SILENCE ~ The Unacceptable Alternative

This is the inaugural blog from the new Mac. It's great to have a big screen and a nimble keyboard once again. While I am sad to retire the ol' war horse, it was overdue. 

Preparing for the arrival of the new Mac was a veritable one woman Marx Brothers' movie. I crawled under my desk to make sure all the things that had to be plugged in were still plugged. There were two surge protectors but as I moved them, I realized there were way too may cords considering the amount of stuff plugged in on my desk. Gently, I started tugging cords. I could hear Steve grumbling, "Don't pull that. That's an important connection Don't mess with that, Sue! You'll undo stuff. Nothing'll work." Contained within the Medusa head back there, only two plugs were actually attached to something other than the surge protector. But wait; there's more.

Then the Post-It notes started snowing down on me. All in Steve's eccentric scrawl, I recognized them immediately: they were the IP routing addresses...ghosts of computers past...when routing was done by hand before the days when computers talked to each other instead of me and Steve shouting back and forth between my study and his desk where the modem was housed. As I held them in my hand, I listened closely...just in case any of them started yelling, "Fucking packets! Goddam router!" But they were silent. I saved one for old times' sake. Yes, that's it on the left side. 

But enough self-indulgence. This is not exactly a news-free week and Syria tops the list of human indignities. What would possess even a madman to gas villages where non-combatants lived? What does this say not just about the lunatic Assad, but the people who carried out his orders? And then they continue to shell those hamlets as if the fires would eradicate the evidence? Where is the rest of the Islamic world to step forward to condemn this ruthless, heartless attack? 

Clearly, it's not okay with the rest of the non-Islamic world. I would venture to guess, by the bye, it's not okay with most Muslims in general. But most Muslims in general aren't running Islamic regimes that are sitting on their hands doing nothing to stop the massacres of civilians in Syria, Egypt, Lebanon or Iraq. The silence, you have to admit, is pretty deafening. Where are the demonstrations at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza and in front of the Syrian Embassy? I keep remembering how we, as teenagers, went after the Soviet Union on Refusenik immigration. We were relentless. We were in their face. The Jewish community kept hammering at this issue until the world had to take notice. Why aren’t the mosques and Islamic community centers and schools take a page from our playbook?

So what happens next? As members of the human community, how do we stand silent against this? Yet, We, the People, know that regime roulette is not a great idea. Ever. The US has no business going in militarily to intervene on either side, yet standing still seems morally inadequate…not to mention ethically bankrupt. Russia and probably China are waving their hands in the air telling the West to stay away from Syria. Are either of them prepared to rush in to defend the defenseless? Not bloody likely.

Senator McCain is pushing for action but I’ve not heard anyone from his cabal discuss how We, the People, are going to pay for this new front. Charging to Syria ain’t gonna happen unless it is part of an international coalition that works from the air and/or offshore. The price of Iraq and Afghanistan is too fresh and too painful to ignore. Economically, opening a front is neither feasible or, for the matter, prudent. In terms of human life, that would be over the top; We, the People, will not stand for sending more kids into harm’s way.

But how do we stand by and do nothing?

New York City c. 1967

Maybe, we need to take a page from our old 1960’s playbook and start a movement protesting the bombings and the gassings and the abuses and the destruction being rained down upon the civilians of the Middle East. Maybe those demonstrations need to be for everyone by everyone: Muslim, Jew, Copt, Baha’i, Egyptian, Syrian, Israeli, Lebanese, Yemeni, Tunisian, throw in the Afghanis and the Pakistanis…any people who live in fear of homicide bombers, terrorist missiles, and murdering warlords. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for all of us to rise up together.

Anyone out there interested?

The Wifely Person’s Tip o’the Day

Need to move an iPod library to a new ‘puter?

The magic word is SENUTi.