8/22

Sitting at my gate, waiting for my flight to Atlanta, I´m listening to a speech by Pres. Bush. He´s talking about Asia. He´s talking far too much about Asia. He spoke about Shinto in Japan, which he called ¨Shintu¨at one point. He´s now thrown in Laos, but pronounced it ¨La-oos¨, which I´ve never heard anyone do before. And now he´s saying pulling out of Vietnam was the wrong decision by us and somehow connected it to Sept. 11th. How does he do that? Pres. Clinton had a plaque on his desk that said, ¨It´s the economy, stupid.¨I think this latter Bush whited-out ¨economy¨and replaced it with ¨Sept 1th¨. Stupid.

I deeply believe we, as U.S. Americans are soon to find ourselves in serious conflict with China. There´s been this slow and steady onflux of negative news regarding China. People are starting to not buy things made in China because of pictures they see in Newsweek. These may be valid isues and effects, but the negative buzz that´s being pumped into the public worries me. And now as the Olympic Games get closer, there´s increasing outcry regarding China´s human rights abuses. I think that´s necessary, but I wonder how China´s going to react. It´s always been called a ´backwards´nation, but it has an army in training and a lot of quiet foreign investment. It´s just something I´ve been worrying about.

Watching the planes take off and arc towards their destination, I wonder if I am more afraid of airports or airplanes. I feel like once I get on the plane, everything is out of my hands. It´s a little bit liberating, a little frightening. In the airports, though, there´s a lot going on, and as a traveler I´m faced with a good deal of responsibility. That almost scares me more. I would hate to lose my luggage, or miss my flight - I´m not sure exactly what would happen. My bags today were 40 and 32 lbs. I ws so relieved to be under the 50 lb limit. I gave one of those jackpot arm gestures when I put the bags on the scale. Score.