Red rambling

I've just finished work, and tomorrow begins an 11-day vacation, extending through Christmas and into the New Year. To celebrate, I've poured myself a glass of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, 2001. Not a terribly good year, all told, but this red hits the spot; it better, at forty-nine bucks a bottle.

So I'm being a little self-indulgent. It's a nice way to decompress. Outside it's unseasonably mild again, forty-six degrees, and this comes on the heels of a deep freeze that felt like the worst of February. Tomorrow it's rain and fifty-five. Freaky weather.

The kind that makes you sick. More than a few friends and colleagues have been zapped by colds. This nasty little bugger hangs around for the better part of a week. To ward it off I've been eating echinacea pills like Pez; if a backache could turn me into Ebenezer Scrooge, imagine what the cold from hell on Christmas Day could do. Two words, Alec Baldwin. And I ain't goin' there.

There's not much to report from the kitchen today. We all know what's been happening in Iraq. Right after Najaf and Karbala, a missile, rocket, suicide bomber, whatever, explodes a mess tent in a US military camp outside Mosul, killing over 20, including up to 19 Americans. Apparently it's taken military officials by such surprise that, a day later, the facts remain unclear. That's quite a feat in today's news-as-it-happens world.

The families of GIs in Iraq are in for a rough Christmas. If you know one, lend a hand. Or at least offer to. Many will prefer their solitude, but it's always good to know people around you care.

Better that, than listening to "The Bumper of My SUV," the country tune by Chely Wright making its way up the charts. Forget the fact that the singer demanded the resignation of her fan club president, a longtime associate, for allegedly asking fans to falsely identify them- selves as members of the military, or sibs thereof, in calls to radio stations requesting the song.

It's just not a very good ballad. You can read the lyrics here. Wright says she wrote it based on a real incident in her life. But I don't know anyone in this country right now, liberal, conservative or otherwise, who would be so crass as to flip the bird at someone just for driving a vehicle adorned with a US Marines bumper sticker. Wright's attrib- uting such behavior to someone on their way to a church meeting, or to a private school to pick up their kids, strikes me as a little disin- genuous, a tin-eared attempt to sound cool on the alternative charts: Let's see, how can I sell my support for the troops without alienating the Moveon.org demographic? The song, issued without a label, has landed her a record deal. Go figure.

No one needs "The Bumper of My SUV" to be reminded of the selfless sacrifices made daily by the members of our armed forces. Every day I think of them, and of their fallen comrades, without the assistance of stars indulging personal ambitions. God rest ye, brave men and women of the US military.

When my feeble life is o'er,
Time for me will be no more
Guide me gently, safely o'er
To Thy kingdom shore, to Thy shore
"Just a Closer Walk With Thee," traditional country hymn