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Re: I've been asked to pass this on to everyone.

> Don, are we being selfish? :)

Well, I thought I was being facetious, but they say all mocking humor is based
on a grain of truth, and I find I really don't like this sort of thing.  I
mean, we did the light a candle thing last week, and that was fine, but what's
this new thing supposed to achieve?  To show unity with what?  That
announcement says "We as citizens of this great country can make a big
difference if we join together as a nation.", but it doesn't suggest what that
difference might be.  Why not take all the energy, organizational skill and
effort that this undertaking demands and do something productive with it?
Maybe we should all get together for 15 minutes and brainstorm ideas for ways
to stop the cycle of violence that feeds terrorism?  Maybe we should take 15
minutes and do nice things for our Muslim neighbors to show the world that we
are united in our belief that people should not be judged by race or creed?
Maybe we should be looking for things to do that take longer than a 15 minute
committment?  What is turning all those lights going to achieve other than a
lot of pollution, an overload of the power infrastructure, and a waste of
money?  The world knows our resolve.  We've got flags every ten feet across the
whole country, for crying out loud.  I sympathize with the intent (I think;
since it's not clear what they hope to achieve with this, it's hard to know if
I support them or not, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt.), but the
mode of expression seems... well, empty.  Particularly since one of the
criticisms the rest of the world has with America is how wasteful we are.  We
have something like 10% of the world's population, and we use 80% of the
resources.  I don't see how a paryoxcism of waste is going to send the right
message to the rest of the world.  To me, it builds on the troubling
implications of Bush's "for us or against us" rhetoric that leaves no room to
agree with the goals of the US government but not the means.  If I go turn my
lights on, does that mean I support attacking Afghanistan?  Does it mean I
support Congress's inappropriate abdication of their constitutional powers to
give one man sole authority to decide America's response?  Whatever happened to
checks and balances?

If it were something clear, like "honk if you don't want the US to bomb
Afghanistan", then I could in good conscience support it.  But to be asked
to participate in something wasteful, merely to show "unity" for its own
sake, with no real sense of what it means, or what one is in unity with...
no, I can't support that.

Dang it, I've done gone and broke my promise not to get into this again.
Shoot.  Sorry.  Gotta go.
-- 
Don Smith                    Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas at umich_edu                          http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/

http://www.zmag.org/fiskbomb.htm
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