Andare, Partire, Tornare ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Things fall apart, the center cannot hold I've been almost obsessively glued to the tv, newspaper, and radio news, as I know many other people have been recently. One of the most touching aspects of the whole thing has been the outpouring of support from people around the world - but at the same time, some of the comments I've seen and heard from people around the world has made me sick at heart. It seems that there is nothing America can do to make some of the snide comments stop - if we are a proactive nation, then we get called meddlers, and are told to stop putting our nose in things that aren't our buisness. If we're not proactive, we get called isolationist, and are called upon to use our resources to benefit the world, where we can. A person on my sub-list forwarded a story written by an American living in Rome, and while he recieved support and words of condolence, there were also those who took the attitude of, "Well, it was only what you should have expected, since you side with Israel so blatantly." Other comments from other countries have echoed this. Firstly, I know that our support of Israel hasn't been as one-sided as is commonly believed, and recent history should bear that out, especially after Israel invaded a Palestinian town, and the US stated its disaproval of the act. This country has also been attempting to foster peace accords between the two. Should we butt out? To be frank, there is a long-standing uneasiness about the Middle East in the minds of Americans anyway, due to terrorist activity. The US has never been attacked by Israel, but several countries in the Middle East have sponsored terrorism against us. That hasn't caused us to unilaterally support Israel. I don't know, maybe we should just pick a side and support it. But we have all nationalities under our flag, so we've got to decide things like this on grounds more compelling than "this country is like us, therefore we will support them." I will say this - I have always been distressed and saddned at acts of terrorism, natural disaster, or war that occured in other countries, and never gloried in it. I hope the people who did applaud the destruction realize how base that makes them. On to lighter things, so I don't go crazy, or dig myself into any holes! The people under the stairs have gone! Hurrah! Now there are only three people living in the house, and not seven. The place feels bigger already. A friend of mine emailed me to ask how I was feeling about the slide comps I still have to face in *gulp* a very short time. The answer is that I'm terrified. Next question? My cat has decided that the other cat's food is fair game. So now I have to call the vet and find out if the food is bad for him, since it's a UTI prevention thing, and sometimes those can backfire in strange ways. Bogie recently had crystals block his ureter, and he couldn't pee, poor little boy. I don't want to give him something that might aggravate that. This entry has been long, and not particularly stress-relieving, so I'll end it here. One of the problems with me writing stuff down is that when things are very bad, I get exhausted at even the thought of spelling them all out again on the page. It's cathartic, true, but also emotionally wringing. 1:24 p.m. - 2001-09-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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