I had always been anti-war. Not that I am a pacifist (people know how easily I cause drama when my blood is boiled), but rather I didn\’t agree with the invasion of Iraq. So I had been intrigued when I overheard some girl arguing how wrong the war was. She spoke so loudly, arguing with some people she was sitting with. A full blown debate. She wore a t-shirt proclaiming her stance on war. While I ate my fish sandwich and french fries, I stared at them. I thought about joining the conversation, but then I realized that it won\’t do any good. People are often unbiased prior to entering a debate. Yet by the end of debate where they are nearly forced to choose a side, they find themselves so much to the extreme right or extreme left. Not to mention, last year I learned during another anti-war debate, that people can get so defensive that personal feelings are hurt. I had taken a short leave from an online community as a result. So I got up and walked around the airport, looking for a power outlet to charge my powerbook.
By the time I returned to the gate, they had already started boarding. I heard the girl still talking amongst her group. But now it was about presidents. How so many presidents cannot avoid scandals. Now I realized how pretentious all that was. It seemed like she was influenced by Michael Moore\’s \”documentaries\”, which are very obviously biased. It seemed like she was just arguing for the sake of arguing about politics. To appear like a liberal San Francisco resident? In the end, it doesn\’t really matter how much you debate, but as long as you do something about it. It\’s all about if you don\’t like how something is done, then go out and do something about it.
And so ends my first journey to Pittsburgh.
Things I am looking forward to:
things I am not looking forward to:
on a side note: I have always disliked comments that are \”empty\”. That is, the comments don\’t really have anything do with my entry. (you can always e-mail/im me) *cough* I think you know who you are.
Fox News should serve as an example of how NOT to try and be unbiased though. They have this pretense of \”fair\” and \”balanced\” but it\’s truely just a facad. We all know Rupert Murdoc is a republican and that he clearly has his own agendas (FCC de-regulation anyone?). The things he want(ed) just couldn\’t have happened under a democratic administration, and now that he has a huge audience he can make Fox News \”look\” as fair as he wants while still pulling strings in the background.
This is why I don\’t watch the news. As a result, I always tend to be uninformed about issues. I try to read news online (obviously from both the American view and a foreign view), but the media is so full of propaganda nowadays.
I agreed with the girl about war. I remember how some lady was like \”9/11 changed everything\”. True, maybe? Of course like all Americans, I was shocked that something would happened. But eventually did it make us more paranoid? Something like that. Living on the west coast, the only thing I feel now is my patience running out while waiting at the airport and the annoyances of always losing my scissors when I forget to pack them in my check-in baggage. For my friends who come from other countries, the greatest impact on them is how long a student visa is processed. Where it took less than a month, now it takes more than 3 months to process a visa. What\’s up with that??