Brady Kiesling

I just learned that the definition of 'oderint dum metuantoderint dum metuant' is "Let them hate so long as they fear." Kinda sounds like it should be our president's motto, eh? I came across this when I searched for Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation, written to Colin Powell in 2003.

I felt sad and very isolated in my opposition to the war, probably primarily because of where I worked.

I grew up in the sixties, eating dinner with my family while watching the news, listening to Walter Cronkhite's nightly death tally. I had an anti-war poster in my closet (which I tried to make into a clubhouse by tacking the poster up and reading with a flashlight - very stark, and not a very original idea). My best friends' mother had the then-ubiquitous "War is bad for children and other living things" poster in her kitchen. My dad spoke at anti-war moratoriums and was bashed by name in the Bakersfield newspaper's letters to the editor, just above the block of print that said the newspaper wouldn't print letters that attacked people by name. (Dad was unpopular with the ultra-conservative Bako denizens, but he had a strong following among his hippie students.) Dad and mom were tired of watching former students go to war and not come home, or not come home functioning very well. They worried more as they watched my older brothers get closer to draft age.

During the seventies, I first started seeing homeless people in Bakersfield, guys who had come home not at all OK, guys who scared us as we went into drugstores. We knew enough despite our fear to be sympathetic. I think in our naivetee we called them 'shellshocked.'

So in 2001 (or 2002), it's time for another war. I felt such an impotent rage, such an incredible, painful frustration knowing that we were being marched inexorably to war, and shifting our focus from Bin Laden to Iraq. I had a couple of vividly violent nightmares, so stopped reading the paper or watching the news. (The latter decision wasn't hard - television news is such crap there's not much point in watching.)

I eventually came across this letter, written by career diplomat Brady Kiesling. I was so moved by it, I posted on my cubicle wall just to give me comfort in a crazy world. Three years later, I found myself discussing politics with my former sister-in-law, her brother and his partner. I mentioned the letter and asked if either of them had read it. It turned out Brady knew Kathy from UC Berkeley, and Kathy was quite impressed when she read his letter shortly after it was published. Small world! salon.com also wrote about it, saying the week the news hit there were 800 Google hits. The article continues, "And just last week on the Senate floor, Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., mentioned Kiesling's "eloquent and heartfelt explanation" for resigning, and wondered how many other U.S. diplomats privately felt the same way. " You can read the salon.com interview with Brady Kiesling here.

I felt less alone. This beautifully written, heartbreaking letter to Colin Powell (who sucked it up with Bush for way too long), shows that there were people of great integrity, who were willing to give up their long diplomatic carreers because they couldn't be jaded enough to try to sell this administration's war. Brady Kiesling's letter made me feel like I lived less alone in a crazy world.

And I felt a renewed bond with Kathy, from whom I learned many of my early feminist views just by listening to her discuss politics (e.g. couldn't eat $100 grand bars because they're made by the company that covinced women in Africa it's better to drink their supplements, then their babies get ill because they don't get their mother's immunities...etc.) and indicate by her speech and bearing that women should be respected for their intelligence, and boy, you couldn't top Kathy's smarts. (I can't mention how attractive she was (and is) because we shouldn't pay attention to looks when we want ourselves to be taken seriously for our minds...)

I'd been out of touch with Kathy for at least fifteen years, and to find out that I'd hung Kiesling's letter in my drab DoD cubicle, and she'd known him in grad school and was equally moved by his letter, written two years before we re-met.

That's my little story. I may regret writing it because I'm feeling tired so it may not read too coherently. Too bad.

I am not computer literate

In a ridiculous attempt to hide my userid, since it revealed my name and I realized I can't get snarky about work, I jumped through hoops creating a new userid that is only funny to my brother and me (well, so what?), and making me (and my ridiculously long email address) co-author of my blog, *then* deleting the old me, etc. What a mess. All this effort because I want to try blogging.


And what really honks me off is that I deleted the post I wrote this morning. Of course I waxed clever.


I sang the praises of Gene Weingarten's blog. It's strange that his humor column isn't very funny to me, but his blog is great. Yesterday's blog contained a long email exchange between a goverment employee (who for that reason chose to remain anonymous) and a Nigerian scammer. The whole 'government has no sense of humor' thing got me to thinking about what I can't say openly on my blog, so...now I sprung from Zeus, fully formed and mid-blog.


My favorite part of yesterday's blog (which I did not read on the government's time) was the lively discussion about whether the bikini was yellow ("itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini") or the polka dots were yellow. I assumed the former. From the blog, I learned this was "an issue of "adjectival scope," i.e., the adjective "yellow" can have scope over "polka dot," together making an adjective phrase that modifies bikini (that's the one with the yellow dots), or it can have scope over "polka dot bikini"(the suit is yellow, with any color dots. maybe even a different shade of yellow dots!)." Cool. Unfortunately, it's an argument for more commas, which I loathe.


I just learned of entrenched sexism in a group of employees at work. I had no clue. They blow off their (female) administrative staff, and joke about having to take the women seriously or they'll make work life miserable, etc. And yet today's young women are reluctant to call themselves feminists. I just don't get that. First, we should all stick up for any underdogs. Isn't that part of being a decent human? Isn't that what Jesus wanted, if anyone is truly interested in living his/her life following Jesus' principles? Second, do we just have amnesia or are we flat out stupid? (My mom's favorite Gore Vidal phrase is the United States of Amnesia.) I'm figuring out what I can do. I wasn't directly told, so my options are limited and probably useless, but I can't do nothing.


(On the 'what would jesus do' subject, I stole an idea from my brilliant friend and Don Quixote scholar, Kathleen, and had bracelets made for us with this engraving: "WWDQD." I love it.)