Time On Earth (old blog)

Time On Earth is meant to portray an intimate daily observation of the natural world, but it also is intended to discuss our moral standing while living on Earth. As such, with the events taking place in Iraq, tangled in a web of lies and deceit which is being wrapped over so many people’s perceptions, especially from of the United States, I cannot in good conscience keep silent.

The daily “news” propaganda which portrays the bombing as clinical computer games and the images of the bombardment showing the land being torn assunder while tiny human figures are blown apart, must not be allowed to render our minds into indifference. People are dying out there. Each and every life is precious, whatever petty political agenda the yea and nay sayers might pound the drums over.

After my initial reaction of wrath at the television screen, at the loathsome Bush for lying to everyone and for his abominable hubris, at the untruthful reporting of what is really happening (read Robert Fisk, of the Independent: RobertFisk ), at the vacuum of information about the people on the ground dying, my wrath peaked and tipped over into something cold and unforgiving.

The people of the world are smoldering with ire. What we see on TV these days matches the images of the tragedy of New York, with a monstrous force pounding at the world, while little figures fall to their deaths. The United States has stepped far beyond the boundaries and incited a hate that will arouse monsters. September 11 is nothing. Now there will be hordes who will wish and plan destruction of America.

But this is not where I want to focus. It is the little lives that matter, that deserve a voice.
( Rania Masri, in the News Observer: RaniaMasri ).

And perhaps diversions into the calm of the storm, such as the birds hovering over the rushes in the clips of the bombarded Tigris, or the splash of the raindrops on the window in the clips of Baghdad at night. If there is sanity to be found amidst the human turmoil, it is in the natural world. Take a moment to turn off the TV, go for a walk at dawn, and remember where we are.