Welcome back. My apologies for not sending out a super-special, Christmas weekend edition of the Morning Coffee. But I figured most of you expected something like that, and in order for it to be a surprise, I didn't send one. So, you are thus surprised. I do hope that your Christmas weekend was better than mine, although that shouldn't have been too hard. Being repeatedly beaten about the head and neck would, by default, qualify you as having a better Christmas weekend.
Not too terribly inspired today, so if today's Morning Coffee is watered-down and stale tasting, blame my Muse. She too has apparently left me for another.
The Associated Press reports that the death toll for US servicemen in Iraq has reached 2,974. In case you don't have the number etched indelibly into your head, that number, folks is one more than the deaths on 9/11. I can say only this: So what? The media seems to report these numbers as if they mean something in the grand scheme of things, like every milestone is somehow significant. A few weeks ago, they report that the "War on Terror" has lasted as long as US combat involvement in WWII. Again, so what? What I find remarkable is the lack of context. They just report these number as if to say, "See, it's all mucked-up. More troops have died in Iraq than people in the World Trade Center! Gasp!" I would like for our great, wise media to try to tell me what that means. The problem is, they can't, because it doesn't mean anything. There's no correlation between the number of dead troops and dead 9/11 victims. There's no correlation between length of combat operations in WWII and the "War on Terror." None. They try to provide some faux metric that means nothing so it looks like they're reporting something significant. If they connect random, meaningless figures to events that are, in our minds, epic, it somehow lends weight to their inept, meaningless reports.
Here's a fact for you, and it's very important: more fish were caught and killed yesterday than all the people that died in WWII combined. See, now the first figure is important, because it's tied directly to an event that is incredibly important to our collective psyches. It means nothing folks. No, I take it back. It does mean something. It means that 2,974 of our servicemen have died fighting in Iraq. That's what it means. I simply do not understand why they report these things attached to something unrelated.
And another thing. I remember at the start of this current conflict, senior military members where very hesitant to report enemy casualties. Something about remembering how Americans became obsessed with enemy KIAs in Vietnam and how those KIAs had no relevance to winning or losing there. However, it seems that in the absence of any significant progress being made in Iraq, more and more weight is being lent to numbers of dead insurgents, etc. I noticed this trend quite a while ago, and brought it up to some friend. I've always maintained that we're killing more of them than they are of us, but that's just a simple fact. That doesn't mean we're winning and they're losing. Let's just be careful and not get wrapped up in the numbers and figures. We killed far more VC than they killed of us, but we still lost. We should remember that.
A showman, musician, and great man passed away yesterday. The Godfather of Soul, James Brown died after proclaiming "I'm going away tonight." He was 73. Too bad. The AP, in another instance of stellar reporting, states that "Brown was to rhythm and dance what Bob Dylan was to lyrics." What does that mean? One can only assume it's a compliment. Frankly, Bob Dylan typically sounds to me as if he's got a bag of marbles in his mouth, so it seems hard to speak to the quality of his lyrics. Of course, James Brown wasn't known for the clarity of his vocals either. Nevertheless, it sucks that he died.
Word of the Day: Bricolage (bree-koh-LAHZH) (noun): Construction or something constructed by using whatever materials happen to be available.
On This Day in History: Soviet special forces take over the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan (1979). I've been in that palace. Also, 26 December is a national holiday in many Christian countries (but not the US). Some countries call it Second Christmas Day.
"If there were no rewards to reap, no loving embrace to see me through this tedious path I've chosen here, I certainly would've walked away by now. Gonna wait it out. If there were no desire to heal the damaged and broken net along this tedious path I've chosen here I certainly would've walked away by now. And I still may…I still may. Be patient, I must keep reminding myself of this." - The Patient
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