relative lives

Finally a productive day…. Though not many people would find ten pages very productive, I'm satisfied with it. Especially since it took hours of research to get it and make it authentic.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about war, mostly because of what I'm reading, but also how sometimes I feel like we Americans are so clueless. One of the books I was reading, written by an immigrant from Viet Nam. The woman came here in 1970… married a middle aged "red neck" from San Diego and while happy to be safe from the war for the first time in her memory, was confronted with the callousness of culture shock. She cited the example of the news… how every night there were clips from the war, and she would watch them, knowing her aunt lived in one village, her brother was in another company, villages where there were only women and children left destroyed, etc… and she would weep. Her American Family ignored that segment of the news. In one poignant contrast, and some of you will remember this, there was extended coverage of a little girl who'd fallen down a well. That made her family weep. The author didn't understand why one life deserved so much more attention than all the others. I guess I don't either.

A few years ago Dustin Hoffman made a move… Wag the Dog I think was the name, that illustrated the actions of government to distract the attention of the public from the issues it should be examining up close with some sentimental headline grabbers that succeed. I am deeply disturbed that we are experiencing this today. What makes the life of Terry Schiavo so much more important than the lives of our men and women in Iraq, and the people for whom they are fighting? Why on earth does the most powerful man in the free world think he needs to have a say in such a heartbreaking but PERSONAL matter? When my mother had a breathing tube last year, the last thing our family could have handled was some stranger… ANY stranger, let alone the president, butting in to tell us who was right and who was wrong. One of my sisters would have kept her on the tube forever. The decisions are very hard, and not easy for anyone, least of all the person who knows the patient best. But maybe its just we are supposed to look there for awhile and not be so concerned about the 20 year olds who'll never get a chance to grow up.

Lest you misconstrue, while yes, I am liberal, democrat to a fault and anti Bush, I am not so sure I am anti Iraq War. I am anti lying. I believe we could have been told the truth about what was happening in Iraq and authorized troops with fact instead of scare tactics. I'm not one that would want to repeat the holocaust before we get involved militarily. But the lies and the misinformation…and the misdirection? All take away our presidents credibility not only with the world, but with us as well. I don't believe anything he says, and usually now if he says it, I can't even listen without bristling.

Hey, it's my blog, and I can say anything I want. I have it in writing from the experts!

I picked up Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (kind of an interesting web site, not as much fun as J.K.Rowlings, but still has potential. I wonder if all the links work on a pc? I'm on a mac and have the urge to go validate the site for him, but wtf? I don't have time for that.) the other day, and like the voice, though I know it is disloyal (sorry Marcus) to enjoy anything from the McSweeneys crowd. It’s written, at least in part, from the pov of a boy who lost his father in the WTC tragedy. Like how I designated that as WTC instead of 9/11? Or 9/22 as my slipping fingers wanted to type.