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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! September 22, 2005 Open PostBy GreyhawkEiffel Tower edition...  Not edited or altered, just from slightly different points of view, all on the same day. Sort of like the following blog entries... Posted by Greyhawk / September 22, 2005 8:51 PM | Permalink 28 TrackBacksI was thinking about this issue shortly after Katrina hit, and now it seems to have come to the forefront with the approach of Hurricane Rita. Most of the news outlets are focusing their coverage on hurricanes, the destruction that Read More In a post about gasoline prices at Outside the Beltway Steve Verdon links to this article at Econbrowser which comes to the startling (to some) conclusion that the market economy actually works. Read More Fresh on the heels of a Chinese rubber company naming a condom after him, Bill Clinton has garnered another Asian honor of a different kind. A group of scientists in North Korea announced early today that a recently discovered strain Read More Via Individ we find an encouraging post by Grandpapinhead:The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and National Rifle Association (NRA) joined with individual gun owners in Louisiana Thursday morning, filing a motion in United States District Court for th... Read More The Reds are coming back to Washington D.C. this weekend to relive the glory days of their failed anti-war protests from 2003, joining up with fellow traveler Cindy Sheehan for a big protest Saturday against the war on terror. Make no mistake, these f... Read More Someone needs to take all the sharp objects out of the White House, lest they continue to hurt themselves. Read the whole thing. Read More When you turn terrorists loose from capture they go back to terrorism. No surprise there. So what to do? A blogger with first-hand experience dealing with terrorists has some thoughts. Take a look. Read More She has argued for lowering the age of sexual consent to 12. She has argued for legalizing prostitution and polygamy. So if the satin pajamas and pipe fit… ... Read More If you live in or around New York City. Or if you ever have, you know how amazing it is for cops and fire fighters, especially their unions to agree on anything. But the Uniformed Firefighters Association and the Patrolmean's Benevolent Association h... Read More Russ Feingold once again proved that he is one of very few, surely less than a handful, of Senators who vote on principle not politics. Read More I certainly couldn't use the excuse this morning that there's nothing in the news to write about. Several stories are out there from yesterday and going on into this morning that have caught my attention. The next time I fly, I want Scott Burke to be... Read More As Texans flee the hurricane (unlike many in New Orleans), I offer this from my column today: Read More Goes to Kenner Louisiana City official Cedric Floyd. Read More Never let it be said that Big Government does not respond to the needs of its constituents. How did everyone overlook the headline on Page One of the Washington Post:In Break With Tradition, Casinos May Get Tax Breaks, Too. Read More I wanted to link this great article on something called "Progressebonics". It's definitely worth a read. The author is a true visionary. I'd definitely read anything written by him. Pulitzer Prize winning stuff. Here's some examples: Read More Unbelievable. A two-faced Democrat's staff? Redundant for some, I know, but still unbelievable. Charles Schumer presses Judge Roberts on privacy, all the while having staff that literally stole a credit report on Maryland's Lt. Governor, Michael Steele... Read More In all the bad news coming from Katrina, I thought I would share a story of good news. Months ago adayiniraq posted a suggestion which I think was brilliant. To get a soccer ball in the hands of every kid Read More Given geographical challenges, most of you can't attend the activities of the Support our Troops weekend here in Washington. I realize that you'll be there in spirit, but I'm going to try to put you one step closer. Tomorrow night, things kick-off outs... Read More See how "Sarah" is getting it right. To get your next job, assignment or project PASS this test! See how the mythical composite Sarah learned new behaviors to find new opportunities. As first appeared in The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Virginia,... Read More I thought I'd waste some time and have a little photoshop fun at the expense of the eeeevil gouging capitalists at the gas station... Now shake your head and get over it...and read Thomas Sowell in defense of 'price gouging'. Read More The bay area CBS News affiliate ran a story on National Guard Soldiers bumping into ghosts as they clear out flooded areas of New Orleans. Check out the video clip. Read More Name a DOMESTIC issue that would be VERY HIGH on most people’s complaint list regarding President GW Bush? (Not that Clinton or Bush#1 were any better on the same issue.) Well, the issue I have in mind is the big I2 (Illegal Immigration). Read More The Media just can't stand it. They don't have the ability to write about the scandals at the UN in any depth since that might tar their favorite institution. How much have you read about the Air America Scandal? Not much other than in the blogs. So,... Read More I have inline trackbacks now, so you can trackback and it will SHOW UP without opening the comments section! It’ll be published right out in the open! Voila! GO FOR IT! Put up one post that you think deserves some special attention from th... Read More The ACLU claims to be the great defender of liberty, but the truth is that their definition of liberty is limited to what alligns within their agenda. As a matter of fact, the ACLU is the foremost religious censor in America. Despite the fact that t... Read More Several bloggers this morning (Power Line, Michelle Malkin, etc.) have commented on the Presidents recent appointment of Richard Jones as Ambassador to Isreal. Read More When elected members don't represent a political party, what can anyone do about it? Read More President Bush on Thursday asked Abdullah The Butcher to visit Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to help advance the Middle East peace process. "When I was just a young fellow, I remember watching you taking ch... Read More 1 Comment |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
My brother- and sister-in-law were in Paris on their honeymoon. (Hey, it was between Scotland and Italy). Brother-in-law got fed up with the way the French treated tourists.
So, while visiting the Eifel Tower, he asked the tour guide "Could you show me where the Germans hung that flag in 1940."
He actually made it home alive, too.