This Week's In Memoriam
By Logan Murphy Saturday Mar 15, 2008 1:00pm
Download | play 
Download | play (h/t Heather)
The In Memoriam segment on today's This Week noted the passing of founder of Trek Bicycle Richard Burke, 73, former Senator Howard Metzenbaum, 90, Gloria Shayne Baker, 84, Composer of Do You Hear What I Hear and this week, the Pentagon released the names of 14 soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to icasualties.org, that brings the Iraq casualty count this week to 3,988.
Login or Register to post comments.
Too close to 4,000 - and the Pope lit into the U.S. war on Iraq. see http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/2008/03/palming-off-war.html
Howard Metzenbaum, we'll miss you.
It's been 2,372 days since George WMD Bush said he'd catch the alleged 9/11 Conspirator UBL??? Never forget, uh remember???
I was just out riding my Trek 7.3 FX and was thinking how nice it rode, and of how I was glad to ride a bike still made in this country. You started a fine company Mr. Burke, no bomb making or design, no stealing from old ladies or evicting underpaid immigrants and left-behinds, just making quality bicycles.
"...that brings the Iraq casualty count this week to 3,988."
I cringe when I see wording like that. The mind of the person who wrote it is fully entrenched in the language of the mainstream media, where lives of Iraqi people don't matter. I lived through Viet Nam and it was exactly the same. The lives of the people we came to liberate ironically don't figure in the calculation of the human cost of the conflict. That way we can say with a straight face that we're the good guys.
If you're going to ignore Iraqi deaths, could you at least say
"that brings the American military casualty count in the Iraq war this week to 3,988". ? Then at least you show some awareness.
Heres a poem I wrote awhile back that links the image of unfelt and unrealized (unrealizable?) death with bicycling.
American Vendetta/The Terrorist Zaqawi
We know death. He's on the tube.
Woven into and between the crude commercials,
a thread, a phospheme, a subliminal, a shadow.
Eyes x'd out. Then explode.
The final stab of revenge.
Without end.
End.
Traveling along the sunny
bumpy springtime road, the thick leathery
olive green leaves lift and wave
and drop, hanging in the desert.
The radio headphones cut in and out,
waves of sound changing to static.
The buzzing revving roar of an engine
becomes crescendo racing whirring fast
behind us. Going where? Who knows? It's dim. It is all
Without end.
End.
I climb on my stickered bike.
I always wear black. My legs, my limbs, feel so tired,
sickened and deep. I can feel in them this dusty thirst.
I think it's normal for my age,
I think, sickened, deep. Tired
without end.
End.
Believe in normality?
I don't really care what you think. Normality?
I don't really care whether or not you have purpose.
But...our purpose is from God.
As God is and as time stains
without end.
End.
A man does many stupid things
He acts only often in reaction.
Problems get bigger and bigger
Then a bomb falls onto his house ,
and another bomb falls onto his house.
Two bombs in one day! Now revenge
knows death. It happens a mile away,
and it happens twenty miles away,
a hundred miles away, a thousand miles away...
without end.
End.
I climb on my battered bike.
and ride far along the depopulated coastline.
Without safety I still have the faith of the living.
The coast that goes on and on
night-sky blue water and sand,
without end.
End.
Post Americans @ 3:
When asked about OBL, he answered: "Well, frankly I'm really not that concerned about him."
WHAT? Not concerned about the fact that the alleged killer of 3000 + New Yorkers is still on the lamb?
There several reasons why he isn't:
1. OBL didn't do it. [Deleted-Sitemonitor]
2. After he got the war he wanted ( the one 9/11 was a pretext for) he didn't care whether or not OBL was ever caught and brought to justice.
3. The Bush crime family has had business dealings with the Bin Laden family for decades. In the days prior to 9/11, the Bin Laden family was in DC negotiating with Chimpy's father, the former CEO in the Carlyle Group. The Bin Laden family were passengers in the only airborne plane on the planet, the day after 9/11
Lets not forget Bushes failure to catch 911 inside traders or homegrown anthrax mailer. The "Dead or Alive" spew from Bush was just a bad joke. Much like he is as a man and so called leader.
I was once a big Trek supporter until they started manufacturing overseas..........so sad that they felt that they had to make that choice.
Still though Trek,Canondale, and Gary Fisher are my favorite bikes to ride.
Col Kilgore @ 8:
To use Chimpy's own frame of reference: These are all smoking guns that can be traced back to the same place: 1600 Pensylvania Ave.
The people that died were honourable people, to be sure. However, the names of the fallen soldiers should have been listed first, not last. They did not have the chance to live long and prosperous lives like the others.
CheneyIsADick @ 10:
So true. Bush is just in full ass covering ( or attempting to) mode now. He dont give a rats ass about America or Americans. He will practice a scorched earth policy and leave nothing whatsoever left to rebuild on. He just lies and lies and lies. Him saying the telecoms ,who so gladly coughed up all your Constitutionally protected private information, are patriotic made me sick to my fucking stomach. He knows any real oversight is gonna come right back to them. Why Americans and the Dems rolling over for this fool ill never understand. I remember the old America that had balls and a sense of moral duty. Perhaps Cheney threatened the lawmakers with some more anthrax if they dont step in line. These assholes know no bottom of the moral barrel for sure.Im still waiting for any frightwinger to explain why the evidence suggests Bush was tapping phones long before his 911. The QWEST trial revealed that much. As usual, the braindead US media hasnt touched it. Ill stand by prediction that there wont be any elections in near future. The NEO plot to destroy America and rebuild it as a third world country is well under way. I cant see them walking away and/or into jail without them being physically dragged away.
yeah but 5,000 is a more round number so it wont be a *really* big deal til that happens.....
"How many deaths will it take til he knows, that too many people have died?" - Bob Dylan
Grim conclusion but statistics say the 4000th casualty in the US forces is going to fall this week...
AS of this week.....
Login or Register to post comments.