war--what is it good for

thank you
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

This photo was taken on Remembrance Day in Canada. It seems that every country has some day set aside to honour the war heroes, alive and dead, who have risked or given it all for the real estate we call home. When I think of a justified war, I think of WW2--the Big One. There have been other seriously deadly wars, no doubt, but this was the war to end all wars. Yes, they`re all big ones to the families who have lost someone in it, or to those who lost a limb or their own life. War, it seems to me, is man`s craziest expression of his innate drives based on his testosterone. Men go to war and years later they make movies about it starring guys who look like they'd freak out if they broke a nail, and the men who served are proud to have been in that war. Well, maybe not so much for Vietnam, the war I served in, but there are a lot of wars that we can brag to our kids about. Like our Desert Storm, our Desert Shield, The Persian Gulf War and let's not forget the Korean Conflict. I like the last one--"Conflict" --a word we used in high school when we made out our class schedules and two classes we applied for were scheduled at the same time so we had to decide which one to attend. Now that's a conflict we can all live with--literally--but a Korean Conflict was not something everyone could live with because lots of dudes died. Well, at least we got M*A*S*H, a funny movie and TV show out of it.
Today we have a war on terror. Oops--I should capitalize that: War On Terror. This is the first war I can recall that actually isn't a war on people, but is a war on a tactic. If we used that premise in The Big One, WW2, The War to End All Wars, we could have called it The War on Messerschmitz or the War on Kaimikazes. Let's face it, we're so clever to call it the War on Terror.  By calling it that, we avoid offending anyone, like the people who are blowing themselves up, or flying planes into buildings to kill us, aren't we?  But we aren't fighting people--we're fighting the way those people are trying to kill us. I recently saw a cartoon (no, not of Muhammad), but of an ostrich with its head hiding in the sand, and there was a desert guy with a sword (I have no idea what his religion must be) cutting the bird's head and legs off. This is the west as I see it. We are ostriches.
Well, it`s getting late and I should end this and go to sleep. I just hope we can kill terror and make the world a safer place.

Eh?

cloud4
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

It snowed yesterday and my childhood flashed in front of my eyes. I remembered how I played in the snow in the mornings and my toes would get so cold that they'd itch. I'd come into the house and Dad would put Noxema on them and the itch would go away. Magic. And then I'd go out and play again, only to repeat the cycle.

It's November and it already snowed twice; maybe we'll get a white Christmas--if we do, it'll be my first one in many years. I think it has been so long since I've actually had a white Christmas that Bing Crosby's song about it just came out. Well, okay, I'm exaggerating, but it must be at least 20 plus years.

My favorite Christmas as a kid was getting my first set of electric trains. Lionel, of course, with the smoke pills and the whistle and the little houses and the tracks that fit together. Once I got too old for them, I put the trains in a box and forgot about them. Then, one day I came across them while going through my stuff. I had no use for them anymore, or so I thought, so I gave them away to my nephew, Michael. I wonder if he still has them; I doubt it.

Trains had a way of being a catalyst for the imagination; today the imagination of the young is fed by computer games, cell phone games, X-Box, and things I'm not even aware of, but I know it's out there. The trouble is, we tend to spend all of our time, lately, on our computers (as I'm doing as I write this), on our phones, in our games, and less time in our real world. George Carlin had a theory about this--he believed that this was the way for those in real power to distract us from what's most important in the world, which is how our leaders (most of whom are not visible to the public), are screwing us.
I don't know if he was correct, but I do know we need to spend more time in the here and now.
What's your favorite childhood memory, eh?

Vidhya

porch
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

Our friend Vidhya is coming to visit on Tuesday. She lives in India and is visiting her daughter, Lakshmi, in Boston but wants to see snow for the first time in her life. We hope we can accommodate her but I'm not sure I can influence the snow god, Frostama. I'm not a religious person and haven't prayed in a very long time, particularly to a snow god, but I'm going to try.

I've heard that no two snowflakes are alike but I would really like to know how anyone could know that with certainty. I'm sure there are snowflakes that are pretty damn close to looking exactly like their sister snowflakes. When I was a child, there was a kids tv show and I remember the song they played every winter after the first snowfall--it was called "Susie Snowflake." My sister's name is Susie and she is far from being a flake, but that's another topic altogether.

"Here comes Susie Snowflake look at her tumbling down,

Bringing joy to every girl and boy

Now Susie's back in town;

Here comes Susie Snowflake

Hear what she's come to say,

'Come on everyone and play with me'

Before I'm on my way.'

If you want to make a snowman,

I'll help you make one

One, two, three

If you want to take a sleigh ride

The ride's on me

Here comes . . . .

etc.

I miss my childhood--the innocence, the high snowfall, my tingling toes from playing outside, my sister, Ellen, Mom, and Dad. I miss them.

Let's pray for snow--Vidhya should see it