Evening Odds and Ends

1.) Stomach flu. Came out of nowhere last night/yesterday afternoon. Haven't made an emergency trip to the bathroom in a bit now.

2.) Watching the Ken Burns documentary on WWII. Maybe I'm just jaded, but I wonder if our perceptions of the war would've been different, had CNN, google news, and the internet existed back then. What if Halliburton and Blackwater existed then?

I'm trying to understand some of the hatred some of the people interviewed still have for the Japanese. I don't hate the Saudis, who were mostly responsible for 9/11. Granted, my family isn't winning any racial harmony awards, but some of the things I've heard them say (of the generation who lived through that time), don't bear repeating, as if the firebombings of Tokyo and two atomic bombs weren't enough. Does that generation of Japanese hate Americans?

I guess part of what I'm reacting to is how lily-white and innocent the Americans are being portrayed in this. Sure, they probably didn't come close to some of the atrocities elsewhere, but having heard of the crap that happened in Vietnam through present day, I'm a bit incredulous.

I'm tired of hearing how my generation isn't as patriotic as the "greatest generation," because we oppose the war in Iraq, or how our morals are askew. Or how we don't compare in education to that generation. Maybe they need to realize that the world is completely different than it was 60 years ago.