2004-10-28 - 3:36 p.m.

First of all, Zephoria is officially the coolest person I know. While there were a number of qualified applicants for the position, she was really what the gang here at Notorious RRZ was looking for. She knows everything there is to know about computer technology and she's a punk girl with dreads.

While it is certainly not the only or even main reason for her extreme coolosity, Zephoria is the one who sent me over to this website:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/anniesj/331112.html

It's the page of a livejournal member whose parents were visited by the Secret Service. Apparently, saying, "I could kill the president" on a blog will land you your very own FBI file. Her parents managed to convince the secret service that she wouldn't kill a tarantula, much less the president, but she still took down the entry in question and has posted several warnings on her site.

Now, I've often said that the person who appears in a blog is very different from the person who does the typing, and not just in the case of accident victims or people who steal in countries with rather draconian punishment policies. I certainly am not as funny, as driven, as motivated, as political, or as clever as I like to think my blog makes me look to others. You should never, ever judge a person by what they say online.

For example, I was sitting in a bar with some fellow first year friends and talking about professors at Penn. One friend asked if I'd taken classes with Erin O'Connor. I said I had and that I'd really enjoyed them, and he mentioned that she had a blog that espoused a rather right-wing point of view. I actually looked at it today, and sure enough, I disagree with just about everything she says. But that's not all of Erin O'Connor, not even the half of it. She's an intelligent, funny, open human being and I loved the classes I took with her (well, loved one and really liked the other, because I really feel like "love" and Dickens's The Pickwick Papers cannot occupy the same place in my mind). I wish she didn't hold some of the opinions that she did, but I know enough about her to say that she shouldn't be judged exclusively for the opinions, especially those expressed on a blog.

However, in the interest of covering my ass, I will post the following:

Dear Secret Service, FBI, and any and all individuals who may be monitoring this diary,

First of all, thanks for reading! I hope you've enjoyed the entries. I hope that they've made you laugh at some of the things that you used to take too seriously, or made you stop and think about issues you might have otherwise ignored. Feel free to post in the comments and tell me what your favorite entries are--there's nothing a writer loves more than feedback!

Now, for the matter at hand. You Secret Service types don't have to worry about me attacking the White House with anything other than my exquisite, Rabelaisian wit and occasional spouts of impassioned invective. I would never kill anyone. I mean that. When the Dalai Lama was asked by someone what to do if someone was coming at him, with the intent to kill, and he had a gun with which to defend to defend himself, the Dalai Lama said almost exactly the same thing I said when asked the question: shoot the guy in the arm or leg (I said to shoot the guy in the leg--if one arm is down, he can still come at you at full speed with the other one). I was very happy that my buddy D-to-tha-Lama and I see eye-to-eye. I think killing a human being is the most horrible crime that someone can commit. I don't think there are faiths worse than death, because you can recover from everything else given time and the support of people around you. I hold to the credo of Tom Robbins: "There are many things worth living for. There are a few things worth dying for. There is nothing worth killing for."

I don't even want to hurt the president--well, I'd be happy to hurt his feelings, but I doubt that he cares what a queer latino grad student has to say about him, as he hates queers, uses latinos, and doesn't understand how someone can be a student AND a graduate. I don't want to hurt anybody. Granted, I'd laugh a little if Bush fell down and broke his ankle, but I'd feel guilty if I were the one who tripped him. At worst, I'd slap the guy in the face, but truth be told, I'd rather never be in the same building with him, let alone the same room. Nature abhors a vacuum, and I'd worry about some of my intelligence being sucked up by the space between his ears.

No, no matter how much I may despise Bush, the worst thing I will do about the guy is vote against him and stage non-violent protests. I think anyone who would assassinate him should refrain from doing so, and if he were assassinated tomorrow, I'd want the person who did it locked up for life. Assassination is not the way to govern a country. Salman Rushdie may have hated Indira Gandhi (How much? If hate were people, he'd be India, Pakistan, AND Bangladesh), but he mourned her assassination because it meant that Indians were willing to kill one another in order to further their agenda. When that starts happening, there's nothing for it but to get the Hell out of the country, fast.

No matter how many people Bush kills--and he has sentenced more than 1100 American soldiers and 37,000 Iraqis to their deaths with this war, with the number growing every day--I would never kill him. When I hear people on the left talking about violent political action, I want to cry. Violence is violence is violence no matter what the mitigating circumstance. We may try to justify that violence, but that's just moral sadism, rationalizing a natural desire to kill and destroy by calling it justice. I want no part of that.

I protest. I vote. I write. It may not be the fastest way to end this war, but the price of the other way is too rich for my blood.

So, I hope that clears things up, any and all government officials who may be monitoring this site. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. Again, I hope you enjoy this site, as making the day a little brighter for the black ops boys in the hollow mountain is what I live for.

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