UN Assembly
In my entire adult life I’ve never gone through a General Assembly and said, “Wow, we accomplished so much. A time well spent.”
The only thing they accomplish each year is ruin my commute to work. I hope they’re happy.
On My Travels
I was walking and driving along last week and a few things came to mind. I was not able to capture them in writing so I kept them in my brain only to remind myself of them just a few moments ago. They are silly, mundane things but I still wanted to share them.
I read a Neil deGrasse Tyson book a few months ago. Although lots of it stuck with me, one of things regarded time. He said something like, ‘Why does time move forward? Why doesn’t it move backwards too?’ And I said, “Yeah, why?” It’s that kind of thinking that I have a hard time with. It appeared impossible to me until he asked the question and made me wonder? Why the hell doesn’t it move backwards too?
When I first read the Orwell novel, 1984, it was in 1984. Everything seemed imaginary but one of the things described in the book as unfathomable (to me, that is), is living in perpetual war. How could that be maintained, I asked myself? Mind you, it was nine years since the Vietnam War ended. When my friends joined the military from the 80’s until the early 90’s, the odds were low that they would see combat. But then the first Persian Gulf War began and then there were more conflicts around the globe.
The United States has been at war for almost twenty years with no end in sight. Don’t let anyone fool you, these wars will not end any time soon. And a few days ago it was announced that they would send troops to Saudi Arabia. Perpetual war. It is only because of the sheer power of the American military that the United States isn’t bombed regularly.
I believe that the 9/11 terrorists only set out to knock down some buildings only to be lucky enough to set off a chain reaction that would limit our freedoms and through the United States population into chaos. We are constantly on video. We are constantly being surveilled. Willingly or unwillingly we have given large corporations the permission to track our every move, to use our likenesses and to bombard us with news, fake or otherwise, to influence our lives. They may have slaughtered thousands and destroyed our buildings but their acts also forced our government to limit our freedoms and surveil us under the guise of “protecting us.”
Mass shooters have shot at our politicians, our children, our fellow shoppers and concert goers, and even their own families. In some cases they used military-grade weaponry to carry out their acts. You’d think these acts would have given the government no choice but the initiate stringent background checks or declare these military-grade weapons illegal to own. Instead there’s discussion. ‘What are we gonna do?’
Depending on who you agree with there are one hundred and ninety-four countries on this planet. Only three have the right to bare arms in their constitutions; Mexico, Guatemala and the United States of America.
