Ella's on rotation, keeping me sane.

I'm just getting sick of everything. I need to just throw out every new issue of Newsweek and instead of listening to Morning Edition I could just listen to KROQ or some CDs or somthing.

I'm tired of hearing about the horrible shit people do to each other merely because they can, I'm tired of reading about the gross self-interest that rules my society, I am sick to death of being expected to agree with every last detail the latest talking head is stumping for unless, of course, I disgree with *everything* he says. You can either agree with *everything* Dubya says, or you can totally disagree (and get thrown in with the terrorists) but disagree only a little and you're either ignored, censored (which is the same thing), or lumped in with one group or the other since in this ADD age, who has time to listen?

I remember the first time I heard the Prez say "evildoer" I almost giggled out loud - I would have except there was a huge lump in my throat at listening our President, the Commander in Chief, sounding a little wobbly from it all. Through it all I didn't cry, really just a few hiccups here and there and maybe a couple of tears when I saw my Molasses again. I felt like I should cry. I felt like I should want to cry. My breath could get labored and my throat would hurt, but I couldn't completely give into it.

I did not then and I do not now feel any outrage or hatred or even anger toward the perpetrators nor any who aided and/or abetted them. It's just too big. The impact is more solid and clear when I get to know the individual in some way.

Two issues ago Newsweek published a picture of a Pakistani woman in a large empty room with many people visible from the door and an armed guard. The explanation offered a few viceral, gut-wrenching details and little else: The woman's brother eleven-year old had been accused by several men of seducing a female relative in her thirties. Tribal law supposedly said that justice could be dispensed by the men gang-raping the woman in front of several hundred witnesses. So apparently they did just that. Eventually the police got to the woman (don't know if it was during or after, certainly wasn't before) and arrested the men.

In this issue the story is given a nod in another story about tribal bloodfueds and general country-side lawlessness. It notes that the men are still awaiting trial and a conviction could bring the death penalty.

It's an odd juxtaposition. I liked The West Wing's concept of justice: Osama would spend the rest of his days in a jail cell with a TV and a VCR and endless racks of birthday, wedding, baptism, bar mitzvah, and vacation videos of those who died. I think that would be perfect. As for the men...I want to track them down and tear their throats out with my bare teeth.

I'm tired and at every turn something pops up that is unbelievably annoying or hateful.

My own belief is that love, forgiveness, mercy and grace are more challenging than brute force or even brute intelligence and therefore take more courage to practise. But because they are in such short supply they are far more valuable.

Tolerance is a watchword with me and through it I try to understand people who have different beliefs and priorities, but there are something I just won't bend on. Killing or hurting another person with no cause is never excusable, in fact the only "causes" that I find worthy of a possible exemption are immediate and direct threats to life and/or permanant health. In case it isn't obvious to you, I'm against the death penalty and any other form of state-sanctioned revenge.

I firmly believe that there are somethings must transcend every people regardless of culture, society, religion, class structure, dominant political paradigm or environmental situation. Beating up on folks, sexually or not, is right out. Killing people: same thing.

I can overlook a lot of things in the past and just hope that the future will be pretty and shiny and better, such as child labor, brazen corruption and theft, repeated lies from the leading pundits, rampant poverty, children populating armies, enforced abortion, denied access to abortion, reckless exploitation of natural resources and so on. But I'm tired of the other shit. I'm tired of the antics in the "Holy" Land. That shit was never about God, it's about land and about senseless as a school yard brawl. I completely understand the position of the Palestinians. I just don't understand why they don't actually want to solve their problems. If they grabbed a clue from Ghandi the whole thing would be overwith, they'd be a sovereign nation and wouldn't have to rely on people who get a kick out of humiliating them.

I'm growing numb to the Isreali side. It doesn't help things (well okey, no one in the Middle East actually gives a shit what *I* think) to lose site of the position of one side of a conflict. But these days I just cerebrally accept the tragedy facing the families who sent their kids off to University in good faith that they'd be safer there than a cafe or pizza parlor in Tel Aviv. It doesn't have the same impact anymore especially when I know there *is* a nut with his finger over The Bomb (but he's not evil, oh no, he's our Old Pal Sharon) and I know that his response will be wacky, cruel and bring about even more loss of life.

Then there's Iraq. Aw fuck. c'mon, your dad didn't think it through very well, what makes you think you'll do better? You're not even out to liberate any oil from an evildoer's hands.

No one will miss Saddam if he goes buh-bye and takes the insane religious control with him. It's just unlikely to happen quickly and easily on its own. And in the meantime they'll keep doing annoying things like threatening Isreal and harboring terrorists (terrorist here meaning people who mean to do Bad Things to Americans and American interests). But we can't take on Saddam like that without taking on all of Iraq. Sort of like how we couldn't take on Al Qaeda without taking on Afghanistan and killing dozens if not hundreds of innocent civilians. Sort of like how Sharon couldn't have a Hammas militant killed without taking out 13 other (innocent) people.

It's complicated, but it isn't really.