Reading at the Crossroads

Reading at the Crossroads is an archive for columns and letters which appeared in the Terre Haute Tribune Star. I also blog here when my patience is exhausted by what I feel is irritating, irrational and/or ironic in life. --gary daily

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Location: Terre Haute, Indiana, United States

The material I post on this blog represents my views and mine alone. The material you post on this blog represents your views and yours alone.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Why Are We Still in Afghanistan?

The Saturday Profile
Artist Playing Cat-and-Mouse Faces Russia’s Claws
By ELLEN BARRY
Published: January 21, 2011

“For three years, Voina, which means war, has been playing cat-and-mouse with Russian law enforcement, staging street actions that ranged from the obscure (throwing live cats at McDonald’s cashiers) to the monumental (a 210-foot penis painted on a St. Petersburg drawbridge, so that it rose up pointing at the offices of the F.S.B., the security service).”
GO HERE
Poets played a role in bringing down the Communist dictatorship in the Soviet Union so we shouldn’t scoff at Voina.  Perhaps we could get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, I mean really get out, if we started throwing cats around Mickey D’s and putting a giant prophylactic over the Trump Tower in Chicago.  Nah!  Americans love their cats too much, our kids work at Mickey D’s, and Donald Trump is another of those revered celebrities we love to hate but really love.  As the song goes: “We got troubles right here in River City,” and theses troubles go deep.

In case you missed it:

January 21, 2011

Names of the Dead

The Department of Defense has identified 1,449 American service members who have died as a part of the Afghan war and related operations. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans recently:

CRUZ, Dominique, 26, Petty Officer, Navy; Panama City, Fla.; U.S.S. Halsey.


LANCASTER, Joshua T., 22, Specialist, Army; Millbrook, Ala.; 184th Ordnance Battalion, 52nd Ordnance Group.