I share with 3 other people, and kick the guy who has been sleeping in our walk-in closet out so I can shut myself in there for some privacy and sink into my Skinny Puppy cassette on my headphones, where the earphone with the 'L' on it stands for 'life' and the earphone with the 'R' on it stands for sucks!"
I sort of paraphrased and amalgamized that last bit, but I think that it stays true to the mood. But the part about her hating the Pixies really stuck with me, because she was soooo cool, (and pretty. and smart. and funny. tee hee.) and I was so dumb and impressionable. So it was years before I ever picked up a Pixies CD and actually listened to it. But when I did...
I was living on Main St. in Stroudsburg, PA, with a roomate who, it turns out, is an evil judge-mental ostrich and shall remain unnamed forevermore. (Rawwwk!) But he liked the Pixies, and I was bored with everything else that life had to offer, and I was beginning to wonder if I had been wrong to base my opinion of a band on an offhand comment made by some chick whose name I couldn't even remember. So I chose out the one with the most interesting cover, 'Trompe Le Monde', and my only regret after listening to it was MY GOD HOW MUCH OF MY LIFE HAVE I WASTED NOT LISTENING TO THE PIXIES ALL DAY EVERY DAY!!! Alot of people don't like that album, saying it's too hard compared to their classic 'Doolittle' or 'Surfer Rosa', but I'll tell you, I think it just might be their best. Although it's really hard to judge. I fanatically love every single song they've ever written.
So, I listened to them a lot. And nowadays, years will go by with no Pixies. But unlike other bands that have fallen into my back catalogue, they always manage to nudge at my subconscious sooner or later, and remind me that it's about time for some Vitamin-Pixies.
And for all you poo-pooers out there, if it wasn't for the Pixies, there would be no Breeders. There would be no Nirvana. - Man I'm old! It used to really piss me off when dunderheads would say stuff like "Bro! Without Led Zeppelin, man, there would BE no Poison!"
To which I'd reply, "But I hate Poison."
"Well ok man, but without Led Zeppelin there would be no rock and roll, man!"
"Whatever. Go finish smokin' that crack and leave me alone, would you?"

In Which I Take Aim And Shoot At A Mosque... Yeah. Those Guards Were Thinking The Same Thing That You Are Right Now.

So I was recently asked by a newcomer to Interzone what my scariest moment in Iraq was, and I laughed at him and said "So, how long you been here?" Damn newbies.
Ok I can't keep a straight typeface over that one; I hate that phrase so much that I just gave myself the willies. See previous post. PLEASE! I am not that kind of jerkface. I am a totally different and unique breed of jerkface, who takes umbrage at such relatively innocuous status-seeking comments.
Well, moving on, I had long ago already put a caption under a certain picture on my smugmug page which briefly relates my scariest moment, which came about because I took that picture in the first place. So here's how it went, long-winded version:
In September or October last year, I was busy making arrangements to go on my month-long vacation. My itinerary included Russia, where I was going to have my edge-of-space flight in the Mig-25.* I had to get a visa to visit Russia, so S stuffed me in the back of his car and took me out to the Mansour (mon-soor) district of Red-Zone Baghdad, where the Russian Embassy is. I actually had to do this little jaunt out into Baghdad a couple of times, because first I had to go bring them copies of my passport and fill out the visa application, and then come back a week later to pick up the visa after they'd finished processing it. The first time we went out, on the way back from the Russian Embassy, we passed by this HUGE mosque that is even now still under construction. I don't know what it's to be called, but work on it was begun by Saddam a long time ago; He wanted for it to be the biggest mosque in the world, and when it is completed, it will be. It's really quite unbelievably large. Anyway, after Saddam "left the building", the new Iraqi government took up the cause and continued construction, and it's looking pretty impressively mosquey these days. So  obviously, I had to have a picture of it, and on the second trip out there I brought my camera.
The mosque sits far off one of the main roads of Mansour, and yet due to it's immense size, is extremely visible. S pulled onto the curb and I rolled the back window down slightly enough for me to point my lens out, and snapped a few. Here's the one that I think really did us in, and you can click on it to go to the page where I have the others. Anyway, we started to pull out, when ten Iraqi guys, significantly I thought, not wearing any type of uniform came running out from a dirty shack that I'd thought was abandoned and pointed really big guns at us, yelling for us to stop. I started yelling at S to "Go! Go!" But he didn't, and backed up to where the guards were instead. Later when I asked him why he didn't burn rubber, which would have made the most sense to me, he said it was because he believed that they would have shot at our car. I was incredulous because we were on a very busy street in downtown Baghdad, and had a decent 30 yard lead on the gun-toting Iraqis who were on foot, after all, but he said that they still would have opened fire... I can't really bring myself to believe that, but you know, when there is a good soccer match on Iraqi TV or a wedding, Iraqis point their guns up and send out braps of celebratory gunfire, no matter what part of the city or how busy the area they're in is, so who knows. He also said that if we'd had our own gun, he could have waved it at them and then we could drive away because they wouldn't want to get involved in a gunfight. That one really stretches my credulity, and makes me extremely happy that I don't believe in carrying weaponry. Not having a gun probably saved us that day.
So they made us get out of the car, guns pointed at us. I had a large one aimed at my belly while they searched the car and took my camera for a look over. They then made us drive over to their shack, all the while chattering away in that incomprehensible moon-man language of theirs, and S was too involved in what was going on and, I presume, a bit too freaked out to translate anything for me. This went on for about ten minutes, when they took my badges and camera, and made S get in another car with them. I started yelling all angry-like with "What's all this then? What's all this then?" indignation. They let S tell me then that "Everything is fine, they just want to look at the pictures on your camera and ask me a few questions. Just hang out here and we'll be back in a few minutes." Well, he looked nervous, and not quite like everything was fine, but not totally freaked out and his voice was mostly steady. Besides, what could I do? Well I'll tell you what I could do; I'm a real pig-headed dumbf*** when I get in tense situations and am scared, so I started yelling "This is Bullsh**!!" really loud a bunch of times. You know, because when people don't speak your language, swearing at them noisily and aggressively gets the point you're trying to make across and helps bridge the culture gap. S got out of the car and came over to me and tried to calm me down and made me get back in our car. "Dude", he says, "I'll be fine. Just chill out and these guys will get you a cup of tea." Yes, his english is often that colloquial. We've taught him well.
So he took off with a few of the mosque guards, as they turned out to be, and I waited in the back seat of our car while the guy who'd had the gun pointed at my belly brought me a little paper cup full of Iraqi chai. I must have sat there for about an hour, exchanging tense yet polite nods with the guards, while they kept trying to give me more tea. A very hospitable people, even with guns trained on you. I was totally freaked out by now, and not for me. I figured that if I was in any danger at this point, I'd have been the one whom they drove off. It was a very long hour, but finally the car came back and praise Allah! They brought my camera back to me unscathed! As I hastily checked my camera for marks and made sure that the CF card was still there, I absent-mindedly asked "Hey, where's S, anyway. Isn't he ready to go yet?"
I am so going to hell for that joke. You know I'm kidding, right S? But everything was mostly ok. They hadn't tortured him, and although he seemed a bit shaken, assured me that nothing bad was going to happen. Once he'd explained to them that I was just a mentally challenged American tourist who took an inordinate amount of photographs, and they saw that there was nothing other than a few innocent snapshots on my camera, they decided that we were not, in fact, terrorists who wanted to blow up their big new mosque and were going to let us go. I'm still baffled to this day as to how they could have thought that a very white American with a DoD badge might be a terrorist, but I suppose they felt that they couldn't be too careful. They apparently took a photo of S's ID, because they were afraid that he was some sort of informant, and one of the guys was giving him some veiled threats; S figured it was because he was working with an American. Luckily it was an old ID, which didn't have his current address on it, but he was still a little freaked about that and spent a few weeks inside the IZ at our camp just in case. Nothing came of it, so all's well that ends well, I suppose.
So that's my scariest moment in Iraq. I mean, there have been others, but those don't involve my own stupidity, and have more to do with intense heart palpitations after hearing explosions and whatnot, and are not really interesting to write about.
By the way, I've really been enjoying Orcinus lately. I know that there is already a link on my sidebar to it, but the articles are so intelligent and in-depth that I wanted to plug it and highly suggest that you go take a look. Orcinus is yet another site I've been turned on to by GoDrex.

How Getting Sidetracked By Pet Peeves Can Sometimes Lead You To Find A Good Book

I was recently asked by a newcomer to Interzone what my scariest moment in Iraq was. Speaking of newcomers, before I launch into that tale I'd like to take a moment to talk about a really annoying aspect of Interzone culture. I really hate talking to other Americans that live here; there is this thing that everybody does when you meet them as sort of a status gauge. One of the first questions these neanderthals always ask you is: "So, how long you been here?" As if the length of time you've lived pampered inside Interzone has anything to do with anything. You can always tell the ones that have been here for more than a year because they ask with a sort of smug pre-emptive gleam in their eye and an "I'm such a bad-ass old-timer" inflection in their voice: "So, how long you been here?", as if there is no chance anyone could have been here as long as they have. It's true that very few people stay longer than a year, but so what? Don't get me wrong, I love that I can say I lived in Baghdad for 3 years, but I'm acutely aware that, in and of itself, that is not really something to be proud of, and certainly is a retarded thing to use as a status gauge; It's not like, as an American, living in the Interzone is fraught with trials and tribulations and surviving them for three years is a measure of manliness. Really, the hardest thing about coming here was the initial decision to actually get on a plane and fly to freaking Iraq! Once you make the decision to come, and weather the doubt-filled flight to the middle east with a pit of "oh my god oh my god oh my god what am I doing?!" in your stomach, the rest is easy. Just being here isn't so bad, not for Interzone denizens, anyway. As the book reviewed in this article says, the Interzone is an Emerald City, with several thousand pampered contractors strutting around with power and water and pork and beer 24/7 acting as though they are total bad boys. The funniest thing I see on a daily basis are the Embassy rats; 300 pounder, late middle-aged men sauntering over to the dining facility with pistols strapped to their beefy thighs, with a look on their face much like an 8 year old whose father just got them their very first Red Rider BB gun for Christmas and is showing it off to his friends. I'm ranting about this because yesterday I was driving down the road in front of the new Embassy complex that they're building, and I noticed a gas point run by KBR on the side of the road. I've seen it before, but, what with our camp closing down and all that, my supplier has stopped sending us gasoline. The sign on the side of the station says 'KBR retail fuel'. Now, gasoline, called benzine locally, is a hot commodity in the IZ. I know very well that KBR is only allowed to provide fuel to the military or certain authorized others. But, seeing as how I don't have a supply of my own any more, and the sign actually says 'retail', I figured it was worth a shot. So I pull in and ask if I'm allowed to purchase fuel with cash, even though I don't have a fuel card, and the redneck KBR station manager laughed and said, "Naw, man. You gotta have a guv'mint card... you oughtta know that. How long you been here?" Argh! I resisted the urge to tell him three years, because I actually try not to play that game with people, as satisfying as it is to shut them up. Instead I just verbally abused him saying that the sign should not say retail then, and drove off. But I hate that! Seniority is stupid, and besides the point. The fellow that wrote this book (Rajiv Chandrasekaran) was only here for a year or so, but I'll wager he is far more knowledgable and worthy of respect than I am.
Anyway, sorry for the pet peeve post. Sometimes it's just good to complain. (Sometimes? Does being aware of your self-delusions negate them, or make you a worse person for continuing to tolerate them within yourself?) And I actually had no intention of going on for so long about it... I wanted to write about my scariest moment in Iraq! Well, I will save that one for tomorrow, maybe.

Someday, You'll Be Able To Pull The Green Zone's Finger On Smell TV

The wait is over! Smell-o-vision is here at last! I can't wait to get one. The sad truth is, of course, that no matter how noble the ideals behind wanting to make audio/visual and nasal sensations into a collaborative "learning" tool, much like what they said about TV in the first place back in the day, I guarantee that when I pick up my first Stinky Set at Smell-o-Visions R Us, the first thing I'll be sniffing is a commercial for McDonalds. You think advertising is pervasive now? Just wait until you are subjected to ads for awesome fatty foods with smellomercials! You'll be able to taste the greasy goodness all day long, and won't be able to rest until you buy what they're smelling you. Plus, those geeks in high school are going to have to change all of their door plates to say AVN Club! At least the media can finally give a positive spin to the meaning of Snuff Films. The world is changing too fast for me... I was just getting used to this whole internet fad, and now this. Minority Report didn't predict the half of it. But seriously, the day I walk down the street, and billboards are doing retina scans on passers-by to determine how to tailor their ads based on their personal consumer profiles, and I then have to not only be subjected to a bright, noisy, obnoxious ad for a quarter pounder with cheese, but also have a squirt of burger perfume micturated in my nasal direction, I'm stabbing myself in the brain with a coffee spoon.
Well, I'm getting off-topic, I know. I should be sticking to writing about life working for a corrupt company in the Interzone. Incidentally, I looked up International Zone on Wikipedia, only to discover that, even though it officially had it's nomenclature changed to International Zone in 2004, due to the stubbornness of people and their cliquey lingo it is slowly being reverted to Green Zone. Which makes me feel like we've missed a great opportunity... I always call it the Interzone, a portmanteau coined by William Burroughs in his novel 'Naked Lunch'. Interzone was his drug-induced alternate universe version of Tangiers, Morocco, which was in fact an International Zone at the time. Interzone describes the madness and paranoia of this place infinitely better than dumb 'ol Green Zone does. A different kind of paranoia, to be sure, but paranoia nonetheless. Ah well, I will continue in calling it Interzone, though I be shut from "Green Zone" high society for my crime.
I don't have much news, unfortunately, about the closedown of my camp. It's taking a depressingly long amount of time to get moving, and we only have about 12 days left! Plus, while we have begun this sort of low-level disconnecting of the caravans from their foundations, (unhooking power and water lines, loosening the bolts, etc. etc.) the guys back in the States are still trying to appeal our eviction... It's really very upsetting. I am bored all to hell with this whole thing and am really counting on getting my ass tossed out of this place on the 26th. If they actually manage to stave off the inevitable, I'm going to scream. It doesn't matter; I'm still leaving, it's just that getting evicted will be a nice clean break and I don't have to feel bad about abandoned responsibilities, whereas this slow process of GBG having a death grip on the pathetic life they have left is really eating away at my soul, such as it is.

Assuming Does Not Only Make A You-Know-What Out Of U And Me, But It Also Winds Up Retarding My Brain If I... Pizza Party Pizza Party!!!

All the rumors are true; what they say about assumption, I mean. It makes an ass out of me... for example, take broccoli. I've thought for years, probably because some random friend or other whose every word I didn't automatically assume was bull-pucky said it over lunch or something, that broccoli was engineered in a lab in the 50s. You know, like a cross between cauliflower, the mustard plant, and I don't know, asparagus or some odd green thing. A real frankenveggie. So I look it up on Wikipedia, and it was apparently around in Roman Empire times. True, it came about because of man's artificial selection for the suppression of flower development in the wild mustard plant, but not by some Dexter in some agro-freakshow lab. Just the usual old farm-guy way of doing things, like breeding milk-giving prarie dogs into cows or whatever. (Okay that was a joke... prarie dogs, heh. Everyone knows that cows really were bred from whales and horses!)
Now, you might think that I am leading into something, that I have a point about dirty rotten jerks who assume things about you without checking out Wikipedia first, but I don't. I am really quite astonished about the whole broccoli kafuffle. Crazy! But, you know, this is still a cautionary tale... it actually makes me wonder if I should be putting so much faith into Wikipedia... I'm just assuming that it has all of it's Brassica Oleracea facts straight... Wikipedia is, after all, an open source encyclopedia. Anyone can type in whatever they want for any entry... that's part of it's strength and also a weakness, obviously. For instance, my former employer has his own Wikipedia page, and when I stumbled on it last night, I tested the whole open source thing by adding a paragraph on to his biography stating that, even though he is close to 70 years old, he has the fine youthful appearance and vigor of a much younger man of, say, 58 or so, and that the secret to his youthful mien was his little known and never discussed habit of raiding abortion clinic garbage bins and sucking the juice right out of whatever's left, only sometimes supplementing his diet with shark babies. I was going to tack on a few choice tidbits of his alleged sexual harassment of certain former employees, but I decided to forgo that particular mischevious, well, evil character defamation.
Anyway, I clicked save, reloaded the page, and there it was! Muah hah hah ha ha!!!! Man that was awesome. Well, of course after ten minutes or so I went back and deleted it, because the man has enough problems, and so do I. I decided to bow out of that potential lawsuit. And anyway I was simply testing the wiki-water. I mean, it would have been caught by a mediator, or whatever they call them, sooner or later and deleted because I was unable to provide a reputable resource to back up my claim, but who knows how long it would have sat there before it got caught! I wanted to test that too, actually, but I'm not sure what kind of trouble that would get me in, and anyway it's just not nice. But dude, it was frikken funny. You shoulda been there, yo! Har har.
I am frightfully, painfully emotionally retarded, I know it.

My Mind Sometimes Reminds Me Of A Pinball Machine

I know that it seems like every time Keith Olbermann makes a Special Comment, I go all googly in the knees and post about it here. Well, it only seems that way because it's true. This latest one definitely takes it up a notch... I don't care if what he says is unprofessional, or hysterical, or part of a left-wing conspiracy to defame the President and all the President's men, as people who disagree with him are bound to criticize. It's the truth of what he says that is important! And it's really funny, because it is true. Here's a link to the transcript, and I highly suggest you watch the video instead of just reading it... inflection is important and adds to the overall spice of the art of the presidential bitchslap.
Anyway, things are moving right along here on the ground... I did get the word from above to begin disassembling the camp... so we have just under three weeks to do it. I suspect that, as long as we are close to finishing but not quite finished as of the eviction date, the JASG will give us a slight time extension to complete our asset removal, so I don't have an exact day of departure just yet, but I can't imagine that it will be any longer than the first or second week in November.
People keep asking me what I'm going to do next, and I refuse to answer based on a couple of flimsy reasons. The first: I'm not entirely sure what is going to happen in the next month. I mean I have some thoughts on where I want to go, but really I'm a bit too preoccupied with stuff going on here to really figure it out just now. The second: Even if I knew exactly what I wanted, I still wouldn't say until I knew it was definitely going to happen. I don't like to jinx things up by speaking too soon. Or worse, say what I want and then suffer the embarassment of not being able go through with it... it's like when you want to quit smoking. If you go around telling everybody that you are going to quit smoking, and then you don't, people give you loads of crap for not having any willpower, which depresses you and makes you want a cigarette. And also, if everybody knows the date that you are supposed to stop, that puts alot of pressure on you to actually go through with it. As any smoker knows, pressure is what makes you really want a cigarette in the first place, so on quitting day you're so freaked out and pressurized that the only thing that keeps you from totally melting down is a smooth relaxing smoke; It's a lose/lose. So really, it's infinitely better to just quit one day, and wait for people to notice that you're in bed sweating & shaking from nicotine withdrawal, and cussing out anybody that comes close and hey! NOT having a cigarrette. Good for you, man! (Grr! Argh! Go Away!)
Anyway, what the hell was I talking about?

Synchronicity Which Hopefully Doesn't Point To Famous Last Words!

It's all about timing. Just days after I finally made my decision to leave this place, we got an eviction notice from the JASG! Synchronicity, man, you can't beat it. Granted, it's about the third one they've tried to give us since May, but I feel that this time they mean it. No really. I really believe it this time, I swear.
Anyway, the company is of course not giving up just yet, but I think that they will have to in the next couple of days... If they don't tell me soon to begin removing all of their assets from this property by the eviction date (October 26th), they run the risk of having everything confiscated by the Iraqi government, and I'm not sure that they are prepared to take that risk. So we will see. Anyway, no one can say it hasn't been a long time coming... Phil was arrested November 15th? 2005, and we were forced off of the 600 Man Camp in early March. We haven't done an honest day's work since, and it's October! So basically we've been on the edge of the precipice for nearly a year.
Anyway, I'm in a mental space where, and please excuse my French all you more delicate readers, I really don't give a merde! I want to leave!
The camp is a ghost town these days... all of my friends have already left to begin their new work in Kurdistan, except for a very few essential people including S. He, being my most valuable friend and employee, has stayed on here just to help me tie up some loose ends before he cuts loose for the Northern greener pastures. I know that he reads my blog from time to time, so I want to give him what all the young people are calling it these days; "props". Good luck to you S, and your family and friends. You deserve all the good stuff that comes your way. Just try to avoid people who want to pawn off funny money on you in the future, and you'll be alright!
Anyway, other than that I don't have much. I did want to say that Route Irish, (The 6 mile stretch of road between the Interzone and Baghdad International Airport) which once upon a time was widely considered to be the most dangerous road in the world, has had it's status downgraded to the safest road in Baghdad. I only bring it up because of my description of it from my trip to Kurdistan post. I'd said that I knew it was alot safer these days, but apparently I had no idea how much. I've been asking around in the last week or so, and it turns out that there are checkpoints at every entrance and exit from the road, where all vehicles wanting to utilize the road get searched. And as I'd seen when traversing it this last time, there are alot of military vehicles posted all along it. They've also been busy installing a fence with barbed wire on either side. "Who cares?", you may be asking yourself. Well, I personally feel a certain stretch of relief over this. If I am truly about to leave Baghdad for good, then I have to negotiate it one last time. I have been on it many many times in my three years here, but you know. The cop that gets shot on his last day before retirement, the soldier that bites it on the convoy home... these are clichés for a reason! It's just nice knowing that it ain't what it used to be, is all. Here's an apropos picture: The entrance to the BIAP, with Flying Arab on one side, and a last look at GBG on the other!

Flying Man, here I come!

An Open Letter To The Guys That Helped Steal My Country

Dear Religious Right,
The separation of Church and State is not a satanic anti-religious idea. It is a brilliant idea which protects the integrity of both institutions. Don't you see? Allow the recent Foley scandel to grant you the temporary stillness needed for reflective thought on the matter. It is a very good illustration. So is that whole deal where our "Christian values" government is actually trying to justify torture, while downplaying the actual severity of pain involved in their definition of what torture we should be allowed to practice. You see, the biggest flaw in current right-wing religious philosophy is the idea that you have the calling from above to take your moral values and make (your) God's law into man's law. I will ignore the obvious flaw for the moment, that you don't have the right to impose your belief system on others. Everybody knows that that is what is actually un-American, and is the reason why you never get invited to the cool kid's parties. The real problem is this: those people in the government who you've allied yourselves with are there because of power. If they truly valued God and a spiritual life, they would not be where they are. All you've done, by getting buddy buddy with the politicians, is given them a powerful tool with which to advance their own interests. They are not your friends! You thought that by using them to advance your interests in the government, that you could get what you wanted. But you are horribly wrong. They are using you, also, and what they want is power, and when they get that power, they do not truly advance a more spiritual country. They use religion to scare people and advance policies that will make them richer and more powerful. There are people pretending to be religious leaders to get you to follow them down this road. The separation of Church and State not only protects the people from having other's religious values shoved down their throats, but it also protects your religion from being warped and abused by power mad politicians. That separation protects the integrity of both institutions equally. Protect yourselves and get out of politics! Do not allow these twisted individuals to be false prophets! Do not allow them to claim that they are serving your agenda with one side of their face, and perverting it with the other! Give to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar, and give to God what belongs to God; and in case Jesus didn't state that clearly enough, allow me to clarify further: DO NOT give to Bush what belongs to God, and DO NOT give to God what belongs to Bush!!!
God has spoken to me and said that it is so! Boo kids.
Sincerely,
The Guy That Had His Country Stolen While He Was Out Fishin'

A Dream Of Injustice, My Moral Dilemma, And What It All Means

I read 'Almost Home' last night, which is the autobiography of Damien Echols, the most prominent of the West Memphis 3. He's not necessarily a great writer, although the closer he gets to the main event that has shaped his life, the more eloquent he gets. But man, his story and his attitude on death row are incredible. Obviously, the saga of the WM3 has left a lasting impression on me. I had a dream last night where I was accused of something, I can't really remember what, but something to do with my fat ex-boss (not Phil; he's too shark-like to ever be fat) which I hadn't actually been involved in. Anyway, there was a "trial" (In the woods?) which was more like a kegger and nobody would listen to me... the drunk judge at one point told me that all this didn't matter, it didn't matter what I or anyone said, I was going to prison for this crime, it was decided before the alleged crime was even committed and this was all for show, allbeit a rather poor show.... well it's obvious where that dream came from, having just finished that book. But what was really neat about that dream was how it really suffocated me. I mean, really. I woke up taking deep breaths, and with the realization that the right to a fair trial was more than just words... it's something you hear all your life as an American, but until you actually suffer the injustice of being falsely accused and railroaded... yes it was only a dream, but that is sometimes what is so great about them. If you are deep enough in it, you really feel what's happening, and it doesn't matter that it's not something you've ever experienced in actuality. You are watching a movie in which you are the principle protagonist, and you forget that you're in a cinema until the lights come on.
The range of your emotions in dreams can be quite surprising, also. Usually dreams are fluff; odd and interesting but ultimately very easy to slough off. But occasionally... I woke up from this one with an incredible amount of rage, which was I think the true cause of my breathlessness. It's hard to feel that kind of rage about anything in normal day to day life, even for someone like me who enjoys a good rant from time to time. It was the rage of personally feeling my right to exist taken from me... My first rational thoughts, after all the dream events and emotion began slowly sliding away, were of this: This dream wasn't so much about the WM3, although obviously inspired by them, but about the feeling of terror and helplessness that is going through the internal systems of mine and everyone else who understands what is going on as our rights and dignity are being slowly (or not-so-slowly, as it were) stripped away by the Red Administration. Granted, most of us may never be affected by the atrocity of a Senate-approved interrogation tactic, or a House-approved listening device in your overhead light. But they are still your rights that are being taken away, and as 3 extremely normal boys (even though they were not considered normal by their own hometown, they could have been dropped anywhere on either coast without making so much as a dribble) in West Memphis, Arakansas could tell you, you never know when it might be convenient for someone with more power than you and something to hide to use those stolen rights against you, or someone you know.
Anyway, as some would say, who am I to complain? Well, they'd be right. I've been thinking about my moral quandry quite a bit recently. An old friend of mine basically called me a baby-eater for being here, and while I could never see it that way, the very fact that someone could think that about me has given me pause... There are three main reasons why I have continued to stay in Baghdad. 1) The money, hence, baby-eater. I no longer view the money as a reason to stay... honestly. If that was the only thing I had, I would leave this week. I don't need more. 2) My Iraqi friends. I am paying them very decent salaries, and they were unlikely to find other work if I'd have left prematurely, given the overall situation in Baghdad, and I've come to care for them quite a bit. Scott picks on me and rather derisively says I have a false Great White Hope attitude, but I fail to see how caring about your friends merits that. Anyway, I was able to, through a contact, find employment for most of them with a US contract in Kurdistan! So, my friends are about to begin a very decent-paying job in a very safe place... many of them will be moving their families up there. So, very shortly, reason #2 will be out of date! That's 2 down, one to go.
The third reason is more personal and less easy to write about, but suffice it to say, with reasons #1 & #2 down, #3 will be much easier to handle, and I am going to start making preparations to leave this month, actual date of leaving to be determined, depending on some mundane logistical issues. Definitely by December. Will keep you posted, of course.