I would like articles about college to stop telling me to cherish my undergraduate years as the “best years of my life”. I sincerely think you’re doing something very wrong if you aren’t making your life progressively more awesome despite no longer being in college.
Hearing that phrase just seems more like a condemnation than anything else.
—Mencken , “Professor Veblen,” from Prejudices, First Series, 1919Do I enjoy a decent bath because I know that John Smith cannot afford one – or because I delight in being clean? Do I admire Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony because it is incomprehensible to Congressmen and Methodists – or because I genuinely love music? Do I prefer terrapin à la Maryland to fried liver because plowhands must put up with the liver – or because the terrapin is intrinsically a more charming dose? Do I prefer kissing a pretty girl to kissing a charwoman because even a janitor may kiss a charwoman – or because the pretty girl looks better, smells better and kisses better?
You probably didn’t hear about this terrorism case in the news because this man is not Muslim and used to be on the CIA’s payroll. It shouldn’t be surprising that he’s a free man in the eyes of the law now.
Mind you, this man admitted to bombing Cubana Airlines flight 455 in a New York Times interview (which he later denied) and multiple declassified documents pin Carriles, along with Orlando Bosch, to the attacks. As a side note: George Bush granted a Presidential pardon to Orlando Bosch after being convicted for involvement in the act.
Though it should be made clear that this case was not about those bombings, it was about Posada allegedly lying to US Immigration about his activities outside the US during an attack of several Cuban tourist spots killing an Italian national, among others.
The whole history of this case makes for an interesting evening of reading should you have the chance. Hell, the case even had a case of a key witness crying in front of the courtroom due to accusations of harassment and blackmail by the defense. If you want to see all the details of this case, which contains many court orders for keeping much of his past secret, Along the Malecon has a great list of released documents from the case.
Needless to say, the “War on Terror” is an absolute farce. The message from our outward-facing intelligence agencies is extremely loud & clear: So long as it’s not American lives at stake, the United States government will gladly support terrorism to achieve political ends.
I will give credit where it is due, the FBI and Justice Department were responsible for bringing the few charges they could against him, it’s just too bad the court couldn’t do anything with it.
It just goes to show how many tentacles our large government has, and just how secret the workings of some of its more noxious elements can be.
What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means “no difference.” A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil.
What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one’s sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?
Of course, indifference can be tempting — more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person’s pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction.
