Rall's Reality (What they Really think)

The first congressional Medal of Honor in the War on Terror, Lt. Michael Murphy of Long Island, New York, a Navy SEAL who was killed in a fierce gun battle in Afghanistan in June of 2005, was honored in a ceremony at the White House on Monday that the media mostly ignored.

Just being ignored might be considered a good thing once you've become acquanted with mainstream liberal pundit Ted Rall, who recently said he cheers the deaths of American soldiers because that improves America’s average IQ.

I didn’t know much about Rall until I heard his name mentioned the other day and did a little research. Hardly a marginalized freak, it seems he’s a very popular, well regarded and well paid freak.

Rall won the 1995 and 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards and the Society of Professional Journalists Deadline Club Award. He won the 2002 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Graphics. His Orwell parody "2024" was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon.com, and his graphic travelogue To Afghanistan and Back was named as one of the American Library Association's Best Books of the Year. Rall was a 1996 Pulitzer Prize finalist. His cartoons appear in approximately 100 newspapers.

Rall attended Columbia University in engineering, but failed, returning later to graduate with a history BA.

Here’s Rall, just a few days ago, “...I flip the page past the same old '2 Dead, 7 Wounded in IED Blast' headline. But hey, soldier, you volunteered. If not for you, there wouldn't be a war in the first place.

“...It's bad enough that a majority of soldiers voted for Bush in 2004. Over and over since the war began, American troops have been seen on television applauding Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and others whose cynical recklessness have sent their buddies to their graves.

“Even after soldiers get killed, their parents promote the war so their dead kids won't be lonely in heaven,” says Rall.

Writing about the president’s frequent meetings with relatives of American troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rall observes that, “Few Gold Star mothers tell him off. Those who do are polite to the man who murdered their children as surely and as viciously as if he'd shot them himself. Why don't they spit at him?”

Rall’s suggestion? “Soldiers who want antiwar Americans to march to demand that they be brought home should take a cue from Vietnam veterans. They marched with peace protesters and threw their medals at the Capitol. Soldiers serving on the front refused orders.

“Some fragged their officers,” he tells us, obviously impressed with such a principled act.

His comparison of wars is in every way specious, but then he was barely out of diapers when I first landed at Than Son Nut. Apparently his history degree studies didn't included Southeast Asia.

You want to know what he really thinks of those of you who serve in the United States armed forces? Read this column, titled An Army of Scum.

Here’s a taste:

"Now it's official: American troops occupying Iraq have become virtually indistinguishable from the SS. Like the Germans during World War II, they cordon off and bomb civilian villages to retaliate for guerilla attacks on their convoys. Like the blackshirts who terrorized Europe, America's victims disappear into hellish prisons ruled by sadists and murderers. The U.S. military is short just one item to achieve moral parity with the Nazis: gas chambers."

Lest you want to dismiss Rall as a kook, remember that he’s a Pulitzer Prize finalist, syndicated kook.

I learned during another war long ago and far away that the Ralls of this world very much speak for their more “respectable” fellow travelers. You know, the ones running for president who won’t disavow the “Patreaus, Betray Us” ad. Oh, they and others who smirk at you behind their hands will claim he doesn't speak for them, but just who is it that gives him that list of awards? Yeah, right.

Tenuous Connections

Christina, my niece – and family – are fine. In Malibu, but west of the fire. The coast in Malibu runs east and west. Their church burned, and the castle. The castle was on television – seemed familiar, and was. It was one of the places the Dolphin Ball, an annual charity event for cystic fibrosis, was held. We’ve attended, not when at the castle, but still, that’s why it was familiar.

I have two nieces. The other one, Ann, was also near a fire, which was a surprise, since she lives in Philadelphia. Only a momentary surprise, because my brother had told me she was going to be in Diego for a conference at about this time. Oddly, the conference went ahead, started on Monday, over by Wednesday. On reflection, why not? San Diego isn’t entirely engulfed. Life, business – and conferences – go on.

It hadn’t immediately occurred to me that I had connections to the fires. Tenuous, it turns out, and thankfully so.

Pigskin Baffoons

The Vikings played Dallas today. We don’t often get television coverage out here, but it was instructive.

1. Adrian Peterson is the real deal. Big, strong, fast, elusive.
2. The Vikings defense, Iikewise, is for real. Unless the other team throws the ball. Then it’s “Johnny bar the door...”
3. Troy Aikman said today about Tavaris Jackson, “You won’t win many games completing five passes,” and, “accuracy is important in an NFL quarterback, and I’m not seeing a lot of it.”
4. The Norskies fit the profile of a poorly coached football team. Trying to pick up loose balls rather than covering them (even if it works out), egregious penalties (a “hold” that qualifies as a tackle), inane challenges of on-field calls. It goes on and on.
5. As much as the running game is praised, the real test of that is whether you can do it when you have to, and when they know that you have to, when you can’t – or won’t – throw. The purple’s running game doesn’t meet that standard.
6. Losers do things like have sideline altercations between players and coaches. The Vikequeens are losers, no doubt about it.

Except. well, I have to give them this: They haven’t lost to the Thundering Herd. The Rodents have. North Dakota anything (especially State) for gawd’s sake. Ridiculous. There’s not much of any value in NoDak. Ok, they can play hockey, but when there’s nothing else to do. How does the same AD that hired Tubby Smith hire this bozo running the pigskin program? Don’t you suppose there’s been a reason no one (before the geniuses at the U of M, that is) ever hired ole Brewski as a head coach? I mean the Brew isn’t been the head guy of so much as a Pop Warner team. It’s starting to be quite clear why.

Bad Boy

The Monterey Sports Car Championships were kicked off at the Mucky Duck. I call the Mucky Duck, a British Pub in downtown Monterey (Murphy wrote about the Duck in 2005) the ultimate culinary oxymoron: British haute cuisine.

Bad Boy Vettes and Corvette Racing unveiled the Bad Boy C6.R. Ollie Gavin kicked life into the big V8, and brought No. 4 team car with “Jake the Skull” livery around to the Duck’s rear parking lot/beer grotto/rock bandstand.

Murphy’s was there – he’ll write about it in his next Paddock Poop. Here’s Casey and Murphy with that Bad Boy Vette.

Mindless

President Bush is fond of justifying his management of the Iraq war by saying, “I listen to my commanders.” That’s ridiculous from the Commander in Chief.

Similarly, I found the “General Betray us,” move on.org ad not only offensive, but mindless, and wrote as much.

The popular media has degenerated into irrelevance. Any opportunity there might be for intelligent discourse is lost when Sean Hannity can’t get past Al Gore’s private jet in a discussion of global warming. Likewise, Alan Combes excuses any attack on the military because “those boat guys did it to Kerry.” Dancing with the Stars is far more intellectually stimulating.

The real world is gray, not black and white, and though many may agree, few seem to understand what that implies. It means that rhetorically boiling a debate on health care in the US down to the pejorative phrase “socialized medicine,” is mindless. Similarly, a contrived presentation of Cuba as a medical nirvana is mindless – and worse. Somewhere in the middle of all that, there’s a place for intelligent discussion, but I’ll be damned if I can find it.

About that Bush statement. Anyone with a modicum of sense knows there are good generals and bad. “Just listening” to them begs the question, doesn’t it?

Is he listening to a McClellan or a Grant? Publius Quinctilius Varus or Arminius? Constable of France Charles d’Albret or Henry V?

We don’t know, and neither does he. The whole faulty line of reasoning passes the buck downward to subordinates, doesn’t it?

A Tale of Two Teams

Then there were two. The Patriots dismantled previously unbeaten Dallas. The Pats are just plain “scary good,” a team that might not yet have played its best football. This is a completely different team than the pretty good one that settled for second best in the AFC last season. Anybody out there want to rag on Randy Moss? Overated? A Loafer? Bull Roar.

So the Bears thought that they might get a little offense this year to go with a very good defense and go back to win the Super Bowl they lost to the Colts. The trouble is, their “plan” to do so was a healthy Rex Grossman. Hello? Is anybody home? Ol’ Rex was nothing to write home about on his best days, and by the time it dawned on the Bear brass that plan was a non-starter, they had a dispirited team on their hands. Witness the loss at home to the hapless Vikings. Yes, the Norskies got a career day (so far) from rookie running back Adrian Peterson’ but there’s no way to confuse the Purple’s offense with that of a real NFL team. Thirty-four points on the (formerly) vaunted Bears’ defense. Stick a fork in them, they’re done.

The inability of the front office to improve the NFC Champion Bears stands in stark contrast to the Patriots, who made major upgrades to already good offensive team off-season. The Pats’ brass was aggressive in the off-season, the Bears’, ah...disinterested?

College Football: Curious-er and Curious-er

The college football weekend started on Thursday night with Florida State losing to Wake Forest. It ended late Saturday when number 1 Cal was beaten by Oregon State. “What?” you ask. “When was Cal No. 1?” There was no vote, but I figure they reached that exalted spot for a couple of hours, from the time former top dog (cat?) LSU was dumped in overtime by those other Cats – the ones better known for their round ball skills.

Once again, the football gods have demonstrated that mortal scribes have no clue about this game, the ink barely dry on their coronation of the latest emperor before he’s found to have on no clothes. (How many metaphors did I manage to mix there? Is it a record, do you suppose?)

We really didn’t need the demise of USC, LSU, and Cal to prove the idiocy of the polls. In both the AP and USA Today, Nebraska got votes. I rest my case.

The Rodents booted a 21 point lead to lose to Northwestern. I figure Brewster’s boyz go oh-for-the-rest-of-the-schedule.

You be the Coach department. It’s early in fourth quarter and you’re nursing a 6-3 lead. The other guys come up short on third down, so it will be fourth and a bunch in their own end of the field. When they commit an infraction on the play, you turn down the penalty so they’ll have to punt, don’t you? Illinois coach Ron Zook didn’t. He accepted the penalty, making it third and a bigger bunch. Iowa used that third down to gain twenty-nine yards, then drove down the field for the winning touchdown. They pay those guys to think that deeply. Honest.

That loss on Thursday was Florida State’s second. Miami lost its third game today, Florida has two losses. That’s seven between them halfway through the season. And South Florida is a top five unbeaten. Who? Has it happened? Has Hell frozen over on the very day that some fool got the Peace Prize for pushing global warming?

Auburn lost to Arkansas in the last two minutes when the Hawgs scored their only points, a touchdown for the 7-6 win. Doesn’t get my sympathy, though. You should have to score a touchdown to win; if you don’t you should lose. If I were in charge, I’d make it a rule.

Happy Birthday Heather

Heather was the first. She was born on October 13. Happy Birthday, Heather. She was a performer from the start, dress-up, dance, song. Heather was always all girl, in the most traditional way. That never meant she wasn’t assertive, her own person, and out to find her own way in the world.

Her first public performance – a dance in a department store at about three – became a photo feature in the local paper. Then it was on the stage in “A Christmas Carol” at a local High School, almost countless summer and high school musical and dramatic productions, and professional theater at the Guthrie in Minneapolis. Her vocal talent was validated by a rare two year’s selection to the Minnesota All State Choir.

She graduated from the University of Minnesota with majors in theater and history, then was off to Los Angeles and Hollywood. There was a leading role in a feature movie, and some small ones, along with many stage roles at recognized companies, including originating the leading role in the popular repertory theater play A Summer with Hemingway’s Twin. After five years, she returned to the Twin Cities, where she was once again immediately in demand in that vibrant theater community while she worked for a law firm. That new world of the law sent Heather next to Chicago, to one of the world's leading intellectual property law firms and where she did post-graduate work at Loyola University that certified her as a paralegal in intellectual property.

Those challenges and recognition by others – and Heather – of her interest and skills in the law have now brought her to the next big adventure, law school at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, the alma mater of US Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger.

You’re a light of our lives. Happy Birthday, Heather

Big Day in La La Land: USC Grabs a Dissie, UCLA the Happie

The Dissie was no contest this week. USC lost to a really, really bad football team (the Cardinal, singular) and slid all the way to – as was often said in a galaxy long ago and far away – Numba Ten!

Poor Kentucky was handed its first loss by a better-than-average South Carolina team, and for a reward they get to go to LSU. The fact that they probably booted the game with the Cocks will be lost after the Tigers chew on them a while. This is how a program on the rise gets slapped down.

Notre Dame finally won a game – against UCLA, which wins our Happie for losing to the even more hapless Irish – and their reward is number 4 Boston College.

Meanwhile, since we’re talking about long ago and far away, how about the impending Massacre II at Kent State?

At Petit Dawg was worried about watching UGA play Tennessee, “Don’t do it,” I said. “If they lose it’ll just ruin your day. If they win, you won’t feel good because Tennessee isn’t very good.” The Dawgs lost. That’s two in what’s going to be a long season. Anyway, Georgia can beat Vandy this week. Can’t they?

Meanwhile, the Rodents were pasted by Indiana, and face Northwestern on Saturday looking for one of the few wins still possible in their schedule. That won’t be the case when 1-AA No. 1 North Dakota State University from Fargo (yes, that Fargo) comes to town the following week. Last year’s squeek-into-a-bowl-gophers just squeeked by the Bison 10-9 last season. These were supposed to be “soft” games, scheduled as a “favor to a neighbor.” That's become a joke! Is there another Happie in the Rodent’s future?

Amongst the mercenaries, the Motor City Kitties were brought down to earth by the Skins, as were the Packers by the Bears. That really big thud you heard was Denver losing 41-3 to the Chargers, their worst beating at home since 1966. Much was expected of the now 2-3 Broncos. There are just three unbeatens left, and that will be two after Dallas and New England play Sunday.

At Petit Le Mans

Daughter Courtney joined us at Petit Le Mans, a 10 hour race at Road Atlanta in the foothills of the Great Smokies in Northwest Georgia. We had a great time together (with 100,000 others) watching the race, shopping for souvenirs, and meeting friends. Courtney also found a killer set-up for Dave's Forza2 game. All that's required are three big HD screens, hot speakers, three xbox units (one for each screen), a racing seat with pedals, a racing steering wheel with paddle shifters... (She took a picture of that set-up on the hill during the race...of course they were driving Road Atlanta.)

In the media center to cool off and check on race data. Brett Harrington, a friend and associate in rennsport-beraten is next to Courtney.

Courtney and Jeannie on the spectator terraces above 10B

Guy Smith in the Porsche RS Spyder in which he partners Chris Dyson in the 10 hour race; leading a Tafel 911 GT3 RSR through Turn 10B.

At Turn 10

Flag Girl on the Grid

The Little Le Mans

I wrote my last Peninsula Pen entry last Wednesday from Atlanta, on the way to Road Atlanta for the tenth annual Petit Le Mans. Already a classic, “Petit” is a race of ten hours or 1,000 miles run with the same cars and rules of the great 24 Hours of Le Mans (in my opinion, the world’s greatest motor sport event). That was the fortieth Pen – I hadn’t missed an entry since launching this blog – but I warned the trip might cause a miss or two. It did. There’s much to tell – too much to try in this missive. If you want to know what the race was like, you can head over to The Last Turn Clubhouse, where I write about such things. Later this week, my friend Murphy the Bear will also weigh in on the race, trip, friends, and stories.

We hoped that two kids would join us, son Ashley from Columbia SC, and daughter Courtney from Chapel Hill, NC. Unfortunately a weekend work schedule kept Ash away. We were disappointed, but of course very happy to see Courtney for the first time since Christmas 2005.
She seemed to really enjoy it all, found it much more exciting than Mosport, where she and husband Dave were only able to be on hand for practice and qualifying due to other obligations – something about an anniversary visit to Niagara Falls. We did the grid walk, such a swarm of people this time that is was sometimes nearly impossible to get near the cars. From there we headed down into turn one for the start...fast, clean, exciting. From there we were off on a tour of the track in our golf cart. The traffic around the facility was horrific – that’s good, indicating a huge crowd, announced later was over 100,000. We had lunch with Fred and Leonard in the turn 10 woods. Later we spent time with Tom, Barry, Brett, Mike, Janos, Martin and many, many more friends, new and old.

We watched into the dark in the terraced seating above 10B. The flashing lights, flaming exhausts and glowing brakes in the night are a special experience unique to this kind of racing. Some long-time fans who had seen many races, but not one into the night were mightily impressed.

We met Courtney on Friday night at Paddy’s, the Chateau Elan Irish pub that’s our favorite PLM watering hole. Paddy served us Shepard's Pie, Jameson Salmon, Jameson Bread Pudding, and and Chocolate Mouse. After the race it was off to Jeffery’s for football on TV. Albert the Alligator was there with Murphy. Poor Albert saw his beloved Gators drop their second of the season to the Tigers.

On Sunday we said farewell to Courtney over lunch at Café Élan in the chateau’s winery, over great soups – lentil and French onion. Here’s hoping it isn’t again nearly two years.

More to come. Check back for photos and more about our trip to Petit Le Mans.

Enroute

Atlanta. Finally we’re into the hotel a bit after midnight. We were on the road to San Jose (we know the way) by 0900. It was a 55 minute drive up 101 (then a bit of 85 and 87) to long term parking at SJC, then a Continental flight to Houston, and on to Atlanta. It was raining when we arrived. I guess they need it, but we’re hoping for a dry weekend at Road Atlanta.

Today was test day, and most everyone got on the track. Audi led the way, besting the record set by McNish (the wee Scot) way back in 2000. Average speed around the 12 turn circuit is already 132 miles per hour on today’s times. The new pavement is responsible for no small amount of the improvement.

We agreed to wait here to give a writer friend from Toronto a ride up to the track. That’s fine, I didn’t want to make the drive up to Braselton late tonight anyway, and since that flight gets in at noon tomorrow we can sleep in. We need the rest. Travel seems to be harder on us than it used to be.

Ash, too?

I got an email from daughter Courtney this evening.

Subject: GA this weekend

Ash might be able to come too! :)

I sure hope so. Here’s a little sketch in case you run across us in Georgia and he’s along.

Ash, that’s son Ashley Thomas, Captain, Field Artillery. Currently at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. He’s the youngest of three, 25. This won’t be new to him, though it’s been a while; he was at the 24 Hours of Daytona when he was nine.

Like his siblings he was on Twin Cities stages. He graduated from a suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul High School – active there in song, dance, drama…and running. He graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, then served in Korea. Golf has become a passion, but he’s also still a troubadour, likely as not to be picking up a guitar or writing a verse. What comes next we don’t know. It probably won’t be military. But it should be interesting.

Short and Shallow

It was a day for odds and ends. We’re out of here to Petit Le Mans in Georgia on Wednesday morning, so there were the inevitable errands ahead of the errands.

You know, things that have to get done but aren’t the ones directly concerned with trip prep. Like a lab visit to get my Protime - that’s the monthly clotting test for those of us on rat poison (warfarin or Coumidin). We picked up some ladybugs for the plants, the Oleander in particular (ladybugs eat bad things, like mites).

I wrote the prototype preview for the Saturday’s race today, and got that posted on The Last Turn Clubhouse. Tomorrow I’ll have to finish the one for the GT entrants. I’ve been paying attention to the likely weather. There’s something called Invest 90, (don’t ask, because I have no idea) a low pressure just east of Florida that could affect northeast Georgia later in the week. Then again it could go to Texas. It’s a crap shoot, but it affects what we’ll have to pack.

With our travel and the work involved in covering the event, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to keep up the daily entries here. If I do, expect them to be like this one. Short and shallow.