Random Thoughts From the Wrong Side of the Bed

I woke up grumpy this morning. Probably because I got lost in a computer version of Sudoku last night and didn't get to bed until after 12:30am. While I can now get away with only 7 hours of sleep (which I couldn't do six years ago), that sleep needs to begin before midnight, which also wasn't true six years ago.

So I was watching the news this morning and got annoyed by two things:

1. I think we would have lost World War II if we had the type of media coverage then that we do now. Every single morning on TV and in the newspaper, there's the body count from Iraq, with as many details as they can (almost) justifiably print about the deceased. Now I don't want to demean the loss of any loved one by anybody in this country, but this much collective attention to the losses only weakens our resolve. We've lost about 2600 soldiers in Iraq. U.S. casualties in WWII were almost 300,000. We are hit in the face every single day with how much this war is costing us. And the American way has become to not want it to cost us anything. I think racism is involved here too. I think we're more willing to sacrifice sons (and daughters) to protect Britons and, yes, even the French, but not Kurds or Iraqis. They are far too different from us and anonymous for most Americans to care. I realize there are some fundamental differences in these two wars, and perhaps I'll address that another time, but I don't feel that those differences are as substantial as the difference in how we, as a nation, are reacting to what it's costing us. If we'd been counting our losses so carefully in 1942 and 1943, we probably would have packed up and gone home and today we might all speak German.

2. Joe Lieberman is getting hammered up in Connecticut and from what little I've seen about it, he's getting beaten solely because he supports the war in Iraq and his opponent is against it. I think it's a travesty that anyone should get elected to a government position based primarily on what he is AGAINST. I'm against sensational journalism that capitalizes on peoples' fears, but that doesn't mean I should be the editor of the New York Times. Tell me why you should get the job, not why the other person shouldn't.

Lastly, I happened to see the other day that Nicolas Cage is starring in a remake of a semi-famous 70's suspense/horror film called "The Wicker Man". Somehow that reminded me of a recent movie with Josh Hartnett called "Wicker Park" and that led me to wonder, what's the deal with wicker getting a bad rep? Is it just because it's one letter off from "wicked"? Seriously, I've seen some very nice wicker furniture. I think someone needs to take a stand against this kind of treatment for an otherwise fine word. So I think I'll run for Senate in New Hampshire on the platform "wicker is good".