19 April 2007

As I was channel-surfing, I caught the last bit of C-Span’s coverage on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s interrogation of Attorney General Gonzales.  Apparently, he (or his office) fired eight (8) U.S. Attorneys without any known (or credible) explanation.  Senate Chair Leahy’s concern with this event is that the Department of Justice is becoming a political arm of the White House.  The implication Leahy points to is in  being the Attorney General for the United States, Gonzales acted instead more like the Attorney General for President Bush.  In other words, rather than being a separate, independent, and distinct branch, the Judicial has become Political and thus, badly compromised.  In contrast to this perspective, Senator Arlen Spector (Republican, PA) points to incompetence rather than political influence that Gonzales was not able to come up with an explanation.  Further, during the interrogation, it seems Gonzales could not recall a meeting he allegedly took on 27 November 2006.  When asked about this, Gonzales could only concede that it was on his calendar, he would not deny when others attested to his attendance at that meeting, and yet, he “forgot” and could not recall details of the meeting despite “search[ing] [his] memory”.

Even more frustrating about the firings is the mystery of the missing e-mails and lost ‘paper trail’ of events leading up to the firings.

DAT back-up tapes of the server anyone?  IT department?

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Switching channels to ABC news, I came across a report that a nine year old girl was abducted from her driveway by a car snatcher in Melville (Suffolk County).  Nearby residents are not only shocked by this event, they are outraged that the snatcher is still at-large. 

Switching to CBS news, I came across coverage of a Morningside Heights nineteen (19) hour rape and torture of a 23 year old female Columbia graduate student by “career criminal” and repeated felon John Roberts. 

All of this, combined with the massacre shooting of 32 students at Virginia Tech on Monday, 16 April 2007, and I was feeling really dizzy and nauseous.

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Professor Liviu Librescu, engineering and math lecturer at Virginia Tech, was a Holocaust survivor and hero that fateful Monday.  He used his body to barricade the door to his classroom so his students could escape through a window.  He survived one tragedy to be a hero of another.  In an unwavering and impenetrable solidarity, the surviving students were featured as ABC news’ “person of the week” and in exemplary resilient fashion, the school employed electronic technology to maintain safety precautions and constant and direct contacts between students and officials – directly to the students’ cell phones.

After enduring nineteen (19) hours of rape and torture by a “career criminal”, a 23 year old female Columbia graduate student fought her way to escape and is recovering in a nearby hospital.  After going through such a harrowing ordeal, she is a lesson in survival, resilience, and triumph.

After being abducted from her driveway by a car snatcher, a nine (9) year old girl escaped unharmed and untouched by throwing a tantrum, screaming, and making such a ruckus of noise that she ‘spooked’ the snatcher to let her go.  This intrepid youth is a true lesson in bravery, instinct, courage, and survival.  Kudos to her parents.

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This past week in particular has been a trying and exhaustive time to say the least.  There has been too much violence, rage, and torture – more so than usual.  Evil under the sun, indeed!  But if we look at the other side of events – the other side of the hyphen between good and evil – we learn that this week is an incredible lesson in surviving adversity, heroism, individuality, collaborative endurance, resilience, and humanity.  This week, I learned of many heroes – made and lost – and it makes me proud to be all too human.

Rather than loose faith in the potential of human power and creativity – faith in the common man and the potentiality of the individual – it has been reinvigorated.  Mannheim wrote of the problem of generations.  While the current generation of Senators, politicians, and the U.S. judiciary are battling it out to be more progressively transparent – at least accountable – by maintaining their separate and distinct independence intact, the future generation is fighting to survive, to push forward, and to maintain and restore their hope.  In their way, they are everyday heroes and examples for us all.  They truly have broken into and tapped-in to the powerful potentiality inherent in the hyphen.  Flipping the baton of evil, they point the good towards this world.

And so we learn.

And so we endure.

And so we move on.