Well, it's been a while...

By popular demand (well... not so popular, but demand anyhow...) I'm finally updating the diary on my site. Hi, Pedro!

By the way, Pedro's back... has been for a couple months now. He's posted a couple entries about his trip in his blog. He's got more to post yet, but I suppose I'm in no position to fault him for being slow, eh.

Well, anyhow, today, I have a rant and a report about what happened on my birthday. I suppose I'll start with the rant, just to get it over with. Maybe putting the rant first will give me incentive to keep it short, eh.

Anybody out there who has not heard of Cindy Sheehan? The last couple of weeks, she's been a focal point around which a lot of anti-war groups have begun to rally. It's gratifying, but odd that so many people waited until now to come together. Ms Sheehan's began her work long enough ago that I've had a link to her website on my page for months.

For anyone who's been living in a cave and doesn't know who Cindy Sheehan is: President Bush's latest piece of idiocy is to declare that we have to stay the course in Iraq because pulling out now would be dishonor the soldiers who have given their lives to the cause. Ms Sheehan heard this and was outraged. Not only was her son's life wasted in a war that was begun under false pretenses, but now the same president who invoked those false pretenses was now using the sacrifice of soldiers, like her son, as justification for not bringing the rest of the troops home! Then he went on vacation.

So she set up camp on the road to his "rustic" vacationland and said that she was going to stay there till he came off vacation at the end of August or until he came down of his high horse and actually faced up to her. When news of this hit, she was quickly joined by many other people and groups that felt the same as she did about what's going on.

She had to leave early due to a family emergency, but the other protesters still remain to support the cause and to let Bush know that the American people don't believe his nonsense any more. His "approval rating" has never been lower. Now that she's left, he's finally come out of hiding... not to address Ms Sheehan or the groups supporting her, but to "answer to" Ms Sheehan at talks at a few specially selected policy friendly audiences. What's he saying in answer to her? Almost word for word the same speach that he gave before she set up camp. He's either an idiot, or he thinks the entire United States is populated by nothing but gullible fools who'll accept anything if you say it often enough.

Well, maybe so... We were going through looking for a video the other day and stumbled across a tape of the movie, Animal Farm, based on George Orwell's book of the same name. I would reccommend that book (or the movie) to anyone over the age of 12 who hasn't read it yet. I first heard of the book when I was in high school. I remember the teacher saying that the story in the book was often sited as a comparison to the history of communism, despite the fact that the author clearly said that he had not fully intended it as such. It's the story of some animals on a farm that rebelled against and drove out their human oppressors. Then the set up a free and equal society with a constitution of sorts that governed their society painted on the side of the barn wall. The first article in the costituation was "All animals are equal". Slowly, over the course of the book, the constitution started to subtly change with someone making slight changes in during the nights. Of course, as the governing document changed, so did the society with it... until at the end of the book, the first article now read, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

Read the book, then take a good look at our "Homeland Security" and "Patriot Act". If you aren't as frightened as I am by the similarities there, then you just aren't paying attention.

Well, so much for keeping the rant short. I need to go get milk because we are out. I'll post about my birthday (yes, Pedro, and about the DVD) later this afternoon.

Real quick, in closing, I found a couple op-ed pieces written by Ted Rall that say quite elloquently some of the same things I've been saying about the world situation. (Except I have no problem with "Victory Gardens". I think they'd be great tool in the "war" against poverty.)

GOT EMPATHY?

SACRIFICE? COUNT ME OUT

peace