2008 Woodie Awards
In contemplating what anecdotes to write about for my final diary entry from Egypt, one moment stuck out in my mind. When I took my English class of refugees out to eat at a local café a month ago, our discussion turned to the Iraq War. I explained to Hussain, one of the Iraqi students, that much debate had circulated in American intellectual circles about the sectarian, religious and political strife that had plagued the country.
The American Republic, the flickering flame of freedom, justice, liberty and the guaranteed right for the pursuit of happiness by the land owning class, was extinguished the day the National Security Act was wrought into existence on July 26, 1947. The day the American Empire was born.
A few months ago, Mike Gravel was just another politician vying for the endorsement of the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential election. You've probably never heard of him, but those who have know him to be a man of interesting politics. Arguably, those politics got a lot more interesting on March 25 when, after suffering defeat in the primaries, the former Alaskan senator changed his tune.
At the end of my sophomore year, I'm pretty sure my friends didn't get it. "I can't go out, I have a rugby game," I would say every Friday night to quell their pleading questions as to why I wasn't out, dressed and ready to party. I said this just about every Friday night for the next two and a half years, through groans and moans, "I can't go out, I have a rugby game.
It happens with each new school year. I vividly remember commenting to my classmates on the lack of handwriting skills the third graders had compared to my supreme knowledge of cursive as a fourth grader, rejoicing about my gigantic one inch height advantage over the new freshmen class when I was a sophomore in high school and of course, laughing from off-campus at Southwest residents who must suffer a year of dirty bathrooms and obnoxious shenanigans that happen outside their window.