Happy 4th. As they say.

Freedom.

Freedom is a very elusive thing - something that I often take for granted. I mean we aren't all free here. My neighbor (a home owner) is not able to replace the window that broke in february. (entire pane is gone) while I (a renter) am able to buy a/c units.

But we are basically free -- free of military dictatorships, free to vote any yahoo into office, free to say that the guy we voted into office *is* a yahoo, etc.

There are still some abonimal things happening in the United States today - the police get out of hand, gang violence, murky political law-making, but overall we have maintianed the rights given to us in the constitution over the course of 3 centuries. (give or take a year) Which is no easy task and something that we, as a group of people should be proud of. Not everyone has been so lucky.

I've been reading a very interesting book, The Price of Honor, by Jan Goodwin. She does a really good, firsthand survey of the environment of women throughout the middle east. By which I mean she actually travels through the country, living with the people, meeting the poor, and then writing down their stories.

God. I knew I was sheltered, but it astounds me how these families live. And its depressing, because after about 10 examples, you begin to see how a democratic, islamic state could exist, which would be probably stronger than our current republic. I say this because it would be able to take all the benefits of democracy - life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness - as well as the strengths of islam - a fortified family structure, focus on the needy, not on the material. It's very fustrating.

The achilies' heel of the whole matter is the roles and treatment of women in any islamic society. One thing that Jan makes a point of in the book is that women are the "windsock" of change in an islamic country/government. How the controling faction treats women, determines what type of society it will be. Jan goes so far as to say that gaining control of women's roles in such a society will give you political/relgious sway.

This may be true currently in islamic countries, but unfortunately, it still treats women as property. Islam will never stabilize as a political entity until it recongizes that women have fundimental rights - to eat, sleep, work, and exist. In short, that they are human. This is not always apparent in even some of the more secular islamic states, which we in the west would think of as more "like us."

It's a very interesting book, quite an easy read for someone who is not versed in either islam or the political landscape in the middle east in the 1990's.

So - I guess the point is democracy is not a given. It is something that must be tended and agreed upon by the tribe (i.e. group of people living together). That is the only way it can exist.

Remember that when you are knawing on a hot dog and waving a sparkler today, my fellow yahoos.