Then secede! Good riddance!

Yesterday I missed this gibberish by Senator Saxby Chambliss:

“We need better intelligence. If we had better intelligence in the Civil War we’d be quoting Jefferson Davis, not Lincoln.”

If southerners like Chambliss hate America so much, they should leave it.

You can't spell America without "me" and "I" (3)

I've had difficulty sleeping for the past few days, rendering me extremely tired in the mornings, but this morning, fatigue got the best of me. As I was walking out the door to the steps to the sidewalk, I tripped, tumbling down three concrete stairs to the sidewalk below it. Now, if you've ever bit it while walking down a sidewalk, you know it can sting hitting the ground - sometimes people even break bones doing that - but when you tumble down three concrete stairs, well, it really hurts. (I'm not a clutz. (Proof: Most saves #2) A lack of sleep and a preoccupation with what's on my mind happened to get the best of me at that moment.) I laid on my back dazed for awhile, as I had hit my head.

I thought I had broken my wrist initially, but luckily I did not, although I wouldn't be surprised if a bone in my hand has a small fracture. I also landed directly on my left knee and twisted in such a way that I pulled something in my back and scraped my hip and right shin. Yeah, I fell that hard.

A woman who had just walked past my house looked behind her to see what had happened and then just kept walking. Truth is, I could have used some help at that point, but she just kept right on going. I nearly called out something to her but couldn't get my mouth to say anything. Now I say "damn you, selfish bitch" to her in my head. It was one of the rudest direct actions (or inactions) towards me I have ever encountered. I needed help getting to my feet, I really did. It took quite awhile for me to stand up.

I limped to the corner to catch a bus, only my head started to do strange things. I guess I was blacking out, but I fought it. I stood on that corner unable to see anything for at least thirty seconds, maybe a minute, and with my head still foggy, I crossed the street and caught the bus. (Unfortunately, I caught the dreadlocked driver who smells like pot, and the bus ride was characterized by slamming on brakes and honking the horn far too often. Every bump and every sudden stop made my body ache worse.)

That was an hour and a half ago, but I still feel like I could black out. I also still can't believe that woman just kept on walking.

A clarification

The years are rolling by for me, too quickly to keep up, really. I feel like I'm in one of those booths with money flying around, only instead of money, I'm grasping at time itself. I try to live each moment, because you know, we only get a handful of moments in our brief existence on this dizzying planet. But you can't live each moment; mankind has chosen a rather wretched way of existing with its rigid system of schooling during the years of innocence, the indentured servitude of working during the prime years of life, and leaving only the decaying years of agedness to be relatively free.

I see why the world is falling toward religion. The dearth of spirituality on our planet is rather maddening as most people embark upon their senseless material quests. I understand what they seek. We all need to give some sort of meaning to our existence, don't we? We need to know why we have to go through all of this - it's the curse of reason, no matter how unreasonable religion can seem.

I don't hate religion, as I have been accused; on the contrary, I find it a necssary part of any functional society, as countless others before me have well explained, including our country's Deist founders. It is how people use religion that I have a problem with. Religion is a very personal and intimate thing - it is a person's soul we are talking about here - the essence of individual being. While fundies go around throwing hysterical fits every time they see too much skin, the true pornography is the gross abuse of religion we see on a quotidien basis on our pathetic little planet, and not one religion is excluded from this abuse.

The latest example of abuse of religion is political activity of churches. Fortunately, the IRS, normally a bastion for intrusion on individuals, is finally making itself useful and is investigating these cheaters. You want to play politics, religious right? PAY YOUR TAXES.

People who try to force their religion on others are committing spiritual rape.

Maybe there is a candidate...

“I know what it’s like to be on the ground. I know what it’s like to fight a war like this, and either — there are limits to what the military can do. Eventually, this is going to have to move into a diplomatic environment, and that’s where this administration seems to have blinders. They are not talking to Syria, they are not talking to Iran, and there are ways that we can do this, move this forward.”

George "Macaca" Allen has a real challenger, and the Dems have hope in a state that was supposed to be safely gop. Read the Times article.

Help for who? The speechwriters?

The elevators in the building where I work have some words that light up when you press the call button. These words? "Help is on the way." I can't help but recall that disasterous slogan of the Democrats during the 2004 presidential campaign. I see John Edwards shaking his fist and saying in that drawal of his, "Hope is on the way."

I hope whoever came up with that slogan is not working in politics anymore.

Rumor mill

From Politics1:

OBAMA TRIP TO IOWA INCREASES WHISPERS ABOUT '08 RUN.

Freshman US Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) was stumping in Iowa this weekend, with US Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) by his side. The ostensible purpose of the trip: promote Iowa Democratic candidates in the 2006 elections. First elected to the Senate just two years ago, the charismatic Obama previously discounted any interest in seeking the White House in 2008. His comments this weekend opened the door. "My only attentions right now are focused on '06. Whoever is looking toward 2008 without focusing on 2006 makes a mistake," said Obama, without disclaiming any interest in 2008.

Well, now, maybe that is something to get excited about.

An autumn thought...

It's the light that gets me - the fading light and the drowning colors. The autumn light lends a crispness to the blue of the sky, but it is a weaker light, old age-like, clinging to the last breaths of life and fighting regret with every desperate leaf hanging from thinning branches. I find the death of summer highly depressing.

Sure, I should be getting excited for autumn's election season, right? But I can't. My disillusionment has shriveled my enthusiasm like the leaves on the trees I'm looking at now. At this point the only reason I want the Democrats to take back Congress is to save the country from the hell the Republicans have thrown it into. No one really stands out among Dems, no one to inspire me or give me back the faith in this country I have lost.

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You can't spell America without "me" and "I" (2)

(Part 2 of a series)
Read part 1 here.

The bus rides in DC, at least on the route I have to take to work, are scurrilous attacks on personal comfort and sanity, leaving a rider longing for the concrete refuge of the immovable ground and the safety of solitude. (Forget the Metro management - that's a whole other issue that isn't the point of this series of posts, although having to wait ten minutes for three buses that are supposed to come one per every three minutes adds to the irritation, frustration, and aggrevation that suck the quotidien patience from me.) At any random time, unrelated to fluctuations in weather or traffic, the bus can resemble a cattle car, a sardine can, or a mosh pit, depending on how many crazies and children happen to misbehave at the time.

This morning was a typical morning. The doors opened like an obstacle on a miniature golf course - I had to hop through the opening before they closed on me. As I ascended the rubber coated stairs where millions of feet had stepped in the past, the scowling driver unleashed a fury on the gas pedal, and my frantic hands reached for whatever was available to keep my feet on the floor and save me from rolling down the aisle like the empty Coke bottle making its way to the back of the bus. I glared at the driver in her blue Metro uniform and her dreadlocks and her giant silver chain before saying "Good morning." She muttered a reply I did not understand, but hey, it's better than being ignored, which is an all too common response.

My Smart Card screamed go before I embarked on the endeavor of finding a seat. Oh, sure, there were plenty of seats available, but no one wanted to scoot over next to the window so I could sit down. This is a frequent occurence, not a good way to start a morning, especially before the stimulant of java transgresses my lips. Some of this behavior is pure racism. I have observed an incredible amount of racism on the daily bus trips - black against white, white against black, latino against white, white against latino, black against latino, white against asian, asian against latino. Sometimes I make note of the open seats on a bus and who is sitting next to them. When a person gets on, more often than not that person will go sit by a person of the same color. I hear latinos bitching all the time about how the gringos are moving into their neighborhood, as I have begun to understand their conversations after hearing an hour of Spanish every day. I've heard black and whites alike mumbling about how the latinos are taking over the entire city. I've also heard a black man say, "Move over, whitey."

Most of it, however, is not racism. Most of it is simple rudeness, a blatant inconsideration of others. People refuse to move their bags from open seats, scream on those Nextel walkie talkie phones, or simply won't move so you can sit in the empty window seats. I've seen it happen to many people. I've seen old men and women in a desperate panic as no one who is sitting in the seats reserved for seniors and disabled will get up for them. I've seen women with three or four children running around the bus or laying across seats so no one can sit there. I've even seen a woman slap a man for trying to sit next to her.

Getting off the bus is like wading through the mire of rude. If you are sitting in a window seat, the person in the aisle seat far too often refuses to stand up to let you out, but will move his/her legs to the aisle as if the inconvenience is a terminal illness. (I've taken to "accidently" letting my backpack hit these people in the face as a payback for their lazy rudeness.) But this just gets you to the aisle. Next you have to fight your way through the legions of people who stand there cold as statues. Even "excuse me" won't budge them an inch.

You'd think the word "public" in public transportation would heighten a sense of civility in a person, but no, that hasn't been the case. I sometimes feel like a bus ride is forced voyeurism. No one cares who's around - they'll just talk about whatever they feel like. This morning I heard a woman tell another woman about her gonorrhea like it was the common cold or something. I dream of one day owning an iPod to drown out the sounds and the world-o-metrobus, but until that day, I must suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous barbarisms. But hey, at least I'm learning a language.

To be continued

The reflections come anyway

Someone sent me a list of victims of 9/11 in an email, so I sent a message back with a link to WaPo's Faces of the Fallen. Then I began to try to find the names of Iraqis and Afghans. I began to look for victims of bombings in London, Bali, Madrid, Istanbul, Delhi, and Amman. There was no list for dead Pakistanis, Afghans, or so many others. I found names of British soldiers, of journalists , of Iraqi policemen, of international contractors and security guards and translators and doctors. The names, so many names, so many still unidentified or memorialized. Soldiers and Seamen - not only US and British, but Italian, Polish, Canadian, Japanese, Aussie, Kiwi, Korean...the list is endless, senseless, so many people defenseless, so many cold, so many left alone, widowed, orphaned, on the street, nothing to eat, limbless, useless.

My heart breaks and I silently mourn the world we've lost. Look at the nationalities above. Americans who wave their flags and sing their patriotic songs are selfish, arrogant, oblivious if they think that our loss is more important than the others. This is a world war like none we've seen, a global Vietnam. But - did WWII ever really end? Tell me when we as a nation have known peace? One conflict flows into another, countries crumble like dominoes, more death, more destruction, leaders murdered by other leaders in the name of ideology, theology, psychology, mythology. They call it something other than war - conflict, struggle, whatever, but it is war, yes, it is war that becomes more violent and more brutal, with every new invention, new weapons, new metals, new germs and chemicals. Hot metal slices up human bodies in ways it never has before, slicing limbs neatly, slicing heads and hearts and humanity. And cheerleaders like Sandy the troll applaud that, applaud death and destruction and the utter disrespect for human life. Yeah, Sandy, those people bomb and maim, but must we stoop to their level? Must we lose our own sense of humanity, as citizens of a country that proclaims to be founded on the rights of people? You can't defeat an ideology, Sandy. You can't slaughter the thoughts of a man. You can slice up body after body, watch as rivers flow red with the crime of spilled blood, but there will be others, many of whom take up the thoughts of those they've watched perish at the hands of a military man. How can you not understand this, Sandy? It's so simple.

We are sitting at 2,984 "War on Terror" deaths today, more than who died in the attacks. Add the number of civilians who have been killed during the "War on Terror" and we are talking nearly 20K dead since 9/11/01. God bless the world. Yesterday, classified information was leaked saying we've lost Anbar, the Sunni part of Iraq, and there isn't much hope for the Shia part, either. Afghanistan has become a warzone again. Pakistan, a country with nukes, is losing control of some of its provinces to Al-Qaeda, and Musharraf isn't too far from a coup. If we ever needed true patriots to stand up and fight for their country, it is now.

I try to avoid the endless remembrances that cheapen the tragic day. It's a morbid obsession part of this country seems to be intoxicated by. Blame is slung across the country from both sides for political gain - it's sickening, and it's how national unity was squandered. I feel like this day has been made into a cheerleading day, where people stand on the sidelines, wave their little flags, and root for the country like war is just a sporting event. I wish people would instead take this day to reflect on what is happening to our world and acknowledge we are in a war and shouldn't go about our daily lives pretending everything is normal. I am happy that people choose to spend the day with their families and hope they will talk about how lucky they are to have been born in this country and how fortunate they are to have enough food on their tables and gas in their cars and a roof over their heads when so many on this Earth, including many who fight against us, do not.

I do not believe we need yet another day to honor the dead - that is what Memorial Day is for - but we should think about these things more often, not just on remembrance days, and instead of gloating in arrogance about how America is better than the rest of the world, we should just thank God or fate or destiny or coincidence that we were born here. Remember the victims, yes, but remember all of the victims from across the globe. We are not better because we are Americans, no, but we are a hell of a lot luckier than so many people on this Earth.