In “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”, Just a Bump in the Beltway brings to our attention the outlandish number of wounded American soldiers in Iraq, an issue that the Pentagon is doing everything in its power to keep from the front pages.

If you really want to feel sick, listen to this report from NPR:

Wounded Soldiers in Iraq Lead to Thousands of Evacuations

In this piece, which aired in September, Daniel Zwerdling of NPR reports on the exact definition of “wounded in action.” Lt. Col. Donald Cole has been keeping track of the number of soldiers medivac-ed out of Iraq. That number was 20,245 on SEPTEMBER 30! We can only guess what it is now.

You really must listen to this NPR broadcast…”wounded in action” is a narrowly defined term that the military uses to minimize the numbers of injured soldiers reported back home. You’ll be surprised to hear about some of the injuries that “have nothing to do with the war.” The report describes a soldier hurt in a car accident that occured while he was on a mission in Iraq. But because it wasn’t a combat mission, his injury is not reported as “wounded in action.” The soldier will be lucky to walk again without a cane. The official report on his injury merely says that he was “injured in a traffic accident.”

Instead of hearing about the number of soldiers “wounded in action,” we need to hear about the number of soldiers “wounded while serving in Iraq.”

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Thanks very much for visiting my site. I regret to say that because of various pressures, I’m going to have to stop writing for it, though I will leave the material here for “posterity” (or until my claim on the domain name runs out next year, whichever comes first). A good blog requires a lot of time, and I just don’t have the time to do it well.

I came to blogging late; as I began to explore this world over the past few weeks, I was shocked by the quality and variety of the work out there, and I wondered how I could have remained ignorant for so long. There are many bloggers doing excellent work, and they do it better than I could.

If you haven’t yet started reading blogs, I urge you to start. As the reports from major media outlets become more and more homogenous in this age of spin (read this article if you think that the New York Times hasn’t fallen victim to this), getting your information from a diversity of sources is more important than ever. But there is far more to blogs than politics. Whatever your interest or point of view, you are sure to find someone similar out there documenting their experiences in an unfiltered format.

There are easy ways to keep track of blogs. You can visit a site like bloglines, which will let you set up feeds from various blogs and news outlets. The beauty of this is that you can tailor your news to your interests–if, say, you like food, you could set up a feed from the NYT’s Dining section, as well as to various other food sites like Chowhound (well, actually, Chowhound doesn’t offer a feed, but I just had to mention it). After you have set up a free account on bloglines and subscribed to sites you’re interested in, bloglines will show you when new articles have been posted on those sites.

You can also set up a portal page for yourself on my.yahoo.com, and subscribe to different feeds (the various sections of most major newspapers now provide such feeds). my.yahoo.com will show you the five latest articles/blogs posted on those sites.

A third option is to download the Mozilla Firefox browser, which I heartily recommend given all of the security holes that have been found in Internet Explorer. (while I’m on the subject, everyone knows that they should be using a firewall if they have a dsl or cable connection, right? Zonealarm has a free one that I use. You should also run Ad-Aware and Spybot (both free) on your computer routinely in order to avoid spyware and adware.). Anyway, Firefox has an extension called “Live Bookmarks” that will keep you abreast of things in this world of ones and zeroes.

Before I go, I want to recommend a few specific blogs that have won me over, and that I think deserve your attention:

James Wolcott is the most consistently witty and entertaining blogger I have found.

I’m a lifetime fan of The Gadflyer after reading it only once. I hope that the leadership of the Democratic Party starts paying attention.

The Daily Kos is a great resource for those interested in political news.

So, that’s it, at least for now. Thanks for reading.

Matt

UPDATE: Reports of the death of this blog proved to be exaggerated

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In an article for the NY Times, Many Who Voted for ‘Values’ Still Like Their Television Sin, Bill Carter writes that there is a contradiction between the “moral values” mandate of the 2004 election and the risque programs Americans like to watch on television:

Of course, the contradiction disappears completely if you consider the moral-values mandate to be but “a single ambiguous phrase coined by an anonymous exit pollster,” as Frank Rich has written. Rich points out that only twenty-two percent of the voters surveyed said that “moral values” was the most important issue for them in the election–hardly a mandate. It’s simply what the press has chosen to write about.

Bush seems to be a proponent of free-market philosophies–he consistently says that it is the market, rather than politicians in Washington, that should be determining fiscal policy. In this case, one would have to say that market forces have spoken loudly and clearly:

It’s the boobs, stupid.

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a few great blogs from the gadflyer, a site I visited for the first time today:

first, comments on Tom Shales’ shellacking of Michael Powell in the Washington Post. Here’s an excerpt:

The second article is from Paul Waldman, who writes about the battle between the GOP and the Democrats for the hearts and minds of American voters. Waldman nails something that I’ve been trying to write about in this blog: that the Democrats need to learn to fight the public relations battle before they do anything else. Here’s the good stuff:

Amen.

Finally, Paul Waldman points us to Christopher Hayes’ New Republic article, Lessons Learned About Undecided Voters. Take a look at Waldman’s summary for a few snippets from the article. Here is one interesting quote from Hayes, who spent the last seven weeks of the election working in Wisconsin, trying to convince undecided voters to vote for Kerry:

Hayes also has a good bit on how, in the mind of the undecided voter, Kerry somehow took the blame for some of Bush’s mistakes, while Bush was let off scott-free by many voters.

I do have to say that Hayes’ observations ring very true with my canvassing experiences.

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Yeah, Harry Reid sounds much better than Daschle:

So let me get this straight: the GOP is running roughshod over the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the Kyoto Treaty, and Congress’ own rules, and the top dem’s reaction is “can’t we all just get along?”

perfecto.

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More Ohio voter suppression testimony prompts upcoming legal filing for statewide recount

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From the department of questionable writing advice:

Sing to me of the man, Creativity Demon, the man of twists and turns…

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I must be one of the few people in blue America who thinks that the Democrats don’t need a radical change in strategy to win the next presidential election. (”Go on,” I hear Karl Rove sneering in my ear, “keep thinking that.”)

There is no way around the fact that the 2004 election was horrible for the left side of the aisle. Many of us are still reeling and wondering what went wrong, and how to fix things next time around.

But some of the solutions I’ve heard sound worse than problem. To listen to Democrats talk these days, you’d think that they’re planning to nominate Billy Graham next time around. I have no doubt they would do it if they could.

It seems to me that many people are making the mistake of thinking that Bush voters formed an indomitable, solid block of like-minded people. Pundits talk and write about Bush voters as if there were no swing voters among them, as if there weren’t people who held their noses as they voted for him.

It’s already clear that the next four years are going to sharpen some already divisive issues. Republicans are pressing full-steam ahead on the abortion issue (“Negotiators Add Abortion Clause to Spending Bill” NYT). Every day brings more news of the disaster in Iraq. The dollar is falling (which is hurting the Euro, to the delight of the Bush administration), and our economy continues to go down the tubes.

But none of this is new news. If voters were willing to support Bush despite the lies about Iraq, despite the deaths in Iraq, despite the deficit, despite Abu Ghraib, despite it all, it’s clear that, as many pundits have commented lately, there is a serious disconnect between voters and reality in this country.

Trying to help voters see reality through the propaganda machine is not necessarily the best way to win an election, though the media climate today often demands it as a political strategy.

But that was John Kerry’s strategy. And he was very good at it. In the debates, he very clearly laid out the reasons why the Bush Administration has been bad for America. He was articulate, he was forceful, and he was smart.

But it wasn’t enough.

And it will continue to not be enough until Democrats learn that the single most important quality necessary to a modern Presidential candidate is likablity. Although it seems absurd, many Americans choose their candidate based on issues of likabilty. They may not cite that as the reason for their vote, but it’s there, and it’s there in a big way. The last two Democratic Presidential candidates, Gore and Kerry, had serious likability issues. The next one can’t afford to (that means you, Hillary).

What unites the last two two-term presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, is a gut-level connection to people. When they talk, people see them as genuine. They like them. They would feel comfortable sitting next to them in a bar. If a Democratic candiate is going to win a presidential election, he or she will have to pass that kind of bar-stool test.

And that is why The Tattered Coat is proud to present, four years in advance, its endorsement for the 2008 Presidential Election.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania.

Of all the politicians I have seen, Rendell comes closest to the Clinton/Bush model. He has the gut connection that Democrats have been missing–the smile that doesn’t look forced, the “real guy” air; and what’s more, he’s from a swing state. You listen to him, and you get the sense that he has thrown back a few in his time. Granted, he’s not from the South or West, as the next Democratic candidate might have to be. But he passes the bar-stool test, and that may be the most important one.

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Two interesting things in my mailbox today. One, a letter from John Kerry to his supporters. It contains this tidbit:

That was followed by a ten-day old, but still eye-opening article from The Moderate Independent which makes the case that Kerry has not given up the fight for the election. This despite the fact that we have yet to see evidence that Kerry has lifted a finger in the recount effort. Still, if you haven’t seen it, you may find some hope in it (only to have that hope cruelly crushed in January, I’m sure). Here’s an excerpt:

I’m not sure what to make of this. The author, Betsy R. Vasquez, verges on fan fiction as she portrays Kerry as a mensa-level super-sleuth who has lulled GOP leaders to sleep in order to mastermind their undoing. While Vasquez has a good point about the timing of the Fallujah incursion, her article just seems too good to be true. But we can all dream, can’t we?

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An interesting nugget from “Negotiators Add Abortion Clause to Spending Bill”:

Since the election, I’ve been wondering what kinds of wedge issues the Democrats could use in the way that the GOP used the gay-marriage issue. This one seems very promising to me. Make them take a stand.

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