Yesterday was Norway's birthday, May 17th. 

I love many of the statues in Oslo, but this is one of my favorites. Gunnar Fridtjof Thurmann Sønsteby is stationed at Solli plass, just down the street from our place. Nearby stands a larger-than-life, stooped-shouldered Winston Churchill. But Sønsteby is the one who catches the eye. 

"And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery." 2003

"[Contraception is] not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be." 2011

"In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be." 2003

"The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness." Excerpted from Santorum's 2005 book It Takes a Family.

Cedar Grove Community Church is hosting a new Worship Bible Study at 6pm on Sunday nights. One of the discussions trailed over onto Facebook. The prompt was as follows:

I'd like to continue a discussion that we started at our Bible Study on Sunday night... here's the question: describe what you think about the Church (the global church, not any one particular one)... free association time.

Being given to diatribes, I thought I'd refrain this time, try to salvage what's left of the ever shrinking group of people who consider me "quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." Everyone else knows me too well. But Pastor Tom nudged me, so... 

@TB: Here's my shot...
 

 

First, the global Christian church exists only insofar as we agree on the following: Jesus Christ was the one and only son of God, He died and rose again, and in doing so, He bridged the gap between sinners and their Creator.
 
But that's it. Beyond that sliver of dogma remain as many divisions and derisions about faith and salvation as there are human beings on the planet. And that's only when considering the global Christian church. Look outside those broad borders and the world according to its different beliefs is a jungle, savage and fascinating and desperate in its plight, and as worthy of our time and love as we were worthy of the time and love of Christ.
 
What do I think of the global church? Not much.

Let us not forget that the worst moments (and eras) of history have always come at those junctures when "righteous" men (and women) have sought the power to take over the world for God or god. Such misguided focus and greed has toppled empires.

Thus, I've often wondered whether the Christian community realizes that fighting against the separation of Church and State may not be in our own best interest. 

Apologies are tricky.

When we were little, my brothers and I committed an endless stream of wrongs against one another.  Once we'd been caught by the folks, each of us was directed to apologize to the victim of the teasing, the ostracizing, the exclusion, the punching, the ditching, or the name calling.  Those apologies were never sincere.  We were unrepentant and eager to get on with our games.

"I'm sorry I abandoned you while we were playing hide and seek."

"I'm sorry I accidentally made your lip bleed when we were wrestling."

"I'm sorry that I pedaled really fast and left you to bike to school alone."

Our parents knew we were insincere, too, but they orchestrated the whole ceremony of acknowledgment and apology anyway.  What's more, they orchestrated the ultimate act of forgiveness.  This last part was equally insincere, but even more important than the apology itself.

"I forgive you."

"I forgive you."

"I forgive you."

It was the act of repenting and the act of forgiving which my parents wanted to instill in us. They couldn't force us to be sorry for something, but they could teach the difference between right and wrong and then take us through the paces of apology and forgiveness.

Eventually, we began to apologize for stuff on our own, too. Wonder of wonders! We processed the situations and empathized with our victims and then, urged by something akin to the Golden Rule, we attempted to repair the damage with words.  Even at times when we didn't feel regret or guilt, seeing the sorrowful look on our sibling's face was enough to squeeze the apology out of us. And in the end we learned something, garnered trust, improved our relationships.  Apologizing made a difference, even when the motivation wasn't sincere.

Today we honor our veterans, both dead and living, who have served in every war or conflict in which the United States has held a stake.  Both of my grandfathers and both of my grandfathers-in-law served in WWII.  My brothers, Ted and Curtis, are each in service to our military today, along with several of Jonathan's cousins.  I dedicate this entry to them.

I wake up in the morning and shower and drive to work.  I sell insurance.  I partake in hobbies and leisure activities.  Then I come home to share a hearth and a table and a bed with my husband, a man who also works on behalf of our nation's security.  I am like so many blessed people.  Freedom laces each of my personal moments.

I choose to drink a Diet Coke before 9:00 am.  I choose to take riding lessons at a local equestrian center.  I choose to attend a movie with my best friend on a Monday night.  I choose to worship God, travel the world, drive a car.  Every one of these choices is sacred in a sense, especially considering that there are those in the world today who are denied any and all of these things, and especially considering that there are thousands who have died in the pursuit of the preservation of these freedoms, petty or important as the case may be.

To me, Veteran's Day is the perfect time to begin an entire season of acknowledgment and charity.  We are fast approaching Thanksgiving, an American holiday initiated as a celebration of gratitude.  When newcomers to America were starving, those who had occupied this land for centuries, and who had every right to stave them off, chose instead to share a harvest, a bounty, an excess.  That day, that joint feast between Native Americans and Pilgrims (though most likely gilded by history), had nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with mercy and humility.

November 4, 2008 dawned to the sound of my shower and Jon's groaning at the prospect of being out of bed before 7:00 am.  Our polling place is the elementary school across the street, so we pulled into the parking lot moments after the doors opened. Already, there was a lone line of eager citizens stretching out the door. I was more than happy to stand in line (something I've never experienced as a voter).  The turnout made me very proud to be an American.  I gazed at the people flowing in from the parking lot to extend the line behind me and marveled at the beauty of democracy.   

Jon and I linked arms and blinked against the chilly morning air, taking final consideration of ballot measures and political candidates before entering the voting booth.  We joked that our ballots might just be exact opposites of one another, a complete wash.  That wasn't actually the case, but it could have been.  We eavesdropped on the conversations of our fellow would-be voters as they whispered to one another.  When it came time to sign the register and take our ballots from the volunteer, we exchanged a knowing glance before heading to our separate booths.

I voted.  No on 8.  Yes on 4.  Abstained on 11 (the concept of Redistricting strikes me as something that laypeople cannot possibly understand without taking a university-level course on the subject). No on most bond measures.  These decisions had been carefully made after doing research and participating in lengthy discussions with friends and family.  Anything I didn't feel qualified to consider... I didn't sully with an uninformed vote.

Most of all, though, I have agonized over my preference for President, torn by issues as massive as the troubled economy, as polarizing as abortion, and as petty as choice of vice presidential running mate.  Finally, I came to the end of the road, and all was quite clear to me.

Today I voted for President, but I am not going to share my choice.

Seven years ago, two black boxes of souls standing sentinel over New York City were felled by cowards in commandeered planes, and America staggered.

Go ahead and scream and holler for an end to this war... 

Please, run out in the streets and chant and pump your fists in the air.... 

It's your right! 

I'll not stop you. 

Even when you ignite my country's flag in protest, something I find to be heinous and absolutely offensive, I'll step aside. 

But keep in mind that in your protest you are living proof that our guaranteed American freedoms are necessary and valuable and should be held up as a standard, nay a beacon, for the oppressed peoples of the world. 

The rabble who hijacked airliners full of men and women and children on September 11, 2001 hated me and they hated you... but more than that, they hated us.  You and me.  Your viewpoint and mine, side by side, different perhaps, but operating in parallel and out of respect.

Two men are vying for the most powerful political office in the world.  On the Left is Barack Obama, the young, African American Junior Senator from Illinois, an articulate orator, a Harvard graduate.  On the Right is John McCain, the aged war hero, four-term Arizona senator and former congressman, Naval Academy graduate, and the one who fits the historic American President Mold.

While many are loathe to vote for a candidate running on the opposite ticket, I have long believed that America would be better off if people took the time to consider the individual running for office rather than the broad brush of his or her political allegiance.  Thus, since the arrival of Barack Obama on the political scene, since the confirmation of Hillary Clinton that she would campaign, since Mit Romney's first speech as a presidential candidate, I've been looking forward to casting my vote, not for a Republican, but for the right person for the job.

There is a burial ground which ought to be visited today.  It is broad, vast, immense.  The horizon line of this field runs the length of my comprehension, and continues to a place I cannot go, not even in my dreams.  Beneath the golden plain, beneath the purple sky, are deep, black furrows of dirt.  It is ripe soil, full of potential for harvest and hope.  But we leave it alone.
 
We nod at the multitude of stark headstones, admitting the sacrifice, but never wandering the lengths of the rows.  Never dropping to our knees and weeping on the slight mounds in the grass.
 
Our heroes have been laid to rest here.  We know all of them and none of them.  We are aware and oblivious.  In our own daily toil, in front of computer monitors in air conditioned cubicles, we have forgotten.

Sunlight on brick is hottest at four in the afternoon. It bakes between the boxy shadows of the buildings on Main Street. Boys sip coke from slender-necked bottles. One of them shakes his fist, rattling the dice and tossing them down to clatter up against the wall. Two sixes. As there are no rules to this game yet, he'll come up with them later, he smiles and takes them up to roll again.

Women move slower in the heat, but they allow their hips a bit more swing. This is to catch the only breeze with their pastel skirts; catch it and let it flutter between their knees, cooling their muscular ankles. From beneath the brims of their day hats they talk the way only women can. Words like soft bubbles float between them, many at a time. To the words they nod. It could be gossip. It could be education. It could be nothing at all.

I wonder at these people, the ones who move by me without looking back. They would only see a little girl with her hair snarled into something like a braid. They might see my freckles or my chocolate brown eyes. But I doubt very much they would see me. I do not translate well into words the way they do.

One man hefts a crate of newspapers. He is the owner of the market, and those newspapers no longer possess the news. What happened this morning is long gone. In the heat of the afternoon, people do not care about anything but the baseball scores, and they'll catch those on the radio this evening. Or they can stand in the doorway of the barber shop and listen in as he gives free haircuts to the only three White Sox fans left in our town.

Mr. Charles and his wife live above the market in an apartment with only three windows. Behind the store in a planter box, Mrs. Charles keeps a very small Victory garden. When she took the train to Springfield to visit her mother for a week, I stopped by and watered the tomatoes after school. On my last day I tied a red, white and blue ribbon to the top of each plant. The plants have outgrown the ribbon now, and it's tattered, but Mrs. Charles won't untie them. She says that patriotism must be able to withstand wear.

If I take careful steps, the long kind, so I feel a pull just behind my knee but both feet are flat on the ground, it takes only thirty-two to reach the corner where my house is. The two blue stars hang in our kitchen window above Mom's white porcelain duck. One star is for my brother, Henry, and the other is for Uncle Thad. When we're sitting around the table at dinner now, since last December, Dad tells us to hold hands and then he says simple words to God. He never asks for a thing, but instead speaks what he hopes he knows. Henry is safe. Thad will be home soon. Those goddamned Nazis will lose this war.

Sometimes I don't keep my eyes closed all the way, and I see Mom wince a little when he swears. But I also see her mouthing her own prayer. She asks things, so I do, too.

Our table cloth is sky blue with little eyelet flowers. When dinner is over and everyone is gone, I help to clear the table. But I get the napkins last. The crumpled white napkins look like clouds on the blue tablecloth sky. It makes me think of Henry and his plane, the way the engine sounds like a thousand snaps being pushed closed and ripped back open all at once. His uniform looks like that sound, all snaps and razor sharp creases down his long pant legs. His picture is on the piano and his cap is cocked to one side. He is next to his plane, which looks like it is baring its teeth; and I think he looks so dashing.

But that is all I think of this war. If I think much more about it I'm afraid I'll become bitter. I could even start to stoop a little, like Mrs. Macklin does because she's always leaning in to hear the war news on the radio. Instead I skip rope and walk along the curbs like they're tightropes. On Tuesdays we go to the community center pool.

I love to swim, and Mom made me a red bathing suit that looks just like the one Betty Grable wears in her most recent movie, but I don't look at all like her. Too small in so many different ways. The boys at the pool don't look at me, but like I said before, they wouldn't see me anyway. Until last month the boys went to the pool to watch Hannah Stuart. She's the only one in our town who owns a bikini. But then she went off to be a nurse in the navy. Both of the Levi brothers enlisted that same week, but that was probably a coincidence.

Today, though, I am merely sitting on Main Street. A lady in a pink dress and a yellow hat is buying a water melon, but she seems to be having trouble picking exactly the right one. When I am older I hope I learn how to do those grown-up women things, like applying mascara or picking out melons or placing strips of cucumber by the door so the ants won't want to come in. I can't do any of that now.

What I can do is watch. I see things and know things so fast that the words just come from nowhere, from that secret spot in my brain where I never sleep. And I remember all of it. I remember the way the chalk clicked and broke in half in Ms. Silver's hand just before she dismissed our Sunday school class on that weekend before Christmas. Dad was waiting for all of us in front of the church, even though he never goes. He'd walked over and he was out of breath. He was holding Mom's hand and squeezing, and then they led us down the street like ducklings. I shuffled my feet along to make scratchy, soft-shoe music. I remember Dad sitting us down on the sofa and explaining the word infamy.

My peppermint ice cream has melted into a pink puddle in my glass. It is time to take the thirty-two steps home. But today it takes forty-seven because Able Bowers was washing his truck in the street and he tried to spray me, but even when I ran out of his reach I kept count. I try to be impeccably honest. I also try to avoid Able Bowers.

Dad is whistling 'Ain't We Got Fun' from the bathroom where he is washing his hands. When he hugs me I can smell the soap. The plate in the middle of the table is piled high with corn on the cob. It has a damp, sweet smell. I wish we could afford air conditioning. But when we take our seats and settle into the evening time, a coolness comes over us. Around our table we are safe. Dad is a rock. Mom is impenetrable. I hold hands with my little brothers, Jacob and Matt. They are so small and fair. I feel love for them pouring from my heart, all of a sudden, a reaction to the dark, fluffy tops of their heads bowed as Dad speaks. I am supposed to be praying.

Tonight I do not ask God for anything, I do not tell him what I hope is true. Tonight I say thanks. Here there simply is no war.

When the thumping of fireworks splattering across the night sky reverberates within my own chest, rivaling my heart, I know without a doubt how lucky I am. How lucky to be here in this country where my right to speech and faith and the pursuit of happiness are protected. Lucky to be here in this town where folks wear their patriotism on their rolled up, hard-working sleeves. Lucky to have a husband who squeezes my arm in time to the music behind the firework show, kissing my nose between the glorious, colorful pops in the sky.

It is a good feeling. And, although I was less than impressed with the renditions of the cliche Fourth of July songs chosen as this year's soundtrack, I was comforted by the sentiments. Hearing "I am proud to be an American" and "The Truth goes marching on" and "America, America, God shed his grace on thee"... without the protestations of the "lefties and greenies" who seem so noisy the rest of the year, that is something I love.

I wish we, those of us who love our country enough to congregate with family and barbecue until we're too tired to move, I wish we would take the time to be more blatant about our love of country the rest of the year. Why only once? Why only in the months following tragedy?

Tonight I watched every kind of person, representatives of every walk of life, every race, every religion, every level of education and class, streaming toward the flat, welcoming field of green. They spread out their blankets and were careful where they set their keys. They readied cameras and kicked soccer balls, munched on kettle corn and swung laughing children through the air by their ankles and wrists. They bobbed their heads to the music, smiling at the words. They watched one another. They made eye contact with me. They nodded and knew me, a neighbor, a friend, a fellow patriot.

Jon and I tossed a frisbee around with Cindy and Jason. Grass crunched cold under my toes and I snagged the frisbee from the air, biting my lip when the spinning momentum made my chilly fingers sting. Jon clapped for me and I bowed. It was a terrific catch. It was something to remember.

With the first big bang we raced back to our blankets and curled up, wrapped up to keep warm, and straining to hear the music above the explosions. Jon took pictures and I hummed along to the songs I knew. As always, it was the classics, the George M. Cohan songs that make me think of Jimmy Cagney tapping away and stubbornly waving that grand old flag, those warmed my heart the most.

After the firework show, which needed better music but remained amazing after one of the most spectacular finales I've seen in ages, Jon pulled me up and we danced in the center of the field. It was our third Independence Day together, and each year we dance. He touched his nose to mine, cold and loving, an eskimo kiss. And once again, for the zillionth time today, I felt unbelievably lucky.

(My family's second annual Fourth of July Scar Belly Open was today. We came in second. Dad and Mom have a trophy as evidence of their victory. We will unseat them next year. We will reign supreme.)

"My stepdad's gonna kill me! It was his ball."

"So?"

"So, some lady signed it."

"Okay, Smalls, this is important. What was her name?"

"I dunno. Ruth. Baby Ruth."

"Babe Ruth?! Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

In 1993, Benny "the Jet" Rodriguez got a lesson from his idol. Heroes get remembered, but legends never die. How cool do you have to be to say something like that? As cool as Babe Ruth, the Legend himself.

Because our father was and is a huge fan of baseball, my brothers and I grew up knowing all about the Sultan of Swat (and his buddy, my personal favorite, Lou Gehrig). Dad's Murderer's Row t-shirt got passed down as pajamas through all of us, and I'm pretty sure I cried the day it got shredded to be used as cleaning rags.

Anyway, even as I admit I could probably fit all that I know about baseball and homerun records on the head of a pin (I was Big Mac's biggest fan during his race... man, was that really eight years ago?), I understand the ambivalence which fans of America's favorite pasttime are currently feeling toward Barry Bonds.

A gentleman on the news tonight really summed it up for me when he said, "[Bonds] was probably the best in the game before he decided to resort to steroids. It's actually kind of sad." And it is sad. Baseball is a game, a sport, a pasttime. It's not life or death. It's not worth cheating to get to the top.

The Babe set the bar and athletes today can't touch it without drugging themselves, bulking up like animals (and I think I can reasonably say that McGuire isn't to be left out of either category). That's what bothers me. Hank Aaron got death threats for being a black man chasing the record... Barry Bonds shoots up and we're all supposed to look the other way.

I could watch Field of Dreams over and over again, listening to James Earl Jones speak deep and slow about the best game in our history, smelling the grass, eating the hot dogs. "People will come, Ray. People will most definitely come." Or, Pride of the Yankees... "Today, I consider myself... the luckiest man... on the face of the earth." Or, A League of Their Own... "Are you crying? There's no crying in baseball!"

And to me, that's what baseball is, fun and idealism. Something that involves hotdogs and honor and absolutely no crying. My brother, Ted, caught a foul ball at an A's game four years ago... and it remains to be one of our happiest pictures together as a family, Mom, Dad, Ted, Curt and me. I remember the sparkle of the fireworks that night as we all sat on the field and stared straight up, watching the heavens reaching for us. Beautiful. Perfect. Family.

So, I wish, I wish, I wish that people (hey Barry, that means you) would think about what the game of baseball meant to people in decades past... and then play accordingly. The incredibly gifted athletes who dominate now might just squeeze a bit more enjoyment out of play time if they were brightening the days and months and Springtimes of happy-go-lucky fans nationwide.

Patriotism is an urge that I attempt to nurture within myself every day. It is what drives my emotions when I join in singing the national anthem during a baseball game, or when I hold a door open at work for a lady who has her hands full, or when someone cuts me off on the freeway and I don't honk my horn and make unnecessary hand gestures to communicate my frusteration. I do not believe that patriotism must be defined by flag-waving or marching bands. The men and women who don uniforms to fight for our country and the divine rights she claims to guaranty for us all... they are the truly patriotic ones.

And yet, there are other, more quiet folks who wear their love for the United States on their sleeves. Aid workers and organ donors, the guy who tours high school campuses to register newly-18-year-old voters, open-minded college professors, self-defense teachers, anonymous hotline volunteers, parents, little league coaches and entrepreneurs.

A lot has been said about the immigration debate here in the United States. No matter what happens, millions of people will be affected, perhaps negatively. But I have hope.

Even when issues like this one flare up on the grand scale, and even when they spark smaller controversies nation-wide, what patriotism really ought to boil down to is a humble gratitude and a truly Christian blend of compassion and forgiveness. That was the original message behind patriotism.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!!

Our country would not be, simply would not exist, had it not been for immigration. We are all the descendents of immigrants. Even in my family. On my dad's side we can trace our roots back ten or twelve generations in the U.S. But that thirteenth generation, the first Pancoast to set foot on American soil, was a British citizen. Just like every other immigrant, he came here looking for something. Maybe money, maybe power, maybe the simple freedoms our constitution provided, maybe the beauty of our natural wonders, maybe free enterprise.

Whatever the case, those who immigrate come looking for something better. We tout ours as the greatest country in the world! We are the strongest, the richest, the proudest. We have so much. How on earth can we be surprised when so many people want to come here? Or, if we aren't surprised by the desire, we're floored by the number who ignore our flimsy immigration laws and policies and cross our poorly defended borders illegally.

I have an appreciation for the journey some of these people undertake in order to grasp the flapping coattails of the American dream. Hundreds of miles with almost nothing to sustain them on the journey. Parents drag their oblivious children across the border or onto shore in the dead of night because, they think, as all parents think, there is a chance for our children to have something better!

That being said, even America has her limit. We must restrict ourselves lest we become waterlogged. Unless we look out for ourselves, how can we possibly aid anyone else? So we man our borders or build a wall. We send illegal immigrants back where they came from. But must we turn this into the sickeningly derisive battle it seems to be becoming?

Let us be loyal to our country, certainly. But first, let us be loyal to mankind. Let us, as Americans who can absolutely afford to be, compassionate. Considerate. Stern and law abiding for our own sake, but kind because every person who braves death to sneak into the United States is still a person. He has a soul. She has a family. It is not for us to be mean hearted about the need to deny them entry. Rather, it is for us to set an example of strength and decency.

Today I am feeling patriotic, as I do every day. More than that, though, I feel lucky. I live in a land where I am free to post this blog for the world to see, brandishing a personal viewpoint like a sword or a flag. I have no desire to leave the United States in search of more freedoms, more chances. But I was fortunate enough to be born here.

At some point, though, one of my ancestors looked around his or her foreign town. And then he or she said aloud, "I've heard of a land of milk and honey. In this land are many chances. For the sake of myself, for the sake of all those I love, I will sacrifice much, perhaps everything, to find and settle in that land."

Before we point fingers or draw lines in the sand, we must first remember our beginning. Our beginning. Our power lies within our muddled bloodlines, our murky heritage. And it was not only the brightest minds or the rich or the powerful who journeyed here. It was the weak, the poor, the huddled masses, the wretched refuse. We asked them to come. We came. We thrived. Now it is up to us sustain a country that is strong enough to continue that compassionate and time-honored tradition.

"Would you like a lesson, sir, in the rules of war?"

When a cruel green-eyed captain snarls these words at Mel Gibson in The Patriot, he is standing an arm's length away behind a carefully aimed pistol. And this is only moments after he has ordered his troops to execute every wounded enemy soldier on Gibson's property, and then to burn the house and barns, kill the livestock. What is his point?

There are no rules of war.

Fifty years earlier, a romantic comedy called "Dear Ruth" was a smash at the box office. Young, dashing William Holden played a war hero home on leave to see his girl. Cute movie. Along the way Ruth says to him, "Bill, you're not being fair." His reply?

"Oh, all's fair in love and war, and I'm in both!"

Okay. So where are we? Oh, yeah. There are no rules of war. Or are there? Or should there be?

Should civilians be off limits? Should prisoners be fed? Should torture be used in the interrogation process? Should we be allowed to get angry when these tactics are used on our citizens and soldiers when we're fine with using these same tactics on our enemies?

A few days ago the Australian press broadcast images of American troops setting the bodies of slain Iraqi insurgents on fire in the street. And it's been over a year since the images of Abu Ghraib prison leaked. What are we doing?

Responding. For months we watched hostage after hostage, civilians from many countries, beheaded by radical terrorist militant groups... proudly, defiantly. Our people, American citizens with families, were unsafe. And so Iraq's worst individuals taught us about the rules of war. Those intangible and seemingly non-existant rules.

But I don't think that reaction is justified. As angering as the terrorists' actions are, and as much as they evoke an animal rage within me, I hate to see our boys resort to those measures. I hate to see them sink that low. Because eventually, when those who make it home are home, and they sit back and think it all over, that will be something that haunts them. The self-defense killings, the inevitable collateral damage, will all balance out because our flag will still wave overhead. The acrid smoke and the stench of burning flesh and the hellish flames dancing on and in the bodies of the dead they have burned for bravado or as bait... that will never balance out. Instead it will hang in the minds of the men who committed the act, at an odd angle, never to be forgotten because they will wonder at its necessity.

Or, worse, it will be forgotten. And in the wars of the future the list of rules prohibiting crimes against humanity will diminish... becoming the "all's fair" and decreasing the gap between us and the barbarians of our history and our present.

I'm not saying that these dead men set ablaze don't deserve this treatment. The evil men who beheaded the hostages, the men who flew planes in the World Trade Center and all who commit these kinds of atrocities world-wide deserve this much and more. Still, we need to remember that this war isn't about what they deserve. It's about what we deserve: a better, safer, more tolerant world.

We curse Saddam as he sits smug and clean in a chair in a court half-way across the world, and as he proclaims that he is still in charge. We want him to pay for the massacre of more than a 100 innocent men, a whole town. And we want him to pay for more than that, too. He is evil, we say; he is inhuman. I say that, too. But we can only continue to look down on Saddam, call him those names and believe we are just when we sentence him to death, if we refuse to operate on his terms.

When we begin tormenting and torturing prisoners and defacing the bodies of the dead, then Saddam is right. He IS in charge. We're no better.

Playing World Police isn't easy, and it's probably not even a job that most of us want to focus on. Our country, after all, could use a little domestic overhaul. Still, the sucker punch we received on 9/11 akwakened a terribly patriotic beast. It was vengeful, our reaction, at first. Now it has become more, though. The idea of ridding the planet of terrorism entirely is an ideal one. It may even be impossible. But it remains noble!

That's our trump card. In a world that hounds us for our Shock and Awe Campaign and our bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq, we stand apart and alone... but tall, a head above the rest, because we're willing to refuse to be bullied, and we're able to stand up for those countries that can't afford the luxury of that stand on their own.

In the end, however, and as always, our victory must also be principled. We must be able to say that we did all we could to make this world better. Ridding the world of terrorism doesn't mean anything if we only become terrorists in the process.

A deadly day has come. Evil infiltrated the London Underground and the London bus lines and detonated multiple explosive devices, killing more than 30 people and injuring hundreds more. Is this Britain's 9/11?

When our twin towers were so tragically toppled only four years ago, Tony Blair and his country stood staunchly behind us. Today our president got the chance to reciprocate.

In a statement condemning today's attacks, President Bush drew the battle lines once again. "The contrast couldn't be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those of us who care deeply about human rights and human liberty and those who kill, those who have such evil in their heart that they will take the lives of innocent folks."

Many innocent people were murdered today. And I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few Muslims among the casualties, too. The perpetrators of this barbaric crime may honestly believe they are committing such acts in the name of their god... but their reasoning doesn't matter really. Feeding off the fear and pain of civilians is sadistic and wrong.

I pray that justice is done in the name of all the victims, that the leaders of the world can unify through this tragedy and pursue more efficiently and effectively the terrorists who seek to destroy our daily lives. Most of all, though, I pray that we who are not to blame can find peace in the idea that we are in the majority. Republicans and democrats, Christians and atheists, men and women, adults and children, every race, every creed, every color... we are what the Muslim extremists hate simply because we can live in relative harmony with one another, promoting respect and tolerance, maintaining our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.