can't box me in

some facial man-scaping up at camp


Hi everyone, some thoughts before I go to Costa Rica (our replacement trip for Israel) on Wednesday.

First of all, the pic should remind you all how attractive and dashing I am and how creative facial hair should be a goal, not a fear.

I was in front of the TV, watchign FoxNews, fair and balanced and a teaser clip ran across something like this: "John Kerry speaks out on the Middle East, saying the current crisis never would have happened if he was President...is this shameful politicking or a useful point? ...coming up we find out the answers from Tom Delay."

TOM FUCKING DELAY, "The Hammer" is a really impartial, objective, balanced source, maybe they should just ask their old anchor Tony Snow...oh wait he is too busy at his new job, being President Bush's press secretary, jesus fucking christ.

With regards to Israel I really regret war anytime it happens in the world, it's certainly something that, as a person and not a political leader, I think is senseless and diplomacy should always win out. However, Hezbollah, who started this shit has been firing rockets, nearly 1000 in total into Israel, hitting the third biggest city, Haifa, a lot. Now all I'm saying is that if a terrorist group massed at say, our Canadian border, and started shelling Chicago, no one would question taking action. Hezbollah is run by Syria and Iran, funded at least, and is blending in with a civilian population so a lot of what is going on is legitimate, inevitable defense to unprovoked international acts of war. I just don't understand people who criticize Israel over this. There is no country on the planet that lives in greater danger or more greatly desires peace than Israel and every move it makes is critiqued at a standard more than double that for any other country on earth. The U.S. routed the Taliban out of Afghanistan for harboring Al Qaeda and now Lebanon's government, which for all the sympathy it gets, is totally chill with allowing Hezbollah to operate as legitimate resistance, can't be overthrown because they had one election that was democratic, gimme a break. All Israel has done in Lebanon in six years to deserve this is WITHDRAW from previously occupied territory in the south of lebanon because the UN passed a resolution to bind Lebanon to keeping the area secure. WHOOPS.

I was taking BART home from San Francisco the other day and standing in Civic Center/UN Plaza and noticed that MORE THAN HALF of the populace in view was talking to themselves and not on a cell phone. San Francisco (and Berkeley too) has got to have the highest percentage of crazy people per capita of any city in the U.S. I wonder if there are stats on this. I started to think about why. Why all the crazies? Is it nature or nurture? Is it something about San Francisco that attracts already crazy people or does the city itself breed craziness? While there is probably some truth to the latter (example: me?) I think it's mainly the first. San Francisco is seen as this oasis of creativity and freedom and therefore attracts people who shouldn't be allowed to have very much of either. I was sitting there while a lady screamed at me, "do you believe in ressurection? Do you believe in reincarnation?" over and over again at me thinking about the seemingly mythological summer of love and haight-ashbury and other San Francisco stereotypes that seem like dreams and how the reality is more like a nightmare.

All of that is pretty depressing, but really things have been going well, I'm pumped to do some traveling to Costa Rica even if I'll mainly be working the whole time with the teen group I'm going with, I hope the heat wave has spared you and I hope all of your dinners were better than the sketchy Thai-Lao cuisine I gutted tonight and which is now going to cause me to end this blog post a little earlier than previously anticipa

edit: I shit myself, fuckin pad thai w/ shrimp

edit: my dog showed more interest in me after I shit myself than in the previous 7 years, ladies?