Next weekend is September …

[aadler]

 
The last post I made referred to the approach of Hurricane Dean to my current duty station. Well, obviously (if you followed the news), Dean swung away from Guantanamo when it dipped south of Jamaica instead of north. We spent a day in quarters, waiting to see how things turned out, but in the end it was just another weekend.

First Cut — Political Observation

Back in the States, I see the Vietnam comparison — made early and often by Democrats — has been turned against them as regards events in Iraq. About time. People forget that we didn’t lose in Vietnam: we forced the treaty we wanted, by determination and effective combat, and then a Democratic Congress abrogated that treaty, cut off our allies, and passed laws specifically prohibiting further American aid to a people we had sworn we wouldn’t desert. It was defeat by legislative fiat, after we had already withdrawn with the mission accomplished, and now they’re trying to do it again. If it gets shoved back in their faces, if they’re smeared as cowards, weakings, and cynical opportunists … well, they’ve earned it.

Close First Cut

Second Cut — Military orders & situation

On the original schedule, a replacement team would be arriving in three weeks. We’ve been given no names, though, and no assigning unit, and no confirmaton of itinerary. Even though my entire team volunteered to extend for six months, the overwhelming likelihood is that we’ll depart at the end of our current orders. We just haven’t been able to get any official statement to that effect.

With the unavoidable end in sight, I’ve refined my own goals for the near-term. Though I’ll work in a few other things, for the next two to five weeks I’m going to focus everything I can on Farsi study, to ready myself for a DLPT (language proficiency test) as soon as I can schedule one. I’ve let myself get preoccupied with one thing and another, and arrangements I tried to make with the linguists stationed here just never quite came through. Now I’m up against a deadline, and one way or another I’ll get something settled, either before we leave or immediately after I get back home.

Close Second Cut

Sometime last year — it may have been even longer ago than that — my daughter talked about taking on Mary Sue as a challenge: that is, seeing if it was possible to construct a story wherein the principal character fulfilled all clichés of a Mary Sue, but with the story still working. It was an interesting notion, though I wasn’t convinced it was possible. Surprise, it IS possible, because word_smuggler did so, and pulled it off by tackling the conventions head-on and smashing them flat. This fic, an untitled submission to obafu (and a gift to honorh), is a devastating tour de force. I can’t bring myself to call it brilliant, simply because the word is so massively overused, but word_smuggler’s result is effective, successful, frequently funny, and thoroughly satisfying. Read, and leave feedback.

Comments

[aadler]

As long as it stays polite, I’m fine. Any time I volunteer an opinion, it’s understood that someone might want to argue differently. I do have friends whose views differ from mine; I place more value on courtesy and rational thought than on uncritical agreement.