Well. It’s International Human Rights Day again. But there’s little enough to celebrate. I’m feeling more hopeless than ever, about the way these rights are being trampled the world over. There are too many instances to point out. But one particularly appalling story surfaced recently, about the U.S. government whitewashing torture:
On June 15, 2003, Sgt. Frank “Greg” Ford, a counterintelligence agent in the National Guard stationed in Samarra told his commanding officer, Capt. Victor Artiga, that he had witnessed five incidents of torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees at his base, and requested a formal investigation.Thirty-six hours later, Ford, a 49-year-old with over 30 years of military service in the Coast Guard, Army and Navy, was ordered by U.S. Army medical personnel to lie down on a gurney. He was then strapped down, loaded onto a military plane and medevac”d to a military medical center outside the country - even though there was nothing wrong with him.
The fact that I’m not too surprised is an indication of how bad things have gotten. But I am easily overwhelmed, so I’ve turned to repelling doom and gloom on the homefront. Yesterday I caved in, and our atheist household now has its first ever holday/xmas tree. And a real one, at that, of the little man’s choosing. When the husband first saw it he demanded to know just what it is we’re celebrating. I flippantly replied “the pretty lights” but that’s the truth. Cheesy as it may sound, I think it does tap into some primal need…as the days become shorter, and the world more cruel, winter solstice holidays have long marked the victory of light over darkness. Personally I’ve always needed something to keep the early winter blahs at bay. And now I have one seriously happy kid, who is old enough to decorate the tree himself. And as he did so he handled each ornament with such reverence. It made my whole week just watching him.
Bonus: A welcome distraction…listening to the Pixies, a live recording of their first reunion show, at the Fine Line in Minneapolis last April. Wish I could have been there.
Amused by: “…when did the Flash developers get cool?”
