On My Mind

Why is killing people with chemical weapons worse than bombing or shooting them?  Obama says Syria has now crossed the "red line" with its neurotoxins that killed hundreds.  But does that mean that killing the first 100,000 Syrians with bombs and guns was okay?

Why did the Ft Hood killer get death but the soldier who killed the Afghanis get life?

While I really have nothing to hide in my email or blog or FB posts, I disprove of the NSA accumulation of online/electronic personal data.  I fear this shadow government that persecutes Manning and hunts Snowden.  I know we all feared terrorists after September 11 and haven't suffered many major attacks since then.  Now we know why.  The price is very high.  I'm not sure I'm ready for what else we don't know.

I know we fear terrorists (and I know that by doing so, we fulfill the terrorists' plans)--and I do wonder at the cultural and political circumstances that create such violence over and over in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and the like--but in the U.S. itself, young white men in Aurora, Virginia Tech, and, yes, Newtown, have killed more Americans than the so-called terrorists have.  Makes me wonder about casting the first stone, especially living in a glass house.

On a lighter note, I read this week, in Pollan's Cooked, I think, that cooking is a rural project, for the most part, and that the farther we get from farmers and real ingredients, the less we cook and eat real food.  Interesting connection, but the increased urbanization of America does parallel the growth in industrialized and processed food production.

Twerking.  Miley Cyrus.  Race issues in America.  Some article, which I can't relocated, mentioned that disapproval is a form of social control.  What does disapproving of Cyrus achieve?  Control of women?  Sexuality?  The definition of black culture?  Several people decry Cyrus's appropriation of twerking and ratchet culture as another example of white people stealing from black people for their own gain, especially in music and popular culture (just ask Paula Deen.)  So that kind of sexual display is not acceptable for a young white woman, but is okay for a black woman?  Maybe as feminists we should get to the point that that kind of pornographic twerking display is demeaning to all women.

Whew, that's it for now.