Blog-i-festo
Sartorial Moment
Our friend Jo-Carol passed away suddenly two years ago, when an aneurysm felled her on the street, killing her instantly. She was 46. Her influence lingers, however, her having been very much a larger-than-life infuriating and wonderful person.
Among other things, she was a cabaret singer and composer; in honor of her birthday and memory, there was a memorial concert of sorts last night, with various friends, relatives, and/or drag queens singing her songs or songs she would have sung, for the amusement of one other. I did “Is That All There Is?”, the nihilistic yet strangely cheerful Peggy Lee song, and it went over quite well. A good time was had by all.
Yesterday afternoon, making my way to the venue from downtown, I crossed paths with a young Asian man in a very white suit and overly-moussed hair. As we passed, he started waving happily at me, a huge grin on his face. “Do I know this guy?” I wondered. I waved back, puzzled. Then he grabbed his tie, and shook at it me. His tie was very purple. As it happens, I was gussied up for the show that night, and wearing a purple necktie as well. So I waved my necktie back at him, and returned his grin. We were purple tie brothers! For one brief moment all was right with the world.
“Flee”- ance aftermath
"Jennifer's High Tailin' Hot Sauce" is selling briskly. Also, a likeness of Jennifer Wilbanks, on a piece of toast, can be yours for the right bid on eBay.
Huh?
Tomorrow’s New York Times has a rather puzzling article about the insurgents in Iraq. It leads with this: “American forces in Iraq have often been accused of being slow to apply hard lessons from Vietnam and elsewhere about how to fight an insurgency. Yet, it seems from the outside, no one has shrugged off the lessons of history more decisively than the insurgents themselves.”
The thesis of the article, near as I could tell, is that the insurgents don’t know what they’re doing. They’re just killing people with no larger tactical goal.
Several experts are cited: Anthony James Joes, professor and author of books on guerilla warfare, told the Times, "The insurgents are doing everything wrong now. Or, anyway, I don't understand why they're doing what they're doing." Steven Metz, of the Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, said, "It really is significant that even two years in there hasn't been anything like any kind of political ideology or political spokesman or political wing emerging. It really is a nihilistic insurgency."
The Times’ analyst, James Bennet, concludes, “No one really knows what the insurgents are up to.”
He then cites Dr. Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute: "It clearly makes sense to the people who are doing it. And that more than anything else tells us how little we understand the region."
Therefore, until they have a manifesto, the insurgents should just cut it out. Go read your Mao and Che Guevara, kids, and don’t come back to the suicide bombings until you have a game plan. Oh, could you fax that to us please? Or e-mail us your Power Point presentation? Appreciate it.
Our friend Jo-Carol passed away suddenly two years ago, when an aneurysm felled her on the street, killing her instantly. She was 46. Her influence lingers, however, her having been very much a larger-than-life infuriating and wonderful person.
Among other things, she was a cabaret singer and composer; in honor of her birthday and memory, there was a memorial concert of sorts last night, with various friends, relatives, and/or drag queens singing her songs or songs she would have sung, for the amusement of one other. I did “Is That All There Is?”, the nihilistic yet strangely cheerful Peggy Lee song, and it went over quite well. A good time was had by all.
Yesterday afternoon, making my way to the venue from downtown, I crossed paths with a young Asian man in a very white suit and overly-moussed hair. As we passed, he started waving happily at me, a huge grin on his face. “Do I know this guy?” I wondered. I waved back, puzzled. Then he grabbed his tie, and shook at it me. His tie was very purple. As it happens, I was gussied up for the show that night, and wearing a purple necktie as well. So I waved my necktie back at him, and returned his grin. We were purple tie brothers! For one brief moment all was right with the world.
“Flee”- ance aftermath
"Jennifer's High Tailin' Hot Sauce" is selling briskly. Also, a likeness of Jennifer Wilbanks, on a piece of toast, can be yours for the right bid on eBay.
Huh?
Tomorrow’s New York Times has a rather puzzling article about the insurgents in Iraq. It leads with this: “American forces in Iraq have often been accused of being slow to apply hard lessons from Vietnam and elsewhere about how to fight an insurgency. Yet, it seems from the outside, no one has shrugged off the lessons of history more decisively than the insurgents themselves.”
The thesis of the article, near as I could tell, is that the insurgents don’t know what they’re doing. They’re just killing people with no larger tactical goal.
Several experts are cited: Anthony James Joes, professor and author of books on guerilla warfare, told the Times, "The insurgents are doing everything wrong now. Or, anyway, I don't understand why they're doing what they're doing." Steven Metz, of the Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, said, "It really is significant that even two years in there hasn't been anything like any kind of political ideology or political spokesman or political wing emerging. It really is a nihilistic insurgency."
The Times’ analyst, James Bennet, concludes, “No one really knows what the insurgents are up to.”
He then cites Dr. Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute: "It clearly makes sense to the people who are doing it. And that more than anything else tells us how little we understand the region."
Therefore, until they have a manifesto, the insurgents should just cut it out. Go read your Mao and Che Guevara, kids, and don’t come back to the suicide bombings until you have a game plan. Oh, could you fax that to us please? Or e-mail us your Power Point presentation? Appreciate it.
posted by Merle Kessler at 3:23 PM
1 Comments:
I've heard this before. The jist of it, anyway.
http://tinyurl.com/76dnn
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