�It is not yet clear who the gunman was or what motivated the shooting.

That will be considerably more difficult to deduce since the alleged gunman was summarily executed by armed guards at the El Al Israel Airlines terminal. L.A.'s newspaper of record, the Los Angeles Times, openly acknowledged that that is what happened, and seemed to hail it as a good thing.

Here is an account that appeared, without comment, in the newspaper's lead story: �Passengers and others who witnessed the attack said the gunman appeared to grow agitated while talking to a ticket agent at the El Al counter. He pulled out a gun and shot her, then began firing at people in line, witnesses said. 'There were people laying all over the floor. There was blood,' said Arie Golan, who joined a security guard in wrestling the man to the floor. Witnesses said the security guard shot the man once at close range after the attacker had been disarmed and was being held on the floor.�

Later in the same article, the same story is told again: �the shooter lost his grip on the gun, which fell and skittered out of reach across the floor. According to witnesses, as the two men struggled to hold down the shooter, who was lying on his back, another El Al security guard ran over, stood over the man and shot him once in the abdomen.��

Scary stuff, Maynard.

The op-ed piece also goes on to say much of what I had intimated before, about the fact that the shooting of the gunman does not at all appear to have been in self-defense and yet the Times just states it plainly and printed a graffic showing what happened. I think I may have misinterpreted the Times article, though, in assessing it as condoning the actions of the security guard. Rather, it appears that while not directly calling for action against the guard the Times did not attempt to hide the fact that he shot an unarmed and subdued man and opted for a form of �vigilante justice�.

Of course, I still have heard nothing about this security guard being arrested or even questioned about this matter.

I also have all kinds of questions about our beloved George W. Not that I didn�t have questions about him before, but I now have even more and especially in relation to Sept. 11 and just how much he and his cohorts knew before the attacks. Also, as our civil liberties are being stripped away faster than clothes on a dancer on the HBO show �G String Divas�, now comes his wonderful plan called �TIPS�. Basically, this new plan encourages all of us to become informers and our neighbors; to play �spy� and report what we may think is suspicious activity of any kind to the government who will in turn act as they see fit. And of course all of this has the overwhelming support of the American People because this is, after all, a time of war and we must be willing to give up our rights as free citizens if that means being �safe� and making the world also �safe� for Democracy.

So then what, exactly, are we fighting for? We�re willfully handing over those rights we supposedly want to hold on to, to the point of not only bombing the hell out of Afghanistan, but now we�re talking about doing to the same to Iraq (again) and Somalia (again) and any number of other countries who have the audacity to claim they have the right to choose their own life and destiny and should not have to fall to the whim of America just because it is America.

I tell you, I am very afraid.

On to better, if less important news�

John is coming down this weekend. Not that this is news, really, since he�s been down EVERY weekend lately. I�m not complaining, mind you. I am, however, extremely pissed at his friend Donny to whom he gave $200 two weeks ago for some mota. Of course, he hasn�t gotten the mota yet. Now Donny is going on this boat race for the weekend, so he was supposed to call me last night so I could go pick up what he�s purchased (which he finally did a couple of days ago � after TWO WEEKS. Don�t even get me started on that inconsiderate and rude moron). Well, he never even f�n called me. RUDE ASS MOTHER FUCKER! Let me �splain�I haven�t been sleeping like all week so I was exhausted last night. So I�m sitting around, waiting for him to call me. I didn�t take a shower, nothing, cuz I knew if I missed his call I�d be SOL. And he never even fuckin called me, not even to say he was hung up working on the boat or anything. I didn�t want to take a sleeping pill cuz I knew I�d be zonked if he called. Finally, at like 11:30pm I took a pill and gave up the ghost. Of course by that time it was too late to be taking a pill and I have been very tired and bleary-eyed all damn day.

PLUS, I had a little run-in with my cable company (again). I have the world�s worst, suck-ass cable. CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS SUCKS, YA'LL! I pay $100 a month for digital cable and a cable modem for the internet. My internet connection is irritatingly slow so I rarely even use it anymore; my cable reception is often bad � at least several channels are snowy on a regular basis. Over the last several days my reception has been even worse and I am just plain not getting a lot of my channels � like all of my HBO/Showtime-type channels, among many others. Anyway, long story short, after two phone calls it turns out I�m gonna have to call them on Monday to set up an appt. for them to come out AGAIN (like the fourth time, I kid you not), after I know what my schedule will be like for next week.

I also got irritated with John when I talked to him on the phone last night, but I don�t even want to get in to it because I am now all wired up after this long bitch- and worry-fest of a journal entry.

Work has been extremely slow this week � I haven�t had enough work to do. I finished all of my work today at like 1:00pm. I HATE that. And Robert left at about that time cuz he�s checking his mom out of the hospital and bringing her home today. So I�ve been very bored.

My tummy is growling. I tried to be very good today, food-wise, because I have been eating a LOT since my trip up to John�s. So I had Slim Fast for breakfast and brought in two bananas and some grapes for the rest of the day�great, except that I proceeded to raid someone�s candy dish here and had a mini Almond Joy and like five tiny Hershey�s nuggets.

And yet my tummy still growls.

My only excuse for this massive over-eat fest is that I�m PMSing�although I haven�t been PMSing for the last three weeks.

I also don�t think I�ve totally gotten rid of my bladder infection, even though I�m done with my Rx.

I went out to Maggie�s pub after work last Friday and met up with Barbi and Arnett, Linda, Amy and her friend Marina and Sarah and her new man, D. D seems very nice and seems to have a lot on the ball, but he is covered in tattoos and piercings. Oh, these kids today�We had fun, although we started talking politics and Barbara and I kind of got in to it. We�re usually on the same side of the fence but evidently she thinks I�m getting too much of my information off of the internet these days. You know, because I�m just too stupid to research things for myself and draw my own conclusions.

Boy, is this a bitter journal-entry.

Perhaps I should just quit for now.

last / next



~~~~~~~~~~~peace, love and smooches~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Don't know why you'd wanna, but on the off-chance you may feel tempted to steal any of my words and claim them as your own, please be advised: All material
Copyright 2002-2005, Howl-at-the-Moon Words



***DISCLAIMER: These are my thoughts and my thoughts alone. If you know me in my "real life" off the net and have come across this page purely by accident, please keep in mind that you were not invited here and I would suggest you leave this page now. However, should you choose not to do so, please be warned that reading my thoughts here is not an invitation to discuss them off-line. You may discover things you do not know about me and may not like very much. Such is life. Again, this is MY space and I will use it as I see fit. If you are offended by anything here, well that's pretty much your own fault at this point. I say all of this with love, of course, but there it is.