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NEW ORLEANS - 6 August, 2002 - Being a journalist is tough sometimes. Being a dirt broke journalist is even harder. The hardest part of it all is that you don't lose your contacts or your sources. So like young Franklin Roosevelt visiting Germany, you see the clouds gathering on the horizon. The rumors of war tend to reach you first. You see the troop mobilizations and they begin to obscure all the other "news" around you.
That's how I now feel about the proposed October War my country is planning in Iraq. The last of The Dubya's vindications of his father's memory. We continue down the Orwellian path of Perpetual War and This Commentator is personally worried and remorseful about that fact.
I have enough problems of my own, I don't need to be worried for the world anymore.
Will that reality stop me from worrying? No.
In my in-box this week came a disturbing bit of e-mail forwarded by a friend. It was about a guy named Scott Ritter who had testified before NATO and now wanted to be at the Congressional hearings in Washington, D.C. last week looking into authorizing the proposed U.S. war with Iraq. Here's a brief excerpt from that article by Boston's William Rivers Pitt:
"The Third Marine Expeditionary Force in California is preparing to have 20,000 Marines deployed in the (Iraq) region for ground combat operations by mid-October," he said. "The Air Force used the vast majority of its precision-guided munitions blowing up caves in Afghanistan. Congress just passed emergency appropriations money and told Boeing company to accelerate their production of the GPS satellite kits, that go on bombs that allow them to hit targets while the planes fly away, by September 30, 2002. Why? Because the Air Force has been told to have three air expeditionary wings ready for combat operations in Iraq by mid-October."Ritter, who is a former Marine, a card-carrying Republican and a former UNSCOM weapons inspector, according to Pitt's article, is concerned that this proposed war in Iraq is more about domestic United States politics than it is about any real threat from that sanctioned nation. That perception seems the same as many in back channels across the pond in Europe."As a guy who was part of the first Gulf War," said Ritter, who indeed served under Schwarzkopf in that conflict, "when you deploy that much military power forward - disrupting their training cycles, disrupting their operational cycles, disrupting everything, spending a lot of money - it is very difficult to pull them back without using them."
"You got 20,000 Marines forward deployed in October," said Ritter, "you better expect war in October."
Mr. Ritter seems to believe that Congress can stop this war before it starts.
I don't. History speaks for itself. Congress has not prevented a U.S. President from going to war if he wished for over fifty years. This Congress has proven itself particularly pliable, despite how boisterous it has been. Most of Congress's noise has been about its own patriotism and rectitude. This is an election year.
Sadly, where our elected officials should be concerned with the frightening growth of Executive branch power over the last two years, the exposure of the rapaciousness exemplifying criminal disregard for the public on the part of the corporate elite, and the actual economic suffering of the American people, they are not and have not been. When you fill your government with millionaires, they will only be concerned with issues affecting millionaires. You don't have to be Hawking to figure that out.
The writer Henry Miller had a character who immigrated from India whose name was Mr. Nanantati, or Nanandati. As a play on words, he would refer to the man as "Mr. Nonentity". I've always enjoyed a good pun.Years aftering reading about Mr. N., while working in some grey, corporate cubefarm, I would refer to myself and my co-workers, in the same spirit as Miller, as "Essential Nonentities". With each passing year, that description seems more apt for my fellow citizens. It is essential to the engines of power that we continue to soldier on, keeping the databases up, cleaning the toilets, buying the toothpaste and cornflakes. But we are treated as nonentities by these same engines. Pension funds are wiped out, health insurance is non-existent, food is genetically altered to resemble something akin to soylent green and if we raise our voices, we are immediately smacked down. Ask Bill Maher.
I am truly amazed these days when I read a commentary, overhear a conversation, or listen to a broadcast that does not mention a celebrity or a product within the first fifteen minutes. It's refreshing and rare.
One afternoon recently I stumbled across a friend watching the popular (I'm told) California "news" programme, "Good Morning, LA!" I watched over his shoulder for about five minutes. What was breath-taking, for me, is that there was no actual news on this news programme. Every single segment offered by the two blow-dried, bleached-blonde, perky anchorwomen and the older anchorman sandwiched between them was about some celebrity. It was as if Paddy Chavefsky had written a satire about the vapidity of California culture and nobody in the audience was getting the joke.
Except, I'm told, millions of Angelinos take this as real news. Really.
There is someting horribly wrong with a society that celebrates and rewards its own stupidity. In that sense, I do have to join the chorus of voices that condemn programmes like "Jack Ass" and "Street Smarts". We should not be promoting or supporting the message that ignorance can be fun.
I have tried over the last few months to keep this page in the diary mode and avoid commenting on politics or news. I felt it better to let my writers carry those mantles and restrict myself to the edit and design chores. I tend toward Jeremiads and I know you don't enjoy reading those.
BUT SOME DAYS I JUST WANT TO SCREAM!
Yes, my own personal circumstances are pitiable and pathetic, but one can do only so much navel-gazing in the middle of a house on fire. We have a plethora of serious, serious problems in this country right now and the Osbournes aren't doing one whit to contribute to your engagement and involvement with those problems or your actively seeking some solutions.
Turn off your damned television set, get up from video games, walk away from your computer monitors for a moment and get involved in your real lives. Vote the bastards out.
The only way the Enrons and WorldCom's of this world won't repeat the rapine they just perpetrated on you is if they don't have more do-me pumped prostitutes strutting the corridores of power in Washington, D.C. living it up from their fat campaign contributions. Vote the bastards out.
You have one very clear duty this year. If you want to check the loss of your personal liberties under the guise of patriotism and security, if you want affordable healthcare and health security for your family, if you want a government whose main concern is not keeping their greedy cronies protected from the public instead of protecting the public, vote the bastards out.
It actually is that simple. Nothing frightens plutocrats more than the notion of an involved instead of apathetic populace. Vote the bastards out.
So what is going on in Life of Rod these days? Very little. I continue asking every friend I can about job openings, going through the classifieds, sending out e-mails, pounding the pavement. I've grown tried of the phrase, "check back in a couple weeks." I almost mouth the words, "it's slow this summer" along with the interlocutor. I try not to be depressed about it all.It was Satchmo Fest in town this weekend, the new annual celebration of Louis Armstrong's birth, held at the Old U.S. Mint. Lots of live music and a lecture series. But, unlike last year, when the centennial of Armstrong's birth was celebrated, this year the crowds were sparse. As it's a free event, I wandered through a couple of times while working to complete my debut article for "Nouvelle New Orleans." My hope is to eventually get this city's new Mayor for that feature. I'm working the channels now.
I've gotten a couple of signals of concern from an old friend or two, but that's about it. You are notorious for your silence, as I mentioned last week regarding commentary to the writers here.
With each passing day I become less substantial.
THINGS I HATE THIS WEEK
1. Poverty.
2. The summer job market in Nawlins.
3. Missing the key to making The World's Magazine my sole pursuit.
Thanks for coming back this week."Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod
Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.
This year he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. (Think: The Boy.) Oh yeah, Rod's had Day Jobs working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's been the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. Right now he's in the unenviable position of looking for both a job AND a place to live. He is not a happy camper. In his spare time, he chases women. 
Rod lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, right now. He wants out so bad he can taste it. He wants to live somewhere civilized when he grows up. Wish him Luck.
He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.
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