I’m watching President Obama’s address to the Muslim world from Cairo on Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN. His words are compelling. While I will never blindly follow anyone, President Obama included, I must say I am in total agreement with his position of conciliation between the US and the middle east. Apparently, he didn’t use the word “terrorism” at any point. This is reminiscent of his inaugural speech where he said that America would extend a hand if they would “unclench [their] fist”. I still have tremendous confidence that the president will ultimately remembered by history not as “the first Black president”, but as “the great uniter”.
Before AC360, I was watching the crew of the Steve Irwin being interviewed by Larry King. The Steve Irwin is featured in the popular Animal Planet series Whale Wars. They fight Japanese whaling vessels. God bless these people. We still don’t comprehend what intelligence these majestic creatures may possess. We do know that they have larger brains than our which suggests that may be as smart as humans, maybe smarter. I have no reservations in saying it is absolutely wrong to kill sentient beings for profit. When that sentience is in question the right thing to do is err on the side of caution and give them the benefit of the doubt.
I’ve found three shows on the History Channel I cannot stop watching. The first is Ice Road Truckers. These guys carry extremely heavy loads in their big rigs across the iced over arctic seas of winter. Talk about insanity, I watched one episode where this 25 year old kid carried this 95 ton oversized load to its destination. He had to fight keeping the load from tipping over, not going too fast yet going fast enough to have the momentum to make it up the hills, not to mention the weather and the delicacy of the ice road. This was an amazing feat of precision driving. You’ve gotta have balls of steel to do a job like this. There is no doubt in my mine guys like these are real men.
Ax Men is another great History Channel program. We follow the stories of loggers in the Pacific Northwest. I never had an appreciation of the difficult jobs these guys have. Aside from the obvious physical rigors I never realized how mentally sharp you’ve got to be. If those guys dislodge the wrong log they could start an avalanche or have a long branch snap up and hit them in the face. It is not a job for the timid.
Finally, I’m completely hooked on Warriors. This program profiles the elite soldiers of different civilizations throughout time. I’ve learned how truly tough King Leonidas’ Spartans were, the US Army’s Alamo Soldiers that rescued American POWs from Japanese prisoner camps in the Philippines that were the pre-cursors to today’s Special Forces, and the forces commanded by Hawaii’s Kamehameha, the man that would eventually conquer all of the Hawaiian islands and become Hawaii’s first king. The thing that impressed me most were the warriors of Shaka of the Zulus. Not only were the brutally fast and smart but when they came home from a battle the first thing their warriors would do is visit a shaman that would cure their souls. You see, when they first enter the village they came home as killers. The shaman would make them right again. I think that’s a brilliant idea that could help any soldier. Too bad this is seemingly a unique concept.
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