confusion

It’s the little things… Like one minute I’m walking past Five and I catch a whiff of someone smoking a Clove. The next minute I’m standing in a corner of the SERP house talking to Laura-Lee and Scotty while Stroud’s mix vibrates the floor. Or I’m sitting in Starbucks and hear a sound—I don’t even know what it was, but suddenly I have the most vivid image of a street in Florence. I was standing there on my cell phone calling the Misches to ask Ann if she wanted me to send here a new Bisccotti jar because the shop before me had one just like hers. I’ve always had little flash bulb memories but lately everything is taking me somewhere else. The escalator at Dupont Station suddenly turned into the escalator at Kings Cross-St. Pancress. I think I’m going crazy…

Do you remember the ‘enemy combatants?’ The ones at Guantanamo bay? There still there! And about now President bush had decided to go ahead with his military tribunals. The hypocrisy of this is so bad, it makes me wish I was not an American! How can America even pretend to be any better than the so called ‘totalitarian regimes’ of Saddam Hussain or the Taliban? These people are prisoners of war, even if we did not go to war officially—congress never declared war, but everyone else called it a war.

I think that the state of affairs surrounding the legal and physical treatment of these prisoners is the biggest threat to the ideals of America and democracy anywhere in the world. Worse than any terrorist attack because it undermines the very ideals on which our country was founded. The US has criticized other nations in the past for the use of military justice against it’s citizens and now we find out President—who is supposed to be the beacon of democracy, liberty and justice in the world—turning America into a hypocrisy, not a democracy.

By placing the prisoners at Guantanamo bay President Bush believes he has placed them beyond the reach of justice. Now he can do with them as he pleases. But the right to justice is just as universal and inalienable as those of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Bush has refused to follow the Geneva convention and allow representation to the prisoners. Again making the US a hypocrisy by decrying the broadcasting of captured American in Iraq—a violation of the Geneva convention.

We as the citizens of America who fought for the rights of justice—trial by jury, legal representation, and fair treatment—should cry out in out loudest voice for the Bush Administration to stop undermining those very rights. If we as Americans deserve them then ALL humans deserve them.

(read more here [ www.economist.com ] )

Well, I spent most of last Saturday looking at apartments—found a really nice one, but someone else got it before I could get everything together—DAMN! Oh well, c’est la vie. Been on the phone all this week setting up apointments to see other places. All of which so far have been too small, too funky, too far from—well, from anything, or in parts of town where I would not let my dog walk after dark. But I have a few more apointments tomorrow and a few tenative ones today. So. We shall see what we shall see. Got to find something qucik so I can give notice on my place.

I don’t know if the whole thing is a joke or not (I would not put it past the people at Berkeley,) but this article [ berkeley.edu ] on the ‘psychology of conservatism’ is quite interesting. I don’t know if I can buy the whole ‘meta-analytic calculations’ which led to the conclusions… So what makes a conservative? Well, according to them:
  – Fear and aggression
  – Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
  – Uncertainty avoidance
  – Need for cognitive closure
  – Terror management
Sounds about right… :-)

Yes, the flat (you’ll see why I said flat at the end.) hunt has officially begun. I was going to go home this weekend but instead I have appointments to see several flats in he Dupont area. There are many issues to overcome: Space vs. Price, Location vs. Price, getting out of old lease more than a month early, Income vs. Price (Basically I need to win the lottery so I can buy that damn loft in Adams Morgan!) Anyway I’ve got a couple of good leads and some time to look around I’ll find something… But remember, be wery wery quiet, I’m hunting fwats.