a friend of mine from high skool just emailed me this:

"I seriously hope that one day you find the guts to poke your head out of the little sheltered world you've been in for so long and look around some.� Aside from the facts you and your friends got wrong about EU influence and the "booming" Asian economy, you've also completely failed to grasp the relevance of these attacks to US and to the world at large.� While I must admit that this last bit is probably the least important thing on the grand scale of the world, you managed to minimize and mock� everything that me, and many of my friends have dedicated our lives to. I thought better of you."

i put it up here not to deride what he's saying but to honestly ask, is this what people think i am, and have been, doing? b/c it was not my intention at all. if i'm sometimes lighthearted here w/ respect to certain issues, it's b/c writing is entertaining, at least in part. i never meant to insult anyone who believes something different than i do.
the author of the email is the kind of person who would sacrifice for this country, who is already involved in the military and has planned to be so for years. my brother is not. when i mentioned him before, re: his declaration to enlist, i got angry first b/c i'd be worried about him, but also primarily b/c he's never expressed any like interest before and is probably just blowing off testosterone. i would never suggest that the u.s. armed forces are all bluster or that their giving their lives for america isn't admirable and humbling.
but i still say that i hope it isn't necessary. no, i'm not equating what america would do to what the terrorists did. i've heard folks here make that argument and i don't agree. i also don't believe that we should bomb the hell out of a country to blow off our national testosterone. i don't want people's lives destroyed. not muslims targeted on the streets, not innocent veiled women in afganistan, not more of our best-and-brightest either in the army or in our economic and commercial centers. murder just sparks more murder and w/ the weapons available to everyone today, war is too dangerous an enterprise to flirt w/.

feel free to email me if you disagree but also feel free to say so in the comments (just click on "thoughts?" and add your own.) if you email me, tell me if you don't want to be quoted -- i won't put your name -- on the site. but discussion is almost-always productive.
speaking of which, last nite's barn discussion was re: threeways. very indepth, very interesting, not really what you'd expect. we had among the four of us only one enthusiast (purely in theory; none of us had attempted it in practice.) but i need more sleep than these amorous/discoursive nights afford me. it'll be good to get home, even for a day.