The JackB

I am glad to see that I am not the only one who plays this game. If only I had thought to document it, oh well.

When I graduated from College they gave us cards to fill out with our names as they supposedly appeared on our diplomas. My friends and I had a field day filling out our “real” names and then some.

Lot of interesting graduates were found that day. Not to mention that some jackass got into it with one of my fellow graduates. Basically he was there to see some family/friend graduate. In his efforts to film the ceremony he blocked our view. We yelled and asked him to move, apparently this irked him enough that he threatened to come kick our rears.

Not only that, but he said that he was going to put the camera away and that he would return to inflict said punishment. The funny part is that he pointed at us and said “I’ll remember you.”

I am sure that 1000 of us dressed all dressed in black caps and gowns looked very different from each other.

Just some basic thoughts to throw out. For anyone who has been reading the board for any length of time now it should be evident that I support the war in Iraq.

I think that we did the right thing and I am happy that we did it. I am not going to run off and provide all of the reasons that I think we did the right thing. I’ll say that I am disappointed in how some things have been handled and that I think that we have fumbled the ball several times.

And I also want to add that I do not buy the argument that by going in we created an environment in which millions of people are going to crawl out of bed and become terrorists.

I think that it will create new terrorists and that this will be a good recruitment tool for AQ and friends. But I think that many of those people are predisposed to this behavior and not likely to have been friendly towards us to begin with.

There are lots of ways to disagree with people/politics and most ways do not involve violence. I don’t think that everyone is capable of launching murderous attacks even if they support the idea.

That being said, I believe that there are a number of things that are happening now including a polarization of sides that is being pushed by members of the fringes so to speak.

I think that there are many people who want this to become a case of Muslims versus the rest of the world and that they will continue to perform outrageous acts to fuel this desire.

What we are seeing and reading about now are more and more calls for revenge. People want blood and are calling out for action. I happen to believe that overwhelming force is going to be needed to bring the terrorists down and to force a position in which they have to use political means and not violence to negotiate their terms.

That being said I wanted to mention that I came across a site called Ogrish. It made me sad, it is “chock” full of barbaric videos of violence from the war and other places. I think that part of what made me sad is that I watched pieces of some of the videos. It was like a trainwreck, I had to force myself to stop watching.

I have seen some very bloody things in person and they were not nice, but it wasn’t nice to see it on the computer either. And I couldn’t help but think of the parents of these victims and how they have to face this terrible reality for the rest of their lives. It is a terrible weight.

And I think that part of what makes me sad is just my belief that the way to peace is going to require so much more bloodshed. Such a terrible contradiction, so wrong, but sometimes so necessary.

Life really is absurd sometimes.

What a busy time in my life. Today my father was released from the hospital. He went in on April 28, so just short of 2 months later the big man has been paroled from the joint. It was a combination of pneumonia, heart trouble and a few other odds and ends and he beat the odds and came through.

I am excited by I feel spent mentally and emotionally. The problem is that there is no time to sit back and mull over these things. It won’t pay the bills and it won’t keep work from piling on my desk. On days like this I think that I should clone myself 2 or 3 times so that I can always be working on the things that need to be done. And since it will be my clone I won’t have to worry about being in three places at once, I will be. and better yet, sorry, not sure what the better yet would be.

So it is another Saturday night and I am feeling kind of funky, not particularly unhappy or melancholy, but not ecstatic either. Not that there is anything wrong with that, so do I sound like Jerry Seinfeld.

In a short few weeks my second child will join my family in the “outside world” and I’ll have one more person under my care. Some people are really concerned about the world, they live in fear of what could happen, what might happen not what will happen. And I am just so thankful that I am not caught in that trap.

I cannot blame people for feeling a certain way, but I cannot accept such a negative view of the world. In part because I had the good fortune to be born in the US and to have done something with my life. When I look at history I cannot help but be optimistic, there is less brutality and senseless death in so many ways.

We do not live in the Dark Ages, but it does feel like it sometimes. OTOH, we see medical advances enable our friends and family to overcome health issues that would have killed them a generation ago. So there is progress.

On a different front I must say that I want to know what the hell Jerry Buss is thinking. Jerry, you used to be the finest owner out there and now you are turning into Steinbrenner. Why?

But It’s True – Torah.org: “‘I’m not speaking Lashon Hara–its true!!’ ”

So much to consider when we discuss being honest and forthright with people. At what point does honesty become brutal and at what cost does that honest come. Sometimes our words are like the stones that drop into a still pond causing ripples whose consequences we cannot predict.