Ahhhhh the "New" Bluelight...I suppose that our lauded Administrators have never heard the American adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." They claim that there was a slow load time, maybe 3 miliseconds versus 1.5 or some such earth shattering issue but the fact of the matter is that very basic human nature dictates that after so much time an environment begins to appear stale and cloying. A more pertinent issue for me is the lack of a Mobile Format, or "Skin." When travelling, and even at home increasingly, I post on my Blackberry or Sidekick, though the powers that be do say that the Mobile Format will be added shortly.
Though I have purchased my ticket home, via Hong Kong, I am still in the South Bronx, or as I much perfer to call it, "The Armpit of the World." As luck would have it the city had a record breaking heat wave, 33 C (108F). I am staying in a tenement built in the early 1920s and so I do not enjoy central air conditioning but I have never lived in a place that had it. The New York of my childhood was one devoid of even window air conditioners. We simply used electric fans and waited for it to turn our way.
Israel was no different though today many homes have a/c in one form or another. As for the Philippines, in both the studio I sublet in Makati and my house in Mindanao I have window a/cs. Therefore I should be able to cope with the heat but interestingly, it almost pushed me over the edge. The heat index pushed it close to 120F (they don't give Celsius here in the States and seeing as how it is 430AM I am a bit too tired to bother with the calculations). I took ice cold showers once every two hours but then noticed that if I even exerted myself even a tad bit my heart would begin pounding in my chest.
I didn't experience any real pain on my lefy side, nor anywhere else, and so chalked it up to simple over-exertion in the heat. It set me back more than a little bit seeing as how I have always been very strong but depressingly conceeded that I am now age 44 and it will only get worse. Then I began getting it even after laying in bed for several hours and was terrified that I was experiencing an anxiety attack.
I have no experience with such things. I have never had any form of mental illness, or been under psychiatric care, but am well read enough to understand the basic mechanics of the condition. Even after the heat broke last week I found myself getting that same pounding. I even began looking for a Psychiatrist until I thought...What the fuck am I doing? I talked myself through it, just as I did when I went through a "Cold Turkey" withdrawal off of 220mgs. of methadone in 2007. In the end I was able to work through whatever was taking place, whether it was anxiety or simply the reaction of an aging body to excessive heat.
Anxiety and such seems to be more culturally specific, like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. I saw a decent film this week, on Youtube. "Restrepo" by the fabulous author Sebastian Junger ("The Perfect Storm") and Tim Hethington. It covered the American campaign in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. The objective was to build what is known as a "Farm to Market Road," or "F & M," that would connect the heretofore isolated valley's residents with the greater world around them .
I will spare you the boring academic rationale for F & Ms and simply note that when such roads are built a combat element performs security detail. In this case it was an Airborbe Combat Team and they built a small firebase in an abandoned lumber yard. The base took fire most days and taking a proactive stance they erected a patrolbase on a small plateau that served as the opposition's centre of gravity, its rallying point so to speak. They named this patrol base "Restrepo" after one of their mates who had been killed soon after their deployment.
I found the movie interesting for a number of reasons. One very important point is that this is the position where an engagement leading to the first Medal of Honor [sic] awarded to a living recipient since the Vietnam War took place. Sal Giunta, of Iowa, was making sandwiches in Subway when 9/11 took place. He quickly signed up and ended up on that lonely promontory in Buttfuck, Afghanistan. On a night patrol his column walked right into an "L" ambush which is usually the most effective. It divided the column and his best mate took a couple of rounds. When the column regrouped they discovered his mate was missing. Giunta doesn't wait and immediately runs off into the darkness and comes upon 2 opposition (most don't realise that the Taliban aren't the only ones fighting the Coalition Forces) fighters carrying his badly wounded mate. Their end game of course was to hold him prisoner, torture him, etc., or at the very least keep his remains as a bargaining chip. Giunta fired his rifle and the 2 opposition fighters hauled ass into the pine trees, dropping their quarry. Giunta then ran to his mate and covered him for the 30 seconds it took before the ambulatory portion of his column caught up to him.
My first thought was, Americans are a joke. THAT won a Medal of Honor? That is just a regular day at the shoppe in the IDF. It sounds like dick sizing, "My daddy can kick YOUR daddy's ass!" but it truly isn't. We just have a much different mentality. For starters, if Sal Giunta was Israeli he wouldn't have had the option to "sign up." We all serve. The 400 US and change per week he nets even from Basic Training? Our first three years we get less than 100 US... A MONTH. To us it is simply our duty. It isn't sexy, heroic or even admirable. It is simply a fact of life.
My main thought though revolved around PSTD. Korengal saw 70% of all munitions dropped in all of Afghanistan. In other words, 70% of all bullets, mortar rounds and so on, fired in Afghanistan in that period, were fired in that very small valley. This sounds like a lot but then you find that in that Team's deployment there (15 months), AND the Marine unit before them's tour, a total of 5 men died (including, sadly, Giunta's mate). Success and failure is NOT measured in bodies but battle conditions are. In the IDF's first 15 months in Lebanon we lost, on a per capita sharehold vis a vis American statistics, nearly 200,000 soldiers. In other words, had we been the American Military, we would have had almost 200,000 dead soldiers, though that is an entire theater as opposed to a single firebase.
I have fought in 4 wars (Peace for Galilee/Lebanon, Intifadeh I, Intifadeh II, Lebanon 2006) and the only decorations I have are 2 battle ribbons for the 1st and 4th wars. The other 2 have no ribbons and we don't have but 3 medals, and they don't go to living soldiers. The culture is just sooooo different. All the soldiers thet interviewed back at home (in the film) were talking about suffering from PSTD, and all I could do was shake my head. Suffering from it doesn't make them any less of a man, it is just that I cannot understand a culture that produces such fragile psyches...and so these were the thoughts that I had as my heart sat in my throat...I am becoming Americanised hahahaha.
Though I have purchased my ticket home, via Hong Kong, I am still in the South Bronx, or as I much perfer to call it, "The Armpit of the World." As luck would have it the city had a record breaking heat wave, 33 C (108F). I am staying in a tenement built in the early 1920s and so I do not enjoy central air conditioning but I have never lived in a place that had it. The New York of my childhood was one devoid of even window air conditioners. We simply used electric fans and waited for it to turn our way.
Israel was no different though today many homes have a/c in one form or another. As for the Philippines, in both the studio I sublet in Makati and my house in Mindanao I have window a/cs. Therefore I should be able to cope with the heat but interestingly, it almost pushed me over the edge. The heat index pushed it close to 120F (they don't give Celsius here in the States and seeing as how it is 430AM I am a bit too tired to bother with the calculations). I took ice cold showers once every two hours but then noticed that if I even exerted myself even a tad bit my heart would begin pounding in my chest.
I didn't experience any real pain on my lefy side, nor anywhere else, and so chalked it up to simple over-exertion in the heat. It set me back more than a little bit seeing as how I have always been very strong but depressingly conceeded that I am now age 44 and it will only get worse. Then I began getting it even after laying in bed for several hours and was terrified that I was experiencing an anxiety attack.
I have no experience with such things. I have never had any form of mental illness, or been under psychiatric care, but am well read enough to understand the basic mechanics of the condition. Even after the heat broke last week I found myself getting that same pounding. I even began looking for a Psychiatrist until I thought...What the fuck am I doing? I talked myself through it, just as I did when I went through a "Cold Turkey" withdrawal off of 220mgs. of methadone in 2007. In the end I was able to work through whatever was taking place, whether it was anxiety or simply the reaction of an aging body to excessive heat.
Anxiety and such seems to be more culturally specific, like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. I saw a decent film this week, on Youtube. "Restrepo" by the fabulous author Sebastian Junger ("The Perfect Storm") and Tim Hethington. It covered the American campaign in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. The objective was to build what is known as a "Farm to Market Road," or "F & M," that would connect the heretofore isolated valley's residents with the greater world around them .
I will spare you the boring academic rationale for F & Ms and simply note that when such roads are built a combat element performs security detail. In this case it was an Airborbe Combat Team and they built a small firebase in an abandoned lumber yard. The base took fire most days and taking a proactive stance they erected a patrolbase on a small plateau that served as the opposition's centre of gravity, its rallying point so to speak. They named this patrol base "Restrepo" after one of their mates who had been killed soon after their deployment.
I found the movie interesting for a number of reasons. One very important point is that this is the position where an engagement leading to the first Medal of Honor [sic] awarded to a living recipient since the Vietnam War took place. Sal Giunta, of Iowa, was making sandwiches in Subway when 9/11 took place. He quickly signed up and ended up on that lonely promontory in Buttfuck, Afghanistan. On a night patrol his column walked right into an "L" ambush which is usually the most effective. It divided the column and his best mate took a couple of rounds. When the column regrouped they discovered his mate was missing. Giunta doesn't wait and immediately runs off into the darkness and comes upon 2 opposition (most don't realise that the Taliban aren't the only ones fighting the Coalition Forces) fighters carrying his badly wounded mate. Their end game of course was to hold him prisoner, torture him, etc., or at the very least keep his remains as a bargaining chip. Giunta fired his rifle and the 2 opposition fighters hauled ass into the pine trees, dropping their quarry. Giunta then ran to his mate and covered him for the 30 seconds it took before the ambulatory portion of his column caught up to him.
My first thought was, Americans are a joke. THAT won a Medal of Honor? That is just a regular day at the shoppe in the IDF. It sounds like dick sizing, "My daddy can kick YOUR daddy's ass!" but it truly isn't. We just have a much different mentality. For starters, if Sal Giunta was Israeli he wouldn't have had the option to "sign up." We all serve. The 400 US and change per week he nets even from Basic Training? Our first three years we get less than 100 US... A MONTH. To us it is simply our duty. It isn't sexy, heroic or even admirable. It is simply a fact of life.
My main thought though revolved around PSTD. Korengal saw 70% of all munitions dropped in all of Afghanistan. In other words, 70% of all bullets, mortar rounds and so on, fired in Afghanistan in that period, were fired in that very small valley. This sounds like a lot but then you find that in that Team's deployment there (15 months), AND the Marine unit before them's tour, a total of 5 men died (including, sadly, Giunta's mate). Success and failure is NOT measured in bodies but battle conditions are. In the IDF's first 15 months in Lebanon we lost, on a per capita sharehold vis a vis American statistics, nearly 200,000 soldiers. In other words, had we been the American Military, we would have had almost 200,000 dead soldiers, though that is an entire theater as opposed to a single firebase.
I have fought in 4 wars (Peace for Galilee/Lebanon, Intifadeh I, Intifadeh II, Lebanon 2006) and the only decorations I have are 2 battle ribbons for the 1st and 4th wars. The other 2 have no ribbons and we don't have but 3 medals, and they don't go to living soldiers. The culture is just sooooo different. All the soldiers thet interviewed back at home (in the film) were talking about suffering from PSTD, and all I could do was shake my head. Suffering from it doesn't make them any less of a man, it is just that I cannot understand a culture that produces such fragile psyches...and so these were the thoughts that I had as my heart sat in my throat...I am becoming Americanised hahahaha.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
so I always dig reading what you have to say. When I read your updates I'm typically entranced by the depth of the culture (as well as the scope of my ignorance). 
