69) Necessary Evil

With the two Koreas tense after an exchange of artillery gunfire, alot of my friends (myself included) are inclined to be subconsciously afraid of world war three. North Korean military is no joking matter, especially when nuclear weapons are thrown into the equation.

Now that the U.S. carrier George Washington is in the Yellow Sea to help South Korea perform military maneuvers, both sides have their guns locked and loaded. It's no longer a matter of who fires first, for we already know that. It's a matter of who has more restraint.

Let's not forget that the North Korean throne has just passed to Kim Jong Il's younger son, Kim Jong Un. Will this younger leader show military restraint, or we he finally take the first step to reunify Korea in a bloody conflict? For the sake of the world, let's hope he makes the right choice.

And hence we arrive to my conclusions on war:

It is a necessary evil. Hundreds and thousands of years of war has not quelled the human instinct for violence. It sure as hell isn't going to stop soon. World peace is an idealist illusion formed out of hope, hope which is dimming by the second.

I hold this hope too. That one day world peace can occur. But for the moment, we're not ready. We're not ready until the entire world perishes in a nuclear fire, not until we understand that our capacity for hostility is the greatest setback to the utopias we try to build for ourselves.

Let's face it: without war, we have no way to gauge our appreciation for peace. We would not know the cost, the value, the beauty of pacifism. We cannot deprive the world of it's outlet for innovation and bravery.

Of course, it's more than valid to argue that the cost in lives is not worth it.

Which is why I always remember a little thing I wrote:

If humanity is not immortal,
And death is never rare,
Why fear the end,
Or how we get there?

But that's just me and my pessimism. For those who still believe in the notion of world peace, I encourage you to never stop trying.

But if tomorrow we die in a nuclear firestorm, I won't fear it. Not because I saw it coming, but because I understood why it happened.

That's worth a helluva lot when you're talking about human nature.

68) How America Lost The War

Ever since full body scanners and pat downs at airports have infringed on our right to privacy, the TSA has become public enemy number one. Time to join the chorus.

Of course, it's important to keep both sides of the argument in perspective. The TSA is just trying to do their jobs. If there is a reasonable chance of catching terrorists before they board a plane, we should by all means allow it. After all, we can't let another 9/11 happen. We can't let another war on another front occur.

On the other hand, we have a serious violation of human rights. There is now a constant flow of stories depicting harsh and outrageous treatment stemmed from the lack of common sense on the part of TSA men and women.

Perhaps a good indicator is the story of Thomas Sawyer. A bladder cancer survivor, he has to use a urostomy bag, which collects urine from an opening in his stomach. After being pulled aside, he warned the TSA agent of the bag:

One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.

He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn't seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.

It's stories like these that help you understand the outrage in all of this. How could the American government ever be capable of such a thing? But perhaps to learn a lesson, in Thomas's words:

I am a good American and I want safety for all passengers as much as the next person. But if this country is going to sacrifice treating people like human beings in the name of safety, then we have already lost the war.

Or perhaps a simpler story of a seven year-old being strip searched at Salt Lake International:

How did it all come to this? How did we end up paying the price for a war we no longer want? Oh that's right, some of us did want it. We were so convinced as a whole that America can take on anything, even the terrorists over seas. Any problem is America's problem.

How can we fight a war on terrorism, a war on the darkest aspects of humanity, when we can't even protect our own rights?

It is the story of how America lost the war.

Or I guess to close with a little Ben Franklin:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

67) For The Fallen

A few years ago, when I was in a Current Life class, our teacher grazed over the topic of suicide and depression. She asked those who thought suicide was wrong to stand on one side of the room, and everyone else to stand on the other side. After a quiet moment of shuffling, it was clear that I was the only person on the shunned shore. Of course, they asked me why. I asked them: “If suicide is so wrong, why does it happen so often every day?”

It was the revelation of how humanity is a paradoxically fickle thing. We see small aspects of the things that make us proud of who we are: love, compassion, kindness, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, we are capable of horrific things: war, savagery, fury. It is the darker side that makes us cringe in shame, reflect on how we are, of the things we’ve done, the things we regret.

And for those of us who simply don’t want to be part of this world, we are ridiculed for our obsession with death. We are told that it is a moral sin, that suicide is an unworthy liberation of our lives. That we are cowards to our futures, our souls and our faiths.

We don’t open up. We are convinced that no one can understand the pain, the anger, the crushing weight of loneliness. But in a way, we know that others have felt like this. Some have moved on, while others have perished. It doesn’t matter what their circumstances were, even though we seem convinced that there is no way out. We know that others couldn’t last a day in our shoes.

No, no one told us it would be easy. But no one sure as hell told us it would be this hard.

No, it isn’t fair. We are envious of other people for a multitude of reasons. We wish we had their happiness, their love, their outlook on life. We know that some will smile every single day they live, while others won’t ever go to sleep without shedding a tear.

It is humanity. It is cruel, it is unfair, and sometimes, if you wait for it, could possibly deliver you the best day of your life. So I don’t see why we shun suicide as such a bad thing. If someone were in such brutal pain, do they not deserve a right to end it all? Many of us go through our entire lives searching for a kind of peace. It is a peace that some of us will ever seldom find. Do the suffering not also deserve to find this peace?

Yes, perhaps I am delusional. Perhaps my words are the false echoes of lies we have come to know for ourselves. You are perfectly capable of deciding what is right. Truth is relative.

But you, my friend, you and I both share a common end. Death. We will both perish one day, sucked into the abyss that has claimed so many others. We will wither into dust, remembered as faint memories held dear by those who still care to know our lives and our legacies.

But we cannot live if we do not know how to die. We must be ready to accept that fate, destiny, our time can end it all in less than a heartbeat. It doesn’t matter if you hold responsibilities, or any other position of interest that demands your Earthly presence. Death won’t care. Your name will fade away eventually, even if it is remembered for several centuries. We are not meant to clash with the invincibility of infinity.

So why must we continue to deny those who wish to see the end their right to die?

Because it is human nature. For those who cannot see the light, we know there is one simple fact.

As long as there is light, there will be shadow.


…Soon are eyes tired with sunshine; soon the ears
Weary of utterance, seeing all is said;
Soon, racked by hopes and fears,
The all-pondering, all-contriving head,
Weary with all things, wearies of the years;
And our sad spirits turn toward the dead;
And the tired child, the body, longs for bed.

- “Death, To The Dead For Evermore”, Robert Louis Stevenson

66) Just A Shot Away

As the conflict in the Middle East wages on, gamers are anticipating a new war from the past. With the video game industry drying out ideas from America's past, present, and future wars, there is still one pinnacle of horror mainstream developers have not yet canonized.

Vietnam.

Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops, dumps the player in America's misunderstood war, taking place in the dense jungles of Vietnam. There are shots of other levels on snowy mountains, presumed to be in Russia. We are in the Cold War era, after all.

Treyarch might not be doing it intentionally, but them seem to be triggering the video gamer generation's fascination with two unpopular and confounding wars. In the sixties, the youth were in full revolt with the old class, trying to end the seemingly pointless war in Vietnam. Today, youth protests no longer hold the weight they once did, if they exist at all. It's a important thing to understand.

The parallels are staggering. Not since The Forever War have the similarities been presented in such a popular and addicting manner. Both eras in American history were marked by internal strife of rights, dead-end wars, unpopular governments, and ailing economies. It was civil rights then, gay marriage now. Vietnam and Iraq. Nixon and Bush. Recession of 69' and Great Recession now.

Point is, both wars past and present serve to link together an experience current fathers and grandfathers can describe as a chilling echo of their youth. More importantly, this all helps shed more light on the veterans of an almost forgotten war. In Vietnam, soldiers went, fought, and came back. But there were no parades for them waiting at home. There were no instantaneous monuments. Heroes were forgotten.

If anything, Black Ops serves as a history lesson for those not old enough to understand the past, even if it's only a guidebook on weapons and machines of war. We get to see the differences and similarities that transcend leaders and borders. We get to see human nature in its glorious and destructive form:

The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter serves as a nice touch.

Perhaps the most special thing about Black Ops is its easter egg. You see, Treyarch's last game was Call of Duty: World at War, which depicted the Russian and Pacific Fronts of World War Two. The easter egg in that game was Nacht der Untoten, a game mode where you and three other friends play as Marines stuck inside a house being assaulted by Nazi zombies.

By popular demand, Treyarch reintroduced this in Black Ops, except this time you're fighting in the Pentagon. It's still just you and three friends, but you're not playing Marines anymore.

From left to right: Robert McNamara, John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon

I really couldn't think of a better way to insert a president into a video game. It's not crazy, it's just politics:

Alternate links here and here. Nice to see Nixon's as grouchy as ever.

Maybe that's the best solution for world wars. Stick the leaders in a room with zombies and have them fight as allies. You could make them friends pretty damn quickly. Plus, it's always nice to hear Kennedy shout: "Can you dig it?"

So get the game when it comes out November 9. I promise you won't be disappointed. And above all else, walk away from it knowing this simple rule:

War is always just a shot away.