soapbox

one of my many idiosyncracies is that whenever i buy a shitty magazine (e.g. a gossip-y star or a brain-candy glamour), i must also buy at least one legitimate magazine, such as newsweek or time. i just bought both time and newsweek, because i have this disease which has one major symptom: if i'm reading-material-less during a break in classes, i immediately go to the bookstore in ackerman and purchase something. it's bad.

so, i was reading newsweek a little while ago, and came across this picture of a marine, following the double-amputation of his legs. i got so sick just looking at it. i get really bad motion sickness, and can get sick from lots and lots of reading in moving vehicles, but i have never gotten queasy from just looking at a photograph. i really don't understand warmongering. i simply cannot understand why anyone thinks war should be glorified or made to seem heroic. why anyone would assume that that man lost his legs for "the good of the country" is beyond me. whenever i see pictures of people who are wounded or killed in the middle east every day, i'm reminded of a conversation i had with someone i used to know, who said he was all for the war, as long as someone else was fighting it. the problem with that reasoning is that the phantom, convenient someone else isn't fighting it; we all are. it's people our age overseas losing limbs and lives and ending up as tragedies in news magazines. and i guess i don't know why more people aren't totally outraged by this.

i sincerely hope something good happens on november 7.