Intermittence

I read today how street magician David Blaine is planning to do something involving hanging from the Brooklyn Bridge when I came across this comment:

The stuff is getting to old, why cant he just sit at home like a normal person

Yeah! Why can’t he just do nothing like the rest of us! Who the hell does he think he is?

American military forces recently killed Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda In Iraq, and pictures were circulated almost immediately of soldiers cheering. I find myself ashamed, and am unable to rejoice.

I understand that elation is normal when one’s objective has been reached. Excellent! Hurrah! An obstacle has been overcome, and things are better now! The thing is, though, that we killed a man. A terrible man, to be sure—a thug, and a murderer, and a brutal, brutal person. Joy at the death of another person is an emotion I just can’t muster up.

What I am, however, is relieved, but even that is tempered by the realization that nothing’s really changed in Iraq.

Another brutal leader will rise to take al Zarqawi’s place, and the murders will continue. You can’t win an ideological battle by killing people. Read the rest of this entry »

For lunch today, I ate a bowlful of Tom Kha (a Korean ginger-coconut soup), a handful of Swedish ginger snaps, and am about to down a bottle of Bundaberg ginger beer.

I could do it again tomorrow.