Political Parallels?

I just read that the leader of Pakistan's opposition party, Benazir Bhutto, has been assassinated by a suicide bomber. In response, her opponent President Musharraf (who put the country under martial law following a very suspicious "election") has cracked down to "defend democracy" by not allowing any public political gatherings in the wake of the attack. Mournful demonstrators have been gathering and declaring her death a martyrdom, accusing Musharraf of complicity while he postures as the defender of democracy by accusing "radicals" and "terrorists" of the assassination and vowing that his military crackdowns will defend freedom in that country. But critics in the West have said that while Bhutto was a reason for hope in Pakistan, her regime was not unmarked by corruption as well. She had stood accused of pilfering 1.5 billion and also of having one of the worst human rights records in recent history (Link).

I cant help but notice the parallels to our own unfolding political story here in the west -- we have a sitting President who pretty much stole a corrupt election and has been wielding the "war on terror" club to undermine everything from individual rights to human rights to oversight by the judicial branch, which has pretty much been whittled down to a small stick at this point. We also have an opposition leader in Hillary Clinton that we don't entirely trust, and whose record is not entirely free of the blemishes of political corruption.

As the upcoming presidential election gets closer, more than a few Americans have been wondering if there are going to be any mysterious maneuverings involving "terrorists" that might necessitate martial law in the US, or even just prevent a fair election. Bush's "war on terror" rhetoric is wearing pretty thin for most people, but that's nothing that a nice bombing or hijacking couldnt fix overnight. I'm not saying anything is going to happen... just noticing... parallels.

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Confessions of a Bus Starer

I am a bus starer. There's no point in denying it anymore. If you are on any mode of public transportation and I end up in your vicinity on said public transport, I will inevitably stare at you at some juncture in our ride. It doesnt mean we went to junior high together, or that I want to have sex with you and want your babies, or even that there is anything particularly interesting about you at all. I'm just a bus starer, and there's nothing I can do about it. I know its rude; there was another bus starer on Bart one time and she stared at me and I found it quite rude and intrusive. But I knew it wasnt personal and that she was a bus starer when I secretly stared back and saw her doing it to other people on the DL out of the corner of her eye. I always try to stop but can never quite manage. Because you miss things. Interesting things, funny things, really weird things. Like the older asian man on the inbound 39 this morning that scooted over into the seat next to him that had just been vacated two seconds before by a hipster with quite the 5 oclock shadow. As the older man scooted over, he haphazardly waved his hand over the plastic seat as if to ward off any lingering invisible hipster schmutz that may have been deposited onto it by said hipsters' relatively clean-looking woolen gray jacket. It made me happy all day, thinking about that split-second hand-waving gesture.

So the moral of the story is that I JUST CANT STOP. Why you ask? Beacuse I am neurotic and insane, that's why. I am just a bus starer. Leave me alone.