Savannah has tasked me with answering the meme of 8. Eight questions about blogging. I can never resist a challenge so here are my answers. Your mileage may very-but this is mine:
1. Why did you start blogging?
I began this blog out of a sense of frustration responding to a huge personal disappointment in my life; created by nothing but sheer stupidity on the part of other people……..on the part of the “big bad establishment”. My disgust with their simplistic trying to slot people into molds, set me off on the path of blogging to begin with.
As time passed, however, my ideas for blogging-and the topics I wanted to talk about changed over time as my interests changed. While I was still in Asia and living in the promised land-I wanted to split evenly my discussion of the sheer joy of being an expat overseas with my commentaries on American politics and its continuing descent into ignorance. And of course I wanted to comment (repeatedly) on the sheer folly of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. After returning to the US-the “fun factor” had dropped dramatically, so I began to turn my attention more and more to politics-this being the one place I could have my way and explain the way things should be versus they way they are. Two years back in the land of fat people have ruined me on the good things about American politics, I remain extremely troubled about the direction that politics-especially GOP politics is heading. ( Over a cliff). To stop though is to cave into the critics-the ones who decry my viewpoints. So I continue writing-its the best way to push back.
One of the most interesting and surprising things is -as time passed-how hard it became for me to blog with passion about Navy things anymore. I still care passionately about the Navy-but its a part of my life that is passed and I just can’t get as spun up as I used to on active duty.
2. If you could travel anywhere in the world, with no restrictions on cost, where would it be, and why?
If I could live anywhere in the world-with out worrying about a job or money, it would be Singapore. For purposes of travel however, I would like to take about three years to go around the world on the following route: USA-Brazil-Argentina-Germany-London-South Africa-India-Bangkok-Hong Kong-Japan-Korea-Taiwan-Singapore. I’d like to stay about 2-3 months in each place.
3. Did you have a teacher in school that had a great influence on your life? If so, what?
I didn’t have just one, I had several. Mrs Bowman who taught AP English-and made us write EVERY week come hell or high water. ( We also had to read one book a week). Miss Kaigler, who taught junior English. Probably 50% of my professors at The Citadel, who again demanded that writing be done well. A special note goes out to CPT Pages-who got me through difficult equations Sophomore year.
4. If you could spend the day with a famous person, who would it be, and what would you do?
I agree with Savannah-I’d want to spend some time with Obama and ask him why he didn’t do some things to kick the “Party of No” in the nuts early on. And ask him why he is allowing the tea party to be making all the noise it is making when their arguments are for the most part easily refuted. I’d also like to be with Eisenhower in 1956 and ask him why he did not stick up for the British and the French in Suez. That one mistake created the pre-conditions that led to the current miserable state of affairs in the Middle East.
5. Toilet paper – over or under?
Doesn’t matter so long as it is there and it unrolls.
6. Name one thing in your life that you would do over if possible.
I know one thing I would not have done-gotten married right out of college-if at all. As for something I have done that I would do over-well there are several. I’d love to be going into my first CO tour (I had four) knowing what I know now-I would have been a better CO and a lot fairer to the people who worked for me. I also would love to have gone to Asia a hell of a lot earlier-and stayed.
But really the one thing I would do over would have been my senior year and not gotten engaged. I would have also chased a lot more women.
7. Tell us about your pets, if any.
The S.O.’s cat-which is the most un-affectionate cat I have ever had. Every other cat I had was a lot more fun.
8. Do you live in a small town or a large town?
Shopping Mall USA is a small town compared to the exciting cities I have lived in. It has too many churches and not enough fun.
you’re a pal, sugar! thanks for playing and please, don’t ever stop writing! xoxoxox
I actually disagree with you about Suez. I think it might have been the greatest moment in American foreign policy in the 20th century.
Although Ike – who I consider a hero – engineered the shameful coup against Mossedeq in 1953, Suez could have reversed that and changed the course of the Middle East had subsequent presidents followed up on it.
For perhaps the only time, the United States walked the talk of it’s own anti-colonial rhetoric and stood up against foreign interference. Eisenhower also contained what was at the time an increasingly aggressive policy by Israel for territorial expansion. Suez bought the United States decades of goodwill in the Arab world.
Sadly, that was squandered by Cold War politics, which, more than anything else, put you where you are today. Because of a fear of communism, president after president supported tyrannies in the Middle East, training and funding the secret police agencies that destroyed any possibility of a democratic alternative to those Arab dictatorships.
Gradually, there was a counterreaction to that, and one that makes a great deal of sense in hindsight. If you take the rational alternatives to secular dictatorships off of the table, that only leaves you with the irrational ones – specifically, the jihadis. Eventually, the terrorists were the only part of the opposition movement left standing and they very much want to hold the United States accountable for that.
Also, if Britian and France remained colonial powers, it’s likely that there would continue to be major European wars every fifteen or twenty years. You’d also probably see post World War II colonial powers forming “balance of power” alliances that would have certainly included Germany and the Soviet Union, which would have made NATO impossible. Suez closed the door on that forever.
Well that is one point of view. Arabs exist for two purposes-to be ruled by Europeans and to sell the west oil. Otherwise they have no useful purpose on the face of the earth. Furthermore-a British/French victory at Suez would have, for some period of time, slowed down the independence movement on the African continent-and perhaps not made it into the basket case it is today.
Furthermore-support for European colonialism was in our best interest as far as containing the Soviet Union-it would have forced the Europeans to maintain a larger military overall and would not have provided governments that served as the spawning grounds for terrorism.
One of the big problems with the world today is that there are too many nations and geographic entities that have no business being independent are. As a result we can’t get anything done.
Besides- I just have a nostalgia for the British Empire. Surely as a citizen of one of the Dominons you would understand that. 😉
Interesting, but probably wrong.
Firstly, it’s an odd premise for the first country in history to successfully escape colonial rule to advocate the continuation of the practice on other people, to say nothing of the fact that it undermines your national values horribly.
Secondly, American support of colonialism would have been a major propoganda victory for the Soviets and it likely would have allowed them broaden their influence massively. The Soviets were pretty successful in sponsoring “wars of national liberation” in independent countries, so it stands to reason that they would have done far better in colonized countries with weak colonial masters. Would a communist Congo have been better than the Zaire that we ended up with? I doubt it.
Or are you suggesting the United States should have fought Vietnams all over Africa and Asia to maintain the status quo in the event of Soviet sponsored civil wars?
Unfortunately, the fact that there are ” too many nations and geographic entities that have no business being independent” is a consequence of the end of the Cold War and, for the most part, the democratic will of the people living within those countries, both of which were stated objectives of U.S foreign policy for some fifty years.
While I’m Canadian, I don’t have any great love for the British. I have serious problems respecting any country that’s ruled by the fucking Spice Girls. And in places like South Asia, they were the problem. They created the conditions there that are killing us today.
That is probably why I am a man misplaced in the wrong time-I was meant to be in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong in 1920. Or on a plantation in Kenya or summoning my servants in Singapore.
I am not suggesting that United States fight Vietnams all over Africa- I am suggesting that for a change the British and French win their wars as the British did in Kenya and the French did not in Algeria. In the long run-the population of most of the former British colonies would have been better off under an autonmous home rule with British control of defence and foreign policy. I know for a fact the Philippines would have been better off being still under US control.
But we will never know what might have been.
Agree with the skippy-san.
Sometimes the skippystalin lets his communist roots override his common sense. The path to the islamic future was laid long before 1952. You could read it in their history for the previous 800 years. dialectical materialism. what was would be and will be.
Huh?
Actually I didn’t suggest that it started in 1952. What I said was that the United States might have had a far easier time in the Middle East were it not for some extremely sort-sighted Cold War policies. And that’s self-evident.
ummm,
we’ve actually had an easy time in the middle east. did i miss something?
Skippy-san I note your complaint about shopping mall. Try to imagine going to High School in that town back when the Blue Laws were still fully in effect. On Sundays there was no place to go at all and forget about getting a drink.
I don’t think the other Skippy understands ease. Europe cost us several hundred thousand dead and wounded as did Vietnam and Korea. Southwest Asia….a high price but easily lower and cheaper than the others.
ol stalin was stymied by that weren’t he?
Is it all relative though? Must we view it through a filtered rose at midnight during a full moon?
Howsabout, again, the British Army lost more men in the First Battle of the Somme than any and both sides during the current little dustup to date.