Pen-Elayne on the Web

Good Guys and Bad Guys

The debate last night was interesting in places if disappointing overall. I thought the moderator could have been more focused, I thought the right-wing guy made some extremely cogent points (many of which Eric conceded) about how to get a message across so as not to alienate potential allies, and I thought the audience members during the Q&A were so self-absorbed most of them couldn't even form proper questions much less ask anything related to the evening's subject matter.

But that's behind us now. This evening I watched the last segment of Children of Dune and wept again, as I'm sure I did long ago when I read the original books, at the epic tragedies that befell the Houses on Arrakis, many of the participants' own making. Then I watched an episode of Angel where it seemed like half the characters were fighting the other half, switching alliances and personalities faster than anyone not utterly immersed in the Whedon-verse could track. And then the last few minutes of the show were interrupted by the announcement that the United States has invaded Iraq, and has commenced killing thousands upon thousands of people for no good reason at all.

And... I just don't know any more. I want to believe in good guys. I want to go back or forward to a place where the country in which I live is governed by the good guys. I want to crawl in a shell and be rocked to sleep by the good guys telling me it'll all be okay, this too shall pass, the murderers on all sides will receive karmic justice by and by, the cries of the innocent dead will catch up with them and haunt them until the end of their days and peace will, peace must someday prevail. I need to believe that, in this dark, dark time.