Hellooooo world! I'm back! I'm alive! I'm fighting the apathetic blogger within and have risen, like a phoenix from the ashes of my neglected blog.

My New Year's and mid year resolutions were both to get back to blogging and stop being an apathetic lazy ass who has replaced insightful and witty entries about my life with facebook status soundbites. It has taken 6 months but here I am back in full force. There seems to be a million reasons why I have fadded out of the blogosphere; I've been more busy than I have ever been, I've been enticed by the quick satisfaction of the Facebook status update and I've been much more apprehensive about verbalizing my feelings and waxing poetic about my adventures here because I worry about how it may affect people at home but I think it's time to get back to who I am and start to once again to speak my mind free and easy.

Tonight I have a moment and more importantly I have something to bitch about. Osama Bin Laden.
Ok, Ok... yup, he's a bad guy, a murderer, a terrorist, a cold blooded murderer. Yes, he's the symbol of all that has turned the world upsidedown for the last 10 years but the reaction of the American public at the announcement of his death is repulsive. The people who are celebrating in the streets in front of the White House and Ground Zero at the death of a man are reflective of the scenes of people in the streets of the Arab world cheering at the collapse of the Twin Towers. At that time, the media painted these people as heartless terrorists, hateful, murderous, the epitome of evil...How dare they celebrate murder and destruction of a symbol of America. But now, shamelessly and without tact or sense of sober respect for the fucked up state of the world that they are just as responsible for, the American people are showing the world their arrogance. As much as I despise Stephen Harper, at least he said Canadians accept the news with "sober satisfaction" - an ounce of tact at least. 

Bin Laden is dead but what he represents and stands for (which American arrogance and self-righteousness is partially responsible for) is not - and as scenes of the American people partying in the streets waving American flags and chanting "God Bless the USA" are beamed around the world, those who subscribe to Bin Laden's ideals are simply using it as ammunition to fuel their continued hatred.  I'm sorry, but celebrating anyone's death, no matter who it is so publicly and in such an overbearing manner is tasteless. Murder is not something to celebrate. It makes the people of America seem just as barbaric as those which they hunt down and kill.  

I'm not saying that Bin Laden should be free to roam the deserts of Pakistan and plan to blow up the Western world but I just think that Americans should exercise some tact for once. Would a nation who soberly and tactfully accepts their success (achieved through murder) not come across as somewhat superior who one publicly celebrates death? I'm sure Obama is enjoying the sound of his name being chanted in the streets but I hope that he feels at least a pang of sadness for how his country is portraying itself to the world...

Cheers from "sober satisfaction"
J