See you next Sunday, Albert,” said Father Tom with a quarter-mile stare and slight nod, “and have a Happy New Year.” The Father spoke slowly as if choosing with great care each word spoken – even if they were general pleasantries – and to some he came off as aloof, but to Albert (who always looked forward to Father Tom’s masses) the deliberate pattern made Father all the more human. Albert didn’t always know the right English word to say or the proper way to conjugate a verb, and often spoke with the same careful cadence. Because of it, most people talked to Albert like a dense child – loudly and with wild gestures – but Father Tom always spoke to him in a hushed confidential tone, they way two friends share a secret joke. And Albert always left smiling.

Albert volunteered every Sunday at the Church, handing out fliers, greeting parishioners with a friendly ‘good morning’, and performing whatever little odds-and-ends came up over the course of the morning. At the end of the Advent, the Nativity scene on the grass lot was kept standing until the New Year. A few older voices grumbled that it should be taken down Christmas evening, but most people enjoyed the sight of the Baby Jesus, so there it stayed for an extra week, greeting the members of the flock.

On this New Year’s Sunday when the final mass was completed, a timid volunteer coordinator asked if any of the usual helpers could stay after for a few minutes to box up the Nativity. Albert was the only member who came forward, so he did it alone. As always, Albert smiled.

Albert was left with a large cardboard box for the wooden manger, and a series of boxes for each member of the scene – even the donkeys, oxen, and sheep had their own boxes. The volunteer coordinator handed Albert a key to the rectory before departing, telling Albert, “to…lock…the…door…and…put the…key…through the…mail…slot.” Albert smiled and shook the man’s hand.

“Happy New Year.” Albert called out with a vigorous wave as the coordinator hurried to the parking lot, but the man either hadn’t heard Albert, or had moved on to other matters. The man didn’t wave back.

Albert began by boxing up the animals – if there was a respectful order for dismantling the Nativity, Albert decided it would be most appropriate to begin here. He then struck the Sheppard, mindful when placing him in the foam padding, not to break the delicate wooden crook. Next, Albert collected the three Wise Men, who – Albert felt rightly – shared a single box. Finally, Albert was left starring at the stark scene of Mary and Joseph standing over the Child Jesus, their wooden faces filled with pride and with love and with relief.

Albert removed the star that hung above the wooden barn. He dismantled the roof and the three walls, until the new family was left in the open air – the sun was shining, so Albert didn’t think the Baby Jesus would mind.

Sorry to break this up, Joseph, Albert thought, picking up the figurine, but Mary and Jesus need a minute alone. Joseph’s likeness was heavy and solid, about two and half feet tall, and Albert needed both hands to lay it softly to rest in its box. Joseph’s painted-on face seemed to glow against the bright white packing foam in which it hugged so very closely.

“Thank you, Mary,” Albert said out loud without realizing, as he knelt in the grass to lift up the Mother of God. He cradled her in his arms; in the same way Mary is depicted cradling the Baby Jesus in countless reverential paintings. Mary face was in a state of permanent smile. Albert thought of saying the Hail Mary after placing Her to rest, but he simply smiled back.

Albert lifted the Baby Jesus out of the manger with both hands, though the Child was small enough to fit in one, Albert didn’t dare. He held Jesus in his cupped hands, examining His innocent face and all of the intricate details. Albert was thankful for the opportunity to hold the Christ Child, and thought about communion. He placed Jesus in the cardboard box and sealed the top.

It seemed a shame to keep the Baby Jesus tucked away for so much of the year only to bring him out for a small time, but Albert thought it made him appreciate the Nativity more because its physical presence was finite.

It took Albert five trips to lug all the boxes to the rectory, and beads of sweat dripped from his brow as he locked the door. The key jangled as it slid through the mail slot and landed on the wooden floor beyond.

Albert passed the grass lot out front of the Church, now ghostly in the absence of the Nativity. He knew that he’d miss if for the next couple of weeks – he did every year – and every December its reappearance would surprise him with joy. Albert hoped that he wouldn’t be surprised this year. This year he’d remember. Albert walked home, smiling.

This year is an off year for elections.  Off years are marked by being on an odd numbered year, rarely having federal elections, few state legislative elections and even fewer gubernatorial elections.  Because of this, these years generally have a far lower voter turnout as well.  They typically involve elections at the municipal level, mayoral, city council, as well as many other local offices and citizen initiatives and what most people don’t realize is that these are the areas which will have the most direct impact on you.

These are the offices and initiatives that will affect your children in the schools, the emergency workers who come to our rescue, and local businesses.  These are the offices that will have an effect on our daily lives.

These elections won’t just have a direct impact on you though; you have a direct impact on them.  These are the elections where the voter actually makes a difference.  I’m sorry to tell you, but your vote doesn’t matter in the big elections.  Let’s be honest here, despite what the movie Swing Vote says, it is statistically impossible for a single voter to matter in the outcome of the bigger elections and let’s not even get into the Electoral College.

These smaller elections however, really do need every single vote.  In the 2009 Tacoma mayoral election, also an off year, Marilyn Strickland won by 1,152 votes.  That means that if 576 people changed their votes, the election would have tied.  The Auburn Council Position 2 election had a difference of 182 votes between the two candidates.  The Buckley Council Position 2 seat? 28.  If 15 people changed their vote, the outcome completely changes.

So this year, whenever you think that these elections don’t matter and are a waste of time, remember this.  Decisions are made by those who show up and you could be one of the 15 people who determines an election.

This is part of an ongoing series of articles about being employed or unemployed in today’s economy. We are sharing real stories of struggles and accomplishments, as well as advice on what others can do to make it out in the real world. Read more articles from our writers series on The Vine.

Before I begin this article, I want to offer some perspective. The other night I heard 5 gunshots and the desperate moaning of a man who had just been shot not 40 yards away from the bed I was sleeping in. From what I gathered talking to the police, he was shot in the leg, but I have yet to get an update on his condition.

Unemployment is certainly a serious issue facing lots of Americans, but I just want to encourage us to remember to count the blessings in our lives. Anyways, without anymore preface, the following are the thoughts I had on my experience in the employment market and finding work that you can value.

We were all lied to. We were told that if we worked hard, pursued opportunities, and got a degree that there would be a decent job waiting for us. When I graduated college back in March of 2010 we were still in the early days of the shitstorm that is the employment market. That is to say, there were very little options available to me, but by August I had found employment on Senator Murray’s reelection campaign in Tacoma. I thought I had finally broken through into the world of professional politics.

Campaigns end, though. And when ours did I was staring at the looming prospect of renewed unemployment. I decided that it would be best to take my experience and new connections to D.C. So I packed up a couple of bags, found housing via Craigslist, and embarked on a great journey to find my place on Capitol Hill.

What I found was that to actually enter the world of Capitol Hill requires a perverse amount of nepotism, a healthy dose of luck, and baring those two, it requires the classic internship. My connections were not deep enough to go the nepotic route nor am I inordinately lucky. So I applied and was accepted to be an intern.

The first part of my internship was fine; I learned the ropes and accepted my generally mindless tasks with stride. I was offered some amount of help finding permanent employment, but nothing ever fully panned out.

As the internship progressed, I started to realize that I was highly replaceable labor and that there was no real intention or incentive to help me out. Quite the opposite, there was high incentive to dodge the effects of the budget cuts by using interns for more and more tasks that were traditionally the domain of paid employees. By the end of my internship, I was essentially doing a large part of job where the paid employee was promoted and the position eliminated.

The other thing I noticed was that the egos and attitudes of staffers were overly inflated and fairly appalling. I had interned in college for the Scottish Parliament and came into this experience thinking that people would be grateful for your work, patient with your mistakes, and eager to help you learn. If you devoted the effort to be a good (unpaid) intern, then the staff would devote the energy to be good (paid) teachers. That is how I was able to go from knowing nothing about Scotland to writing a comprehensive review of the legal system’s response to knife crime and the legislative options for changing it.

Instead, I got continually shit on. There were the daily terse e-mails from staffers angry about honest mistakes. Nor was there any real input on how you are developing and what you could improve upon. Even worse, I once got a tongue-lashing for asking a senior staffer her career arc and background (whilst I was filing her papers and labeling her boxes for an office move). I get that people are busy and that the work is important, but when you are cycling through a Pandora station for music you can answer a question or two. I have never understood the culture of general dickishness towards your unpaid grunt force that seems to dominate lots of our culture, especially on the Hill. The great irony was that the Senator was an amazing human being who went above and beyond to make you feel welcome.

The sad thing is that these internships are seen as competitive resume builders. The idea is that you get shit on for 6 months so that you can build a career. However, in this economic climate, you get shit on and spat out, back to a job market where everyone else has impressive credentials and your internship no longer matters. When I was being interviewed for a job after my internship, I was told as much.

So, how did I find employment? The week after I left my internship I applied with a temp agency. Three weeks later I had a position that was only supposed to last a month. Now a few months later, I can finally start to think the burden on unemployment is off my back. Did my internship help improve my standing to get offered the position? Maybe it did. Though I know a lot of other hill interns who are still unemployed. I think I got this position because I have a very diverse background and skill set which was a good fit for the company.

That is not to say that I am in a position that I dreamed of. Far from it, I am doing work that I am good at, but I desperately miss the sense of meaning my jobs and internships once had. Doing work is something that one should always be proud of, but I got a degree in Political Science so that I could go out and do things I believed in. Right now I sit behind a desk and solve IT issues while answering phones. Hardly the life of public service I got my degree for.

Still, the most rewarding work I ever did and the experiences that I value most were the small campaigns and nonprofits I volunteered for. I loved being involved with small organizations and candidates who shared my values. The options for a career in that field are currently very limited, but they are always looking for people to help out. Honestly, it was the network and experience at the nonprofits where I got the most career help, training and satisfaction.

So, my advice to the potential Capitol Hill intern who wants to work on issues important to them is to pass. Go intern for a nonprofit, work for cheap (or free) for a campaign, or just volunteer somewhere that you feel makes the world better. Dabble in lots of fields and learn new skills. Go somewhere that will appreciate you. What is better than an internship on The Hill is an enthusiastic recommendation from someone who genuinely appreciated your work.

Once upon a time, I couldn’t imagine the taste of bread. I lived in a house where tofu and soymilk were common staples. A decade ago, a vegan or gluten-free diet was not nearly as common or trendy as it is today. Many people thought nothing of their heavy meals laden with wheat, and the breadbasket was a common preliminary step before a waiter brought out the main course. My family’s unique take on healthy eating stemmed from my brothers’ severe food allergies and differed from the norms of everyone I knew, but I thought nothing of it. While I didn’t understand the health benefits of eating gluten-free at a young age, it was simply the way we did things in the Elkus family.

I have memories of childhood play dates with my confused toddler friends who were used to being fed pizza during lunchtime, unsure of what to do with the rice pasta and sautéed tempeh on their plates. I remember family dinners in foreign countries during summer vacations that took hours to complete due to our complicated orders and special requests, not to mention the added language barrier. My brothers’ intolerance to dairy, wheat and eggs provided for a challenge at every meal, and my devoted mother toted around a plethora of emergency Epi-Pen shots and Benadryl bottles with her on vacations that rivaled the medication aisle of a fully-stocked CVS store. Accidents were inevitable, and my heart jumped in nervousness at the first sound of their voices uttering “I feel sick” and the worried expression on my parents’ faces. Was it some bread crust that had slipped into their French fries? Could their corn tortilla have been carelessly switched with a wheat one? Did someone put flour in the soup? Little did I realize that with each experience, whether it ended in a safe and satisfactory meal or a panicked finale of frustration and tears, I was digesting the basic medical training of a dietary specialist.

The assurance of my brothers’ health came at no easy price for my parents. I have so much respect and admiration for the hard work they dedicated to raising children on such a specific and limited diet, and the time that they spent self-educating with late-night Internet research and dozens of highlighted and underlined newspaper articles ripped out and tacked to our kitchen bulletin board. The differences of our kitchen to most were stark, but I grew to accept them and even enjoy the acquired tastes of “Tofu Pup” soy dogs and quinoa-based pastas. Gluten-free was simply my way of life.

It was only while progressing through elementary school and spending more time away from home that I began to side-track from the gluten-free foods. The school cafeterias presented a vast array of lunchtime options that made my ten-year old head spin. “Real” pasta, dripping in warm butter and crisp parmesan flakes! Freshly baked brownies, glazed with vanilla icing and individually saran wrapped! My eyes grew wide at the selection of kid-friendly options and lack of parental supervision, and I indulged without hesitation. Away from home, I felt free to enjoy whatever foods I wanted, especially without the guilt of eating them in front of my brothers, who had never experienced a real cupcake or a slice of Domino’s pizza. The ongoing question of how I was so lucky to be an allergy-free middle child born between two once-sick children no longer mattered. Sitting next to my friends at our table, I was like everybody else, and my newfound culinary anonymity was a foreign comfort in the confusion and mayhem of adolescence.

My experiments with these strange wheat-based foods quickly progressed into a full-fledged love affair. There was no question – I was obsessed with gluten. I started to crave the satisfactory full feeling in my stomach after eating a sandwich or plate of pasta that just couldn’t quite compare with the aftermath of a soy hot dog or slice of rice bread. If there is such a thing as gluten addiction, I had it.

It wasn’t until the end of high school that I began to reevaluate my love of wheat-based foods. School days were long, and I was used to the hour-long post-lunchtime slump that occurred in the early afternoon, a sluggish period of food coma that prevented me from thinking clearly during my one o’clock math class. I was unknowingly experiencing what is commonly known to the community of gluten-free eaters as “wheat fog.” I had become accustomed to the heavy feeling in my gut after a gluten-based meal, and I forgot what it was like to experience the light and airy aftermath of a wheat-free meal. It took discipline to change, and hundreds of afternoons spent without incentive to exercise or be productive. I began to slowly eliminate gluten from my diet.

The results were incredible. I noticed a difference right away in how I felt both immediately after a meal, but also as my day progressed. My mind was clearer, and I felt increasingly able to study for longer periods of time without the sleepy fog that usually crept through my mind after lunch. I could sustain exercise for more time with longer bursts of energy, and I slept more soundly. It was clear that a gluten-free diet was the right decision for me, and since then, I haven’t looked back. While I may not share my older brother’s Celiac Disease or my younger brother’s wheat allergy, I realized that I was one of the ten percent of Americans who suffered from a gluten sensitivity, and I was lucky enough to already have the skills and knowledge to maintain a new diet.

I know that many healthy people do allow gluten to occupy a place in their diet, and that there are even more who don’t think twice about it and feel fine. I also know that my return to a gluten-free existence has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and I would advocate it to anyone who is ready to take a chance on a conscious, long-lasting and beneficial change. The world of gluten-free food no longer requires an arduous trek up and down restaurant-lined streets searching for a kitchen willing to make substitutions on their menu. Grocery stores now offer entire aisles of gluten-free options and many trendy eateries are adopting the wave of current medical research and celebrity-endorsed wheat-free eating. I urge everyone to take a chance on improving their health. Start by slowing substituting gluten in just one meal a week to test the waters. In honor of the traumas and tribulations of my brothers, the two bravest boys I know, I can’t thank them enough for helping me to realize that sometimes the best option is the one you had all along.

The events of September 11th will always be inexorably linked (in my mind anyway) with the events of several years prior that took place at a Columbine, Colorado. If I were five or six years older I may have felt the same about the Challenger disaster, but (as it is) I am too young to remember that tragedy first hand. These were the events that unfolded for me (and for millions of people my age) on television screens in classrooms, on the kinds of devices that were just out-of-date enough to be available in public schools, and were often strapped by a kind of seat belt to a rolling metal dolly that can only be found in Audio Visual departments and some hospitals.

Looking back, it still seems surreal that I experienced that horrible day they same way that I learned about The Cosmos from Carl Sagan, but we as a class (or a school, or a country) processed those images of confusion and of horror as a community, and that was important. I have never talked to anyone my age (In fact, I don’t remember talking to anyone, period) that watched those events alone. Some moments are simply too large for one person to comprehend without support.

I was in high school in Redmond, Washington on that particular Tuesday, and our school began at seven o’clock Pacific Standard time (10 am EST), and I was out of district, meaning that I had to wake up by about 5:30am (or about ten minutes before the first plane struck the North Tower) and start my commute at around six am (or right about the time second plane struck the South Tower). I learned of the worst attack on American soil in my lifetime from a Seattle alternative music station morning drive-time DJ – it was initially hard to believe. I think it was hard for everyone to believe until they saw the impacts and the aftermath and the always-put-together nightly news anchors with mussed hair and nothing to say.

By the time I had parked and walked the block or two to school (I wasn’t yet an upperclassman, and therefore unable to park on campus), most classrooms were already filled, some spilling students out into nearly vacant halls. Most mornings, the majority of the student body hung out in the large common areas, usually near vending machines, but this morning even the students who tried their best to look the least interested in academia, were sitting quiet and present at desks fifteen (maybe twenty) minutes before first period. There was no prodding everyone just instinctively knew it was what must be done. I don’t know why (maybe it was because I knew the kinds of students who wish to study extra calculus lessons before school) but I watched the continual loop of collisions in the Advanced Math classroom. Much later, I saw the footage that had gone out live (and then, thankfully, was pulled) of people jumping from the buildings, and sometimes I get all of those visuals mixed in my memory, but it did seem like Peter Jennings and the ABC News Team must have shown the second plane hit the tower ten times in the short span that I watched.

The first tower collapsed five minutes before the first period bell at Redmond High School, and even the teachers didn’t know how to proceed. I took my book-bag and headed to my own classroom, but was quite certain that we wouldn’t be discussing a great deal of English Literature on this morning. The class was half-full, and the teacher told us that our room’s television didn’t get reception, so she was going to put on a VHS copy of a Shakespeare production, and that if any student wished to watch the news in another class, they would be free to do so. Most of us left to stand along the back wall of the Calculus room. By second period, I (and everyone else, I suppose) had learned of the crash at the Pentagon and was hearing rumors of a fourth hijacking (students who are raised in Microsoft’s backyard are adept at using the Internet for news, but had also learned of its spotty reliability.)

I didn’t learn of the crash of Flight 77 in a Pennsylvania field until forth period after lunch. By that time, nearly all students were attempting to have as normal a day as could be possible, and were attending their regularly assigned classes (mine was, fittingly enough, US Government). We watched the news with the volume low and discussed all of the names and terms that all Americans learned on that day. That afternoon al-Qaeda entered the US lexicon and has never really left.

Once school had let out, the flag was already at half-mast and many students lingered. It felt like we had all learned of the terrible event together and thus, were reluctant to break that tenuous bond (Or maybe we were just too dazed to do much of anything.) But other than the students who needed a ride on the big yellow buses, nobody went home. In the cafeteria, I talked with a group of friends about our futures, about that of the country. We wanted to do something, anything, but (for the live of us) we couldn’t figure out what it was.

After school, I watched more of the news (I think everyone did), and called a group of friends to answer my one pressing question: Do you go to soccer practice on 9/11? It turned out that I did. And so did everyone else on my team. We had a distracted lesson, and at its completion the sun had gone down. I don’t remember how I slept, but I was a teenager, so I probably slept fine enough.

Conventional wisdom says that the Sept. 11 attacks were the defining moment of my generation (or an instigating event, or some such thing), but at the time it just felt confusing. And in many ways it still does. Compared to the Columbine massacre, the motives behind the attacks felt murkier and farther away. I may not be breaking new ground, by claiming that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold acted out of anger when they decided to open fire on their faculty and fellow students, but that anger wouldn’t have been present if the boys didn’t ultimately want to fit in. And every teen can identify with that desire.

In contrast, I did not understand the fanaticism required to plan and execute such a cold-blooded act as 9/11. I have learned a great since of both the history of Western interference in the Mid-East and of Islamist extremism (and it was an extremist element that carried out the attack), but I can’t say that I yet understand the motivation. On an intellectual level I can connect the dots, but I certainly don’t empathize on a gut level. And maybe that’s a good thing, but it makes tragedies like this seem all the scarier. I just don’t get it. And I probably never will.

I think that many people who had not attended high school in a good many years, felt similarly to the Columbine events – the media sure seemed to. Largely diverse subsections of students were lumped together as “others” even if those groups were wildly dissimilar. To be clear: Harris and Klebold were not Goth. Just as Al-Qaeda was not Islam. Eric and Dylan may have worn black and sneered at the popular crowd, but so did Johnny Cash. And Johnny Cash is not Goth.

[The Gothic movement began in the 1980s with a wave of overly sensitive (mostly male) rock-pop music from the UK – think The Smiths, Morrisey, et al. – and much like the Nerd empowerment events of the same time, the Goth kids were attempting to find strength by controlling their own exclusion. Most of these kids knew they were never going to be cheerleaders or football All-Americans – they were the misfits – so they dressed and acted in a manner that guaranteed ostracism. They dressed androgynously, talked about feelings, and were usually the only kids paying any attention during discussions of 19th century poetry. They didn’t want acceptance. And it worked. And the misfits found each other. ]

Because Harris and Klebold wore trench coats and did their damnedest to be off-putting to those around them, Goth culture (teens often on the receiving end of bullying themselves) was blamed for inciting violence. America (and its media) loves the idea of “enemies from within”, but aren’t particularly skilled at defining them.

I had a friend in high school, not a close friend but the kind I would talk to at lunch almost every day, who had the misfortune to be named Osama and to live in the US in the Fall of 2001. After several ugly incidents involving older generations (the hardest kind for teens to deal with), he started going by Sam. It was for the same reasons there weren’t a lot of Adolphs running around after 1945. In the grand scheme of things it isn’t the most heart-breaking concession that came out of the era, but it’s one that has stuck with me over the past ten years.

It is impossible for me to know how the televised horrors of both Columbine and New York City have shaped me as a person, but I believe they have made me wary of generalizations. They have made me think about spheres larger than my own. And they have made me aware of mans potential both for great love, but also for great hatred. But I do my best not to dwell on any of these thoughts for too long. They are simply too much for any one person to take on alone.

By Sept. 14th (roughly), I had watched the news at every opportunity, hoping for some conclusion (some great revelation), but it would not come so quickly or so easily. I, along with many Americans, turned off the TV – and the radio, and the Internet browser – and simply tried to live as best I could with what had happened. And that all any of us can ever really do.

The year that I started kindergarten was the same year that Mikhail Gorbachev signed over control of the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal to the new country of Russia, the last act of the USSR. A few weeks earlier, William Jefferson Clinton beat an incumbent President Bush in an overwhelming victory to be the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to hold the Presidency. Change was everywhere.

Clinton enacted policies that helped foster the burgeoning technology industry; the world was rapidly becoming smaller and in my little house in the south of Seattle (near the Boeing and Microsoft campuses) I was in the epicenter of it. I grew up with computers, the internet, and the privileges of a technocratic suburban lifestyle. The possibilities were endless. The world was, in my estimation, relatively peaceful and prosperity was everywhere.

We all, as a nation, grew complacent. We largely ignored the strife outside of the bubble we created, and except for the clusterfuck with Aidid in Somalia, things like the Rwandan genocide and the Taliban’s increasing brutality in Afghanistan went largely unnoticed or underreported. Even the intervention in Kosovo was reduced to night-vision views of NATO bombing salvos.  Instead, we began to obsess ourselves with Survivor and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

The 2000 Presidential Election had little to do with foreign policy. Little did we know that foreign policy would be the key issue the next President would have to face. Instead we talked about tax relief and how to spend our budgetary surplus. After one of the most controversial and close elections in U.S. history, President George W. Bush was sworn in on the vows of compassionate conservatism.

By 2001, I had started my first year of high school. I had no real ambitions or dreams, just a head full of punk music and a penchant for rebellions. Our family had just moved to a new town in Southern Oregon.

It was on the second day of my freshman year that I woke up to my mom screaming, “Eric wake up! We are under attack!”

Thinking that the little condo we were living in until our house was built was in some sort of physical danger, I sprang out of bed. As I got up, my mom was planted firmly to the television as they showed repeats of a second plane smashing into the World Trade Center. I had never seen anything like it. I watched for about an hour, foregoing the shower and breakfast that was usually crucial to my morning routine.

I still remember the walk to school that day. It was eerily quiet; hardly any cars were on the street. The nation was collectively glued to their television sets. We spent the whole school day transfixed by images of planes falling out of the sky. From the Pentagon, both the WTC towers, a field in Pennsylvania, and all of the emergency diversions to clear US airspace, it was clear that what we were watching was now going to play a large role in all of our lives.

I remember watching the same night-vision television shots of bombs that I saw in Kosovo, but this time they were in Afghanistan and for retaliation. It seemed more real this time than it did in Kosovo.

I started to understand the global political realities of action and reaction. I was filled with two conflicting emotions. Yes, I wanted to get the bastards who killed so many of my countrymen. I also was disgusted with the world of international relations. Morality and long-term planning played no role. If they did, we would have listened to Charlie Wilson and built up the country of Afghanistan. Instead we used it as a theatre to beat the Soviets and left it in the hands of madmen.

The world was too big, at the time, to think of the consequences of arming the Mujahedeen. While there is no justification for killing thousands of innocents, there is also no justification for using a country as a pawn of war without thinking of the future we are creating. George Marshall knew after World War II that we could lead and shape the world with some amount of dignity. I had hoped that we would do the same in Afghanistan. Instead, we pulled most of our troops out and invaded Iraq.

For me, it was the biggest step in creating the political being that I am today. 

I started protesting the war because it did not make sense. Our enemy was Al Qaeda and the Taliban, not Saddam Hussein. We had a charge to rebuild Afghanistan into a stable country, not destroy Iraq. We cut taxes, we got into two wars that we could never build our way out of. We surged; we turned the tide against the insurgency, but we did nothing to stop the underlying causes of terrorism.

Ultimately, what September 11^th means to me is a lost cause for peace. We saw the ugly side of the globalized world after a decade of growth. To me, the path to create a globalized and more peaceful world out of the ashes of 9/11 was the best way to turn a tragedy into the linchpin for change. Instead, we doubled down on the ethos of action/reaction and the old games of power politics to protect US interests. Maybe human history, from Sun Tzu to Cardinal Richelieu and all the way through Kissinger and Kennan correctly predicts that our lesser nature will prevail in the anarchy of international relations. I can’t stop wishing, though, that in a world of promise, opportunity and global connectivity, maybe we can chose cooperation over conflict.

When 9/11 occurred I was a sophomore in high school. I heard about it on my way to jazz band, our zero hour class, at about 6am. I remember the morning very vividly despite the fact that I was still half-asleep in the car. I could hear scattered bits of information on the radio but I wasn’t fully conscious of what was happening. It wasn’t until I got to the school and our teacher, with the few students who had arrived for class, were listening to the same station. Then, I realized what had happened…

Hey Melonites,

You might realize that The Melon is looking a little f-ed up in a couple places (namely the Contributors section). that’s because I was playing around in the back-end and got a bit overzealous thus f-ing shit up. Our web guru, Micah, is on the job so everything should be up and running shortly. Sorry for my insolence.

~Electric Elliot

More info at http://minutaur.com/gotopage.asp?moment=4344

M³ brought to you by

Joe Le Sac recently published a comment on the state of anarchy in Somalia and how piracy is being painted in the international press. He writes:

Somalia is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. While international eyes scorn the recent hijackings of over 40 shipping vessels off Somalia’s coast and berate the perceived “lawlessness” of the pirates who hold them for millions of dollars ransom, Somalis themselves seem more concerned about the destruction of human life caused by corporations and blood money from Western governments.

Very little attention is given to the fact that Somalia is, by the UN’s own admission, the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa. Rather, the focus on piracy seems to avoid contextualization. Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post analyzes the sensationalist coverage of piracy across the international media.

The AP reports that the commander of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, U.S. Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, is showing reseveration on the recent idea of attacking the pirates by land. Since Somalia has no effective government, there is no international consensus on what to do with the pirates if they are detained. The government they do have seems to near collapse.

The New York Times reported last week that:

Somalia’s transitional government looks as if it is about to flatline. The Ethiopians who have been keeping it alive for two years say they are leaving the country, essentially pulling the plug.

To make matters worse, BBC reports that about 15,000 Somali soldiers and police have deserted. Furthermore:

Mr Kumalo, the South African ambassador, also said most of the Somali government’s security budget – supposedly 70% of its total budget – disappeared through corruption.