This Decade, Monumental Events

2000 Election
The election of George W. Bush. The biggest buffoon to have ever been president. How that dipshit ever got elected--and then re-elected is beyond me. I still don't get it.

September 11, 2001.
Everyone has a "where were they" story. I was asleep. I woke up to the news on the radio. I remember being really confused. I couldn't figure out what was happening, until a friend called and told me to turn on the TV.

Five days earlier on the first day of class during my first semester of library school, I sat in my globalization class. My professor walked in and asked, "What would you die for?" We all sat there, quiet. He asked again. We went through the basics. Family, friends. "What about your country?," he asked. This was Madison, Wisconsin. We all kind of giggled. My prof reminded us how different our answers would have been a generation before us. "Religion? Would you die for your religion?," he continued. Again... Madison. We laughed. "I want you to know that you are a minority in this world," he said. I remember the class getting quiet. The discussion changed to why we were in the minority to what makes someone want to die for their religion. We continued to talk about the divide between us in the US and basically the rest of the world. How did it get this way? Where was it going? The class would be focused on the divide between the West and the Middle East. Our readings would focus on the cultural, religious, and economic divide. A classmate and I walked out of class and I said, "My head hurts." I hadn't thought that much about so many things in years.

On September 11, 2001, I stood in my living room watching a replay of one of the World Trader Center towers collapsing, and I thought, "What would I die for?" At that moment, I didn't know.

Unfortunately, George W. Bush was president when this happened. I gave him my tentative support after the US went into Afghanistan. He lost that support the second he began using the events of September 11 to invade Iraq. I didn't think he'd do it because how could he? Any rational person could see his reasoning was bullshit. Or so I thought.

The Second Iraq War
Fucked up. Seriously. It has been well-documented that George W. Bush lost the support and trust of the rest of the world when he invaded Iraq. Not much else to say about this other than the fact that Bush lied to get what he wanted. He put the lives of thousands of people based lies.

On a personal note: My stepbrother spent a year in Iraq. He went in after the invasion. He really believed in what he was doing (communications, he was in the Green Zone). If you're going into a war zone, you better damn well believe in what you are doing. The months leading up to the Iraq War pretty much severed the already delicate relationship between my dad and I.

My stepbrother came home in 2004. He was in the Army, but came home on the ship with the supplies so others could get home faster to see their spouses and kids. Plus, he got to stop in Greece, Spain, and other places.... He was 21. I don't blame him. When Dad told me my stepbrother's ship had docked in Texas, I cried.

Hurricane Katrina
For awhile when I told people I lived in Mississippi the first thing they asked about was Hurricane Katrina. I lived 300 miles from the coast. That's not to say we weren't affected. I lost my power. The rain knocked out some of my circuitry and half my kitchen wouldn't work until everything dried out. I knew people with damaged homes. But, really, we felt the after-affects of Katrina more than the storm: evacuees, rumors of gas runs... but, really, it was the number of people who streamed into town that had the biggest impact.

But what affected me even more was going to the Mississippi Coast three months after the storm. Ye Olde University took a group of people to Gulfport to help clean up. I had never seen anything like it, and I hoped to never see anything like it again. It was difficult to find words to describe what it looked like because words couldn't capture the smell or the silence. It was almost impossible to describe what it was like to be surrounded by that much destruction.

But even more disgusting was how the US government let people suffer--both on the MS Coast and in New Orleans. It was an absolute embarrassment.