Book Recommendation

I just finished reading an excellent overview of American involvement in the Middle East: Power, Faith, and Fantasy by Michael Oren. Though I’m a bit of a student of history, this book taught me a lot about America’s involvement in the Middle East, especially our involvement prior to the 20th century. I was especially surprised to learn just how big a role the Middle East actually played in the earliest days of our country.

For anyone interested in our current involvement in the Middle East, I highly recommend this book for background. You can get it on Amazon.

The Reminder

Tip o’the hat to SimiL for this little story:

An elderly gentleman of 83 arrived in Paris by plane. At the French customs desk, the man took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry-on bag. “You have been to France before, monsieur?” the customs officer asked, sarcastically. The elderly gentleman admitted he had been to France previously. “Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.” The American said, “The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.” “Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France!” The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained. “Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find any Frenchmen to show it to."

Having visited France a few times on business, I can tell you that the premise of this story — the sneering French official — rings very true. Especially in the big cities, Americans are frequently “treated” to condescension and insult from French citizens. To any American with even the slightest knowledge of history (ok, I know, that’s only 2% or so of Americans) this is galling, to say the least. To someone who was actually there on D-Day, surely it’s much worse…

I’m reminded of an article I read a few days ago concerning the NATO troops in Afghanistan. I’m not sure why this surprised me, but it did… While it is absolutely true that NATO is supplying the foreign armed forces in Afghanistan, and that virtually all NATO members have troops there — it turns out that most members have placed significant conditions on the use of those troops. In fact, with the exception of Britain, the U.S., and a few new NATO members with tiny forces there (because their countries are tiny!), all the NATO “partners” have forbidden their troops from participating in combat! Huh? What, exactly, is their purpose, then? Well, it turns out they’re engaged in logistics, training, and police work.

The French troops are amongst those that are not allowed in combat roles. Thanks a lot, “partners” — which must be French for “cheese-eating surrender monkeys"…

Word of the Day

Inoculatte, v: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Casino Update

The Voice of San Diego — a refreshing change from the Pulitzer Prize winning San Diego Union-Buffoon — has an informative, well-written article today on the Jamul Casino. In this one article, they’ve got more information than the Union-Buffoon has managed to get into the sum of all their articles on the subject. A sample:

At the same time, for Toggery and Rosales, it is an intensely personal quest. They are reluctant dissidents, convinced of their cause but hesitant to embrace the hero label bestowed by fellow, non-tribal opponents. The two protest that the casino would destroy burial sites they consider sacred.

But they also worry that their battle may end soon. Eviction notices were taped to their doors Feb. 24, promising they’d be removed from their homes within five days. The Jamul tribal chairman says the two dissidents will be gone in 90 days. The casino, he says, will be built by 2009, the latest promised construction date.

This is why Toggery and Rosales talk about human fences and their plans to stand in front of bulldozers. This is why a neighbor hired security so the two could sleep soundly at night. This is why Toggery says she is afraid to leave her home for more than an hour, fearful she won’t have a house when she returns.

Still, they have fought the casino, despite the alienation, the threats, the severance of longstanding familial relations.

"What we have here, and what’s in the ground, it should stay,” Toggery says. “As long as you have one person who believes, that’s all that really matters."

As they say, go read the whole thing.

One very useful thing I discovered while reading this article is that the Jamul Indian Casino web site has finally put the environmental impact report (EIR) online. They did it in a quite awkward fashion however, so I’ve downloaded all the individual Word document files they provided and put them in a single ZIP file, which you can download and save yourself.

I haven’t had a chance to read the entire report myself yet (but I will, as it’s not that long). However, a quick sampling of a couple of sections shows that (as usual for such things) it’s more a public relations piece than it is an objective, factual report. It’s what I was expecting, but not what I was hoping for. The EIR was commissioned by the tribe and Lakes Entertainment (their backers), and it sounds like it. If Jamulians Against the Casino were to make an EIR, I suspect that darned near every issue listed would have a completely different conclusion. An awful lot of time and money is spent on EIRs, which are required by law in many circumstances, but I really can’t see the point when the result is so obviously biased…