| Hello, again! My friend was showing me something on someone else's xanga and it reminded me about this whole xanga phenomenon. So here I am =) Just because myspace has come, doesn't mean we forget about you haha. I tried the new electronic voting system on Tuesday. After I completed my eballot, the volunteer poll person (what's the proper nomenclature for such a person?) very excitedly asked how I liked it. He obviously expected just as an enthusiastic response, but I didn't bother and just replied, "fine." I feel bad, but come on, this whole problem our country has with voting is ridiculous. We can send someone to the moon (supposedly, for all those conspiracy theorists out there), yet we can't figure out a reliable voting system. Each time there is a problem. Fine, it's human to err (meaning the volunteers mess up here and there), but can't we get the technology behind it to work? So, off a slight, but related tangent.....as I was thinking about the election, I thought a lot about the war in Iraq. And as I thought about the war, my mind kept on going back to that one quote in "All Quiet on the Western Front:" 'But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?' Of course the rules on engagement for war are totally different now; not so much of that land, one-on-one, in the trenches fighting. But the fact of the matter is, whether you're using a long range missile or a bayonet, people are dying. By pushing a button to fire off that missile, you are still killing someone (actually, many people) with wives and husbands, children, parents....you're killing someone you don't even know for a cause that is questionable. Ok, so, I'm totally not making this into an unpatriotic rant...I'm just against war in general. Perhaps I am too naive and don't understand the complexities of politics, global economics, and terrorism.....Anyways, that quote has stuck with me ever since the first time I read the book 8 years ago. The message of the quote is painfully obvious but maybe that is why it is poignant. Anyways, things have been confusing....I can't wait until Saturday with the hs friends =) |
