BurningbirdY’all remember the posting last week with pictures of the National Guard trucks that have been sitting in the Caltran work lot next to the Bay Bridge?
The trucks had been parked in the lot close to a month, I think, maybe more. However, within a couple of days after that post, the trucks were gone.
I’m sure it was just a coincidence.
Sometimes things just don’t go the way you want. When I’m in a pissy mood, and need cheering up, I find myself going out to visit my favorite weblogs, looking for glimpses of humor, beautiful writing, and interesting and unique personal perspectives. And my favorites never fail me. A gentle thank you from me to you. In particular, I wanted to thank the following friends for their postings:
— Jerry posts another one of his wonderful photo essays this one on the New England mud season.
If you haven’t lived in rural New England, than you probably don’t understand why most country homes in the region have what they call a “mud room”. I found out the necessity of a mud room when I lived in Vermont for a year.
Hey Jerry — there’s a reason I moved to San Francisco 😉
— Shannon’s in an absolute manic writing mood, of which this posting,Shannon Campbell Meets Blair Witch, is just one example.
Shannon, I’m also terrified of spiders. When I lived in Seattle (I’ve moved around a lot, haven’t I?) we would get these spiders about the size of a tennis ball — and they were the small variety. I knew that the spiders (except for the Brown Recluse) were harmless, but I’d still run from the room when I spied them. Run quickly I might add.
Did you all know that Seattle and vicinity has more spiders per square meter than any other place on Earth? More interesing if useless facts: Folks in Seattle also eat more Hershey chocolate and read more books than any other place in the US.
I’m sure there’s no connection between any of these facts.
— On a more serious note, Mike Golby was forced to, yet again, defend himself from the label of “Anti-Semitic”. A weblog reader tells Mike the following in a comment attached to one of Mike’s posts:
What a foolish comment. And what a thing to say to a person — hello, I don’t read you that often, but you seem Anti-Semitic to me. Anti-Meryl, too. However, I’m disinterested so don’t take it personally.
All together now folks: Airhead alert!
Mike took the reader’s comments personally; most people would. And he responded, accordingly, in a manner that was both eloquent and passionate.
Mike, I guess it’s my turn to ask if you’d like one lump or two with your tea?
I read with intense interest Eric Grevstad’s take down of Andrew Sullivan. He starts with the post title of “Andrew Sullivan is a big svelte idiot” and then continues on wonderfully from there.
I, too, wonder about the Sullivan links we see sprouting like calla lilies to quote Eric. I’ve tried reading Sullivan and find his manner bellicose, inaccurate, and inflamatory. Bottom line, the man is an idiot.
Consider a choice morsel from this week. Of the Saudi Ambassador’s frustration that Israel won’t consider the peace plan, Sullivan writes:
Here’s a little tidbit for you all to gnaw on, Sullivan — there has been extremist elements in Saudi Arabia that have wanted the US out of that country for two reasons: the first is because we represent all that is evil to them, but we knew that; however, the primary reason they want us out is to overthrow the current regime in order to put one in that adheres to a stricter Islamic code. Similar to that of the Taliban. Other leaders in other Arab countries are faced with the same problems of extremists within their midst.
Did the Saudi government and the other Arab countries that participated stick their neck out? Believe it or not, they did.
This plan was not unfavorable to Israel, as even the Israeli government admited at first glance. However, the plan included the repatriation of the Palestinian refugees, something the Israelis refuse to consider. And it is this issue that will remain key to the conflict.
Regardless of his opinion of the plan, instead of taking a few minutes and a little effort to consider each individual aspect of it, Sullivan takes his usual lazy, irresponsible, and vitriolic approach and just blasts away with his 20-gauge shotgun mouth.
I used to think that Sullivan took this approach because he gained more buzz. I now think he takes this approach because he doesn’t have the brains for any other.
However, I believe in free speech and if the jerk wants to talk, let him talk. And if webloggers want to read him and link to them, cool. But I wonder how many link to him because they read him, or if they link to him because it’s the thing to do. That he’s become part of a “who’s who” list that webloggers feel must be on their blogroll to be in style.
Epiphany. After years and years of being cautious in my support of politics and careful in my understanding of all sides to an issue, I finally realized today that I have been pushed over the edge into “leftist liberalism”.
(Note that twenty years ago, I would be labeled a “leftist commie” rather than a “leftist liberal”. Sign of the times.)
I am finding that today, there exists a demand that one “choose a side” or that a side will be chosen for them. This concept is difficult for me because for years I wouldn’t “take a side”; I prefered to explore each issue on its own merit. Well, that’s all changed now. I am a leftist liberal. Better, I’m a leftist liberal who blogs.
My thanks to all those with such limited vision and narrow views — you’ve opened my eyes to the way things will be.
I watched a gentleman on news last night. I wish I had caught his name because he had some of the most quietly brilliant views on the Middle East conflict that I’ve ever heard. If you read this and you watch KRON evening news in the San Francisco area and did catch his name, please let me know what it is.
Meanwhile, this gentleman said things that made a lot of sense, including the fact that he would like to see Sharon and Arafat gone from the picture because both are so concerned with their own egos, their hatreds of each other, that they’ll never work towards peace. If both were gone, perhaps more reasonable people could replace them and peace could be found.
I found this echoed by an article at Time, What are they thinking?, that looks, critically, at Sharon and Arafat. However, a key element in the article, to me, is that both men’s popularity seems to be tied with their more violent actions. Even with Sharon and Arafat gone from the picture, it would take a miracle worker — on both sides of the issue — to bring about peace.
The gentleman on the news also said that we, the United States, could never be a peace broker in the Middle East because we have too much invested in our support of Israel. We are not disinterested.
From CNN today, the Middle East conflict is impacting on our fragile technology rebound. And resulting in higher oil prices. I wish I could say that our government will need to monitor the oil companies in this country to ensure they don’t overly profit from these difficulties, but then I remember whom I speak — Bush and Cheney — and realize that this statement is laughable.
I am not going to focus this weblog on the Middle East conflict, but it does weight heavily on me this week. I don’t see any possibility that war in the Middle East can be avoided. And I don’t see any possibility that the rest of the world won’t get pulled, heavily, into this war. And there will be people in this country who will rejoice the war. And I don’t understand this.