Kurt Vonnegut recently died at age 84. He was, among other things, a science fiction writer, but I admit that I haven't read any of his books. One of my sisters, who is very liberal and opposes the war and has actually physically marched to protest the invasion, recommended one of his books to me several years ago. I've seen Vonnegut a handful of times on TV and heard him or about him on the radio, and I knew him as the man who was affiliated with the American Humanist Association, having taken that spot from the late Isaac Asimov. I had him pegged as a leftist hippy pacifist type, but after learning a bit more about him, I now see him as a complete person rather than a political persona or some random well-known scifi writer whose books I put “on my list”.

Earlier on NPR, they replayed an interview with him from 1984 when he was in his early 60's. He remarked that he was the only person to get anything out of the fire bombing of Dresden in WW2 since he later wrote about it and estimated that he made roughly three dollars for every person killed. He was an American soldier captured and working in a POW labor camp around the time of the bombing, having survived by waiting in a meat locker underground until, as he put it, the “city cooled”. After the bombing, it was still too hot to move around, much like after a volcano explodes.

When it cooled, he was instructed to carry charred German corpses to be buried. He went on to say that the incident amounted to the biggest massacre in European history, fleshing out this statement by explaining that while more Jews died in concentration camps overall, Dresden was the single biggest fast extermination of humans on that continent.

It's easy to see how he could form his anti-war views, just as it's easy to see where McCain gets his anti-torture views. It amazes me that the so called War Hawks, those draft dodging neo-con idiots, seem to lack even the most basic empathy. It almost makes one indulge in cruel fantasies, such as a war on the home-front. That would change some views rather fast, I'd think. The gall of those who support the current war to label those who do not, “un-American” takes the cake. Can there be a better example of ignorant, short-sighted, red-meat scented, politically charged, rhetorical, imbecilic, bull-cacca?

Speaking of such people, let's talk about Ken Hughes. Hughes wrote a hypocritical, whining, article recently. I had a lengthy response ready to go, but tossed it. Instead, I'll mention just three gripes.

First, Ken got the rules of UK wrong. The rules are clear about UK's policy in regards to original content. It doesn't really matter that Ken presumes that he has certain ownership of what he submits. In the same vein and quite ironically, while Ken may wish a rule against personal attacks, no such rule there exists, as long as the attack isn't profane or unsuitable to be branded “family friendly”. There are also rules about an article being at least 500 words and using correct grammar, rules Ken has broken repeatedly.

Second, Ken himself engages in the kind of attack articles he claims to despise. At one point many many moons ago, Ken said he would quit writing those kinds of articles and I think he did – but only for a short while.

Third, Ken scoffs at articles attacking religion. What Ken really means is that he dislikes when people attack the specific religion he sometimes champions in order to make political points. Ken attacks Islam with a clear conscience, and that's a religion. That poem he posted from “Ireland” attacked every non-Christian way of thinking about the world, specifically Wicca, Native American faiths, Islam, atheism (and by implication, humanism) and secularism. In fact, Ken routinely attacks large groups of people, like blacks, something I consider worse than attacking an individual (but of course as I've said he does that too).

If Ken had made that comment while himself refraining from attacking religion, that at least would be something. Something that I disagree with, for I feel that faith itself should be subject to the same kind of criticism that everything else in our society gets, but at least Ken and I could then have an honest difference of opinion. As stated, Ken is merely blabbing hypocritical nonsense.

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