Courage Campaign Continued

On Tuesday, a military board told Lt. Dan Choi -- an Iraq War veteran and Arabic linguist -- that it was recommending his discharge from the Army for "moral and professional dereliction" under the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. As this is the current regulation in the military, the outcome was not unexpected. The next step is to change the regulation, which has to be done through Congress.

Despite this setback, Lt. Choi is not giving up. Dan is taking his fight to repeal the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy to Congress.

I just signed the letter below to Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Lt. Choi is going to personally deliver to her. The letter is being launched on Lt. Choi's behalf by the Courage Campaign, Knights Out and the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

Speaker Pelosi needs to take leadership now and speak out publicly in favor of current legislation in Congress that would repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

To join me in signing Lt. Choi's letter, just click on the link below to add your name:

Repeal DADT

Books on Roman Empire (Fiction)

Finished reading Pompeii by Robert Harris in the past week. A most excellent read -- history, adventure, mystery, Roman plumbing and aquaducts and even Pliny the Elder -- what more could one want?

Seriously, Harris writes well, and the historical detail is amazing. One of the things that impressed me about that was not simply that these details were included but that he did a fine job of working them in as a natural part of the story, describing activities, the countryside, politics (without being onerous about it), the everyday life things that go on, people's status, etc. And of course you know from the get-go that Vesuvius is going to blow in 4 days, but what happens in the time leading up to it is a fantastic read.

Our primary protagonist is Marcus Attilius, the aquarius (person in charge of the aquaduct, in Misenum in this case). He's been sent from Rome to replace the previous aquarius, who has mysteriously disappeared. There are mysteries to solve, both natural and man made; is Marcus Attilius up to the task?


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We're now reading SPQR I: The King's Gambit, by John Maddox Roberts, courtesy of loosecanon, who passed on a few books from this fellow for us to try out. Quite different style of writing, but Roberts is also good at including many details of Roman life. This is a mystery, and I'm assuming at this point that the others in the series are also mysteries.

Our protagonist is a junior administrator in Rome, Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger. He's in charge of one of the districts in Rome, overseeing legal issues, including dealing with crimes. There is a murder in his district, then two, which seem to be connected, as well as a warehouse burning down. High-powered politicians don't want to appear to be stopping the investigation and yet they're making it difficult for the murders to be solved. And then there seems that there is more than one interested party, and that these parties may agree in some things but not in others.... We're only about a third of the way through so no worries about me giving away the ending on this one :D

Decius is telling this story to the reader as something that happened when he was younger -- handy for fitting in a few bits of history that can help to place some things in better context. He definitely has opinions, which he expresses pretty well even when he doesn't realize it. We've been finding some of his ways of expressing his thoughts to be pretty funny too.

At one point he is explaining briefly about the infighting (during the time that the story takes place) as being primarily between two parties: "the Optimates, who thought themselves the best of me, an aristocratic oligarchy; and the Populares, who claimed to be a party of the common man." And of course they're led by typical politicians of the time, although it's never quite that simple... but he goes on to say "With leaders like these, the fact that Rome was not easily destroyed by foreign enemies must prove that we enjoy the unique favor of the gods."

When he and his guide (a rather strong and capable fellow) are on their way to the docks to take a boat to Ostia (the guide is familiar with Ostia and Decius is not), they're waylaid by a political wannabe and his thugs. Our hero is told to get the investigation overwith and file his reports as inconclusive and lying about the various murders (3 at this point). Verbal threats are followed up with physical ones, but Decius' guide, Titus Annius Milo, takes care of the thugs.

He pointed to Publius, who stood trembling with frustrated rage. "This one, too?"

"No, he's a patrician. You can kill them, but they don't take humiliation well."

I'm not sure if others will find this as funny as we did, without having been reading quite a bit before, but as we'd quite gotten into Decius' head and way of thinking, L and I laughed quite a bit at that point. I'm definitely looking forward to reading the rest of it, and the next books as well. My thanks to loosecanon for sending them on to us!