it's been awhile since i posted here. a lot has gone on, some good, some bad, but nothing i would change. i've always viewed any experience a positive one. there is something you can always learn. in terms of cycling, i missed part of the tour while in the hospital for a week. i'm not ready to explore that here now, but perhaps one day i will share. it has been on the tip of my tongue.it was amazing to see cadel evans win le tour. since i missed some of the tour, i made sure to watch la vuelta every day. last time i checked, people were still pointing fingers about cyclists doping. i said goodbye to both my nana and kitty this fall. the pages keep turning, and i feel many wonderful things on the horizon.
this past weekend, i finished reading 'my war gone by, i miss it so' by anthony loyd. it was amazingly well written. while not being the history lesson i hoped, it was very insightful in to the horror that is modern warfare. i remember hearing about the various yugoslav wars on the news and reading about it in the washington post, but admittedly pretty naive to the clashing sides' reasons. i can't imagine living in a country where any trip outside could mean death. what was living in a police state like? anthony loyd poetically, yet graphically describes some of the scenes he witnessed. sure, i live in the city and gang violence or a domestic crime makes the news often, but what if an army just invaded dupont circle and wiped out my neighborhood only because we all worshiped our iphones and blackberrys? the modern, american way of social cleansing. how would one deal with finding their entire family dead, killed by naive hands, a minuet between comander and soldier? even in my wildest dreams, i can not relate.
this morning, i made my usual morning commute with my inevitable arrival to bethesda. now, i have been working in bethesda for just over a year. to be honest, for not being dc (the city i love), it's a pretty good suburban city. you can walk everywhere and there is plenty to do.
since i have worked there for over a year, i have the unfortunate luck of knowing the last possible train i can catch. by the way, it's the 8:09am train. i enjoy the time between my initial alarm and the numerous snoozes in between. thanks to my ability to run up and down escalators, i can still arrive at my desk two minutes shy of my 8:30am work time. so i had just walked up the bethesda escalator, all 213 feet 10 inches of it when i got to the tunnel under wisconsin avenue. i noticed a bunch of montgomery county cops and tsa agents. i realized i was witnessing one of metro's bag checks. they had stopped a man who was brown skinned, either hispanic or middle eastern. i didn't know for sure because of my haste. this bothered me, it was obviously racial profiling. my mind started reeling with the bullshit that was this fake security blanket.
what exactly does a random stop do? you have the right to decline one. it's as easy as walking to the next stop or another entrance. also, i think a terrorist has already taken the random, irregular bag checks in to consinderation. i'm sure someone on twitter or another social media site has already made the internet aware of where to expect a bag check. i could keep going, but in other words, it's a thinly veiled attempt to catch a blue collar worker illegally or the guy who forgot that rolled joint in his backpack. basically, i didn't commit a crime by deciding to wake up and go to work. the united states is a free country. why is some man with a badge given the right to search me? this has to stop. this is america, the home of the free. george orwell was right, my country is slowly becoming a police state.
after discussing the aforementioned book with a croatian friend and then complaining about what i witnessed this morning, she replied, "i
