"the forgotten"

The forgetting is the forgotten
of remembering to forget
that which to remember begets
the forgotten memory
and the remembrance to forget.

the man who would be president

''We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens.''
-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld

want more american pie?

Pentagon's artificially sweetened Iraqi newspaper pie

Definitely defiant definition of torture pie

National Security Agency's citizens spy-ced pie

army of one

It's there for anyone who wants to know, and today CNN news aired a piece about it and it's creator.

icasualties.org is an American web site dedicated to providing a comprehensive collection of news reports on casualties of the Iraq war. The site also provides stacks of running hard figures hot off the presses and broken down for multiple analyses. What makes this site special is the pairing of up-to-the-minute news reports together with the number counts on one page, giving viewers a more encompassing, panoramic view of the bodily consequences of the war.

Kudos to it's founder and main operator who, bug-eyed, apparently works tediously on his laptop to splay accounts often remiss by national publications. Perhaps to the chagrin of war advocates, this site combats obfuscation of information---a not so unintentional keeping that affectively lends to disassociation of the human effects of war, a condition that garners greater support for the war.

is there a priest?

The 2006 Calendario Romano is about to fly off the shelves once again in Rome. In it's third issue, this tastefully presented, tourism-designed calendar features some of the hottest men of the cloth.

Surely to bring you closer to god.

http://www.calendarioromano.org/

many ways to skin a CAT

The U.S. administration has been under the gun since the Washington Post broke the story about secret U.S. prisons abroad. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Europe doing damage control for the Administration, clarifying contentious U.S. policy on torturing prisoners by alluding to the United Nation's Convention Against Torture treaty (CAT). U.S. policy on this matter and its actual application are relevant in light of the current U.S. program to kidnap foreign terrorism suspects abroad and send them to third countries for interrogations, termed "extraordinary rendition". All the while, the U.S. Administration continues to dodge official questions about the existence of secret and illegal U.S. prisons on foreign soils.

Read the New York Times article.

The U.S. appears to be sweeping up the crime scene, as indicated by the sudden U.S. acquisition of a suspicious Romanian military base likely to have been investigated, along with reports of the relocation of hidden prisoners to North Africa. If once the smoke clears there remains evidence of illegal activity, U.S. credibility, and that of any implicated nations, will be in further jeopardy. In concrete terms, this could mean more lawsuits and potential indictments on the homefront, internal European penalty, and an unlimited amount of distress to U.S. international relations---not to mention a possible incentive for terrorist retaliation. At that point, the Secretary of State may have to take tips from her predecessor, the other shamed black pawn of the Bush administration, Colin Powell, on how to eat her words in face of deceiving the nation and the world.

heart of glass

I'm not sure if it was in Buda or in Pest, but I was visiting the Hungarian capital several years back, in my younger years, when an exuberant air of adventure caught me and I determined myself to hike the mountain sitting along the bank of the Danube, with aim to reach the formidable and resplendent castle looming atop. It sat there, resolute and reckoning, blazing above the hazy city air like a stone construct of long-ago strength, an enduring witness of its people's strife and success. It was the most enchanting thing I had seen. And, as I ventured up the steep slope in my running shoes, past the small parking lot and into the castle itself, I was thrown back into an old-world history of which North America can lay no hand. I recall a few polished ornaments adorning the hallway walls and the air smelled dank and heavy of tobacco smoke mixed with the funk of aged upholstery, for which no breeze from an opened window could rid. Since it was by now late afternoon and as I was admittedly fatigued from my ascent after a full day of solo sight-seeing within the city, I was thus forced by circumstances to make short my castle visit and had to resign myself to the simple pleasurable reward of having reached my day's goal without going much into it. It was to my relief I then saw a small restaurant-bar tucked away at the end of a darkened hall. I relished to sit and rest my feet awhile, and so I sat and ordered a coffee, espresso-style. On my way out of the castle, I felt still somewhat in need of some kind of marker, some memory-maker to show claim of my personal triumph and discovery. Luckily, as industry would have it, there was a modest display by the door of various crystalware for sale, as was available throughout the city. I had, until that point, not acquired a single one of these souvenirs from any shop I had browsed, and so I felt it most befitting and significant that I should buy my crystal vase from this castle collection. Decision made, the attendant opened the case, we made the transaction and then one was mine. I happily carried the vase back, later packed it right, and eventually returned across the Atlantic and placed it carefully in a cabinet in my home. There it rested for years and whenever I would look at it, or would place it on the table filled with fresh spring flowers, I would smile and remember my humble conquest that brought it there.

It was, therefore, today to my great pain that I heard a clunk as I clumsily maneuvered a heavy jar over the vase. A big three inch chunk of the crystal vase's rim broke off and landed wholly on the kitchen countertop from where I had forgotten to move it after cleaning. With that crack, I felt my memories crack as well, and I could not help but feel sadder than I should. It was just a thing, a material thing, something I could replace with some effort, maybe even have fixed with some effort. But, for whatever reason, I had placed more into that crystal vase than could be discerned. It was for me greater than the sum of its pieces lying there; a startling reminder of the fragile nature of our happiness.