Yes, I understand that I’m late to the game, but this is just too good to not share:
Category: Personal Page 17 of 59
Not a lot to say, other than that this was inspired by recent conversations about the P&O Ferry between Zeebrugge and Hull. I’ve got a couple dozen tracks that are well associated with that route.
OMD’s original:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJfKyHR5-1M[/youtube]
Nada Surf’s cover (please, just ignore the video):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5otlEMk_0k[/youtube]
Photo by Simon Barrow
[This was originally posted on May 25, 2007. I’m posting it again, having just seen that the memorial is in dire need of funding support. I’m in for $50. I hope you’ll consider contributing, too. See dday.org.]
A few weeks ago, I spent a weekend as support crew for the Smith Mountain Lake Triathlon. I mention that because it was the only reason I would ever have to travel through Bedford, Virginia. I’d never even heard the name before, and imagine that I’d never have a reason to head through it again. But I was glad I did discover it, as it is home to the National D-Day Memorial.
When I saw the sign for the Memorial, my first thought was that it was some outsized project of the local VFW or something. But no, in fact, it is the national memorial for the soliders that died on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Why Bedford, of all places?
Like eleven other Virginia communities, Bedford provided a company of soldiers (Company A) to the 29th Infantry Division when the National Guard’s 116th Infantry Regiment was activated on 3 February 1941. Some thirty Bedford soldiers were still in that company on D-Day; several more from Bedford were in other D-Day companies, including one who, two years earlier, had been reassigned from the 116th Infantry to the First Infantry Division. Thus he had already landed in both Northern Africa and Sicily before coming ashore on D-Day at Omaha Beach with the Big Red One. Company A of the 116th Infantry assaulted Omaha Beach as part of the First Division’s Task Force O. By day’s end, nineteen of the company’s Bedford soldiers were dead. Two more Bedford soldiers died later in the Normandy campaign, as did yet another two assigned to other 116th Infantry companies. Bedford’s population in 1944 was about 3,200. Proportionally this community suffered the nation’s severest D-Day losses. Recognizing Bedford as emblematic of all communities, large and small, whose citizen-soldiers served on D-Day, Congress warranted the establishment of the National D-Day Memorial here.
The memorial itself is . . . not like most memorials. 
Typically, memorials reach for symbolism, and not recreation. Think of, say, the WWII and Vietnam Memorials on the Mall. This one, however, illustrated exactly what Normandy was about. Landing. Death on the beach. Death on the cliffs. I’ve traveled a lot, and seen many a military memorial, but I can’t think of the last one I saw that showed the real price that was paid by soliders. Here, in Bedford, there is a bronze sculpture of a dead solider half in the water, representing all those young men that died just as the day started. 
The bluntness of it surprised me. But it’s also something I appreciated. With all of the glorification of the military and combat service, I’m not sure that people really understand the real price it extracts. I give the D-Day Memorial Foundation much credit for helping illustrate that.
The other surprising thing was the recognition of all Allied soldiers. American memorials usually exclusively focus on American soldiers. In this case, however, the contributions of all Allies were recognized. It may be a small point for some, but as someone who had family fight and fall for a number of countries, it’s something I appreciate. 
[I’d started this in the hope that there would be some clear way that I could tie in my very personal respect for the sacrifices of the memorialized soldiers with those of those who have died in this second Gulf War. But I’m just too angry. Every time I head through an airport and see a bunch of kids who don’t look old enough to drive but have the tell-tale haircuts of recent boot camp vintage, I careen between grief and rage. And until I find a cogent way to express that, I think I’ll just leave it at this.]
From TPM:
A new Gallup poll finds an overwhelming majority of Americans, 69%, in favor of allowing gays to serve openly in the military — it’s so big in fact, that even self-identified conservatives are for it.
The polling internals show 58% of conservatives in favor, plus 86% of liberals and 77% of moderates, for the overall top-line of 69%.
Fix it. Now. There is no excuse.
He hasn’t given it yet, but I suspect he’s going to nail it. And I don’t say this because I’m an Obama fanboy (I think a perusal through my archives will sort that). I say it because I’d don’t think you can grow up the way he did* and come out of it with the sort of certainty of superiority and righteousness that has previously plagued US presidents. To be clear, I think that Obama is compromised on any number of issues, but I don’t think he is (or can be) on what is the most central issue here – the basic recognition of the humanity and plight of the Islamic (and particularly, the Palestinian) world. Whether he will have the political fortitude to hold the necessary line with Israeli politicians in the future is a another issue. But this one – the genuine acknowledgment of humanity – he won’t get wrong. And that’s something.
*the way I did. Which is an explicit recognition of my perspective, here.
Update: here’s the text. Still looking for a video of the full speech.
It’s happening. Really.
Per Joy’s note below (thanks!), the article has been corrected. This looks like they’re just hauling out the old US-Visit program again. Which is still a pointless waste of money and unnecessary collection of information, but less worrying, to me.
If I either 1) spoke Hindi or 2) had an unlimited supply of Hindi-speaking friends I could annoy with constant questioning, I would dedicate an entire blog to the phenomenon of Indian, uh, appropriations of Western pop music. Listen closely to many Bollywood hits, and you’ll hear a familiar hook and bass line.  I haven’t noticed it as much, lately, but there was as period in the late 90s where I was convinced I could track every hit charting in India to a Janet Jackson track from the 80s/early 90s. In any event, discovered this one over the weekend, and thought I’d share it.
India’s DJ Suketu took a popular early 90s hit – Bin Tere Sanam – and remixed it into an even bigger hit:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWOHCm_VpJE[/youtube]
The original, by Yaara Dildara, was an enormous hit in its own right:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVOs_ATjikQ[/youtube]
So what did DJ Suketu use to breath some life into an already monster hit? Kylie Minogue to the rescue:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfr9bhSmfXc[/youtube]
Wow:
It was called “the shot that changed the republic.â€
The killing in 1967 of an unarmed demonstrator by a police officer in West Berlin set off a left-wing protest movement and put conservative West Germany on course to evolve into the progressive country it has become today.
Now a discovery in the archives of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, has upended Germany’s perception of its postwar history. The killer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, though working for the West Berlin police, was at the time also acting as a Stasi spy for East Germany.
It is as if the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard had been committed by an undercover K.G.B. officer, though the reverberations in Germany seemed to have run deeper.
“It makes a hell of a difference whether John F. Kennedy was killed by just a loose cannon running around or a Secret Service agent working for the East,†said Stefan Aust, the former editor in chief of the weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel. “I would never, never, ever have thought that this could be true.â€
Germany – as a nation – left a deep impression on me with its capacity for introspection, and it’s something I missed when we left. My understand is that Germany has become less so these days, but my connection to the country is almost non-existent now, and I could be wrong. In any event, I’m very much looking forward to the resulting conversation. If you’re interested in more, I suggest Der Spiegel (in English).