it's kind of bizarre -- as soon as i'm off campus, i feel my oh-so-impressionable brain changing shape to conform to its new surroundings. i expected to fight w/ my brother adam on the drive down yesterday but we didn't fight. well, at little, at first, instinctively: college students are too damn anti-patriotic! no they're not they're just getting their first exposure to intelligent arguments as to why this country isn't as great as they thought! stupid stuff.
after that, we found common ground rather quickly in the idea that america should form a global anti-terrorism alliance. he told me about how america bodily reformed japan's government post-WWII: we left gen. mcarthur in charge of the country, gave them a copy of our constitution, and
japan changed. i'd never realized it happened that way but the country did evolve -- who would have expected fifty years ago that it would occupy the place on the international stage now that
it does?
i have to go to shul again now. more later. i'll be back on campus this evening. happy new year and i hope wherever you are, you don't have sesame street blaring behind you (my little brother has it on.)