Marginalization

George W just told the UN that extremists in the Middle East should be marginalized. NO ONE should be marginalized! Extremist tactics should be renounced and extremist ideas must be countered with progressive solutions to social ills, but NO ONE should be marginalized! Marginalization CAN foster creativity and growth, but marginalizing extremists, I believe, only fans the fires of violent action against civilization.

Oh, now he just said that Iran must abandon its nuke-u-lar weapons ambitions...not the thing to declare, I say!

I say, don't call someone an extremist until you examine the doctrinal log protuding from your own eyeball. And don't suggest marginalizing anyone until you've walked in the margins yourself and experienced hopelessness, voicelessness and the oppressive weight of a culture or society who demonizes you before talking to you. I'm certainly not advocating terrorism or violence, I'm just weary of the world.

39 and a day

I've been treading on this planet for 39 years now. That puts me squarely in middle age-dom, I think. I'm not much for lists, and goal-setting has never held much interest (hence the state of my affairs), but I thought I'd start dream up a set of accomplishments to strive for in the coming year before I hit 40!!!!

• make a lasting friendship
• create something of beauty
• blog 3x/week at a minimum (meaning I have 2 more entries to make just this week, and it's already Thursday!)
• take a 2 week vacation

Four goals in 364 days shouldn't be too challenging. The great thing about goal lists is that they can be updated at any time, so stay tuned...

Oh, and if you're wondering, for my birthday, I took my boyfriend/partner to the airport, worked, and went to bed early. Nice, ay?