by Peter Baker, quotes Tony-the-Snow-Man backing off from the strong language he used earlier in which he described stem cell research as a form of "murder". Baker writes:
So my follow up questions:
(1) When did the president start making decisions based on the poll numbers? and
(2) What about the millions of Americans who believe that the war in Iraq is morally objectionable?
Everyone is probably familiar with Steve Winwood's 1980s hit, "Back in the High Life Again". You may have also heard Warren Zevon's cover, which apparently is the preferred version according to the results of Cover-vs-Original . And if you've not heard Zevon's cover, try to because it is dry, eerie and poetic, nothing like the pop hit put out by Winwood.
While the melody for the filk comes from Winwood and the mood comes from Zevon, the story for the song comes from Dr. Justin Frank's, M.D. book entitled Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (2004).
It is an excellent book, well written and well argued. Frankin adopts the family psychology theories of Melanie Klein to explore George's current psychological condition. The most amazing fact I learned was that the Bush family lost a child. George's younger sister Robin was diagnosed with leukemia in the spring of 1953 when he was six and when she was just three years old. The diagnosis
"...set into motion a series of extended East Coast trips by parents and child in the ultimately fruitless pursuit of treatment. Critically, however, young George was never informed of the reason for the sudden absences; unaware that his sister was ill, he was simply told not to play with the girl, to whom he and grown quite close, on her occasional visits home. Robin died in New York in October 1953; her parents spent the next day golfing in Rye, attending a small memorial service the following day before flying back to Texas. George learned of his sister's illness only after her death, when his parents returned to Texas, where the family remained while the child's body was buried in a Connecticut family plot. There was no funeral." (p.3)
Whoa…that’s rough, not easily dry walled over, even with George’s nearly twenty year’s of sobreity.
So it is with some tactlessness and anger that I indulged myself with this little filk.
It used to seem to George
He could never drive too fast
Coke and booze and mary jane
It must have been a gas
But you’re your daddy’s son
And there’s a battle to be won
Goin’ mano-a-mano in the driveway
Who’s gonna be the one?
He’ll go back to the bottle again
All the prayers he has said will
go up in smoke again
He’ll go back to the bottle again
All the anger and hatred is too
much to hold in
And now you’ve shown your hand
Made war across the land
You beat Sadam and the Taliban
Who could doubt your plan?
But fate is a measured rope
That can wrap around your neck
Pulling tight in a choke-hold
Man, it’s gotta hurt like heck
So he’ll go back to the bottle again
All the prayers he has said will
go up in smoke again
He’ll go back to the bottle again
All the anger and hatred is too
much to hold in
And he’ll drink and smoke with both
Ignore the wife and loose his keys
Oh he’ll be a sight to see
Back in the bottle again
A few months back, there seemed to be a major debate in the Internet-press about whether it was appropriate to call the situation in Iraq a “civil war”. While the rhetoric meant nothing to the millions of Iraqis directly and indirectly affected by the day-to-day violence, the matter seemed very important in the domestic battle for the “hearts and minds” of Americans. Since then the world has moved on and no one seems to think it so important anymore. Recently, however, it occurred to me that it was easy enough to compare the current situation Iraq, which has only gotten worse since the spring, to the US’s own record with civil war to get a sense of the accuracy or absurdity of this statement.
The table below presents the numbers in detail, but I'll just cut to the chase: between April 1861 and April 1865 the US lost 184,594 American lives, or about 0.13 percent of the total US population each year. In Iraq today, assuming that the death rate of 75 persons per day continues for another 12 months, the country will have lost 0.11 percent of its total population. The 75 persons per day maybe a high estimate and the population estimate may be a bit low, but even so the impact clearly puts the situation in Iraq today in the same ball park as the US Civil War.
By these metrics, it seems to me unconscionable that anyone could describe the situation in Iraq as anything other than a tragedy for humanity, a complete failure of neoconservative foreigh policy, and another victory for the red horse of the apocalypse.
Iraqi Civil War
Deaths per day 75
Deaths per year (projected) 27,375
Population (est.) 25,000,000
Annualized deaths as pct. of population 0.11%
US Civil War
US Civil War combat deaths (1) (a) 184,594
US population est. at the time (1) 34,300,000
Annualized death rate (April 1861 to April 1865) (b) 0.13%
Iraq's Violent Death Rate in the US
US Murders in 2004 (2) 16,137
Iraqi murder rate/100,000 population (est.) 109.5
US Population (2004) (3) 293,656,842
US Equivalent of Iraqi murder rate 321,554
Notes:
(a) The usual number of deaths estimated in the Civil War is 620,000. Combat deaths, however, vary from the low reported above to as many as 204,000.
See http://www.civilwarhome.com/casualties.htm for this higher estimate.
(b) Wikipedia
Sources:
(1)The US Civil War Center at LSU. http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/other/stats/warcost.htm
(2) Dept. of Justice, FBI. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/murder.html
(3) Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/popest/national/asrh/NC-EST2005-sa.html
