Malevolent "Lone Wolf" Takes Hostages, Kills Decent People in Sydney

 

The blurred line between terrorism and random, senseless violence displayed itself when Man Haron Monis, an Iranian-born asylum-seeker in Australia, took a number of hostages at the Lindt Café in Sydney. I call it a "blurred line" because although this miscreant seems to have meant to portray his actions as being aligned in some way with militant Islamicism, he genuinely seems to have been a pretty run-of the mill basic human horror-show of abusive behavior, predation, and self-aggrandizement.

Any culture could generate one of these--he sent hate letters to families of dead Australian soldiers killed in the Afghanistan conflict; pretty Westboro Baptist, I think. He apparently claimed to have "black magic" powers and sexually assaulted numerous women, as a kind of predatory guru-type. He played up his own sense of victimization.

It's hard--no, impossible, to reconcile this personality-type with doing anything for a "cause", because I see someone like this as feeling his biggest cause is himself. So all that Islamic-flag in the window business is stage-dressing for his personal drama.

And if his despicable hostage-taking and murders leave us despairing of whether humans just suck out loud--here is something genuinely touching. #illridewithyou is a reminder that there's something other than bigotry and a mindset of retribution. Most people don't suck--being a good human being means caring about others. And we mostly do. It's those that don't who make things so shitty for the rest of us.

Malala Yousefzai Wins Nobel Prize

She is the youngest winner of the prize, and she's basically a boss. Her co-winner, Kailash Satyarthi, has helped save tens of thousands of children from a life of slavery and exploitation. His long-time advocacy against child labor in favor of children's education as a way out of poverty is complementary to Yousefzai's example. I think these choices are very fitting, because it needs to be understood that the best way to create a space for peace in the future is to make safe spaces for children to become the people they are meant to be--to know something about the world they will grow up to help create and to be free to make the best of it.

In a world where too many children are exposed to the horrors of war, abuse, and grinding poverty and labor, and are not well-enough exposed to a good education, sometimes not even good nutrition or basic sanitation,  I realize that the failure to give them a reasonable hope of a good future is what condemns them to a fearful life and people in developed nations to fear what they might become. Because even without a good education, children learn from what they see. If exposed to ignorance and hopelessness and superstition and hate--that's what they will know.

And that is what they will practice.

But the answer to combatting all that is so simple--books and pens and paper and attention and a dialog that gets opened up between a developing mind and everything that might be possible.  Here's to two very good examples of people working towards heading future generations in the right direction. You are doing it right.

Weighing in on expecting more and compromise--

There's this movie I've watched basically a gazillion times called Rowing With the Wind (American VHS release title). I like it for purely idiosyncratic and basically wrong reasons, such that I am hopeless to judge whether the movie itself is any good. As a Eng. Lit. Major, I was and am a fan of the Romantic poets, and find the friendship of Shelley and Byron fascinating. As a fan of classic horror, I am piqued by the conceit of Frankenstein's monster being an avenging demon stalking the Shelley and Byron clans. I don't think an awfully young Hugh Grant is miscast as Byron at all--he has the physical prettiness and swagger a bit naturally, and I always thought the brooding was a bit of a pose with Byron, anyway (Don Juan and its wry, cynically and funny lightness, was a bit more the reality).

So, you are wondering, how does this obscure video have bugger-all to do with Obama seeming to lecture the DFH's yet again on the topic of "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good"?

There is a scene towards the end, where Shelley hears a voice say something to the effect of "How long do you mean to be content?" I feel like I hear that voice all the time. How long do I mean to be content? Well, I'm not! I can't be content, damn it! I am a self-avowed Progressive, and that means that I am willfully part of the force that urges the asymptotic bend of history towards justice. I want to have better....

And I kind of want to get it, too. And I think I knew that Obama was a pragmatist and a realist. And even though I want more, and am galled that the rich still get their tax cut for a little while--

I am disappointed but not mad. I expect more, but I am....what's the word? "Content?" Why?

I'm not unemployed, just pissed at rich people. They don't pay their share, but I want folks who can't get a job to keep their lights on and their families fed. Did Obama have a choice?

I just can't tell myself it was worth playing "chicken". There are provisions like reinstating the estate tax, albeit at a lower rate, that I can appreciate as deficit-lowering. And I want him to draw the line--two years means two years (hey--does that put us right in the, um, election season again? And by then, could a press for yet another extension get downright poisonous if someone wanted to make an issue of it? Perforce, quoth I. Mayhap.)

I try to get all "that's not the change I was promised!" and yet, the only promise I ever wanted was a Democrat in the Rose Garden, really. Because I hope for better, but deep down, I see the Frankenstein's monster of the Reagan-tent (the small-gov't libertarians, the Christian Right, and the corporate/military axis) and I'll take change that at least guards against fucking worse.

I am so cognizant of worse. I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed!

Totally the Story of the Day--the Rescue of the Chilean miners--

It's just a great thing to know that these men have survived a truly treacherous situation, that they endured cramped and claustrophobic surroundings and somehow maintained a wonderful cohesion and seem well. That so many people contributed to the rescue of these people is heart-warming: wow, people can really pull their stuff together when lives are on the line. So often you hear about mining tragedies, where there has been a cave-in and there's nothing to be done but recovery.

This rescue was really great news. I find myself so happy for them and their families, who must have been incredibly anxious. And I really find myself wishing them the best and celebrating a bit with them.