It’s been a bit of a tense morning. My younger brother is a commercial diver and owns and operates a boat up north, which means that during specific seasons he’s gone for extended periods of time. This morning, while driving a friend’s truck to the tenders he hit a stretch of black ice, lost control, and went over a 30 foot embankment. Thankfully he walked away unhurt, though had to stand in the freezing cold for an hour and a half until someone picked him up – even though the police were called twice.

Personally, I don’t know what’s worse, hearing stories like that or the ones where he gets caught in storms and his boat is cresting swells so large that everyone on board is literally hanging on to something with their feet dangling in mid air.

Today is the 15th of September, which means two things. First, it’s my little brother’s 36th birthday. Second, George Walker Bush has 126 days left in office to wreak as much havoc as possible.

The White House’s primary focus will be on the Waziristan region of Pakistan, where US Special Forces and the US Air Force have been given a green light to unilaterally strike targets of opportunity in a three stage operation that also involves pulling CIA assets from around the world into the region…

“NPR has learned that the raid by helicopter-borne U.S. Special Operations forces in Pakistan last week was not an isolated incident but part of a three-phase plan, approved by President Bush, to strike at Osama bin Laden and top al-Qaida leadership.

The plan calls for a much more aggressive military campaign, said one source, familiar with the presidential order, which gives the green light for the military to take part in the operations. The plan represents an 11th-hour effort to hammer al-Qaida until the Bush administration leaves office, two government officials told NPR.

“Definitely, the gloves have come off,” said a source who has been briefed on the plan. “This was only Phase 1 of three phases.”

Pentagon and White House officials have declined to discuss the new plan.

The intelligence community already had approval from the president to carry out operations inside Pakistan, which included attacks by Predator drones, which can carry 100-pound Hellfire missiles.

Additional authority came from the president just recently that allowed incursions by U.S. Special Operations forces, the source said.”

The government of Pakistan, along with its military leadership, has warned the United States that it will employ force against US forces that enter the country to conduct military operations. This morning there have been unconfirmed reports that US helicopters were fired on by elements of the Pakistani military and armed tribesmen near Angor Adda.

I spend most of my time dealing with darkness. I do so because to present it to others, to confront its realities, means that we are all forced to look for the light that is found within it, to search its seemingly impossible recesses for hope. That is why I spend the time that I do dedicated to the content of this website on a daily basis, because though the world is, and I’ll not mince words, a rather horrible place, it is also one of extreme beauty, filled with things worth fighting for, and, most of all, a place of promise.

In our lives there are those that represent that promise. Be it our families, our friends, the natural world and all of its wonders – there are reasons to look into that great maw of darkness every day and see them as if stars in a night sky, a reason to hope, a reason to dream. There is nothing more powerful in the world than this simplest of connections. Placing our trust in governments, in violence, in anything that betrays the base common reality that we are, all of us, connected by these simplest of things represents a futility in that it is with us that their power rests, that the great darkness spun on a daily basis by those consumed with ulterior motives is something easily defeated if only we would use as our collective sword, our collective cannon, that which bears our teeth through smiles and our universal and inescapable commonalities.

Five years ago today one of my closest and best friends was born. I was not present at his birth, nor would I meet him for some weeks after. But from the moment that I laid eyes on him I knew that my life had become all the better because he was in it. He lacks the ability to converse with me, but understands me completely. He is there when I am at my lowest and filled with an exuberance and boundless energy that makes me realize that even though my problems are not something that can simply be forgotten or quickly overcome, that there are lights in this world that, if we do not stop to take the time to see them, render us pick pocketed.

Today Casey is five years old. And while to some he might simply be a dog, to me he is much more. He is a being that I would go to the ends of the earth to protect and to see happy. In his life he has known abuse (as a puppy) and abandonment, but through it all, even though it has noticeably affected him at times, has remained the same little man that I once threw a ball for when he couldn’t jump up onto a bed and that, to this day, knows no greater joy than repeating that action tirelessly. To love in life is one thing, but to know unconditional love is another matter altogether. And there exists no separation, as far as I am concerned, between humans and animals in that regard.

A very long time ago a wise women said to me - “there is nothing more important than this”. At the time I was probably no more than ten years of age and didn’t really understand her because the statement seemed obtuse.

As a man of thirty-seven years I now know what my grandmother meant, and she was right.

There is nothing more important that this.

To discount idealism as nothing more than wishful thinking is to condone the destruction of ideas. To condone the destruction of ideas is to promote the power of fear. To promote the power of fear is nothing more than the work of the fearful.

Remember that always.

I want to apologize to all those fans that waited by the bus last night for autographs. Normally I would have done my usual after show signing, but last night was the first time that I got to see my father since I’ve been home and he’s been out of the hospital, so I spent the majority of the evening after the show with my family. On top of that; last night took a great deal out of me, I was utterly exhausted.

For future reference, when a member of the crew informs you that I won’t be signing, please take them at their word. I do not want to have people hanging about for hours only to be upset with me after the fact, even though it’s been made clear that I won’t be available.

Again, my apologies.

As has come to be the case, the WiFi in the hotel is shit. So I am sitting on the bus, which has a better connection.

When you tour this country as much as I have certain things become tradition, such as where you stop and spend days off. While I usually play Thunder Bay, on this tour I’m not, so I’m spending the day playing catch up. Emails to return, reading to do, etc. Some time in the early hours of the morning we’ll slip out of town for Winnipeg. I think everyone else has gone to the Finnish Sauna. I decided against it. Steam I’ll do, dry heat doesn’t interest me as much.

Happy Father’s Day

To all those of you out there to which it applies - happy father’s day. I would especially like to send my love to my own father and my younger brother Chris, who has two beautiful children.

It’s currently some time after midnight. I’m sitting on the bus in the dark, everyone gone into the hotel to sleep in proper beds for a change. I can’t abide hotel rooms anymore for some reason. I used to stay in them, but ever since I started touring again last year I’ve found that I prefer to remain on the bus and sleep in my bunk, even when it’s sitting in the parking lot of a hotel. I guess I just like the humming sound that the generator makes. It’s comforting.

It’s been a stressful week, to be honest. I’ve said nothing thus far, but my father has been in the hospital since last week. An ulcer punctured his stomach wall and some 300 milliliters of fluid had to be drained from it, which involved placing a tube directly into his stomach that has remained there since. My mother told me earlier this evening that he’s expected to be released tomorrow. Over the last few days, concerns that he might have cancer have been somewhat alleviated, so that’s good. But it’s been difficult being so far from home.

Anyway, time to mix up some sort of knock out cocktail and get some sleep. This staying up until four in the morning business watching films and eating peanuts has to end.

Oh, and Lance says the new Indiana Jones film isn’t worth the bother.

Of all those that served in the military in my family, the one common trait shared by all of them is that they did not like to talk about their experiences. My Grandfather and Great Uncles went to lengths to avoid the topic, and as an inquisitive youngster I was sometimes scolded for my curiosity. At the time, of course, I couldn’t understand why, but as a grown man it’s something that I do.

Other members of my extended family have also served and seen combat, among them a cousin who was a United States Marine and a Great Uncle who served in Korea. In fact, my father came within an inch of becoming a member of the US Air Force in the 60’s after writing multiple aptitude tests which would have led to his serving as a member of a B-52 crew during Vietnam, most likely as a Navigations Officer. Thankfully, my Grandmother was adamantly opposed to the idea and he eventually declined the opportunity.

Death is in the eyes. When you spend time with a veteran that has witnessed the horrors of conflict that reality is ever present in their gaze. My Grandfather had it, my Great Uncles had it, and so do some of my friends, among them Patrick Pitt, one of this website’s contributing authors, a CF Artillery Captain that served twice in Afghanistan and, prior to that, throughout the Balkans. Daniel Regelburgge, a one-time matthewgood.org author, veteran of Iraq and NATO operations throughout the Balkans, and currently stationed at The Pentagon, does as well. Added to this list is also another site author, Roy El-Saghir, who was a member of the 82nd Airborne in the 1980’s and served in locations where US personnel weren’t supposed to be active, let alone involved in combat operations.

I mention this because a very real schism exists between public perception of military service and the reality and confusion faced by those that serve during wartime. The more politically complex the conflict, the greater that schism becomes. An example of this exists in the position of pro-war pundits that have, over the last seven years, completely skewed the line between military service and government policy. It has become entirely commonplace to suggest that if one does not support the political objectives of those that have taken us to war that those that have been sent to implement such policies are somehow being dishonoured and betrayed. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, as it is entirely possible to support the welfare of our soldiers while adamantly disagreeing with the policies that have placed them in harms way.

The media has, of course, played a leading role in blurring such lines, leading to the diminishment of any negative information conveyed by veterans with regards to their experiences. After seven years of fighting, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, US veterans were finally gifted the opportunity to address Congress last Thursday about their experiences. And while they might not represent the totality of all those in uniform, their testimonies should not be overlooked nor marginalized…

“Antiwar veterans of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan took their case to Capitol Hill Thursday, baring their souls with stories of killings of innocent civilians, torture, and wrongful detentions.

“On several occasions our convoys came upon bodies that had been lying on the road, sometimes for weeks,” said Marine Corps veteran Vincent Emanuele, who served in al-Qaim near the Syrian border in 2004 and 2005.

“When encountering these bodies standard procedure was to run over the corpses, sometimes even stopping and taking pictures, which was also standard practice when encountering the dead in Iraq,” he told the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which organized the hearing.

Emanuele also said that U.S. military personnel often took “pot shots” at cars passing by.

“Our rules of engagement stated that we should first fire warning shots into the ground in front of the car, then the engine block, and the windshield. That is if the car was even moving in the first place,” he said. “Many times cars that actually had pulled off to the side of the road were also shot at.”

Thursday’s hearing was an outgrowth of an event in Maryland earlier this year called “Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan - Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations.” For four days in March, dozens of veterans of the two wars testified about atrocities they personally committed or witnessed while deployed overseas.

At the time, many of the veterans expressed a desire to take their case to Capitol Hill. Thursday they got their wish.

Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, addressed a panel of veterans at the start of the hearing.

“We now have an opportunity to hear not from the military’s top brass but directly from you,” she said, “the very soldiers who put your lives on the line to carry out this president’s failed policies.”

Nine veterans of the Iraq war told their stories before members of Congress and a packed gallery. One of the veterans had also served in Afghanistan. About 40 veterans were in the audience.

The veterans spoke about extremely lax rules of engagement handed down by commanding officers, which they said virtually guaranteed atrocities would be committed, and which in turn created a violent backlash among Iraqi people and a continued cycle of violence.

Former U.S. Army Capt. Luis Carlos Montalvan served directly under Gen. David Petraeus in 2005 and 2006.

“We have beaten our drum to try to raise the issue of the dereliction of duty committed by a number of generals who have been promoted and promoted again and continue to perpetuate the lies [that] paint a rosy picture of the situation in Iraq,” he said.

Montalvan said he personally witnessed U.S. military personnel carrying out waterboarding, the mock-drowning interrogation technique that has long been considered torture by U.S. courts.

Former Srgt. Adam Kokesh presented a picture of himself standing, smiling, in front of a dead Iraqi civilian that another marine had shot.

“This is a picture that I’m very ashamed of, having posed with this dead Iraqi as a trophy picture,” he said. “But what felt awkward to me at the time was not so much that I was taking the picture, but the fact that I had not killed this man and I was taking a trophy from somebody else’s kill.”

Kokesh said the person in the trophy photo was an innocent civilian whose car was accidentally “lit up” by marines.

Kokesh referenced similar photos that surfaced during and after the Vietnam war — some of which were presented at a “Winter Soldier” gathering organized by Vietnam veterans 37 years ago.

“At the first Winter Soldier investigation in 1971, one of the Vietnam veterans held up a similar photograph and said ‘Don’t ever let your government do this to you. Don’t ever let your government put you in a position where this attitude towards death and disregard for human life is acceptable or common.’ And we are still doing this to service members every day as long as these occupations continue,” he added.

Kokesh said his Marine Corps Civil Affairs team, including a major, was present when the trophy photo was taken. Numerous other marines also snapped their picture with the corpse, he said.

Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War hope this week’s hearing will spark an investigation by a full Congressional committee and speed the end of the wars.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) praised the veterans who spoke Thursday. “I want to thank you for having more courage than many members of Congress have — for coming here in defiance of what you have been instructed and taught to do,” she said. “They attempted to tell you that you should be satisfied by everything that you saw and everything that you did and everything you witnessed, but you’re not. I praise and honor you for that.”

The veterans’ testimony, however, may be overshadowed by an unrelated legislative maneuver that occurred just steps away from their hearing room Thursday: the House of Representatives defeated a $162.5 billion proposal to continue funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Today is my mother’s 65th birthday. It’s difficult to put into words the role that my mother has played in my life, but it’s safe to say that without her I wouldn’t be writing this right now, you wouldn’t have ever read it, I would have never played or recorded a single note of music, penned a single story, or drawn a single picture. Both of my parents have always been enormously supportive of me throughout my life, and for that I will always be eternally grateful. It’s something that has profoundly affected me, and something that I probably don’t relay my appreciation for anywhere near enough as I should.

If there is one quality that my mother possesses that truly shines it’s her all encompassing investment in everything that she does. There is no half way with her. She will go to the ends of the earth to believe the best of others and act on their behalf until she is presented overwhelming evidence that her actions are being taken advantage of – and even then she seldom refrains. In the darkest hours that our family has seen she has ceaselessly toiled, working numerous jobs at points, to ensure stability, and through it all has somehow been able to retain her glowing sense of humour and overwhelmingly affable character when others would have folded like a lawn chair. Like her mother before her, she daily revels in the joys of her grandchildren, and is a paramount part of their lives, just as her mother was a paramount part of mine.

In truth, much of what I am is hers on loan. I am, in many ways, her instrument, her canvas, her pen and paper. Without her I would never have become the man that I am, nor would I possess the talents that I have been able to enjoy and share with so many others. If my father is the author of my passion for the world, my mother is the author of my passion for believing that it is a place never lost and always worth fighting for.

Happy birthday Mom.

Over the last several years my family has become quite disenfranchised with Christmas. Last year we talked openly about it, how it seemed empty and self indulgent, which led to my mother and sister-in-law formulating a few ideas with regards to this year. The plan they’ve come up with is so good that I wanted to share it with everyone in hopes of maybe starting a minor trend.

Rather than buying gifts, everyone in the family is going to contribute what would have been spent on them into financing a care package for a family in need. Second, prior to Christmas day, we’re going to volunteer to serve dinner at a homeless shelter or at an outreach program in the community.

As my mother put it on the telephone this morning, our family gets by and that’s more than enough to celebrate. I agree with her completely. I have no time for the consumer frenzy of Christmas or its historically inaccurate religious significance. As a man that believes that the problems of this world must be solved by those that live in it rather than those that believe it is little more than a giant waiting room for the afterlife, it is a holiday that impassions a spirit that, in truth, should be ever present in our daily lives. That at our most fundamental level we are all the same, that we are only as strong as our weakest link, and that no amount of gifts or religious devotion can alter the fact our most basic commonalities supercede the fears and divisions that plague us. That, in the end, we are all members of a single family.

Today is my father’s 70th birthday. He was born on this day in 1937 at an army hospital in Pune, India. Speaking this morning he confided in me that he used to ponder how bizarre it would be to reach this milestone, and that when it happened his eldest son would be approaching 40.

From my father came my love for history, so if anyone is to really be thanked for my daily dedication to the content of this website, it’s him. Had it not been for him, and the extensive library of books that filled our old basement, I would have never been exposed to it, and would have never become the person that I am today.

Happy birthday dad.