twicketface

In an attempt to get back to normalcy, how about a regular journal entry?

Lately my mind has been like a washing machine, so many thoughts, questions, arguments and points of view to consider. I am and will remain a pacifist regarding the terrorist attacks on America. Violence breeds violence, let’s take this golden opportunity to silence that neanderthalian impulse to “blow stuff up, heh heh heh, yeah, fire is cool” and show the world what an example we can set by reviewing our own policies and how the United States brought this upon itself with years of unfair treatment of foreign countries (if this is indeed linked to a foreign country, no proof just yet).

Anyway, the last week has been pretty much a blur and I’ve been just about worthless at work. Reading a lot of articles from emailed friends (Thanks Carrie B., Jeb and others) and a lot of commentary on the Internet. Been glued to WPR/NPR and the television too. So sickening to me to see all of the major media outlets calling for war when we haven’t identified the enemy (that’s ourselves, people). Please God, let calmer heads prevail.

If anything, I hope that this lights a fire under my sizeable ass to learn about the Middle East, learn about our policies and work towards making a change so this never happens again. The loss of human life is always tragic, but it really dulls in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of live the United States is responsible for. I don’t want to be coming across as anti-American, I think that America has the potential to be the greatest country in the world, but our leadership has led us to being anything but.

And I’m as shocked, angered and saddened by the terrorism as anyone else, I’m not glad that it happened but if anything, I’m hoping that some good will come out of this, that we will change our ways and the victims will not have died in vain.

I’ve seen so many forwards and messages and sentiments on what we need to do to ‘combat terrorism’, and every one of them involves stimulating our economy. Buy American Stock, buy products, keep buying gas, etc. The sad thing is that war is good for the economy, which I think increases the likelihood of it actually happening. Sigh. I need a hug.

Enough for now.

Tonight is happy hour in Appleton with my former AAL co-workers (temp summer job when I was in college), which I’m looking forward to. It was the AAL crew that dubbed me “Beard Boy” (“I’m all MAN, lady”) so they are anxious to meet, as they call her, Mrs. Beard. I think we’ll only stay for a little while, I’m looking forward to going to sleep tonight. Just been a draining last few days, to say the least. Not much else is planned for this weekend, which is good. I want to get away from the news and hopefully get a lot of reading done.