5/6 Notes:

Lil Jon sucks.

I think I may have gotten talked into unquitting today.

I owe many, many, many people emails. Sorry everyone. I'll try to catch up this weekend.

Someone I work with is going to China to meet his (hopefully) future wife, whom he met on match.com.

Brian says the Mormon Temple on Santa Monica Blvd. looks like a giant soap pump. It's true.

I want to take a 30 day tour of Europe in June but it costs $5000 for the package + air. It freaks me out to spend that much money on leisure. But it's 12 countries.

A man survives six nails to the head. And someone Brian knows has a 30% chance of surviving after a basketball to the head caused swelling in the brain.

Did we really expect our soldiers to treat those prisoners humanely? After they've been trained by our government to blanketly dehumanize the opposition to the point of becoming morally detached enough murder? Do we really think that just because an American wears our nation's colors and represents us overseas, that he is no longer the same person who had terrorized his neighbors and beat his wife and children at home? Blanket pride is as bad as blanket hate. This game of Us vs. Them obliterates perspective and the core issues. Americans are sadistic towards other Americans. We hate each other. Don't believe me? Just sit in rush hour traffic on any major freeway in the country. We'd kill if we knew we could get away with it. So don't think that just because we are able to identify a group that doesn't look like us as "The Other," that if we destroy them, then we achieve salvation. No. Selfish agendas will be realized. Agendas that will benefit someone, and that someone may not be you. So this really isn't a political problem. This is a human problem. And since every single person in this world is a member of the human race, it is every person's problem. There is no such thing as an Us vs. Them. There is Us and Them and You and Me and all the things that could be solved if we could find a place where suddenly, we all put down our hands and open up our souls and trust each other, trust that we can be heard, and most importantly of all, we each commit to HEAR, LISTEN and UNDERSTAND. Is it impossible? Probably. Because it takes a very small minority given the majority of the power by a complacent majority to create all-consuming despair and disorder.