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Friday, December 29, 2006

No Joy in this Day

I woke up with a brilliant story idea after going to bed tonight, and logged on to find that Saddam Hussein has been hanged. Ding Dong Saddam is Dead.

So why am I not celebrating?

I guess, because after everything, it's a bit anti-climactic, isn't it? I am pleased to see that the process of justice and law has been followed, and that despite the protestations of our old friend, Moammar al-Ghaddafi about it not being a fair trial, the blood of innocents has been avenged. Huh. Wonder why we never went after him, anyway. Am I the only one who remembers terrifying lectures about how evil Ghaddafi was and how he was going to destroy the world if we didn't stop him?

He's still alive, defending the current scourge of the universe. Well, the previous one, I suppose, since Saddam's dead now. And what about our old and also dying friend, Fidel Castro? He didn't take over the world, either. I wonder, are we just paranoid about everyone else taking over the world?

I suppose this should be a lesson to other would-be megalomaniacs-you're either going to die, or fail miserably in your attempt at world domination. You'd think they'd have learned their lessons from Hitler. Of course, no one ever said megalomaniacs were the smartest in the bunch.

I just wonder, and maybe I'm being crazy in an icky John Lennon sort of way, what are we accomplishing? Have we made the world a better place? Sure, a few million folks are going to be resting easier tonight knowing that a horrible criminal is dead, but what happens when the next maniac wakes up with yet another brilliant plan to try and take over the world? Do we kill him, too? Or do we pray we'll get lucky, and like our old friends Ghaddafi and Castro, they'll fade off into the sunset, spouting off their evil garbage, but contained in the damage they do?

I remember being afraid of nuclear war, and studying what to do in case of fallout. We don't terrorize our schoolchildren with those stories and drills anymore, but now our kids are afraid of terrorists who come out of nowhere, paralyzed in the fear that there is nothing they can do but pray the government catches them before they launch their evil plans. I don't want my kids to have to grow up that way.

Usually, I start my rants with an end in mind... some hope of how we can deal with whatever I'm ranting about and how we can make it a positive. I'm not feeling so positive tonight. Saddam is dead, yes, but so what? Where's Usama? Where's the nukes that North Korea has? In fact, where are all the "missing" nukes from the former Soviet Union?

Scary times, my friends. Scary times. The more we try to make peace, the more it ends up looking a lot like war. Of course, I'm sure some woman back in Old Testament times probably sat up late at night, unable to sleep, thinking the same things. Thus far, the world hasn't ended. I wonder how much of this idiocy God is going to take before He finally says, you guys are all morons. KABOOM! Let's start over.

Except our God isn't like that, is He? He's a loving God who sent His only Son to die for us so that we might have life. Pretty humbling, given the lousy way we've been paying him back. I don't know what to teach my children, so that they might learn a different way of living, but I pray that as God shows me His love, my children will see, and they will be unafraid of the insanity of man, but trusting in Him.

Maybe I won't even get to finish this post. Maybe some pyschopath will launch a nuke right now. Or maybe not. Maybe someone, centuries from now, will read this and say, that lady was such a worrywart!

Dunno. There's one less psychopath roaming the earth tonight, and for that, I suppose we should be thankful. Ding Dong Saddam is Dead.

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