Hmmm
Not sure what to talk about today. There are a hundred things on my mind at the moment. For one thing, It's Friday! Another, tomorrow I have to work. However tomorrow night we're going on a night cemetery tour in New Orleans w/my favorite Aunt Sari who is visiting from Mississippi. Pete and I also begin housesitting today.
Pete and I went out again last night, treated by my parents who so graciously gave us a reason to be by ourselves - they asked us to go to a restaurant and pick up dinner for them. We had an interesting conversation about the worldly ignorance that most Americans Pete has met have. I reminded him that he is in the 49th least educated state of all, and the other Americans he has spoken to are from the 50th least educated state. What began this was a comment my Dad had told Pete about people from Iran, "they're just a violent people." Dear old dad. He comes from an age where it's impossible to separate "people" into specific persons. Pete and I talked about a friend we had in England, who worked with us at the gas station, who was from Iran. And then it dawned on me, we're awful as Americans when we make judgments about a "people". Iraqis are just like us, except they have some overly patriotic "people" walking around them with guns and bombs and are interfering with their daily lives. How can we expect them to like us? Yeah I'd be grateful if Mexico saved us from Bush, but if they had to bomb my house to do it, I wouldn't be so happy.
Anyhow, it also reminded me of how our media forces us to pretend that we as Americans ARE the world, and those other countries are "that other world." Who here knows about Belgium's case of the century? Who knows what is going on in South Africa and Vietnam, and the Dominican Republic? How many civil wars has the Republic of Congo had? It's hard to find out unless you search long and hard.
And the last thing on my mind, is one of my favorite singers of one of my favorite bands is in the news, for apologizing for smoking a cigarette:
CNN.com - Bono breaches Irish smoking ban - Jun 18, 2004
I don't know how one of the smoking-est nations can do it. Stop apologizing Bono, you're human.
Not sure what to talk about today. There are a hundred things on my mind at the moment. For one thing, It's Friday! Another, tomorrow I have to work. However tomorrow night we're going on a night cemetery tour in New Orleans w/my favorite Aunt Sari who is visiting from Mississippi. Pete and I also begin housesitting today.
Pete and I went out again last night, treated by my parents who so graciously gave us a reason to be by ourselves - they asked us to go to a restaurant and pick up dinner for them. We had an interesting conversation about the worldly ignorance that most Americans Pete has met have. I reminded him that he is in the 49th least educated state of all, and the other Americans he has spoken to are from the 50th least educated state. What began this was a comment my Dad had told Pete about people from Iran, "they're just a violent people." Dear old dad. He comes from an age where it's impossible to separate "people" into specific persons. Pete and I talked about a friend we had in England, who worked with us at the gas station, who was from Iran. And then it dawned on me, we're awful as Americans when we make judgments about a "people". Iraqis are just like us, except they have some overly patriotic "people" walking around them with guns and bombs and are interfering with their daily lives. How can we expect them to like us? Yeah I'd be grateful if Mexico saved us from Bush, but if they had to bomb my house to do it, I wouldn't be so happy.
Anyhow, it also reminded me of how our media forces us to pretend that we as Americans ARE the world, and those other countries are "that other world." Who here knows about Belgium's case of the century? Who knows what is going on in South Africa and Vietnam, and the Dominican Republic? How many civil wars has the Republic of Congo had? It's hard to find out unless you search long and hard.
And the last thing on my mind, is one of my favorite singers of one of my favorite bands is in the news, for apologizing for smoking a cigarette:
CNN.com - Bono breaches Irish smoking ban - Jun 18, 2004
I don't know how one of the smoking-est nations can do it. Stop apologizing Bono, you're human.
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