Shame

This weekend has been pretty ho-hum thus far. Yesterday I went to the gym, tried repeatedly to get a hold of Kelly, and read. Not a terribley exciting day; at least, I didn't watch 4 straight hours of Queer as Folk, like I did on Friday. That show is neck and neck with Six Feet Under for best show ever. Now if they'd just come out with a show about gay men who worked in a morgue I'd be truly happy.

One of the more interesting things I've heard recently was while I was driving to Barnes and Noble Saturday night (yup, this is what the bored, single and lonely do on weekends). I'm not sure what I was listening to--it was like really angry NPR out of Chicago. They were talking about Guantanamo Bay. Honestly, I don't remember much of the details other than they did a piece about 2 Iraqis who were imprisoned for telling a couple of jokes. Seriously. There was, of course, the prerequisite juxtaposition of these gentlemen's stories and sound bites from that asshole Bush's speeches and that even bigger asshole, Cheney's speeches about how those in Guantanamo Bay were "swept up from the battlefield" and imprisoned because they were terrorists or some shit like that.

I remember the first time I ever felt real shame for being an American in front of a non-U.S. citizen. It was right after the Abu Grabe (?) scandal broke and it was a beautiful day in my town. I had just come back from the market and was standing in front of my apartment building talking to a fellow teacher from my school. He was asking me about the war and then, in a hushed tone asked me, "Did you hear about what the Americans did?..." I bowed my head, looking at the ground and muttered that yes, I had heard all about it. We shared a full minute of silence and then I looked up and said, "I am so ashamed for my country." He nodded and we promptly changed the subject.

When I hear about the things our government does in the name of protecting us it infuriates me. I, like a lot of Americans, have come to accept the fact that there will be things our government does that are just outright unfair or unjust but there needs to be a limit and a bipartisan committee whose primary job is to review legislation that is supposedly enacted to "keep us safe". Throwing two men in jail for telling jokes (the joke that originally caught the attention of whoever threw them in jail wasn't even about Bush--it was about Clinton) is unacceptable.