I'm in the airport. There is this Latin girl with a tight shirt on and no bra. Her breasts are just popping out. She has received more than her fair share of secret looks from other passengers here waiting for the plane. A few minutes later I looked up and she was standing up talking on her phone. Her nipples were really sticking out. And there is this guy sitting down about four feet away from her. He had a book in his hand but he was staring at her standing there talking on the phone and his mouth was hanging open, and then about five feet away from him there was this other girl who was staring at the guy and at the girl observing how this guy was so absorbed by the girl on the phone with the tight shirt and no bra, and she was completely absorbed in watching the two of them. She had this look on her face like, ‘I can’t believe that guy. Why does he care about that slut with the big boobs." And then I'm sitting there watching all three of them doing their thing. And I'm thinking, ‘I wonder if there is anyone watching me?’ Look how we watch each other. Each of us making our own little judgments about each other based on our own different sets of beliefs.

O.k. I'm on the plane now—America West—and they are playing all these country music videos. Man what is this? I think I have been in Miami too long. I feel like culture shocked. I'm sitting here looking at the TV and hearing this strange music and these goofy looking people and my mouth is hanging open. I forget that America is filled with people like this. I keep looking at the other passengers on the plane with me, like, “do you see this on the tv? Can you believe it?” Maybe they are from out west or something, flying home for the holiday. And they are used to it. The longer I live in Miami, the more I start to realize that it is not really part of the rest of the country. It's like we live in an alternate reality compared to the rest of America. I'm sitting next to his couple who packed their own lunch since airlines don't serve food anymore. They are eating bologna sandwiches on white bread with yellow mustard and yellow American cheese. I haven't seen something like that in ten years. I knew they sold that stuff in the supermarkets. I just could never figure out who actually bought it. o.k. so yea, Miami is not really part of America.

We’re in the air now. I'm watching the in-flight movie sporadically while reading and writing. Bourne identity baby!!! I love this movie. Great soundtrack. Reading time magazine—twelve letters from readers from all over the country saying they do not support Bush’s planned invasion of Iraq. I will scan these in. They receive thousands of letters per week one would assume with the printed ones being a small representation of the bulk of them. The media continues to report about the coming Iraq war (not a war at all, but really an invasion, since they haven’t attacked us and aren't really even a worthy opponent of ours) and all of Bush’s activities to prepare for this war on a daily Bas is. The media continues to ignore the fact that most Americans do not support Mr. Bush in this. and so when you turn on the television, you get bombarded by corporate bullshit and propaganda about an America that is not ours, but belongs to a hostile government who stole the presidency and will do whatever it wants to whenever it wants to regardless of the American people—as one reader wrote in to time magazine, ‘I will support Bush’s military action in Iraq as soon as he enlists his two daughters in the military.’ Funny.

The hardest part of all of this for me has been how relatively quiet and resistance to speaking up the American public has been. It is as if we don't have any leaders and so we are numbed by our feelings of helplessness—as if no matter what we feel, we don't really have a say and won't be able to do anything about it anyway. People just keep watching their TV and these inane music videos, eating their food, throwing their garbage and going to their jobs, hoping that maybe one day we will wake up and it will all be over. But the fact is that if the bigger bully governments don’t stop pushing around the smaller weaker ones around the world, the terrorist attacks will not end. More innocent lives will be lost. Bush will not be killed, but we will. His daughters will not be killed but many of ours will be. And worse even. On September 11^th, we the people of America we’re attacked and murdered as retaliation against things our government had done in the past to these people. We did no wrong. Directly. But we did do wrong in the same way we are doing now by ignoring what our government is doing right now all over the world. We are watching it on TV but we are not doing anything to stop it.

Our government has us by the balls. We are supposed to be a government for the people by the people, but our government has not offered a chance for us to vote on this issue. We are supposed to just play along, no matter how we feel. But is that really the way it is? Maybe not, the midterm elections just wrapped up and the republican war monger brood swept the races. How? I don't fucking know. But it happened. Maybe no one under the age of or with an IQ above 80 is voting these days. Who knows? But this certainly isn't what our founding fathers had in mind when they so eloquently drafted the ideals that this country is founded upon. But things are changing quickly. We have all but lost our beloved republic. We have all but lost our democracy. In two hundred years. Such a short time. We can march all we want, but it doesn’t seem to help. It didn't help in Vietnam, and it isn't helping now. What we need is more radical approaches to demand what we want as a people. Radical action is exactly what our country’s founding fathers took when they weren't happy with the way they were being treated and wanted to affect change in their country, our country. But these days people seem asleep. They seem unaware that the actions our government takes now are going to affect us many years to come, that if we act in Iraq the way the president is currently proposing that we may experience many many more terrorist attacks on our people.

It's not like the old days where these smaller countries are just going to sit back and take it and forget about it. Things have changed in the new technological age we live in. Anyone can band together, purchase weapons, face masks, explosives and take over a theatre if they want to. The Chechen people who are now trying to fight for their independence from Russia the way we did in the revolutionary war against England were recently quoted as saying, “we promise you we are more committed to dying for this cause than you are to living,” to the Russian hostages in that theatre. The fact is that humanity is getting too honest now to keep allowing this kind of bullshit—Russia refusing independence to Chechnya-- to take place while the rest of us sit around and pretend it isn't happening. People are now more than ever willing to die for the truth, for freedom, for honesty. So what are we going to do? as people of these larger countries. Are we going to be on the side of the good guys or the bad guys? Most people think ‘well if it doesn’t affect me directly I better just keep my mouth shut. Which although a familiar one to all of us is not such a great attitude. That's the same attitude that keeps American teachers paid so low and American children some of the stupidest in the world. And everyone keeps talking about it but nothing changes. It goes on and on. Well now after September 11^th we have all woken up to the fact that it is going to affect us. Everything does. Maybe not now, but eventually, most things do affect us in some way or another eventually. That to me is the big reason why we need to protest the shit out of this invasion of Iraq idea that Bush has gotten into his head. If saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis isn't a motivating force I totally understand that. it wasn't in the gulf war and it probably isn't now. But the fact is that now we have ourselves to worry about. We have retaliatory action, terrorist action, in our own homeland to worry about. So I think it's time that Americans started standing up and speaking up more about this issue and a few others.

Realizing more and more lately that the reason why governments around the world are able to carry on with all the law breaking and crazy horrible things they do everyday is because for the most part people just try to avoid thinking about it. every day if we want to we can log on to the Internet or turn on the TV or radio and see or hear about something even our own government has done that was deceptive or unethical or just downright evil—it just seems like it is a mass consciousness belief that that's just the business of government, always has been since we started governing ourselves, so we all know this, and again I think it just comes down to this feeling that, we can’t do anything about it, so lets just try not to think about it unless it affects us directly.

But looking forward I often imagine what a good, honest, efficient, truly integrous government would be like, and more importantly, how do we make that happen, and maintain it? I know that campaign finance reform would be the most logical place to start. And being so young and ignorant when it comes to politics and world affairs and government as I am, I often wonder why since we all know that this is a problem and it can easily be improved, why we haven't already done something about it. I look to the older generations, the baby boomers et al and I wonder why they have just continued to let things be the way they are when every one knows that campaign finance reform would be a great place start to clean up our country. Well I don't know.

But recently Jeb Bush won the seat of governor of the state of Florida—even though he was overheard by a reporter telling a group of concerned republican lawmakers that if a referendum to reduce class sizes so kids get a better education in the state goes through he “had a few devious plans in place already to thwart it's success.” So here we are with the data that not only is the guy kind of dumb, but also not half as concerned with helping the people as he is in filling his pockets or just reaping the rewards of the office. But someone voted him in there. It didn't happen by magic. But as it turns out only 20% of eligible voters voted in these mid-term elections. Well this is a big clue. How the hell can we expect them to reform campaign financing if they can’t even tell the right candidates from the charlatans. So the first step is just getting smarter people, more aware people, to the voting booths to cast their vote. What a mess. More later.