Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
I live in Ohio. We have winters with snow storms and ice. We also have what are known as Snow Emergencies.
Basically, law enforcement officials in the various counties can issue Snow Emergencies to protect the public and help in the clearing of roads during and after a storm hits.
In my spare time I write. I have done it for many years and it is a way for me to rant and work out issues I have in my thick skull. Most of the time I write short stories but I also like to write essays on various topics.
On September 16th, 2001, still in shock from the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, I wrote an essay as a Humanist repsonse to the incident.
I felt that today, the 3rd anniversy of the attacks I would share that essay I wrote so soon after the event:
A big black smoking hole in one of the World Trade Center towers was the first scene I saw at 8:55 am on Tuesday September 11, 2001. Thick black smoke poured into the air. The reporters said a plane had crashed into the tower. At 9:03 am I witnessed, live on TV, a second jet come into view and plow into the other tower with a resultant explosion as thousands of pounds of fuel ignited.
“What the f***?” I remember saying while the commentators on the morning show were asking if they just saw what they just saw. They reran the video and yes it was a second jet crashing into the other tower.
For the rest go here: September 11: A Humanist Response
On Saturday August 21, I had the opportunity to see, live and in person, my favorite band The Corrs at the Tower City Ampitheater in Cleveland, Ohio.
It was a great night, one that went by far too fast.
I wrote a long account of the evening for my Corrs tribute page and I also shared some not so great pictures I took that night with my new digital camera.
I was watching The Daily Show tonight and Jon Stewart had on Wolf Blitzer from CNN. Stewart just hammered Blitzer about the 9/11 Senate Report released today.
The following exchange is from memory so the exact wording is iffy:
Stewart: So do you think that this Senate report should be the biggest political scandal ever?
Blitzer: You never made a mistake?
Stewart: So did the media go over what went wrong?
Blitzer: Yes we had meetings.
Stewart: I’m not talking about deciding what to put on the crawl (at the bottom of CNN’s picture) but did you look at what you could have done differently?
[funny bit about the crawl here]
Stewart: What could have the media done differently?
Blitzer: We should have been more skeptical.
[Stewart has a large facial reaction as if he was going to say “Isn’t that your job.”]
Stewart: So is it that the Republicans and Bush intimidated you guys not to ask the questions?
Blitzer: No. It wasn’t that. I’m not sure what happened. Look i went to Kuwait I got all the briefings the CIA, Defense Department, FBI, Congress, and everybody said he had huge stock piles of biological, chemical weapons and it was only a short time before he had a nuclear bomb….
Stewart: Right….
Blitzer: Condoleeza Rice said on my show ‘Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer’ [audience laughs at obvious plug] before the war, that she didn’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud….
Stewart: Right but we have since learned that Pakistan sold ‘mushroom’ material to every country in the area BUT Iraq. This is a crazy world…. whoooo….hoooooo. [then Stewart twirlls in his chair and waves his arms crazily]
Music, like all forms of art, allows us to express ourselves to others. Music can convey the full rage of human emotions. Music we love is any that touches us in whatever way we are feeling or want to feel.
It is a given that not all of us feel the same way or enjoy music in the same way.
Some of us love lyrics. We are thrilled by the combination or words and stanzas drawing pictures in our heads like poetry can if done well.
Some of us, like myself, love the music itself. We like the use of instruments and voices into a compact container of sound. I love music with strings, horns, and good percussion.
I can’t fathom how anyone could enjoy rap music yet my family shakes their heads at my fondness for female rock singers.
The joy of music is finding that song or album that ripples through your entire being and it seems when we do we have a mission to spread that music to every corner of our world.