SUBLIME to RIDICULOUS to SUBLIME AGAIN

Big-time quandary:  One of the questions in Washington this week has been whether or not the Executive branch of the government should ever under any circumstances conspire to locate and kill an American citizen who is known to be part of a team planning terrorist action against the United States. Everybody who knows me well knows my liberal political leanings and would probably predict that I would never agree that the President and his team of advisors should have such power. They might be wrong.  I object to killing people.  I am embarrassed that the state of California where I am a citizen maintains a program for killing its citizens who have been tried in our courts and found guilty of capital murder. There are alternative, more ethical ways of dealing with monsters. 

The uncomfortable truth is that there can be times, say like times of war, when planning deliberately to kill one or a few or even many people can save the lives of thousands or perhaps millions of people.  That is always the uncomfortable dilemma for pacifists. Adolph Hitler was an evil monster.  If he had not been stopped, he undoubtedly would have engineered the killing of countless more than the six million Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals he murdered before he was killed in his bunker by Allied bombs.  The total number of deaths in World War II is estimated to be between 50 and 70 million people.  Do I think it was the right thing to do to kill him?  Yes.  Do I think I should feel happy about his death?  Definitely not.  If by some chance Adolph had been born in Kansas  before being relocated with his family to Germany, he hypothetically could have been a U.S. citizen.  Do I think his being a U.S. citizen should have given him a pass?  Should the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military have had to get permission from Congress to proceed with plans to find out where Hitler was hiding before sending planes to bomb his bunker and kill him?  Hitler was definitely not an American citizen, but if he had been, the answer would be that the President conducted the war, his part in the war, in the most responsible way.  

I’m still considering whether or not the President should approve use of drones in military campaigns designed to stop terrorist.  I don’t know what I will decide.  It saddens me, sickens me, to know that the beautiful world that could be good for all people on earth is upset and spoiled by monsters who seem to the people who know and love them to be reasonable human beings.  It grieves me to know that often the monsters are religious.  I don’t know what to do about any of these problems.  I cannot feel good about killing, but I cannot ignore the fact that monsters must be stopped from carrying out their terrorist activities if it is possible to do so.  So, I’ll think on it as I go about the business of living as responsibly as possible.

In the most peaceful, wonderful parts of the world

there is ugliness...horrific stuff... that some people

put to good use.  I took the photographs above 

out in Santee when I went out early this morning 

pick up my friend Ed to take him to the airport.

I went from the airport to Pancho Villa,  one of my 

favorite markets in North Park to buy vegetables. 

I took the picture of"beef lips" not far from the 

aisle where I picked up wonderful fruits 

and vegetables.

Going from the ridiculous to the sublime later

 in the day, I went to a wonderful birthday...

then in the evening I attended an event at KPBS

studios at San Diego State University where

Gwen Ifill was the featured speaker.