I watched several newscasts yesterday, after reading it online early in the morning. Never did see the story I had turned on the television to view.

Early on Monday morning, off the coast of Guam, a B-52 Stratofortress went down with a crew of six aboard. Not a word on the television news. Mind you, every little local pilot who bobbles clearing the power lines gets on the news. And if one crashes, we get the full story and the same pictures at every newscast of the day. And we are kept well informed if Britney puts on 10 pounds, or Paris falls off her barstool. But six military members are down and lost at sea, and not a single word?

Two men, at least, are dead. They were found floating in their life jackets, apparently. The other three are still being sought by all methods imaginable. Yes, I know accidents happen. Yes, I know men die. Yes, I know I am a fortunate woman whose son came home injured, but alive. It is the mention of the risks and deaths I miss. It is the “Oh, thats just military crap, it doesn’t concern Us.” attitude that drives me buggy.

Very, very rough and terrible times are ahead for America, I believe. Times during which you better hope and pray (if you do that sort of thing) that your military members care about you more than most of America seems to care about them. What does it say to them when major media outlets don’t even notice them dying on the job?

To the airbase in Louisiana where the bomber was based…my sympathies; my son who worked on the flightline for the BUFFS at Minot says you all had so little to work with to maintain your BUFFS. To the families waiting, hoping and worrying….I want you to know SOMEbody else in the world gives a damn and is re-checking news every hour with fingers crossed.

To the news media, for whom this will be a 20 second side story if ever anything at all? Fuck you!

Wednesday Edit:  They are, of course, all lost and gone.   Recovery efforts are still under way, but here are the names of the men lost:

The six crew members were identified as :
Maj. Christopher M. Cooper, 33, aircraft commander;
Maj. Brent D. Williams, 37, navigator;
Capt. Michael K. Dodson, 31, co-pilot;
1st Lt. Joshua D. Shepherd, 26, navigator;
1st Lt. Robert D. Gerren, 32, electronic warfare officer;
Col. George Martin, flight surgeon.

A repairman came today. He asked me if my husband was military. I said yes. He said he could tell from the bumper stickers on the truck. I said we both had been military. He told us thanks for serving, that it was good that was “something some folks do.” I told him he was welcome, but I’d like to see the military better used and treated and that my sons served, too; one still active and one sent home busted up and medical’ d out. He asked what happened and I said his knees were shot to hell, and he would have many surgeries to stay walking on them.

Then he waggled an eyebrow at me with this “Now, Missy, don’t get uppity womanish on me.” expression and said “Well, it coulda been worse.”

Yeaaaah, right. I certainly ‘got’ it. My son could be dead like over 5000 other mothers have had to face; does this imbecilic ever-civilian-who-never-served think I don’t know that? And does he realize that his comment implies that I should just be grateful my son came home alive? That I should sort of shut up and be happy with that? That anything less than death as a “wrong” doesn’t merit me bitching about how the military is used?

I feel like being very much the hermit right now. Otherwise, the next knee-jerk stupid commentary on MY life and family might get some idiot knocked dead on his ass.  It is comments like this that make me wish for a universal service requirement at times: then NOBODY could feel so safely isolated from the risks endured by military families as to make such dumb-ass statements.  Meanwhile, him and all his sort can KISS my ass!

There will be TARTS! There will be lemon tarts…and we shall HAVE them!

So say we woozles, all. Well, ok, so say Taz and Teddi!

The moon goes full at around midnight tonight, I spent the day in the joy that is candle-making.  And now, for the sorrow that falls to seemingly equal or even exceed every pleasure….the list of names released since the last moon phase post.

Spc. William L. McMillan III, 22, of Lexington, Ky. Army - Iraq - IED

Sgt. Douglas J. Bull, 29, of Wilkes Barre, Pa. - Army - Afghanistan - IED

Sgt. 1st Class Steven J. Chevalier, 35, of Flint, Mich.,  - Army - Iraq - grenade

And the long suffering wait and flagging hopes of two families  of Army men in Iraq are finally, sadly answered:

On July 10, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner positively identified human remains recovered in Iraq July 9 to be those of two soldiers who had been previously listed as “Missing-Captured.”

Killed were:
Sgt. Alex R. Jimenez, 25 at the time of his capture, of Lawrence, Mass.

Pfc. Byron J. Fouty, 19 at the time of his capture, of Waterford, Mich.

Not on the DOD list at all, since it has been five years since he was in Iraq.
But, all the same, Army medic Spc. Joseph Patrick Dwyer, who was in a famed photo of him racing across a battlefield carrying a little Iraqi boy to safety, died of invisible wounds received there.

On June 28, he died of an overdose in his home, after struggling with PTSD since his return home.  Rest in peace, Joseph.  I can’t find all the men and women who die after the fact; most don’t make the news.

Spc. Brian S. Leon Guerrero, 34, of Hagatna, Guam. - Army - Afghanistan - IED

Spc. Samson A. Mora, 28, of Dededo, Guam.  Army - Afghanistan -IED

Master Sgt. Mitchell W. Young, 39, of Jonesboro, Ga - Army - Afghanistan - IED

The battle in Afghanistan that claimed nine American lives and wounded still more…well, the names are released.  These are the Army men who died there, of weapons fire, RPG attack and whatever else gets used in battle there.

1st Lt. Jonathan P. Brostrom, 24, of Hawaii.

Sgt. Israel Garcia, 24, of Long Beach, Calif.

Cpl. Jonathan R. Ayers, 24, of Snellville, Ga.

Cpl. Jason M. Bogar, 25, of Seattle, Wash.

Cpl. Jason D. Hovater, 24, of Clinton, Tenn.

Cpl. Matthew B. Phillips, 27, of Jasper, Ga.

Cpl. Pruitt A. Rainey, 22, of Haw River, N.C.

Cpl. Gunnar W. Zwilling, 20, of Florissant, Mo.

Pfc. Sergio S. Abad, 21, of Morganfield, Ky.

Staff Sgt. Jeremy D. Vrooman, 28, of Sioux Falls, S.D. - Army - Iraq - IED

Staff Sgt. David W. Textor, 27, of Roanoke, Va. - Army - Iraq - vehicular accident
Lance Cpl. Jeffery S. Stevenson, 20, of Newton, N.J., Marine - Afghanistan - non-hostile incident

As always, my heart-felt sympathy to all the friends and family of these fallen.  My anger that they are gone, and we are all deprived of the pleasure of their company, forevermore.

Hat-tip to Blondsense for the morning enragement.  And why do I bring this up here?  Because the warmongering asshats who seem to want to convert America into mercenaries for corporate sorts need LOTS of warm bodies.  So how do you get those warm bodies?  You agree with the religious right wingnuts and find a way to redefine contraception as abortion so it can be denied to women seeking to control their own sex lives, reproductive lives, and oh, I don’t know….EVERYthing?

Health and Human Services has bent over and taken it up the ass to go along with this crap, as the Huffpo article and Blondsense blog show.  Made me spew perfectly good coffee across the table, I tell you.  So, if you don’t want to be transformed, for all of your reproductive years (like 13 to maybe 53) into a walking womb with all aspects of your life predicated upon whether or not you MIGHT be knocked up, wake up and go throttle a Congress Critter.  I already sent a nasty-gram to mine, he will, as per usual, send me back a sickeningly sweet pratriarchal form letter telling me it is all for my own good.  (Thus showing why I am voting for Darcy Burner) And gee, I didn’t think I’d ever need the photo below again…silly me.

Read it and swear at: http://tinyurl.com/6qg6df

No word on any American news source I have seen this week, but reading Germany’s “Der Spiegel” today, I learned that Germany has had three mountaineers from beautiful Bavaria taken hostage in Turkey where they were preparing last week to ascend Mt. Ararat.  The historic and legendary mountain has always been a draw, and Germans have many ties to Turkey since many of Germany’s “guest workers” come from there.

And many of the Turkish nationals in Germany are Kurds.  Germany has been busy with a domestic battle of sorts with the Kurdish group known as PKK–the same folks Turkey crossed into Iraq to pursue in battle.  The kidnappers demanded that Germany cease its ‘anti-PKK activities’ at once if they want their mountain climbing citizens back.

The unrest set into rapid motion by our war in Iraq is spreading alarmingly.  Turkey is a major ally of the United States and our airbase there is the supply line to our troops in Iraq.  Kurdish unrest in Turkey and even in Northern Iraq is growing, and as they strike out against those they see supporting their enemies, more and more nations are drawn into the fray.

I love Bavaria, I am very fond of all of Germany, in fact.  It gives me great sorrow to think of the families and friends of those innocent climbers worrying and being powerless as their loved ones are caught up in the affairs of Washington DC.  Because of course, the German government cannot grant what the kidnappers demand, America would never allow that.

More and more of the world is being drawn into conflict.  Before all the ‘end of the world, bring on the rapture’ types start singing hallelujahs, let me inject some reality here.  Your dear and fluffy lord is NOT coming back because George Bush is drawing the world into war, if fact, if all I have ever read of Him is true, he ought to be very pissed off at the current state of affairs.  The world is not going to end with any rapturous transport, it is simply going to be made more miserable by raptORous arms marketeers, fear mongerers, and wrecked economies, blasted cities and  broken hopes for peace.

A pox on the all the houses that started this round of revolving hell!

And maybe it should.  I have trouble embedding video here, so must ask you to follow the link to the BBC film of a young Canadian citizen who was captured after an airstrike in Afghanistan at age 15.

This video  was released after being secretly filmed in Gitmo.     He is shirtless in front of a female and male interrogator. Just the insincere tone and oily quality of his male interrogator makes me want to hit something. Apparently, his father had some close ties to terrorists, no mention of capturing ‘dad’…so they are taking it out on his teenaged son? And yes, I realize that in that part of the world, a 15 year old is pretty much a man in many ways, but still….seems like vindictive shit to me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7507209.stm

As Afghanistan begins to act less and less “pacified”, I can only think that veterans of that place in the former Soviet Union are laughing.  We helped the Afghanis to kick their butts, bring down their Hind helicopters and send them home in disgrace.  As one of my old New Age friends would have said “What goes around, comes around.”  But I don’t think that truly applies at all here.  I don’t believe in karma, and certainly not instant karma.

I believe in consequences.  We went to war in Afghanistan saying that Osama bin Laden was there; we didn’t find him, and our government rather rapidly lost interest once the war in Iraq began.  So, the consequence is, with troop levels lower the Afghani people who were accustomed to being in charge decided to be there again.  The Taliban is many things, but disloyal to their country they are not.  They stepped up and re-established some very harsh sort of stability in the wreckage when the Russians left. Not us, we didn’t help them reassemble normalcy, we were already long gone.  We played a bit of Cold War chess there and left when the board was cleared.  The Taliban had to hold the country together and deal with the Russian-installed puppets.

From their point of view, that is what they need to do again: get rid of the American puppets and put the country back together as they believe is best.  Even the Afghanis who dislike the Taliban can’t whole-heartedly embrace us and our ideals for their country, death is often the penalty.  Besides, last time we didn’t hang around to clear away the rubble—how do they know this time will be different?  We rush in where any angel might fear to tread—into a medieval world, and we expect to give them a dose of the 21st century with the free Hershey bars and peanut butter?

Afghanistan is ‘hot’ again, more Americans are dying there now than in Iraq.  The government is stumbling over itself trying to find enough Army and Marines to hold the lid down on both war fronts; it is  a bit like a bad Stephen King “Dreamcatcher” moment, holding the lid down on the toilet full of monster!  I do not pretend to know enough about it to come up with better strategy, but I hope anyone reading will keep an open heart and a warm thought for the families of the men and women serving in Afghanistan, as well as for the military folks themselves.

They need every boost of energy, good vibes, positive thinking, prayer, and “magic” that they can get….because somehow I feel more certain of the possibility of delivering those nigh intangible items in lieu of a governmental solution to the clusterfuck in progress.  Nine men dead this weekend, and the summer is only half gone.  And yes, in medieval places, summer is the season of war.   I don’t care what spiritual or religious traditions you espouse—-think of our American military and their allies, so far from home, and do whatever it is you do to invoke protection and blessing, please!

Yes, I blither on and on, and a lot of it utterly unworthy of comment.  Still, one tends to occasionally judge oneself by the comments one gets, right?  So, judging myself by one I deleted from some yahoo calling himself “Captain 911″ I must be doing something right.   He called me a “communist motherfucker” and then launched into the longest comment I have ever seen,  bitching about virtually everything positive ever said about Barrack Obama.  Since it was attached to a very old post, and one largely posted in humor, I suspect the “captain” is surfing the web and spam-a-lotting anyone who mentions Obama in a post.  Borrrrrrrring.

And now, without further ado, since I’d PREFER to judge myself by the many wonderful bloggers on my blogroll at right instead of by insulting gestulators, I pledge to initiate my own version of Caturday posts.  The difficulty here is, I have no cats of my own—my son has three, so you might actually get a Caturday! But, what I have are woozles (ferrets for the rest of you!)  But I must learn to use my digital camera and laptop in concert and being a medieval minded old bat, this will take time.

So my first Woozly Weekend will not be entirely my own ferrets, but a link to the breeding facility attempting to re-introduce the adorable mini-predator deluxe, the Black footed ferret, to the wild.  At the link, scroll down for the video of Mama BF Ferret “Georgia” and her wee baby boy ferret.  I don’t know what they call him, but I call him “Peach” because he is just as luscious and fuzzy!

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/NorthAmerica/default.cfm

I can and do keep this live feed video on my computer all day for frequent ferret-fix glances as I go through my day.  The wonderful wild woozles act astonishingly like my own domestic versions, with so many of the same endearing habits and behaviors that I am reduced to a semi-melted axe at least once every couple hours.  How poor the natural world will be if they cannot find a way to buck up the genetic diversity of the American wilds with a survivable number of these creatures!

Below is an older photo of our one-time kitty “Sugar” and my first heartbreaking rescued ferret “Tink”.  Tink (not big enough to be an entire Tinkerbell) was already in deep trouble with adrenal cancer when she was given to us,  our efforts to save her failed.  But we learned a lot, and had better luck with other adrenal ferrets.

I posted my news bitch too soon.  I’m not  a frat boy, but how much could it take to get me drunk?  Cause, ladies and gents, the shame….the shame is making me insane.  Get this quote, this is our Presidunce cracking jokes about trashing the planet as a Chief Executive.

“The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.”

I couldn’t make this stuff up, honest…he said it.  The story is in the UK’s “Telegraph” paper.  Render me unconscious please, until the shame is over?