Dispatches from the Abyss - Wednesday, Oct. 10th

Feh. Well I sat down at the computer about an hour ago, intending to check email and a couple of the forums I frequent for a bit before starting in on tonight's dispatch. Instead I found a post bitching about Israel taking more land. I in NO WAY support the Israeli plan to build a wall between them and the Palestinians on Palestinian land, however I am tired of the current trend in liberal America to paint Israel as being completely wrong, thus absolving the Palestinians of any responsibility for their current state of affairs. The tone of the initial post let me so fired up I ended up spending a good thirty to forty minutes writing, quite passionately I might add, about what it would take to fix the current situation.

I will not bore you with the details but ultimately it comes down to giving the Palestinians a hope for the future. It is time to stop thinking of Jenin and all of the other "refugee camps" as refugee camps. After you have been living there for more than a decade calling it a refugee camp is a bit silly. What they really are is slums. These slums need to be torn down and reasonable housing needs to be provided, with electricity, water, and all the other modern comforts of home. Palestinians need to be given jobs and allowed access to those jobs so they can make a living. Aid needs to be poured in to the West Bank and Gaza and controlled by reasonable people so that civil institutions can be created and a civil society can begin to grow. Provisions need to be made for the education of every Palestinian child through high school age. If a Palestinian can get accepted into a university or college in the United States, Canada, or Britain then they should be given a full scholarship to attend the school with the understanding that once they have completed their degree they MUST return to the West Bank or Gaza to teach school for a couple of years. Ultimately if you remove this unbearable load of hopelessness under which the average Palestinian currently labors then the Palestinians and Israelis can begin to work towards a permanent solution which creates an independent and sovereign Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.

I believe we even had a chance to make this change happen in the recent past. With the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections the West was faced with an ugly choice. We could cleave to the democratic ideals we claim to believe in (Isn't the current rational for spilling more American blood in Iraq that we are bringing democracy to the Middle East?) even when the results are not what we might wish. Or we could pack up our toys and go home. Guess what we did? For the second time in his presidency G-Dub had, what I believe, was an opportunity to profoundly change the world for the better and he opted not to. (The first was right after 9-11 when the world was united in its condemnation of terrorism and Iran was making overtures to the U.S. about being a partner in Afghanistan, amongst other things.) The reason we walked away is because Hamas is a terrorist organization, a labeled that can just as easily be applied to the PLO, however the reason the Palestinians voted for Hamas is because they were tired of the Fatah/PLO old boy network which was about as corrupt a government as one can come by. All they wanted was for the aid money to help the man in the street, something Hamas promised to do.

Oh well. I hope someone starts making good decisions with regards to the Middle East in the next decade or so or things are going to get REALLY out of hand. Let us move on to a happier topic, shall we?

Like hockey, for instance? Tonight there were two games on television and I spent most of my evening flipping between the two of them. First was the New York Rangers versus the New York Islanders, which ended up being a very close game with the Islanders edging out the Rangers 2 to 1 in Madison Square Garden. Sadly I did not watch much of this game but rather I watched the Dallas Stars hammer the Los Angeles Kings 5 to 1. Marty Turco made some excellent saves throughout the game but these were especially critical early on when the game was a 1-0 and 2-0 affair. If the Kings had managed to sneak one past Turco at that point then the entire complexion of the game is changed. As it was the third period was hardly worth watching with Dallas scoring just sixteen seconds in to make the game 5-Love. By this time the New York New York face-off was done so I was stuck watching South Sydney Story on Versus. Now I want to see the rest of the series although I have to say that the first episode seemed like a whole lot of manufactured drama. We already know that Russell Crowe and his partner take over the team so the build up and drama about the vote, while probably the way it was, seemed like a whole lot of wasted time to me. For those of you who don't know (which I imagine is pretty much everyone but Scott) South Sydney Story follows the storied South Sydney Football Club as it struggles to revitalize itself for its 100th anniversary. Now I am looking forward to the next episode!

I managed to get some reading done on the train both on the way in to the office and on the way home. Right now I am working through Tolkien's The Children of Hurin and it is reading much better than the other posthumous publications to come out of Tolkien. I think a large part of this has to do with Christopher Tolkien staying out of the way and letting narrative drive the story. While enjoyable so far this book is certainly no Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, both of which I should reread in the near future.

T - You may want to avert your eyes from the rest of this post as I discuss morning wood and its causes while using the euphemism "High Noon on my sundial." Just thought I would warn you since you found my discussion of how I like my porn (over-easy with a side of bacon please) a bit much to handle. (Like how I made no grits or gravy jokes in there? I think I have grown.

This morning was a bit strange. I woke up in the midst of a dream about a girl I used to work with in College Station. While I was always attracted to this girl in a very base an ungentlemanly way because how else are you supposed to be attracted to a girl who tells you about letting two guys, neither of whom are her boyfriend at the time, double up on her, I had never dreamt or even really fantasized about her. I suspect a large part of this has to do with the fact that I suspect she was not very good in the sack. She constantly complained that none of the boys she had slept with made her cum, but then she would freely admit to not masturbating. I am of the opinion that you have to prime the pump a little bit, and my very unscientific polling of my female friends (not like that you fucking perverts! Although I do wish in some cases) tends to support this theory. Of course I am still of the opinion that she is probably lying about the not masturbating thing, something which Margaret claimed as well. Anyways, I woke up in the midst of a dream about this girl and it was high noon on my sundial, as they say. I totally do not understand this and am tired of the weird sex dreams about people I know. Monica Bellucci why hast thou forsaken me?

Oh well, time to wrap up another Dispatch with some pithy comment however you will just have to put up with nothing except an excuse for my lack of post tomorrow as I am going to a networking function right after work and will probably be too drunk to blog tomorrow night. Plus I need a break from dancing like a monkey for you people.

SOUNDTRACK
Much like the pithy comment you will get none and like it, sirs. I forgot to turn on some music.