Oct. 18th, 2004

helen99: A windswept tree against a starlit sky (Default)
When Farenheit 9/11 first came out on screen I was invited to go, but I declined. I couldn't look. I had to turn away, in the same way I'd normally turn away from a horrible accident (only none of this involved any accidents). I finally brought myself to watch it, on video, alone, without anyone else's commentary, and where I could stop if I needed to.

No surprises. It provides a pretty concise case for why we have invaded the absolutely WMD-less Iraq on absolutely false pretenses, and why the name of Bin Laden is no longer in the news.

But the juxtaposition of the rich Saudi princes and Haliburton profiteers with the undereducated, poverty-stricken young guys who are actually doing the fighting because they believe in this country was what really got to me. They're fighting against an enemy who is justified in absolutely hating our guts for the way in which we have "liberated" them, and both sides are being blown to pieces, and for what? My brother thinks Bush is an incompetent (alot of moderate Repubs believe this). I don't think so. He has very competently secured a lot of profits for a lot of his friends. But back to the soldiers. We *need* these young guys to defend us against real threats. Yet they are deployed, WASTED in a place that had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al Qaeda, and which had no weapons of mass destruction, and which posed no threat to us or anyone else (except maybe their own people).

One thing the movie left out: The strategy of securing the oil fields in Iraq and elsewhere and the securing of the location of the proposed pipeline in Afghanistan can be supported by the possibility that peak oil has been reached and the supplies are starting to run out (not by WMD, for chrissake). This amounts to pure survival, unless we *very quickly* develop alternative energy sources. Which I highly recommend, by the way. Fast. Because establishing an empire has always been the beginning of the end, historically, and I don't think we are somehow exempt from that.

But even the motive of peak oil becomes suspect in the face of the profits that are being raked in during all aspects of this war - weapons, clothes, reconstruction, communications, everything.
helen99: A windswept tree against a starlit sky (Default)
Since it was a wonderful, blustery Autumn night, we decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood (it was around 9:30 or so). The weather was clear and crisp and smelled of turning leaves. We meandered here and there, purposely avoiding any direct routes and taking our time, enjoying the night. Finally, we returned to the house, and I said, "are you sure you want to go back in, it's so nice out...?" To which [livejournal.com profile] rialian replied, "Hold that thought" and began fumbling around in his pocket for the keys - and they weren't there.

Now, I never trust other people to remember keys, even someone who always remembers to bring them. But for some reason, this time I totally forgot to bring my keys with me. On the way out the door, I had realized I didn't have them and anxiously asked [livejournal.com profile] rialian if he had his, and he said he did. But at the end of the walk he realized he really didn't have them at all... Turned out he'd grabbed my car keys by mistake - his house keys were inside the house in another jacket. Oops.

We mulled over what to do. Worst case scenario, call the fire department and ask for them to bring a ladder (by a stroke of good luck, we *did* have a cellphone with us). But we wanted to avoid that if at all possible...

First we tested all the first floor windows. Locked and impenetrable (which made me happy - at least we were careful). Fortunately for us, we had left a second-story window open when we left the house. Question was, how to get to it.

I have a six-foot ladder, and the open window was about 20 feet up... There are trees close by but not close enough. The neighbors may have had a 20-foot ladder, but their lights were all out - we didn't want to disturb them. I thought maybe I'd given a key to my mom at some point, so I called her. Turns out I gave them a key years ago, but have since changed the locks and so the obsolete key was thrown out. But it also turned out they had a 10-foot ladder. That was still too short to reach the window, but I asked my brother to bring it anyway... I figured there may be something in the yard that could add the needed height.

In my back yard near the faerie cairn was a large bin made of tough plastic that I've had there for several years. In it was some old rotten firewood that had never been burned in the fireplace. The bin is about 3 feet tall - just tall enough that if a 10-foot ladder was placed on top of it, and a 6-foot [livejournal.com profile] rialian on top of that, then the 6-foot [livejournal.com profile] rialian could get through the bathroom window without having to do an impossible pull-up maneuver. My brother Jason arrived in about half an hour with the ladder, and he and I held the ladder steady on top of the large bin while [livejournal.com profile] rialian climbed up into his bathroom window. Presently, all we saw were two large feet sticking out of the window, with the rest of [livejournal.com profile] rialian in his bathroom...

He opened the door and let me in, and Jason took the ladder on home.

And thus did end the adventure of the walk with no keys...

[livejournal.com profile] rialian thinks the whole thing was planned by the faeries to get rid of the big plastic thing from the area of the faerie cairn. I tend to agree...

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