Geography

Being an American who has lived many years in the UK, I find myself refreshed yet not surprised by Prince Andrew's comments. These days, Americans with all their politically correct disabilities, find a sideways glance to be rude, blasphemous or somehow offensive. AhmedAllan is an example of this, "America is the greatest", "Rah, rah attitude. I used to be that way until I had the opportunity to travel and live all over the world. Finding out I had been brainwashed by the American media empire and the government was a hard pill to swallow but my only other option to acknowledging it was to continue to bury my head in the sand.

Prince Andrew may not be quite the ticket in everyone's eyes but, at least he has the intestinal fortitude to say what others are too cowardly to say. And, if you care to look at the facts, he's more correct than you may want to admit. Kudos Prince Andrew,- say it like it is - God save the Queen!

Predator Drones

 

I'm a pakistani, living in Pak and all I can say is that this stupid war mongering and cooked up nonsense needs to end for the sake and well being of the American people who I greatly respect and admire and with whom I had the privilege togo to college with in Iowa. Let me make one thing very clear, the Pakistani people have no ill-feelings twrds the American people, merely the presence of American or Nato troops in Afghanistan and the incessant nonsensical drone attacks under the guise of killing 'the militant' when in actuality kills the poor shepherd and his family, creates enuf hatred to carry attacks on the innocent 19yr old American soldier who himself is unaware of the true meaning of this war. The reality is that there is a mad rush by America to surround the Caspian sea with its estimated $13 trillion oil wealth and not OBL or talibans (these are simply a bunch of guys trying their best to rid foreign forces out of their country). I pray the American populace would wake up and evaluate the nefarious designs of sum corrupt and greedy politicans likes of which we have seen alrdy...dick cheney and the jing bang lot whose sole motive is to invade and usurp the rights of others first thru propaganda vis-a-vis channels like FOX and then thru ur powerful military machine.

Adulthood

The (sad, sad) implication is that adulthood is some sort of prison, with all of those boundaries previously tested re-established in an incredibly confining manner. And while society desires conformity, it’s the adult who has the brain plasticity, the support, and the means to actually traverse those boundaries in a sane and balanced way. He or she just chooses not to, and calls this an impossibility. Adam Phillips writes in his essay, “Truancy Now”: “A part of this testing, this experimentation, that begins in adolescence and, if things go wrong, is given up on in adolescence. But the adolescents who give up on this fundamental project in adolescence may turn into adults who secretly envy adolescents; who believe that adolescents are having the best kinds of life available.”

It’s not just teenagers who should be watching the “It Gets Better” videos. They are wonderful reminders of the need to keep testing boundaries, of where life can go once you’ve bottomed out. I suffer from teenage brain’s object permanence issues sometimes. But the videos remind me of a quotation from the greater writer and boundary-violator Katherine Mansfield, who wrote in her journals:

I had the feeling that the same thing happened to nearly everybody whom I knew and whom I did not know. No sooner was their youth, with the little force and impetus characteristic of youth, done, than they stopped growing. At the very moment that one felt that now was the time to gather oneself together, to use one's whole strength, to take control, to be an adult, in fact, they seemed content to swap the darling wish of their hearts for innumerable little wishes…. They deceived themselves, of course.