“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Is it just me, or does America’s overzealous response to the death of Osama Bin Laden bear a startling resemblance to the overzealous celebration in the Middle East over the bombing of the Twin Towers? Taking into account the fact that Clinton had been bombing in the Middle East for a a wee little bit, and I’m sure that his aggressive actions were in response to some violent infringement on America by somebody in that neck of the woods, and etc. etc.

I’m not condoning/supporting/refuting/disagreeing with any specific political movement/statement/action, but I am going to throw this thought out there:

Until there is some degree of respect for human life, no matter which human the life belongs to, this disgusting pattern of violent behavior towards others is going to continue forever and ever and ever and ever and ever… ya dig?

I don’t believe there should ever be a celebration over these kinds of things… even if you do happen to think it’s necessary (which I tend to never do, honestly, but that’s a personal decision). It’s all depressing. Death of a living thing is an all-too solemn event. Always. Except for, perhaps, the Darwin Awards. That stuff’s kind of screwed up in a “dark-comedy-late-time-telly” kind of way.

Sad face. All around.

p.s. Besides, now he could become a martyr. He doesn’t necessarily need to be alive to inspire more violence. Read your history text books, people.

Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer: Many people need desperately to receive this message: “I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don’t care about them. You are not alone.” – Kurt Vonnegut

I am not necessarily an easy person to travel with.

I say “not necessarily” because the difficulty with me lies not in anything that would make me a tiresome travel companion in any normal sense. For instance, I am not high maintenance. I can sleep anywhere, eat anything or not eat anything, depending on the context. I travel light (usually just one pair of shoes and a book-bag with two pairs of jeans and some shirts) I can sit as quietly as a ladybug, or I can chat your ear off, depending on the mood. I don’t get worried if I’m lost, nor do I mind occasionally partaking in a plan of action. I like drinking. I like being sober. I like parks, both empty and full, and nightclubs make me laugh. I like museums and dirt and art and books and coffee and rock music that makes your ears ring in that high pitch buzz sound that indicates some sort of serious damage has been done to your ear drums. I don’t really whine. I don’t mind doing nothing and I can sit in a car for 12 hours straight and feel entirely comfortable (except for parts of my butt being poked by pins and needles for a few days afterwards).

I say proudly that in almost all ways, I am an extremely easy person to travel with.

I mean, sometimes I really mess up. Really really mess up. In the normal “I never want to travel with this person again” kind of way. I get thrown off of trains in the middle of nowhere in a strange city because I didn’t buy a ticket. I miss trains entirely and have to rely on the kindness of the conductors giving me beta to successfully train hop my way back home (hoping all the while that the not-so-nice conductors don’t’ find me out). I screw up dates and people show up to meet me in places a full month before I’m actually going to be there. I lose my wallet when it has my debit card and driver’s license in it. I get on the wrong bus and find myself in New York City rather than at a beach in Delaware. I get stalked and find myself reading bits and pieces of a book by Milan Kundera while I hide and attempt to control my breathing in some itchy patch of bushes in the middle of Santa Monica.

But in the end, the thing that really gets to people is my inability to not talk to strangers. I talk to everyone. Bar tenders. People at the hostel. Desk clerks. Grocers. Cleaning crews. Policemen. Librarians. Homeless guys on the street. Baristas. Comedians. The people making fun of the comedians. People setting next to me on the bus, in the airplane, on the street bench. I learn about stupid bosses and roommates and jobs I will never have or meet or know, and about parts of the world or the country or the city I will never see, and about diseases I hope I will never contract, and about different kinds of dogs people have owned, drugs I will never abuse (and hope to never try), and so on. I’ve gotten bad directions, good suggestions, and sometimes I learn life stories so beautiful I don’t know whether to write it all down and ask for publishing rights, or sob uncontrollably. And I somehow manage to do it all by the lost art of conversation.

I even do it in the cities I live in. It’s just that my random encounters hold more possibility for later, regular (and perhaps even intentional) random encounters. Sometimes I even plan things.

It’s unfortunate, and I’m not really sure when it actually happened, but talking to strangers with exuberance and curiosity has now become less “friendly” and more “creepy”.  Or at the very least, “really fucking obnoxious”. My traveling companions and friends often complain at my incessant need to not only stop and ask for directions, but for suggestions and stories and jokes as well. They also complain about my inability to not take advantage of the slimmest opportunity in which to unload yet another pun, a pun of whose grandiosity is assured in my own mind, on some poor hapless victim. But that’s not actually related to the larger message here.

Mostly my friend’s irritation shows itself by them reminding me that I own a smart-phone every time I ask a question or suggest a course of action that involves finding the answer through communication with another human being. Honestly, I do use my smartphone. A lot. I even use it to get directions and bus routes and bar suggestions and phone numbers, and that’s all well and good. I mean, it’s great for making sure that the improv club that someone said was down a dark creepy alleyway was ACTUALLY down the dark creepy alleyway. Not getting raped is a great advantage of having a smart-phone. I quite like not being raped. It’s a super big plus to any day.

My fervor for travel and adventure really lies in the stories of others. I love relying on the kindness and spontaneity of strangers. One of my favorite memories of back-packing up and down the California coast was watching the sun set on the ocean up in a dead tree on the side of an embankment with Jay, a strange fellow I had met that morning. He was afraid of heights and thorns and bugs and all things generally “icky” and “ouchy”, but I had shamed him into crawling up into that rotten ol’ hunk of wood with me after I managed to do it successfully, barefoot and in a polka-dotted dress. Those moments don’t happen with smart-phones and Google reviews, ya know? And I may not ever have found that spot on my own. I found it through consistently annoying trolley conductors and bank clerks and random-ass vendors at the farmers market.

I cannot actually go all of the places I want to go or see all of the things I want to see or do all of the things I want to do. But someone in the world is doing them or has done them or wants to do them, and so I will keep trying my darnedest to engage everyone I can in some sort of meaningful form of face-time.

Good news, right? They’ve been talking the big talk these days about cutting back on spending and shrinking down some of the governmental projects that are ineffective or getting too big for their britches.

Surprise!

The Department of Defense’s budget is going to get increased by 2%! That’s going to mean a whopping $16 billion dollars in DEFENSE, as they spent $895 billion last year.

And what are some of the programs whose budgets got slashed to pay for this, you might ask?

Well, lemme tell you.

• The budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) got cut by ONE THIRD, proving that the federal government truly does hate trees.
• $330 million dollars of annual funding for Planned Parenthood got cut. Now luxurious commodities such as “programs that screen for HIV, cancers and also pay for family planning medications for those who cannot afford them” will no longer be available for free.
• The CHGME program (Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education) got heavily reduced as well, leaving EVEN MORE KIDS without proper healthcare due to a lack of skilled children’s doctors nation wide.
• The Diesel Emission Reduction Act got terminated.

And to top it all off, coal subsidies got increased by $1.2 billion. Seems to match the EPA decrease, right? THEY LOOK SO CUTE TOGETHER, like peanut butter and jelly, or mac & cheese, or something.

So thanks government. I hate breathing, trees, healthy children, and being STD and cancer free, too.

Sigh.

[Inspiring Source: California Cornbread]

“I was raised by a gay couple and I’m doing pretty well. I scored in the 99th percentile on the ACT. I’m actually an Eagle Scout, I own and operate my own small business. If I was your son Mr. Chairman, I believe I’d make you very proud.

I’m not really so different from any of your children. My family really isn’t so different from yours. After all, your family doesn’t derive its sense of worth by being told by the state, “You’re married, congratulations.” No, the sense of family comes from the commitment we make to each other, to work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good ones. It comes from the love that binds us. That’s what makes us a family.

So what you’re voting here isn’t to change us. It’s not to change our families. It’s to change how the law views us, how the law treats us. You are voting for the first time in the history of our state to codify discrimination into our constitution… a constitution that, but for the proposed amendment, is the least amended constitution in the United States. You’re telling Iowans that some among you are second-class citizens who do not have the right to marry the person you love.

So will this vote affect my family? Will it affect yours? Over the next two hours, I’m sure we’re going to hear plenty of testimony about how damaging having gay parents is on kids. But in my 19 years, not once have I ever been confronted by an individual who realized independently that I was raised by a gay couple. And you know why? Because the sexual orientation of my parents has had ZERO effect on the content of my character. Thank you very much. ”

- Zach Wahls, a 19-year-old Univ. of Iowa engineering student, who spoke before the Iowa House of Representatives against a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Iowa. The resolution passed 62-37. Watch the wonderful, riveting three-minute speech here.

Being the child of a gay mom, this speech has me fist pumping SO HARD RIGHT NOW. I remember having similar conversations with my peers in high school over grimy cafeteria lunches. Good for you, Zach Wahls. Thanks for taking a stand.

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Would you please stop telling me to “put my hands up”? It’s hard to drive with no hands.

Also, would someone for the love of God teach me how to Dougie?

Thanks,
J.Me

On that note, do be careful when texting girls, and girlfriends… Also mothers.”

I really need to remember to wear a jacket when I walk Tekno in the morning.

“I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one’s life.”