Sorry, sorry, sorry

What can I say? Sorry I've been gone so long; nice to know that some of you missed me. While I am not going to resume my former output, I will try to be much more diligent about at least posting occasionally.

Not only do I have my usual teaching load this semester, but I am assissting my dissertation director with an upper-level War Rhetoric course. That is not a complaint--I was honored that she asked me and thrilled to be teaching in my area. But it does make me busy when added to my other responsibilities (especially the dissertation that I am supposed to be writing).

Things that I was tempted to post about, but never got around to:

• Woodward's new book says that Henry Kissinger is advising President Bush on the war in Iraq. Oh, that's very comforting, seeing how well Vietnam worked out for us.
• One of the arguments against allowing our military or intelligence officers to use "tough tactics" aka "torture" against prisoners is that it leaves our soldiers open to torture if they are captured. Can we think this through just a moment, please? Is there any government or combatant group out there who bases their treatment of our soldiers on how we treat others? I am NOT advocating torture--far from it, and I'm still a little rattled that we're in a position to even be talking about whether it's okay for Americans to torture people. But in some hypothetical situation--war with North Korea, let's say--can you imagine Kim Jong-il basing his decision on whether to torture American soldiers on the latest U.S. military guidelines on the topic? I can't.
• There's something disturbing about this war being fought by 52-year-old grandmothers manning machine guns. I know she was in the reserves, but it still just seems, well, wrong somehow. Story here.

Okay, let's hear some comments so I can feel justified in taking the time to post. :-)