Unbelievably brave, utterly righteous, never to be forgotten

OK, let's go.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 5, 1944, 3:30am

One evening... the sky over our house began to fill with the sound of aircraft, which swelled until it overflowed the darkness from edge to edge. Its first tremors had taken my parents into the garden, and as the roar grew I followed and stood between them to gaze awestruck at the constellation of red, green and yellow lights which rode across the heavens and streamed southwards toward the sea. It seemed as if every aircraft in the world was in flight, as wave followed wave without intermission, discernible as dark corpuscles on the blacker plasma of the clouds, which the moon had not yet risen to illuminate.

John Keegan, Six Armies in Normandy

Under command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.

SHAEF communique, London, Tuesday, June 6, 1944, 9:30am

Links:
D-Day, PBS/WGBH: American Experience
D-Day: Why it matters 60 years later, Time Magazine special edition
National D-Day Museum, New Orleans, LA
National D-Day Memorial, Bedford, VA
Normandy, 1944, Britannica.com articles by John Keegan
D-Day at the Imperial War Museum
D-Day, 60 years on, BBC in-depth
D-Day: Canada's Role, CBC News
The 60th Anniversary of D-Day at the Canadian War Museum
Dieppe, 1942
Comité du Débarquement (in English)
Site officiel du 60ème anniversaire ... de la Libération de la France (in English)
D-Day: Etat des lieux: "Ce site est dedié a tous les hommes qui ont debarqué sur nos côtes le 6 juin 1944"


...The troops, the air and the navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.

...Eisenhower's note in the event of failure.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 3:30:00 AM -- |    

 
On vacation for a few days
...so except for an entry following this one, I won't be blogging until Wednesday next week at earliest.

I'll be in Charleston, South Carolina, with my family, mom, and dad. While my parents take in the Spoleto Festival, I'll wander the streets of beautiful old Charleston, hang out on the beach, maybe visit one of the old rice plantations, read a book or two ... and eat some great food as usual. We're planning to check out the Hominy Grill this time, and may hopefully sample some Gullah fare as well. posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:03:00 PM -- |    

 
Beyond Fallujah
...is the title of a quaintly unlinkable article in Harper's Magazine. The report by Patrick Graham, a freelance Canadian journalist, recounts his experiences during "a year with the Iraqi resistance" to U.S. occupation forces in Iraq. One excerpt made me want to bang my head into a wall:

Mohammed's group had stockpiled Russian-made SAM-7 Strela anti-aircraft missiles, which had come from the Habbaniya air base a few kilometers down the bluffs. We could see a tank there, parked under a guard tower. Before U.S. foces took over Habbaniya, they had watched as Mohammed and other Iraqis looted the ammunition.

"The Americans are so stupid -- they almost gave us the weapons," he said. "They thought we were thieves. They watched us taking RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] and other weapons and said, 'Are you Ali Baba?'" This was what the G.I.'s called thieves and looters. "We said yes, so they let us in. They thought we were destroying the Iraqi army."

Arrgh! I'd love to see that decision -- whether it was a "who cares" or "right on! go ahead" -- traced up the chain of command to the precise incompetent ass or asses responsible. And I'd like to know whether this was just at Habbaniyah or -- as I suspect -- something that happened throughout the country. It was a violation of 'broken windows' principles, the trust of law-abiding Iraqis, and the accepted responsibilities of occupying forces to let looters walk off with office furniture and the like. But it was near-suicidal naivete to let looters walk off with RPGs. I wonder whether misapplied notions like "property of the Iraqi people" or "right to bear arms" played a role.

More to the point of the article, Graham describes a nationalist/tribal resistance that doesn't square with "Baathist dead-enders" or "foreign jihadists":

Did you see Braveheart?" he asked me. "They throw out the British and the corrupt nobles. It is about hope. The people in the movie want freedom, and so do we. In the movie, the problems start because the British invaded and take the beautiful women and hurt the people. Because of the hard times, they gather weapons and get rid of the spies and traitors, isn't that right?"

In the era of Jayson Blair and Judith Miller, it may be worth reminding oneself this story is one reporter's snapshot of one set of informants/insurgents/resistance fighters. But it rings true, and seems an important corrective to the picture the Bush administration prefers to circulate.


=====
UPDATE, 6/4: May 29 Patrick Graham interview by Scott Simon on NPR (RealAudio or Windows Media Player options) posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:10:00 PM -- |    

 
On blogging
The New York Times "Circuits" section published an item about blogging last week by Katie Hafner titled "For Some, the Blogging Never Stops":

Blogging is a pastime for many, even a livelihood for a few. For some, it becomes an obsession. Such bloggers often feel compelled to write several times daily and feel anxious if they don't keep up. As they spend more time hunkered over their computers, they neglect family, friends and jobs.

The article has naturally been widely noticed by bloggers; a consensus seems to be forming around "well, what does she know about it, anyway?"

But to be honest, the article sounds about right to me. While I'm not a "several times a day" blogger, between reading other blogs and drafting my own longish posts, this can easily get too time consuming. What never seems to stop is gradually failing to to keep the right balance, and getting behind with work or home stuff.

This isn't building up to an "I'm quitting" announcement. It's more an explanation of the frequent long dry spells. At this point, I think of this blog in two ways. Primarily, it's writing as a hobby. If I write something I like, that's a reward in itself. By the same token, if I don't have much to say, I don't want to obsessively beachcomb the Internet just for the sake of keeping the blog fresh.

Only connect?
Still, blogging is a little more to me than writing as a hobby. I look forward to feedback from other people, either as comments, via a link, or even as a full-fledged discussion of something I've written (it's happened). I imagine my kind of blogging is similar to short-wave radio hobbyists in that respect: put a message out there, see who responds. I have no great aspirations to turning professional, or having great influence on the world. (Well, sometimes I do.) So I tell myself I just want to make some connections with people.

My statistics over the last week put that in perspective: an e-mail from SiteMeter last Friday informed me I'd had 312 visitors and 396 page views for the preceding week, i.e., about 45 a day. First off, thank you! Your taste is extraordinary, your reading eclectic; most big and even middle tier blogs do that much in a day at most. Considering that at least half of the visits are one-timers via Google, it's easy to sometimes feel foolish about this "hobby." On the other hand, between 10 and 20 percent of my visits are from European time zones -- hi milchstrasse.de, wanadoo.fr, btcentralplus.com, co.uk, t-dialin.net et al! -- which I think is cool.

There are no doubt better ways of doing of connecting than putting electronic messages in a bottle and casting them out into the Internet. Maybe "meetups" are the way to go. But probably not, for me. I prefer working out my opinions and views in quiet, and then seeing who agrees or disagrees. I've enjoyed meeting up with some people I've met this way -- Tony, Brett, Jim, Eve. But a second New York Times item last week -- an op-ed by Brent Staples -- warns:

Studies show that gregarious, well-connected people actually lost friends, and experienced symptoms of loneliness and depression, after joining discussion groups and other activities. People who communicated with disembodied strangers online found the experience empty and emotionally frustrating but were nonetheless seduced by the novelty of the new medium. As Prof. Robert Kraut, a Carnegie Mellon researcher, told me recently, such people allowed low-quality relationships developed in virtual reality to replace higher-quality relationships in the real world.

Again, I'd say there some truth in that; I think some bloggers' deformations over time -- and "we" know who "they" are -- are partly attributable to this process.

I am the captain of my blog
I think that what draws bloggers (like me) as much as any 'community' they manage to develop is that it's that rare thing for many of us, a place where we're completely in charge. The combination of being in control of what and how I write and getting occasional positive feedback is what keeps me coming back.

But with this vast authority comes dread responsibility; a drawback about blogging is that it puts you 'out there' in a way that most people don't have to deal with, especially if you write about news and politics. By 'nailing myself down' to published positions, I'm at a bit of a tactical disadvantage with people I do talk with who know I'm blogging.

Without the blog, I'd be more free to quietly change my mind about things with no one the wiser; with it, there's often a voice in my head -- or one in the room with me -- saying "But you said ..." Like journals or diaries (I think) blogs can enforce more consistency than one is sometimes comfortable with; unlike them, they're public.

I think that's one way that blogging can exacerbate the effect Dr. Kraut observes: bloggers can be at a disadvantage when discussing their views in person. Especially if there's disagreement. It becomes easiest to just avoid or rule out in-person discussions for the sake of getting along -- and retreat back to a safer, more anonymous audience.

This post peters out here
Recently, one of those disembodied online friends offered me a free ad on his blog. As I thought about it, I realized I wasn't sure what I'd say or why I'd want to advertise. "Newsrack: I could sort of explain the name, but that would even bore me."? "Newsrack: Check it out. Or not. Whatever."? "Newsrack: What the heck, you've got nothing better to do."?

I'm still not sure. It bothers me a little that I both follow my visit stats, and have little idea what recommends this blog even to myself. For the time being, I guess I'll adopt T.E. Lawrence's attitude from once upon a time: "The trick is not to care." posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:03:00 PM -- |    

 
Memorial Day
To the vast majority of veterans of all the wars the United States has fought, including Iraq right now: thank you. Very much. I'm angry about Abu Ghraib and the rest of it because I respect what you've done. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:09:00 PM -- |    

 
Fool us once
Governor Bush, 2000 Presidential campaign:

Let us not dominate others with our power — or betray them with our indifference. And let us have an American foreign policy that reflects American character. The modesty of true strength. The humility of real greatness. This is the strong heart of America. And this will be the spirit of my administration."

Banner by zenarchery.com, via Wetterdistel, more here... well they were here. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:57:00 PM -- |    

 
The Diebold Variations

(c)2004 Rand Careaga/salamander.eps

For more fine posters about the electronic voting machine maker, visit Rand Careaga's "Diebold Variations" site. The famous saying attributed to Stalin ("It's not who votes that counts. It's who counts the votes.") got him going. Via Mr. Careaga's amusingly titled "Slouching Toward Urschleim" blog, I learned that the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Arianna Huffington have linked to Careaga's posters as well.

(Via Factesque) posted by Thomas Nephew at 4:30:00 PM -- |