I just had a long talk with Erin about how pessimistic and depressed I've been feeling lately. I can't read LGF without wanting to cry. My stomach is still in knots about Iran. And I just watched Season 2 of 24, which is reason enough to want to crawl in a hole. I'm losing it. And then I remembered Smink's advice:

First, go buy a six pack and swig it all down.
Then, watch “Ace Ventura.”
And after that, buy a Hard Rock Café shirt and come talk to me.
You really need to lighten up, man.

I don't have a Hard Rock shirt, but maybe my "I saw the Pope -- Des Moines 1979" shirt will work? And we certainly have beer and Ace Ventura. That's what my husband and I will do tonight, because I sure need a way to relax.

I also found that my spirits were lifted reading the Tanker Brothers blog today. I realized that I want to focus on reading MilBlogs for a while; soldiers always make me feel rejuvinated.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:44 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 Hey, LGF makes me cry, too.

Posted by: Pericles at March 23, 2006 12:19 PM (ra2qX)

2 LGF makes me angry - it's the new McCarthy for a new era of fear. Also, I swallowed a pop can tab accidentally, and I'm quite worried about it.

Posted by: Will Somerset at March 23, 2006 03:05 PM (eIQfa)

3 Reading some Churchill might help, Sarah. Things looked pretty bad in the mid-late 1930s, too, and we came out of it OK. Try "The Last Lion: Alone" by William Manchester.

Posted by: David Foster at March 23, 2006 08:13 PM (qzQdM)

4 Not that I expect you care especially, but FYI, I have not been around much lately since a while back I had a few very severe seizures and have been busily bouncing around to hospitals to neurologists to radiologists to oncologists. At this point they are not assuring me that I will be alive through the end of the year, though it is still an open question whether I will recover - there are still seemingly endless tests that need to be done (and redone). On the plus side, MRIs do offer one a fair amount of time for contemplation and self reflection, just use good earplugs. Sadly I still have to work, though fortunately I can telecommute a lot, and I have good insurance. So I have been trying not to waste time on the internet (this is just a slip), but instead spending my time with things more important - reading good books that needed to be read or re-read (thank God for Plato and Plotinus) and spending more time with my Piano. There were a lot of things I never got around to. Now I realize that there are a lot I never will master that I wish I could have - lots of Chopin's beautiful waltzes, Beethoven's brilliant Sonatas (but still too hard dangit), Bach inventions, (the Goldberg variations are definitely not going to happen, alas, though they probably never would even if I live to be 100) and so on. I will be working on what I can, though since the meds make mind a bit fuzzy and my hands a bit slow, it is all the more time intensive. And of course, most of all, I need to hang out with the kids as much as possible. Kind regards and best wishes. Even if I fully recover I'll not be back, as I realize I should be spending my time on more important things. Sophia and me

Posted by: Mr. Silly at March 24, 2006 03:37 PM (xJvll)

5 Mr Silly -- I truly am very sorry to hear that. Though you and I never saw eye to eye, I certainly have never wished you harm or sadness. I hope that you do recover and live every moment to the fullest. All my best wishes, Sarah

Posted by: Sarah at March 24, 2006 03:51 PM (016Fe)

6 I found myself in the same boat as you today... so as I was reading through MilBlogs, I found you. Great site for me to find tonight. First: love your post on March 16th. Secondly: love the link you have to Homestar Runner. Many of my friends/family don't 'get' Homestar, but my husband is a HUGE fan. Now that he's 6 mo. into an 18 mo. deployment, there's no one for me to throw lines back and forth with. So it made me smile. Thanks for that!

Posted by: Emily at March 24, 2006 08:36 PM (ux3w4)

7 Mr. Silly: Stay strong, man.

Posted by: Pericles at March 24, 2006 10:48 PM (eKf5G)

8 Mr. Silly, I am saddened by your news. To think about all the bickering that has occurred in recent months, it makes me realize how menial it is in the grand scheme of things. I love my daughter with all my heart, and as a mother I sometimes get defensive when I read comments that have attacked her personally or miscontrued what she actually was trying to say. It must be very difficult to be burdened with this sadness, and I pray that either a miracle will occur and you will get well or that you will be able to live life to the fullest before it is your time to go. I've always told my kids not to judge a person until "you have walked a mile in their shoes." In light of your situation, my on-line exchanges with you now make me realize that I need to be more tolerant and understanding of those with different opinions even if I do disagree. It doesn't hurt to get one of life's lessons even at the age of 59. Take care and God bless. Nancy Sarah's Mama

Posted by: Nancy at March 26, 2006 04:20 PM (6s7Zq)

9 Mr. Silly, good luck to you in your efforts to recover your health, and consider that (from my family experience, for whatever that's worth) true, deep-seated optimism has a way of making itself medically apparent. As a cellist, my favorite Chopin is his cello sonata as recorded so intimately by Du Pre and Barenboim, which I someday hope to sit down and tackle... :-) IMHO, the passion generated by political difference has no place in the deeply personal circumstances of illness, and I sincerely wish for you a full recovery. -Piercello

Posted by: piercello at March 26, 2006 11:29 PM (plBen)

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I get discouraged often. The other night, my husband comforted me as I defeatedly moaned about demographics and jihad. I fear Iran's nukes. I fear the birthrate. I fear what will happen if we don't put our foot down and say, "It's just a cartoon, dammit." I did mention to my husband that I feel awful pessimistic about the future of the world, so I pity those who honestly believe we live in Bushitler's Oil Junta; they must fret a lot more than I do. My moaning has got nothin' on these people.

When I get discouraged about the future, I just remind myself that we live in the last second of December 31st. There's so much more to come...

Posted by: Sarah at 10:49 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Why is it always the West's fault for not understanding Islam? Why is Islam itself never to blame? A Muslim college student wrote:

It does not come as a surprise to me that so many “unbiased” Western news sources carry extremely resentful outlooks regarding Islam.
There is a lack of distinction between orthodox Islamic values and the actions of a minority of Muslims. Western media outlets frequently present a correlation between these two classifications and often interpret Islam out of context. Unfortunately when it comes to reporting Islam, a lack of understanding, quoting sources out of context, and ethnocentric viewpoints seem to be trademarks.

And then in this debate, another Muslim suggested that in order to reform Islam,

we'll have to have a lot of help from rational Muslim minds around the world who buy into the argument that we--you, me, George Bush and Don Rumsfeld (i.e., all of us as Americans)--are not out to get them. ... We could enjoin Western scholars in that process and have them talk through external perception problems with what Islam proposes.
...
If we had an American Muslim FBI director, or the deputy Defense secretary was a Muslim by faith, or one day we had an American Muslim secretary of State, these officeholders would do a world of good by setting an example of how secularism, tolerance and belief can coexist, much the same way Condi Rice and Colin Powell did for black people everywhere in diffusing race as a factor in service to our country.

So the solution to the problem of Islam is that all we Western white folks have to coddle Muslims for decades and have some sort of new affirmative action that gets Muslims into positions of power so that they don't believe we all think they're evil? Give me a break. (It hasn't even worked that well for black people, since many of them hate Rice and Powell anyway.)

When the big news stories broke about Catholic priests molesting children, no Catholic said, "Well, it's not my priest who did that, it's some other priest who misinterpreted scripture." Catholics everywhere were outraged. Why aren't Muslims everywhere outraged? Why is it so easy for them to say "Well, I lead a good life, so it's not my fault if other Muslims misinterpret scripture."

The solution to Islam's problems is not a Muslim Condi Rice. Lord help us if we have to wait that long. The solution is for individual Muslims to be as outraged as individual Catholics were. Mansoor Ijaz says that he has never believed Allah wants him to kill Jews, but unfortunately many Muslims do believe just that. And they outnumber Ijaz. It's not my job as a white Westerner to make sure that Muslims don't feel offended; it's their job to make sure their religion doesn't offend. (And the solution is definitely not just to have Muslim editors making sure nothing in the newspaper offends Muslims. Good lord.)

The common complaint is that Islam is taken out of context. Please tell me what the correct context is then, because I don't know of any other way to interpret "We will wipe Israel off the map."

Posted by: Sarah at 04:52 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Back when I was in college, I was naive. I thought that people in the US liked the US. I learned the error of my thinking after 9/11, when I forwarded Gordon Sinclair's 1973 broadcast to my fellow students and professors. The email backlash shocked my naive self, as students rushed to label me jingoistic and insensitive. One professor pulled me into his office the next day and offered me some wisdom I've never forgotten: "The last place it's OK to be American is in an American university."

I was reminded of that today when I read that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the Taliban, is currently a student at Yale. I have many of the same questions as Varifrank, such as "Are there any students at Yale whose mother or father died on 9/11? Any children of NYC fireman at Yale? Any non-Taliban Afghani refugees in Yale? Any of them women?" Mostly I just want to know who had the brilliant idea to invite this jackass to the United States and let "an ex-Taliban envoy with a fourth-grade education and a high-school equivalency" into one of our most lauded universities for the sake of diversity and oneupsmanship.

Why are our universities so durned un-American?

Posted by: Sarah at 05:09 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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