One of my co-workers I work with last year showed me some videos of US troops blowing up a jeep full of Afghan soldiers. He said something like, “Mark, you gotta check this out! It’s pretty funny!”

The guy who showed me is one of the people I used to play WW2 Online with every once in a while (it’s a MMOFPS). I can only guess that killing “Frogs” virtually with him makes him think I’m all for war and that killing people in real life is funny.

And this isn’t just limited to my testosterone heavy friends. One of my other co-workers who is a middle-aged woman and into things like “Survivor” and “American Idol” showed me a Flash movie about the war on Afghanistan, a song about how great it was to take down the terrorists and how they caused thousands of Americans to suffer. Is it just ignorance of how much *we* cause other people to suffer that makes us feel like we are in the right so much so that we can laugh at other’s misfortunes? “Sure, we’re killing and displacing some civilians, but they attacked us first!” Uh, first in what sense? Also, is it so hard to separate individuals from a whole group/nation/ethnic race? I find it hard to believe that that little 6 yr old girl blew up the towers…

I get the GameDAILY newsletter right now (it’s mostly crap). In it is a section for classifieds, and recently, one of them has been an ad for the AttackSaddam.com domain name. I find this neither appropriate in this newsletter nor do I find it amusing, and I imagine the people who registered the domain name, and are now selling it, to be very much like my co-workers in mentality.

The argument exists that games don’t cause people to be violent, and I know that this is definitely true for at least some people (I only have to look in a mirror for proof of that), but I wonder how a professional publication with supposedly tons of professionals in the gaming industry can not be hypocritical by allowing stuff like this in their classifieds. Actually, I don’t have so much a problem with their classifieds being non-censored, but I do have a problem with the appearance of complacency–no that is too weak a word–the finding humor in an ad like this.

Am I wrong here? Is this stuff funny?

Anyway, Brandon. The question is very often “Do the ends justify the means?” The problem with this question is that knowing what the “ends” will be isn’t always guaranteed. It puts too much emphasis on pre-cognition. In real life, we can’t always know what the cause-effect will be of a decision and we may not know the effects for years to come. This is why in a democracy, we talk about things and decide on the best course of action together through reasoning. And I think this is why most people who were or are against the war have that opinion, that we did not decide with our UN peers to go to war. In the end, maybe what we’ve done is for the better, but the way we’ve done it exposes our irrational, short-sighted nature.

PS. Is it weird that I don’t find running over civvies in Grand Theft Auto 3 funny, more of an annoyance that the game practically forces you to do so?

Here’s some good news.

A question. Does the knowledge that there are thousands of people that have an opportunity for a better life now (if only for lack of fear of their families and whanot being exterminated), because of this action, lessen or invalidate your opposition to it? This is for those that didn’t agree with it, or still don’t, such as myself. Not to pigeon hole you all as unpatriotic, my bad.

For a while there my life was pretty exciting. I thought I was getting a free ticket to China. I hear the Asian food is pretty authentic there. I guess I’ll just have to be content with sampling every single bowl of changs that passes through my hands. It’s for your own good Chris. You gotta keep slim to entice Benny.

Bummer about the HLSD job Brandon. Pretty ridiculous that your half sister’s nationality had such an effect. I wonder if this kind of discrimination is prevalent in other areas besides government related jobs. An enrollment drop in middle school French classes for instance.

Onto other bad news, I just found out that my brother broke his leg in a motorcycle accident while on vacation in Mexico. Made me a bit queasy to hear about it. I wonder if motorcycles are more dangerous than bicycling…on a per mile basis?

Well, I’m biking back to the Ski Cabin tomorrow morning. I came down to sign a settlement with OHP (Oregon Health Plan). They jacked me a few years back by dropping all my coverage because I had Reed health insurance. I did some research, asked some questions and found some really stupid and shady policies used by OHP. If you have Health insurance, OHP will not give you dental…even if you are dirt poor. If you were insured in the last 6 months, no dice. Since a reed student must have insurance to be at reed, no Reed student can get on the OHP unless they take a semester off and live without insurance. I found that other poor Reed students have had unsuccessful dealings with OHP. The rules are shady because when OHP applied for federal funding, some of their rules were not in the charter. I won’t bore you with the details but I somehow ended up with a federally funded lawyer for the poor, who tried but could not get me back on the OHP. As a result of my intervention, OHP has made these stupid rules legit by reapplying for federal funding with these new regulations added. They are going to reimburse me my health care cost for the last two years when I should have been on OHP. I feel like they owe every person who was rejected on the basis of those shady rules but that’s probably not going to happen.

Looking at the bigger picture, I can see that OHP did this to cut down the number of people on the OHP. The problem is that OHP does not have enough funds….which leads one to ask…where’s all the freakin’ money going? Not to health care for the poor and not to public schools.

Mark, I can see the attraction of looking beyond our borders. Are you serious about moving to Canada? What about all the prep work you did? I guess one shouldn’t worry about sunk costs. Going to UW to justify the prep work is a pretty dumb argument.

Gotta get some sleep or Le Mon Hood will eat me up.

Looks like the job won’t be going through; my half sister isn’t half at all, she’s French. Needless to say, they’re not good for recommendations right now, so, I’m once again with an abundance of time. Mark, you’re welcome to get a ride with me whenever. I might not slow down when you get out, but I’ll get you there…

I almost linked to the exact same site… Small net eh?

It doesn’t matter if I can’t stay since Robin and I decided last night that we would move to Canada. I’ve cancelled my plans for graduate school at UW and am now applying for the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. I hear Vancouver is the most culturally diverse city in the world.

Let me know when you guys get hitched Chris and Ben; I’m honored to be the best man and look forward to Brandon driving me around like a good black boy.

Oh, and be sure to check this site out: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/top100.html

Yeah, I can drive stick, but I’ll have to clear my schedule first. It’s good thing that you’ll be taking care of Schrag cos’ Yeung isn’t gonna be vetted by the HLSD. Sorry Ben, she can’t be trusted, and must be traded. George won’t make it either. And Colin is out too. Mark, sorry, but Robin is cool. I get a waiver to work on the odd days of the year. Chris, you’re pretty much able to buy whatever you want, though I think this gender change thing may run afoul of pending legislation. You might want to free up about 5 to 10 years of your time here in the near future. Don’t worry about sending me an invitation, I’ll know about it anyway.

Congrats Brandon! I expect that you will be personally tapping my phone?

On a side note, I’ve decided to have a sex change and marry Ben. I thought you all should know. We talked about it at lunch today, and he agrees that it would be the best for everybody. We would like Mark to be our Best Man and George to be the Chang’s Bearer (the person who brings our wedding bowls to the grill and returns with glorious grilled goodness).

Brandon, we need a valet. Can you drive stick?

We will be registered at Pottery Barn and with the Miller Brewing Company. The Reverand Moon will join us at the stroke of midnight after the NCAA National Championship Game in New Orleans. Afterwards, Colin will be expected to cut down my hair net. Tickets are $15, available at Sam Goody on even numbered days.

Happy April Fool’s Day!

I’m going full time again! My half-sister was able to pull a few strings and get me in to the Homeland Security Dept. She used to be a communications tech with the Coast Guard, and since they became part of the dept, she’s got a little bit of pull. That I was in the service and retain clearance didn’t hurt. So, I’ll be a GS10 in the telecommunications operations divison. There’s a drive to step up our civil monitoring activities to support our domestic security initiatives, so they’re grabbing up quite a few people. Dunno how I feel about that, but whatever. As you guys prob know, most of the international links have been monitored for, well, forever. It’s only recently that there’s been broad authority to do this domestically, a provision of the Patriot Act. I’ve never used the equipment to monitor GSM or CDMA/TDMA cell networks, but I’ll be going to school in Virginia next month. Back into the fold for me!

Hmm, I have been having the same thoughts Brandon, regarding going elsewhere. I find myself ashamed to be an American especially in groups of grad students where I am the only one, and am often out-numbered by students from the middle east. You shouldn’t have to explain why your country is full of ignorant buffoons. My favorite news of the day: Cheney’s old company not only specializes in oil-industry equipment, their main field is in rebuilding infrastructure of countries. Oh, how convenient.

Most enraging thing in general I saw today: on the CNN.com website there’s a link called “day in photos” or something of the sort. It’s all separated into convenient categories: one is “warfare”, one is “damage” etc so you can look at all the nice planes and weapons without having to see the “dead people”. Then all the captions on the pictures of the wrecked buildings and wounded people in Iraq have the word “reportedly” in them. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Like: “An Iraqi woman stands among ruins of a section of Baghdad that was reportedly hit during airstrikes.” with a picture of a woman in a totally ruined building. Oh, maybe she blew up her own house…you can’t be SURE that the U.S. bombed it. Maybe they BUILT it that way, the new “open air” style of house. Fucking morons. Makes me sick.

Unfortunately, I must focus on the thesis this week above everything else. Sunday all the writing has to be finished…and then all printed with references by Friday next week. Hopefully by then things won’t be much much worse for our misguided country.

Page count: 130.

For the first time in my life, I mentioned, even as a joke, that I would live outside the US. Toronto specifically. I have never been so incensed about something that has been undertaken by our leadership. I do not trust what is put forth by our government; I check against what is convenient for the party argument at every turn. I have “served my country”, and figure myself no less a patriot then those doing the job now as I would were it still mine to do. But I so truly relish that involvement is my choice, and that I do not have to participate or sacrifice the only thing that is mine for this bullshit. I was laughing today that less then four years ago I had a conversation with my middle brother about the reality of joining the service (as opposed to the lines of the recruiters) in which I pointed out that you may find yourself in world of shit without acquiescence or recourse; he’s now at UC Davis. For as little as I agree with the state of affairs, I would ensure that I go before I see a brother of mine be sacrificed for this. I hope that none of you are burdened with concern for your loved ones, and hope that none of us pay what is a likely and continued price for our audacity.

This is of course from EM3 Parker, USN. Funny how life plays out.