If you’re thinking about jumping into someone’s comments to try to defend three armed men chasing down and killing an unarmed man running on a public street… just don’t. Their whiteness doesn’t give them authority or agency over brown bodies. Slavery is over. Jim Crow is supposedly over. They had zero authority to do whatever… Continue reading Defending the Indefensible
Category: terrorism
Letters to My Congressman
My local congressman, Buddy Carter, sends out a weekly newsletter and this week’s was a doozy. I don’t normally write to him, because I’m not sure it does any good, but I had to in this case. Here’s what I wrote. Feel free to use it and write to your representatives. In your latest newsletter… Continue reading Letters to My Congressman
We’ll Never Understand
So far, I’ve seen statements from at least 3 politicians, who have no problem expressing strong opinions about people outside their religion and race; who never let their own ignorance keep them from pronouncing judgement on others, say today that we’ll “never understand the motivations” of the monster who killed 9 people last night in… Continue reading We’ll Never Understand
What’s Happened to the Boy Scouts?
They’re now training Explorer scouts to ‘combat terrorism’. That’s crazy. As a wee bit of backstory, I’m an Eagle Scout. I was a Cub Scout and in scouting from age 8 to about 17 when I was a junior assistant scoutmaster. I got my Eagle when I was fourteen and was an Explorer.\ I can’t… Continue reading What’s Happened to the Boy Scouts?
Bad Idea
Can we agree now that the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea? Nothing that the Administration said would happen has happened: There were no WMD. Saddam had no ties to Al Qaeda. We weren’t greeted as liberators. Fighting them there hasn’t made us safer here. Democracy hasn’t “flourished” in Iraq or been a good… Continue reading Bad Idea
Not much has changed
Five years ago, I really thought my world was going to change drastically. I had flashes of a WW2-style life, with money being scarce for everyone, goods being rationed, and the economy in general being unstable. I remember wondering if my husband could still pay the mortgage if he lost his job and had to… Continue reading Not much has changed
No Excuses, No Rationalization
Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offense under the law of the United States. No official of the government, federal, state or local, civilian or military,… Continue reading No Excuses, No Rationalization
Probing The Wrong End
GOP leaders urge leak probe into secret prisons report\ I would think that whoever leaked the information would be covered under the whistle blower law. The tactic is illegal, and they’ve uncovered illegal activity. Classified or not, the leaker should be given a medal, not investigated.\ Again, the GOP has it backwards: The crime is… Continue reading Probing The Wrong End
Wrong Is Wrong
CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons\ How do we justify this? If this is against the law, both US law, and treaties we’ve agreed to as a country, and the President can’t sign a “finding” that breaks the law – how were we able to do this? Why didn’t someone in the government put… Continue reading Wrong Is Wrong
What I’ve Been Up To
I’ve totally redone the categories, so they’re more tag-like. I’m also slowly going through all the posts I did while I was on Blogger, over 600 of them, and moving them to their appropriate categories. It’s been fun going back and looking at some of the stuff I wrote a few years ago. It’s a… Continue reading What I’ve Been Up To