Friday Pop Quiz!

Thank you Charlie Cooke for embracing the fine line between the Susan G. Komen for the Cure that donates money to Planned Parenthood and the Susan G. Komen for the Cure that plasters pink crap everywhere to remind us that donating our hard-earned dollars to this organization is THE ONLY WAY to eliminate cancer.
For his next trick maybe Charlie will tell us how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

@Dave H: And you thought Bait & Switch was only for profit-making businesses.

And he did it all with just one ball

Aren’t contributions to that charity tax deductible? That is a form of subsidy.
STFU, Mr. Cooke, lefties are also walking for the cure and licking yogurt tops.

Saw somewhere that Komen had reversed field – PP to get the money after all. And why don’t they fire the anti-abortion idiot that started the whole mess?

Apparently the SEKRIT teabagger version of the Constitution guarantees the right not only to “free speech” but “free speech without consequences as long as you express the GOP brand of hate”. See also Juan Williams, etc etc…

Does anyone on the right even bother to write opinion pieces that would stand up to even the most superficial scrutiny?

@blogenfreude: Discussion in SFL’s thread. If you’re suspicious of Komen, today’s announcement was no reason to change your mind.

@Serolf Divad: No and why should they bother? It’s not like any of their readers or viewers possess critical analysis and reasoning skills.

Gee, the wingtards don’t like it when people tell them what they can and can’t do.

I can’t imagine whether or not I heard that before… like on gay marriage… or abortion… or pretty much everything else that the wingtarded don’t like.

@nojo: All I know is that at some point during the spring I see a thousand or so women (and a few men) wearing pink shit and shuffling towards Central Park … and here I thought it was a good thing.

OFUCKINGSHIT TJ/ I went to fancy pants school’s alumni event and apparently “chastised” a 34-yr tenured history professor for talking about the cost of the military in terms of dollars and not in terms of broken people. I did say that I know that you can’t really quantify broken vets, but I see them every time I’m at the VA, and I am one. Just like SAT/LSAT/MCAT scores are easy metrics with which to place people upon a non-existent line of worth, so is talking about numbers without talking about sociology. Demographics are nice, but what stands behind those numbers? Also, what role do advanced medical procedures play in the lowish body count of dead US soldiers?

He talked about integrating the public into the “invisible military,” and I said that medicine plays a part b/c the body count is low. I said that when the numbers of dead were announced nightly during Vietnam, that galvanized the public and personalized the war as much as conscription did. I also asked him why all the essays in his upcoming book were written by officers and not any by enlisted folks–it’s a completely different experience. I also talked about the toll of redeployment, and how most enlisted vets who learn to fix FLIRs on sub hunters are not going to find jobs with Boeing. Question and answer session ended with my comments. I wanted to discuss our militia w/r/t the 3rd Amendment, but I didn’t get a chance. (He took two questions.)

I apologized for “chastising” him–that that wasn’t my intent, and he said he was joking when he said I had chastised him. I’m not so sure he was joking.

After the room cleared, I sang karaoke until the bar closed. It was much more fun. I won’t be buying his book.

@JNOV is like, Peace?: The military’s med skills are acknowledged to be the best in the world. Remember that Reno air show crash that fucked up my co-workers family? Her daughter, son in law, and daughter’s father in law all lost legs. (Her daughter’s mother in law was basically obliterated in the crash.) They were so fucked up that they ended up calling in military surgeons to treat the victims.

The dudes I know who either went over or who were subject to deployment for Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Bosnia are all enlisted men. The only officers I know are one guy who flew a B-52 and another guy I went to law school with who was a JAG guy who wanted to get quien es muy macho pictures of himself holding an M4 by the side of a Humvee to further his political career. (Poser. A Hispanic lesbian with two little dogs I supported kicked his ass in the Democratic primary.)

My buddy who got a Purple Heart in Eye-Rak gave me a Gerber multi-tool that I last used when I handed it to the owner of Tina’s Range Gear (as seen in No Country for Old Men) to pull expanded cases out of her .44 mag. revolver last Saturday.

@redmanlaw: I think I’m gonna be banned from alumni events, though. This was the first and last (?) one I’ve attended besides The Big Game telecasts.

It didn’t bother me that he had never been in the military himself, but it bothered others. Some people appreciated my comments. I dunno. I mean, so what if he’s been teaching since heck was a pup? He’s Just. A. Guy. And I’m Just. A. Woman. I’m allowed to challenge him, right?

Someone told me he was less pompous than in other talks he’d given. Er. I dunno, because I’d never heard of him before, so maybe I didn’t have the requisite awe or fawning whatever. And the worst part is that I agreed with damn near everything he said, and I told him so. But the methodology seems flawed. How can you ignore the majority of the people who are in the military in a book about a volunteer military? Frankly, I was shocked by what seems to be elitist crap. Pulitzer Schmulitzer. Not impressed.

I think I made our alumni chapter look bad? Or badass? We do throw batteries here…

I’m going to volunteer to write an essay for his next book if he tackles the subject again. Not sure if he was blushing or was flushed.

@JNOV is like, Peace?: Badass. And able to engage simultaneously in critical analysis (back to the post topic) and sociology/empathy. You just made the chapter badass.

ADD: And if he weren’t so intimidated by a smart woman, he would take you up on your offer to write an essay for his next book. Shit, you should send in a review to the alumni mag and see if they have the balls to run it.

@SanFranLefty: ::weak smile:: Well, I didn’t make the offer yet, and his book isn’t out yet, but I’ll give both the offer and the review a shot. He’s been talking about the military for a good seven years now. I don’t think he’s exhausted the subject, but I’m exhausted. I used to mock karaoke until my kary was popped last night.

@JNOV is like, Peace?: Kennedy is a child of his discipline, in this case, a historian who frames historical narratives by econometrics – which mostly means counting stuff. His *The Rise and Fall of Empires* was the first of a string of popular works on American declinism which in the late 1980s, with the age of Reagan in its golden years, was an interesting event all its own. The approach has its own kind of false authority, ex post facto reading the ledgers of Rome, Germany, the UK and mapping the numbers to bankrupting military overstretch. Wow, they overspent! Where’s my Pulitzer? It’s much harder to get a valid read on how this happens in a functioning democracy that takes some degree of popular consent and engage the question of the militarization of a society. Kennedy wouldn’t have the tools for the latter and would have likely been beaten up by his peers for trying. Take him up on the offer and don’t let him go. You may well inspire him to take some chances.

@FlyingChainSaw: What’s interesting (if it was Kennedy), is that he kept hammering home the point of how little we spend on the military in terms of GDP. He added an anecdote here and there about the emotional toll of serving (sniper deciding to shoot enemy combatant who was holding a child–both child and EC killed) <– I wanted to say, "Of COURSE he took the shot! The Programming Goes Deep," but I think adding stuff like that was to give the appearance of balance. He also made great points about the military becoming a family business, bases being self-contained towns where you never have to leave and interact with those around you. (Oh! Like Stanford? Shit. The Farm has a fucking MALL, for Pete's sake.)

And then he talked about ROTC on Stanford (I think I kinda hissed), and some sort of compulsory national service (uhhhhhh…) — he wasn't sure what kind. I dunno.

Part of me was like, "He mentions that whole 'mercenary army' kerfluffle as if it were a mistake, but I'm not sure I buy it (the 'whoops!' part). I suppose he's itching for another fight."

I guess the thing that ticked me off (and we spoke about it when I walked in — he was greeting us as we arrived), was that when he described the book and started naming contributing authors, I realized that they were all officers, so I asked him privately if any were enlisted. I didn't bring that up during Q&A.

Many, many people in and out of the military think the enlisted ranks are dumb, or they wouldn't be enlisted. By not included these voices, he continues that pattern of thinking. It's pretty fucked up.

Anyway. Meh. Lotsa good, lotsa quibbles, not sure where he's going, but he hasn't offered anything to me. Doubt he will.