When Does It Stop?

I try not to write too much about current news events in this blog. It isn't that I'm not aware of what's going on in the world.... I read The Houston Chronicle from cover to cover every morning and I listen to the stories on CNN. I have just tried here to keep my own little corner of the world as happy and as stress-free as possible.

I am very aware of the rest of the world and what is going on around me. I have my dad to thank for my love of the daily newspaper...... he always believed that to be aware of what was going on around the world made you a "better citizen of the world." My father always said that we were all here "sharing just this one planet, so we'd better make the best of it." Then he would add, under his breath: "Or God help us all."

Well, certain groups of people around the world aren't making the best of it. They're trying to take the best and tear it down, blow it up, change its landscape. And for what? That's my question. For what reason? For what purpose? To what end?

I wish the news media would stop referring to these violent groups as "terrorists." Somehow, the word terrorist has attained a certain Rambo-esqe Hollywood image. And heaven knows, there are enough movies coming out of LaLa Land which are high on explosives and deaths and low on plot and dialogue.

These groups, these people, these cults, these vermin........ they should be called "cowards." The Chronicle headline should've been: "Cowards Blow Up London Subways and Buses."

Isn't that what they are? Cowards? Webster defines a coward as "... one who lacks courage... one who is shamefully unable to control his fear."

What better way for a coward to show his displeasure and fear of all that is noble and good--- set a bomb to go off and run away and then watch the suffering and pain from afar while raising a victorious fist in the air. And if you think that the Sept. 11th pseudo-pilots who blew themselves up with the planes and the passengers weren't cowards, think again. Those cowards didn't try and change the world and make it better, they extinguished the worlds of thousands of people they'd never seen before who didn't share their fear of a good life.

Does it make these cowards happy to see innocent people blown up? Does it warm their hearts to see children hurt, or to know that children may become parentless?

And that's a better question. These cowards who blow up subways and buses and set bombs in buildings and turn planes into missles.... do they have children? Do their siblings have children? Is this their legacy for those children?

Cowards. I wish all of them would be forced to look into the innocent, hopeful eyes of a child and explain to that child that the planet would really be a better place if bombs were going off every hour in every city in the world.