Sometimes a single comment says it all.

[This comment was posted on another blog I edit here. Due to space-time continuuum disconnects I wasn't able to ask the original commenter for permission to repost it here yet, but I know her well enough that I suspect she wouldn't mind. I suppose I could give it an intro and set up a context for it here, but then again -- is there really any need to?]

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It wasn't enough to attack a mosque. Now pilgrims have been attacked too. & some say it isn't a civil war?

I have to work 12 hours and I woke up in the middle of the night with insomnia because I'd heard Bush use the term "battlefield" twice, with no apparent emotion. There would probably BE no battlefield if not for his stupid decisions. Maybe he thinks we'd be battling in the middle of Nebraska cornfields if we weren't in Iraq. Yeah maybe that's it.

I started remembering being 12 years old and travelling across South Dakota with my mom & 3 younger siblings, to visit my dad at the VA in Rapid City. On the way, our bus had to stop for hours on the highway, because of a burning car. When we got to the VA, my dad had come out of electroshock and he didn't know me. I got presents that were supposed to be from him but I knew they were picked out by volunteers. People used to say "Roger can't hold down a job. He's shellshocked."

Thanks, Bush. You were never on a battlefield and even your hero dad only shot from the air, but he still had the sense not to start a ground war in the middle east.

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Submitted by M. Loutre on 7 March 2007 - 10:39am.
Blogs | Bush | Healthcare | Veterans | War

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Words to live by

I of all people should know better. The civil rights movement in the U.S. told women to stop talking about gender issues because first the fight against racism had to be won. The feminist movement frowned at women of colour raising their issues, insisting that first the fight against the patriarchy had to be won. The nationalist movements in Africa insisted that feminism was a corrupt and decadent western import, and that first we had to capture our earthly kingdoms, and achieve our panAfricanist Nirvana, before we started looking at "side issues". And those of us who are interested in our contemporary political dynamics have fallen into the same pit of not tackling the prickly, the uncomfortable questions now: we are waiting to win the larger battle before we clean our house. There is always another battle or another issue, and the matters that matter to the foot soldiers are postponed for yet another day. Yet, these issues ARE the battle. We fight for freedom --and do not imagine we are doing anything less--because it is the freedom to live our lives the way we want, from the jobs we choose to the people we fall in love with. If we cannot tackle them, then we are not equipped to tackle anything. What are the lines of difference we draw? For what do we engage, argue, participate and in some heroes' cases, take awful risks? For what?

— Diary of a Mad Kenyan Woman: OUTING HETEROSEXUALITY