Dear Mr. President,
Everything is going wrong today. I overslept and missed an important guest speaker in my morning class. I wasted way too much time reading internet news. I got a massive headache. A shoplifter at work got away and made me feel weak, slow and clumsy in the process (but at least got rid of my headache.) I'm an unacceptable level of upset about a boy, I'm terrible with money and I'm not even being a particularly good sister or daughter these days. I feel like an unqualified failure at just about every aspect of my life. So I can't write about tax-cut negotiations or human rights abuses or the death of the American Dream today. I'll probably be all over this by tomorrow, but tonight I have to write about positive things.
On the local level, the city of Seattle won National Novel Writing Month for the 4th year in a row. By 8 million words. (Not that I'm rubbing it in, or anything, LA.) Seattle continues to shine as a literary center for emerging writers, and while I did not participate this year (writing to you keeps me busy enough) I'm proud of my friends who did. Many approach November with more than a little disdain for the competition, which is won by every one who reaches 50,000 words by Nov. 30th, but I think that anything that combines charitable donations (Seattle alone donated $10K to youth writing causes) with a sense of community for the often solitary experience of novel writing ought to be applauded. Many great novels are born in these thirty days each year, and even those that will never see publication or fame or fortune will at least have the sense of such a tremendous accomplishment.
Nationally, NASA had me thinking they were going to announce the existence of extraterrestrial life, but I suppose an arsenic-based life form is pretty cool, too.
Finally, while this may seem a bit mean-spirited of me to count as a positive thing, Nigeria is pursuing a case against Dick Cheney for bribes paid to Nigerian officials by Halliburton. I don't imagine for a second that Cheney will actually ever see the inside of a courtroom, let alone be brought to justice, but still it's nice to see that sometimes that bad ones get theirs, too.
I'm in a better mood already. On a related note, a man walking two giant English Mastiffs just walked by the coffeeshop window, and I need to go pet them. The only thing that makes me happier than a city full of badass writers, an entirely new form of life, and a justice system (any justice system) with the courage to stand up to Dick Cheney is giant puppies. I hope you aren't also feeling like an abject failure tonight, but if you are, you should probably just play with Bo for a while. Trust me, it helps.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Showing posts with label dick cheney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dick cheney. Show all posts
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Day 247- Hunger Games
Dear Mr. President,
The last two days I've been completely taken in by a work of fiction in that all-consuming way that still manges to surprise me when it comes in the form of a young adult novel. The Hunger Games series, by Suzanne Collins has had me reading by lamplight far past my bedtime and trying to shut out any nonfictional news of the real world. I had been mostly successful but, alas, enough reality has crept in that I'm aware something terrible must have happened to my college football team. (Thanks, Facebook.) Once my joyful shelter of fiction had been cracked I gave in and read the news.
Frank Rich's column on Iraq was maybe the wrong thing to read after nearly two full days engulfed in a world where the class divide is so extreme the rich and powerful force the poor to offer up their children to fight each other to the death to keep the rest of the population entertained or afraid. Several days ago I wrote to you about the end of the war in Iraq and an old friend responded angrily. He told me something that I had not known; a mutual friend who served in Iraq during the wars early years was in fact being redeployed there. The war, he was saying, is not over. Our friends are still being taken from us. I feel like Frank Rich was sending you a similar message.
I'll own that at first I was stung, stunned, unsure what to call what I felt. Was I angry? At myself for being naive? At you for being misleading? At my friend for pointing it out? I felt something close to guilt, as well, as though my eagerness to take you at your word was the reason that our friend was being sent back. Both friends are, for various and complicated reasons, people I have valued and cared for from afar, keeping their generous natures as far from me as my arms can manage. Perhaps my guilty conscience had more to do with the distance I have forced us to maintain, then, and not related to the war at all. I haven't been particularly close to any other soldiers; perhaps it is the personal cost I manage to keep abstract most of the time. I don't have to be particularly close to any of the men and women serving in Iraq or Afghanistan to feel like I know them. They could be my sisters or my nephew, my cousins or my friends and neighbors. They're someone's children, and they're sent off to kill or to be killed by someone else's children. What do we have to show for it? Two countries full of grieving parents and a number of very wealthy military contractors. I think, Mr. President, that my earlier letter to you was wrong.
Frank Rich and my friend from long ago got it right while I missed the point. You haven't ended the war, you have changed the name. The war will end when the mentality and values system that sent us to war in the first place change. I don't blame you, Sir. You were one of the earliest and most eloquent opponents of the war. When its command passed to you I am sure that necessity required you to compromise some of your more abstract positions. But the war was never an abstraction or a policy position to the people suffering in it. The half of me that feels angry would like to personally track down Cheney and Rumsfeld and John Bolton and all the other neocon architects of this conflict and ask them if they've had their fill of entertainment. The half of me that feels guilty wonders how much my own fear and its resulting inaction is to blame and how much yours is. Tonight, as I think of all the lives we've lost, all that we have irreparably destroyed, I know that there can be no escaping it with a new name or even a convincing work of fiction.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
The last two days I've been completely taken in by a work of fiction in that all-consuming way that still manges to surprise me when it comes in the form of a young adult novel. The Hunger Games series, by Suzanne Collins has had me reading by lamplight far past my bedtime and trying to shut out any nonfictional news of the real world. I had been mostly successful but, alas, enough reality has crept in that I'm aware something terrible must have happened to my college football team. (Thanks, Facebook.) Once my joyful shelter of fiction had been cracked I gave in and read the news.
Frank Rich's column on Iraq was maybe the wrong thing to read after nearly two full days engulfed in a world where the class divide is so extreme the rich and powerful force the poor to offer up their children to fight each other to the death to keep the rest of the population entertained or afraid. Several days ago I wrote to you about the end of the war in Iraq and an old friend responded angrily. He told me something that I had not known; a mutual friend who served in Iraq during the wars early years was in fact being redeployed there. The war, he was saying, is not over. Our friends are still being taken from us. I feel like Frank Rich was sending you a similar message.
I'll own that at first I was stung, stunned, unsure what to call what I felt. Was I angry? At myself for being naive? At you for being misleading? At my friend for pointing it out? I felt something close to guilt, as well, as though my eagerness to take you at your word was the reason that our friend was being sent back. Both friends are, for various and complicated reasons, people I have valued and cared for from afar, keeping their generous natures as far from me as my arms can manage. Perhaps my guilty conscience had more to do with the distance I have forced us to maintain, then, and not related to the war at all. I haven't been particularly close to any other soldiers; perhaps it is the personal cost I manage to keep abstract most of the time. I don't have to be particularly close to any of the men and women serving in Iraq or Afghanistan to feel like I know them. They could be my sisters or my nephew, my cousins or my friends and neighbors. They're someone's children, and they're sent off to kill or to be killed by someone else's children. What do we have to show for it? Two countries full of grieving parents and a number of very wealthy military contractors. I think, Mr. President, that my earlier letter to you was wrong.
Frank Rich and my friend from long ago got it right while I missed the point. You haven't ended the war, you have changed the name. The war will end when the mentality and values system that sent us to war in the first place change. I don't blame you, Sir. You were one of the earliest and most eloquent opponents of the war. When its command passed to you I am sure that necessity required you to compromise some of your more abstract positions. But the war was never an abstraction or a policy position to the people suffering in it. The half of me that feels angry would like to personally track down Cheney and Rumsfeld and John Bolton and all the other neocon architects of this conflict and ask them if they've had their fill of entertainment. The half of me that feels guilty wonders how much my own fear and its resulting inaction is to blame and how much yours is. Tonight, as I think of all the lives we've lost, all that we have irreparably destroyed, I know that there can be no escaping it with a new name or even a convincing work of fiction.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Day 82- a bit of fiction on a slow news day
Dear Mr. President,
It is difficult not to roll my eyes at the media's obsession with Joe Biden's use of profanity today at the bill signing. As though the bill itself is less significant than the knowledge that the Vice-President uses curse words. I think most thinking adults find this wholly unsurprising. Any one who pretends genuine offense either has forgotten the previous administration's VP entirely or is just too upset about health care reform to be reasonable. Also, with all due respect to VP Biden, on the scale of embarrassing things that he's said into a microphone, this barely registers.
Anyway, since it is such an apparently slow news day, I thought I'd offer a bit of fiction. I doubt very much you've seen the old TV show The West Wing, but, as I watch the first season for the millionth time, it's difficult not to be amused at the parallels between your administration and the fictional Bartlet administration. Life imitating art, perhaps. The episode I'm watching tonight centers around the administration's struggle to nominate the first Latino justice to the Supreme Court (See, it's freaky.) This has me thinking about the imminent retirement of Justice Stevens. I'll be sorry to see Justice Stevens go, though his lifetime of service to our country certainly entitles him to some rest and relaxation. It will be difficult, maybe even impossible to find some one truly worthy of replacing him, but I have faith in your administration, especially after the commendable confirmation of Justice Sotomayor.
What do you look for in judicial nominees? Do you look for individuals who share your political philosophy? As a constitutional scholar yourself, I'm sure you've got more insight into the role of the courts than most previous occupants of your office, do you think that makes the decision more difficult? How much of a factor are the political leanings of the departing justice? This process must involve a great number of people, as I suppose it rightly should. I'll hope that next month brings the announcement of another year with Justice Stevens on the court, but if it should not, I'll look forward to finding out who you'll nominate to be his successor.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
It is difficult not to roll my eyes at the media's obsession with Joe Biden's use of profanity today at the bill signing. As though the bill itself is less significant than the knowledge that the Vice-President uses curse words. I think most thinking adults find this wholly unsurprising. Any one who pretends genuine offense either has forgotten the previous administration's VP entirely or is just too upset about health care reform to be reasonable. Also, with all due respect to VP Biden, on the scale of embarrassing things that he's said into a microphone, this barely registers.
Anyway, since it is such an apparently slow news day, I thought I'd offer a bit of fiction. I doubt very much you've seen the old TV show The West Wing, but, as I watch the first season for the millionth time, it's difficult not to be amused at the parallels between your administration and the fictional Bartlet administration. Life imitating art, perhaps. The episode I'm watching tonight centers around the administration's struggle to nominate the first Latino justice to the Supreme Court (See, it's freaky.) This has me thinking about the imminent retirement of Justice Stevens. I'll be sorry to see Justice Stevens go, though his lifetime of service to our country certainly entitles him to some rest and relaxation. It will be difficult, maybe even impossible to find some one truly worthy of replacing him, but I have faith in your administration, especially after the commendable confirmation of Justice Sotomayor.
What do you look for in judicial nominees? Do you look for individuals who share your political philosophy? As a constitutional scholar yourself, I'm sure you've got more insight into the role of the courts than most previous occupants of your office, do you think that makes the decision more difficult? How much of a factor are the political leanings of the departing justice? This process must involve a great number of people, as I suppose it rightly should. I'll hope that next month brings the announcement of another year with Justice Stevens on the court, but if it should not, I'll look forward to finding out who you'll nominate to be his successor.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Day 40- The snow
Dear Mr. President,
My condolences for the extreme weather in DC. Seeing the reports online, and hearing from my friends who still live in the city, it sounds slightly magical, almost as though the Senate leadership really could be making snow angels out on the mall. Two years ago we had our own Snow-pocalypse in Seattle, and I remember it being anything but magical, so I'll try to reign in my whimsical envy of your real winter and appreciate the mild mid-50's and sunny that Seattle has been graced with.
During that unreasonable cold winter, I was reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road, not a book I'd recommend during weather that inspires comparison to the end times. That being said, McCarthy's writing is some of the most beautiful I've ever experienced. Working at a bookstore, I'm lucky to be constantly exposed to great writing, new and old, and the people who love it. Your own reading tastes often influence what people are buying- Team of Rivals, The Post-American World and Netherland all became very difficult to keep in stock after you were spotted reading them.
Having a President who regularly reads and engages the public in what he is reading is a nice change, after 8 years under President Bush. I'm sure President Bush did read books. Dick Cheney used to shop at the Book store I started at, on L street. The books I saw him buy were almost always by Tom Clancy or aspiring Tom Clancy-types. Thrilling books, with good guys and bad guys. Books that assured the reader of the righteousness of the protagonists and the absolute evil of the villains. I'm not saying that this makes you better or smarter than the former VP, but I do believe that what we read informs our worldview, and, in my mind, Vice-President Cheney did little to disprove this.
Just because it is my job, (and it may not be, forever,) and probably the thing I do best, in the world, I'd like to suggest a few books.
For First Lady Michelle, I'd suggest a memoir, The Bread of Angels by Stephanie Saldana. It is a beautiful book by a remarkable woman, and a really enjoyable read.
For Malia and Sasha, as I know they, like me, appreciate Harry Potter, I suggest UnLunDun, by China Mieville and Coraline, by Neil Gaiman. They are two of my favorite books for young readers, and both feature strong, original female characters.
If you, Mr. President, came to my bookstore looking for something to read, (this is assuming I regained my ability to speak long enough to put forth a suggestion,) I'd offer Aravind Adiga's White Tiger for enjoyment, Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders for beauty, and, because walking a mile in the shoes of another isn't always possible, I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti.
And that is absolutely the most presumptuous I'm prepared to be, at least for now. Thank you, for humoring me. Happy reading. Enjoy the snow.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
My condolences for the extreme weather in DC. Seeing the reports online, and hearing from my friends who still live in the city, it sounds slightly magical, almost as though the Senate leadership really could be making snow angels out on the mall. Two years ago we had our own Snow-pocalypse in Seattle, and I remember it being anything but magical, so I'll try to reign in my whimsical envy of your real winter and appreciate the mild mid-50's and sunny that Seattle has been graced with.
During that unreasonable cold winter, I was reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road, not a book I'd recommend during weather that inspires comparison to the end times. That being said, McCarthy's writing is some of the most beautiful I've ever experienced. Working at a bookstore, I'm lucky to be constantly exposed to great writing, new and old, and the people who love it. Your own reading tastes often influence what people are buying- Team of Rivals, The Post-American World and Netherland all became very difficult to keep in stock after you were spotted reading them.
Having a President who regularly reads and engages the public in what he is reading is a nice change, after 8 years under President Bush. I'm sure President Bush did read books. Dick Cheney used to shop at the Book store I started at, on L street. The books I saw him buy were almost always by Tom Clancy or aspiring Tom Clancy-types. Thrilling books, with good guys and bad guys. Books that assured the reader of the righteousness of the protagonists and the absolute evil of the villains. I'm not saying that this makes you better or smarter than the former VP, but I do believe that what we read informs our worldview, and, in my mind, Vice-President Cheney did little to disprove this.
Just because it is my job, (and it may not be, forever,) and probably the thing I do best, in the world, I'd like to suggest a few books.
For First Lady Michelle, I'd suggest a memoir, The Bread of Angels by Stephanie Saldana. It is a beautiful book by a remarkable woman, and a really enjoyable read.
For Malia and Sasha, as I know they, like me, appreciate Harry Potter, I suggest UnLunDun, by China Mieville and Coraline, by Neil Gaiman. They are two of my favorite books for young readers, and both feature strong, original female characters.
If you, Mr. President, came to my bookstore looking for something to read, (this is assuming I regained my ability to speak long enough to put forth a suggestion,) I'd offer Aravind Adiga's White Tiger for enjoyment, Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders for beauty, and, because walking a mile in the shoes of another isn't always possible, I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti.
And that is absolutely the most presumptuous I'm prepared to be, at least for now. Thank you, for humoring me. Happy reading. Enjoy the snow.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Day 24
Dear Mr. President,
It's nice to have a cartoonishly evil face for our enemy. Pretty much any time I've managed to lose myself in the complexity of our conflicts, Bin Laden issues another message to remind me that we're actually living in a comic book. I thought his latest warning, that attacks in America would continue as long as we support Israel's occupation, was particularly interesting. Since Al-qaeda has little or no presence in Palestine, I feel like Bin Laden has gotten a bit desperate. America, under your administration, is much more difficult to hate than under President Bush. It has to be difficult to recruit these days. Tying our country to the Israeli occupation- their own cartoonishly evil Super Villain- is probably the best way to keep morale up.
I'm not suggesting that we alter US foreign policy because of Bin Laden. I just want to be clear on that, right away. But if you consider the conditions in Gaza, the abject suffering, the isolation, the inability even to rebuild after tragedy, if you consider all of it and how long the people of Gaza have suffered, it is difficult to see a clear course of action. Some people are going to get angry. Some are going to write letters. Some are going to protest. Others are going to get violent. I'm not excusing that course, but what option have we given them? Years of protest and struggle got them nothing. Democratic elections got them an even worse situation. A ceasefire accomplished nothing. This stalemate has become unacceptable. And the plight of the Palestinians is such that it will always rouse sympathy and anger from those that identify with them- either as fellow Muslims, fellow Arabs, or fellow human beings.
"America will never dream of living in peace unless we live it in Palestine. It is unfair that you enjoy a safe life while our brothers in Gaza suffer greatly." Radical words. Even to me, an ardent supporter of the Palestinians, they ring incredibly hollow. Bin Laden may not be suffering alongside the Gazans, he certainly is not serving their interest with his tactics, but yet he feels he can invoke "we". He may be a truly abhorrent individual, but he isn't stupid. Bin Laden knows this issue is powerful, emotional and divisive.
I don't expect you to pay much attention to the words of such a person. He is a petty criminal, his words rendered meaningless by his manipulation and his hypocrisy. A much wiser man once had some truly radical sentiments; "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” You can disarm Bin Laden, sir, you can move the peace process forward, you can renew America's neutrality by ending our unconditional and unreasonable support for Israel's illegal activity, you can give the people of Gaza hope. And then, when they finally have a state of their own, when they finally have regular access to food and water and resources to build their economy, people will remember that as something America and not our enemies, helped them to achieve. This time, on this issue, we're on the wrong side. It may be years or it may be centuries, but history will judge us, judge you, for these crimes.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
It's nice to have a cartoonishly evil face for our enemy. Pretty much any time I've managed to lose myself in the complexity of our conflicts, Bin Laden issues another message to remind me that we're actually living in a comic book. I thought his latest warning, that attacks in America would continue as long as we support Israel's occupation, was particularly interesting. Since Al-qaeda has little or no presence in Palestine, I feel like Bin Laden has gotten a bit desperate. America, under your administration, is much more difficult to hate than under President Bush. It has to be difficult to recruit these days. Tying our country to the Israeli occupation- their own cartoonishly evil Super Villain- is probably the best way to keep morale up.
I'm not suggesting that we alter US foreign policy because of Bin Laden. I just want to be clear on that, right away. But if you consider the conditions in Gaza, the abject suffering, the isolation, the inability even to rebuild after tragedy, if you consider all of it and how long the people of Gaza have suffered, it is difficult to see a clear course of action. Some people are going to get angry. Some are going to write letters. Some are going to protest. Others are going to get violent. I'm not excusing that course, but what option have we given them? Years of protest and struggle got them nothing. Democratic elections got them an even worse situation. A ceasefire accomplished nothing. This stalemate has become unacceptable. And the plight of the Palestinians is such that it will always rouse sympathy and anger from those that identify with them- either as fellow Muslims, fellow Arabs, or fellow human beings.
"America will never dream of living in peace unless we live it in Palestine. It is unfair that you enjoy a safe life while our brothers in Gaza suffer greatly." Radical words. Even to me, an ardent supporter of the Palestinians, they ring incredibly hollow. Bin Laden may not be suffering alongside the Gazans, he certainly is not serving their interest with his tactics, but yet he feels he can invoke "we". He may be a truly abhorrent individual, but he isn't stupid. Bin Laden knows this issue is powerful, emotional and divisive.
I don't expect you to pay much attention to the words of such a person. He is a petty criminal, his words rendered meaningless by his manipulation and his hypocrisy. A much wiser man once had some truly radical sentiments; "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” You can disarm Bin Laden, sir, you can move the peace process forward, you can renew America's neutrality by ending our unconditional and unreasonable support for Israel's illegal activity, you can give the people of Gaza hope. And then, when they finally have a state of their own, when they finally have regular access to food and water and resources to build their economy, people will remember that as something America and not our enemies, helped them to achieve. This time, on this issue, we're on the wrong side. It may be years or it may be centuries, but history will judge us, judge you, for these crimes.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Monday, January 11, 2010
Day 11
Or "The enemies of Success"
Dear Mr. President,
Today I prepared the books that will be released tomorrow morning for their displays. One of them (which actually comes out today) is Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's Game Change. I am unspeakably giddy about reading this book (though it will have to come after Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope) as the 2008 election is one I would happily relive. Sadly, the other book that caught my attention is called, (with a truly admirable amount of subtlety and nuance) The War on Success. Maybe I'm being judgmental, maybe I should look past the bullet holes on the cover, the Conservative Book Club recommendation, and the quote on the back that actually suggests any reader not inspired by the books "has already surrendered to the enemies of success." I won't lie, I'm probably not going to look past those things. According to the subtitle, you, Mr. President, are an "enemy of success", and I wonder how you feel about that. Surely, you've been called more ridiculous and more insulting things, but is there really a significant portion of the population who believes that their president doesn't want them, his citizens and constituents, not to succeed? Significant enough to convince some one to write a book about it, and a number of others to agree to publish it?
The world is a mind-boggling place, sometimes. Working in a bookstore, I encounter a wide spectrum of readers, and while I often find myself puzzling over those buying books by Glenn Beck or Robert Spencer, I suppose that there is a place for every kind of book. Today I had a woman angrily return a book I'd suggested she read. It was The Iron Cage by Rashid Khalidi. She is traveling to Israel soon, and was looking for "a more balanced" perspective on the conflict with Palestine than what she knew from her "crazy orthodox" relatives. I don't know this woman well enough to know what balanced means to her, but she seemed interested in hearing from a Palestinian perspective, and so I suggested Mr. Khalidi's book, as I respect him as an intellectual. I warned her that I was quite strongly in support of a free Palestine, and that Khalidi was considered, by some, to be quite radical in his opinions. I also encouraged her to visit the West Bank on her trip, as I feel first-hand experience will offer the most "balanced" idea of what it is like to live in Palestine. I didn't get a chance to ask her what about the book made her so angry, but I try to keep my political views away from my conduct at work. (I confess, when Vice President Cheney used to come into my store in DC, I would excuse myself from the sales floor to avoid an encounter. Some jobs aren't worth keeping silent.)
When I logged on my laptop during my lunch break, however, I saw something that may explain the woman's anger. Cnn.com's headline is "Sources: Israeli shelling kills three in Gaza". This headline runs beneath a photo of armed men in ski masks, the black bands of Islamic Jihad around their foreheads. On December 26, three men were killed in Nablus. Their story did not make headline news on CNN. The photos of these men, and their mourning families, can be found (along with their names) here, in a story by Bridget Chappell. If these men had been militants, it is presumed, they might have made the front page at CNN.com. All 6 were killed by the IDF, all 6 were people with names and families. Why is it that the only image most of America will see is of faceless figures carrying automatic weapons? In the mainstream American media, Palestinians are rarely depicted as anything besides terrorists or statistics. That, I must conclude, is why my customer was so angry that I would dare suggest she read something written by one.
Clearly, I'm just as much of a hypocrite. I may actually have to give The War On Success a chance, now.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
Dear Mr. President,
Today I prepared the books that will be released tomorrow morning for their displays. One of them (which actually comes out today) is Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's Game Change. I am unspeakably giddy about reading this book (though it will have to come after Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope) as the 2008 election is one I would happily relive. Sadly, the other book that caught my attention is called, (with a truly admirable amount of subtlety and nuance) The War on Success. Maybe I'm being judgmental, maybe I should look past the bullet holes on the cover, the Conservative Book Club recommendation, and the quote on the back that actually suggests any reader not inspired by the books "has already surrendered to the enemies of success." I won't lie, I'm probably not going to look past those things. According to the subtitle, you, Mr. President, are an "enemy of success", and I wonder how you feel about that. Surely, you've been called more ridiculous and more insulting things, but is there really a significant portion of the population who believes that their president doesn't want them, his citizens and constituents, not to succeed? Significant enough to convince some one to write a book about it, and a number of others to agree to publish it?
The world is a mind-boggling place, sometimes. Working in a bookstore, I encounter a wide spectrum of readers, and while I often find myself puzzling over those buying books by Glenn Beck or Robert Spencer, I suppose that there is a place for every kind of book. Today I had a woman angrily return a book I'd suggested she read. It was The Iron Cage by Rashid Khalidi. She is traveling to Israel soon, and was looking for "a more balanced" perspective on the conflict with Palestine than what she knew from her "crazy orthodox" relatives. I don't know this woman well enough to know what balanced means to her, but she seemed interested in hearing from a Palestinian perspective, and so I suggested Mr. Khalidi's book, as I respect him as an intellectual. I warned her that I was quite strongly in support of a free Palestine, and that Khalidi was considered, by some, to be quite radical in his opinions. I also encouraged her to visit the West Bank on her trip, as I feel first-hand experience will offer the most "balanced" idea of what it is like to live in Palestine. I didn't get a chance to ask her what about the book made her so angry, but I try to keep my political views away from my conduct at work. (I confess, when Vice President Cheney used to come into my store in DC, I would excuse myself from the sales floor to avoid an encounter. Some jobs aren't worth keeping silent.)
When I logged on my laptop during my lunch break, however, I saw something that may explain the woman's anger. Cnn.com's headline is "Sources: Israeli shelling kills three in Gaza". This headline runs beneath a photo of armed men in ski masks, the black bands of Islamic Jihad around their foreheads. On December 26, three men were killed in Nablus. Their story did not make headline news on CNN. The photos of these men, and their mourning families, can be found (along with their names) here, in a story by Bridget Chappell. If these men had been militants, it is presumed, they might have made the front page at CNN.com. All 6 were killed by the IDF, all 6 were people with names and families. Why is it that the only image most of America will see is of faceless figures carrying automatic weapons? In the mainstream American media, Palestinians are rarely depicted as anything besides terrorists or statistics. That, I must conclude, is why my customer was so angry that I would dare suggest she read something written by one.
Clearly, I'm just as much of a hypocrite. I may actually have to give The War On Success a chance, now.
Respectfully yours,
Kelsey
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