8/27/2004

Al Qaeda Poet On Trial

Filed under: — site admin @ 8:02 pm

A Yemeni poet jailed in Guantanamo has admitted that he is a member of al-Qaeda according to this story. After Googling him, I discovered translations of some of his poetry, excerpted below:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet,
Death to America!

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee like a jacket of plastic explosives
Wound tight around my body…

My long AK-47 rifle sticking through a tree
Towards a Jewish settlement still.
And there’s a body that I didn’t fill
With bullets and RPG rounds.

Bomb Scare In the Hood

Filed under: — site admin @ 7:51 pm

Police blocked off a quarter mile stretch of a main suburban thoroughfare tonight during rush hour after police discovered something “suspicious". Three hours later, and the street was still blocked off with ambulance and fire department personnel standing around and smoking.

I was imagining the situation compared to Israel. In Israel, three hours after a suicide bombing the street is open, the IDF have raised the family home of the attacker and taken out a car-load of his compadres, and Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Al Aksa Martyr’s Brigade have already issued their threats of retaliation.

In suburban Delaware, three hours after finding a suspicious package, the police are still poking it was a long (very long) stick… Same planet, different worlds…

Information Junky Shuns Trad Media

Filed under: — site admin @ 4:39 am

This writer discusses the anger the Traditional Media will show if Bush wins in November. Reading this reminded me of a recent discussion I had with an editor of the local paper, the News Journal.

We were discussing my writing, and he asked if I read the paper. I said I did. What I didn’t mention was that I only did on Sundays - and often only scanning the thing after buying the paper for the TV guide and the store ads. I realized later that I really had lied.

And that got me to thinking: I learned to read from the newspapers. I’m not kidding. My older sisters used the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Globe Democrat. Some of the first sentences I read were about PLO hijackings, and the progress of the Vietnam war.

Ever since, I have been an information junky. During college I read maybe four newspapers a day. I am still a news junkie. But today? I don’t read any.

It’s not really a time issue. I made time for the newspaper. But for a true info-freak, there is nothing like the internet. During my workday, I have Fox News open in a window. I then move on to the “Daily Round” of Dean Esmay, Den Beste, Andrew Sullivan, and the stories that they link to. I don’t surf from site to site, unless I am searching for info on a particular story.

But newspapers are no longer part of my life. Too bad…

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