A dealer table at Comic Con informed me, via
a shirt they were selling, that piracy is alive and well in 2005. No shit. People on ships robbing other ships, at gunpoint, on the high seas. There's at least one organization
that tracks it. Waters around Europe and North America seem to be pretty safe, but the south Carribbean, South America, Africa, and Indonesia seem to be quite dangerous. And Chennai (The City Formerly Known As Madras,) India. I've been to Madras! There are pirates operating out of there! WTF?!!
your_friend is a friend of
tskirvin whose 19-year old sister just died of cancer. At 19. This is Fucking Wrong™. I am usually not one to question the existance of God. I am also not one to ascribe to "His Plan" all the good and bad things that happen in life. Your mom is not dead because God Needed Her In Heaven, she's dead because somebody chose to be a motherfucker and rob the bank she was making a deposit at, and was careless with the gun he used to persuade the teller with. Your friend is not dead because God only gave him 17 years on Earth, he's dead because he was a stupid fuck who drove too powerful a car way too fast up a winding road in the dark. If God saved innocent people like your mom, and ignorant people like your friend, every time, then there would be no consequences for our bad choices, and humanity would never ever learn.
I can abide throwing cancer at a 12-year old girl. I can see the silver lining of the character-building that can happen from such a battle, both for the patient and her friends and family. I can see the reminder that life is brief and precious and we should enjoy every minute of it we get. But to have the girl beat it after a long and hard battle,
but then let it come back Independence Day-style and kill her in eight weeks? That makes me want to throw down a gauntlet and yell, "What the fuck, pal?!!"
I'm reminded again of Jed Bartlet's
speech at the end of "Two Cathedrals".