My demented editor (I know he doesn't swim, but I can only hope he isn't a closet masters swim forum lurker) has recently proposed sending me to Afghanistan, which I can't even spell, in order to do a story not on the resurgent Taliban or even the ups and downs of the opium trade, but rather on the enduring popularity of male body building in that ruined country. Supposedly, despite all the troubles over there, muscle gyms abound in Kabul--testimony, in my editor's eyes, at least, to the ineradicability of male vanity.
Why he wants me to write about this is a more complicated story, but I replied that I thought his essential premise was flawed--that men don't body build out of vanity/desire to impress the distaff gender; they do it (in my opinion--must check with evolutionary psychologists for verification; the attached poll is a way of gauging feminine sentiment regarding hypermuscularity) to keep other guys from beating them up. The largest per capita rate of male body building in the US goes is in prisons in states where the respective state legislatures have not banned barbells (hoping to prevent super criminals from being released en masse upon the flabby public when their sentences are over.) My editor was undeterred by my theories and objections--he still wants me to go.
For a variety of reasons, including a probable State Department ban on tourism to countries we're at war with (again, more research needed), I doubt I will actually be going to Afghanistan. But in the remote case I do go, does anyone know places to swim over there?
If I am to be the first "journalist" beheaded during the Global War on Terror, not for investigating this, to be sure, but while reporting on muscle gyms, I would like to at least be able to get some final relaxing laps in before losing my head.
PS if anyone is interested in coming along as a personal masseuse on this junket, let me know your measurements for the prerequisite burka (I think Amanda Beard might model these on the Speedo web site, but I'm not sure.) I'm thinking a good neck rub might serve to relax the cervical muscles, eliminating any knots that might otherwise impede the scimitar's progress, making my moment of dispatch as speedy and pleasant as possible
In this way, I--and not my demented editor--will get the last, albeit very short-lived, laugh!
Bill--
He did register. I guess I was hoping there'd be so many American parents who don't trust the current administration regarding a future draft that not registering would be the norm.
But he is now signed up, his life thus less likely to be ruined, at least in one way.
By the way, thanks very much for your descriptions of Afghanistan, your service to our country, and your offer to provide more info if I do end up going over. In my not terribly extensive travels overseas--with the closest to a war zone being the jungle border of Ecuador and Columbia, where the "contrainsurgencia" soldiers I was with warned that the FARC and/or right wing paramilitaries would snap up a fattened American like me like "pan caliente" if given half a chance--I have yet to encounter people (as opposed to individual persons) who weren't generally very, very likable.
I'm convinced that most of the people killed in wars could easily have become best friends with their killers had circumstances been different. Which is why this kind of conflict seems so senseless. I guess we're just that kind of primate, when it comes right down to it. If passions can be stirred on swimming web sites, what hope do we have for an end to mass violence in the name of whatever the respective leaders decide to give it this time?
As I was growing up, my father, a veteran of WWII who never bought a German or Japanese car, nevertheless hosted both a German and a Japanese foreign exchange student in our home. This was a great lesson for me--the idea that enemy status does not have to be, and rarely is, permanent.
In any event, here's hoping my son will never have to shoot, or be shot by, a potential foreign friend because of a conflagration hatched by nincompoops who had "other priorities" during their own time of potential military service.
As a soldier who was and maybe still is involved in the current war, what are your thoughts about our chances for victory, especially in Iraq? I have met only one person in the past four years that has actually gone over to fight--evidence of both my insular existence and, I think, the oft-made claim that this war effects very, very few of us in any personal way. Since I never get any first hand opinions, I'd love to hear yours--but will understand if you'd rather not provide this here.
Bill--
He did register. I guess I was hoping there'd be so many American parents who don't trust the current administration regarding a future draft that not registering would be the norm.
But he is now signed up, his life thus less likely to be ruined, at least in one way.
By the way, thanks very much for your descriptions of Afghanistan, your service to our country, and your offer to provide more info if I do end up going over. In my not terribly extensive travels overseas--with the closest to a war zone being the jungle border of Ecuador and Columbia, where the "contrainsurgencia" soldiers I was with warned that the FARC and/or right wing paramilitaries would snap up a fattened American like me like "pan caliente" if given half a chance--I have yet to encounter people (as opposed to individual persons) who weren't generally very, very likable.
I'm convinced that most of the people killed in wars could easily have become best friends with their killers had circumstances been different. Which is why this kind of conflict seems so senseless. I guess we're just that kind of primate, when it comes right down to it. If passions can be stirred on swimming web sites, what hope do we have for an end to mass violence in the name of whatever the respective leaders decide to give it this time?
As I was growing up, my father, a veteran of WWII who never bought a German or Japanese car, nevertheless hosted both a German and a Japanese foreign exchange student in our home. This was a great lesson for me--the idea that enemy status does not have to be, and rarely is, permanent.
In any event, here's hoping my son will never have to shoot, or be shot by, a potential foreign friend because of a conflagration hatched by nincompoops who had "other priorities" during their own time of potential military service.
As a soldier who was and maybe still is involved in the current war, what are your thoughts about our chances for victory, especially in Iraq? I have met only one person in the past four years that has actually gone over to fight--evidence of both my insular existence and, I think, the oft-made claim that this war effects very, very few of us in any personal way. Since I never get any first hand opinions, I'd love to hear yours--but will understand if you'd rather not provide this here.
