Last Chance Cafe

I didn't know how I would react to the Saddam video. After all, it is a snuff film. A real live killing. I found I had almost no immediate reaction, except to ask the girlfriend if she wanted to watch it. She didn't.

Perversely perhaps, on reflection, I found the video satisfying. Apparently so too have many other people, as I found just moments ago you could get to the video through Fox News. Drudge is where I found it last night. I was actually quite surprised to see it there, especially so soon after the fact. I wonder how many other outlets are carrying it.

Collectively we've spilled plenty of blood to get to this point, and it's never been a sure thing that this would happen. Through the years we've been taught about monsters, Pol Pot being one of my favorite scary characters. It has always confused me how we, and by 'we' I don't just mean Americans, could stand by and watch things like this. Pol Pot was responsible for the deaths of at least a million and a half people, and he purportedly died in his sleep. He was definitely not held responsible for his crimes. Saddam: not so lucky.

We threw him out on his ass, killed his perverted sons in a shootout worthy of the O.K. Corral, and finally hung him from a stout rope. In this case America finally lives up to its 'cowboy' image.

I don't feel proud, but I feel no shame either. I feel surprisingly neutral. With past mass murderers in mind I feel like this is a job that needed doing for a very long time. And that's exactly it: it was a job, nothing more.

Posted by petefredbob at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

He was quoted as saying "Iraq is nothing without me," and he may have been right. Maybe Iraq will divide along sectarian lines, or be taken by Iran and Turkey or others, or any of a dozen scenarios.

Nobody is innocent in all of this, not least of all United States policy, in action and inaction. Saddam's hanging will anger many people, but they are all the right people. Reuters and the AP have already done their 'in-story' editorializing in a most brazen fashion. These organizations and others pray for Saddam to become a Martyr, but to them he was already a martyr. He is not the Twelfth Imam, and nobody thinks he's coming back.

On the other side are most Iraqis and people like me. We were afraid that Saddam would survive long enough for the US to show its exit plan, and Saddam would live to terrorize another day. This was the main motivating fantasy of the enemy based both on past actions of the United States and the preaching of Osama bin Laden.

It would now be a good time to pull Osama out of his cave.

Posted by petefredbob at 12:16 PM | Permalink

Maybe it says something about me that I was quick to note James Brown's passing but it took a couple of hours today to come to the conclusion it would be a good thing to note the death of Gerald Ford.

I was a teenager with a Saturday Night Live habit and found it amusing that Chevy Chase made fun of the President. And, like most of the SNL cast, I was usually stoned while they were performing. I was too young and uninformed at the time about politics (which were never discussed in my family) to have any kind of opinion one way or another about Ford's portrayal in popular culture. To make the point, my outstanding memory of Richard Nixon was his appearance on Laugh In, not his impeachment, which at the time seemed far away in some other world and having no direct consequence on my little life.

Nixon and Ford are forever linked, and some will forever pillory Ford for pardoning Nixon, but that's selfish, partisan and childish thinking. When Nixon was exposed for knowledge of the Watergate break-in it was the Republicans to their credit who hung him out to dry. It wasn't the Democrats who were betrayed. Taking responsibility is one thing- self-flagellation is another. Ford's pardon was the right thing to do. By contrast, when Clinton was –exposed, the Democratic Party had a group hug and blindly collaborated in obstructing justice.

Ford was a needed palliative for times that were anything but calm. That is not meant as faint praise, but as a sincere compliment for someone who was wise enough to recognize the times he lived in and humbly acted accordingly. We could use more of that right now, from both sides of the aisle.

Posted by petefredbob at 11:32 AM | Permalink

Still wandering the internets and going for a recent record of three posts on the same day. Around three o'clock we'll be heading out to my gringo friend Charlie's place where I will make the attempt to not drink, or if I do, to have only one- or two. It will be a mixed party of Ticos, gringos and at least one right-wing Cuban woman whom I hope to engage in anti-Castro conversation for our mutual entertainment.

So I run across a blog called bRight and Early that is having a contest to add blogs to a database of blogiversaries. That would be a collection of blog anniversaries to remind the common folk of their individual joyous days.

As are many of us belonging to the male gender of the species, I tend to forget dates and birthdays. At least once (and possibly two times- I forget) I have gone so far as to forget my own birthday. It's a good day when asked the question that I remember immediately how old I am.

So I've applied for and have been accepted into the database for this particular blog-iteration (June 12, 2003 according to my archives) and will hopefully in the future be reminded of the day when I really should make sure I post something.

OK. That's enough for today. Otra vez, Feliz Navidad.

Posted by petefredbob at 01:29 PM | Permalink

Today, Christmas 2006, is starting out like most Christmases have been for my adult life, peaceful (except for that year in boot camp- that was a doozy). The little lady is upstairs snoozing and I’m wandering the internets and listening to the breeze outside in the trees. Maybe one year I'll reside in a non-Christian country and feel a difference in the vibe, but considering this post from Jules Crittenden I'm not so sure about that.

Last night the local fireworks lasted until around 2 am, which may sound a little strange to gringo ears. As most Americans are accustomed to fireworks on the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve, in other places they pick different days to blow things up. I guess if you dig a little deeper and consider the daily explosions of recent vintage in the area surrounding the birthplace of the Christ Child, big booms outside the window on Christmas Eve isn't all that profound.

The new year is coming up pretty quick and will bring some changes, perhaps big ones, to the proprietor of your humble Café. I'm not ready to come home yet, but I'm about done here in this little country. Opportunities await elsewhere, and as plans firm up I'll post the impending new locale. Betcha' can't wait.

Posted by petefredbob at 11:22 AM | Permalink

Yes, the blog is seriously delinquent, but I have bigger fish to fry at the moment. Nonetheless I wanted to take a moment to honor

the late Great James Brown, the Godfather of Soul and the (sadly, former) hardest working man in show business. R.I.P.

Posted by petefredbob at 11:13 AM | Permalink