The Love of Beer
We Can’t just move on
Regarding your Dec. 21 editorial, “(One) war is over”: Thank you for reminding us in the San Diego region of the travesty and unfathomable criminality of the Iraq war and occupation. As a member of the San Diego Coalition for Peace & Justice (www. sdcpj.org), I agree, and I wish to add these further thoughts:
The idea that the Iraq war/occupation is “over” forgets the continued presence of tens of thousands of “personnel” in the U.S. embassy in Iraq, including U.S. military, U.S. paid mercenaries and surely clandestine military such as CIA agents. This “embassy” is a continued military enclave of occupation in the nation we wrongly invaded and decimated. Not to mention the tens of thousands of U.S. military re-stationed from Iraq into nearby Kuwait, as well as other Middle East U.S. military bases. We continue to live with the incredible and unjustified cost, in humans and U.S. taxpayer cost, of this debacle.
If this kind of debacle is not to be repeated by the United States, we must understand why it happened in the first place— and, of course, this does not mean 9/11, which was used as an untruthful excuse for Iraq. Why in the world would the Bush administration and its corporate allies have knowingly ginned up this war? The only logical conclusion is that powerful corporate interests made huge, huge profits off the war and occupation and continue to profit from it. Look at Dick Cheney and his family interests alone, and we understand the incredible, immoral greed that created the Iraq war and occupation.
We must ultimately face this criminality and unspeakable immorality in some form of justice. Shoving our heads in the sand to forget only buries the guilt and profit of those responsible for hijacking our society and rewards them for it. As emotionally difficult as it may be, we must face up to this. Those of us who wish to simply move on without justice are, per the saying, part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Craig Jones, Scripps Ranch
And don’t come back!
A few things I’d add to “Just go away,” your list of pop-culture trends that are not invited back in 2012 [“Art & Culture,” Dec. 28]:
Pork-pie hats: For some, like Tom Waits, sure, but most hipsters trying to rock their ill-fitting rattan Dixie cups just give me visions of a “Planet of the Apes” outtake where a monkey grinding a music box is at the smart end of the leash.
Thumb rings: Are they like a merit badge for chefs?
White sunglasses: Speedos for the head. “Shovel ready” should be repurposed only as a name for a new fragrance from CCDC / Mark Fabiani in a turd-shaped aerosol made from the same smoked glass / sandstone as the Sunroad building. Could be promoted as a scratch ’n’ sniff like the auto-leather the U-T did for the Auto Show. Essences would also include the wastewater treatment plant, Del Mar racetrack and the Children’s Pool.
The proposed Ayn Rand-y sculptured conceit “Wings of Freedom”: This monstrosity would only create a feeding frenzy for pundits, cartoonists and photoshoppers, and not in an affectionate “Cardiff Kook” way.
“Spot on”: While I can certainly appreciate a lot of their music, machinery, fish ’n’ chips and Mrs. Peel, this pretentious British affectation reads and sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard!
Cheerio and Happy New Year.
Mike Loflen, Clairemont Mesa
