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Monday, Dec. 15, 2003 - 10:36 p.m. Cost of the War in Iraq
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WARNING!!!! if you know me personally, you may read my diary, but if you do, you take the chance of hearing things you don't want to know, misunderstanding what I've written and being hurt by it. If you are unsure if it is ok to read, save yourself and me the grief and heartache, and ask first!!! Please note that this is a DIARY, ie my subjective feelings, hearsay, suppositions, and outpourings of ranting of the moment. It does not represent objective news, the whole of what I think of a topic or someone, or even a thought-out representation of any of the above. Keep that in mind. Thanks. * Here is a Diary Etiquette Read Me. Big Snow and Yann in Saskatchewan OOOH Here is happy doggies outside yesterday when it was actually snowing real snow (vs that skinny stickyon sifted through the wind snow). For some reason my polaroid is just the shits. Maybe the some reason is that it is both cheap and old. Mostly cheap. It looks like it is dusk, whereas it was quite bright and 2pm. funny that. And of course everyone has either heard or experienced this incredible snowfall which has been about 19 inches in NYC and here 12 inches. Apparently the most snow we have had at once for 10 years. hehe. Of course it happened immediately after I drew the Christmas card of me and doggies with our shovel and snowshoes with no snow. Yes, it was all determined by my choice of artwork. So to honor that, we got some poor soul with wet mittens to take a couple shots of us tonight in the park, with said props. Again, the cheap polaroid seems to have an even cheaper flash. Glll. This is the best I could do after diddling around with them in photoshop.
Yann Martel who wrote "Life of Pi" (and he gave the reasons why there is no article "the" or "a") was just speaking on the radio at the Saskatchewan Book Awards. It is a pleasure to hear someone talk about my home province. He said they got out of the car, where it was so so so flat, so they could on foot experience the flatness. And there was no sound in the snow. But then within moments, two snowmobiles came roaring towards them. They thought "oh no, we are trespassing!!, it is the farmer and his son come to chase us off!!". But they were wrong... it was the farmer and his son, come to check, since they figured they mustve had a car breakdown and needed assistance. Within moments he and his wife were getting taken on a recreational snowmobile tour. It was a fun little story. He didnt answer the question about if his hair was real, and who was his hairdresser (now I must find an image of him, as I am curious as to his hair....)... he said he "didnt understand the question"... but he did answer about the island in the book. He says there are two possible competing stories in Life of Pi, and he didnt want them to be both equally believable. He says we are not totally logical beings and he wanted to keep the suspension of disbelief we had in being engaged in his story of a castaway with a tiger, and wanted then to take a leap with the disbelief, a leap of faith and fantasy if you will. If I understood him correctly. It was an interesting answer about the island. Also he spoke of animals. That we see animals as objects related to us, as food, as companions etc. Anthropomorphised. And he says when you remove all that you get another being from us. One that is foreign and mystery and different from us. He says that it is still how we relate to animals, how we treat animals when we don't see them as extensions of ourselves which is important. He says it diminishes us when we treat animals badly. I liked that. I would agree. And I was called self-righteous today, well not directly... I was speaking once again of copyright and was told that letter of the law perspectives obscure and self-righteous political correctness and judgment is not pleasant blah blah blah. And you know, I don't mistreat animals or not litter or all that shit cuz of political correctness or letter of the law perspective, far from it. I can be darn disdainful of the law when it is serving someone at the expense of something else. But rather I don't do these things because I try, and it is often a haphazard feeble attempt, not to go against things i believe in. I think it diminishes us when we steal art, when we litter the parks we want to enjoy, and poison the water we hope to drink, and treat other humans with racial disdain etc. I think maybe it is time I make another quiz. As to what people think and do about "live and let live",,, do you let other people, and yourself, do things that you disagree with or think that are wrong?? Most people would step in, we like to believe, if we see someone beating a dog. But how about hitting their wife, stealing in a store, being verbally abusive to their child, selling drugs to kids, how about giving beer to 13 year olds or 15 yr olds or 18 yr olds? (here in Quebec 18 is legal drinking age, so we find it a bit funny to see whole newspaper page fronts about Bush's daughters being caught drinking at 18 or 19 or whatever was not 21)... What is meddling? What is letting abuses go, and thus condoning them? What if the child who you see getting hit by his father, and you said "oh that is not my business" turns up beaten to death tomorrow? What if the business down the street that pours garbage into the stream is ignored cuz they give jobs to the community, and then many people get sick from drinking the water in the community? Who is guilty? Only the business? The people who didnt say anything? I don't know. Hmm. self-righteous. How about if you get angry about a drunk driver who killed a couple kids you knew (or didnt know)... and then you realize that you allow yourself to drive even if you're swerving "just a little". Well, how about if you clean up your act, cuz you realize that you could be the next kid-killer? Well, then, should you say nothing if your best friend drinks and drives?? Are you a self-righteous politically correct asshole if you say "please don't do that", or if you say "I try not to do that because..."... if you try to share your point of view... hmmm. It is not easy. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'm sure I can find a quote or two... The true secret of giving advice is, |
*inspired by Chaosdaily