Well, I woke up at 7:30 AM this morning... very unusual for me on a Sunday. I'm glad I did, though, because I got to enjoy a wonderful Spring morning... it reminded me of those very quiet and crisp still mornings I used to have sometimes when staying with at my grandfather's place in Avon Park, Florida... also of early morning walks I always enjoyed taking in the woods when I was in college. My college was extremely small, only 250 students, and was located in a very isolated section of Vermont, where one who appreciates natural beauty (as I do) feels right at home. How isolated was it? Put it this way: you remember those riots in Los Angeles back when the Rodney King verdict was announced? Those riots had been going on for three days before I heard about them. That was in the days before the Internet, of course, but even so.
I am now currently relaxing with my new First Season Babylon 5 DVDs. I'm currently watching Babylon Squared, the first episode featuring the character Zathras from whom I took my own handle. Just on a lark, I'm watching it with English subtitles in French. I took several years of French and can speak and read it reasonably well, but hearing it spoken tends to give me some trouble, so I'm seeing whether more frequent exposure will increase my skill.
I was reading in this morning's paper that there have been some more demonstrations opposing the war. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about the war in Iraq -- this is one of the very rare instances where I actually don't have an opinion on something, because IMO, both pro-war and anti-war people make so much sense I can't disagree with either side -- but I have to say I'm looking at these war protesters with a certain amount of amusement since there's not much left to protest: the war is essentially over. Even more amusing is thinking back on the pundits, who as little as ten days ago or so were saying that we were stuck in another Vietnam-style "quagmire". Whether one supported the war or opposed it, it's hard to believe that there are people out there who honestly thought that invading Iraq would prove militarily difficult. Come on, folks -- with the possible exception of the Soviet Union at its peak, the present-day United States military is the most powerful fighting force that has ever existed in all of human history, and Iraq is a Third World nation, nowhere near as developed as we are and with less than one-tenth the population we have. A pro-war commentator also offered an interesting observation in one of my daily papers the other day: this is a war in which the invading force is more concerned about the welfare of enemy civilians than the enemy itself is. This author (whose name I can't recall, I apologize) said she was unaware of any other war in history in which this was the case. I'm not, either, but my knowledge of history is not very good.
OTOH, I'm pretty squeamish, to say the least, about attacking a country that never attacked us and didn't appear to have the capacity to attack us, except thru a link to terrorism that it tenuous and dubious at best (of the 19 hijackers on September 11th, for example, none were Iraqis... in fact, 15 were Saudis, as is Osama bin Laden himself, but we're still sucking up to the Saudis as much as we always have -- gee, I wonder why). I agree completely that Hussein had to go, but I have pretty serious reservations about whether this was the way to do it.
Another problem: we justified Gulf War I by saying that Hussein had invaded a sovereign nation in "clear violation of international law". It's hard to see much difference between Hussein invading Kuwait and us invading Iraq, except possibly the moral argument that we're "liberating people from oppression". The thing there is, our own government isn't exactly angelic, either. I agree we have more freedom here than people in most other countries do -- certainly in Hussein's Iraq -- but I can't help but think about the scriptural instruction to remove the rafter from your own eye before tending to the mote in your brother's.
And IMO, if you think the war has nothing to do with oil, you're crazy.
Hmm. I'm not sure where that little rambling came from, but it was fun to write. *grin*
Posted by Zathras at April 13, 2003 03:06 PM"Put it this way: you remember those riots in Los Angeles back when the Rodney King verdict was announced? Those riots had been going on for three days before I heard about them. That was in the days before the Internet, of course, but even so."
The L.A. riots were not in the days before the internet. They were in Spring of 1992 and I was online chatting with someone in L.A. who was describing the fires they could see outside their window as it happened. By that point, I'd been on the internet proper for two years (and online for seven.)
Posted by: sparrow at April 14, 2003 04:53 AMOK, OK, so I exaggerated about that. It was in the days when the Internet was still very, very small... better? Literalist Aspies... *chuckle*
Posted by: Zathras at April 14, 2003 09:04 AMHeh, yeah, that would be me. Most people who know me end up calling me "Miss Literal" at some point.
Posted by: sparrow at April 15, 2003 12:04 AM