Archive for November, 2006

Honesty will be found on every experiment, to be the best and
only true policy; let us then as a Nation be just.

~George Washington (Circular letter to the States, 14 June 1783)

For me, the sadness is still acute when the colorful little bubble that surrounds my life is popped by the pin of a video or well written article about the horrors of Darfur. There is rage over Darfur from pockets in American society, but they are mainly isolated to college campuses and bold churches. The vast swathes of middle America and the middle class allow deafness to conquer their ears. It’s odd to see which events outside the U.S. incur the wrath and empathy of the American people and which do not.

Aside from our own Brian Pierce, Nicholas Kristof at the NYT has been persistent at trying to invigorate American attention for Darfur. Right now there’s a short, but great video (scroll down to the middle of the page, it’s the second video as of today) at the NYT website about a man who had his eyes gouged out by men with bayonets. Kristof comments:

It seems incredibly inadequate to hand out bandages when young men have their eyes gouged out. What we need isn’t more bandages, but the will to stand up to genocide.

Why does America exist if not to stop genocide? What are our ideals if they do not encompass righteous fury against the pure, identifiable evil of this world?

The steady flow of deaths is just sort of there, the people just sort of die. And when they fall to the ground and their blood muddies the dry sand, we live on sufficiently far from their horrors…we remain in our colorful little bubbles…I am certainly guilty.

This coming week I am going to be visiting law schools in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Boston. The following week is Thanksgiving break, so I don’t know how much time I’ll have to be posting things here for that period of time, so all the more reason for you guys to do what Billy is saying in the previous post. Make up for my absence and write something for us!

Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.

~George Washington (upon fumbling for his glasses before
delivering the Newburgh Address, 15 March 1783)

Hey, all, what did everybody think was the biggest surprise of election night this year? I’m not sure what my pick is, but a few candidates:

• the sheer number of House pickups (though Duckworth still couldn’t pull out a victory)
• Frerichs’ victory
• the fact that in exit polls corruption was a bigger issue on voters’ minds than Iraq
• Montana being as close as it is

What say you?