O' the day - 5.31.07

Just when I think the lawsuits can't get any crazier -- the ACLU is now bringing suit against a company that sets itineraries, determines routes, and contracts plans for, among other clients, the CIA. According to the ACLU, the CIA is flying supposed terrorists to secret locations across the world for purposes of torture. Thus, of course it naturally follows that the company to sue is the one that schedules flights, right? Perhaps I'm too far right on the anti-conspiracy theory spectrum, but I don't necessarily think the CIA is announcing their secret torture plans to anyone and everyone they come into contact with; I understand that a company has some liability to find out what it's involved in, but I think this may be assuming passed information that just wasn't given out. The ACLU in theory is a group I could stand behind; in practice, though, it seems their money and influence is spent largely on issues that are not for the good of the public majority, but rather on items that will create large headlines.

O' the day - 5.25.07

I'm still not sure what to feel about the general Iraqi population -- NPR is constantly running stories about the "real" people of Iraq and the effect this war is having on their lives, mostly designed to drum up sympathy for anti-war movement, I believe, but touching nonetheless. I've been struck by several of the comments, though, especially one I heard this morning. A gentleman about my age, with a wife and young son, was speaking about how Iraq had been a horrendous place to live for 35 years, but that he yet did not want to move away. His family are prisoners in their home nearly full-time, but he said that it was still his country, and he couldn't bear to leave it. While I completely understand national pride, I understand taking care of one's family even more fully, and I don't know that I could subject my children to random explosions, daily fear, and death around the corner, just for the fact that this was the country I was born into. Warring with patriotism is the need to protect, and perhaps it's simply because I've been a mother for years, but I know, for me, which one I would choose.

O' the day - 5.23.07

You know, my mother was right. (And I'm happy to be of the age to finally admit that.) What goes into your brain is what determines your outlook on life -- listen to music equating women to dogs and you tend toward the misogynistic; surround yourself with negative thoughts and your view on the world won't be quite positive. I'm attempting to inundate my life with good, happy thoughts and views; I want the aura around me to be not the black of complaints and excuses, but the yellow of life and happiness and energy.

O' the day - 5.18.07

(Happy birthday tomorrow, second child o' mine!)

I'm a bit confused. I'm listening to virtually back-to-back stories about Darfur and Iraq; the former laments that fact that the U.S. is sitting back cooling its heels, not rushing in to save the region from genocide, while the latter condemns the U.S. for its involvement in rescuing a second region from -- among other things -- genocide. What makes the African nation more deserving of salvation than the Middle Eastern one? Or is it that the cause is seen as more noble -- Sudan doesn't have the riches of oil that Iraq does, so taking over the former government wouldn't be done for profit, while the latter can be seen as a ploy to control the oil fields and thus benefit ourselves?

O' the day - 5.16.07

This may be a rehash of a previous post, but so be it -- the nightly news often doesn't contain what I would consider "news," but only a retelling of the same stories as brought to you earlier that week or month or year.

The current spotlight on immigration laws, and the subsequent changing of the same, is an issue on which I still haven't quite made up my mind. While new blood is what made America such a diverse and multicultural place to live, and I wouldn't change that, the idea that sudden amnesty for illegals should be granted doesn't sit quite well with me. If a group of confirmed (but not yet arrested) pedophiles marched in Washington, would the police sit by and watch? Demanding forgiveness, and better yet, the rights of citizenship, for breaking the law doesn't seem to be something illegals have earned. I know they perform jobs that Americans don't want to do (or don't want to do for the salary paid), but wherefore springs the right to demand anything of a country that was entered under false and law-breaking pretenses?

O' the day - 5.15.07

Woke up this morning with the most incredible line in my head -- part of a dream I was rudely awakened from by the necessity of actually going to work. It made me wish, for the thousandth time, that I wrote fiction -- I could actually use these bits and pieces for something beyond yearning toward a method I don't have the talent for. Oh, I've tried to write fiction through the years -- have tried it over and over again, with no better results the last time than the first. I have come to realize over time that my talents lie not in creating a world that one can dream about, but in commenting on the world that we actually live within, whether of the beauty or the ghastliness in what we call "real life."

(By the way, in case you're wondering -- the line was "we were about to attend the barbecue of society" -- if it doesn't sound that awe-inspiring to you, you just weren't in my dream.)

O' the day - 5.9.07

It makes me pretty darn sick to hear about a disaster/accident/major mishap subverted to political purposes, especially while the hurt and shock is still very new. We saw this happen in the aftermath of Katrina, with the government blamed for everything including the rain itself, and we'll continue to see the blame game being played out in the future, I think -- as long as it still sells, the fingers will be pointed for years to come. Now we're seeing it in the wake of the recent Kansas tornado, which destroyed virtually an entire city: one of the first comments the mayor made about the rescue efforts was that if we weren't at war in Iraq, the city would have more resources (i.e., equipment and people). While that may indeed be true, one might think that her first statements would be about the heroism and bravery of the survivors, or sorrow for the lives lost, or something equally noble and appropriate. Instead, the devastation is turned into a comment about the current presidency and the decisions made in another country.

O' the day - 5.3.07

Was thinking about the Chinese culture lately; heard a story about a former Chinese policeman this morning. He is a former policeman due to being fired for publishing an internet essay deemed "subversive" by the powers that be. True, what he had written was a criticism about the current police practices; however, if practices truly are as he portrays them, the sheer violation of human rights should disturb even the Chinese. From what I understand, only the Chinese government would consider what he had written to be actually dangerous to society; to the casual reader, it would merely be a statement about one's chosen profession, with nothing particularly dissident in it. The fact that this man counted himself lucky to only have been fired, rather than undergoing some much worse fate, is what I find most sad. I hear and read complaints constantly that Big Brother has come down upon us here in the U.S., that the politicians (on both sides) are taking away our God-given freedoms and rights by the passage of laws that don't sit well with many. The fact is that we have such all-encompassing freedom, to do whatever we like with whatever part of our lives we choose, compared to the Chinese, yet don't appreciate this power as we should. Perhaps we simply don't hold our lives and abilities up to another culture as often as we should; perhaps if we did so on a regular basis, we could be more appreciative of what we have rather than what we don't.