a little more light reading

I promise I won't make a habit of this. Really.

Red Cross warns of impending humanitarian crisis in Iraqi city of Basra, which has been without water and electricity since Friday. I warn you that this article includes a photo of an Iraqi man holding a dead or wounded child, which could be disturbing, so click with caution. (Personally I believe we all have a responsibility to look at images like this, but that's me.)

After finishing a commercial airline flight, man finds note in his luggage rebuking him for having anti-war signs in his suitcase. Quite probably placed there by TSA employee. Your tax dollars at work!

Because yesterday I said that the American media wasn't telling us about Iraqi casualties, an article listing numbers of casualties so far both Iraqi and otherwise, military and otherwise. Note that almost all the mentions of Iraqi deaths include phrases like "Iraq says," whereas stats about American and British deaths are given without qualification as fact....

And in case you haven't seen this one yet: Minutes before the speech, an internal television monitor showed the president pumping his fist. "Feels good," he said.

Feels good?!?!?!?!?! Can you fucking believe this asshole?!

big girls don't cry

Note to self: just because a woman stays home with her baby for the first few years of its life doesn't mean she's a better mother than you.

in happier news...

Happy birthday lilka! Welcome to the ranks of adulthood. Or whatever. ;)

silence = complicity

Does it shock you to know that during WWII, the US government put innocent people of Japanese descent in prison camps? Are you horrified by the fact that neighbors in Europe said nothing as Jewish people disappeared silently and completely, overnight? Do you think those things can never happen again, can never happen in America? Does it upset you to think of people then and now being harassed, detained, deported, beaten, or killed because of their skin color, nationality, or religion?

Go read this now. And remember how important it is to speak out against things like this, whenever and wherever they happen. Silence is not golden.

is it wednesday yet?

It hasn't been the best day for me. Maybe you noticed from all the angst and turmoil in today's LJ posts.

( joan's not-so-great day )

Anyway, all that is basically by way of explaining why my posts today were all angsty and potentially lacking in logic. I'm tempted to go back and delete half of 'em, in fact, except that would be revisionist history.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go snuggle my kitty and watch Buffy and, one hopes, get to bed a bit early. Because I really think lack of sleep (for the last, like, several weeks) is contributing to all this emotional fragility. It's really sad how easily I cry these days.