Kissing Lion



This is a cool picture. This lady saved this lion and the lion gave her a hug and kiss.

I had an experience like Sara's yesterday. I bought 3 butterfingers and ate two of them between classes and such. After racquetball, lifting, and running I went to institute and completely forgot about the butterfinger in my pocket. I reached in and BAM I was overcome with joy. I quickly partook of the chocolate and butter goodness. It was awesome! It seems I can never eat a butterfinger without breaking it into lots of pieces and making a mess of it. I kind of enjoy it that way, but I would like to get my 33 cents worth and eat the whole thing. Wow, I can't find the cent sign on the keyboard, it really isn't there.

So yesterday me and Dallas went to a lecture by the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. He was introduced as his highness. Interesting that we still use such outdated titles. It was a good lecture, a lot of it was about Iraq and bridging cultural differences between the Islamic world and the West. Anyway, the last person that asked a question brought up the fact that in elementary schools in Saudi Arabia there are textbooks that talk about the U.S. as being enemies, all Christians and Jews are enemies to Islam, all should be Islam or be killed. The ambassador acknowledged that there are problems like that and are trying to be worked out. Saudi Arabia isn't necessarily an extremist country. It has produced radicals, but is more moderate than say Iran. If textbooks in "modern" country like Saudi Arabia are that extreme, I hate to think what textbooks are like in Iran or Palestinian territories.

In my International Relations class we talked a lot about Iraq and President Bush's new strategy to send 21,500 troops to Iraq, mostly to Baghdad and the Anbar Province. In his speech, Mr. Bush said that al-Queda was seeking to take over the Anbar Provice and make it a breeding ground for extremeist, like Afghanistan was. Gosh, Iraq is just a black hole. On one hand I think dictators like Saddam Hussein need to be removed and a solid democracy in the Middle East would work wonders, but look at all that is happening. Shi'a police forces are killing Sunni Muslims, Sunnis fight back. Both sides fight through terrorism. The Kurds still don't have the Iraqi flag on government buildings in their territories because they believe they should be independent. The Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without their own country-25 million. They are spread out all over the Mid East, especially in Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. I taught some Kurds on my mission. There were about 7 of them that lived in this little apartment about the size of the bottom floor of Park Place. It was sad looking into their faces and viewing their history of being supressed by governments who seek to exterminate them simply because they are of a different race. I saw a movie about Kurds about a year ago and it was one of those movies that really affects you ya know.

Our teacher asked us if we were realists, pluralists, or globalist. Realists believe the world is a a struggle for power. Pluralists believe lots of influences rule the world, and globalists believe economics runs the world. We are really all three of them, or one of them at different times. When I play Risk, I'm a realist. But I think I'm a pluralist. For example, I don't think we are really in the Middle East because we think they are a threat to us. I also don't think we are there purely for economic reasons, I think economics and power are certainly a part of it, but lobby groups for Jews are a part of it, religion could be a part of it, etc.

So life, huh, that's amazing.