confusion

I went to C’ville for my sisters graduation. I was down there for three days and I don’t know anyone there anymore. I know of one person who lives there, I’ve only met them once but due to the lovely power of the Internet (and them having a website) I can stalk them online. I tried to make contact with them to have something to do on Saturday night. Nothing came of it. But on Saturday afternoon while I was out with my mother I bumped into two people from my past.

It’s been years since I even saw them. They were, quite possibly, my two best friends at the end of high school. After high school some stuff happened and I ended up loosing contact with all my high school friends. Bad blood. And these two—their love and my friendship—was at the heart of the conflict.

I stopped and said hello to them. I got the cold shoulder from one. He talked but never looked at me after I said hello. We only talked for a few minutes. They have two kids now and they did not even introduce me to them. I would like to talk to them, to find out what happened, what I did that started the bad blood. I’ve always wanted to find out.

We all had to get going, but as I turned to leave he said they should get my number. So she took it down. I asked what they were going to do for the night and she said she was going to head down to the club. I said to give me a call and I’d join them. I did not take their number because I’m not sure if they really want to hear from me, so I decided to await their call.

The phone never rang.

This afternoon on my way back to the District I stopped along 29 North and walked through the headstones till I came to Joe’s grave [ confusion.cc ]. There is a little square of granite, flush to the ground that has his name on it. I did not really stop to think why I was there. I didn’t stay long. But it was a beautiful evening, the sun going down, the birds singing. Peace. Rest in Peace.

Seeing them, and the disappointment of not getting the call caused me to do a lot of thinking. A lot of memories returned to the forefront of my thoughts. Memories not forgotten but put away long ago. I have a lot of questions that I would have liked to get answered. Let the water flow under the bridge and put right whatever I can that is still wrong. But the ball is in their court.

They know my number. The choice is theirs.

Most people get their news from TV. Problem is that in the past few years the regression from the idea of reporting the news back to the yellow journalism ideals of making up the news has greatly accelerated. Fox News had lead the blind charge (though all the other news networks have followed) and today the ‘news’ is just another battle ground between conservative bigots and bleeding heart liberals. It’s gotten so bad that you can’t even form an idea of what really happened in any event by watching both sides. Read this [ foxnews.com ] from The O’Reilly factor yesterday and you can see how inflammatory reporting has become. Even though O’Reilly’s comments where given as his and not the networks there was no attempt to have a counter argument from someone who disagrees—no “fair an balanced” reporting.

J███████ and K– come over for the afternoon. The first words out of J███████’s mouth when he came in were “was your camera in your car Beggs?” “No,” “Good,” he said, “because someone broke the back window again.”

Yes, once again someone broke the back passengers side window of my car. My new car. They did not take anything—the alarm must have stopped them. The door was unlocked but when your tried to open it the alarm went off. Not that they would have gotten anything. The only things in the car are a watch that does not work and the cheep tripod I have been using.

So once again the back seat of my car is covered with tiny shards of glass and I’m going to have to pay to replace a window. I want to know what I did that lead to my car being broken into three times?

You tell me.

“[the abuses at Abu Ghraib are] the logical consequence of the pursuit of the war on terror by the United States since 9/11. It is the natural outcome of the policy, openly followed by the US administration, to pick and choose which bits of international law it will apply and when”.

— Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International at a press confrence [ www.guardian.co.uk ] announcing the release of the Amnesty International Report 2004 [ www.amnesty.org ].