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Timothy S. McTaggart's Archived Blogs Jan-Mar 03

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I'm not sure if I'm getting braver or more schizophrenic with my thoughts and actions on the war effort in Iraq. I wholeheartedly support our troops and hope they kick Sadam's butt out of there soon and with minimal casualties. But, once again, here I was last Saturday, 22 Mar 03, providing PA system for another one of these easily misinterpreted events in front of the courthouse here in town. The County Democratic Party chairperson organized this event. She also sings in our church choir at St Luke, and was aware that I had PA equipment. So, I'll give the reader one guess about a phone message I received the Friday before (at the office too!) So this time, here I am setting up PA system shortly before noon on this Saturday. I'd gone out the night before and bought the latest CD by the Dixie Chicks. I had that CD playing as the gigantic crowd of nearly 40 people began to gather. I'd also just gone to a store that morning that puts lettering on T shirts, and had one made that said "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, IF NOT OUR FOREIGN POLICY." The rally began with the Pledge of Allegiance. Songs were then sung, quotes read and a couple of short speeches made. Our local Catholic bishop also spoke. One more song was sung and then lunch (chilidogs) was served. One local TV station and the local newspaper took note of my playing Dixie Chicks on the PA system before the rally. Good. I basically did that as an expression of our country's freedom of speech, to say that we are allowed to criticize our leaders, given the statement made by one of the Dixie Chicks at their recent concert in London. For those who may call this unpatriotic (such as a writer of a recent letter to the editor in our paper), I say that freedom of speech is a fundamental right of US citizens. To kowtow to otherwise is less than patriotic to our nation. I will admit that the remark by subject Dixie Chick could have been worded better, given the circumstances. Please note that this person later apologized regarding possible inappropriateness of the remark. The main thing that prompted my playing of Dixie Chicks was an answer to a local c&w radio station's boycott. Why should a radio station dictate what the listeners want to hear? Although the rally did seek free speech regarding concerns with the actions of our country's leadership that got us into this war (especially sans a real coalition), the rally's main purpose was to express our support for our troops, wishes for victory and their safe return home. During the rally, somebody driving by in a truck yelled, "Go home!" I think that is something we all would like to do once our troops can do the same.

Well, it's started. There was what was called a 'target of opportunity' that intelligence provided. This was what was called a 'leadership meeting' in Baghdad in which Hussein was thought to be attending. So at least one bunker buster bomb in the location was tried. I just saw on CNN what was apparently an address to the people on Iraqi TV by Hussein. If this was indeed the case, I guess we didn't get him, at least yet. I'd almost suspect Iraqi intelligence may have planted some info on subject 'target of opportunity' to draw our fire. It's way the heck early in this endeavor, but here we go. My hopes and prayers go out to our military folks. May there be a minimum of casualties, and may this objective be accomplished very soon.

Better sit back and take your shoes off. This could be a long blog for tonight. Tonight I did something I never thought I'd do, especially after serving in the military some time back. Tonight I went to a candlelight prayer vigil for peace, which by some definitions used by Lois Pettit-Stanley, the person who organized the San Angelo part of this, could also be considered a protest. There were no speeches, or political stuff, just prayer for the leadership of all nations involved and prayer for peace. This was part of a worldwide vigil organized by Desmond Tutu, of anti-apartheid fame, as a wave to go across time zones, starting in New Zealand. Candles were lit around 7 PM and the hymn 'let there be peace' was sung. Various quotes were read, to include some from past presidents, and other political leaders. In amongst those quotes were some from Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and the prophet Mohammed. A recorded song was then played with everybody singing the words about lighting candles for peace. A benediction was then said and the 50 or 60 of us eventually dispersed after much discussion about the situation. Before I went to tonight's event, I threw some minimal PA equipment in the trunk of the car, thinking that one may be needed. It turned out that this was indeed the case. So that was my role in tonight's event. I'll have to admit to putting John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" on my CD player as a 'postlude' as I was packing things up. I am no 'peacenik'. I believe in a just cause to go to war. I don't drive an old Volkswagen painted with flowers, peace signs, and psychedelic stuff. But I am thinking that these folks, as they did with Vietnam, may have a point. In the recent past, I had obvious trepidation when we went on military campaigns. But I knew in my heart that what we did was probably the right, or at least the best thing to do. Iraq invaded Kuwait back in 1990, and that wrong needed to be corrected. Afghanistan, our most recent endeavor was a bit rough for me to witness. That was because I lived there for a couple of years as a kid back in my military brat days. Thinking about those great, but poor people being in harm's way as we rooted out perpetrators of 9/11 was very hard for me. Seeing video footage of Kabul being liberated from the Taliban, where people were literally dancing in the street (they had music again), sure made me feel better and that we had done the right thing. I hope in my heart that Afghanistan can heal and begin rebuilding. I don't think we're doing enough to help that now. Nor am I sure about our current Iraq campaign. Hussein needs to go; don't get me wrong. I question our alienating most of our post 9/11 coalition, our trashing of the UN, our destroying of our foreign policy and our spending of resources that need to be spent elsewhere at this time. Most of all, I question the jeopardizing of lives of our military, as well as lives of the people of Iraq to accomplish this uncertain task for now. I feel that we are being led as lemmings over the cliff. It would appear that our leadership is obsessed, is out of touch with the world, and seeks to quash any dissenting voice. Even the textbooks that our military officers study (voice of experience here, having been an officer sometime back), cast doubts upon the type of campaign we contemplate. Our leadership is ignoring the very things on which such a campaign should be based. I think this one is a fair risk, militarily, but that we can pull it off nonetheless. It could be at a far worse price in other things than our administration may be aware of. If/when we go to war I'll be there in my contract job to do everything I can in my line of duty for support. The event I went to tonight was strictly a personal matter for me (with the above concerns I've mentioned), and will not dissuade me from my job. If higher powers feel it appropriate that I no longer have this job as a result of attending tonight's event, I'll be inclined to agree with them and promptly clean out my desk. I just hope the higher powers will understand where I am coming from and not consider this as a concern regarding my duties. Yep, I recovered from the aforementioned Friday night LPFM broadcast. It took some rehydration efforts. I have the tape for evidence. In the meantime, I continue with vehement hopes and prayers toward the leaders of all nations involved, that this situation can be worked out in a peaceful manner. May God help us all.

This very Friday (date of this Blog) 100.9 FM goes on the air at 1129 PM CST in the first time I have ever come on-line against a war effort by our government. Don't get me wrong; Hussein needs to go, but I think an assassin's bullet would be most capable of accomplishing the task. I just think it's not worth trashing our post 9/11 coalition, the UN, our foreign policy, and our national budget. It is definitely not worth the resources, lives and livelihoods of our fine military people, nor that of the Iraqi people, to take on this odd crusade for now. Now more than ever, it is time to pray for guidance for our leaders.

I am bummed. A few of us former AISK students had considered joining a group on a trip to Kabul this summer. With our fine president about to take our country over the cliff into Iraq soon, several of us are having second thoughts. I for one, don't think I need to be a westerner in that part of the world if this crap goes down. Once again, Afghanistan gets the short end of the stick as the media and aid turn to Iraq. So much for promises made to Afghanistan by our current president. Actually, 'bummed' does not describe my feelings. There is no way to describe my feelings towards our foreign policy that helped starve millions of people in that part of the world. This foreign policy allowed Afghanistan to disintegrate into the destruction of civil war (thereby becoming an al-queda base that helped bring on 9/11). This foreign policy now wishes to alienate better than half of our coalition gained from 9/11 and kill a lot of people by conducting this crusade into Iraq. Please read the resignation letter submitted by John Brady Kiesling, a US diplomat at the US Embassy in Athens, Greece. He states things far better than I ever could here. I have been praying long and hard that our administration will listen to some voice of reason very soon.

I'm not sure I'm ready to discuss the space shuttle disaster from this past weekend, but I'll suffice it for now to repeat a quote from some sports commentator: "It's Deja Vu all over again!" I watched part of the memorial service yesterday, and feel that this has only begun to sink in. Now on to a different subject for the moment in this blog... I had to take a defensive driving course (read: remedial driving course) a few weeks ago, so that I could get a ticket dismissed (something about my old pickup truck that had a broken speedometer and likes to cruise at 85 MPH, but that's another story). It was a good class, and I hope I am a safer driver for having attended. Gary Hensley, the instructor, liked to contrast some odd humor with the seriousness and responsibility of operating a motor vehicle. 'Double thumper' was the term Gary used to describe a stray animal in front of a vehicle on the road, if that animal was not of sufficient size to require evasive maneuvers. The obvious point is to not get into a wreck trying to avoid something inconsequential to yourself and your vehicle. It took me a few minutes to recover from the sick humor of this term 'double thumper' though. In retrospect, this humor seems a bit trite given events of last Saturday. But sick (or black) humor is often a part of the process in dealing with something like last Saturday. A case in point is the sick joke from 17 years ago about NASA being an acronym for Needs Another Seven Astronauts. Reference the 'Deja Vu' quote, this Joke has already resurfaced. God be with those seven astronauts and the people they've left behind.

Ah yes, tonight is the night of "Yanuary 16'th". I do hark back to the courtroom drama play, but it was on this day that some 12 years ago began our original endeavor with Iraq. I still remember that night well when Bernard Shaw, a CNN reporter was giving us the bomb-by-bomb coverage from a hotel room in Baghdad. The bombs and anti-aircraft fire lit up the sky in a most spectacular way, and I later wondered if this was the thousand points of light that Bush senior was talking about. Gosh what a thought. I hope we're not headed to a similar mess now, but if we are, I think we'd better get the job done this time. We need to say to hell with the politics, since that kept us from getting Hussein out of there the first time. Once that is done (if it needs to be done) and some decent government is restored to Iraq, I think reconstruction efforts need to get going in earnest in Afghanistan. I had a dream the other night about being back in Kabul (some 30 years later after I was really there). I dreamt I was downtown near the Spinzar hotel, looking over at the back of the Olfat hotel, and noting how much things had changed, and yet stayed the same. It was springtime there in my dream. Thinking about this now, I remember having dreams as a kid in Kabul, about being back at our ranch in Texas. Go figure. On another topic here, gotta mention that the MLK holiday weekend is coming up. My LPFM station, 100.9 FM may actually return to the airwaves for a Friday night broadcast, in which I may make mention of this. Sorry to say this doesn't get mention in this week's edition of another radio show I am involved with. Between that and the current world political situation, we still have a lot to overcome.

Water Water Obsequious, Water Water Omnipresent, Water Water Everywhere! There was no small dog swimming across a flooded room, as in the TV commercial, but there was a soggy situation in my apartment this last Tuesday. The bottom element of the water heater burnt up in the accumulated sediment of San Angelo Water, and short-circuited to the tank. The water heater was wired improperly, lacking a ground wire, so short-circuited electricity tried to return via the plumbing. This burnt the gaskets in the fittings on top of the tank and the water spewed. There was also a fair burn spot around connectors of the shorted heating element, not to mention a smell of burnt wiring all through the place. At least this wasn't a fire, which is more than I can say about a restaurant back in big hometown of Menard this past week. One of the owners of that restaurant works in my place of employ, too. So I'll take a water leak over a fire, having now done both (our own fire is another story). One upside down apartment later (after removal of very soggy padding, vacuuming of water by big van-mounted vacuum, and subsequent loud chorus of blower fans), things are at least a bit drier. Apartment management wasn't hip on replacing the 11 year old already worn out rug, but parts of this rug now have new padding underneath. The electrician, to whom I showed subject water heater, installed a ground wire for the replacement heater. Apartment maintenance personnel now have instructions to do this for all water heater replacements. That was the good news this last week. Our office then had to contend with a network reconfiguration project (change of IP addresses for our system). This was postponed about an hour after we'd stared our work this last Thursday evening. That necessitated us to reverse the work we'd done, only to have to do it again later. It was a bunch of frustrating politics and lack of planning in that equation. But the worst news still was that a worker at my place of employ killed himself Wednesday morning this past week. I'm ready to send this new year back for warranty replacement. I suggest that things improve.

100.9 FM's occasional Friday night broadcasts are suspended until further notice. Sorry chinks. As I've said, watch this space for more info on my LPFM attempts. Hey, I'm wondering why nobody ever pursued a fantastic opportunity to sell a toy many years ago during one of the great government scandals. Yes, I'm talking about the Keating 5 Action Figure Set!! The set includes the figures, desks and chairs for only $9.95. Microphones, lights, cameras and court room full of those investigating and reporters sold separately. Well, maybe not. In the meantime, Happy New Year, everyone!

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