Not So Much Bored as Annoyed and Worried

So, unless you live under a rock, you've heard about this mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison (now the Baghdad Central Correctional Facility). And, unless I have yet to make that clear, I work and live at Abu Ghraib Prison (now the Baghdad Central etc.)

What you may not know is that it looks like Marines, friends of mine, are taking up all the rest of the front page space when it comes to lurid photos, the space that isn't taken up by the damning pictures of those FUCKING MORONS. Now, it so happens that I overhead my CO talking about this vey thing, and it seems he's pretty adamant that we don't get caught up in the shitstorm--we don't have anything to do with the detainees and we didn't arrive until well after the incidents in question...

But I wonder if his resolve is going to be enough to keep us clear. I wonder if "Abu Ghraib" is going to become a buzzword for dishonorable conduct the way "My Lai" was for Vietnam. I wonder if this is going to follow me. Happily, I'm not aiming for a life in politics, and happily there are ample distinctions between me and those morons... but I wonder how much that's going to matter to an unthinking public. The media does not like to distinguish too finely, and the public has a tendency to ape the media's presentation.

Someone once asked, not too long ago, if I discriminated. I never did answer, but in my mind I knew the answer. The answer, of course, is yes. Before it became a charged word, a concept given a definite moral skew by the Civil Rights movement, "discriminate" merely meant that an intellect recognized the inherent differences in things. Now, of course, it's merely used to indicate prejudicial distinctions. But my worry is that the public, the unitiated will fail to discriminate, in a prejudicial way. They'll lump all of us who served at Abu Ghraib together, fail to discriminate between MP and MI and infantry, between Marines and Army and Navy and Air Force, between guilty and complicit and innocent.

Look for it in the coming days. MSNBC publicized a future cover of Newsweek with the headline "Trouble at Abu Ghraib." Who did they feature on the cover? Marines. Kilo Marines. Friends of mine.

Could have been me, but for an accident of timing.

Can't Believe...

...I forgot to bring headphones. This is going to be a quiet three-and-a-half more hours. Bummer.

...how bored I am. I mean, really.

...that I spend as much time a day staring at a computer as I did when I was at IU and working in the library.

...how many books I've read.

...how badly I jacked up my hair the last time I tried to give myself a haircut. Poor trimming aside, it really looks ridiculous as it takes my hair to grow to about three inches on top before it'll lay down on its own. Flattops are the way to go. (One dude even started calling me "Bert", as in the Muppet. tappu knows why this is funny.)

...that my brother turns 25 today. Holy poop.

...that I'm starting to resubscribe and get back into all the mailing lists and on-line activities I jettisoned back in December because I wouldn't have the time to keep up.

...that my mouth tastes like... e-mails.

...that I can't seem to sleep long enough during the day when I'm supposed to be sleeping. I need to work on that.

...that I've dragged this silly little conceit on for as long as I have.