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The lines on the road were straight. As always. Running into oblivion. Carl stretched out in his chair, looked at the ceiling briefly. He let his eyes bulge, giving over for one precious second to the forces that made him thankful his truck didn’t come equipped with an eject button.
-Someday I’ll get to stop driving. Someday I’ll drive this thing into a cemetery, and I’ll leave it there. With my father. And it can all go back where it came from.
He forced his head against the back of the seat again. A minute later, the truck was on the side of the road and he was out of it. Stretching out before him was only the sky. It stretched on into gray. Black was too final. The stars splattered like silkworms.
Carl ran back and forth a couple times. He jumped up and down twice, and kicked the air. Then he yelled.
“Focccaaacccciiiiaaaaaa”
He had a bad habit of yelling words that were altogether foreign to him. The only way he knew them was from commercials. But they sounded good, much like the food in the ads. He knew that no one could hear him yell these big words. That gave him pleasure. That no one could tell him he was trying too hard, or ask him what the word meant.
“Gooooooooooooorganzooooooooooooooooooola”
Items from The Olive Garden had a special release. Perhaps because he’d never been there. He took pleasure in that, too.
He got back in his truck. Started it on the second try. Yellow lines stretched on. He tried to follow them as the big rigs passed him by. Country music became boring after the fifth Alan Jackson tune about being down home.
-He never says nothing about how trapped that huge stretch of land can make you feel. That’s what country music should be about. But they don’t like to admit the bad in it.
The public access station in Deming replaced it Tonight there was some crank mumbling about aliens and Roswell and secret cities under the desert.
-At least he believes what he’s saying. More than you can say, right Alan?
He wished for a turn. Just a little shrug in the road to make him feel like putting his hands on the wheel was necessary. That there was some skill in driving. He saw the flask in the corner of his eye.
-Leave it alone, Carl.
The wind picked up, and some of the hay in the bed started to blow away. He followed it in the rearview mirror, piece by piece. He could count the money he was losing, piece by piece. To the cent. The radio piped in.
“There’s a recession on, and they know it, too. It makes them happy to see us fail.”
The flask looked a little better.
-Leave it alone.
The truck crashed through a fence, and a headlight was out. Dust was streaking behind the truck, and soon he couldn‘t even tell the hay from the cloud. Four bails dropped off the top of the load. He watched them float away, in the rearview mirror.
As morning approached, he ran through herds of cattle. For the most part they moved out of his way. He yelled out the window as he approached the herds, relishing in the role he‘d dreamed of himself in since birth.
“I’m the KIIIIIIIIIIIING OF BEEEEEF”
Most of the herd scattered away, afraid for their life. A few others looked back at him, stern and somber. Daring him to run them over. He remembered that they were alive. How many he’d raised and slaughtered over the years by his own hand.
“I’M THE KING!”
In the rearview mirror a piece of hay was floating. He ran square into a bull.
Carl thought about driving on. That cattle could take care of themselves.
But he got out, probably because he knew cattle. Their slow movements carried with them the weight of thought and grace. Something seemed right about that.
That was a thought he had years ago. Now he and the bull stared each other straight in the eyes.
“I’M. THE. KING.”
The bull grunted. Its breath was thick in the vague morning light. It fell to its knees, laid there. Carl could sense it probably wouldn’t die, but he didn’t want to see anymore of it.
He looked away from the bull long enough to eye his flask. He unscrewed the top. Emptied the whole thing on the bull. Lit a match. The thing went up in flames.
Jumping from side to side, he waved his arms and clicked his heel. He seemed to fan the fire with each swipe of his arms.
“HOOOLLLLLLLLLAAANNNNNNDDDDDDDAIIIIIIIIISSSSSE”
As the dawn broke, the blazed scorched the same color as the sun.
Carl noticed half his hay was gone. He was happy to be off the road
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
General Interest Review 00020
Travels in Georgia
"Travels in Georgia" is a magazine profile of Atlanta-based ecologist Carol Ruckdeschel, written by John McPhee. The New Yorker first published the piece in 1973. The piece simultaneously makes time stand still and seems to speed it mercilessly forward at breakneck pace.
The main narrative freezes time in its tracks, forcing the modern reader to look back and ponder what it might've been like. In following Ruckdeschel and her colleague, Sam Candler, McPhee provides an account of a final moment when parts of the area surrounding Atlanta, and even the city itself, remained wild. This was a time before most wetlands were drained to make way for Sun Belt expansion. Ruckdeschel and Candler filter the transition through their own lens. Roadkill is for dinner, and the shack-like house is full of wild animals. The swamp is hallowed ground. Perhaps the wetlands and wild areas will be a shadow of their former selves, but somehow nature and the people who are intertwined with it will remain as they ever were.
All the while, the story pushes quickly forward, having no trouble keeping the reader's eyes locked into the page. McPhee employs a masterful voice throughout that illuminates what makes the subject matter so dynamic without elevating it to mythic proportions. In his prose, there is room for both the morbid details of cooking up roadkill, and the philosophical points of the struggle to balance development with preservation of thriving ecosystems. Pine trees and birds speak, and so does Jimmy Carter's missed jump shot. McPhee spent countless hours traveling for the piece, and he seems to have left nothing out. And all of it is symbolic, telling, or at the very least elegantly described. If only the rest of life was so interesting, all of the stinking time.
"Travels in Georgia" is a magazine profile of Atlanta-based ecologist Carol Ruckdeschel, written by John McPhee. The New Yorker first published the piece in 1973. The piece simultaneously makes time stand still and seems to speed it mercilessly forward at breakneck pace.
The main narrative freezes time in its tracks, forcing the modern reader to look back and ponder what it might've been like. In following Ruckdeschel and her colleague, Sam Candler, McPhee provides an account of a final moment when parts of the area surrounding Atlanta, and even the city itself, remained wild. This was a time before most wetlands were drained to make way for Sun Belt expansion. Ruckdeschel and Candler filter the transition through their own lens. Roadkill is for dinner, and the shack-like house is full of wild animals. The swamp is hallowed ground. Perhaps the wetlands and wild areas will be a shadow of their former selves, but somehow nature and the people who are intertwined with it will remain as they ever were.
All the while, the story pushes quickly forward, having no trouble keeping the reader's eyes locked into the page. McPhee employs a masterful voice throughout that illuminates what makes the subject matter so dynamic without elevating it to mythic proportions. In his prose, there is room for both the morbid details of cooking up roadkill, and the philosophical points of the struggle to balance development with preservation of thriving ecosystems. Pine trees and birds speak, and so does Jimmy Carter's missed jump shot. McPhee spent countless hours traveling for the piece, and he seems to have left nothing out. And all of it is symbolic, telling, or at the very least elegantly described. If only the rest of life was so interesting, all of the stinking time.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
General Interest Review 00019
Realism (international relations)
In the foreign policy realm, realism is a strand of thinking that leads states to act with only their own country in mind, even though the action is taking place outside their country. In the U.S., realist (so-called) policymakers have favored specific military initiatives that they claim will make the people living in the borders of the United States safer, and directly benefit the big picture foreign policy goals. Typically the realists have favored short-lived military offensives that have specific goals, but lead to miniscule gains in the abstract realm of security.
Under George H.W. Bush, realists Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell collaborated to kick the Iraqi military out of Kuwait. Few American casualties were recorded, Americans witnessed video of missiles and tanks, and virtually nothing changed in the Middle East in the Americans' favor save the protection of a substantial oil investment the U.S. had in the Kuwaiti emirate.
The realists also claimed a policy victory in the debate over what to do in the Iraq War under George W. Bush when the president opted for a surge strategy. The objective was to send a limited number of troops, wipe out the places where anti-American militants were operating, and get out. In practice, the strategy allegedly worked. But rather than being a pure product of American ingenuity, it was helped along by things that Iraqis did. Not least of these was the declaration of a cease fire by Shiite leader Moqtadh al-Sadr just as the troop increase occurred. American troops no doubt found it easier to clear anti-American forces from the slums of Baghdad when they weren't being fired on.
The security gains were again negligible. An opposition force created solely by the presence of American troops that fought solely on Iraqi soil and posed a civil security threat only because the huge military base outside Baghdad is technically American soil will eventually be stamped out when there are no American troops for them to oppose. There was little sign of the need for increased military action -- with all the attendant casualties, civilian and military.
Two years later, the realists appear to have struck a cord with their first non-Bush -- Barack Obama. The recent escalation of the American war in Afghanistan has all the realist hallmarks -- increased troop levels (30,000) for a specific amount of time (roughly 18 months) with a clear objective (to kick the Taliban and al Qaida out of Afghanistan). Like the Iraq surge, the success of the Afghanistan escalation depends on the Afghans virtually alone. In order to stamp out the Taliban and al Qaida, the U.S. expects the Afghan people to help oppose the Taliban through violence and viewpoint. Also expected is that the people will look for leadership in Kabul, distinct as one of the most corrupt governments in the world.
It is of course ironic that a realist strategy does not require the policymaker to be realistic. Before an audience of people all dressed exactly the same, Obama claimed that the Afghan election was marred by fraud, but went off in accordance with Afghan law. This is likely false, unless fraud is permitted in the Afghan constitution. Obama claimed the Taliban must be stamped out because they harbored al Qaida. In fact, al Qaida and the Taliban had a dicey relationship shaped mostly by proximity. Afghanistan's moon-like frontier makes it easy to hide, and the Taliban were too busy trying to control Afghanistan to worry about a bunch of crackpots hiding in their midst attempting to control the entire world.
Perhaps these are small corrections when so much human life is on the line. But once they are inserted, the argument for the necessity of this escalation crumbles. Armed with the facts, it would be obvious that the Taliban poses no threat to the people within the borders of the United States. They only want to be left alone. Even the threat posed from al Qaida is unlikely to be completely stamped out. They can simply run to the strikingly similar moonlike frontier in Pakistan, or, as they did in the late 90s when Sudan kicked them out, move their base of operations to another barren country with an unstable central government incapable of opposing their presence, or indifferent to it.
Realism is simply a moniker that interprets reality. If an academic never proposed that certain players act according to the realist model, Scowcroft and Gates would be called something else. Remaining would be the limited effects of their so-called restraint and the high human cost attached. It seems plenty of thinkers could end at a strategy that fills caskets while achieving zilch.
In the foreign policy realm, realism is a strand of thinking that leads states to act with only their own country in mind, even though the action is taking place outside their country. In the U.S., realist (so-called) policymakers have favored specific military initiatives that they claim will make the people living in the borders of the United States safer, and directly benefit the big picture foreign policy goals. Typically the realists have favored short-lived military offensives that have specific goals, but lead to miniscule gains in the abstract realm of security.
Under George H.W. Bush, realists Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell collaborated to kick the Iraqi military out of Kuwait. Few American casualties were recorded, Americans witnessed video of missiles and tanks, and virtually nothing changed in the Middle East in the Americans' favor save the protection of a substantial oil investment the U.S. had in the Kuwaiti emirate.
The realists also claimed a policy victory in the debate over what to do in the Iraq War under George W. Bush when the president opted for a surge strategy. The objective was to send a limited number of troops, wipe out the places where anti-American militants were operating, and get out. In practice, the strategy allegedly worked. But rather than being a pure product of American ingenuity, it was helped along by things that Iraqis did. Not least of these was the declaration of a cease fire by Shiite leader Moqtadh al-Sadr just as the troop increase occurred. American troops no doubt found it easier to clear anti-American forces from the slums of Baghdad when they weren't being fired on.
The security gains were again negligible. An opposition force created solely by the presence of American troops that fought solely on Iraqi soil and posed a civil security threat only because the huge military base outside Baghdad is technically American soil will eventually be stamped out when there are no American troops for them to oppose. There was little sign of the need for increased military action -- with all the attendant casualties, civilian and military.
Two years later, the realists appear to have struck a cord with their first non-Bush -- Barack Obama. The recent escalation of the American war in Afghanistan has all the realist hallmarks -- increased troop levels (30,000) for a specific amount of time (roughly 18 months) with a clear objective (to kick the Taliban and al Qaida out of Afghanistan). Like the Iraq surge, the success of the Afghanistan escalation depends on the Afghans virtually alone. In order to stamp out the Taliban and al Qaida, the U.S. expects the Afghan people to help oppose the Taliban through violence and viewpoint. Also expected is that the people will look for leadership in Kabul, distinct as one of the most corrupt governments in the world.
It is of course ironic that a realist strategy does not require the policymaker to be realistic. Before an audience of people all dressed exactly the same, Obama claimed that the Afghan election was marred by fraud, but went off in accordance with Afghan law. This is likely false, unless fraud is permitted in the Afghan constitution. Obama claimed the Taliban must be stamped out because they harbored al Qaida. In fact, al Qaida and the Taliban had a dicey relationship shaped mostly by proximity. Afghanistan's moon-like frontier makes it easy to hide, and the Taliban were too busy trying to control Afghanistan to worry about a bunch of crackpots hiding in their midst attempting to control the entire world.
Perhaps these are small corrections when so much human life is on the line. But once they are inserted, the argument for the necessity of this escalation crumbles. Armed with the facts, it would be obvious that the Taliban poses no threat to the people within the borders of the United States. They only want to be left alone. Even the threat posed from al Qaida is unlikely to be completely stamped out. They can simply run to the strikingly similar moonlike frontier in Pakistan, or, as they did in the late 90s when Sudan kicked them out, move their base of operations to another barren country with an unstable central government incapable of opposing their presence, or indifferent to it.
Realism is simply a moniker that interprets reality. If an academic never proposed that certain players act according to the realist model, Scowcroft and Gates would be called something else. Remaining would be the limited effects of their so-called restraint and the high human cost attached. It seems plenty of thinkers could end at a strategy that fills caskets while achieving zilch.
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