Monthly Archives: July 2007

I have seen the movie Syriana twice, and although I did not love it, I did appreciate the film. I thought that it did a good job of portraying the complicated and intricate interrelations amongst various political and economic interests that make up the U.S. Middle Eastern policies (as well as the local politics).

Nevertheless, I was recently talking about this film with a friend and learned that, unforntunately, it is just another Hollywood sell-out, and an example of tinseltown’s hypocracy. Let me explain. Continue reading →

Last night I had quite a strange dream where I took off my shirt to find a big red tattoo with the words “Sex Machine” written across my chest. Maybe somewhere in my subconscious I think that I hide some sort alter ego who is a true sex machine.

But today after eating three ice cream bars, I recalled one summer in my early high school years when I was rather fascinated by ice cream sandwiches. I think that my record was eating ten in one day. Of course, at the time, I was working as a soccer coach in a summer camp and would then play two hours of soccer each evening, so it was not such an unhealthy existence as you’d think. While finishing my third ice cream today and recalling my childhood binges, I contemplated how I really loved sandwiches and cookies and occasionally ice cream.

That’s when I considered going down to the Chinese convenience store below my apartment and combining the three to get myself one big ice cream cookie sandwich. When I gave it more thought, though, I decided against the whole sweet idea. I don’t want to wake up one morning after having a dream about being labeled a sex machine to find a real life tattoo of an enormous ice cream sandwich on my belly.

The news today was covered with the story about Bush commuting Libby’s sentence (who he still may pardon), and many people that I know in Spain were ranting about how this was just another sign of Bush’s evilness. My simple answer was that the U.S. president is granted in the Constitution the express power to pardon (which also includes the power to grant commutations and amnesties). The Clinton’s were notorious for their pardon scandals, and almost all presidents have used the same power to grant pardons to all sorts of political scapegoats and amigos (even Ford pardoned Nixon). This power is seen as being part of the Separation of Powers in the U.S. Constitution, and the basic concept of forgiveness is considered one of the pillars of Christianity.

Nevertheless, the fact of the matter is that forgiveness is almost always necessarily unjust. Continue reading →