Re: This morning

From: Raymond Brown wrote
> Hey - I thought this list was for constructing languages.  Maybe I've got
> that wrong too & lost the plot somewhere.  Personally, I'm finding some of
> the politicking quite sickening.
>
> When some tragedy strikes, whether personal or national, we naturally
> express our sorrow and condolences.
>
> Cannot we leave it like that and let (misinformed) politicking take place
> on some other list?
>
I agree entirely. Earlier I found some hope in the observation that
everybody's song of choice was "God Bless America" and not "The Battle Hymn
of the Republic." I note that after President Bush's remarks today in which
he promised war at a moment of "our" (not my) chosing, they played "The
Battle Hymn of the Republic." I invite everyone to peruse the lyrics of that
song to find a zealotry the equal of anything Osama Bin Ladin can produce.

The fact is that what we are seeing here is the destruction of the promise
of the 21st century; we are watching as the world in which we grew
comfortable is being killed. In way too short a time it will make no
difference who was "right" and who "wrong," whose was the original sin that
stoked this particular holocaust. We will all be caught up in it and all of
us equally damaged. and, in the end, all equally exhausted into peace. And
when we get our breath back we will take up slaughtering each other again
for whatever reasons we contrive. What does it matter where the blame lies.
there is plenty enough blame for every one of us, whether as "radical
islamic terrorists" or as Western Civilization's vile capitalist exploiters.
Really, those people do not exist. there is just us, weak, confused and all
too bent to the clarifying joys of self-sanctioned murder. Give it a rest.
There is nothing that any one of us can do; there is no person on whom we
can have any effect  - except ourselves.

Meanwhile, let's go back to making up our little personal languages, an
activity vastly more sane and worthwhile than what the rest of the world has
given itself up to.