Dear all I hope this finds you in fine fettle- I am in fine form finally-even though the ould leaving cert is getting on top of me I feel fine and dandy. I really cant believe four weeks have passed since the events in New York but with that time I have become more reflective on the whole thing. 5000 people at once is a lot of people but in the last month at least that number have died of hunger in the world and other unavoidable situations. The other day I was reading that since 1916 (since the country I live in was officially recognized) at least that number again have been killed as a result of the trouble in and around the North and the sectarian divide there but over time and especially since the late 60s the people here have grown used to hearing about pipe bombs and car bombs going off and murders and punishment beatings so much so that it has grown a part of life here and as horrible as it is people really ignore these items that appear 3rd or 4th in the line up in the news if that. People have grown immune to the whole thing and nothing really shocks people here that much when they hear about things. Nothing that is up until 4 weeks ago .On the Friday after the planes went into the buildings Ireland had an official day of mourning meaning that all the shops and schools and banks shut. It felt like Christmas in a weird way as the country was suspended in a state of Limbo. The minutes silence was supposed to be observed but no one I knew did it. The government here said they stood in solidarity with the US but the impression that I have I got from speaking to people around that I know. Was there a minutes silence when the gulf war was on or when 5000 people died cos of hunger.Like arse there was.People here think that the chickens have come home to roost. The person that supposedly masterminded the attack was about 15 years ago funded by the cia to aid the Mulaajah in the fight against the Russians and was trained. On top of that the tunnels and camps where he resides were built with assistence from the states. But it really is a case of the right hand doing one thing and the left hand doing something behind the back hoping that the right wont realise. The USs ethical foreign policy of bombing and punishing the people of Iraq for their leaders stupidity (in the gulf war 100,000 Iraqis were killed but who cares about that when Americans were) This leader was again funded by the US. Countless others have been killed by the sanctions being placed on that country. The US tried to have it all ways and the events really have showed that you cant both punish and reward a people because you are the most advanced part of civilisation. So it really is a case of the chickens coming home to roost and although the events in New York were dreadful and a lot of people were missing people just think for a second about the families at the moment who apart from the sure conflict in Afghanistan are losing family members to hunger or the 100s of thousands of people going with less food because of sanctions placed on their country while the country placing the sanctions also take the oil supplies which could make that country better off. Even for a second think about the 28 people that have died in the time that it has taken me to write this sentence . The message is a lot of people are suffering apart from Americans who are a lot of them realising that for the first time-not everyone likes them. (one of the reports I read had the question why are they doing this to a country universally loved and worshiped) I hope I havent offended anyone. ********staralful******** _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+