The Garlic

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

Good Morning Garlic Fans

Once again, we have to apology, profusely, for our AWOL status.

It’s been a "when it rains, it pours" situation.

When we last surfaced, at the beginning of the month, we were talking about our ailing shoulder, the Rotator Cuff issue, and relief did come, by way of a Cortisone injection (it took a few days to start feeling better).

Ahhh, but that was only half the story.

We had a concurrent issue going on, with pain in the lower back, that included radiating down into the thigh, or hamstring (sometimes both), and causing numbing of the foot.

While pain, and the numbness, were consistent, their levels were not, ranging for low annoyance, to feeling like the Guerre de Cent Ans was reignited, with sharp, pulsating, crippling waves of pain.

So, off to the Doc's again, from there, an MRI and, I wasn't crazy, as results showed a Herniated Disc (in the L4 region), and we'll be off to another Doc in the coming week, for treatment, that, hopefully, will bring some relief (as "cramping" has entered into the picture over the last week-plus, including giving us a new experience - a foot cramp, while the foot was numb!).

We can't say for sure when we resume regular posting.

Being on the DL of so long, we're going to need some writing rehab, and we may attempt some softball satire in the coming days.

In the meantime, for the moment, we'll let the great Jack Teagarden sing our woes.

JACK TEAGARDEN St. James Infirmary