The Garlic

Good Evening Garlic Fans ...

Once again, we come (and being the day after the 4th), it can be said, with a firework barge-full of apologies, for our extended absence.

When last we popped in, some three-weeks ago (not counting the First Day of Summer, and our prognostication on the recently fired cock-waving, muscleheaded military commander, General Stanley A. McChrystal), we had been diagnosed with a Herniated Disc (in the L4 region), and was soon off to a second Ortho Guy, for a shot in the back.

Well, we received said shot-in-the-back, and since, only marginal improvement.

Some of the pain has been mitigated, however, numbness of the foot goes on, and, the cramping has been virtually unabated, disrupting sleep to the point of not being able to call it sleep (We would gladly pay you Thursday, for some sleep today).

We've been carrying on with our homefront project, as best we can (and that is behind schedule, as well), and none of this has had us in a creative mood to write, missing, for the first time since we started writing The Garlic, our annual tirade of a July 4th Garlictorial.

Most fortunately, and unknowingly, someone picked up the slack on that front for us.

Our good friend Barry Crimmins, who has an awesome post up for the Annual Pap Holiday, "Fourth of July Remarks For Any Occasion (in the form of notes for the platform speaker)";

Continued remarks about how we wouldn't be able to play golf or even go to a mall this morning without our supported dupes' absolutely needless sacrifice in inordinately far-flung places. Places where the locals have learned that, to Americans, appreciation for democracy can only come at the cost of the arms, legs, eyesight, mental health and even the lives of countless innocents whose only prior crime was to have never thought of our nation in any terms, at all. But now they know us, thanks to the, at times, literal human sacrifice of our very children to a heartless yet absurdly self-righteous foreign policy that is enforced by retaliation against almost anyone who makes the mistake of passing through somewhere, where someone we really hate might also pass through at some point.

That's what makes us different from the terrorists.

And if Barry's post wasn't enough, a War of Words erupted in the Comments Section, and a few dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds perhaps Wannabe Flying Monkeys, since their blather was little more that the tired-and-tattered, Right Wing Dale Carnegie toast of "if you don't love this country, you should leave it", attempted to lecture and humble Barry with that tripe.

I mean, that's like showing up to a Rave, in a John Travolta-Saturday-Night-Fever-white-bell-bottomed-suit, and thinking you're major cool.

I think Barry handled, dealt with, and settled, that particular Right Wing lament back when Nixon was in office, so he swatted that away like a home run hit at Home Run Derby (easy-as-pie, for our baseball-challenged readers - you can go read our Special Essay to bone-up on the Grand Ol' Pastime)

So inane were these voices from Nitwitville, that James Wolcott had to use his Vanity Fair column, to call out, specifically, Darlene Click's vapidness, which will likely, draw in all of Click's Wannabe Flying Monkeys, to read Wolcott, and then click over to read Barry post, for the context.

Hum Stars and Stripes Forever to yourself, as those Wannabe Flying Monkeys suddenly feel like they don't whether to piss, or wind their watches.

Back to business, with a Heatwave settling in this week (ask me in a few days how that "God doesn't give you more than you can handle" thing is workin' for me), and the Back/Herniated Disc thing still playing havoc, and feeling like we have lost our writing mo-jo, we can't say when we will resume regular posting, other than the nebulous "soon".

So, go dig into Barry Crimmins' delicious holiday treat and keep checking back for any fresh post we sneak in.

Take a few days off, and, oh boy, all kinds of things hitting the fan ...

Reading Michael Hastings' 'The Runaway General', it hard to tell if it is a good piece of journalism, or fiction, perhaps a character synopsis for some new HBO mini-series in the offing, about a cock-waving, muscle-headed military commander..

I mean, if General Stanley A. McChrystal were cast in 'Apocalypse Now', while Robert Duvall's Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore was blabbering about "I love the smell of napalm in the morning .... The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like ...victory ...", the camera would have to pan, to McChrystal, sitting on the beach, eating napalm out his helmet, and muttering what a candy-ass Kilgore was.

Go read 'The Runaway General', for, as you do, throughout, despite all the confidence, bravado and over-the-top machoism of McChrystal, it says over, and over, of how fucked we are in Afghanistan

It is said that he will be going to his meeting with Obama today, resignation letter in-hand, and Obama is going to have to accept it (if it hasn't already been demanded), as part of the show of not being a pansy, and letting a tin-horn commander, and the Pentagon, walk all over him.

No rearview mirrors in the room today.

So, boys and girls, should McChrystal walk out of the Oval Office today, a retired muscle-headed, cock-waving, former military commander, how soon before he beelines it to Faux News, to add fresh meat to their propaganda machine?

Start cutting up the office pool squares ....

Bonus Links

Alex Pareene: Why did Gen. McChrystal talk to Rolling Stone?

C.J. Chivers: General Faces Unease Among His Own Troops, Too

Spencer Ackerman: Biden Probably Wants to Renew His Rolling Stone Subscription

Doris Kearns Goodwin: What Would Lincoln Do?

Yves Smith: Afghanistan: Pentagon Payments to Warlords Undermine Central Government