Verbal Diarleah (The Diary of Leah)

Wales crashed out of the Rugby World Cup yesterday. They fought so hard and had the lead at one point but Fiji was just too good. Tim and I are devastated. I nearly cried at the end.

Just reading John Edwards’s contribution to Foreign Affairs this month. Each presidential candidate over the next year will set out his/her vision for American foreign policy under his/her presidency.  Edwards says

…we can reclaim our historic role as a moral leader of the world…

We must do everything in our power to reclaim the United States’ historic role as a beacon for the world and become, once again, a shining example for other nations to follow.

One of the issues I examined in my MA dissertation was American identity and the fact that our Protestant forefathers had a messianic idea of America as a ‘city on a hill’ for all to admire and aspire to become. We were the democracy missionaries to the rest of the world. We are not so damn special! We didn’t actually have the first democracy nor did we invent it, but we sure like to act like it, don’t we?!

As for the moral leader bit: give me a break. I realise Edwards is talking mostly about our work in re-building Europe after WWII but look at our appalling record in Latin America. We sponsored coups that led to the death of so many people because we chose the wrong person. We ousted democratically-elected people and propped up dictators who ended up slaughtering or otherwise hurting their own people. That was some fantastic work, let me tell you. And don’t get me started on the Native American and African-American discrimination in our history. Moral authority my ass.

I find this whole uppity, we are the best in the world speak a load of bollocks. The US is not the only democracy and far from the best. Just because we have the military ability to ’spread democracy’ does not give us the right or wherewithal to do it. And that’s my two cents for the day.

Why Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was even asked to speak at such a prestigious university as Columbia is beyond me but, the fact of the matter is, he was and he did. As usual he put his great big foot in his great big mouth and said Iran does not have homosexuals.

Hey, pssst, Mahmoudie, I bet you do!! You just may not know it because they’re all still hidden in the closet for fear of being tortured, killed or in any other way ostracised by your extreme fundamentalist government. He really is insane I think. He also apparently

Portrayed himself as an academic, misunderstood and unfairly criticized in the United States.

No, I take it back. He’s not insane. He has a God complex like many other leaders throughout the world (ahem, Bush). But anyway, I highly doubt Iran has absolutely no homosexuals whatsoever. It’s all just propaganda and a slight dig at America. Blast off back to Iran, Mahmoud. We don’t want your crazy here.

I’m not going to comment on the Jena 6 ordeal. What I am going to comment on is this idiotic, stupid, moronic (every other word synonymous with these one can think of) actions of two individuals (thankfully) arrested yesterday during the march in Jena, Louisiana. Two men aged 18 and 16 were arrested for driving a pick-up truck around with two nooses hanging from the back of it. How stupid can someone be? The picture on the CNN report came from a local citizen who summed it up best when he said

Love explained why he sent the photo to CNN: “People need to see this. It’s 2007, and we still have fools acting like it’s 1960.”

Yes, the two boys were young but they also claimed to be in the KKK. Yes, they’re probably stupid but this ‘I-reporter’ is entirely correct. How, in this day and age, can someone still hold such backwards, uneducated, ignorant beliefs? It astounds me to my very core. In times like this I hang my head in shame at being associated with scum such as this in the great land that is Dixie.

Hurrah for Prime Minister Gordon Brown for standing up to Zimbabwean President horribilis Robert Mugabe. The EU has imposed a travel ban on the tyrant in as an act of condemnation of the way he governs. Now the EU wants to have an African summit with every President from the continent attending, including Mugabe. Brown has come out adamantly against this.

He told the Independent newspaper that Mr Mugabe has an EU travel ban for a reason – “the abuse of his own people”.

Well done Mr Brown. Well done indeed. Not many leaders would stand up for human rights as sufficiently as you are doing.

Update on yesterday’s post about the student tasered at a John Kerry event in Florida. Rumour is this may have been a stunt because the person involved has a website with prank videos and other such matter. I have to admit that when I watched it I found his ‘ow, ow, ow’ slightly put on. I also, however, noted that one of the police officers involved appeared to be smiling as he tasered the poor boy: as if he were thoroughly enjoying torturing another human being. Glad to hear they have been placed on leave.

I don’t know what the truth is. Perhaps this young man enjoys attention and did it all just to receive some but it got slightly out of hand. Perhaps UF police are just cruel-hearted bastards who enjoy their taser guns. Perhaps free speech at UF really is being stifled. I just don’t know but today’s revelations certainly cast doubt on this young man’s credibility.

I was slightly hesitant yesterday to outright condemn this act solely on free speech grounds. I wanted to get all of the facts. Even if this was a stunt by this young man, I highly doubt he expected the taser and do not think he deserved it.

I found this video on CNN today. I can’t remember how to embed video here plus CNN may have a copyright thing anyway so just view the page and article to see it. This poor University of Florida student was tasered at a John Kerry Q&A. The argument that his free speech was stifled holds some water but I just think it is horrible that this poor kid had a taser used on him just to get him out of a political rally. It’s quite an appalling use of brute force if you ask me. But make up your own minds when you view it.

Trowling through my friend Meghan’s blog (Rumination Station in the right-hand column) and came across this: Bacon Salt.

My friend Mendy is a veggie but she says the one thing she misses the most is bacon. I sent her this link in an email and thought I’d share it with you all as well. That’s right, you can sprinkle it on anything and, allegedly, it will taste like bacon. Hmmm, may have to try this next time we go to the states. I’ll keep you posted.

News that in my home state of Arkansas they are trying to get a law in effect that will keep all co-habiting (i.e. not married) couples whether they be gay or straight from fostering or adopting children. John Brummett, columnist extraordinaire, wrote a very good opinion piece about this.

Trying to keep gay couples from adopting or fostering has been around for years but this new co-habiting heterosexual couple thing just annoys the hell out of me. Even though I’m married, what is to say a co-habiting couple down the street cannot raise a child as well as my husband and I can? Why are married couples so freaking great? Take yesterday’s post about the moron in Arkansas who threw her 4-week old child across the room. She was married. How is she fit to be a parent to any child, adopted or not, but John Doe and Jane Deer next door are not simply because they aren’t married?

Ooooooh, the Evangelical Christian right-wing nuts get me so riled up!!! Furthermore, Brummett accurately points out that this law would keep “co-habiting couples engaged in a sexual relationship” from adopting or fostering. How does that work? Do you appoint a court official to reside in the home for a few days to see if they have sex? No, because they’d be on their best behaviour (if you will). Ok, so do you place someone across the street to spy on said couple to see if they’re having sex? No, that’s an invasion of privacy. Where does it end?

Christians are supposed to be compassionate to all people. Why, when there are so many horrible people in this world who are NOT fit to be parents can’t they get off their high horse and allow a non-married gay or straight couple to adopt or foster a child? There are plenty of people in these types of relationships that are dying to have children but can’t for whatever reason. Why should the state deny them the ability to look after a child; to love it and care for it and raise it as their own simply because they aren’t married or are gay? It angers me so much. It really and truly does. Plenty of gay or co-habiting straight people are fit and able to care for a child just as well as a married couple any day.

If this goes on the ballot in November you can guaran-damn-tee I won’t be voting for it. My friends in Arkansas, please consider it carefully before you vote.

Report today from a leading think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (whom I would kill to work for in a research capacity), that Al-Qaida has not been affected by the so-called war on terror as much as was intended. I think most intelligent people made that assumption 4-5 years ago when the US went into Iraq. I know I certainly thought it.

I’m not taking anything away from what they’re saying. I respect them very, very much as noted above. I’m just saying this report is confirmation of what a lot of people have been thinking for a long time.

It seems to me that Al-Qaida is like a hornet’s nest or a wasp. You think by spraying it with bug spray you’ll kill it but half the time that little spritz only enrages it and it comes back at you with a vengeance. You have to literally coat the sucker in spray until it is completely white before it even starts to sputter and die. Unfortunately there is no military equivalent to this act. Al-Qaida and Islamic fundamentalism are too far-spread and wide-ranging for any war to ever affect it to the extent needed to kill it.

A great comedian (don’t remember who) once said you cannot declare war on a noun. It will never succeed. Examples include the war on drugs, war on poverty and now the war on terror.