It is me, Your Captain. But Your Captain is lost today. There is so much I do not get about world events specialy yesterdays stuff. When I was in school I was in special ed and got labeld as retarded and no body wanted to hear from me I was just a retard who's opinions did not mater. Now I know I can learn tho I am learning disabled still. Problem is I still feel like a retard some days and I have a hard time talking about news stuff even if it affeacts me in my heart. My kid bro calls me and is afraid about the attack on America and he is freaked out cause every where he goes folks say "hush! grown ups are talking." And there is no one for him to talk to and he is very afraid and wants to know if they will bomb Arkansas and he is afraid for his family and also for our half sister who live up north. That is his fear. My fear is for war to break out. killing people does not wave a magic wand and make every thing ok. We do not know who did this so lets go carpet bomb the whole middle East? People are screaming for war with out thinking and it is the most stupid thing ever. Who here REALLY wants war and blood shed. Crimson says she can not belieave that people have not evolve past this level and she is right. The world has gone crazy their is some thing spiritualy wrong with man kind. I know it sounds dumb but I sleep in my parents room last nite. I was afraid and did not want to be alone. We talked a lot about it and they even talked to my kid bro on the phone which was real nice cause adults are not lisening to him much at all. It is like young people are not supose to have questions about this shit. Move along people nothing to see here. Your country just got attack by insane terorists and you should keep your mouth shut. Specialy since its YOU and not those flag waving old farts who could get sent off to war in a few years. On the othar hand if there is a new war it may be curtains for all of us cause the bombs are worse and the hate is worse too. There will be a nuclear BBQ and you are all invited. Ladys and gentlemen we may be fucking doomed.

it's easy to be afraid and difficult to understand what's happening. what's more frightening than just the buildings taken down is the definite symbolism the attackers took. they attacked capitalism first, then our defenses. and nobody knows who's involved exactly, some say it's bin laden, some say it's the palestinians, but the taliban, palestine, russia and libya are scared shitless that we'll finger them.

I don't know what to say to my little bro he is real creeped out by all this. His folks are nice but clue less. His daddy is a preacher and now all the Jesus people are praying their asses off and singing God Bless America and trying to rope the kids into all this hate shoot any thing that wears a turbin shoot to kill. Fly a flag and grab your gun. Kill a towel head for Christ. The world events are imposible now and people can not see that peace is beter than war. Only an idiot would not see that point yet people still make war. They are like school bullys. Terorists and school bullys are the same people but ther terorist got better arms. If the world was partying they would not have time for this bull shit. There are people born to hurt and people born to heal and I would rather be a healer. Theres a song called Let There Be Peace On Earth And Let It Begin With Me. But no body was singing it yesterday.

i realy don't know how to react. i want to help out and comfort people, but they don't want to calm down. they want revenge. we don't need to sink to the same level as the people who "attacked" amerikkka yesterday. violence begets violence, evil begets evil. if we retaliate, we're no better, even if they started it.

ohhh pez you show your age with "amerikkka". if someone invades your house.....slaps you around..are you not going to fignt back? Im sorry, but if someone comes into my house, commits violence to my family, i reserve the right use force to prevent them from doing further damage. These people used american citizens to destory other american citizens. this is not about "Who is better".

Pez, you can't use the anti-capital punishment argument in a situation like this. Like Patrick said, this situation is analogous to someone breaking into your home and shooting your family. Self-defense is neither unethical nor immoral, and that extends to national defense. We have to limit our reaction to those who deserve it and try to keep the innocent/uninvolved out of it. That's all.

if someone invaded my house, threatening myself and my family, i'd do whatever i could to avoid being killed. chances are, i would run over to a neighbors. get in "my" car and drive away. but that isn't politics. if we (ameriCa) attack, not only would we have to deal with angry citizens whose family members were killed, but we'd also have to deal with other countries calling us bullies, cruel barbarians. it would mean the end of the pity party. if america wanted to project an image of solidarity to other countries, we'd bring everyone home and take care of them. public homes for the battered and weak, food for the starving. a roof here and there for the homeless. i'd rather they spend my taxes (i'm a taxpayer too, even if i didn't get one of bush's $300 tax refunds in the mail) on people who need help over unneccessary aggression.

pez if someone was attacking your family you'd run??? damn girl. If someone invades my house and harms my family...they are going to be destroyed even if I die doing so, Im not going to run and leave them. "if america wanted to project an image of solidarity to other countries, we'd bring everyone home and take care of them. public homes for the battered and weak, food for the starving. a roof here and there for the homeless. " what the fuck does this mean??? pez....really....whoever did this, WILL do it again. By not doing anything we do show ourselves as weak. We LET them win, by not doing anything. An image of soladarity (all be it a weird one) was the members of congress doing a spontaneous version of "God Bless America". I felt really funny when i saw that happen live. Soladarity is the people of new york dragging each other up city blocks.....Men covering women with their bodies to protect them, putting children under cars to to protect them. Britain and Israel saying "whatever you need, say the word" is soladarity. we AREN'T the bullies here, for once pez. we were attacked, implying we were put on the defensive. Don't be so PC you loose sight of logic. Take your attitude and POV and apply it to World War 2..should we have sat back then?

Well put. I was going to respond but I can't do much better then that.

I am for peace always. But this is a real complex thing. I do not have the answers and I never did I just feel real strange like I am at the edge of some thing real big. I fuck around all the time and goof off and make jokes but I am at the edge of being a man I will wake up one morning and I will be a man in stead of a boy. I will be old enuf to take up arms and go to war i say fuck that it is not my destiny BUT you will probly say that somebody has got to go and why not me. You will say get your ass in that trench boy go kill an Arab or three. You know I did not dress in drag today could not get in mood for it but my life is glitter and drag and giggles and some day it may be combat boots and a fucking macheine gun. I want to run and hide in a cave some place where I can get back to my normal life I want my friends near me I will take my little bro too I want my people with me. I want to go back to living in my dream world cause reality fucking sux.

at the bar last night...a lot of people came out...to drink their anxieties and someone played that Cure song "Killing of an Arab" on the juke box. a little odd.

We did sit back for a large portion of both world wars. I'm so happy Israel will help us with the money/weapons we gave them. But seriously, Pez, your ideas are a little bit ridiculous. OBVIOUSLY we need to be tracking these people down and nailing them. I think it was mentioned on another thread that retaliation doesn't have to mean murdering innocent civilians. Granted, in most cases where the US has retaliated, we have killed civilians, but perhaps we can change... Pez, wouldn't you agree that the culprits behind this need to be apprehended and punished? Should they be allowed to walk the earth and do this again? If someone was threatening my family, there's no way in hell I'd be running.

Brendan, Pez----your innocent reactions make me feel all warm and squishy inside....not unlike the Israeli and Palestinian youth who band together and say, "this is bullshit---we have to stop!" But their sires---locked into their moronic religions and manifest destinies---say, "oh, they're young and foolish---they don't know anything." BULLSHIT. They're the only people who've got it right. If anyone threatened my family...... Here's the circular nature of that argument: When we go and bomb Iraqis or Serbs into the stone age, that's exactly how those people think of US. And please believe me----watching all that footage I'm as horrified as the rest of you----but I can see far enough out of the box to see the circular nature of the argument... So, where does the barbarism end? ANSWER: IT DOESN'T. IT NEVER FUCKING ENDS. I'm not saying, "don't be angry"----I'm not saying justice shouldn't be served, either....but I'm telling you right now----stop simply reacting----THINK AND UNDERSTAND. Y'know----I was haunted by this recurring dream the whole time I was a kid----the dream lasted through to adulthood and tapered off----I'm on a pier in a shipyard and I'm running alongside this ship---I'm screaming and crying and trying to make it stop....I'm doing everything I can but it's all useless----the ship is huge and impersonal and it's setting sail. I'm running and running but soon it outstrips me and sails off into oblivion. Anyone ever read Moby Dick, w/the prophecy about three hearses? This ship is a gigantic hearse---it's covered in rust and moss and it's HUGE---I can see it just like I did as a child in my dreams. There are bolts riveted into the thing that are bigger than me----huge, rusty chains attached to the anchors.....I know this for damn sure----someone I know is on that ship---it's sailing away from me and I will never see them again. The general populace allows this. The general populace APPLAUDS this. I finally fall down and the ship sails on----I can't stop it---someone touches my shoulder and there's this gentle female voice trying to console me, telling me, "there was nothing you could have done." The stupidity of the general populace ****WILL**** make this dream a reality. I will devote my whole life to fighting this kind of stupidity----even if it kills me.

If someone came and killed my family, I'd fight back, but I wouldn't go kill his family.

good point. i wouldn't either unless they were trying to keep me from killing him, in which case i'd try my damndest to whoop their monkey asses.

i didn't see my family in this. i'm not usually at home while they are. i do want to track down the masterminds behind the terrorism, but war isn't the answer. they've already shown that they don't mind the loss of human life. throwing in a couple of bombs won't solve the problem. i understand about my naive viewpoint, but i believe that violence should be taken as A LAST RESORT rather than the be all end all. we MUST find out why it was done, so we can either amend our ways or somehow avoid similar actions being taken against the united states in the future.

I think everyone is overlooking the "solidarity" issue,that was mentioned.In this case,it is NATO. Everyone is standing with us on this.Theres your solidarity.I have never been so proud.

Pride.

solidarity

It may be shalow of me but, after every body goes liteing candles and crying and waving flags last nite I had my friends over and we danced I do not mean danced like those guys in the street happy cause people died here. We played techno and danced and hung out and I wore glitter again and it does not mean I was not sad for my country it means I wanted to do some thing else aside watch the news they show the same shit over and over I ask my folks if its okay if I laugh again and hang out with friends. It mite make me look like I dont care but I wasnt' out clubbing I was in a private home and not flaunting. I am glad to be American but do not know how I feel about waving flags in the street. I am not a bad American because I danced and had a good time. I may be a bad American cause I do not want war. I do not know where I stand. It was fun tho to forget the sadness for a few minutes. It was about fun and sex and glitter and fashion then we shut off the noise and lit some candles. And it was so silent it creeped me out we all felt the fear. The fear was big like a monster. Then we danced some more cause we could not take all that silence.

I have never seen such unity and resolve in our nation. Thank God for this. We can only get through this together. We stand strong now, but this is war. I hope all of you are prepared to keep that solidarity and pride in our nation going 5 years from now. This won't be over soon.

keep dancing, oswald.

I did and I will. Things are strange I had a panic attack and other stuff but it will be ok. I by mistake broke a dish spill some stuff and I go into panic afraid of my parents hiting me tho my parents now do not hurt me. But my birth parents were so mean and I got mixed up in my mind. Lost my shit and freaked out I did not want to get hurt I kinda forgot where I was for a bit I can not explain. Later I hear about the shit where Fallwell is blameing gays for the attack and it blows my mind what we need is more bad press. My kid bro calls me and good God he has made a bomb shelter out of twigs. I had to be real nice and tell him that twigs and leafs are not the answer. In the war betwean a nuclear warhead and a twig I think the nuke will win. He thinks we will be under attack real soon so he builds his twig shelter and moves his toy cars out there so his hot wheels will be safe. What as a big brother do I even say to this. Hells bells I feel like I got a twig shelter in my brain. Feel like a giant dark hand of doom is comeing down from the sky.

I danced and threw a party when my father died, after I cried. I think celebration of life, in death, is so very appropriate. Like droop, mourning en masse is weird. I absolutely dreaded the funeral, the church creeped me out.

This mass grief is wierd..but someone else puts this better than I do. Mass mourning kind of frightens me.

I would think that if he is so disheartend over our governments choices,that it would be prudent for him to exercise his ability to vote. A right not everyone in this world has.

wouldn't it be interesting if our country would hire professional mourners like the ancient egyptians did?

We could hire "sin eaters",too.

that would be weird.

I'd have to pay alot for mine.

wouldn't it be cheaper to actively participate as a religious fanatic?

You don't need to be a fanatic. Just go to confession. I like the idea of a sin eater. That evokes so many thoughts and images....I picture something from Clive Barker's sketchbook.

er, yeah. sin eating would involve some strange ritual that involved injesting flowers. bright-colored flowers.

Yeats wrote this: SOMETIMES when I have been shut off from common interests, and have for a little forgotten to be restless, I get waking dreams, now faint and shadow-like, now vivid and solid-looking, like the material world under my feet. Whether they be faint or vivid, they are ever beyond the power of my will to alter in any way. They have their own will, and sweep hither and thither, and change according to its commands. One day I saw faintly an immense pit of blackness, round which went a circular parapet, and on this parapet sat innumerable apes eating precious stones out of the palms of their hands. The stones glittered green and crimson, and the apes devoured them with an insatiable hunger. I knew that I saw the Celtic Hell, and my own Hell, the Hell of the artist, and that all who sought after beautiful and wonderful things with too avid a thirst, lost peace and form and became shapeless and common. I have seen into other people's hells also, and saw in one an infernal Peter, who had a black face and white lips, and who weighed on a curious double scales not only the evil deeds committed, but the good deeds left undone, of certain invisible shades. I could see the scales go up and down, but I could not see the shades who were, I knew, crowding about him. I saw on another occasion a quantity of demons of all kinds of shapes--fish-like, serpent-like, ape-like, and dog-like--sitting about a black pit such as that in my own Hell, and looking at a moon--like reflection of the Heavens which shone up from the depths of the pit.

I seem to recall and episode of Night Gallery. Where a woman was arguing with her son that he should eat the great feast she had prepared for him. So he could take on the sins of his father, who had just died, and his father's father, ect. So his father would not be sent to hell for the family's sins. It was a wierd but good episode. I saw very few of them. It wasn't one of my favorite shows. But, I remember this one.

"night gallery"? something i've not heard of. sounds like i need to read more yeats.

never read yeats. i read an interesting story based on a KEATS poem called hyperion. good book. sort of parallels the religious crap going on today except it's the catholics behaving badly.

Night Gallery was a Rod Serling TV series. I believe it was his last. Late 60's maybe early 70's.

no wonder. i'm way too fucking young.

Trust me honey,you can never be too young:)

Ah ha, I was right. Night Gallery Number 27, Second Season, Aired Feb. 25, 1972. Title - Sins Of The Fathers. From WWW.nightgallery.net.

I am back. I been out partying it is nice. My boy friend knew where some partys were and so I go and its cool with my folx cause Crimson and Pug got invited too and they are the oldest people in the place and also the wildest and Crimsons like kissing girls and flirting with boys half her age and Pug films stuff and being more wild than any body. Theres' lots of booze and stuff. Tons of goth kids but none as pretty as me. Ha. It is weird to be out like that cause I get bad panic attacks when I am around lots of people and I dont do well with strangers but I was ok. I saw some pretty boys and cool freaky chix and that does my heart good.

Pretty boys always does my heart good too.

Pretty boys are the answer to every thing. I spent the night at Crimsons I am here on a Sunday morning and I am not in church theres 2 Pentecostal churchs right near by but I am not inside them. Strange thing one of these 2 churchs has the windows bricked over and white washed too. Theres no windows you can not see in or out. I tell this to some one and they say that most Jehovha Witness church also do not have windows. I start noticeing that they realy dont. Why? So we can not see all the nice J.W. ladys humping Satan on the altar I guess. No ofense if your J.W. I am kidding. But a church should have a window. Makes it less creepy. I get to see Uncle Pug today I am happy we will ride for a while in a car and talk a lot this makes me glad. It is a pretty Sunday and even God probly would not go to church today if he did not have to show up.

I hope you dance like nobody is looking.

Well here i am, at uni, confused as ever. have finally managed to log in in the CAD suite stupid new passwords dont know whats going on in the world, which is quite relaxing really, i think i might never watch the news again! I have become completly unproductive since starting back this term. We now have digital cable TV in our house and for some reason they have given us all the channels, so we will have to tell them to turn them off or well have to pay loads. Still we have managed to spend almost all weekend in front of the tv, hopping from one channel to the next and watching old episodes of nightrider. Today im cross as we have to sign up for modules, and geography is all filled up so il have to do moral philosophy! oh yay! and im hungry but at least im alive and blissfully unaware of the events of the outside world!