Written at Dusk, 2/8/08

The Catholic Church tells me that the earth is flat, but I know it to be round, for I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in shadows, than in the entire Catholic Church.

~Ferdinand Magellan

The moon is so beautiful tonight, and you can indeed see the shadow on the dark side quite distinctly contrasted between the bright silver sliver of the lighted side and the still bright sky while the light of the sun remains for a few minutes more in the western sky. Even though Magellan either misinterpreted the shadow, which is actually the surface of the moon that never sees the sun, or he was talking about a lunar eclipse which is indeed the earth’s shadow on the moon, the beautiful apparition in the night sky made me think of his wicked little remark as I sit here at an outdoor restaurant patio tonight.

Peace and Love

The Editors of the LA Times don't like me

I was going to write this as a letter to the editors of the LA times, but the reality is that they're a right of center fascist pandering rag, and their editors don't tend to like the perspective I try to bring into their opinion section. So instead I'm just going to publish it here, where it can be read or not read by as few or as many readers as care to do so (I still haven't gone to the trouble of learning to use the traffic tracking function I added a few weeks ago, so I don't really know what that number constitutes).

On February 5, the Times ran an article titled 'Did Marines Kill Wildly or Not?', in which they continue their coverage of the court of inquiry into the actions of the Marine unit which allegedly fired into civilian crowds without provocation or justification after an IED explosion near one of their Humvees while on an unauthorized patrol in southern Afghanistan.

Near the end of the article, a Sergeant in the unit, thinking that he's making an ominous prediction that justifies his behavior, says that in the future, "I would hesitate to shoot my gun...knowing I would have to go through this fiasco."

As I had written it in my draft meant for the LA Times, a grateful nation and his entire general staff respond, "Good! Great! That's all we're asking; that you, a professional combat soldier, a U.S. Marine, perhaps the most highly trained general infantry in the history of the human race, would risk your life one fraction of a second longer than any lesser soldier would in order to gauge weather you can really justify firing your weapon.

In doing so, you not only obey the rules of engagement you were trained with and laws of war you are legally bound to obey, you protect your mission and your country, in addition to yourself. In fact, in not doing so, you may reduce the immediate risk to yourself, and I do stress 'may,' but in the long term you increase the risk to yourself, just as American soldiers in Vietnam were at increased long term risk because of the atrocities they committed in the name of self-preservation three decades ago.

I don't pretend to understand the stress of combat. I am grateful to Sgt. Heriberto Becerra-Bravo and all of his comrades for the risks they take to secure me the luxury of that ignorance. But I do know, as I have studied it in greater detail than they, that both their mission and their immortal honor are at stake in that small difference.

The fact is, that small hesitation will rarely be necessary, as in most circumstances, it will be abundantly clear that they are under attack. But in that small fraction, be it ten percent, one percent, or one tenth of one percent that their hesitation results in their realizing that they need not fire their weapon, they do more service to their country and to their mission than they do in entire live-fire combat episodes.

I personally with to express the respect and honor, uncharacteristic as it is of my political ideology, in which I hold the Marine Corps, and the entire U.S. Armed Forces, but we expect better than the conduct unbecoming an American of any stripe, rank or role that Sgt. Becerra-Bravo and his unit exibited.

Life is Strange

I don't know what it is. Life is just strange.

I got a DUI a few months back. It's a long story, but I'll try to summarize.

I was going out to the bars in Santa Barbara with my cousin Rosalina as we do pretty regularly. She's one of my favorite weekend companions because we have a similar outlook on partying vis a vis how much is acceptable and what kinds of things are ok to do. The plan was for me to leave my car at her friend Natalie's house, and to crash on the couch there at the end of the night.

As it turned out, though, I got into an argument with Natalie's roommate, also named Natalie, and she kicked me out of the house. What did we argue about? That's the long story, but it has to do with the fact that I got kicked out of a bar for saying something that I should have had every right to say, and that she took the female bartender's side in the matter.

Well, Natalie had called me a cab when she kicked me out, but I couldn't take it, because my car was parked on the curb there and I had to work at 8:00 am, the math just did not work for me to get up, get back to the mesa and get to Ojai in time. Leave aside the fact that my cousin had gone home early in the night, presumably to make love to her boyfriend, and the only other place I might have counted on to sleep was off limits because the last time I'd crashed at my Nono's apartment without prior warning, I'd nearly given him a heart attack.

So I drove home. I know it was stupid, but based on the rule of thumb formula I knew I was close to the limit and I figured I'd be alright if I was careful. As it turns out I was indeed close to the limit. I know because I was breathalized, I had a BAC of .09%. The limit, by the by, is .08%. Basically if I hadn't finished my drink before getting kicked out of the bar I'd have been alright.

Anyway, why do I tell this story now? I'm staying at my cousin's house again the last few nights because I've been volunteering for the Barack Obama primary campaign. Saturday night we went out to the bars, and in the course of the night we met up with Rosie's friend Natalie, who just happened to be hanging out with little Natalie.

No biggie, I convinced myself that I'd just cold shoulder little Natalie and try to have a good time anyways. Life had other ideas.

Almost immediately on meeting up inside EOS, a nightclub just off State St. we all went to the bar and I bought a round of drinks because it was my turn (it didn't really bother me that little Natalie got a drink because that's the nature of buying a round, it's about alcoholic karma, not about only buying drinks for the people you like). Rosie and her friend Natalie grabbed their drinks and walked off to the dance floor to dance, but little Natalie grabbed my arm and held me back to ask if we were "cool".

"Whatever," I told her, knowing it was the closest thing to an apology I was likely to get. "I don't particularly think you acted very fairly toward me, but I don't hold any grudges."

Well, we talked about it, and I have to admit, just the fact that she brought it up, without any hesitation or sense of trying to avoid the issue made me more inclined to forgive and forget. I figured that in truth I hadn't been blameless, I'd definitely not been very nice, etc. In the course of talking about it we had both told each other straight out that we were attracted to each other, and eventually, after we'd both sort of admitted fault and more or less expressed regret for out part of what we'd done, we ended up making out!

Yeah, I felt a little bit stupid and easily manipulated, but then again, I made out with a girl I'd liked when I'd first met her, and the reality is that it's not like its her fault that I got a DUI, it's just her fault that I didn't have a couch to sleep on. I'm the asshole who decided to get in my car and drive that night. I don't know, in a way it's totally messed up and neurotic and sad and even a bit masochistic, but in another way, it's kind of just totally reasonable and makes sense. Part of the whole reason we'd gotten as pissed at each other as we did was because of the sexual tension between us, it was sort of natural, after we forgave each other that we would hook up pretty immediately.

Anyways, life is just a ridiculous story. My Nana liked to say, before she died, that the only difference between reality and fiction was that fiction had to make sense.