Not quite another .gov

First of all, I would like to say that St. John's College rocks so much. I feel like I'm home again - intellectually, not emotionally. Seminar last night was amazing: my tutors seem great, there's an excellent (at least compared to my seminar last year) dynamic in the class. I left seminar last night feeling every bit like this kid (courtesy of someone who stole from the endlessly-awesome Gary Larson). I talked, too, which is good. I finally got my stuff out of storage, and so my room is cozy again, personalized, rather than a bleak blah box. A throw rug, a few posters - that makes such a difference. (Plus, more books on my shelves.)

Onto bigger and not better things. I was trying to find something (whether or not we're still officially engaged in the "war on terror", or if the Bush admin has decided to stop with the ridiculous, overinflated, and just plain stupid language), and I stumbled upon (in the sense of "it was the first Google result") this. Hmm. DefendAmerica.mil. This could be...interesting.

It's an official Department of Defense website, and on the 'about us' page, they seem most proud of offering photos and daily news reports and photos by military journalists (if such a thing can exist; journalist implies a sense of ethics and avoiding conflicts of interests, and I don't see how someone could both be employed by the US government [especially the military] and be unbiased) which, apparently, aren't readily available from the mainstream media. While trying to verify this - whether or not I could readily find this, I discovered that finding reports from Iraq isn't hard; finding relatively unbiased non-FOX News-ish ones is. I also found this. Apparently, one of the ways we gently guide a nation towards democracy is, after invading, overthrowing their government, and terrifying the people with occupying troops, we refuse freedom of the press to them.

Anyway, on the DefendAmerica homepage, one of the news stories down at the bottom is: "Women Soldiers Contribute to Iraqi Freedom."

W00t. Guess doing your job now gets special recognition, at least if you're a female soldier - 'cuz everyone knows that they can't actually do their job well. It's a pointless, stupid article, and it's just perpetuating the military's latest thing, where some factions are just one tiny step short of coming out and saying that women have no role in military.

I say that they're full of crap, but what else is new?