Aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan as backdrop to Arlington West

[Hekate]

http://news.newspress.com/topsports/082205carrier.htm

There is a great photo with the original Arlington West memorial on the beach Sunday (as always) with the unbelievably huge RR aircraft carrier offshore. You can see it at the link -- I don't know how to post the pic. :( I'd be grateful if someone smarter than I would do so.

Hekate


(quote) With memorials to service personnel killed in Iraq looming in the foreground, the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan sits off Santa Barbara Harbor on Sunday afternoon. After a port stop that began Friday, the vessel, named for the 40th president, who used Santa Barbara as the Western White House, was scheduled to leave this morning on its first deployment. During its Navy League-sponsored stay, people lined the waterfront and crowded Stearns Wharf to take in the sight of the 20-story-tall aircraft carrier. (end quote)

[wli]

1. I guess this serves as a pyramid to Reagan

It's a truly horrific legacy even so.

Armed conflict, no matter how righteous or noble the cause, should always be recognized for the horror it is. It's a testament to the misguidedness and horror of the Bush Sr. / Reagan regime that the monument they choose to commemorate themselves is a weapon.

More proper nomenclature for warships would be naming them for martyrs who died in the service of truly noble causes, such as defeating Nazi Germany in WWII. The soldiers themselves, who served on the ground and died for truly noble causes, are far more appropriate names for such than glorifying warmongers and war profiteers who advanced wars for oil and economic preeminence.

[Hekate]

2. Earlier: "Carrier and crosses: dueling symbols for a nation divided"

http://news.newspress.com/topsports/081905duelingsymbols.htm

There was some controversy about the carrier's presence, including some jingoistic chest-thumping, that was reported in the same paper. The article "Carrier and crosses" was a fine and thoughtful piece that deserves wider distribution.

Hekate

COMMENTARY -- Carrier and crosses:
Dueling symbols for a nation divided

8/19/05
By TOM JACOBS
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

Throughout the history of warfare, countless battles have taken
place on the world's beaches. So it is grimly appropriate that
our own shoreline will soon be the site of a symbolic standoff
on the subject of sacrifice.

Beginning today, the USS Ronald Reagan, a massive,
state-of-the-art aircraft carrier, will be anchored just off the
Santa Barbara coast. On Sunday, the final day of its visit, the
makeshift memorial known as Arlington West will once again
grace the beach near Stearns Wharf.

As they have every Sunday for nearly two years, members of
Santa Barbara Veterans for Peace will place a cross or other
marker in the sand for every American soldier who has died in
Iraq. That number has grown from 400 in November 2003 to
1,853 last weekend.

The gargantuan warship and the football field-size memorial
both carry powerful symbolic weight. In yet another sign of
our great cultural divide, they resonate quite differently
depending on the individual viewer's ideology.
(more at link)

[Hekate]

3. one small kick for the day-crew

just in case
won't do another one