OT THEY GOT BIN LADEN

Christina Websell wrote:

well, you are ok in australia, aren't you

That's a harsh comment. I seem to remember an awful lot of Aussies died
in the Bali bombing in 2002, which was caused by an Islamist group
linked to AQ and deliberately targeted a Western tourist venue.

Deb.
--
http://www.scientific-art.com

"He looked a fierce and quarrelsome cat, but claw he never would;
He only bit the ones he loved, because they tasted good." S. Greenfield

Sherry wrote:

On May 2, 8:08*pm, "Yowie" wrote:
"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in
the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies
hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness
cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out
hate: only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I totally get it. I also mourn the loss of the many lives. But this
whole "dancing
in the streets" business makes me.... uneasy. IMHO it's a time for
gratitude that
OBL can no longer hurt or influence anyone else and at least some
degree of
justice was served. It's a time for reflection and remembering the
thousands
of lives lost. But all this talk of partying and celebration of an
assassination just seems barbaric
and uncivilized in itself. OTOH, love and forgiveness is a little too
far outside
my little box at this time.

I wouldn't go that far, either. But yeah, there's something creepily
bloodthirsty about the people who are cheering and celebrating. And
anyway, I don't think his death makes the world any safer, so what is
there to cheer about?

Joyce

--
The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their
face whether they see a moth or an axe-murderer.
-- Paula Poundstone

On May 3, 2:46*am, "wafflycat" wrote:
"Yowie" wrote in message

...

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice
in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies
hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness
cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out
hate: only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Well said.

It is a great quote and it fits. But just FYI, it's not what he
actually said.
For some odd reason, this quote has gone viral on the internet in
this form.
This is Dr. King's quote: "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies
hate,
violence multiplies violence and toughness multiples toughness
in a descending spiral of destruction." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
(Thanks for the info., Karen C.)

Still a great quote on its own.

Sherry

"Sherry" wrote in message
...

It is a great quote and it fits. But just FYI, it's not what he
actually said.
For some odd reason, this quote has gone viral on the internet in
this form.
This is Dr. King's quote: "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies
hate,
violence multiplies violence and toughness multiples toughness
in a descending spiral of destruction." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
(Thanks for the info., Karen C.)

Still a great quote on its own.

Sherry

Thanks for that Sherry - the true quote is just as apposite and one much
needed at this time.

Best, helen s

hopitus wrote:

Totally ignoring "icon" quotes of peace and love.....many of you from
three great
world powers, UK, USA, and Australa, calling celebrants of this news
"bloodthirsty"
and wrse......were not even on this earth in 1945 when was a very
little girl and WW2
ended (Joy is execpted: she was around, few years older).
You have seen the newsreels and vids and movies of the USA "dancing n
the streets"
and the famous "sailor kissing a strange nurse" pic on NYC main drag
during massive
celebration and return of USA troops to the homeland.
Thosands of deaths led to the War's end. I don't get your equation:
were those dancing,
delirious celebrants "bloodthirsty" and worse? Oh, the poor, dead Axis
(look that up).

We've all gotten a lesson on "Axis", thanks to GW Bush.

Couldn't it be that people were dancing in the streets because *the war
was over*? Troops were coming home? And not because people died horribly
in two Japanese cities? OK, so maybe some of them were happy about that,
too - they were the "enemy" after all. I do think that's a bloodthirsty
reaction - how could a decent person be happy about so many innocent people
dying that way? But you can't compare that to the joy of a terrible war
being over.

USA people NOW needed something t celebrate very badly. Many, many
citizens, old and
young, are hurting badly for their daily living expenses, plus their
medical care and medicines.
I do not believe it is so much that bin Laden was killed as it is
something the USA can claim
victory for, even if militarily, after our prolonged disrespect and
financial devaluation worldwide.

There are probably a lot of other things that can be done about poverty
and lack of medical care, that has nothing to do with apprehending a
criminal. If that's what it takes for us to feel good about our country,
what kind of society have we created? That's pathetic. But it's not news.

When the US invaded Iraq the first time in '91 (Gulf War 1.0), all of a
sudden all these people were wearing "Nuke Saddam" t-shirts and shouting
"USA! USA! We're number one! We're number one!" WTF? Those idiots hadn't
even heard of Saddam until a few months prior. Emmanuel Goldstein, anyone?

http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/war/winstonsmith.htm

(This looks like a wacko site, but it's the first one in the list of
Google hits that actually has the excerpt I was looking for. There were
839,000 hits, so I'm not going to keep looking.)

Joyce

--
Mother teach me to walk again
Milk and honey, so intoxicating -- Sarah McLaughlin

In ,
hopitus typed:
On May 3, 11:08 am, "wafflycat" wrote:
"Sherry" wrote in message

...





It is a great quote and it fits. But just FYI, it's not what he
actually said.
For some odd reason, this quote has gone viral on the internet in
this form.
This is Dr. King's quote: "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies
hate,
violence multiplies violence and toughness multiples toughness
in a descending spiral of destruction." -- Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. (Thanks for the info., Karen C.)

Still a great quote on its own.

Sherry

Thanks for that Sherry - the true quote is just as apposite and one
much needed at this time.

Best, helen s

Totally ignoring "icon" quotes of peace and love.....many of you from
three great
world powers, UK, USA, and Australa, calling celebrants of this news
"bloodthirsty"
and wrse......were not even on this earth in 1945 when was a very
little girl and WW2
ended (Joy is execpted: she was around, few years older).
You have seen the newsreels and vids and movies of the USA "dancing n
the streets"
and the famous "sailor kissing a strange nurse" pic on NYC main drag
during massive
celebration and return of USA troops to the homeland.
Thosands of deaths led to the War's end. I don't get your equation:
were those dancing,
delirious celebrants "bloodthirsty" and worse? Oh, the poor, dead Axis
(look that up).
Let me tell you somethng else about the "bloodthirsty" USA dancers,
anyway, from WW2
war's end, after the megabombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, *in spite
of fresh memories
of Pearl Harbor* I do NOT remember and have not viewed such street
partying after the
Max bombs were sent to Japan. No dancing, no partying, no celebrating
in large numbers
here....only shock and horror at the huge *mushroom* clouds arisig
from that epic that
led to Japan's surrender.
USA people NOW needed something t celebrate very badly. Many, many
citizens, old and
young, are hurting badly for their daily living expenses, plus their
medical care and medicines.
I do not believe it is so much that bin Laden was killed as it is
something the USA can claim
victory for, even if militarily, after our prolonged disrespect and
financial devaluation worldwide.
At last, something to be happy about, even if not directly. We needed
this to regain our
national pride.
I got different icons than some of you. Most of mine are military. I
am not quoting them, snork.

As far as I know, speaking to my parents who survived - and have deep
psychological scars from - The Blitz, the jubilation seen on the newsreels
at the end of WW2 was not celebrating and rejoicing of the hundreds of
thousands of Axis deaths, or indeed Allied deaths, but simply because:

*the war was over*

At least, that is their memory of it in the UK. They were children, yes, but
well into their early teens, and unlikley to 'misremember' such a thing.

A different thing entirely to celebrating the death of an individual, even
if that individual happened to be hte leader of 'the enemy'

Did they dance that the death of Hitler? (I don't know) *That* would be
comparable, but dancing because a war is over is not.

Yowie
Godwin!

In ,
Debbie Wilson typed:
Christina Websell wrote:

well, you are ok in australia, aren't you

That's a harsh comment. I seem to remember an awful lot of Aussies
died in the Bali bombing in 2002, which was caused by an Islamist
group linked to AQ and deliberately targeted a Western tourist venue.

I remember spending 12 straight hours punching the same 14 damn numbers in
to the phone, over and over, hour after hour, trying to get a hold of my
mother who was due to fly back to Australia from her English holiday the
next day. My mother has been terrified of flying since she was a young girl,
because she always had visions of... and this is creepy and I am not
kidding... a plane crashing into a skyscraper and bursting into flames. You
can well imagine the effect on my mother when she heard the news. You can
well imagine the effect on my family, knowing that Mum was overseas and had
to come home somehow, but would never be able to get on a again after she
saw her worst nightmare coming true. (She came home 2 weeks later, under
heavy sedation). She has not gotten on a plane since.

Also had a friend who was flying back to Canada that day from a holiday
here. She got to LAX but couldn't get to Ottawa as there were no flights,
and all other forms of transport had already been taken. As you know, the
phones were down, so she couldn't call *anyone* to tell them she was OK. She
spent 3 long days at LAX, with little food, money and shelter - not to
mention sleep or even a place to wash herself - before she could make her
way to Ottowa.

The cleaner here at work lost her cousin as the second World Trade Tower
came down. She said the worst part was knowing that she might have actually
survived, but thinking that she was probably dead and not knowing. They were
a close knit family - the cleaner quit a few months later to go take care of
the family her cousin left behind in the USA. She was a lovely, generous
person before 9/11 - and probably still is - but she had a haunted look on
her face after 9/11 that was never there before.

The next department over lost an employee and his wife on their honeymoon in
Bali in 2002. We all had a minute's silence.

And I myself watched the towers fall - it was in the wee small hours of
morning here, but you can't sleep when stuff like that is happening. And I
wept with the rest of the planet. That day, that scene, the feeling of
horror and helplessness, of outrage and deep sorrow, is burned into my
memory forever, just like it is for just about *anyone* who was cognizant at
the time.

These stories are far from unique, and are, sadly, far from the 'worst' that
happened that day, but still:

The effect of terrorism has been world wide.

It is both extremely hurtful and woefully ignorant to presume otherwise.

Yowie

I don't know how I feel about bin Laden's death. A known enemy is
easier to deal with; control, contain, manipulate, etc.. Who may follow
is a harsh unknown.

About the "joyous dancing in the streets". I remember the outrage felt
when clips were shown of "joyous" dancing when the towers fell. I think
"the other side" may feel that same outrage.

On May 3, 9:24*pm, Katiri wrote:
I don't know how I feel about bin Laden's death. *A known enemy is
easier to deal with; control, contain, manipulate, etc.. *Who may follow
is a harsh unknown.

About the "joyous dancing in the streets". *I remember the outrage felt
when clips were shown of "joyous" dancing when the towers fell. *I think
"the other side" may feel that same outrage.

Yes, I thought of that also. And it seems to drag us down to another
level
to do so.

Sherry

"hopitus" wrote in message


I am over discussing WW2 except to say...
...
The Royals did *not* go off to the rural palaces; Queen Mum was
right
there through it all, the Blitzkreig (German spelling??)...

Almost. "Blitzkrieg". Literally translated as "Lightning war".

Kinda reminds me of my CSE (equivalent to High Scholl
Certificate?) in German, aural examination, in 1977. It was a
conversational piece between examiner and candidate, recorded for
assessment later. The exam invigilator (my teacher) would ask
questions, to which we had prepared answers - and practiced many
times.

It went something like this, but translated (mostly) into English
for ease of reading:

"And what do you like doing in your spare time?"

"I like reading."

"And what do you like to read?"

(At this point, my memory failed me. I completely forgot what
types of books I was supposed to say... Thinking 'on my feet', so
to speak, I went on to say...

"Ich lese gern bücher aus den krieg!"
("I like reading books about the war!")

I still remember my teacher's reaction to this. She was somewhat
surprised that I had departed from the pre-prepared answers, and
as a consequence, the questions she began to ask were also *not*
those we had prepared. After the examination finished, she
stopped the tape, and said:

"Unmöglich - und unglaublich! Du sprechts Deutsch wie so ein
Deutscher!"

("Impossible - and unbelievable! You speak German just like a
German!")

I left with a big grin on my face - and of course I passed the
exam with a top grade :-)

Incidentally, I found the language skill extremely useful when I
left home to go to university, because I then shared a house with
two students from Germany! (I learnt a *lot* more German from
them, including how to insult other people :-))

--
MatSav