Author: Elaine

normal TV is back. shitty movie with jon bon jovi & some chick that Chad swears is 7of9. (I don’t think so) Cops. “So Bad It’s Good Theater.” America’s Most Wanted. God, that John walsh has the craziest enunciation…even more pronounced when hunting down the “cowards” that planned this…thing. I don’t know what to call it, really. it’s not just the hijacking, it’s not just a crash, or crashes. “terrorist action”? bleh. our words are all wrong. (“war” doesn’t feel right either.)

linguistics and language are still incredibly important to me. so many people invoking god & patriotism, and that bugs me. “it has to unify us.” now, if only that meant it had to “with everyone if we could give that respect to everyone in the world” sorry, had to break into that…listening to JW talking to several teens. and that makes me feel better about the world.

okay, now all these little kids are talking about how it looked fake, like a movie. damn straight.

oh, god, these are new york kids. “after you realized that these people hate america…and hate other countries…” JW bugs me, I mean, he’s a righteous dude, and he was all driven after (‘this country is nice…and we didn’t do anything to hurt theirs’ – Chad sez – wait ’til you find out what really happened…) his kid got kidnapped, but seriously…. what a war-monger.

so where was I? yeah, war-mongering. jingoism. weird emotional displays. the kind of language that’s going to send us into a stupid, endless war.

I’ve never been a big fan of the Pledge of Allegiance. first stopped saying it in high school. (I don’t remember – was that during the gulf war?) and yesterday after the “moment of silence,” after singing God Bless America (which I’m mostly okay with), there was a spontaneous recitation of the pledge. not only did it break into my meditation (see haiku below), but it really weirded me out. some people might be good with that sort of thing, but I see it as an expression of overblown patriotic fervor. (like all the flags that have suddenly sprouted everywhere.) am I going to be given shit because I refuse to participate in that kind of thing?

y’know what? I don’t fucking care. I’m not gonna pledge. I’m not gonna put up flags…not in front of my house, and not on my website, neither. I love my country, but more than that, I love our world. this “war” is a threat to our whole world, to the possibility of civility & humanity anywhere on the globe.

goodness. what a rambling post. that’s what I get trying to write with the TV on & chad on the couch.

will this Simpsons episode ever be shown again?

another analysis of what got us here

blog entry
unpublishable when written (server probs)
9/15/01
approx. 5:45 pm

Chad tells me this morning that he had a dream about hijacking a plane – but just for us to go to a rock concert in Japan. He’ll prob’ly be annoyed that I wrote this, but <shrug> – it seems important to record for posterity.

this man is my hero:

I just realized that makes me sound really vapid. I was thinking, not just staring at the ants….

A moment of silence – September 14, 2001 – 12:30 pm – Pierce College Fort Steilacoom

you can’t see me from here – I was sitting on the other side of the crowd, in the grass, staring at an ant crawling thru a bright yellow dandelion.

wrote 2 haiku:

dew glimmers in the grass
a bee meanders on its way
in the silence, horns

***

ants stumble through the dandelion
a world in miniature

“in the dark times, will there be singing? yes, in the dark times there will be singing, singing about the dark.”

heard on npr, quote from brecht.

oh shit. I have overdue library books.

this afternoon, I went to Fred Meyers (dishwasher soap & pads). as I was getting out of the car, I heard what I can only assume were fighter jets overhead. in a flash, all sorts of emotions rolled through my brain/heart – a weird & unfamiliar patriotism, sorrow & grief. what does it mean to be a pacifist? I’ve asked myself that question, but never had to ask it in this context. I don’t have an answer, only the cry that war can’t be the right way.

what is the right way? if I were GWB, what the heck would I do?

which sort of reminds me of something else that happened today. we had our staff meeting outside at a picnic table, on the edge of the park, and as I was coming back into the building, I saw a truck which I’ve seen before – it has a bumper sticker that says “what would Jesus do?” I’ve always been sarcastic about that sort of thing, because christian fundies bug/scare/anger me. but today, after reading this, I have a little more respect for that question.

but what the fuck would Jesus do? (pardon the language) is there a rational, agnostic, pacifist answer, to an irrational, fundamentalist, terrorist question?