Spamming the LJ!

And in the course of studying (kind of) for tomorrow's midterm, I have discovered there is an entire branch of Celtic/Irish/Scottish rock music. God bless Amazon and their recommendations list. So I am now listening to the Pogues and have also downloaded a little Scottish rock, the Real McKenzies. They play bagpipes. They are automatically cool.

Irish rock is very cool. Everyone should go buy Flogging Molly too. Just because they're called Flogging Molly. And they're so fun in concert, even though your clothes reek of smoke and who knows what else later. They had a very cool concert, although it was kind of strange because I've never done the whole punk thing before. What is punk exactly? I'm confused. I know the Sex Pistols and Sid Vicious are supposed to be very punk, right? But what is it? I keep reading that it's very nihilistic, very fuck off everyone type music, but people also keep calling Flogging Molly and Irish punk band and they don't really feel like that.

*confused*

Will ponder punk, Irish music and cell phones.

War

anniesj has an interesting thread going on about the war, which got me all pondery again.

I just have no idea what to think. I have a problem with America going in and throwing foreign regimes they think are oppressive, because way back when during the Cold War, that meant all Communist governments, even though sometimes the people preferred the Communist candidates to the corrupt officials supported by America. And I know Saddam obviously isn't some benevolent ruler, but I always wonder. Because to me, Mao was in no way a benevolent ruler, but some of the people I know in China today think he's a hero. So I just don't know whose opinions count more. I'm also kind of leary about pre-emptive striking, especially when we're doing it without world support. I agree that it could set a very bad precedent, perhaps with China, particularly because we're bucking UN decision, which opens a way for others to do it.

I have a very love-hate relationship with this country, which is almost my country, and yet, not quite.

Currently, the attitude toward the official aspect of the country is edging heavily toward hate. I admit quite readily that I'm not educated at all about the war thing, so I don't know any specifics about the Patriot Act. I also admit very readily that a lot of the stuff I read is highly biased. But to be honest, the entire Patriot Act really scares me. I don't have anything to hide, really, but I just don't like the thought that the government can just dig through my records because I'm from Taiwan. I just feel that no matter how much of this putting aside of civil liberties they do, they're never going to be able to catch all these incidents when they come up, like Columbine. In certain areas, I feel violations of my person and my property is very necessary, like in airports when they ALWAYS pat me down and dig through my luggage and embarrass me because I have dirty underwear in there. That makes me feel better, in a way. I know it's really annoying, especially since I fly a lot, and I know sometimes the rules are very arbitrary (I'm going to kill someone with my round-tip tweezers. Really.), but I just think airplanes are an area where you kind of give up certain things. And airport security before 9/11 was a joke.

Anyway, I'm getting a little off topic. What I really mean to say is what I hate the most about this war is what it's doing to America. This is why I don't like war. It's so hard to wage war and not become polarized. Just working, I overhear so many jokes against the French because they're not siding with America or how everyone should follow America or something. I'm scared of reports that tell of Sikhs getting yelled at because they wear turbans. I have a friend here who's a Sikh, and he told me he was walking one day last year and got called "Osama" and eyed suspiciously by any number of people. I don't want something like the Japanese internment camps happening here again. I guess I just kind of wish there were a way to do this while still realizing that it's not really our right to wage war or to police the world. I don't really think anyone has the right to wage war. And while I can see the necessity of getting Saddam out of power and Iraq de-weaponized (?), I can also see this already turning into a huge us-against-them mentality in which we are completely justified in bombing another country. Because we're not. We never are. No one ever is. I guess that's my problem with war in general, even though I know it's a completely impractical philosophy for the real world.

*sigh*

Sometimes I wish I didn't live in the real world.