Far East Cynic

Hongkie Town: Ancient History

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Moving day......

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:36:00 +0000

Well the new "house" is up-still have a lot of interior work to do, but the big pieces are in place and I am sort of comfortable enough with Word Press to go on ahead and make This Place the "real" blog.

If I could just figure out how to make WP see the plug ins I loaded-for some reason it won't. Anyone got any ideas?

Whatever come on over. With a tinge of sadness, like leaving a familiar apartment-WE ARE MOVING UPTOWN!

http://fareastcynic.com

See you there. All posts will be posted there from now on.

September 11 th post.

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 02:49:00 +0000

Can be found here!

People Watching..........

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:38:00 +0000

And a lunch time restaurant recommendation for Spike!

On Saturday the S.O. and I sent out for Tokyo. She had tickets for an exhibition in Ginza. It was the perfect antidote for having 2 days rained out by the typhoon. I insisted though that we take the trains through Shibuya so we could walk around a bit, then change over to the Ginza subway line. After some negotiating-she agreed. Follow me!

Normally, the S.O. avoids Shibuya like the plague-she says its too crowded and the stores are too expensive. Now it is crowded all the time, but that is the fun part-for me. Oh the stories I could tell from my first couple of years over here!

So could the S.O. apparently. Now she denies it vehemently, but she has let it slip more than a couple of times that in younger days: her short skirt wrapped legs and pointy toed, high heel shoe wearing feet traversed Shibuya crossing and a few of the back streets to the good clubs………….

In one of God’s little ironies, I’ve never got to see the mini-skirt part-sigh. Here by the way is a picture of Shibuya crossing at night-I’m not kidding about the crowds. This scene by the way is a familar one from the movie “Lost in Translation”:

What makes it so interesting is the people. All kinds of people. Walking through the station-riding on the train-moving through the streets. The girls: young and not so young are always a treat. Name a fashion trend in Japan and you will see it here. Shopping, shopping, and sending messages on their cell phones. On the train up I was lucky enough to get a seat, so while I was reading my book-I kept glancing over at the girl (woman really) wearing a blue silk dress. Not exactly young any more, but not over the hill either, she kept glancing pensively at her watch. Late for a date? A wedding? A one afternoon stand? Who knows-but there was a story there-if only I could have followed her to figure it out. That kind of thing is repeated in Shibuya 1000 fold.

We of course stopped at Hachiko’s statue. Hachiko as many know, was the Akita dog who waited faithfully for his master at Shibuay station for 9 years-even though his owner, one Professor Ueno has passed away in 1925. The statue is the pooch’s monument. Its also THE place to meet your date. Ergo, it too makes for some great girl people watching. Rumor has it that Richard Gere wants to make a movie about this story-I’m not sure how you turn it into a 90 minute screen play, but hey, if they can do it for a Disneyland ride-they can do it for the dog!

My tactic to get the S.O. down there was one of pure greed. The TV show she watched on Mondays always runs a bit about good inexpensive restaurants. She had seen the TV bit about Shibuya Dining pun-raku. ???? They a Japanese tabehodai ( or all you can eat for a set period of time-this case its 30 minutes) from 10:30-3:00pm. Last customer is seated at 2:30. Its only 980 yen-which is cheap for a place that gives you that much food. Considering Shibuya prices-its a good deal. The buffet is a mix of Japanese salads, soba, chiken, fish and curry-coupled with Miso soup. rice and Japanese pickles. All I can say is we got our money’s worth.

So Spike, ( or anyone else for that matter) if you want a good inexpensive lunch during your sojurn in Tokyo this week. Head across the street from Shibuay station, Hachiko exit, to the Tsutaya building. Its the one with the REALLY big Starbucks sign and Starbucks inside. Tsutaya is a book and CD/DVD store and to get to the resteraunt you will need to meander through the first 6 floors by escalator then take the elevator up to the 8th floor and the resteraunt. I suspect its like a casino, they designed it so you have to pass all the good stuff including all the books on the 6th floor. (There is an elevator that goes straight up on the back side of the store-but where is the fun in that?). You will probably have to wait a while-they have been having a lot of business since the TV program. That’s ok-lots of people to watch while you wait.

And if you are lucky you will get seated like we did, next to two guys with Sumo wanna be haircuts and by my count at least 11 studs in their ears and face. ( No lie, the one guy had four on each ear, one through his bottom lip, and one on his nose. I did not look to see if there was one on the tongue as well…..I don’t want to know.) On the other side were two young girls. One of them at the end of the meal, while straightening her skirt and tugging on her blouse, broke out the big mirror and the whole make up kit-right there at the table. After which she proceeding to type on her phone intently.

It was all downhill from there. Over in Ginza we went to an art exhibition in the Matsuya store-the S.O. got free tickets from her credit card company. It was a display of fabric art and dolls. I think I was literally the only man there. Which would have been nice-except its not young ladies who are at the things. It was Oba san central.

It was a day out though-and those are never bad. I can’t wait to go back!

UNRELATED NOTE: Quintin Tarantino is being interviewed on TV right now by Tomoko Fujita. Now that is some great people watching in and of itself. Pat-kun with a sheep?

No post yesterday!

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 23:40:00 +0000

Whoever said, "Code is poetry", should be shot!

And thus you know what I was doing last night. Golf game sucked too!

Under construction....

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 11:52:00 +0000

A new "house" for this blog. For reasons I'm not too sure of, I have obtained a host and am working on getting a bigger and better version of the blog up. ( Maybe then my readership numbers will increase-its either that or resort to porn!). For the time being this will be the "real" blog, but all posts here will be cross posted over at http://fareastcynic.com . Word Press is proving more complex than I thought it would be. I have a place holder template in residence while I tinker. Probably by November I'll have the "real" site moved over there.

In the meantime, feel free to wander over and laugh at me and the work in progress- or better yet offer helpful suggestions.

And please keep coming back here. For my commentary. AND

Beer and babes! (It's been a while...I know!)

Blogging the old fashioned way..........

Norika Says:

Just hurry up and get it over with!

Old dog-same tricks.

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 03:29:00 +0000

You just got to love this. All the Navy readers of this little blog can say, "I told you so!" now. Seems you can take the boy out of the Pentagon, but you can't take the Pentagon (and the black shoe attitude) out of the boy:

Now, in running his congressional office, Sestak has imported a measure of military toughness; he is battling a “misguided” culture in Washington, said William Walsh, Sestak’s district director: Aides are expected to work seven days a week, including holidays, often 14 hours each day, going for months without a day off. These are very long hours even by Capitol Hill standards.

After more than nine years on Capitol Hill and only six months as chief of staff, Brian Branton announced on Aug. 17 that he would be leaving Sestak to become vice president for Congressional affairs at USA Funds, a nonprofit corporation that guarantees student loans. Sestak also has seen three press secretaries come and go.

Military toughness? Excuse me while I sneeze-horseshit!

If there is that much work, then hire two shifts. I have never understood this pre-occupation of some folks in very senior leadership positions that somehow working longer means that you are working better. It never did and especially in today's Internet connected age it does not make any sense. Life is too short to spend it at the office all day. I'm sure Brian Branton came to the same conclusion a whole bunch of retired O-6's who worked for Sestak in the Pentagon came to as well. "Nothing is worth this amount of bullshit. I've wasted a year (or more) of my life that I will never get back. Screw this! "

Plenty of people tried to warn you about this particular psychopath. There was a reason he got fired. He took the culture of personal abuse to new heights even in a career field that is well known for eating its young.

He's even offering the same lame excuses that he did while he was in the Pentagon:

But Sestak does not attribute staff resignations to problems of his own making. “Some had other opportunities, some were not the perfect fit,” he said when asked about the 13 departures, adding, “I have had wonderful people working for me. I have asked a lot of my staff.”........

The environment was so difficult for some aides that they quit without having found a new job.

Five former staffers who spoke to The Hill on the condition that they not be quoted cited excessive work hours and Sestak’s temper as reasons for their departure.

Yea Joe, whatever helps you sleep at night.

Which drawer do you keep the silver balls in Rep. Queeg? Lots of us have worked for guys like you-I did back during Desert Storm. That guy was the biggest boost to reserve aviation recruiting that had come along in years. I can still remember being in the ready room when I heard this particular conversation:

Skipper Queeg: "JO's are just tools that we use to further our careers." (Insincere laugh follows).

Skipper Queeg's predecessor: "That may be, but when I use my tools-I clean em up and take care of them!"

If it walks like a ~~dick~~ duck, and it quacks like a duck.......................

Weather report....

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:50:00 +0000

Here it comes!

Hunkering down......

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 11:45:00 +0000

Spike picked the wrong week to come to Tokyo.

After a cloudy day of intermittent rain and then no rain, but no wind-with near 90% humidity-the wind she be blowing. Typhoon 9 号is coming to town.

No complaints on my end-I got a free day off out of it. Inside the gates pretty much everything shut down. Out side, it was business as usual. There is none of that "day of preparation nonsense over here. You go to work, the stores stay open, and the trains keep running till the wind says they can't. It is actually a good system. I stayed in and paid bills and caught up on my correspondence today while the S.O. went out to by yet another 3 or 4 dishes. How one person can need so much china is totally beyond me. To each his or her own though.

I also used the time to study my Japanese since I got the results of my test back. Not as bad as I though-not as good as I had hoped. In 6 months I will try it again.

Over at the Japan Times there is a great article pointing out one of the great difficulties of learning this interesting and complex language. To sound natural and to be able to function in both business and society, one has to know how to use Keigo (敬語) properly. Thomas Dillon is very correct when he points out, " one of the finer mysteries of life in Japan is the proper use of polite speech, teneigo or — worse — its more honorific cousin, keigo. Let's make this simple and wrap these two together in a single package — the word keigo."

The problem with keigo is that it takes words and sentence patterns that you have struggled to learn and throws them out the window for new verbs and pre-fixes and suffixes that make no logical sense. What English accomplishes with inflection, Japanese accomplishes with word play.

Of course, Japanese will tell you keigo is a mystery to them as well. Especially younger Japanese, who — like learning to ride a bike — have to scrape their knees a few times before they can pedal away on just the right verb choices. As for me, my knees are so badly scarred, I am afraid to get anywhere near the keigo bicycle.

This may depend on how one first learned Japanese. If you acquired your skills in a classroom with a patient instructor — or one that was not so tolerant but carried a whip — you might have a handle on polite speech. If you learned your Japanese in a bar, arguing politics, sports, and whatnot with other imbibers, you may be more colorful and even more effective in your expressions. But you may not be so polite.

The advantage of bar language is that it is practical. Keigo, meanwhile, is as artificial as the classroom. But harmony-obsessed Japan is full of artificial settings and sooner or later every learner trips over the rules for respectful speech.

Besides providing me with yet another excuse to go to my favorite bars, the author is right. Its also the case when you learn tidbits of the language between the sheets with your favorite ( or at least current) J-Girl.

Some sensei's are better than others!

Japanese will know it right away, that you don't know it at all, and while they may be outwardly polite to you, they will walk away with that secret satisfaction Japanese is only meant to be spoken by other Japanese.

And you wonder why the rest of Asia hates them so much..................

Winds getting stronger. I think I'll stop now and have a beer! Speaking of being ready for a disaster:

They can be taught..............

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 13:04:00 +0000

Whoo boy! You know something is wrong with the world when Geraldo Rivera is channeling yours truly.

“Michelle Malkin is the most vile, hateful commentator I’ve ever met in my life,” he says. “She actually believes that neighbors should start snitching out neighbors, and we should be deporting people.
“It’s good she’s in D.C. and I’m in New York,” Rivera sneers. “I’d spit on her if I saw her.”

Except of course one has to wonder. Is this another one of those, "Lets trash each other on air, improve our ratings and walk laughing, hand in hand, to the nearest Citibank" type of gimmicks that more than one Fox broadcasting team has pulled off?

And secondly, would the man be just as upset if his name was Geraldo Jones?

Enquiring minds really want to know.

Retail Therapy........

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 12:47:00 +0000

"Don't increase my job."

I hear this line every time after I come back from one of my extended sojourns into la-la land and have to re-invade the perfectly sterile environment the S.O. creates in our place. Its a reference to the fact that I have tendency to drop things, spill coffee while pouring it, leave the toilet seat up, spread papers across my computer desk ( which is on the off-limits list to her, as far as I am concerned), eat in front of the TV and other such things. In other words, behave like a normal man.

Now most folks would see this as the shallow whining that it is, and a natural result of the fact that I spend these protracted periods on the road where we both get to revel in the joy of being answerable only to ourselves. Accordingly, re-adjustment takes a little bit of effort. As "the cup is half full" kind of guy I am though, I am pleased with her statement. First, it reveals one of the fundamental truths of the universe- that it is her (or any woman's) job to clean up after me. It also reinforces the fact that when I need to I can simply dial up or dial down the messy quotient depending on my need to establish that the man of the house is back. All is well with the universe.

It was also a nice day today because I had the day off today in compensation for 3 weeks of mind numbing closeness with the buffoonery that is today's Air Force. Which of course brings pointedly to mind that this fall I will need to make some decisions for the coming year. Since I despise change for the most part, the combination of these factors led me to need to blow off steam.

Normally that would involve a bar and pint glasses, but today the S.O. had lots to do and needed me to run errands. Which I did gladly, after teasing her that I was going to pour coffee all over the floor. With her sufficiently ticked off, I set out to accomplish my tasks.

Car needed gas-no surprise there. The S.O. is a real woman in that she does not pump gas if she can in any way avoid it.

Who is increasing who's job?

Then off to the stores. I needed to replace my watch since my old one was slowly falling apart after 7 years. New G-shock-90 dollars.

Decided I needed some new shoes-24 dollars. ( Wari biki or discounts are nice!).

Golf shorts- Also on sale 3 for 25 dollars.

Then, in an unnatural move for me, I bought a new suit. Nice color, good fit, jacket was a nice mid summer to fall weight, and it had a nice "distinguished look" about it. Knowing full well the perils and cautions about buying a suit "off the rack" I plunged in and bought it.-250 dollars. ( I did have the paints hemmed, does that count as tailoring?).

2 hours and 500 dollars gone. Worst part is not one book to show for it. Sigh.......

<---------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

Regarding books its just as well I did not buy any. I'm still struggling with the two I am taking turns reading:

I'm about 2/3 of the way through the Hitchens book-he needs to be read in digestable doses-and only 70 or so pages into the Korean book- which I bought on a whim- hoping to understand them better. Or why the S.O. gets so lathered up when I mention the idea of taking a job in Seoul. ( Another way to get her fired up).
<----------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

The other Skippy has a pretty good take on Karl Rove's departure and his love letter to his patron saint:

I would suggest that contemporary observers aren't always wrong. The same journalists who disparaged Truman, Eisenhower and Reagan also described President Carter as a "moralistic prick and an inconsequential president were it not for his diasterous impact on everything he touched that wasn't the White House tennis court schedule." The press also described Presidents Johnson and Nixon as "broken" and "disgraced" respectively. The contemporary judgement of Herbert Hoover seems to have stood the test of time as well.

Which is a perfect point / counterpoint to Bush's dreams of being the next Truman. My Canadian namesake also makes some good jabs on Rove's appeal to history:

Folks, every political period is "highly polarized." Being for or against giving a specific person the power to declare war on countries populated by brown people and illegally intercept the communications of the citizenry tends to polarize folks in ways that few other things that aren't TRL can't:

However, I believe history will provide a more clear-eyed verdict on this president’s leadership than the anger of current critics would suggest.

President Bush will be viewed as a far-sighted leader who confronted the key test of the 21st century.

Oooohhhhhhhhhh, this should be good!

He will be judged as a man of moral clarity who put America on wartime footing in the dangerous struggle against radical Islamic terrorism.

Actually, no he didn't. Since Mr. Rove is pointing to history for justification, so will I. And historically, a "wartime footing" usually means something. Among the things it includes is shared sacrifice. The Global War on Terror is almost singular in American wars that doesn't involve things like conscription and massive government interference in the domestic economy to divert needed resources to said war.

President Bush took what he himself described in the 2000 campaign as an "unprepared and unequipped" military and sent them far away for an indeterminate period of time. As for everyone else, they were urged to show their support by shopping and enjoying the pork that he and Congress were sending their way. If you can rationalize a way that Bloomingdales is a front on the War on terror, you're smarter than I. am.

Read the whole thing here!

Skippy's closing quote should be the watchword for the 2008 election campaign and a caution to every Republican zealot getting out the grass roots of so called values voters:

When Karl Rove first started going to work for George Bush in 1993, Bush forced him to give up the consulting business that made him rich. For fourteen years, George W. Bush has been Karl Rove's only client. Their fates are bound together forever, so it is in Rove's interest that history treat them well.

Unfortunately, the legacy of Karl Rove and George Bush involves most of the rest of the world, so it is in everyone's interest that they not be allowed to write the first draft of that history.

NUFF SAID!

See you in September

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 11:51:00 +0000

Gen Petreaus and Ambassador Crocker that is.

Finally, after 7 long months of hearing the song, "All we are saying, is give war a chance.", the most awaited report since the Revelation to John is about to hit the streets. A like the final book of the bible, its pretty clear that it will have a similar message. Remain faithful in the gospel of the surge, and eventually the Lord will bestow victory on his long suffering people.

Unlike Revelation though, the General will be trying to back up his report with facts and figures and down playing the violent imagery. He'll avoid the talk about rivers turned to blood. After all, one can see that just by turning on the TV.

The real question at this point is: Why are they even bothering to come back?

The contents of the assessment are pretty well lined out, because the administration has been slowly, but surely, plowing the ground in hope that the seeds of its ideas will take root. Hell, Fred Kagan was probably writing the heart the report back in March when proclaimed the surge was working even then. (That was at the same time he was taking credit for singlehandely "saving" the administration from actually making concessions to its critics).

The surge will be declared as "working". However it will need more time. We've been hearing that once a month, every month, since Fred "the large one" convinced the President to go down this path. The Petraeus report will be held as yet another Iraqi "turning point".

In case you are keeping score at home, and the folks over at Foreign Policy magazine are, it will be the 31'st turning point in the conflict.

American troops will remain at current levels at least until spring when the deployment schedule will force a reduction in the numbers, lest the Administration have to deal with the mother all train wrecks in the middle of an election year. A train wreck of our own making by the way, because the gang that got off scot free with no accountability for their mistakes thought somehow cutting end strength in the middle of a war was a good idea.

There will of course, be some inconvenient truths that will need to be danced around:

Annoying fact #1: The Iraqi government is still worthless. Its not just me that is saying it, its the administration itself. A subsequent GAO report will undergo some editing to be sure, but it will still contain one hard fact, the Iraqi government has not met the majority of its so called benchmarks.

And its not likely to any time soon.

Annoying fact #2: Violence in all of Iraq is not reduced as it is supposed to be. Most people, including administration critic John Cole, do concede that " True, violence in Baghdad has been wrestled back down to the levels of summer, 2006 (hint: it wasn't paradise), but violence levels are up in the rest of the country. " . There are several sources that verify this, including the disputed GAO report. On average Iraqis deaths are up in 2007 over 2006 across the country. Furthermore, in one of the most under reported events in Iraq, the number of displaced persons has doubled and there is a real threat of a cholera outbreak in certain parts of the country.

Annoying fact #3 (and the only one that should matter to Americans): US casualties are up this year.

This is where the argument will come in this was to be expected because the US was taking the fight to the enemy. And the enemy was going to go out of his way to launch attack after attack hoping to play on public opinion at home since it was clear he could not win in the field. The US may not be losing, but it still has a lot to show how this cost in precious American lives is somehow making a difference for America in the long term.

Then, I will immediately be directed to the "Miracle of Anbar". This western province has seen dramatic improvement over where it was two years ago, mainly because of the cooperation of Sunni tribal leaders with the US. That was something the US spurned in 2005, but now embraces and it is, by all accounts paying some results. It also may very well be unique to Anbar province and in trying to replicate it in the more populated parts of the country may actually create more problems.

Two issues that I see. One, the solution to Anbar started about 6 months before the surge, in the summer of 2006 when it became apparent to many Sunnis that the insurgency was going to far. Second, on the surface it seems that success of the province actually is at odds with professed reasons for keeping more troops in Iraq. If anything it might prove that left to themselves, without the crutch of American force, the Iraqis might just figure out things themselves-or at the least hunker down into their own enclaves. The main reason professed for troops to stay is to buy time for the Iraqis to gain stability. Which in the current context equals victory.

Stability though, means different things to different people. It won't mean an Iraq with out violence-the normal gauge of whether a nation is normal- for more than a few years to come. Victory will also not mean Iraq as a shining beacon for democracy,or capitalism, in the middle east. Nobody smokes that weed anymore. Not even the Neo-cons. Nor will the so-called success of the surge lead to the real victory for the US, whose interests are the only ones that matter to this observer, namely the ability to reduce the American troop presence to a significantly smaller number (e.g. say 40,000 or so.-even I don't hope for them all to go home anymore. That won't happen any time soon even if the most pole smoking liberal wins the 2008 election.).

There is a real possibilty that a "stable" Iraq will actually make the rest of the region less democratic, not more. Arab dictators will use Iraq as an example of what not to happen to them.

In reality, I think the Bush strategy is a lot simpler. Having decided to keep the escalation going as long as he can, all he needs Petreaus to do is to give him enough sound bites to hopelessly divide his opposition. Its worked before and thanks to the buffoonery of the Democrats, it will probably work again. In the remaining months between now and January 20, 2009, he will simply hope for a miracle; or the rise of a strongman who will drive the country into submission along pro-American lines.

What Bush will gain though by keeping the escalated numbers, is a force in being that will keep Iran distracted. The administration does not need the forces in Iraq to launch any attack against Iran, but for Akmawhat's-his-name in Tehran the reverse is not true. He will have to watch his Western flank the whole time.

Perhaps General Petraeus could quote Winston Churchill when he gives his report:

Surveying all the above, I think I must ask you for
definite guidance at this stage as to what you wish and what you are prepared to do. The victories of
the Turks will increase our difficulties throughout the Mohammedan world. At present we are paying eight millions a year for the privilege of living on an ungrateful volcano out of which we are in no circumstances to get anything
worth having.

Winston knew how to keep his eye on the long game-and he knew that the fate of the British Empire was not going to rise or fall in Iraq. Pity he is not here to teach his American cousins the same lesson.

Smell the roses.........

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 11:25:00 +0000

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
-Ferris Bueller

It is so good to be home. Japan, at least, seems like home. Korea- I'm not sure what it seems like, but I'm always happy to see it in the rear view mirror. At least I can read the signs over here. And I don't get narco-lepsy when a Japanese translation starts-unlike what I experienced for the last two weeks in Korea, when the Korean translations started.

I've had my first really nutritious meal in about 3 weeks.

I've finally de-toxed from all the beer I drank Thursday and Friday night.

I even played a round of golf this morning. I shot a 94-that's nothing short of a miracle for me.

On Saturday however, while coming home I took some time to explore Incheon airport. I had left the lounge on time to make my flight only to find when I got to the gate that it had been delayed an hour and a half. Now what? I could have gone back to the lounge, but instead I decided to look around a bit.

First sight I saw was a girl, sitting Indian style on a chair in front of one of those big plasma TV's. Not really a beauty but not ugly either, I was fascinated by her face and the look on it. The TV was showing what appeared to be a Chinese romantic drama-subtitled in Korean. Wearing the little square glasses that for some reason only look good on Asian women, she appeared enraptured in the show. For probably 10 minutes she did not move from her cross legged position.

Must have been good TV-the actress who was being dragged away by four mean looking men certainly looked good enough. The plot, it seemed, hinged on what appeared to be her boyfriend finding enough clues along the way-while being chased himself- to locate his girl.

Decided it was time to move on. Being down at the end of the terminal it meant a little bit of a walk back to the center and duty free world.

Past 2 moving walkways-going the opposite direction of mine. A European or American girl had decided that she needed to put her little plastic model on the moving hand rail and then raced ahead to watch it come to her. The girl looked to be about 8 years old. Why an 8 year old is roaming an airport unsupervised is one of those mysteries of life that will never be solved. But she was.

When the toy fell, a Korean couple in a coffee shop saw it. The lady got up and raced to pick up the toy. As she moved to take it to the girl, the girl raced past the woman. Not finding her toy she looked up with a look of considerable distress. It did not go away when the lady handed the toy to her-instead it seemed that she realized that the rest of the items were coming to the end of the walkway. White little sox and tennis shoes scurried into overdrive. All parts were saved as they came tumbling off the end.

Not a parent in sight.

I moved onward hoping to find a book store- but it would seem the national association of duty free cigarette, liquor, handbag and shoe stores had conspired against potential customers idling away precious buying time in any book store. So I went back to a combination coffee shop/ German beer bar. It being past 10 am and after 5pm somewhere- I ordered option 2.

As I was walking up to the empty table I had been eyeing for a seat, a group of girls came up to it. Being ever the gentleman that I am, let them have the seats. When they said thank you and then began speaking the dulcet tones of Japanese, it was music to my ears. I've had my fill of "sumi da" for a while, thank you very much. Plus they looked good in frilly skirts.

In marked contrast I might add, to the Soldiers at the bar wearing the baggiest of shorts, an over sized T-Shirt, and hats turned backwards. So much for those AFN commercials about the need to blend in.

I moved to the back and sat in a corner seat on the back row of seats. Next, it turns out, to what appeared to be some German businessmen having an animated discussion. I really need to brush up on my German.

Beer finished, I debate whether to opt for another and decide against it. No more Won in my pocket-and I did not want to spend my yen in case I needed it at Narita.

I decide to go back and see how the romance came out. Good thing I did because they were just getting to board the plane. So I never did get to find out whether the boy got the girl............

However, on the whole it was more interesting hour than some I spent during the past two weeks............

This pleases me!

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:41:00 +0000

East Sea my ass! It was and will remain the Sea of Japan.....as it should be.

Reading this as I am leaving Korea is just satisfying in a perverse sort of way........

Getting out........

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:20:00 +0000

Nothing becomes UFL like the leaving of it. The mommy Air Force kept the hordes on the base last night so Songtan was pretty dead on a night that should have been full of hard partying. Of course the military folks just loaded up on beer and drank themselves silly inside the fence line. This makes sense exactly how?

Seoul beckons and morning flight to Tokyo tomorrow. Out the door now and up there so I have to run, However I did find this interesting article over at Mark's place that I strongly recommend to you. (He's also got some funny quotes from the exercise in pain last week).

Soon after Yingling’s article appeared, Maj. Gen. Jeff Hammond, commander of the Fourth Infantry Division at Fort Hood, Tex., reportedly called a meeting of the roughly 200 captains on his base, all of whom had served in Iraq, for the purpose of putting this brazen lieutenant colonel in his place. According to The Wall Street Journal, he told his captains that Army generals are “dedicated, selfless servants.” Yingling had no business judging generals because he has “never worn the shoes of a general.” By implication, Hammond was warning his captains that they had no business judging generals, either. Yingling was stationed at Fort Hood at the time, preparing to take command of an artillery battalion. From the steps of his building, he could see the steps of General Hammond’s building. He said he sent the general a copy of his article before publication as a courtesy, and he never heard back; nor was he notified of the general’s meeting with his captains.

Does the Army have a JOPA?...........

Se you on the other side!

The industry.....

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:51:00 +0000

Fun is fun. But I am done.

After two weeks of ever increasing despair and frustration, the ordeal of Ultimate FutiLity has come to an end. God willing, I won’t be doing another one. I may be back in the states, living off unemployment and food stamps, but I have no desire to do one of these again. (Headhunters in Hong Kong are you listening?)

Once again the forces of truth and light have defeated the evil hordes of the North Korean Peoples Army. Kim Jong Il has been found on a highway, lying dead with a bottle of Chivas Regal in his hand. (simulated).

40,000 South Koreans are dead. (Simulated).

Seoul is digging out from artillery attacks, missile attacks and attacks by wild eyed Koreans. (Simulated).

It’s quite an industry this business of simulated war. And since it provides the funds to finance my “rage around Asia” program, I assume I should not complain. However With each passing one of these I am involved in the more I am bothered that lessons that are being taught in these exercises are never learned-or worse leading the decision makers who have to make critical decisions about matters of life or death, war or peace, make recommendations to men or women of political power.

There are scores of companies involved. People develop software to simulate armies going at each other, airplanes flying over land and dropping bombs, ships moving. Well paid retired general officers who serve as “mentors” teaching the former Col’s and Captains who made were their staff officers (since preferred customers breed men like them). The school houses who teach systems and procedures send observers. The various support entities (one of whom pays my bills) sending guys like me to make sure the right kinds of products are available to support the decision makers. And literally 1000’s of reservists come from the United States to serve for their XXth exercise.

Make no mistake, there is big money involved.

Now mind you, I know that exercises are necessary. Being an old school kind of guy having an exercise to me, always used to mean bringing in lots of airplanes, flying them a lot, and burning lots of dead dinosaurs. And then going to the O’club each evening to roll the dice and kill brain cells. They still do that, its called a field training exercise, only now the US military does them less and less.

Instead the US military has increased the number of what they call Command Post Exercises (CPX’s) where the staffs work like dogs and the burning of dinosaurs and the death and destruction associated therein happens on a computer.

Kind of like that episode of Star Trek some 30+ years back.

Are they necessary? Yes. However not in the numbers we do them, particularly in a time when REAL Soldiers are spending 1 year plus in a hell hole named Iraq.

Furthermore, I can’t escape the feeling that despite all of the benefit they bring in identifying things that key decision makers need to think about, they also teach some really bad habits. Habits that are so bad, that IMHO they may have led a certain person to assume that Iraq would be a cake walk.

For one thing, they tend to “fairy dust” logistics and the real issues involved in bringing forces from where they live to where they need to fight. The reality, as I saw in the build up to OIF, when the Air Force let itself be boxed into a huge cargo backlog is very different. Secondly depending on the type of exercise, they really underestimate the level of difficulty that certain types of situations require. Particularly with respect to the Navy. The more I have watched these things the more I am convinced that they lead decision makers to conclude that we can do with less anti-submarine or mine warfare capability. After all, people are expensive, and the Navy needs to buy LCS and JSF………………

Remember that statement when an LCS takes two torpedo hits amidships by a third rate diesel submarine. Or when the Vice President goes on TV and says we will be greeted as liberators. Now you know where he learned it.

Plus, it leads the really senior decision makers to believe that they can manage all things all the time through technology that keeps flag officers in front of TV cameras 17 hours a day. Which of course has their staffs jumping back and forth to produce “product” (PPT slides) instead of providing real advice to their bosses. As a commenter wrote here a while back, the VTC is probably the greatest underminer of good staff work there is.

This when normally, they have like they did here, 7 Generals in the command center. However the 3 star was on the go 20+hours a day. Does that make sense? Not to me it does not. I cannot go into the particulars here, but done right a lot could be delegated. Senior officers need to be thinkers. Not VTC stars.

Makes you wonder how we won World War II with simple one liners like, “Find the enemy. When you do-you will know what to do.”

Just in case you were wondering......

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:38:00 +0000

How the work has been going this week. I refer you back to here.

Hemlock's advice still holds-1 year later.

Drizzle, drizzle,drazzle,drone...............

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:55:00 +0000

Time for all of Bush's boys to go home!

Dragging my incredibly depressed ass out of bed at 5 am this morning, I turn my TV on to find an incredibly great piece of good news. Alberto "The Constitution is advisory only" Gonzales is going out the door.

That's the first genuine piece of good news I've had all week.

Niedemeyer-DEAD!

Rumsfeld-GONE!

Rove-GONE!

And now the man who forgot that he was the nation's lawyer-not the President's, is going home to well deserved resignation.

Slowly, all the major offenders who dragged this administration into Warren G. Harding land are getting moved on.

There is still one to go.

They are coming for you................

1972

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 11:08:00 +0000

The trouble with quoting history is that the idea presumes that you might actually have studied it-or worse yet-understand it in context. Neither of the those assumptions is a good bet when it comes to considering the current occupant of the Oval Office.

During a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Wednesday, Mr. Bush compared Iraq to Vietnam. Now to me that's a bit of a stretch given the very real differences between the timeline that brought Iraq to where it is today, and the pre-mature birth and short, sickly life that was that of the Republic of Vietnam. However in one point he may be correct-Bush is at exactly the same point that Richard Nixon was when New Years Day dawned in 1972.

Both Bush and Nixon were (are) in the position of trying to engineer an exit from a protracted conflict that is doing nothing good for the national interest. Both men had to do it in such a manner so as not to have the poorly governed state we leave behind fall apart when we left. Nixon had "Peace with Honor"; Bush has "Free Iraq is within reach". Neither statement was correct-they both were designed to distract folks from the fact that the US was cutting its losses and moving ahead to deal with more important items to the national interest. In the case of Vietnam, Nixon was hoping for a repeat of the Korean Armistice (some have argued he was really just hoping the RVN would hold on long enough so that we could not be blamed for when it fell..); Bush is hoping that a re-run of post colonial Malaysia can be attained. Now as in 1972, both men were deluding themselves.

Or maybe just one of the men is deluding himself. There is a lot of evidence that, in 1972, Nixon knew exactly what he was doing. Just go back and read some of Kissinger's stuff.

In both years, America had weak leaders that they stood by-Nixon had Thieu, Bush has Malaki-both of whom were pursuing agendas that were not entirely about improving the lot of their people. In 1972 Nixon upped the military ante significantly in response to a large offensive in Vietnam. In 2007 Bush upped the military ante by adopting a staged escalation. Both military postures had qualified success in improving the military situation-neither had much luck in making the political situation work.

Thieu at least had the advantage of having a more industrious people to work with and a population that was not fighting with itself over a flawed and apostate religion. And the government of South Vietnam was probably a lot more functional than Malaki's.

Bush cites a history of freedom in Asia:

The lesson from Asia's development is that the heart's desire for liberty will not be denied. Once people even get a small taste of liberty, they're not going to rest until they're free. Today's dynamic and hopeful Asia -- a region that brings us countless benefits -- would not have been possible without America's presence and perseverance. It would not have been possible without the veterans in this hall today. And I thank you for your service. (Applause.)

The last part is of course quite true, however I find it interesting that GWB ignores the fact that whatever progress towards free-wheeling democracy in Asia came AFTER they had built themselves up economically first. In South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, the pattern was the same. Strong military/civilian rulers who ruled with martial law. Malaysia, South Korea, and Thailand moved beyond it-the Philippines moved from martial law to incompetent, democratically elected leadership; one nation: Singapore, never moved beyond strongman rule. To this day, Singapore remains a democracy in name only. They all took many years to get to where they are today.

We won't even talk about the fact that China is doing just fine economically and lack of car bombs wise-without giving its people any rights or freedoms.......will we? Mattel makes contributions to the RNC.

Plus, while Bush claims that Asia only had two democracies at the start of World War II-they also had over a 100 years of European colonial tradition to draw from when the time came to enter the community of nations. A lot of folks would argue with me ont the value of that-but I think it had an affect for the better. Iraq never had that-in barely 13 years of British rule.

Bush's Asian analogies fail to recall the context that the historical events he speaks of occurred in.

Take his most famous quote from the speech, the one that has been seized upon by many as proof that we have to stay in Iraq.

The world would learn just how costly these misimpressions would be. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge began a murderous rule in which hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died by starvation and torture and execution. In Vietnam, former allies of the United States and government workers and intellectuals and businessmen were sent off to prison camps, where tens of thousands perished. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country on rickety boats, many of them going to their graves in the South China Sea.

Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam
War and how we left. There's no debate in my mind that the veterans from Vietnam
deserve the high praise of the United States of America. (Applause.) Whatever
your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the
price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose
agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like "boat people," "re-education
camps," and "killing fields."

There is no doubt that history of the region post 1975 was indeed tragic. However to link all of that misery solely to the United States withdrawing it's forces from Vietnam is an incomplete hypothesis at best.

First, Bush assumes then that the US could have maintained a troop presence in Vietnam for what? 20 more years? Despite the popular theories about that-its doubtful that politically, the American public would have stood for it. It is true that Nixon had promised to strike hard if Vietnam was attacked-but Watergate and his failure to get the VC out of the South laid pre-conditions for the fall. Even if Congress had not cut off aid, would the public have stood for new POWS so soon after getting the ones from 1972 back?

Second, Cambodia could still have very well fallen on its own. The North was using it is a staging base for attacks on Vietnam. Even with American airpower to shield the ARVN, the was no way the US was militarily in a position to intervene in Cambodia-short of re-invading the country or reintroducing troops. The ARVN was in no position to do so. Don't forget it was a unified communist Vietnam that overthrew the Khmer Rouge-not because of love for the Cambodian people-but to stop the flood of refugees into Vietnam.

The flip side of course is that the fall of South Vietnam accelerated that process. However in Vietnam, as in Iraq, the failure to apply military force was as much an outcome of not applying it at the right time as it was not applying it. The left did not lose Vietnam. The American Presidents willed the end of Vietnam by not getting it right at the start. The time that Nixonian bombing and mining/blockade could have been done was in 1965. By 1972, the die had already been cast-it was just a matter of running out the clock by then.

The governments of both Cambodia and Vietnam willed it by not getting their governmental stuff together and by being corrupt. Which is a little like Iraq, come to think of it.

In 2003, Bush had the opportunity to get it right with a larger commitment of troops. He let a misguided Secretary of Defense undermine some well done work trying to give the President a plan that would work. He's been trying to patch up the ugly results of his mistake ever since.

Johnson in 1965. Bush in 2003. Both Presidents allowed a war to be started that was not in the national interest-and then, having made the decision to do it-failed to get it right from the start.

I take it back. Maybe Iraq is like Vietnam after all.

A fistful of yen...

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 11:14:00 +0000

Will be required to buy this:

Code name ShinShin!

From Japan Probe:

After being repeatedly turned down by the US Congress in its attempts to purchase the F-22, the Japanese government has turned to its own stealth fighter program. As the video shows, they seem to be making significant progress in the development of the “Shinshin” fighter [with a little help from France], but it will take years to produce a final product. For more information, check out Aviation Week’s post on the ATD-X.

If at first you do not succeed, steal the plans and build it yourself!

It is time......

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 11:06:00 +0000

To do your duty and buy a Pin Up For Vets calendar again!

And why not?

It's for a good cause!

Sorry, I'm so late Gina.........Where I am now the war may be simulated-but the buffoonery is real!

What a week!

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 10:41:00 +0000

Rumours of my demise are greatly exaggerated.

However, due to the fact that my laptop keyboard was not working so well.....(spilled beer seems to inhibit the free flow of electrons)AND the effects of five 14 hour days in a row-blog posting just had to go to the back of the bus. Today was my first chance to catch up, do some shopping, buy a USB keyboard, and put myself back in business (Until Monday at least, when the drudgery resumes.....).

A lot happened this week and lots of it I missed, or only heard about on the periphery. Seems lots of folks are waking up to the fact that Iraqi president Nuri Al Malaki is on his own agenda-which does not happen to be in line with that of the nation that shedding blood and treasure to defend his worthless government. Interestingly enough, I happened to turn on the TV to see that the remarks in the NIE were just being spun the wrong way by the Democrats.

So much to say about that, so little time. People miss the point. The surge may be working -but what does that mean in the greater context? What is victory? We are told it is a stable government with an army that can defend itself. So far neither of those preconditions have been met-after over 4 years. So maybe just a note or two of anger is important.

And don't even get me started on GWB's Vietnam speech.................

That is for another time.

I can't wait to get on the plane for home.............

Well this is wierd..........

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 11:02:00 +0000

Unless you ignore the whole enslaving your own people and starving them to death thing..................

I stumbled onto this looking at the Soccer Fan video. It a Japanese video about North Korea.............

Are we through yet?

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 10:48:00 +0000

I wish we were. And the heavy stuff isn't even going to come down for a little while.............

However Japan Probe has found out what we are fighting for-or against:

NORK Soccer babes!

And so it begins.........

noreply@blogger.com (Skippy-san) — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 09:50:00 +0000

Well today was a day that should have been a good day to go golf, do some sight seeing, maybe even go into Seoul. I should have done any of those things. But I did not. Really did not do much of all, except take it easy, watch movies and dread the string of sucky days that starts tomorrow.

It occurs to me that I complain about Osan a little too much. As US bases go its a pretty nice base, and it has a lot to offer. There has been a lot of new construction here, they have a nice exchange and it even has a nice little bar district outside the front gate. So I should be taking the opportunity to explore this country or at least get on over to Pyontaek maybe.

Problem is, I just don't feel like it. I've struggled to pinpoint why I am so down on this place. And when reduced to its core item-it can be summed up in two words: Big Brother.

If one ever wants a snapshot of what a stateside dictatorship will look like-this place provides one. It is all pretty benign, but the hand of the "man" is everywhere.

Consider:

Big Brother knows how much and what food you buy at the commissary. He knows when you enter the front gate and who with. He has a means to track how much liquor you buy. (Which American ingenuity being what it is, folks figure out a way around it). My leaving and entering my work place is electronically tracked. So too are my e-mail transactions. Access to even the mildest of web sites is blocked.

Out in town there are the local police, and the BDU wearing "show of force". They have a curfew that is very limiting to say the least.

Now they say its all done for a good reason and that the owners of the system understand and respect the rights of the participants. That for the most part is probably true-but doesn't that bother you just a little, deep down inside?

It bothers me. Primarily because it relies on the good will and good intentions of those create the means to do all this tracking and regulating. That's putting a lot of faith in an being that prizes efficient operation above all other things. Its not abused-but its not hard to see how it easily could be.

"If you don't do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about", many people will say. "Its a necessary precaution to protect the security of our Soldiers and Airman in a foreign country-with DPRK long range artillery dialed in on Seoul. All valid points.

It also seems amazingly un American if you ask me. Isn't limiting the amount of government intrusion is what our political discussion has been about?

It may be a new world and that new world does have terrorism-that I do acknowledge.
However it troubles me that as this decade goes on, or for that matter the next one, we will wake up and find it is not terrorism that will be limiting us. It will be ourselves. We will have formed our own chains.

And the good news is, we already have a model of how to do it-right here.