Today's Link: Yamichi Works
Today's Music: Jack Johnson
Current Book: Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy
Today's Quote: "Art is man's noblest attempt to preserve Imagination from Time, to make unbreakable toys of the mind, mud pies which endure" Cyril Connolly

Yesterday, on the train to work, I noticed a bit of grafitti, It was written in Ball point pen on the plastic seats, so it was a bit smudged, but it was fairly standard graphitti, it said "**** & **** 4Ever" but with one difference... after "4ever" it also said "hopefully." I don't know if this is kind of funny, or kind of sad. It's funny from the standpoint of the realisim of it and the fact that between using a pen that would wash off, and the "hopefully" the person is clearly acknowledging the fact that at the stage of life when you write "4ever" relationships are not generally permanent. But it's also sad, because there's clearly a loss of the faith and hope of youth. I can only wish whoever wrote that the best of luck. You never know. I met my wife when I was 14. And now she's the Best Wife in the Whole Worldİ. So... I guess there's always a chance. I mean, how do you you know when you've met The One It took me 8 years to figure it out. I'm glad I did.

Today's Link: The Onion.
Today's Music: U2
Current Book: Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy
Today's Quote: I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. Kahlil Gibran

So... I'm on the train yesterday to work, and a guy gets on and wishes everyone a Merry Christmas. That's very friendly. However... as the trip continues, he begins to get louder and more abraisive, even threatening people and swearing. There were small children on the train. So, I'm wondering if the guy is drunk or crazy or what. However, I also noticed that every time the train pulled into a station and the doors opened he got quiet and waited until people were on the train before resuming his ranting. So maybe he was neither drunk nor crazy.
Would you do that? If you knew nobody would call the police or anything, would you like to, every once in a while, just be completely crazy. Announce your beliefs and ideas at the top of your lungs for the world to hear, whether they wanted to or not. I suppose that's kind of what I'm doing here, however if you don't want to read this you can leave with the click of a mouse. Hmm? So... Tell me... if you were going to get on a crowded train and announce something, what would you say?

Today's Link: WWDN
Today's Music: A3 (aka Alabama3)
Current Book: Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy
Today's Quote: Wow. After I jumped, it ocurred to me. Life is perfect. Life is the best, full of magic, beauty, opportunity, and television. And surprises...lot's of surprises, yeah. And then there's the best stuff, of course. Better than anything anyone ever made up, 'cause it's real. The Million Dollar Hotel

So... Here it is, yet another attempt to make a regular page of rants. Should be fun. Anyway. I'm open to suggestions and such, so here it is.
For my first entry I will respond to my friend Phil's Suggestions that I should "start out by explaining what you did when you got up this morning. this should likely lead you to explain who you are, and why you bother waking up on any given morning."
So here goes:
This morning I woke up and took a shower. Which is generally the thing to do from both a social and a personal well being point of view. Then I made lunch for my wife. (Okay, so I poured some soup into a rubbermaid container and put it and some left-over broccolli into an insulated bag for her.) Then I got dressed. Then I walked down to the grocery store down the block to pick up my weekly produce box. Then I came home, put the produce in the fridge, and came to the computer... where I am now.
I guess, despite Phil's prognostication (does it make me an ass to use that word?) I didn't explain at all who I am and why I get up in the morning. As for the first of those... for the time being, and until I hear otherwise, I figure most people reading this already know who I am. As for the second part. The answer is simply... because life is better than anything else. So I get up. I go to a job I don't like that much, but that is better than a lot of other things I could be doing. And, besides, I have The Best Wife In The Whole Worldİ. I'll try to update this every day.

Life goes on. For most of us. It may go on a little differently than before, but it does go on. The news coverage is no longer overwhelming, the celebrity concerts have begun. Flags have returned to full staff. The show is up. I'm getting ready to move. And all in all, life goes on. And yet...
I look at the planes in the sky a little more closely. I've always loved airplanes, and in a week and a half I'll be getting in one again to go visit the most beautiful woman in the world. (who, strange as it may seem, loves me too) I also look up a bit more when I go to work. The John Hancock building is right there and I can't help but wonder if its design would hold up any better. I look at the flags in people's windows and wonder how long they'll stay. Will I put mine back up in my new apartment? And I sit and watch the news and wonder, when the bombs start falling... will we be more careful about who they fall on then the people we're trying to get were? What makes America better than Afghanistan? Were the people who participated in the Boston Tea Party terrorists? When our own states wanted to split from our government, we went to war to stop them, but we cheered and helped when the states of the USSR did the same thing. Yeah, you say, but the reasons were different. But who are we to decide what's a better reason.
I've always believed that you cannot truly understand what you believe until you've questioned it and looked at it as if the belief is false. That is the only way you can be sure that what you believe, for you, must be true.
So, by that token, I ask these questions. And then I have to answer them as such. The world changes over time, and we refine what our criteria for supporting a movement is. But, it's always freedom. If people are trying to be more free, then we support them. If they are fighting to restrict freedom, we oppose them. And yes... what looks like freedom in one situation can look like repression in another, so sometimes we make the wrong choice. But we keep trying. And that, quite simply, is what we must do now. Keep trying... help people be free. Free from oppression, free from fear, free from danger, free to choose who leads them, free to choose what they believe, and free to let the person who believes differently from them have the same freedoms. So... keep trying.

A moment of silence.

Dear God. There is no reaction to the events of today that can even begin to sum up the feelings that I, and I'm sure everyone else, feels. Those responsible are, to be quite honest, doomed. There is no way that the US government, and that of the rest of the world, will allow these people to continue living. But beyond that... groups that claim to be Islamic have claimed responsibility for this. In the first case, they cannot truly be Muslims believers as they claim. Islam is a religion that values intelligence and peace. Secondly there is a passage in the Koran that basically states that if a believer knowingly kills another believer, they are destined for hell. There is no way that there were no Muslims in the WTC today. Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.
And that's all well and good, but that will not protect those responsible. There will be retribution. Is this right? Part of me says no. No life is worth less than any other life. But by that same rule, are 2 lives worth more than 1? Are 10,000? Will we just create a martyr? But then, there is another part of me that says "Kill them, Make them Pay, Hunt them down and destroy them." The United States is the most powerful force in the world. And we're pissed. Yes... right now it's mostly shock. But as we see the names, faces, and lives of those who died today, we'll get angry. And that's not a good thing for the target of the anger.
What does this mean to us. Well... a lot is going to change. Air travel will be more complicated. Security tighter, questions tougher, and everyone just a little paranoid. Most of this is probably good. Obviously, security needs to be tighter. I know when I fly next month, I'll probably leave a little earlier to get through security. And I'll be just a little bit worried as I fly. But I will not let these people keep me from getting on the plane. They want to beat us and we cannot let them.
Part of that means we have to go on with our lives. We have to help out however we can... donate blood, donate to the Red Cross. Don't make jokes in airports, and don't be afraid to tell someone if you see something that doesn't look right. But at the same time we must stand up for the things that make us who we are. Whoever has done this is responsible for their actions, but those who look like them, believe in the same God or call Him by the same name, are not responsible. Show them the same respect that you want shown to you. And pray. it needs to be done.

Peace.

It's been said that everyone rises to their own level of incompetence. You may ask "what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Well, basically... as long as you can actually do your job, you keep getting promoted. Once you get promoted into a job you can't do, you stop getting promoted. So there you are sitting in a job you can't do, and no one will move you back down to the job you could do, because that would mean those who are higher up than you would have to admit that they were wrong. and we can't have that, now can we.
Now... to an extent this is true... with the exception of the fact that all of those people above you are probably incompetent for their jobs too, so they probably don't recognize the difference between ability and incompetence. So the structure becomes more and more top heavy with incompetents. And that's why life's a bitch. Whatever... I guess that's why hard work has to be it's own reward, because God knows... that's about the only reward you're getting.