Day 85

Liberty in the distance

This was taken on an amazing New York trip with my 9th grade last year.  Strange that Liberty and Justice have always been portrayed as women, in mythology, in sculpture.

Several years ago I discovered that the world's economy actually runs on weapons.  People are always selling arms to those who haven't got enough, and there are so many people supplying armaments that there will always be a kind of balance between nations, more than enough to keep war going somewhere or other.

I think that war is inevitable, like the movement of drugs from Mexico to the U.S.  It's the same case of supply and demand.  Because war is exciting.  It seems as though men love war, that they are born with warrior souls. (It is Friday night and Nick and Tim are watching a gory Chinese movie called Warlords, and I'm sure that they are not the only guys watching such a movie tonight.)  I remember asking Stephen and Tim why they loved violent movies when they were such gentle men themselves.  They agreed that it was a cathartic experience for them.  And I have heard many soldiers state that there is nothing quite like that brotherhood you become a part of when you all go through a tough war experience together.  Hence all the war movies, (with little or no age restrictions, compared with movies showing nudity) war games on game stations, little boys biting their toast into gun shapes and shooting each other with them!  A few years ago I got into trouble at a dinner party for saying, "It seems as though if you have a penis you have to have a gun", to a shocked table of people we had only just met!

I don't know how one would have no war, I don't have any answers, but I am a fan of negotiation.

We were driving home from the airport the other day along American Legion Highway, and Tim noted that all these street names are one of the ways in which we memorialise war.  And that the reason we do this is so that we don't think all the men (and women now too) have died in vain.  My response was that in this way we glorify it too, so that there will always be new recruits for the next generational sacrifice.

So my portrait is a salute to people who protest against war.  It is interesting that so many women choose to take off their clothes in protest, like the 750 women who spelt out NO WAR, surrounded by a heart, in Australia, or those who lay down in the snow in Central Park to protest against Bush.  Perhaps their nudity is a symbol of womanhood that can't be missed, and and also maybe to represent the essence of humanity, the body, protesting against the bodies of all those killed in a war, and of their own sons, lovers and husbands being blown to bits.

Molly and I ran 1.82 miles (2.9km) today, in the freezing cold, winter is back, and indeed, there was snow on the ground at Refrigerator Corner.  A low temperature of 22F (-5C) is forecast for tonight!   

Oh, and I remembered today that I am not very good at living the observant life in terms of taking an interest in the process of grocery shopping, the travelling to this massive store, where you have a million types of everything from which to choose, then paying for it all, then packing it into the car, eventually getting back to the house, carrying in bag after bag, and then unpacking all these provisions into cupboards, fridge etc.  I discovered that I kind of loathe it from start to finish.