A Better Day Than Theirs 29 March 1999

6:39 PM: Fuckers. Fuckers. Fuckers. Fuckers.

Sorry. Guess it's the noise of this air conditioning again. Sure, must be.

There was an op-ed piece a few days ago by Veton Surroi, one of the Kosovar Albanians who signed the treaty in Paris. He summed up what they had learned about the US and the West in general pretty well:

For the last decade it has been clear that Kosovo needed to be free from Mr. Milosevic's grip: two million Kosovars suffered from his rule in every aspect of our lives, from basic security to education. With the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Kosovar political activists tried to build on the philosophy of nonviolence, leading peaceful demonstrations.

But the Western powers did not deal with Kosovo, quite satisfied with the fact that we had not taken up arms. It took the Dayton Accords, which set the terms of peace in Bosnia, to show us that a problem is a problem only when it becomes an armed one.

Only when the first guns were heard from the Kosovar side did the leaders of the West's democracies react. This raised images of Bosnia in their minds, as did the renewed scenes of women and children fleeing on tractors. Thus a second lesson: a problem is a problem only if it has been preceded by a similar one. (Likewise, after the genocide in Rwanda, it is difficult to imagine a similar massacre in Africa occurring without outside intervention.)

He's in hiding now, by the way. The editor of the paper he publishes was executed Monday.

Dumb dumb dumb dumb goddamn it. Given that we are not likely to come under direct attack in the foreseeable future (omitting biological terrorist/nuclear spasm stuff for simplicity), what better purpose could this huge military be used for? We can do something to stop this. Who else can? Nobody I can think of. Doesn't that kind of add up to an obligation?

I would not be surprised if the actual people who would be involved in doing something more about the Serbs were cursing the Big Poobahs who won't let them get at it, either. Not like I'd really know, I understand, it's just a guess.

And, oh, Snack! was Butterfingers. Mmmmmmm Simpsony. Speaking of which, Futurama was pretty good but dangerously sincere at times. I hope that's not likely to continue.

And etc. etc. It's not the best of days. Maybe next time I'm called upon to be a good listener, I'm gonna just say, "So?" Not that it would improve anything, but the shock might be entertaining. It can hardly do more damage to my social prospects than simple reality has managed already.

Willfully blind self-indulgent nebbish or amusingly quirky old coot? And how bout that local sports team? Discuss among yourselves.

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