I had so much going around in my head today that I felt like one of those snow-glass-ball little villages that you shake up… but now it’s all settled down — but I think I’ve sprung a leak, and if you’ve ever seen those little glass balls after they’ve started leaking water, they aren’t so pretty anymore…

I am quite proud that my car is still running — through the great blizzard that buried us in our homes (not quite) — every morning I have to give the engine a good kick, and spend about 15 minutes begging with it to warm up… But I try to find a midpoint — it’s a 1987 Plymouth minivan — if I get too sassy with it, I feel like it will just decide to drive its own way one day without me like an upset spouse after a bad couple of decades.

And it has been gorgeous here, the sides of the streets piled up with mountains of snow — the pride of the little bobcats and their drivers… But for some reason, our safety comes first, and the beauty of it all second — so there are huge piles of salt and sand muck everywhere –

I went to Gaza twice. The first time I went, I went with a tour guide, and we visited both the settlements and the Palestinian areas. Pretty unbelievable.

I read in the paper today that Sharon’s plan for dismantling the settlements in Gaza might actually happen… What a blessing that would be. Let me fill you in on some of the facts, which I saw first hand:

1,300,000 Palestinians live in cramped conditions, with families of 20 or more members in every apartment in an area inland, dusty and crowded. 8,600 Israelis live in 1,600 homes on the sea, spaciously laid out like a subdivision.

I don’t condone the violence that has happened to the settlers in Gaza. I condemn all acts of violence as wrong. But I understand why they happened. Something like 2,000 Palestinians live in an area equivalent to what 20 settlers live in. That isn’t fair. And where did the settlers take the land from? And where did all of the Palestinian ‘residents’ come from?

A great article in today’s paper by John Leland (NY Times) talks about all the times that censorship has targeted cartoons, or kids’ entertainers:

In the 1930’s, Betty Boop was attacked for her heart garter belt…

In 1942, Tweety Bird, who was first pink, but folks thought that he might appear nude, so they made him yellow…

Bert and Ernie have been accused of being gay.

Tinky-Winky, a teletubby was attacked for carrying a purse.

The Little Mermaid movie was accused of showing a priest noticeably aroused while presiding over a wedding.

So I guess Spongebob and Patrick Starfish have good company, even if they are gay.

Maybe that’s the mixup. I think that James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, has misconstrued the entire ‘happy’ population as being gay. “Being happy, and skipping around acting like a girl is not Christian…” I can hear him saying it now.

Come on folks — it’s a cartoon — it’s fun… I’ve seen it — it’s not about homosexuality, it’s about being happy. And what could be better than that.

A headline in the New York Times today reads, “Israel Lauds New Palestinian Leader for Moves to Stop Attacks” — and a picture of a spokesman for the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades speaking in Gaza about ‘halting attacks on Israelis…’ —

On further reading, nothing much has changed. I am quite amazed that Abbas has been able to be so effective so far in somehow holding on with his teeth in this mess… Somehow he is able to give the world hope that Palestine is rescinding what the world believes to be its ‘terrorist’ ways, and at the same time, is able to give his own people hope.

There was a time when Arafat gave his people the same hope — the media dwells on the fact that Arafat was a fighter and a terrorist — but the truth is, he won a Nobel Peace Prize, and probably would have succeeded in the peace process with Israel more than ten years ago, had Rabin not been killed by a radical in his own country.

I have hope. I believe that Abbas can do this, because right now the world is watching, and the world is supporting Palestine, even at the same time as they are still calling them ‘terrorists’. The time is now, though. The Gaza withdrawal has to happen very soon, or none of this will work. If Sharon loses his battle to withdraw from Gaza and create his legacy, the entire peace process will be in shambles again.

And that is another frustrating thing. Sharon is the warmonger who started this whole mess with his claims on Jerusalem, and his march on the holy city with his political entourage. And now he has these high ideals for peace.

I do believe that he means it, however. I really think that he is sick of fighting, and I think that he truly believes that he will be able to achieve a lasting peace with Palestine. Albeit with a wall three miles high, but nevertheless a peace. And like before 2000, there will be very little ‘terrorist’ violence, and at the same time, little ‘need’ for the Israeli army to commit acts of violence against the Palestinians.

Insh’allah. God willing.

“If you want to understand America, I hope you were in Washington on Thursday. I hope you heard the high ideals of President Bush’s inaugural address, and also saw the stretch Hummer limos heading to the balls in the evening…”

Starts out pretty pretentious and awful, doesn’t… Keep reading (from the New York Times this week):

“I hope you heard the president talk about freedom as the ‘permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul,’ and also saw the drunken, loud and privileged twentysomethings carrying each other piggyback down K Street after midnight.”

Wow!!! I’m really impressed by Brook’s insight:

“What you saw in Washington that day is what you see in America so often — this weird intermingling of high ideals with gross materialism…”

Of course, the rest of the editorial was a little skewed towards the conservative side of things — but I am really impressed with this summary of the way things are, and the way that things will be in the future.

Unfortunately, I think I probably know many of the folks that Brooks is talking about… I went to Middlebury College in Vermont, one of the elite schools in the country where rich folks send their kids to hobnob with other kids of rich folks. At that time, there were more Saabs than Fords, if you get what I mean. (I did, however, get a wonderful education, and find my niche among peaceniks, environmentalists, and musicians)

This is a culture that values partying. Even from our ‘ultra-religious’ president, we have learned the value of partying and drinking. Yes, he has rescinded his alcoholism, and found Christ, but who is he as a person? Have you all seen the video of George Bush after winning some election, looking at the camera, giving it the finger, laughing, and then saying that that is his, “one-fingered victory salute”? Click here to go to a site where you can watch the clip (http://www.milkandcookies.com):

And it is disgusting that George Bush, our president, once drove through the back of his garage, according to his mother’s memoir, because his wife, Laura Bush, told him things that she might have said differently in some address of his.

George Bush is attractive to the men of my generation, because he is a partier that has redeemed himself in the public eye. It is okay to wear cowboy boots, carouse and raise hell, because you can just repent someday and become president.

I have been reading in the New York Times, and on their site online, about Nicholas Kristof’s purchase of two girls in a Cambodian brothel. One costed 150 dollars, and the other 203. The one pictured above is named Srey Neth. She costed 150 dollars.

Can you believe that such a thing goes on in this world. It is one thing to read this in the newspaper, “…a teenager finds a path out of the sex trade…”, and another thing entirely to go online, and see her picture, and discover that she is not some strange person, but rather someone who could have been my classmate, or my sister, or my daughter… A kid that looks like any other kid.

Kristof points out that Srey Neth is only one out of ‘hundreds of thousands of teenagers who are enslaved by the sex trafficking industry worldwide.

You should check out his story on your own (just type “Nicholas Kristof brothel” into google) — but I will write a little more about it…

Kristof planned to give her money to build a shack and stock it with food and clothing, to start a shop in her little village, near Battambang. For a few months, everything worked, and she had plenty of business. But then her family stepped in, because her family couldn’t understand why they “should go hungry when their sister had a store full of food.” So they simply came and took food from her store, until she got mad…

And then everything was over — no one listens to a teenaged girl, and they kept taking her food, until everything was gone, and she had no more money to buy more.

Her father was coughing up blood from tuberculosis, and her older brother couldn’t afford to get married, and the family was in debt enough that they might lose their land.

In 2003, the same situation had led to her selling herself to the brothel.

Kristof finishes the story by telling how he intervened again, and everything has worked out… Srey Neth is now working to become a beautician… But the other story he tells in the NY Times, of the other girl is different… She is somehow ‘dependent’ on the brothel, though she hates it, and she always comes back… And she is afraid that she, like 30 percent of the women in the brothels, will get AIDS.

The world is so awful in so many ways. But what can we do? Can we all spend 250 dollars and buy two girls? Is that possible?

I wondered, when I lived in Palestine, what it would be like for me to take a little boy from Gaza and bring him to the fields of Minnesota where I grew up…

My beloved puppy, as a child, named Freckles, was a loving little chap — but my cousin kept berating him and beating him around the ears while we weren’t looking — and my puppy bit my cousin… and everybody freaked out — and we ended up having to send Freckles to another family in the country — so that he could chill out, and have a better life…

I guess it’s not really supposed to be that way very often with little kids, or people — you mostly just get the cards you are dealt — but it is so shocking to think that a kid would choose, herself, to sell herself into sexual slavery. Really awful, and it makes you think about how the world works.

I wrote a piece of music for the string bass — you can listen to it at www.kentgustavson.com/providence — based on a quote from Garrison Keillor… “It is a wicked world in which the power of any individual to cause suffering is so great and the power to do good is so slight; but here we are… and signs of loving Providence are everywhere around us.”