A few weeks ago she was shipped out of Iraq and back to Okinawa. As with other government policies that most civilians don’t understand, she flew from Iraq to New York to San Diego to Japan. Look at a map next time you have one handy and then use the theory that "the shortest distance between two points is a straight lint."
Folks have been thinking that’s true for a couple of years now, but those folks apparently don’t work for the government.
Anyway, since arriving in Japan she has called once and emailed twice.
She has observed that Japan is a slightly different tour than Iraq.
For example, she can now go to see movies without having to rent them from a roadside vendor; she can eat in a restaurant that serves a variety of foods as opposed to opening another Meal Ready to Eat-Individual, and, most importantly, she’s not getting shot at.
Actually she didn’t get shot at in Iraq although her Marine unit was on a number of patrols and delivering supplies to other units around the country. In fact, she didn’t speak too kindly of the news media covering the situation there.
No doubt, she noted, there are American soldiers being killed and each one is a tragedy.
But she says that in about 90 percent of the country the American soldiers are rebuilding schools, streets, water lines, sewer, electric plants and other infrastructure that isn’t being reported.
The national media, especially television, has lost a lot of credibility over the past several years and they can’t seem to understand why. We could offer some advice, but it wouldn’t go far: quit trying to find another Watergate and just report the news without your biased comments. Save the comments for your editorials.
But that’s enough of that.
oooo
We received a telephone call last week from one of the offspring who was spending his annual vacation in Hawaii. He instructed us to turn on the computer and go to a web site. When we finally arrived at the sight, he began giving instructions on what to click and where to go.
The sight carried us to a beautiful view of the ocean and was located on the top of the condo where his family was staying. He then instructed us to find some kind of control button and turn the camera toward the swimming pool.
We did and then he asked if we saw some guy jumping up and down.
Well, yes we did.
That’s me!
Your’re kidding.
Nope. Watch this.
Now the guy waves.
See the guy waving?
Yep.
That’s me.
Now use the control to zoom in a little.
We did.
Are you holding the telephone with you left hand?
Yep, that’s me!
We asked him what was behind him and the image on the screen turned and walked where we directed. It turned out to be a basketball goal being used by several people in the swimming pool.
We’re still in awe at what we were seeing. We have visited web cams at sights before, but they are usually time delayed action and don’t refresh but every 10 or 15 seconds. This one was in real time.
Here we were, in the comfort or our house in Cadiz, Kentucky watching – and talking – to one of our children halfway around the world.
Will wonders never cease?
ooooo
A while back we wrote about a method of keeping flys out of your home. The simplicity of the effort bordered on the unbelievable.
All you have to do, we were told, was to hang a plastic bag of water outside the door and the pesky flys would keep on the outside. Needless to say, we were skeptical.
Mildred Grasty she had seen the bags of water work during one of her trips to Florida. This past week, she brought in a photograph of a patio restaurant that has several of the bags hanging around the outer opening.
"Not a fly in the place" she reports.
We’re convinced!
Now if we can just find a solution to keep mosquitoes at bay!
Vyron Mitchell is general manager and editor of The Cadiz Record. He can be reached at vmitchell@cadizrecord.com
