Chainlink Fence Inserts

The hardest part is accepting they can't fix Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN

Lt. Cmdr. Tom Shu steps through the trauma department doors and looks up at the clear night sky.

“The dust has settled down,” he says, referring to the sandstorm that passed through the day before. “It’s actually nice out.”

A flight and critical care nurse, Shu is 15 hours into a 36-hour shift. It’s a little after 9 p.m.

He turns to the jagged mountains in the distance and walks a few hundred yards, past two idle military ambulances to an opening in a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Just on the other side, a rusty stool and a few metal folding chairs are lined up amid the scrub brush.

Shu sits down. In front of him is the flight line – the massive runway where all the military aircraft with business in Kandahar come and go, including those that deliver and pick up the hospital’s patients. The mountains are black against the dark blue sky. The lights twinkling on the runway are a mix of yellow, red and green.

“Some of us come out here sometimes to get away,” Shu says. “Just to talk or clear your head or whatever.”

He’s been here since February. He’s 39. He enlisted in the Navy 20 years ago and started out as a ship navigator. Everything changed when he attended an emergency medical technician course at Tidewater Community College while stationed in Norfolk. He finished his four years and went to nursing school. Now he’s a reservist.

“That C-17 is about to take off,” he says, pointing. “Those are the ones that take the patients to Germany.”

As the hulking cargo jet lifts off, the roar of the engines swells.

Then it’s quiet again. So is Shu.

A minute or so passes. Then he says, “You know, I stopped telling people back home about this place.” He means the hospital. “Because you just can’t explain it. There’s really no way.”

He falls quiet again.

A little while later he says he hasn’t decided what he’ll do when he gets back to the States. Maybe something in the private sector, or maybe another Navy assignment. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to work in a regular hospital again.

“Too many people complaining about things that don’t matter – office politics, personality conflicts.”

He pauses.

City to Homeowner: Don't Remove Your Chain Link Fence, or Else ...

To most eyes, a chain-link fence in the front yard does not scream curb appeal. Simple — but not what you'd call "elegantly simple" — it's what a set decorator might prescribe when he wants to conjure up mean streets. A white picket fence it ain't.

Which is why some homeowners in Old Town Alexandria were surprised to learn recently that their chain-link fences were historic and that removing them could put them in hot water with the city's historic preservation office. [...]

As the historic preservation staff wrote in its recommendation: "While many feel that [chain-link] fences have negative connotations, this material has played an important role in the development of mid-century vernacular housing and their cultural landscape.... By eradicating this 'simple fencing solution,' the applicant would be removing an important contextual clue to the original occupants of this neighborhood."

So odds are, he doesn't even live in the city, let alone the neighborhood. When I worked as a temp for the city a few years ago, there was a mild brouhaha over the fact that only 30% (or something like that) of city employees were Alexandria residents. Ah, stupidity. May you never stop manifesting.

But seriously, forget illegal immigration, how do we control those dirty Fairfaxians?

This reminds me of the idiots in Pittsburgh who cry over any long abandoned, vermin invested, circa 1900 row house turned crack house that gets demolished by the city because they are "historically significant". Of course, they can't ever find the money to buy it from the city for like $10,000, but they just know that it is too valuable to destroy.

Doug Jemal, a DC developer, bought 2 houses next to a lot he owns, that he intended to tear down and build low-income housing on. The city objected, saying that they were in a historic district and refused the tear-down.

So, Jemal basically told DC to suck it. The lot remains empty and the houses are slowly rotting away. They actually smell at this point.

This silliness speaks for itself:

"While many feel that [chain-link] fences have negative connotations, this material has played an important role in the development of mid-century vernacular housing and their cultural landscape.... By eradicating this 'simple fencing solution,' the applicant would be removing an important contextual clue to the original occupants of this neighborhood."

Translation - we don't know what the fuck we are talking about, but we have been given legal authority, and damn it, we are going to use it!

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