September 26, 2003

  • Lately I've been feeling a strange detachment. I feel less and less like I'm part of the comings and goings of other people, and I have more in common with the breeze that blows between them, the sky that arches over their heads, and the earthworms crapping in their garden.

    This isn't a bad thing. It's like people are little kids who can't help that they're ignorant. One can enjoy observing a child who's approaching a new discovery with wonder. Right? What about a child who's just learned that he or she can kill butterflies with trivial ease? Is that knowledge any less wonderful?

    I'm looking at one of my favorite 'blogs, and I see this entry about a Bush administration insider who has formed a consulting company to help other companies get lucrative contracts to help rebuild Iraq. Many of the major Iraq contracts were awarded without competitive bidding, and without price caps.

    Just think about what that means for a second or two.

    I should be outraged, by all accounts, but it's just little kids crushing butterflies. They don't know any better. How can they learn to respect the life around them? How can we, as adults, teach them?

Comments (7)

  • I think you're giving Bush and his cronies a little bit too much credit by by equating them with innocently ignorant children. Maybe they really don't know better, but they don't appear interested in the opinions of those who do.

    How can we teach them? I like butterflies (although I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how they ever get to where they're trying to go). If I had a kid and he was in the process of celebrating his newfound butterfly-slaying powers, I'd probably take that as an opportunity for a lesson in the responsible use of power. But The Prez and his gang are beyond the age of such basic moral lessons, so all you can do is teach them with your vote.

  • Don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist...but there's a whole lot of insider back scratching going on...

  • Normal children will usually respond appropriately when scolded about the harm that they are causing to innocent life like that of the butterfly.

    Some however grow up to mutilate small animals and eventually become mass murderers, terrorists or worse of all dangerous world leaders like Adolf Hitler and George W. Bush!

    The question is not how to respond to deviant behavior but how swiftly you respond. In this case may I suggest doing everything in ones power to remove the "bad seed" before it is able to affect any more harm to humanity.

  • Well if a child of mine killed a butterfly I would gasp in shock, look VERY VERY sad and explain to him how wrong it is to take the life of any being. But I'm the mom that didn't like her son even killing an ant.

    So you see its ok to see humans for what they are, most of us, toddlers still crapping in our pants but if you KNOW better. You should explain to the toddler what you know. Make sense?

    BTW I getcha. People for the most part just bum me out and just like you I wonder why bother. But thats fatalistic, it really is.

  • Today, Bean and I came upon a swarming mass of ants on the sidewalk, doing whatever it is that ants do on the sidewalk en masse in the middle of the afternoon.  She wanted to try stomping them, throwing sticks at them, dropping rocks on them, but I said, "Hey, they are out here, doing their thing in their own spaace.  How would you like it if someone came and dropped rocks on you?"  So we dropped bits of PB&J on them instead and they get all excited, gobbling up and carrying away the pieces.

    Kids can learn, and so can grown ups, but only if they want to.  I don't think GWB feels like he has anything to learn at all.  I can't abide people like that.  Not at all.  I must say, he is an evil spider sack of secrets and lies.

  • problem is,past a point some people do stop learning except through pain.
    and some moms areproud of little ones killing butterflies. so ofcourse they're going to keep doing it...

Comments are closed.

Post a Comment