The Bravo Blog

Quite a stir has been made over Obama’s bow since he decided to make a protocol faux pas on both sides of the Pacific.  What needs to be explored is beyond the political speculation and focus needs to go why he did it and what it really means.  Seriously it means little in this modern day, but its symbolic meanings go so far beyond reason it is what is causing a dust up in the press.  As I am here in Asia I can offer some insight and reasons that you won’t find in the American press.

First off lets look at the act.  Obama screwed it all up from the get go.  If you are going to shake the Emperor’s hand, like everyone has done since Japan’s surrender, then you shake his hand.  If you are going to perform a subservient bow then you bow, you never do both at the same time, like Obama did (maybe that is why the Emperor’s wife is laughing so much.  The press made little of Obama’s bow to the Saudi king, but they sure did make a big deal of G.W.’s cheek kiss and hand holding of the same man.  This is just an interesting side bar in this discussion as it does begin to paint a picture of Obama and his lack of protocol.

What I find most comical is the defense of the act by the left and Obama supporters.  Not only is their argument weak, it is contradictory to basic logic when looked at with any depth.  First off, “Obama was just following protocol when meeting the Emperor of Japan”.  FALSE, there are pictures going back to McArthur showing Americans do not bow to the family that initiated the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  “Obama is a global citizen and is sensitive to the customs and politeness of Asia.”  FALSE, #1 else he would have bowed to the Chinese Premiere and President, of course a Chinese bow and not a Japanese bow.  #2 deep bows like Obama did are reserved to servants and subjects of the Emperor as they essentially offer the head of the bower to the Emperor and show how he is their master, not even Obama is willing to call an old tiny Japanese man his master.  #3 if Obama were that worldly, why is he not smoothing the French President and European leaders on the cheek and doing long embraces and arm slaps?  #4 you will never, never, never spite your allies by showing overt favoritism to one over the other, this is a face losing behavior and if Obama ever goes to Thailand, Nepal, Cambodia and does not do the same he is a hypocrite and slapping them all the face as a clear preference to Japan has been established.  Finally, as earlier stated, you either bow or shake hands, never both.  Even Chinese people who don’t really care about bowing anymore see this as a joke and can’t believe anyone would be that silly.

Next lets look at the impact of this back home in America.  Obama is still seeing his popularity stay steady but his job approval scores continue to go down.  The press is slowly starting to accept the fact he can be criticized without coming off as being racist.  His humility tour where he continues to down play America over other nations is beginning to wear thin.  The largest hit against Obama to me on this is the before mentioned bow of subservience and bowing to the family that launched us into WWII by bombing our ships in harbor unprovoked.  Now I understand there is protocol to be followed when aboard, much like his wife’s infamous back touch to the British Queen, but why is Obama going against 60 years of protocol now and to Japan and not to European countries?  Would he kneel to the King of Spain?  How about to the Pope, would he act in reverent of his holiness or stand tall and statue like when meeting a Christian leader? 

Realistically this means little.  McArthur let Japan keep their Emperor, just with no powers of state duties, under the terms of surrender.  Bowing to him is showing respect but he is not accustomed to this from state visits.  You will never see a Chinese bow to him, ever and many Asians would never bow either given Japan’s past transgressions during the war.  This was more of a publicity stunt or a pure slip up as something that seemed good at the time.  Not even Clinton bowed to him during a visit to the White House, the State Dept quickly stopped him when he tried because they knew it was not normal protocol.  The bow will not result in any special treaties, investments in US bonds, monetary favors, trade favoritisms, etc.  All it will net from the Japanese is cute headlines and some good will among those born before 1941.  Here in America is will incite head scratching, detractions from his political enemies, apologies galore from his allies and praise from his fanatics.

The real issue here is the goals and end game Obama is working on in international relations.  His humility tour will only work for as long as he and this current congress are in power.  If he is not re-elected or a potential backlash in 2010 occurs against the congress then the reality of our international relations will change.  Just as they changed between Nixon/Ford and Carter, Carter and Regan, Regan and Bush, Bush and Clinton, Clinton and Bush, and so on.  All this work of re-booting relations will end with him or a new congress which grants him authority to trade relations.  If America gets tired of Obama over the next 3 years we could end up with another cowboy who would do his thing his way and not care about international relations, or we could get a protectionist president who closed down the country to the rest of the world.  His humility tour is more personal then it is national.  Sure he represents us and speaks for us, but he does not hold the convictions of the American people.  His grounding in not in the mainstream status quo, part of why he got elected, but in an ideal that has been peculating for 60 years.  Obama is an ideal, a representation, a slogan in a suit.  He speaks eloquently, when his teleprompter is working, and people get the sense he is talking to them.  His words are just vague and specific enough to capture the imagination and speak to the idealist in all of us.  His bow and the meaning behind it has more to do with him then anything else, just like his election and running of the country.  To him this is all very very very personal, and that is why he is out there doing what he is doing.  He is not doing this for America, he is doing this to say, ‘hey look at me, I represent something I despised before and now I am going to fix it and make it all better.  Too bad he is forgetting about we, the people, who elected him and for whom he speaks.  We the people are the ones who have to be convinced on the best ways to fix what is wrong with our nation.  The election might have been about him, the rest is all about us, even us right wing conservatives who are perceived as terrorists by those who see the same goal from a different angle.

I have had a couple of ideas rattling around in my head for a month or so now and finally have some time to get at least one out.  As I came of age in the 1980’s I have a unique view on art and culture as I experienced the largest cultural shift in music, television, and movies in American history.  After the 1980’s we saw our entertainment industry shift toward more and more commercial interests.  Yes, I know that all art is commercial and Hollywood has been commercial for a long time but it became a driving force over all others in the 1990’s.  Since then then the quality and substance of music, movies, and TV entertainment have continued to plunge to new lows each 5 years or so.

First off, lets look at music, my former favorite.  In the 1970’s music was largely segmented across racial, cultural, and sub-cultural barriers.  R&B was rhythm and blues, Jazz was jazz, Country and Western was country, Folk was folk, Disco was disco, Rock was rock and Pop was the top 40 or top 100 selling singles for the week.  You could tell the difference between Kenny Rogers, Aerosmith, Boston, Chicago, Stevie Wonder, and Louis Armstrong without any thought.  Music was tailored for its base consumer base and innovation was in the air as new electronic recording and production capabilities were introduced.  In the 1980’s the movements within each genre started to split into smaller sub-groups, rap, soul, acid jazz, bluegrass, hard rock, heavy metal, glam, dance, etc. started emerging and specializing while pushing innovation and selling albums hand over fist.  The lines started blurring and it was harder to tell the difference between Lionel Rickie and Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam or Van Halen and Loverboy or Randy Travis and Garth Brooks or LL Cool J and Ice T yet it was easy to tell the differences between the major groups.  This is where the beginning of the end came in.

In the 1990’s the music industry had reached a climax.  All the creativity was creating more artists and sounds then the industry could handle.  The money being made forced the industry to make a decision that killed music for the fans, copying.  In stead of trying to find the next big sound or next big segment of the music world the recording industry wanted to find the next Nirvana, NWA, Metallica, Whitney Houston, New Kids on the Block, Clint Black, etc.  They went for formulization that raised a generation of copy cats instead of innovators as the previous generation was.  Don’t believe me, who was the Eddie Van Halen of the 1990’s?  All the sub groups started to sound alike to the point you couldn’t really tell if you were listening to Sponge, Bush, Silverchair, or Radiohead.  Pop and Rock were merged as were R&B, Soul, and Rap.  New innovators like alternative and techno were just lumped into the larger groups.  Talk in the industry went from “where is the next place the new sound will come from?” to “who do they sound like?”.  From here the talents were shifted to mocking and not innovating.  Now I realize that there was innovation and new groups coming out, but not at the rate you saw in the previous decade.  The turn of the century just saw more of the same, copy cats and imitators of successful groups being milled out as quickly as the industry could find them.  All of this was on the backdrop of the peer to peer downloading which trumped the news that record sales had been falling for years, just now at an alarming rate.  The industry blamed the college kids, but the industry was no longer putting out quality product worth dropping any cash on.

Next is TV.  In the 70’s TV was tame.  The industry was in transition as commercials were being regulated, smoking and alcohol were now out, and the industry was starting to use more psychologically based aids.  I can remember watching movies on TV with only 4 commercials, try that today, even on cable!  Programs were cheaply produced and the themes were often mundane and predictable.  Hits were something special and people would plan their weeks around favorite shows, like Dukes of Hazzard, Rockford Files, Kojak, etc.  TV programming was not much different then in the 1960’s and competition was light, thanks to just 3 networks and only major cities having VHF.  The 1980’s saw TV explode with larger budgets, edgier scripts, and new and interesting programming that captivated the nation.  Dallas, Hill Street Blues, St Elsewhere, LA Law, Miami Vice, Family Ties, etc.  They all started to incorporate movie style budgets, cutting edge topics, pushing the lines of decency and challenging the national attitudes on social topics of the day.  People planned their weeks around their favorite shows.  The advent of the VCR allowed people to start taping the shows they had to miss or could not watch because of a competing program of equal quality. 

TV continued to grow and mature in the 1990s as cable saturation gave more variety to more people as its prices became more affordable and programming expand beyond movie channels and shopping channels.  The industry saw the likes of movie directors lending a hand to writing and big name stars appear along side emerging stars.  Commercials began using popular music instead of jingles and industry standbys of the days before.  Programs were becoming more popular and attracting the money that follows.  Stars were born overnight and their influence began to sway corporate executives, sometimes to disastrous results.  Still, the shows were new and fresh, but by the middle of the decade they started to follow the music industry model, copy the successful ones and formulate everything.  Even successful shows of the time, Law and Order, ER, etc. formulated their own past successes to become predictable and boring, only the actors were changing.  By the turn of the century the only innovation was on cable and only by networks like HBO that dared to push the lines of cultural acceptance with previous taboo subject matter and nudity not allowed on networks, Sex and the City, 6 Foot Under, The Sapranos.  Now we see the same things being imitated over and over, just now they are old and stale.

Movies have gone the same route.  In the 70’s themes were small, budgets not so big, and themes not too shocking.  This was changed by 2 genres, horror and sci-fi.  With the likes of Exorcist, Halloween, and Star Wars, Close Encounters the industry changed and changed overnight.  Suddenly special effects and simple story lines took over.  Movies shifted into fun events and escapes from the issues of the day.  The 1980’s continued and added the big budget blockbusters with India Jones and the introduction of serials, suddenly everything got a sequel.  This was different then the sequels of the past that were more like separate movies instead of familar characters doing familiar things.  The 1990’s took the success of the past decade and merged it with the TV model of the day.  Edgy, dark, and themes pushing social views came to the center.  Serial killers and anti-heroes were the order of the decade and they filled it with glee.  At the turn of the century it all started to turn in on itself.  Kids movies were so formulated that kids were becoming board half way through, until smart writers stepped in and added adult content, truing the focus of the movies into how many clever ways to conceal adult material.  Disaster movies, Thrillers, Mysteries, and the old mainstays Action, Horror and Sci-Fi became all carbon copies of the successes of the first part of the decade.  See the pattern here?

This has started to change, but change for the worse.  How?  The writers, producers, and creative minds behind music, tv, and movies have been copying the successes of the past for so long now that they are no longer able to create anything new.  Sure some try only to get lost half way through it.  Take Lost for example.  It started out like the Matrix, something new, fresh, and daring, only to fall flat on the creativity side and end up a mashed up compilation of tired old themes and sub-plots.  Even Axl Rose sounds like Guns and Roses after taking 15 years to produce an album that is well, just like you would expect from him.  We see things the entertainment industry trying to re-do all the successes of the past now.  Movies are the worst here.  Remakes that only try to update the feel of the originals or take a new yet tired twist of the original, like Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and less flattering remakes.  Now we have music artists releasing albums of there favorite songs from the 1980’s, that was just 20 years ago!  While it is hard to be unique, edgy, daring, and fresh it seems nobody is trying.  Just as groups like Linkin Park think they are original anyone who listened to Stabbing Westward will see stark similarities.  I even saw Cuba Gooding Jr. AND Christian Slater in a horrible film, Lies and Illusions that begs me to ask what were their agents thinking.  TV is so bad that it is mostly reality programs, the rebirth of the verity show like Jay Lenno’s disaster.  This begs me to ask, where did all the creativity go?  Why is it that the best entertainment found is in sporadic spurts that fade as quickly as they emerge, like the movie District 9 or hard rock metal group Union Underground? 

I know it is not just my age and jaded nature or cynicism as others have mentioned this to me before.  The last movie I really felt fun watching was just a montage of 1970’s kung fu flicks, Kill Bill vol 1, vol 2 sucked.  I gave up on music long before I moved to China.  Since moving here I have been catching up on TV and movies quickly as DVDs here are dirt cheap and over the years the quality has constantly declined.  While I know that this is not the case for 100% of the things in entertainment, where is the creativity that used to make us forget our daily slog?  Where is the excitement that used to grab us and make us plan our lives around, like TV shows, album releases, opening weekends of movies?  Most of the big movies of the past 5 years were either re-makes or aging series started a decade or so before, Star Wars, Indian Jones.  From where I am sitting it is all going down hill and I don’t know why.  People in entertainment are getting paid more and have better benefits then they did before yet their productivity, creativity, and innovation is all well below where it was just 15 years before.  Why is this?  Do we really have to make artists suffer to get anything good from them?  Could it be that our human condition is only improved through struggle and adversity?  Is it possible that when we are happy, secure, and confident on our professions and futures we stop striving, reaching, and taking the risks that inspire millions?  I think we have all gotten so complacent that we just accept what is handed to us and quality is less then a concept to most of us now.  I guess we should just go back to reading books and telling stories around campfires for entertainment, those were always entertaining and fresh then what we are being sold today.

As I try my best to let important items to play out for a few days before I comment, so the truth can be separated from the speculation and outright falsehoods.  Since the day Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan woke up and executed his planned attacks on fellow soldiers at the processing center complex on Fort Hood Texas many things have come out.  We now know more about his past, education, training, problems, issues, religion, and communications then we know about our next door neighbors, this is more troubling to me but that is another blog article all together.  I am not going to regurgitate the facts, speculations, or crap surrounding this case, that has been done non-stop in the hours since the Thursday November 5th shooting rampage coverage started.  This blog is to try to put the coverage and public information proliferating the airwaves since.

Through all the news articles out there one single theme is seemingly absent, while another is not, and this is my problem with coverage of this account.  I am referring of course to the constant calls of explanations and questions as to how and why this tragedy happened.  Why is it so hard to grasp the concept that radical Islamists want to kill us all, and kill us all in a horrific and senseless manner?  Why are the liberal, politically correct, white wine drinking, ivy league intellectual elites, affirmative action supporting, gun control, pro-choice, save the planet, peace-nic crowd so worried for calling a duck a duck.  There seemed to be an initial push to ignore the white elephant in the room of this story.  Sure, there was no need to jump to conclusions and create a firestorm of speculation, but facts are facts and as they keep coming to light the picture being painted is of a terrorist who executed a carefully executed plan and only messed up by not dying in the end.

Thus far Time Magazine’s website is debating over the act, was it a senseless act or terrorism, quite agonizingly too.  Sites like Slate and Huffington Post keep trying to side step the obvious and blame shift responsibility to the Army, the war, and Bush.  Well, this is clear cut to me.  In my Shipboard Security Engagement Tactics training from the Navy Expeditionary Warfare Training Group I learned just how bad these groups hate us, just who is in them, and how far they are willing to go to carry out their missions.  From recruitment to twisting religion and logic into a custom suite of ideals that make acts of murder and mayhem make sense.  Not only does Hasan fit every profile I have been taught to a T, he did this in the open and was never called out on it out of fear of repercussions of being called racist, insensitive, and not being politically correct.

Now I understand the argument of the left, we can’t pre-judge people by circumstantial evidence like appearance, religious beliefs, associations, etc. but why is it we are backing over backwards in America to prove we don’t hate Muslims since 9/11 while we continue to see example of example of radical Islam rain death down, or try to, on our troops and cities?  My mom always said you could tell a lot about a person by their associations, she was right.  We should not have jumped out and called Hasan a terrorists just because of his name or his religion.  We should have started labeling him a terrorist once we learned he had numerous email contacts with Awlaki, a radical cleric based in Yemen, who praised Hasan’s actions.  We should have started labeling him a terrorist once we learned he attended the same mosque as the 9/11 hijackers.  We should have started labeling him a terrorist once it was confirmed he yelled “Allhu Akbar” before the attack.  Now that this and far more telling evidence has been made public its time to stop coddling this man and call him what he is, a terrorist!

I have even seen the press go so far as calling him “the alleged shooter”.  This is a farce to logic and common sense.  There are reputable eye witnesses.  There are the police who shot him while he was in the act.  There were nurses and doctors who had to remove the ammo magazines from his trouser pockets in the hospital.  There is nothing alleged about it, he did it.  Again, why is the press so scared to report the truth?  Are they worried about getting sued by a terrorist for libel?  I realize this is hard for most civilians to wrap their heads around but the more we bend over backwards, the more we turn our heads, the more we try to ignore the ugly truth the harder, faster, and more brutal it comes.  This is an all our ideological war on every facet of our society and all we hold dear.  There is no compromise, no bargaining, no common ground, no chance in reaching a truce with these radical Islamists.  They will only stop when they control the entire planet and have total control over all people, period.

As a country and a culture we have to wake up to the facts they, the radical Islamists, want us and everything we stand for gone, forever.  We have to wake up to the facts that the peaceful Muslims across our country and the world are only paying lip service to condemn these acts when they occur.  Why didn’t every newspaper in America not go to their local mosque and seek out a response from the local Imam?  Why in a post 9/11 world do radical Islamists still find refuge and acceptance in local mosques across the world and harbor and launch attacks against Europe and America?  We all know that if radical Catholics, Baptists, or Jews had factions that carried out murderous acts and received religious refuge they would be hounded across American relentlessly.  How can I say this, I am Catholic and I know how the Church dealt with and how the press dealt with pedophile priests.  We all have seen how the press reacts to radical right to life groups who commit violent acts.  Yet Muslims get a free pass, for the life of me I don’t know why.

As a veteran this greatly disturbs me.  I have seen people snap before and '”go crazy” on the ship and on land bases.  I have seen people I have worked with for years suddenly and without little warning one day try to kill their brothers in arms.  This is bad enough.  But to have a terrorists advanced to the rank of a major, given passes to keep Equal Opportunity Officer investigations out of their commands, and placed on deployment status after repeated attempts of him to convert wounded warriors, praise suicide bombers, and publically stated he held the Koran and Sharia Law above the Constitution of the United States been allowed to continue to serve and not undergo supervision or evaluation at each step and stage of these facts.  We need to get away from being overly sensitive in our dealings with Muslims.  Just as not all black kids or Latino kids on a street corner are gang-bangers or drug dealers not all Muslims are radical Islamists.  But when the warning signs and red flags go up again and again why was nothing done.  This terrible tragedy needs to force the facts out into the open.  The problem is not gun control, the war in Iraq, the policies of G. W. Bush, Gitmo, US support for Israel, US intolerance toward Islam.  The problem is forced political correctness, its forced diversity in the military, its forced cultural sensitivity towards a radical group within a religion that wants to destroy us all.  The problem is we continue to sleep through the alarms here and in Europe.  We continue to blame ourselves for creating this monster, we continue to blame ourselves for creating an environment in which such hatred can grow and thrive, and we continue to blame the real victims and not the perpetrators and their supporters.  I am not talking about the soldiers shot and wounded at Fort Hood, I am talking about the American people.  The soldiers are the true victims, however we have turned America into the larger victim by refusing to acknowledge the reality that this is a black and white war.  In the months and years to come many excuses and misdirections will come out of this case, if we fail to recognize the truth from liberal fantasy we will all pay a much higher price.  Our leaders need to lead, by example.  Instead of using soldiers and flag draped coffins as props for photo opportunities, like the Air Force 1 Statue of Liberty fly over, or paying lip service to my fellow Native Americans at a press conference to speak of the attack, or using the massacre as a back drop for a Veteran’s Day dog and pony show when he was originally going to be on AF1 on his way to Asia to beg for more money we need a leader to lead us out of the woods of political correctness and misadventures in war.  We need someone to clearly say what they mean, mean what they say, and execute what they have promised.  This head in the sand approach will do nothing but result in repeats.  We need to put the very fear of God into those who state they are killing us in his holy name.  We need people in the Muslim community to purge themselves of this horrible element now and before it grows any more.  We need people to call a spade a spade and do what has to be done, before a tipping point is reached and Hell on Earth is fully unleashed.

MSNBC recycled the AP with the following:

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.  Obama still is close to announcing his revamped war strategy, most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.

Official: Obama rejects war options - Afghanistan- msnbc.com

Happy Veteran’s Day US of A!  As a Navy vet, proudly serving for 7 years this makes me sick.  Where is the leadership?  Where is the decision making?  Where is the plan?  Where is the resolve and forward thinking?  I can tell you this out of experience, there is nothing worse then having to follow an idiot who is trying to make the best decision.  Militaries don’t work from plans made up by focus groups or public sentiment.  Militaries work best when they are given a broad goal and the generals, majors, and captains are given the room to formulate plans to reach that goal.  It seems we did not learn the lessons of Vietnam so we are making all the same mistakes all over again, and as a vet that disgusts me because that costs lives, time, and money unnecessarily. 

What is Obama’s long rang plan for Afghanistan, good question, everyone wants to know.  So far this is what we know: “Obama wants to make clear that the US commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended. The war is now in its ninth year and is claiming US lives at a record pace as military leaders say the Taliban has the upper hand in many parts of the country.”  Excuse me Mr. President, what president know the time tables of any war they entered or had to finish?  The only time tables you can create and meet are failure!  When we entered WWII we had no idea how long it would take.  Korea, no idea.  Vietnam, not a clue.  Desert Shield/Storm, not an idea.  Kosovo, Clinton had no exit plan.  Every liberals nightmare, Iraq, nope.  Now we are going to try to put Afghanistan into a project management framework.  Please correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t see Obama’s name as a PMP certificate holder or a PMI member.  You can’t put something like armed conflicts into a neat little package like you can, say a political campaign.

Granted the war is now 9 years old.  Yes G. W. took his eye off the ball and got us more involved in Iraq then we should have, at the time.  These things however do not make the initial involvement any less critical or needed then when it started right after September the 11th.  Sure you can have milestones and key points to gauge success in a war, but you should not keep your milestones set in stone, so to speak.  The problem you get when you have solid events set in advance when it comes to war is you set yourself up for failure, ask Napoleon or Hitler about that.  War is a dynamic and fluid organism that takes on a life of its own.  No amount of planning or set of measures will hold true 6 months after the first volley is released.  I will agree that the Afghan government needs to take up more efforts, but they need to be stable, respectable, and get rid of the corruption hampering true citizen involvement and belief in the government.

Obama has left the commanders in the field of Afghanistan in neutral for over a month now.  Without a clear cut goal and enough troops and supplies to accomplish that all we are doing is giving the enemy time to regroup, plan, recruit, and recoup monies from those sympathetic to their cause.  Now we have to sit back for another week or two before we are told how Obama is going to lose this war.  It appears to be a reoccurring theme for Obama’s administration to sit back and take the ‘wait and see’ approach.  Here is China all the talk of the town is of Obama’s visit to the Asia economic meeting and what he will say, which seems to be not much.  The Wall Street Journal had a great article outlining Obama’s failure to ask Congress to get permission to hold direct economic talks with blocks of countries, and for the first time in over 50 years the US will be out of global trade negations as the US is the only nation not engaged in aggressive free trade agreements currently going on.  This lack of vision, plan, or agenda is leading to a failure in our war in Afghanistan, a failure in our long term economic prosperity, and our ability to live free and make our own decisions to live our lives in a way we deem acceptable and right.

Obama needs to drop this talk of clear cut goals and closed-ended plans and instead state that in order to win in Afghanistan we need to destroy the militant Islamists ability to effectively disrupt peaceful government operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle East.  He is not a general.  He is not a graduate of a war college.  He is not knowledgably of the military, its purpose, its mission, or its responsibilities as he is the kind of liberal who thinks a military needs to be small and weak to achieve his vision, of course he can’t say this publically.  Obama needs to listen to his advisors.  Sure they have an agenda to push, winning a war.  If their recommendation will harm the troops, violate international law, or run contrary to American’s ideals then he should step in, otherwise he should base the plans on their merits to achieving the goal of a win in the least amount of time with the maximum impact to strengthen our ally’s resolve, boost our troops morale, and to send a clear cut message to those who oppose us and our way of life.  This pussyfooting around is dangerous, it is costing American troops their lives, and it is setting up the stage for failure in a war we can not afford to lose.  You see, this war is more then just about the control of Afghanistan.  Its more then just about the influence to a region of the world and vital world resources.  It is about an ideology based on hatred and misinterpretation of a religion that has been hijacked by radicals and ultra conservatives who will stop at nothing until their aim is achieved, and that aim is to destroy and erase Western Civilization from the face of the planet.  It is impossible to negotiate or deal with these people, they are determined to win at all costs.  Our lack of determination at the highest level is more then a character flaw for our top positions in our government, it is a miscalculation that will lead to far worse then just another lost war and wasted troops, and resources.  This will lead to the rise of a new radical Islamic front of war on the West as they will have proven they can slay the largest symbolic dragon in the world.  Their power and influence will grow at unimaginable levels, and this will be the ultimate loss and failure.

Shanghai is famous for its short springs and falls.  This year we are having a short Indian Summer after a week of cold, but there is one clear cut signal the season has changed.  The weekend of Halloween was mild but the following week it got cold, quick.  After a few days it started to slowly warm back up but then the tell tale sign the fall harvest is over hit the city the week after Halloween, and all week long.  Going outside this time of year is a practice in environmental tolerance.

I am talking about the annual burning of the summer’s crops.  Last year at this time my wife and I had won a trip to a hot spring and photo club outing a few hours bus ride outside of Shanghai.  On the way back into the city we ran into a thick gray haze and the acidic smell of burning fields.  It was so bad day was turned basically to twilight.  I am sure this practice would make the tree hugging uber-liberals in the US die instantaneously of head explosions, I would even bring some over with my airline miles if it would rid the world of their global warming insanity.  Seriously though the geographical location of Shanghai make it a perfect place for all this smoke to gather.  In the fall the prevailing winds die down and the flat land creates a ‘bowl effect’ similar to what is seen in LA, Mexico City, and Los Vegas.

Friday was really bad.  The skies were blackened early and smell and ash was thick in the air and so strong it burned my eyes as I waited for the evening train.  It reminded me of my stepfather taking me to bars in the early 80’s when parents could still get away with such brandish behavior.  Now air in Shanghai is never known for being anything resembling clean.  This time of year is gets bad, really bad.  For me it just means a sore throat and stinging eyes.  For my wife it gives her a dry hacking cough and triggers her asthma.  Thank goodness for our Panasonic air cleaner, which we just replaced all the filters on last month, at least our bedroom has cleaner air.  Now that it is raining we will have air more like what we usually have this time of year, Winter is the worst time for air here, I will have to compile and present the data on annual air quality here, I really have to.

I have been slowly weatherizing the apartment to save on energy and ensure we have a nice warm and non-drafty place for the new baby to stay.  Friday I was really glad I had gotten 80% of the windows done.  The smoke smell was inside the apartment but at about the level of incense, as opposed to outside where it smelled like the neighbors were burning trash on the patios.  Over the weekend the city looked as if it were shrouded in a fog, but this was smoke, not fog, humidity, or anything else.  I have not checked the AP10 readings lately but I will, heck I may even blog about it.  It did break finally on Sunday afternoon as the skies opened up and rain started to knock the smoke down.  The balcony and windows are now caked with soggy ask particles, giving me a good project for next weekend, window cleaning!

So what is it I am getting at anyway?  Am I complaining, ranting, hinting at something?  Nope.  I am just making an observation and letting those outside of Shanghai know that mid fall is not a good time of the year to visit if you have asthma or problems with bad air.  Sure, my throat is raw, my wife is coughing more, and my daughter is blinking a bit more.  I am really glad we got an electric clothes dryer so our clothes do not smell like smoke, like they did last year.  Sure I could rail against the farmers but that is not going to do much of anything.  The farmers burn the fields, then spread the ashes and this helps enrich the fields over the winter months.  This is far better and more environmental then using chemical fertilizers and soil boosters to get higher yields and produce.  Sure the farmers are releasing tons of carbon into the air but you know what, people need to eat, people need to get flowers, people need to have plant products for numerous things.  The city of Shanghai hold over 30 million people, stopping farmers from burning fields would wreck the agriculture economy, force food to come from other parts of China driving up costs, time to get produce to markets.

Back home in ‘Bama at this time of year the woods I grew up in and small towns I worked in and went to school in have the smells of burned hickory, oak, and other hard woods as wood burning stoves are fired up to knock the chill out of the air.  Here the smell of coal replaces the smell of wood.  Many of the street vendors who cook and the smaller row apartments are heated with good old fashioned coal.  Its part of the season, it passes just as the leaves fall off the trees.  All the talk of carbon release etc. pales in comparison to the impact if some government tried to stop it.  Some of my ancestors cousins burned the prairies and forests to chase game out and over cliffs.  This massive annual burning may have cause bad air, but it created such rich soil it created the great fields that were turned from prairie grass to support hundreds of million of buffalo to supporting millions of people all over the country and world!  It may be unpleasant but its part of what has made our world possible to this point.  Shanghai is unique as it is a modern metropolis of 30+ million people (including illegal migrants and construction workers) yet just a 30 minute ride outside of the city and you find conditions and lifestyles seldom changed for hundreds of years.  All of these things make the city possible, the surrounding farms, factories, power plants.  That is the price of progress.