IN DEFENSE OF WATER BOARDING
Stay with me on this one.
I recently had a conversation with a good friend, a former Special Forces medic who told me a story from back in the day at Fort Bragg. He and another medic were called into a tent where SF candidates were undergoing standard SF training for resisting the enemy if captured—harassment, physical abuse, sleep deprivation—you know, the usual, which also included a procedure which had not yet been named. Each candidate was held down on his back, a towel was placed over his face, and water was repeatedly poured over the towel. The response feels exactly like drowning, a simple equation of too much water, not enough air, and panic follows, always, without failure. My friend was asked to judge whether the applicants were medically fit for duty, which they were, without exception. The only serious damage apparently had been wounded egos, because each had broken, panicked, tapped out, gave it up, and they were embarrassed and very angry.
His story flashed me back to a similar one of my own, from even further back in the day, during the 1960s when I was a life guard in Daytona Beach, Florida. For an 18-year-old male, work didn’t get any better than that for obvious social reasons. But it was not a job for the timid—we often had rough seas, quick run outs, tourists who could not swim, and days with multiple rescues, some of which held the margin of life or death, but we were well trained, well disciplined, and that was our job.
You could work as a beach guard (and collect your $320.00 per month) without becoming a member of the inner circle of the corps, a membership which required a 12-hour, testosterone-driven, abusive initiation which included, but was not limited to, chugging beer, running until puking, being beaten, buried in the sand, punched, kicked, and generally brutalized until dawn, when things turned really ugly. Facing the rising sun, everyone swam out to sea for perhaps a mile, where began the dangerous end of the ritual. Once there, each recruit was surrounded by 5 or 6 seasoned guards who began grabbing and pushing the recruit under water, repeating the procedure each time your head broke the water’s surface, usually without an opportunity to get a breath of air, and on it went until you panicked, the very worst thing to do in a drowning situation. In my case, I panicked and then went to the next predictable stage in the death-by-drowning process. Somewhere my oxygen-deprived brain decided that remaining under water was calm, tranquil, more tolerable than continuing the struggle, so I stayed there, drifted toward the bottom until one of the guys dove down, grabbed my arm, pulled me up, dragged me to the boat, and draped my arms over the side; but I was too out of it to hold on, so they put me in the boat and took me to shore, where I was proclaimed the most fun of any initiate for some time.
Later that same summer, during the next initiation, a new guard was deprived of oxygen for 6 to 8 minutes and suffered permanent brain damage according to examining physicians. That was the last summer the “Old Corp”, as it was later called with admiration, had an initiation at sea.
My point: being abusively reckless in the water can kill someone, but water boarding is not dangerous if conducted by professionals in a controlled situation.
But our national water boarding/torture crisis creates a dangerous rub when it comes to matters of policy. One form of torture cannot definitionally be different from any other. If we decide that water boarding is torture, and if our nation uses water boarding, then we condone torture. In the shadows, the exception always becomes the rule, so I ask, if we call water boarding torture, can the hand-cranked generator with the genital clips be far behind?
Dr.Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
LOST KIDS AND GOOD MONEY
I offer a modest proposal as an addition to the federal stimulus plan. It would not be costly, but it would spread modest sums of money around with a moral objective that few would find objectionable, aside from the ACLU and some law school professors
It appears as though Florida is a favorite post-prison destination for sexual offenders. I have no way of knowing this for certain, but make the assumption based on the news. Two examples, among many. In 2005 John Couey took 9 year old Jessica Lunsford from her home, raped her, put her in a garbage bag and then buried her alive; the bag had two small holes where the suffocating child had pocked her fingers trying to get air, or freedom. Couey was a previously convicted sexual offender living close to Jessica’s home who had never registered his address with local law enforcement authorities as the law requires. Couey had been an unsuspected neighbor, a familiar face; today he sits on death row; Jessica’s family mourns.
As I write, the Putnam County Florida Sheriff’s Department, FBI, FDLE and concerned citizens from several states have been searching for Haleigh Cummings, who was taken from her home on February 10 and has not been seen since. After developing the case through normal procedure, the police quickly assumed that she was taken from her bed by force. The first people authorities questioned are the 44 registered sexual offenders who live within a 5 mile radius of the girl’s home—yes, 44 within a 5 mile circle. After a week, the intensive search is winding down with no missing child found and the sheriff’s department stating that “all the world’s a suspect,” a statement of shallow expectations.
I have no idea how many sexual offenders are out there, unregistered, unknown, but in Orange County, just down state from Haleigh’s home, there are some 1,500 registered sexual offenders, and who would guess how many others roam about unregistered in the home of Disney World?
My proposal? Set aside federal money to pay citizens who provide law enforcement with the correct addresses of unregistered sexual predators. No tolerance for vigilantes, vendettas, roving mobs, revenge seekers, false rumor mongers,--perhaps the fund could be replenished with fines levied for such offenses—but say $1,000 for every person who reports a threat to the children in his or her community. This would be little different than rewarding a person who makes a good call to Crime Stopper ($1,000 is the exact reward paid by Crime Stoppers in my community). Set up a fund, and spread the word: have celebrities do public service announcements, alert every neighborhood watch, have police hold public meetings,have newspapers place announcements, do radio call-in shows, do pro and con TV shows—but for God’s sake, do something.
If this idea seems stretched, consider a friend’s plan to place a tracking chip in the ear of every sexual offender as he or she leaves prison.
Dr.Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys
It appears as though Florida is a favorite post-prison destination for sexual offenders. I have no way of knowing this for certain, but make the assumption based on the news. Two examples, among many. In 2005 John Couey took 9 year old Jessica Lunsford from her home, raped her, put her in a garbage bag and then buried her alive; the bag had two small holes where the suffocating child had pocked her fingers trying to get air, or freedom. Couey was a previously convicted sexual offender living close to Jessica’s home who had never registered his address with local law enforcement authorities as the law requires. Couey had been an unsuspected neighbor, a familiar face; today he sits on death row; Jessica’s family mourns.
As I write, the Putnam County Florida Sheriff’s Department, FBI, FDLE and concerned citizens from several states have been searching for Haleigh Cummings, who was taken from her home on February 10 and has not been seen since. After developing the case through normal procedure, the police quickly assumed that she was taken from her bed by force. The first people authorities questioned are the 44 registered sexual offenders who live within a 5 mile radius of the girl’s home—yes, 44 within a 5 mile circle. After a week, the intensive search is winding down with no missing child found and the sheriff’s department stating that “all the world’s a suspect,” a statement of shallow expectations.
I have no idea how many sexual offenders are out there, unregistered, unknown, but in Orange County, just down state from Haleigh’s home, there are some 1,500 registered sexual offenders, and who would guess how many others roam about unregistered in the home of Disney World?
My proposal? Set aside federal money to pay citizens who provide law enforcement with the correct addresses of unregistered sexual predators. No tolerance for vigilantes, vendettas, roving mobs, revenge seekers, false rumor mongers,--perhaps the fund could be replenished with fines levied for such offenses—but say $1,000 for every person who reports a threat to the children in his or her community. This would be little different than rewarding a person who makes a good call to Crime Stopper ($1,000 is the exact reward paid by Crime Stoppers in my community). Set up a fund, and spread the word: have celebrities do public service announcements, alert every neighborhood watch, have police hold public meetings,have newspapers place announcements, do radio call-in shows, do pro and con TV shows—but for God’s sake, do something.
If this idea seems stretched, consider a friend’s plan to place a tracking chip in the ear of every sexual offender as he or she leaves prison.
Dr.Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Grandmother's Wisdom
A Grandmother’s Wisdom for a New President
My grandmother was a wise and earthy woman, a resident of Skowhegan, Maine where she played piano at the silent movies, was a familiar figure at the local dance hall, went through four husbands, and chose me from among many as her favorite grandson, an anointing for which I have been forever grateful. She tutored me on her Native American ancestry, indulged my every whim, negotiated with my parents during my delinquent teen-age years, and left me with an enduring distrust of authority and an appreciation for her insightful bromides.
When I got into trouble she always listened to what I had to say and then began with the same caution: “Peter, you have to pay now or pay later, and it will always cost more if you pay later,” which I took to mean that she would try to minimize my parental punishment, but I needed to take responsibility for my own shit and live with the consequences; no bullshit, no lies, no putting off the truth of my mischief until a later day, for when the truth inevitably became known, the outcome would be harsher.
Our government should have the wisdom of Grandmother Gladys. America’s beloved founding fathers worked their way through and around the twisted and competing problems of the Old and New Worlds: colonialism, independence, taxation, property right, electoral representation, citizenship, separation of powers, a bill of rights, and a procedure to accommodate changes they could not imagine but knew that history would require. The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America are two extraordinary documents. But the compelling spirit of the Declaration of Independence--that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among these being life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—was not matched in The Constitution. Meeting in private, the constitutional delegates could reach no agreement on one issue—slavery. They tried, but wealth and regional politics led them to set aside the slavery question. No emancipation.
The founding fathers decided to pay later, and, just as grandmother would have predicted, the cost was greater, beyond comprehension—a civil war, leaving 600,000 Americans died. Reconstruction followed the war, and because victors get to write the new rules, slaves were emancipated, given the vote, and the rights of citizenship. But the white South remained unyielding and unrepentant, and within a decade the North grew weary of the struggle for racial harmony, left the “negro problem” to the South, and went about reaching for new national goals—industrialization and the accumulation of wealth.
History proved grandmother right yet once again. African-Americans were left to struggle with segregation, poverty, illiteracy, racism, cruelty and the apathy of an indifferent nation—during some years, an average of one black person per day was lynched. Yet the U.S. Congress refused regularly and repeatedly to pass an anti-lynching law, preferring to pay later. The cost that time? Protracted decades of bloody race relation marked by lost lives, lost futures, criminal brutality, and America’s national shame paraded across the international press in the form of a picture of a German Sheppard police dog lunging at peaceful demonstrator during a civil rights march.
And on goes history, using the prism of a single issue—race—to document Grandmother Gladys’ wisdom that it’s better to pay now than later.
This leads us naturally to the question of what do we do with the war criminals in George W. Bush’s administration?
The lawyers have international treaties and case law. All we have here is an old ladies’ wisdom. I understand President Obama when he explains that he wants to focus on the overwhelming problems of the moment, wants to look to the future. But I have this dreamy image of my grandmother, dressed in her house coat, wearing her card-dealer’s dark glasses, wandering through the West Wing to find President Obama to lure him into the Rose Garden where she would fire him up one of her ever-present Viceroy cigarettes. And while she had him aside, while he was breaking his marital pledge to quit smoking, she would offer him her “pay now or pay later” cautionary lecture. I can see the images, but I can’t quite hear what the President says in response. But I do know that for the good of the country he best not ignore my grandmother. Because if Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al. are not made to shade their faces from the bright sunshine of truth about their murderous wars, mid evil punishments, and soiling of the Bill of Rights, if they—we—do not pay now, who could speculate what the final payment will be? And make no mistake, there will be a reckoning, and when that time comes, the sins of our leaders will be ours as well.
Dr.Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys
My grandmother was a wise and earthy woman, a resident of Skowhegan, Maine where she played piano at the silent movies, was a familiar figure at the local dance hall, went through four husbands, and chose me from among many as her favorite grandson, an anointing for which I have been forever grateful. She tutored me on her Native American ancestry, indulged my every whim, negotiated with my parents during my delinquent teen-age years, and left me with an enduring distrust of authority and an appreciation for her insightful bromides.
When I got into trouble she always listened to what I had to say and then began with the same caution: “Peter, you have to pay now or pay later, and it will always cost more if you pay later,” which I took to mean that she would try to minimize my parental punishment, but I needed to take responsibility for my own shit and live with the consequences; no bullshit, no lies, no putting off the truth of my mischief until a later day, for when the truth inevitably became known, the outcome would be harsher.
Our government should have the wisdom of Grandmother Gladys. America’s beloved founding fathers worked their way through and around the twisted and competing problems of the Old and New Worlds: colonialism, independence, taxation, property right, electoral representation, citizenship, separation of powers, a bill of rights, and a procedure to accommodate changes they could not imagine but knew that history would require. The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America are two extraordinary documents. But the compelling spirit of the Declaration of Independence--that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among these being life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—was not matched in The Constitution. Meeting in private, the constitutional delegates could reach no agreement on one issue—slavery. They tried, but wealth and regional politics led them to set aside the slavery question. No emancipation.
The founding fathers decided to pay later, and, just as grandmother would have predicted, the cost was greater, beyond comprehension—a civil war, leaving 600,000 Americans died. Reconstruction followed the war, and because victors get to write the new rules, slaves were emancipated, given the vote, and the rights of citizenship. But the white South remained unyielding and unrepentant, and within a decade the North grew weary of the struggle for racial harmony, left the “negro problem” to the South, and went about reaching for new national goals—industrialization and the accumulation of wealth.
History proved grandmother right yet once again. African-Americans were left to struggle with segregation, poverty, illiteracy, racism, cruelty and the apathy of an indifferent nation—during some years, an average of one black person per day was lynched. Yet the U.S. Congress refused regularly and repeatedly to pass an anti-lynching law, preferring to pay later. The cost that time? Protracted decades of bloody race relation marked by lost lives, lost futures, criminal brutality, and America’s national shame paraded across the international press in the form of a picture of a German Sheppard police dog lunging at peaceful demonstrator during a civil rights march.
And on goes history, using the prism of a single issue—race—to document Grandmother Gladys’ wisdom that it’s better to pay now than later.
This leads us naturally to the question of what do we do with the war criminals in George W. Bush’s administration?
The lawyers have international treaties and case law. All we have here is an old ladies’ wisdom. I understand President Obama when he explains that he wants to focus on the overwhelming problems of the moment, wants to look to the future. But I have this dreamy image of my grandmother, dressed in her house coat, wearing her card-dealer’s dark glasses, wandering through the West Wing to find President Obama to lure him into the Rose Garden where she would fire him up one of her ever-present Viceroy cigarettes. And while she had him aside, while he was breaking his marital pledge to quit smoking, she would offer him her “pay now or pay later” cautionary lecture. I can see the images, but I can’t quite hear what the President says in response. But I do know that for the good of the country he best not ignore my grandmother. Because if Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al. are not made to shade their faces from the bright sunshine of truth about their murderous wars, mid evil punishments, and soiling of the Bill of Rights, if they—we—do not pay now, who could speculate what the final payment will be? And make no mistake, there will be a reckoning, and when that time comes, the sins of our leaders will be ours as well.
Dr.Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys
PHELPS V BUSH
PHELPS V BUSH
This Michael Phelps thing pisses me off. He’s worked like an android most of his life, swimming 4, 5, 6 hours a day to become the best in the world. If he complained about those muscle-pounding practices that have been the centerpiece of his life, no one heard it. He’s focused, dedicated, hardworking, polite (even in the face of stupid press questions), kind to admiring children, grateful to his coach who works him like a mule on crack, won a peach basket full of gold metals, and got some big-money sponsors the old fashion way—by working his ass off.
But someone snaps a picture of him hitting a weed pipe, which cost him his sponsors, his opportunity to swim competitively for several months, and will dog him like a festering, runny sore for the remainder of his life.
This is yet another example of how the gears in the machinery of modern life are out of synch, don’t mesh properly, causing anyone who looks closely to shutter in disbelief: what the fuck!
We elected to the presidency a guy who was a drunkard most of his life, bilked his father’s friends out of untold thousands of dollars in failed oil ventures, and finally got Texas-rich through buying and selling a professional baseball team in a still-shrouded sweetheart business deal. And let us not forget his patriotic service during the Vietnam War, when family power slipped him into the back door of the Texas National Guard, where he avoided full service. Yes, let’s not forget that. As president, this compassionate conservative ran the national ranch like a Richard Nixon clone who had been socialized like some mutant of modern psychotherapy—he could smile and talk with people, unlike Nixon. But at least with Nixon, history has a good idea of the ways he screwed us and the constitution, while I doubt we will ever have a full accounting of Bush’s crimes against America, international laws, and human decency.
Healthcare for more kids—veto it. No cause for a messianic war--invent it. Geneva Convention--forget it. Investment bankers out of control—ignore it. Spending national treasure like a corrupt dictator—deciders do it. Read a book—no time for it. Katrina killing poor people—missed it. Torturing prisoners—got to do it.
And on it goes, as #43 heads for his Texas mansion and his 8,000 sq. ft. Dallas office.
Now let’s put a picture of Phelps hitting the pipe next a picture of people stranded on New Orleans roof tops waving in distress as over-worked rescue helicopters pass by. Get the picture? Hear the gears of modern society grinding against each other?
Dr. Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys.
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