don’t panic

Lately, in the interest of health, I have started taking morning walks when it isn’t too hot. This can be tricky in the summer when it’s 80 degrees outside by 8 AM. So when I can walk, I grab a hat, some water, my sunglasses, and my iPod, and head out the door.

Yes, an iPod. I used to carry a small portable radio, but after going through about eight of the things and being increasingly frustrated with cheap and nearly non-functional designs, I finally broke down and just had my computer load up a bunch of podcasts to the pod so that I basically get the same thing (NPR is awesome that way) just digital so that it doesn’t come with a ton of static, and skippable so that if I’m bored with something I’m listening to, I just forward to the next podcast. Yeah, I’m pretty spoiled.

Normally, with the radio, I’m so used to bad reception and static, that I tend not to notice the other sounds around me. Those ear-buds do nothing to block outside noise. But in switching to a digital format, the clarity is all too noticeable, and more to the point, the noise pollution.

We live in a small town (albeit part of a huge city) which is even considered “quaint” by visitors. Our main street is lined with antique shops and small businesses, some of which have been there for decades. But unfortunately, we are situated between four major freeways, all of which are choked with rush-hour traffic at the normal times. And to some degree, that backs up into the town center and side streets.

It’s funny how you don’t notice how loud cars are until you walk next to a busy road. Even with traffic passing at a mere 30-40 mph, the constant noise generated by the vehicles is loud enough to almost completely drown-out the gentle conversations coming from my iPod. Even when I push the volume up to near maximum (something I would be crazy to do in the quiet of my home), I can still barely make out what the commentators are saying if at all.

Now, some of this is due to the simple fact that my hearing isn’t was it was when I was 18. Not by a long shot. And I know I have a problem hearing in noisy environments (my brain doesn’t seem to be able to separate the sounds as well anymore). But it’s given me an eye-opening perspective on just how much noise pollution we tolerate in our worlds.

In my entire 45 minute walk, there is never a time when I can’t hear the sound from some automobile or jet airplane. Not one single second.

And most times, the noise level is louder than that of the voice in my ears. And this is a small community! I can’t imagine what it’s like in a more densely populated area, or even the city.

My wife likes white noise. Most of the time, we have fans on in the house either to cool, or just to provide a background hum that helps to mask the sounds of cars going by our kitchen window. We live on a busy street, and the sound of cars is ever present. Like most unpleasant things that you have to live with, you learn to ignore it, but that doesn’t mean it goes away. So today, on my walk, I found myself taking a path that led me further and further away from the center of town. And to a certain degree, the noise did diminish some as I got away from the busier areas. But not completely. I found myself longing for silence, even a few seconds worth. It’s almost like my brain just needed a few moments without input to reset itself. But it wasn’t to be.

And more and more, the “quiet” places I remember as a kid are vanishing. I can distinctly remember as a boy, going out into my parent’s backyard and being able to just lay on the lawn under a big tree and listen to the sound of leaves rustling in the wind. And if the F-14′s from the nearby Air Station weren’t doing touch-and-go’s that day, it was otherwise silent. nothing more than the chirp of a small bird, or my own quiet breathing. I could literally hear the soft rush of my own blood in my ears.

Now, the only time I can experience that level of solitude is hovering deep at the bottom of a pool of water… And even then, it’s just not the same.

My dream, is to someday live in a house that is far enough from anyone else that I can no longer hear the sounds of man, at least now and again.

I’ve never been in favor of war, and our presence in Iraq is no exception. But in the past, I have also trusted our military enough to let them do their job if need be. I also feel that we should back the President if it is deemed necessary to go to war… to a point.

We live in a democratic nation, meaning that we, as a people, elect officials that are supposed to represent our feelings and desires on issues. Those officials then vote for action in our nation’s capital. Unfortunately, our current President seems to be bypassing the whole system in as many ways as is physically possible. Between signing statements, vetoes, and just plain ignoring the will of the American people, Bush seems to be basically doing whatever he pleases. That sucks, but it’s a topic I’ve covered.

What has been bothering me lately is this whole idea of “progress” in Iraq. I hate that word. It’s a meaningless reference to nothing and tells us in no way whether we should still be there. And yet, this is what the top military commander in Iraq is using as his basis to urge us to continue on our current path with no changes.

And to be fair, I’m not there. I’m not in the military, and I can’t see the whole picture. And neither can Congress. But that’s why we pay for independent studies. And after three, the consensus seems to be that we aren’t making much ‘progress’ at all, in fact, we may actually be worse off than when we started. So either General Patraeus knows something we don’t (unlikely, since you only have to try and walk the streets in order to see our ‘progress’ in action… bring your vest), or he’s giving us a pre-scripted white-wash to serve Bush’s agenda. Sorry, but I just don’t trust the military any more.

I clearly remember sitting in my living room watching Cheney explain in great detail, how Saddam was creating and hiding chemical weapons of mass destruction. And I believed him. I was all behind us going in there and taking those things out… I mean, we were seeing realtime satellite imagery of freight cars carrying the labs, and trucks of lethal components all over the place. But it turned out, our data was off a little bit. Just enough to declare a useless war it seems. And when we found out that there were no ‘WMDs’ in there, we should have turned around, apologized, and gotten the hell out. But that wouldn’t look good for the President, so… suddenly, we were there to free the people of Iraq from the grip of terrorists and help them restore democracy.

Uh, right.

And after four years and over a hundred billion of my tax dollars, we are making ‘progress’. We still can’t even defend ONE SINGLE HIGH SECURITY AREA from terrorists, and the internal political factions that have been waring for like a thousand years can finally go at each other again, now that they have been unshackled from the old government that was keeping them in line, but hey, why not throw another hundred billion or so at this thing so that we can have a little more ‘progress’. I mean, for four years and a mountain of money, I would HOPE there would be SOME progress. It would be hard NOT to have progress. Hell, we should have just brought a hundred billion in little suitcases to be given to each and every Iraqi citizen. It would probably have had a better effect than simply blowing apart each neighborhood as we chase the ‘bad guys’ around from town to town. Think about it, with a population of around 27 million, even 100 billion dollars gives every man, woman, and child in the nation over $3,700 American dollars. That’s a freaking fortune for most of them. And we’ve spent way more than that so far.

There is not going to be a good ending to this story. Nothing we do is going to change the fact that the people there hate each other enough to kill. We can play ‘police man’ all we want, but the idea that we are ultimately going to change the way these people have been thinking for a millennia is utter fantasy. Israel knows this. They’re old pros at the game. In the last two generations, have they made any real ‘progress’ with those at their borders? I don’t think so.

Bush – Get out. Get out now. Let them either fix it themselves or go the way of countless others in history.

So the GAO has officially announced that only 3 of 18 goals in Iraq have been met, and that 4 more are even partially met.

Boy, makes me feel like money well spent… not. 120 BILLION dollars that could have been put to incredible use here in the U.S. and we can’t even make PROGRESS in more than 7 out of 18 very serious goals??! That’s a big fat “F” in most people’s grading schemes.

I love this from Tony Snow…

“The real question that people have is what’s going on in Iraq? Are we making progress? Militarily, is the surge having an impact?” Snow said. “The answer’s yes. There’s just no question about it.”

And you know, he’s absolutely right. Bush’s surge is definitely having a huge impact… right here at home. How much more could we have spent on education if we had 120 billion more? How about bridges that needed repair? Homeland security anyone? How about satellite repair for our aging weather forecasting system?

But those things aren’t important compared to “not losing” in Iraq… What does that mean?? Has anyone seriously pinned Bush down on what it means to loose in Iraq?

Oh yeah, that’s what this report was… Wow, looks like we’re loosing big time to me.

So, it looks like the military gets to blast the whales all it wants. Boy are we idiots. Wouldn’t it be perfect justice if the dolphin community fights back by driving the entire population of tuna away from the fishing fleets and into deeper waters. Or maybe they’ll all start going crazy and ram the submarines…

WHAM!

“What in the Sam Hill was that?!”

WHAM!

“I don’t know, sir, but whatever it is, it’s big…”

WHAM! WHAM!

“Sonar! What’s going on out there?!”

“I’m picking up something really strange, Captain… It reads like a biologic, only…”

WHAM!

“What? Spit it out soldier!”

“Well, sir… It’s spelling out something on my screen…”

WHAM!

“Spelling?! What does it say?”

“It reads, ‘TURN THAT CRAP DOWN’… sir.”