Put that gel down!!!

A few thoughts on today's news...

• We spend so much of our days, our lives, focused on our children. With 2 NT children, we could easily spend all of our spare time preparing them for the world, educating them, disciplining, loving. Of course, with one not-so-NT child, we become even more macro-focused - what can we do to get him to say one more word? to get him to realize that all people have names, especially mommy and daddy, and he should address our names when he wants to? to get him to eat on this crazy diet? to get him to take all this crazy medicine? Never mind worrying about whether we are doing the right thing for him. AND THEN THE WORLD SCREAMS - HEY WE ARE FALLING APART! How do we take action on both of these levels? How do we take the time to THINK about what is going on, to do the right thing, and at the same time stay patient while we get our son to sit in his chair?
• I tend to be more on the conservative side, but I like to imagine that I can think for myself. The conservative view of this @#(*)*%^@# terrorist plot is that we need more war, we need to go after all muslims, we need to force our will on the middle east. The "liberal" view (man, I hate these labels 'conservative' and 'liberal') is that we need to talk, to negotiate, to convince them to stop. WHERE IS THE ANSWER? Clearly, it is neither of these views. Regardless of what you think about the war in Iraq, if there's one thing it has taught us (not that we shouldn't have learned from 100 other wars in the past), it's that we can not gain the favor of the people while we are destroying their homeland. Israel is experiencing the same thing as they roll into Lebanon. Plain and simple, this is not going to stop until the muslim population takes on their own, until they SCREAM from the rooftops that this is unacceptable, until they turn over the terrorist groups.
• I learned from Mr. Lorenz in my 8th grade US History that to gain freedom you give up security, to gain security you give up freedom. I've never forgotten this, it's one of the first things I thought about on 9/11 and again today. What is the right reaction to these plots? I completely disagree with our response. We need to stay an open society, with the freedom to travel. It is clearly one of their goals to disrupt our society/culture and change the way we live our lives. It is not acceptable that we give this up. Would it not be more heroic, more free, more founding-fatherish, to not change anything about the way we travel? We must be willing to sacrifice our lives for our way of living, for our freedom. Clearly they are willing to do so, and until we are, we are just going to keep losing our way of life.

And now it's off to bed, so I can get a few hours sleep before we have to work on keeping our kids occupied these last few weeks before school, before we have to work on getting Grant to eat something, before we have to prepare our children for their future...