Archive for 2008

08w35:1 Letter from a Soldier

by timothy. 0 Comments

A response to Goodreads 07w26:1:

Hello,

My name is Callum Kyle.

I want to reply to your, `support our troops` post that you made at the top of your page.

This is not a message of anger, that so many of my supporters or family may have written out of passion and indeed love.

I simply wanted to express how I believe you gravely mis-understand us soldiers.

I`m not angry, nor am trying to use a harsh tone because you know as well as I do, that hot headed internet debates lead to us all loosing our credibility.

But to stay on topic.

I, myself, if you want to use your own words, am a volunteer killer. I`m not here to deny that, nor am I ashamed of it.

But i`m afraid you miss and focus on one aspect of my job.

I`m a son, a sibling, a grand child, a nephew, and hopefully one day, a father.

I look around Canada, having traversed across most of it, and am in awe of the beauty, and the freedom that my fellow Canadians enjoy. Having the military been in my family since before the first world war, I only feel that its natural that this is what I was born to do. And because of people like me, who behold Canada and her people`s lives before our own, that we may live in peace.

I being in the Forces, and having been told the generations of horror stories of the battle field, know the disgusting and unfortunate fact that today’s world, much like our past, is no where near perfect, and people still hate and kill one another. Because of this, I do my job, not for the sake of killing, or being a blood thirsty thug as your post seems to make me out to be. I do this job because I never want to have to see my friends, my family, or any other Canadians experience what I am ready to put myself through in their name.

This leads me to my reasoning to wanting to go to Afghanistan. My dad has lost 7 friends in Afghanistan, 2 of them where family friends. I know many Afghanistan war veterans. I know what wars true cost and horror is from their stories. From 3 year old girls having bombs strapped to them, to some of the most intense fire fights since Korea. I want to do this, not only to protect those mentioned, not only their and your rights, but to give the Afghan people a chance of living a life free of fear of the Taliban, to give their women rights, and their children a chance to go to school, and make a better life for them selves, to give them a safe environment that I was able to grow up in. I think that’s worth the risk personally.

I am fully aware of the risk, and I understand that civilians get killed in war, and it is truly horrible and unfortunate. I’ve heard first hand accounts of Afghan civilians being hurt or killed by both NATO, ANA and Taliban forces. But if we stay there, struggle and not give up like we never have in a time when we’ve been needed, isn’t the fact that they may one day live in prosperity and freedom worth it…

I don’t want to kill, but I know its a part of my job and I am willing to do it so others may not have to. I understand that you may not agree with, or anything I’ve written, but the fact that we can disagree makes it worth it. I just feel that you may have gotten the wrong idea of what I or my fellow soldiers are, Fathers, sons, mother, daughters, aunts, uncles, nephew, and a nieces, but most of all, sworn protectors of this country, no matter the circumstance or what people may think or say of us.

Cheers. 🙂

08w32:3 They're both assholes

by timothy. 0 Comments

Marina Hyde opens her piece with the fatuous traditional proclamation made by the IOC President calling for world peace. On the day of the opening ceremonies, Russia and Georgia engage in open conflict which leaves 1500 dead. Meanwhile, self-righteous Westeners stage Tienanmen Square protests against Chinese human right abuses while the United States continues its illegal occupation of a certain country and maintains that little get away spot in Cuba. (here, here, and here; apparently it’s far easier to protest a culture you don’t understand than it is to protest the one you do).

Is there not an ancient Chinese curse that goes, ‘may you live in interesting times’? – Timothy

These two appalling sets of old waxworks utterly deserve each other | Marina Hyde
http://goodreads.ca/shorty/co/olympics/
“By the time you read this, world peace should have broken out. It should have broken out at precisely 8.08pm Beijing time yesterday, because International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge has made his traditional plea for a worldwide military truce for the duration of the games. Yet on the offchance that the Taliban are not laying in supplies of popcorn and preparing for a fortnight on the sofa, and US and British soldiers are not garlanding their tanks with flowers, now might be the time to question the IOC’s preposterously idealised version of itself. There’s nothing wrong with calling for world peace, of course – beauty queens do it all the time. But you do need to follow it up with something special in the swimsuit round, and one can’t help feeling that the more of itself the IOC bares, the more hideous it appears. “

08w32:1 Kubrick's Boxes by Jon Ronson

by timothy. 0 Comments

Citizen Kubrick | Jon Ronson
http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/co/kubrick/
“Stanley Kubrick’s films were landmark events – majestic, memorable and richly researched. But, as the years went by, the time between films grew longer and longer, and less and less was seen of the director. What on earth was he doing? Two years after his death, Jon Ronson was invited to the Kubrick estate and let loose among the fabled archive. He was looking for a solution to the mystery – this is what he found.” (Previously in Goodreads 04w13:3)


From Google Video

08w29:3 The Future is close enough to touch

by timothy. 0 Comments

The future is close enough to touch | Wayne MacPhail
http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=73437
“Which is why, a few hours after getting the iPhone, I was holding it up to my bedroom radio, which at the time was playing a song from a Toronto jazz station. Shazam uses the microphone on the iPhone to “listen” to a few seconds of a song you hear on the radio, in a coffee shop or, God forbid, an elevator. Then Shazam analyzes the tune and lets you know what it is and who’s singing it. So, I held the phone to the radio and let Shazam listen for a dozen seconds. You know what? It worked.”

08w29:2 Stock Photos

by timothy. 0 Comments

Everyone Will Be Lonely Eight Months From Now
The weird science of stock photography | Seth Stevenson
http://www.slate.com/id/2195237
“A while back, a friend of mine—a guy who does a lot of directing work—was asked to shoot some rather odd film footage. It was all brief scenes of people ignoring each other. Families talking on cell phones, couples tapping at adjacent laptops, everyone looking in opposite directions. These vignettes were commissioned by a company that sells stock photos and video to various clients—including, in large part, advertisers. The hope was that footage like this would appeal to customers who need to visually convey a mood of modern disconnectedness. Leaving aside the bleak and omnipresent nature of the subject matter—they could have just put a tripod on a random street corner—I was startled to realize that stock photo and video purveyors actually create material in anticipation of demand. (I’d somehow failed to consider that stock pictures could be made, not just found.) These suppliers of the world’s commercial imagery are making bets on what life will look and feel like in the near future. Which made me wonder: What else, besides an ongoing technological dystopia, do they imagine waiting ahead?”