Just reading the news about the Supreme Court accepting the case of the Guantanamo prisoners...in my opinion, any and all prisoners should be under the auspices of the same laws as any US citizen. Further, we should not be sacrificing freedom for security. I know its a scary prospect to not make it as hard as possible for the bastards to maim or kill us, but I think its more important to protect the values that make this country a target. Otherwise, as Denzel Washington points out in The Seige, the terrorists have already won.

Column to be published November 6:
Heard of Nathaniel Heatwole?
I hadn't either, until he was arrested a few weeks ago after he blew the horn on himself, telling federal authorities he had hidden box cutters, bleach, and matches on two commercial aircraft. No big deal, right? Well, that depends. The majority of us know what a hassle it is to travel by plane these days. Heatwole exposed how useless all that hassle might be.
Consider first that the airports involved are Raleigh-Durham International Airport and Baltimore-Washington International Airport. These are not your small backwater airports, but major airports that service millions of people. If security is the concern, we should expect that the larger airports should be more secure than the others,. Yet it appears that this is not the case.
Second, while bleach might not be a big deal, matches potentially are, and box cutters are certainly of grave concern. Box cutters were used by the 9/11 terrorists in their hijacking. That box cutters got through not once, but twice at major airports shows a severe deficiency in the integrity of our security systems.
Third, the smuggled items remained undetected for a month, and might have gone undetected longer had Heatwole not alerted authorities of his actions. All of this is very unsettling. The strategy implemented by the federal government involves the employment of thousands of security personnel with the intent of preventing any dangerous materials or potential weapons from finding their way on-board a plane, yet it is clear the system needs improvement. Heatwole is not the only person to successfully get a knife or other dangerous object through security; ABC News correspondents have also gotten similar materials onto a plane. At the same time, the government is training 5,000 new air marshals to keep us safe in the air. I would say this is unnecessary redundancy, but such a statement assumes the security checkpoints are working every time. As it stands, they clearly don't.
What is of concern is that if a terrorist gets a knife through, he could potentially be the only one on the plane with a weapon, since such common items as pocketknives aren't allowed. In this post-9/11 era, it is doubtful any group of passengers would sit idly by while a terrorist made a repeat attack, but they might be hard-pressed to fight back if they were at the mercy of a knife-wielding madman and had nothing but a plastic fork. Air marshals are the obvious solution, but what then is the purpose of such extensive security on the ground, which eats up millions in funding and requires travelers to arrive hours before their flight and submit to rigorous searches? Such redundancy arguably doesn't improve security at all, and certainly doesn't alleviate the frustrations of the traveling public.
For example: As a member of Rice's Cross Country team, I travel quite often, and on a recent trip I forgot about the Leatherman Micra I carry on my keyring. The Micra has, among other things, a small penknife. I had on previous occasions been forced to mail it to myself. Knowing that if I got caught I could simply do this again, I tucked it into my bag. The Micra, with its knife, got through. This was at Bush Intercontinental Airport. On the way back, the knife was found at the much smaller Fayetteville, Arkansas airport. I was forced to endure a search through my entire carry-on bag and a rigorous screening with a metal detector wand. I understand the need for security, and that a penknife hidden in a small side pocket makes me suspicious, but would I really be a danger to anyone if an air marshal, armed with a pistol, was on the plane?
In short, the federal government should drop its charges against Heatwole, and we should all thank him for showing where our security is lacking. Further, if we continue to decide that security is a greater concern than freedom, we should at least do ourselves the favor of making that security effective by ensuring standards are met at all airports. Even better would be putting an air marshal on every flight. They would be much more effective than any security check and would allow us to relax security a little- saving ourselves a lot of unnecessary frustration come Thanksgiving and Christmas.

PALESTINIAN TERROR, AMERICAN BLOOD
By Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe

Sunday, October 19, 2003

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/292/oped/Palestinian_terrorism_American_bl
ood+.shtml

Three Americans -- John Branchizio, Mark Parson, and John Martin Linde -- were murdered last Wednesday when Arab terrorists in Gaza bombed the diplomatic convoy they were riding in. News accounts immediately described the attack as a first -- "an unprecedented deadly attack on a US target in the Palestinian territories," to quote the Associated Press. But Branchizio, Parson, and Linde were not the first Americans to be murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists. They were the 49th, 50th, and 51st in the past 10 years alone.

A few hours after their deaths, the White House condemned "the vicious act of terrorism" that had killed them, extended "heartfelt condolences to the families," and promised "to bring the terrorists to justice." The families of the many previous US victims of Palestinian terror might reasonably wonder why there was no such presidential concern when *their* loved ones were massacred.

The president did not vow to see justice done, for example, when Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter Nava died, on the eve of what was to be Nava's wedding day, in the bombing of Jerusalem's Cafe Hillel last month. Or when Cleveland native Alan Beer was killed in a Palestinian bus bombing in June. Or when four Americans -- Marla Bennett of California, David Gritz of Massachusetts, Benjamin Blutstein of Pennsylvania, and Janis Coulter of New York -- lost their lives in the bombing of the Hebrew University cafeteria last year. Or when Shoshana Greenbaum, a New Jersey tourist, was among the 15 innocents slaughtered in the horrific Sbarro pizzeria attack of August 2001. Or when, three months earlier, 14-year-old Kobe Mandell of Silver Spring, Md., was one of two boys stoned to death in the cave where Palestinian terrorists found them hiking. Or in April 1995, when Brandeis University student Alisa Flatow was murdered in a Gaza terror attack.

Americans have been dying at the hands of Palestinian Arab terrorists for decades, yet the US government and media rarely if ever portray Yasser Arafat and his lieutenants as avowed enemies of the United States. The State Department does not demand the extradition of Palestinian killers of Americans, not even when the killers' identities and whereabouts are known. President Bush has never given the Palestinian Authority the same ultimatum he gave the Taliban in Afghanistan: Hand over the terrorists or be destroyed.

Instead he issues incoherent declarations like the one he made on Wednesday -- blasting the Palestinian Authority for refusing "to fight terror in all its forms," while assuring Americans that the US is "working closely with the appropriate officials" -- i.e., the selfsame Palestinian Authority -- to find and prosecute the terrorists responsible for the latest butchery. As if it isn't those very officials who have been aiding and abetting such butchery all along.

To hear Bush tell it, the deeper tragedy of terrorist acts like Wednesday's is that they are "an obstacle to achieving the Palestinian people's dream of statehood." What kind of state does Bush imagine would be created by the people who danced for joy on Sept. 11? How long is he going to keep up the pretense that terrorism represents a failure, rather than a core element, of Palestinian governance?

Arafat and the Palestinian Authority were quick to distance themselves from the murder of the three Americans. But violence against Americans is routinely celebrated by the PA. "During the war in Iraq," notes Itamar Marcus, the director of Palestinian Media Watch, "the PA actively endorsed the killing of Americans, and even produced a music video celebrating the deaths of US soldiers that was broadcast repeatedly on official PA TV." (An extensive compendium of anti-American hatred in the Palestinian media is posted at www.pmw.org.il.)

For years, sermons preached in Palestinian mosques and aired on Palestinian radio and television have rhapsodized about inflicting pain on the United States. "Oh, Allah, destroy America, for she is ruled by Zionist Jews," proclaimed Sheik Ikrima Sabri, the Arafat-appointed mufti of Jerusalem, in one such sermon. "O God, destroy the Jews and their supporters . . . destroy the United States and its allies," implored Sheik Ibrahim al-Mudayris in another. And from a third, Sheik Ahmed Abu Halabiya: "Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. . . . Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them."

A few months ago, Palestinian officials renamed the central square in Jenin after Ali Jafar al-Na'amani, the Iraqi suicide bomber who killed four US Marines at a checkpoint in Najaf on March 29. *That* is what Arafat and the Palestinian Authority think of spilled American blood.

There is only one rational response to the murder of Branchizio, Parson, and Linde last week: the destruction of the Palestinian Authority, a network of killers masquerading as a government. If that doesn't happen, this much is sure: the 49th, 50th, and 51st Americans to lose their lives to Palestinian terror will not be the last.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)


The only thing I have to add is that the three Americans killed were part of a security detail for a group in Gaza to interview Palestinians for Fulbright scholarships. Nothing speaks more to the values (or lack of them) of the Palestinians that they not only bomb a group trying to lift them out of the gutter, but celebrate the attack, and try to hamper the investigation to find the perpetrators. Enough with the assertions that it is only the terrorists that feel this way about America and the Jews; the time for the argument that to speak out is to be killed is past. Until a Palestinian starts to take that risk and say that the Palestinians do not support terror, and are willing to risk their life to tell the world that the people are looking for peace, then I say that it is an unsupported claim, and that ALL Palestinians support terror, killing the Jews, the destruction of Israel, and the demonization of the West and America. If there are any Palestinians who think otherwise, I don't hear them, therefore, what they think is meaningless.
Even in Iraq, it is clear that even if the people didn't like Saddam, they like us even less. Clearly, this is partly due to our complete lack of planning for post-war Iraq, but it also has to do with an apparently permanent and all-encompassing cultural hatred of the West.
How can we expect peace, or even negotiate for it, with someone with that attitude on the other side of the table?

I'm not saying you shouldn't be an animal advocate, but please, use your friggin head!
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20031007_2334.html
Bears are dangerous things! Wild animals! They are NOT CUTE AND FUZZY! All they know is survival! They will attack you if you are stupid! Sheesh...Survival of the fittest, let me tell you...

I have decided that all relgious arguments cannot be based on texts. It is too easy for texts to be fabricated, embellished, mistranslated...there are too many interpretations, there are too many questions, there are just too many ways for the text to be twisted. Instead, we should be debating the merits of religion based on our own concept of God, then finding the religion that matches that concept. The texts should be nothing more than a guide on paper for what any particular religion believes.
I say this because the Campus Crusade people came to me, wanting to know what I thought of Psalm 22, a text that if mistranslated can be held up as evidence for Jesus as the Messiah. I realized that I might think their version was a mistranslation, but who was really to tell them they were wrong? Maybe my translation was wrong. But that didn't change the fact that I was fundamentally opposed to what Christianity stood for, and no text was going to make me accept Christianity any more for myself. I can appreciate why the religion works for others, but it doesn't work for me.
So lets do away with the Bible and the Koran and everything else as PROOF that we are right. There is no proof. Proof for one might be a test for another. There is no way to know.

So Israel has now attacked Syria, or more accurately, a militant base inside Syria. I will stand with Israel until the day it ceases to exist, and while I believe Israel is still exercising enormous restraint, I do not think they are exercising enough restraint. I think the best thing they could do would be to cease all retalitory attacks all together. No longer would the terrorists be able to claim that they were making their own retalitory attacks. It would become clear that the terrorists are interested in nothing but the destruction of the state. Pressure would mount on the Palestininan leadership to stop baseless attacks. Take down the checkpoints, remove the military from "Palestinian" territories. Give the PA full control of its areas. If it was clear Israel was doing nothing to provoke the attacks except exist, how could the international community continue to let them get away with it? That's walking out on a limb, in that the international community might let the terrorists get away with it simply because it is Israel, whom no one actually gives a damn about, just like they don't give a damn about the Jews, but there's a chance conscience would catch up with them. I have said Israel should carry out such a policy for maybe three months, but now that I think about it, if they could take unlimited suicide attacks for a year, the result would be absolutely incredible. The IDF would practically have carte blanche to do what it would with the terrorists. And that could be a very interesting proposition. Imagine if at the end of that year, Israel made a proclamation: Any Palestinian who wishes to stay where they are and live, put out a white flag on your door, and accept Israeli sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza, because the past year has proven a Palestinian State is not warranted or deserved at this time. If there is no white flag when we arrive, leave, or die. Certainly more extreme than what would happen in the real world, and certainly not what I recommend, but something to think about.

Column to be published Oct. 3:
Last week a second federal judge sided with telemarketing companies and ruled that the Federal Do-Not-Call list is unconstitutional, citing free speech. To borrow from John Stossel, give me a break.
US District Judge Edward W. Nottingham blocked the list because “…The First Amendment prohibits the government from enacting laws creating a preference for certain types of speech based on content, without asserting a valid interest, premised on content, to justify its discrimination” (Washington Post, Sept. 26). The basis for the ruling was the fact that charitable organizations will not be bound by the list; they will still be able to solicit at will. According to Nottingham, this constitutes favoring one type of speech over another.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the government already enacts laws creating preferences for content, so that the public can expect a certain amount of decency and respect. Why will you never hear “fuck” on FCC-monitored commercial radio?
More importantly, the ruling is based on recognizing telemarketing as its own form of speech. Telemarketing is a mode of speech, a way to deliver a message; it is not a message in and of itself. The list does not outlaw the language of the solicitations; it simply prohibits delivering the solicitation by phone. The First Amendment doesn’t apply, so Nottingham’s ruling is invalid.
The ruling also doesn’t address harassment. We should reasonably expect to be able to walk down the street without being harassed by salesmen and political activists right and left. Having a table with flyers is one thing; following people down the street or blaring annoying propaganda over a loud speaker is another. Telemarketers fit a unique mold in that they are not exactly following you down the street, but they certainly aren’t just standing there either. Ads on the internet, in newspapers, on the television and on the roadside can be passively ignored; all you have to do is not read the ad or go get a snack during the commercial break. As a consumer, you are not engaged unless you want to be.
Telemarketing, however, is frustrating precisely because it requires engagement; you have no idea who is calling when you pick up the phone. That unrecognizable or “unavailable” number could be a telemarketer; it also could be someone from work who got your name and needs to talk to you immediately about the report due tomorrow. Either way, you have to pick up the phone to find out. And once you’ve picked up the phone, there are only three ways out: go along with the schtick and politely refuse, play with their minds, or hang up. When you hang up, frustration mounts at the time lost to a pointless call. Did you really lose that much time? No. That’s not the point. The point is that you were engaged against your will concerning a product you don’t want to buy with a person who doesn’t care that you’re eating dinner. It’s like a salesman walking in uninvited or the TV turning itself on to show a commercial.
Can the government really regulate rudeness? Actually, to a certain point it can and does. The government protects private property from unwelcome visitors with laws against trespassing. If an individual continues to call and harass someone on the phone, without even coming near private property, the government can issue a restraining order. That’s what the Do-Not-Call list is: a universal and preemptive restraining order. Sure, any one telemarketer only calls once, but to the consumer they’re all the same unwanted nuisance. The popularity of the Do-Not-Call list speaks to the breadth of the nuisance. 50 million people are already on it and it hasn’t even been enforced yet. The House of Representatives voted 412-8 and the Senate 95-0 to approve it. Americans clearly expect to be protected from unsolicited phone calls by law as much as the law currently prohibits trespassing.
As far as the distinction between charitable and commercial telemarketing, I think it is appropriate to allow charitable solicitations. I am willing to be guilt-tripped into helping the needy, as should we all. There is a difference between selling something and appealing for help. But that leads into a whole different argument.

My column from Sept. 5 concerning media bias on the Middle East:

On Friday, August 29, The New York Times demonstrated once again the apparent inability of our western media to report fairly on the issue of the Middle East.
That day, a front page article titled Visits Stir New Tension at Jerusalem Holy Site reported the resumption of visits to the Dome of the Rock plaza by non-Muslims. The site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, had been closed to non-Muslims since November 2000, except for a brief period earlier this summer.
These appear to be the only facts presented in the article. The rest is biased and misleading.
Jews believe the Temple Mount is the location of the first and second Temples, yet the article deemphasizes this by saying “Orthodox Jewish religious authorities differ on the location of the Holy of Holies.” The article pointedly describes the area as “Islam’s third holiest site,” favoring the Islamic claim to the Temple Mount.
Three times in the article, Palestinians are quoted or references as saying the Jews were being allowed back to the Dome of the Rock plaza to pray. Only once is it mentioned that Israeli police are posted to prevent Jews from praying on the site, that they turned one individual away, and that Israeli intelligence agents are also posted to prevent an attack on the site by Jewish extremists. As some Jews believe the Dome of the Rock must be destroyed before the Third Temple can be built to herald the Messiah, this is not an unreasonable threat.
The article closes by quoting a tour guide and Rabbi concerning his belief and hope that animal sacrifices could one day be resumed on the site. This is a total misrepresentation of mainstream Jewish and Israeli thought; Judaism long since has given up animal sacrifice, and many Jews are against it. By closing the article this way, there is a subtle implication that Jews want the site back to reintroduce sacrifices, far from the truth. This is biased reporting.
The article is only a small example of the extended history of Western media misrepresenting the facts of the Middle East situation.
Perhaps you remember the incident in March when American college student Rachel Corrie was run over by an IDF bulldozer on its way to destroy a Palestinian home. The implication was the IDF razes homes and runs over protesters without compuction. But there is more to the story.
The house was being destroyed in an operation to root out tunnels used by terrorists to smuggle weapons into Gaza. Corrie ignored multiple warnings from the IDF to keep clear of the operation for her own safety. And the bulldozer did not simply run her down. Corrie fell from atop a pile of rubble, out of sight of the driver of the bulldozer, which was armored and therefore had a very limited visibility. An autopsy determined that the cause of Corrie’s death was from falling debris, not the bulldozer running her over. Suddenly, the implication becomes an overzealous protester entered a dangerous area and was the victim of a terrible accident; tragic, but hardly the same story as that of a ruthless army killing innocents.
Another example is the “massacre” of Jenin. March 29 to April 21 of 2002 witnessed an Israeli military incursion into the refugee camp of Jenin and a pitched battle between the IDF and Palestinian gunmen. Palestinians claimed the IDF leveled homes without cause and that a massacre occurred. As examples of many such allegations, Palestinian spokesmen were quoted on CNN as saying Israel performed “blanket bombing today of the cities of Nablus and Jenin…” (Hassan Abdel Rahman, April 6) and that “…the Jenin refugee camp is no longer in existence.” (Saeb Erekat to Jim Clancy, April 10).
In fact, aerial photos of the area show the camp is still very much there, and that perhaps ten percent of it was destroyed. No “blanket bombing” of any sort occurred. Interviews of Palestinian fighters by Palestinian media reveal that houses and streets were indeed booby trapped with explosives. International observers sent to investigate the claims of a massacre refused time and again to so label the events in Jenin. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting published extensive articles concerning the Jenin incursion in their Fall 2002 edition (Vol. 12, Number 2), revealing allegation after allegation as being an outright fabrication.
Obviously, what we read, see, and hear about what is happening in the Middle East in the Times, on CNN, and other western outlets may not be the facts. The most important point to consider is that even if the version of events pointed out in this article are not the truth, they are at the very least a perspective that has been absolutely drowned out by the allegations of the Palestinians.

Addendum:
And isn't it interesting that no one went back after all these allegations were proven false and said to the spokesmen who perpetuated them, "Hey, you lied!" No one said that...more to say on this subject, but we'll save it for another time.

Another blurb from ABC a few weeks back: the government is training 5,000 new air marshals to keep us safe. Excuse me, but I already wait two hours to get on a plane for security already. I don't want to pay for air marshals unless security on the ground is reduced. Air travel is still the safest way to travel, and I believe there's statistics out there that says you're more likely to get hit by lightning than have something happen on a plane. As such, I think the security should either be on the ground or in the air, but both is overkill. Frankly, I prefer the air marshals, so that way we could actually carry our toiletries in our carry-ons!

Back on the scene, haven't had time for SO LONG....I will be posting much more once I get the chance, including my columns from my new writing job, but for now, here's a tidbit from ABC News Online. Its an exclusive interview with our favorite player in the Middle East, Yasser Arafat.


Woodruff: Is it international pressure that has kept the Israelis from moving against you?

Arafat: I have been elected by my people under international supervision. Even President Carter was one of the observers who was supervising the election campaign.

Woodruff: But the [Israeli government] did make a threat against you. Do you take it seriously? Do you fear for your life?

Arafat: For your information, I am here under siege for about three years. And not only that, the damage and what we have faced from their airplanes, from their tanks. But the most important thing is not what we are facing here, although it is against international law, but what our people are facing.

Woodruff: What is your opinion of the [Israeli] wall?

Arafat: They are not only building a wall around Jerusalem, which is preventing our people — Muslims and Christians — from going to pray, but also they have started building quickly this wall around all our cities and towns. But not only that, this wall is confiscating 58 percent of the West Bank. Who can accept this? We have accepted 22 percent only! 22 percent!

Woodruff: Is there any wall you would accept?

Arafat: If they want to make their wall in Tel Aviv, who can prevent them? But not in our land!

Woodruff: What is the line that you would accept?

Arafat: I am not speaking! It is not my business! My business is only when they make fatal mistakes on my land according to the agreement. How can this be accepted internationally?

Woodruff: How do you think it has been accepted internationally?

Arafat: Even President Bush had refused it!

Woodruff: President Bush said yesterday, on Thursday, that you are a failed leader.

Arafat: This is what he's saying, but he has to remember that President Clinton was dealing with me, his father was dealing with me. And he was in the beginning with me.

Woodruff: Are you saying you are the only one who can make peace for the Palestinians?

Arafat: No, the Palestinian leadership, which I am one of them, [is] making the peace, and I've been accepted to make the peace with the Israelis.

Woodruff: Are you able to control the street?

Arafat: I am doing my best.

Woodruff: Does Hamas have more control than you?

Arafat: You have to know we are the authority of the Palestinians — that has been recognized by all the Palestinians.

Woodruff: If you want to control suicide bombers, can you stop them?

Arafat: We have stopped them and we've succeeded.

Woodruff: Can you stop them again?

Arafat: Yes, and yesterday they had called, they are ready to return back to truce.

Woodruff: Do you want to stop them now?

Arafat: What?

Woodruff: Do you want to stop the suicide bombers now?

Arafat: Ask them and ask your American representatives how many times we have succeeded to stop the suicide bombers and arrest them.

Woodruff: But do you have the power now to stop them?

Arafat: You are not fair and thank you.

"You are not fair and thank you?" Give me a fucking break. You either have all the control you need and are using it to stab the Israelis in the back, or you have no control and its just fundamentalists running loose. In either case, how the f*%k can ANYONE expect the Israelis to make peace, or to even hold their fire?

So Shrub (President Bush) is a big fat liar. That in and of itself should not be a surprise; we expect our leaders to be model citizens (which they should be), but let's be honest, to be a good politician you have to lie. Bush wanted to get something done and he lied to do it, just like anyone else in Washington. President Clinton was such a liar that he could have very easily been removed from office for perjury. But it was probably his lying that made him such an excellent politician in the first place.
However, the point here is not to defend Bush, who is a flaming idiot as stupid as they come (well, maybe not so stupid, you can't get elected to President without SOME brains....somewhere.) The point is just because Bush's reasons for going to war were crock doesn't mean that the war itself was. Bush should have cited the moral and ethical reasons for going to war, ie that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who was killing his own people and thousands of others for years. To those who argue that we can't just kill foreign leaders at will, let me first point out that killing Hussein, a tyrant who was not elected, is not the same thing as killing Tony Blair, the democratically elected leader of Britain. And while there is certainly considerable danger in imposing the American moral view on the rest of the world, consider how unique the Iraq situation was: Hussein was unquestionably evil, the Iraqi military had already been proven no match for the American Army, and there was little danger of any real retaliation from any Arab neighbors. Plenty of countries fit one or two of these requirements, but how often do they fit all three? It is the fact that all three requirements were met that makes the war in Iraq permissible, even if our President is too stupid to realize the reasons he SHOULD have cited to go in.
Now, the challenge is to get out. In the parts of Iraq where the electricity is on, water is flowing, and American forces treat the locals with respect and provide protection, the Iraqis love us. It is only in places like Baghdad, where basic services have not been restored, security is not yet present, and as a result citizens are not treated respectfully that we are hated. The Iraqis will hail us as their liberators if we truly liberate them, but will forever scorn us with the rest of their Arab neighbors if we abuse them the way their bretheren believe we abuse the rest of the world.
We did the right thing in going into Iraq. Now we should do the right thing again by treating the Iraqis with respect and showing them that we care, by finishing the job and getting out as quickly as possible.

Watched 60 Minutes tonight. We should all take notice of Aaron Feuerstein and what a true mensch he is. It is absolutely appalling that his business ethics are not the standard in this day and age. Here is a man as concerned about his employee's welfare as he is about the business', and his own. He uses words and language unheard of in business circles today, to say nothing of society at large, words like "responsibility" and phrases like "the right thing to do." Honestly, why is it so hard for people to be responsible, to do the right thing, to give consideration to the welfare of others? I certainly am not guiltless in this arena, I have a long way to go about thinking about others before myself, but the lack of personal responsibility is appaling in this country. Someone slips and spills coffee in their lap, then pretends its the fault of the company that sold the coffee that they got burned. Its ridiculous that a law suit was brought in that instance; its downright appaling that the company was found responsible and that the judgement was at least six figures. Now you know why everything that might ever hold something hot, or even cold, has a warning about temperature and laps. Aaron Feuerstein is not like most Americans however. He paid is workers for weeks after the mill in which they worked burned down. He could have taken the insurance money and run, but as he says, "And what would I do with it? Eat more? Buy another suit? Retire and die...No, that did not go into my mind.” (From the 60 Minutes interview) Feuerstein instead used the money and more in loans to rebuild the plant, right where it had been, going against common practice of picking up and moving in search of cheaper labor. Aaron Feuerstein should be applauded, and more importantly emulated by anyone who even thinks of entering business. It shames us as a country and society that he is one of the sole beacons of ethics in business practice; the next generation should strive towards common decency, rather than greed.
I recommend reading the article that is essentially a transcript of the report at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/03/60minutes/main561656.shtml At least, that's the URL at the time of this writing. I also assure you there will be more comments on the totally lack of personal responsibility in America, through lawsuits among other things....but I'll save that for another time.

Matrix Reloaded: Assuming everyone buys into the fairly obvious Christian symbolism of both films, ie Neo as Jesus, the name Trinity, Morpheus as John, the prophesy and saving the world, etc etc, what does it say about Christianity that in the end, its all a bunch of bullshit? That the whole prophesy was another level of control? Personally, looking at the history Christianity, especially Catholicism, I have to wonder how much of it is genuine belief, and how much of it is control. Do people believe in Jesus because it makes sense (cause it sure don't make sense to me) or because they are afraid of the threat of hell? What if hell doesn't exist? Morpheus and his followers believed in the prophesy because it offered hope, because for them, it was too scary to not have something to believe in, at least that's the way I see it. I know that you were just waiting for Locke to be proven wrong when Neo saved the day, but that's not how it worked out. Maybe the message is that belief is important, but it must be tempered with rationalism. Councilor Hamin seemed to hit the balance by sending the Nebuchadnezzar (please, forgive me if I'm spelling all of this wrong, I didn't check the WB website) back to the Matrix, saying he didn't think success depended on how many ships they had. He never says anything about believing in the One. Even earlier, he spoke of hoping to understand Neo's purpose before it was too late; obviously, he had doubts about the prophesy. Clearly however, it was fallacy to not understand that Neo's abilities were real, even if they were not for the purpose that Morpheus believed they were. Morpheus and Locke are Faith and Reason, Hamin is the balance, and Neo is a pawn, when it comes down to it, because for all his abilities, his percieved purpose can be bent to the needs of either Faith or Reason. We know what Neo's purpose was, but not what it will be, now that he's chosen a new path. It will be interesting to see how he is used or not by each side in the last installment of this excellent, excellent series. It's late, I know this is becoming increasingly pure bullshit, I'm off to bed...there's more to come though, don't worry.

Here's something to cogitate on: Passing through Burger King, I noticed the big Nutritional Facts sheet posted by the bathroom. Check this thing out the next time you stop for a burger, and do some basic arithmetic, you'll find the Large Double Whopper Value Meal is almost 2000 calories, more if you like mayonaise. May I remind you that 2000 calories is the TOTAL DAILY recommended caloric value for the average American. Now myself, an avid Division 1A athlete, can down two of these meals and go on to dinner in a hour or two, and burn it all off in the next day's workout, but for the rest of the country, people should seriously start considering eating only a Large Double Whopper Value Meal every day. That's it, just that. I checked with a doctor, and while this would not be the ideal diet, you could certainly do much worse. You've got meat and bread, obviously, meaning protein and carbohydrates, you've got token vegetables, if you choose your drink wisely you can cover your hydration needs, and if you like cheeseburgers you get a little dairy. Now I know some of you are rolling your eyes at the concept, and the nutritionists are shouting bloody murder over the idea that the condiments count in food groups, but consider, if that fat tub of lard walking down the street ate only one of these meals every day, and nothing else, would he get fatter? To the contrary, I think he would get thinner, ironic as that may seem. By the way, I never promise that my posts will have any real relevance or meaning, although hopefully a few useful thoughts will make it, sometimes.