What The Holy Hell Is Going On?

[Mark Laliberte]

This article was written in today's Irish Times.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2001/0918/opt4.htm

[Randy May]

That was a great article Mark...thanks.

[Carter]

I hope this link works. This was emailed to our staff by one of our librarians.
www.wam.umd.edu/~hughesa/thankyou.htm (http://www.wam.umd.edu/~hughesa/thankyou.htm)

[Jenna]

The Vermont Teddy Bear Company is donating Angel Bears, Police Bears and Firefighter Bears to all the families and children of the courageous firefighters, police officers, and rescue workers who lost their lives saving others.

We would like the bears to come with personal messages from all of you
all over the country. There is no charge for this service. All messages will be printed and will accompany the bears.



http://www.virtualbeargram.com/september11.html

[go4hockeyaddict]

Jenna,

Thank you for posting the link to the Vermont Teddy Bear Company site. It is nice to be able to even do something small that will (hopefully) help those who are suffering.

Kudos to the VTBC as well for their donations. My husband sent me one of their bears a few years ago and I always thought it seemed like a neat company. It is nice to know that I was right.

[Jenna]

Your welcome. It would nice to see many of us on the board go to the site and fill out a card.

I got a Hockey Teddy Bear for Christmas last year from Spaceman. I just love it.

[Spaceman]

Jenna, I loved sending it to you :)

[HankWP]

I did one of those bear cards... it was a pretty hard thing to write up...

Great suggestion Jenna.


Henry.

[Handyman]

I sent out 1 police bear and 1 firefighter bear...the message was tough to write though.

Thanks Jenna for the link!

[Jenna]

Henry/Handyman

Yes I had trouble myself, but I am sure even a simple, I am thinking of you message would be great. So I encourage everyone to send a message.


Spaceman, I took the bear to work with me this week to cheer up the office. Everyone plays with him ;)

[The Sicatoka]

I've worn the hat and coat that the one bear wears .... it (all of it) really didn't sink in until then. Typing was really hard.

[Handyman]

I am thinking of sending more...the least I can do :(

[jen]

I thought this was a well-written article:

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/jazayerli/010919.html

[Ralph Baer]

Jen, good article. I never knew that Helen Thomas is of Arabic descent.

[Handyman]

For those who care...back about 5 days I put the lyrics to a song on here and did not tell you who it was by. I did this so people would not judge the song by the band who played it.

The song was "Parabola" by Tool. It is on the Lateralus album and I think the lyrics go with this situation quite well!!

[streaker]

Jen, thanks for posting that article. Not a bit of political posturing in it, as I have read in many of the "Leave the Arab-Americans alone" editorials. (Some have used this issue as a means to disagree with American Government policy with Israel and pump pro-Palestinian arguments).

Very well written and kept in line with the root of the ignorant harassment of the American Middle Easterners and/or Muslims by other Americans.

[Scott Murphy]

I'm essentially of the opinion that those who target Arab-Americans, Muslims, Sikhs or anybody else because of the way they look, dress, where they came from or because whom they worship are no better than terrorists themselves.

[HankWP]

Just when you think the US is rallying together... the militant women's group has to chime up... point fingers using tragedy as a delivery tool for an agenda... read this bit from the Opnion section of the Harvard Crimson... I am ashamed of this...

What do you think?

Henry.

The Harvard Crimson, Opinion, Sept 20, 2001

"On Sept. 11, 2001, I turned on CNN to hear a witness describe a man with his skin hanging off, Mayor Guliani reference people “jumping from the towers” and an observer depict the bodies falling from the sky. One thought passed through my mind: Women don’t do this.

Women don’t form terrorist group and attack civilian populations. Women don’t hijack planes with an explicit intent to kill thousands of innocent workers in a statuesque office building. Women don’t kamikaze themselves and 91 innocent passengers into a governmental monument filled with employees. It may be cultural construct, it may be gender stereotype, it may be biological influence. But women don’t do this.


Ninety-eight percent of all violent crimes are committed by men, and killing, violence and war have long been a man’s game. Armies have always been overwhelmingly male, instigating wars characterized by big egos, over-aggression and nervous women wringing their hands out at home, in prayer for their husbands and sons. (There’s a book called War and Peace outlining the phenomenon.)


Add poor education to the mixture, and the results are deadly. Uneducated male groups have a history of violence: According to historian Linda Gordon, America’s late-19th century mining towns were “violent because they were male enclaves.” They were “aggression dominant because there were not yet enough women and families to challenge it with respect for discipline and vested interests in peace.” These miners were not even engaged in a terrorist community, and their innate response to a homosocial situation was violence.


When females first entered the American armed forces, opponents banged down doors haranguing the horrible disturbance women would cause to the already deadly history of military science. In the words of Anna Quindlen: “A new Navy training program, for the first time in history, features sexually integrated boot camp. After all the arguments about fatal distractions, they’ve discovered that putting men and women together actually improves training and fosters the much-vaunted cohesion. ‘It’s more cooperative and there’s more teamwork,’ said one instructor. Armed forces, meet real life.”


Unfortunately, the terrorists who attacked America last week are part of real life. It is widely suspected that militant Osama bin Laden is responsible for Tuesday’s terrorism. If so, I find it no coincidence that the country which bin Laden makes his home is a patriarichal society where male word is gospel and where women are not allowed to show their faces.


If Islamic organizations did partake in the crimes committed against America (though I am disturbed at the speed with which we’ve jumped to this conclusion), I am certain that no woman’s opinion was considered in the clandestine terrorist group meetings leading up to the attack.


This was a man’s game.


And yet, in response to these barbaric terrorist tactics, our president reacted —before the wreckage had even hit the ground—with a knee-jerk pledge reeking of just as much testosterone: To hunt down and punish whoever is responsible.


Hunting is the last thing we need to do. Memo to W: Retaliation and hunting are not the same thing.


America does not need hairy-backed war tactics right now, particularly the vigilante kind that resulted in Saturday’s murder of an “Arab looking” gas station attendant. (He was South Asian.)


Instead, we need compassion. We need caring solidarity among all Americans. We need to protect our country, to care for the victims and their families and actually identify our enemy.


There should be no hunting. Intelligent, effective retaliation against our actual enemy can come later.


Arianne R. Cohen ’03, a Crimson editor, is a women’s studies concentrator in Leverett House. "

- - - -

PS... and for the sake of accuracy, the media has reported that these terrorists were actually educated pretty well, college, flight school and self-defense training.

Two can play the blame-game... generally, generalization: militant vegitarian lesbian women who hate men, because all men are evil, all men are pigs, all men cause all the problems, all men cheat, all men are unethical, all men cause war and hate...

The ridiculousness of it all.

HWP3

[RoyalTea]

what surprises me about that article is the use of the word "women." i would have thought that the nut that wrote that would have used "womyn" instead.

of course the terrorists aren't women. in that culture, they can't work, can't receive an education, can't expose any part of their body except their eyes. if a daughter does anything to bring shame to her family, it's acceptable for her father to kill her. that culture promotes polygamy. women aren't much more than "baby factories."

that's an agenda that's a little more appropriate to be pushing, in my opinon.

[Jenna]

I posted this on team Jen, but I see it fitting for this thread


Yesterday, I learned life is to short, I had thought one of my best friends for the last 10 years had been away on business out west. But I was told he had flown to NYC only hours before the tragic events in NYC. He was at a meeting in NYC for only one day at the towers. A day I won't ever forget. Thinking my friend was safe and after all this time to find out he is among the missing breaks my heart. In Shock, I called his cell phone when I heard the news. I left him a message to tell him what the world and I are feeling. I know he can't hear it or ever call me back, but I needed to say goodbye. As I sit here, I am not even sure why I post this. But I want you to all realize what you have, live for today and don't forget the past. I realized life is to short the hard way.