I've read that the Vietnam war wasn't so much about "communism taking over" as Vietnamese nationalism asserting itself, and as a result of our obsession with fighting communism we missed this fact.
Basically true, though the one of the things the Pentagon papers revealed is that actually our government did know this. It is not so much that we missed the fact, as that we ignored it.
I'm not sure this is much of a distinction - ignored v. discounted because we were focused on what we thought was the bigger threat.
Of course there was a sense in which it was thought to be a real threat at the time. If the U.S. government let a nation go communist without punishing them for it, there was the danger that others would follow their bad example. That was the real domino theory.
Well, yes. What other domino theory were we discussing?
I mean, come on, people, all the Leif stories...?
You know what I think would be a good idea? If we didn't ignore things we knew. I'm just saying.
A pleasing juxtaposition.
Corwood, I know about conservative weirdness. Goldwater country, hello?
But I still get stunned sometimes.
So I got the new credit card I needed (well, I had the numbers, so I could fool them) today. I just discovered I'd been using the old one, for the past 4 years, without a sig.
I have a friend who signs all her cards with "Check id" and has once had it checked. Crazy. Why bother? Do what my usual card does, put a picture and a digitized sig on the front.
Anyone watching Top Model? All I can say is,
I'm SO GLAD the "spoiler" that Gawker had last week about Melrose winning was
LIES, ALL LIES!! Not that
I was all that committed to any of the final bunch, but still.
No, bunk, if you grew up in AL you still win.
I never thought I'd be hearing the term "priapism" on the tv several times a night.
The Singing Nun is on TCM. I am now hopelessly earwormed with "Dominique." (And somehow, I know the French lyrics to this song. I don't know why I know the French lyrics, but when I start humming the "Dominique, nique, nique" part, the next phrase that jumps into my brain is "S'en allait tout simplement." I don't have any memory of ever learning that song, in any language. It's very odd.)
The real singing Nun left the church and moved to San Francisco where she became an infamous S&M Madame named Sister Mary Quite Contrary and was well used by members of The Bohemian Grove. Later she became a heroin addict and morbidly obese.
