AND SHE'S BACK
Hit the ground running? Well, no. I'm at a slow jog now, and I'll try to pick up some speed and then merge. I was going to get back here a lot sooner, honest, but between schoolwork on the one hand and getting utterly pissed off at my conversational adversaries on the other (memo: don't deliberately avoid Fox's questions and pretend you didn't understand her -- it just makes her mad), I needed a break. Things could run fine without me.

And they did. People keep talking about war with Iraq; a crazed sniper shot thirteen of my fellow-citizens; and Senator Wellstone is dead. Great. Who's got a beer for me? Or, forget beer -- need something stronger.

I cried when they caught the sniper. I'd been handling the tension okay, but it was starting to get to me -- elaborate what-if scenarios where my phone would ring and it would be a friend in Washington telling me another friend had been hit, and I'd have to get there asap, but of course I wouldn't be in any shape to drive, and I'd have to quit school, because finish the semester? not so much, and, and, and ... it's never fun when your imagination runs away with you. But there are approximately six people I'm close to who don't live in the DC metro area, so the fact that I don't live there any more was less reassuring to me than it could have been.

And then last weekend, I was filling up the car in Montgomery County, and just as I came around the car after grabbing the receipt, there was a loud bang.

I. Jumped. Three. Feet.

It wasn't a gunshot; it was, like, a tire blowing out or something. And this was Sunday, when they'd had the guy in custody for three days already. But even so, I'd bet good money everyone around DC is going to be a little skittish for a long time, wouldn't you?


Iraq, the war, etc.: it gives me a headache. I can see valid arguments on both sides of the issue, but very little frustrates me more than the sticking of heads in the sand. I don't like absolutes. Yes, I'd rather there not be wars. But, yes, there are times when it's worse, morally, to avoid fighting. Do I think this is such a case? I don't know. I don't know. I expect the last time I heard anything unbiased (in either direction) about Iraq was maybe 1988, and I was far too young to be paying attention.

I've been seeing a lot of bumper stickers lately that say "If you want peace, work for justice." And -- setting aside the triteness inherent in the fact that the sentiment is now mass-produced -- it's a decent point. Peace for its own sake is a sham. I have a friend who really believes that the most important goal in All This should be less violence -- that anything that results in a decrease in violence will be worth it, will be good on that basis alone, because a decrease in violence will be the result. But I wish I could remember how an old roommate of mine put it: that peace and liberty are necessarily incompatible. I don't think it's worth living in unbearable conditions under a ruthless dictator just because getting the guy out of office might be dangerous.

At the same time, though, the yes-war-is-a-good-thing hawkishness I see on the other side upsets me, too. And people who start from a position of replacing Saddam Hussein, or defending Israel, or whatever, and in six words or less get to a position of basically recolonizing the entire Middle East -- thanks, but no. If you have a quarrel with terrorism -- and you should -- then fight it. If you have a quarrel with Islam, and you know your constituents won't get behind you if you try to fight it -- and they shouldn't -- dressing it up as a quarrel with terrorism isn't the way to get it done. You're not fooling anyone.


Wellstone: Not sure what to think on this either. Some people will shriek "conspiracy!" if their guy stubs his toe, and accidents do happen ... but, on the other hand, Wellstone was the leftiest of the left in the opposition to the war in Iraq, and it's awfully convenient for the right to have the Senate back where Cheney can at least reach the controls ...