In an earlier post I mentioned making a determined effort to ride my bicycle more often. This morning I took my bike downtown for a 7:00AM ride with a local club, the Doodahs. This was my first Doodah ride, but it won’t be my last. By the way, the ride started at Maynard’s, a restaurant and food store located in Tucson’s old train station … the same place we meet our friends every Monday evening for walks through downtown Tucson. Here’s a crappy cell phone photo from this morning:
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I posted this to Facebook yesterday:
Question for the grammar gestapo: if “it’s” is a contraction of “it is,” why must I write “As good as it is, it’s a disturbing movie” instead of “As good as it’s, it’s a disturbing movie”?
So far my favorite answer comes from my sister Mary: “I guess it’s what it’s.”
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My inner Atilla is delighted we assassinated Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. This man, an American citizen, took up arms against the US. He was a terrorist whose preferred tactic was to incite dupes to commit suicide attacks against innocent American civilians. If he had mounted his attacks from inside the US, he would have been subject to due process of law like any other citizen. Instead, he removed himself to Yemen, an essentially lawless country that has no extradition treaty with the US, organizing terror attacks from there.
Does his killing present a constitutional problem? Probably. Do I care? No. I just finished reading Michael Moore’s book, Here Comes Trouble (my review is here). In it he talks about the simultaneous terrorist attacks carried out by the Abu Nidal Organization against innocent civilians in the Vienna and Rome airports in 1985. ANO gunmen in both airports opened fire on passengers lined up at El Al ticket counters, using machine guns and hand grenades. They killed 19 and injured 138.
The 9/11 attacks in the USA have blurred our memory of the horrific terrorist attacks of the 1980s and 1990s, attacks which continue today in other countries … and don’t forget all the stymied terror attacks against the USA that have happened since 9/11. At least today we know better who the terrorists are, and we’re going after them in organized and methodical ways. Obama’s doing a hell of a job going after these murderers … unlike his immediate predecessor (but don’t get me started on that).
I have zero sympathy for any terrorist. Terrorists, by definition, target innocent civilians. By doing so, in my opinion, they renounce humanity, citizenship, and the protection of law. In other words … fuck ’em.