Join The Marines, Go To Iraq, Get Raped, Pregnant And Court-Marshelled

Don't know if you've been following this story but here's a thoughtful look at how U.S. general Anthony Cucolo's no-pregnancy order is dumber than a lobotomized lemur. (Salon)

The End Is Neigh!

Giddy up.



Since we at prairie dog would never, ever look a gift horse in the mouth, a big hat tip goes to Miranda Hanus for this video.

Kurt Vonnegut On Remembering the War

Remembrance Day always puts me in mind of this passage from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. It's from Chapter 1, when Vonnegut, while trying to write a book about his experiences in the war, takes a trip to Cape Cod to see his old war buddy, Bernard V O'Hare. Vonnegut realizes, though, that Bernard's wife, Mary, isn't happy to see him....

So we tried to ignore Mary and remember the war. I took a couple of belts of the booze I'd brought. We would chuckle or grin sometimes, as though war stories were coming back, but neither one of us could remember anything good. O'Hare remembered one guy who got into a lot of wine in Dresden, before it was bombed, and we had to take him home in a wheelbarrow. It wasn't much to write a book about. I remembered two Russian soldiers who had looted a clock factory. They had a horse-drawn wagon full of clocks. They were happy and drunk. They were smoking huge cigarettes they had rolled in newspaper.

That was about it for memories, and Mary was still making noise. She finally came out in the kitchen again for another Coke. She took another tray of ice cubes from the refrigerator, banged it in the sink, even though there was already plenty of ice out.

Then she turned to me, let me see how angry she was, and that the anger was for me. She had been talking to herself, so what she said was a fragment of a much larger conversation. "You were just babies then!" she said.

"What?" I said.

"You were just babies in the war -- like the ones upstairs!"

I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood.

"But you're not going to write it that way, are you." This wasn't a question. It was an accusation.

"I -- I don't know," I said.

"Well, I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs."

So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.

Please Forgive The Language: A Remembrance Day Commentary

Fuck war. Fuck the people who profit from it. Fuck the people who romanticize it. Fuck those who defend it as "neccessary". Fuck the pious who justify war through religion. Fuck the micro-dicked potbellied would-be generals with their Napoleon complexes and their "mommy dressed me like a little girl" need to prove themselves.

War is the failure of intelligence, compassion, diplomacy and creativity. War is the end result of short-sightedness, of defective leadership, of ego and ideology. War is the cannibalism of the young by the old and failed. War is a frightened adult child's need to dominate and control. War is a misguided and foolish craving for action when patience and reason is called for. War is the dance of death between the poor winner and the bad loser.

War is mass murder.

War is misogyny.

War is the last resort that almost certainly could've been avoided.

War is a unique agent of extinction.

War is never as far away as you think. Beware its eloquent defenders and its coarse cheerleaders. War is not a sport.

To hell with war.

Today is Remembrance Day.

Seven In 10 Canadians Don't Think Through The Little Details When They Answer Surveys

According to this poll (Leader-Post), most Canadians think it should be mandatory to observe two minutes of silence on Remembrance Day.*

So I guess that NOT being silent would be, what's the word...compulsory?

So, it would be...against the law to talk?

Just checking. Good to know my fellow Canadians appreciate all these "freedoms" our soldiers supposedly die for.**

*Yes, I read the article, and I realize that the poll was probably skewed because 54 per cent of respondents have relatives in a war.

** Yes, yes, I recognize that the article does a good job of pointing this out. I like the one veteran's quote: "We don't need to legislate this. We need to remember our soldiers have fought for freedoms -- freedom of the press, freedom to enjoy the Olympics or the freedom to protest them, and the freedom to observe two minutes of silence." But come on, SOMEBODY around here has to belabour the point. And if not me, then who?

Christian Wrong

I awoke this morning to an interview on CBC Radio's The Current with U.S. journalist Jeff Sharlet about his 2003 book called The Family. Families are good, right? They're wholesome. They're the cornerstone of our society. Well, not this one. Unless you're ideal society is a capitalist theocracy whose adherents believe that in killing, oppressing and exploiting their inferiors they're carrying out God's will. (Harper's)