Ok, this is sort of embarrassing. It’s always embarrassing when you don’t “get” a joke. Zits, ink outage, so I didn’t get it, it wasn’t funny. Now I get it. They’re playing off of the recent power outage in the east. They’re making jokes about “the great ink outage of ‘89” and stuff. That was actually sort of funny.

Why are there so many countries that hate America? Most of the truly passionate hating is done by Moslem counties like Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but there’s even a real dislike up the U.S. in many European countries. It’s an interesting question, because our government is very clear that they want the best for the world, that they are promoting freedom and pursuing the bad guys wherever possible. So why would people hate America because of that?

I wonder how much of the dislike is jealousy. I think this may be true of the European countries more than the Moslem ones. Like France, historically they were a world power, but now their influence has waned substantially. The U.S. is the strongest power in the world and lately we haven’t been slow to show that fact. That, along with the perception that America is just a big bully unilaterally doing whatever she sees is best for herself, breeds jealousy and anger. I’m sure it’s much more complex, but that’s got to be part of it.

I think the attitudes of Moslem countries also are very complex. But part of it is the perception that the U.S. is really in it for their own best interests and the “free Iraq” reason and the “we’ll hunt down terrorists” reason is just covering up the imperialistic tendencies (especially when it comes to oil) of the U.S.

So why am I writing about international politics? I have no idea, because I really know next to nothing about the subject. It was just something I thought of.

Do you ever find yourself just talking? It’s a bad feeling when you really don’t have an idea of where your verbal path is taking you. It’s like when you’re running downhill so fast you are getting out of control and could completely lose it at any moment. That’s sort of how I feel giving directions. I can hardly tell truck drivers how to drive around the building so we can load them. It’s bad.