Occasional Patriotism

At the moment, I'm looking at one of my favorite comic strips' response to the tragedy of Sept. 11. It's an image of all the regular and semi-regular characters from the comic strip gathered together in a candlelight vigil, and I rather like their expressions--they run the gamut of all the emotional responses, including shock, sadness, worry, and anger (I especially like the expression on the face of Sasha, the white Siberian tiger).

Ever since the whole thing happened, I've seen lots of American flags. Time was I was asked several times a day while I was working part-time at the K-Mart here in Springfield if we had any of them in stock. It makes me a little proud of the country in which I live, and yet at the same time, it bothers me--much the same way that the preponderance of flags that show up around holidays like Independance Day and Memorial Day does.

It's nice to see people rallying around the flag, but I just don't think that patriotism should be a seasonal or an occasional thing. It shouldn't have to take five thousand people dying to cause us all to bring out the red, white, and blue.

I know, I know, human nature. We take things for granted until we're reminded of just how very fragile they really are. Deep down, we're all proud of our country, aren't we? I mean, looking beyond partisan politics, policy squabbles, budget and taxation arguments, everything argued over by the idjits who were in power a few years ago and the idjits who are in power now, looking at our country itself...aren't we lucky to live in such a place where we do have these freedoms? And don't we need to do all we can to help protect that country and those freedoms from the people (both foreign and domestic) who would threaten them?

Too many deep thoughts for one evening...off to bed for me.

Brrr

Cold, grey, rainy day down here in Springfield, Moe. Windy, too. The sort of rain that's little droplets that can't quite work their way up into a drizzle. Now my pants are a little damp from biking the 2 blocks back from school to my apartment. I ought to find some alternative means of transportation on days like this.

And, of course, there are a lot of drivers in the world who just shouldn't be let out on the streets in weather like this. I got proof of that when I had to detour slightly as I found the intersection just southeast of my apartment was full of emergency vehicles--two banana-yellow fire trucks, an ambulance, and a police car. There was a grey sports car with its nose all bashed up like an accordian in the middle of the street, and a Land Rover SUV pulled up onto the sidewalk by the nearby Subway shop. Probably a rear-end collision.

Of course, Springfield drivers are the worst anyway; I've seen them cut off a city bus before. Seriously.

Run Over by a Training Course

Schoolwork continues to annoy me. This is my last semester here at SMSU, and I'm busier than a one-armed paperhanger. All of my current four classes demand collaborative final projects (heck, one of them is a final project), and I've got two part-time jobs.

For one of those final courses, I and two classmates have to teach a two-hour training course in "web images" toward the end of the semester, and we have to spend most of our time getting ready for it. It's been one long frustration from beginning (what the heck is a "web image," anyway?) to end, as we have to do all this little piddly penny-ante documentation up, involving such wonderful little creative terms as "needs assessment" or "chunking." Yay. It keeps seeming like so much of it is busywork, designed to fill out a semester long class that isn't teaching very much.

Today, I learned that one of the trainees...is actually a training course instructor herself, and she "just wants to see how we teach the course." Which is a little frustrating when we've only got about four students total, and we need to find out what our trainees want and tailor the course to them--and not only that, it makes me feel like we're going to be graded by one of our trainees, and that's just wrong.

I can't help but feel a little inadequate to this semester. I keep feeling like I don't know what I'm doing and I'm relying on my teammates too much--and that's not fair to them. I have to carry my share of the load--but how can I when I'm not even sure what the load is?

I'll get through this somehow, I just know I will.

Let Freedom Endure

More anthrax. Seems like there's a lot of that going around. I think by now it's completely clear that this is another terrorist attack. Whether it's the same terrorists as the ones who brought down the WTC, a related group, or some random copycats with a bone to pick remains to be seen. At least they're not killing very many people--but then, that's not really the point. The point is to scare people silly, and they seem to be doing a decent job at that.

There are those people out there who are agitating for peace. We shouldn't be attacking them, they say. After all, they point out, wasn't it our own foreign policy that caused this mess in the first place? They seem to believe that we should settle down and talk things out and come to an amiable solution.

Well, I wouldn't dream of restricting their rights to say things like that, but I think it's just plain wrongheaded, and I think most of the people here in the states would agree with me. Let me explain.

First off, whether our foreign policy led to this is arguable either way, but I'm not going to get into that--because at this juncture, it's immaterial. We've gotten into this predicament by whatever means, and after it's all over perhaps we should look at whether we should alter our foreign policy to keep it from happening again--but that doesn't matter now that we're under attack. At the moment, it's "root, hog, or die," as the old saying goes.

Even before we started bombing Afghanistan, the attacks had been underway for a long time, and there was no sign it was going to stop any time soon. The World Trade Center was hardly the first shot fired in the war. Look at the U.S.S. Cole incident, which happened almost exactly 11 months earlier (they had a 1-year memorial ceremony just a couple of weeks ago). Look at the embassy bombings.

These terrorists have it in for us, and have had for quite some time. How are we supposed to respond to such a massive terrorist attack on our own soil? Say, "Oh, please, Mr. Terrorist, don't hurt us again!"? Yeah, sure, that would work. Just sit there and let them attack us and take it, because it was "our fault"? ("She was just asking for it, going around dressed like that...") But it wasn't the fault of the people who died, was it?

We're in this situation now, and it's not the sort of thing ordinary diplomacy is going to handle. Not when the government of Afghanistan is apparently little more than a front for the terrorists themselves. They'll hem and haw and make ineffectual claims, blow up an irreplaceable ancient Buddha or two, and completely fail to do anything useful (to us; the terrorists are probably finding them quite helpful). Meanwhile, Osama bin Ladin and his merry little band of thugs will plot another bombing or hijacking or disease dissemination or what-have-you.

This terrorism is bad--for us, for the world. We need to do as much as is necessary to stop it from ever happening again--but only as much as is necessary, and no more. And I'm satisfied that's what the USA is doing in this situation. We're taking out the Taliban, who really aren't the legitimate government of the region anyway. We're doing as much as we can to minimize civilian casualties. (Yes, they'll happen anyway; that's unavoidable. What matters is keeping them minimal.) We're dropping aid to the civilians even as we bomb their government. We'll probably be going in to rebuild everything once a new government is in power.

This is not a reactionary, revenge-motivated attack. If it had been, we wouldn't have waited, wouldn't have given Afghanistan a chance to hand over the terrorists. This is a military operation meant to end a clear and present danger. We can't let this happen again.

Anyway, that's how I feel. Now, let's see if I'm controversial enough that people flame me for my opinions. :)

Tired Thoughts

Do you suppose I've made enough journal entries today yet? No? Maybe I'd better do one more.

Man, I'm tired. And I've got a more tiring day ahead of me tomorrow, between that training course I mentioned a couple entries back (at 9:30 in the morning, geez, don't they know some people like sleeping in?), a possible meeting with teammates over whether I've been pulling my weight (always a fun thing), a couple hours of work at a part-time job, then my Strategic Management course--which is taught by an instructor whose English I can barely understand.

After that, I might head home to visit the parents, with my siblings and their families. My day, it will be full. What is there to look forward to this week? Maybe after I wake up, I'll remember. Right now, my mood is kind of matching the weather. Gray.

Beep boop whistle whirr beepbeep

Somehow, I don't find this all that surprising.