On being more like a dog

Clearly it must be that time of the year again – I’m updating my blog with a wordy essay-ish post. Yes – I’m right in the middle of exam season, with one tomorrow, and two more later in the week, so now seemed like the right time.

I woke up this morning to see that I had a text message – it was from the BBCBreaking service on Twitter, and, to the bleary-eyed, bespectacled me at seven in the morning, I got quite a shock.

US team killed Obama, says Osama

I soon realised I’d got this the wrong way round, but was more ashamed at never having noticed the unfortunate sharing of 80% of the contents of their names.

Putting my glasses on I found out that crowds had gathered outside the White House, and were singing and chanting. It must be a sign that I’m becoming cynical in my late-teenage; my first thought was, “Well he’s won a second term”. Cynicism is, in my opinion, an asset, not an annoyance. After all, anything’s worth it if it makes you more dog-like.

So, there’s been a lot of talk about my part of the internet about whether that wasn’t a disgusting, horrible thing to do. I say, it depends.

On face value, yes, celebrating the murder of a murderer is no less sick than celebrating the murderer. If, that is, he was the murderer. So that’s a straight forward answer then. I suppose you’ve got to look at the whole thing in context though; are these people really celebrating the death of the man, or the ideas he stood for. I can’t help feel that it’s rich of people in the United Kingdom condemning the actions of those gathered on Pennsylvania Avenue this morning when, not so very long ago we had VE Day. No matter what your ethical position on the war in Afghanistan, or even your intellectual one, it’s hard to deny that the citizens of the United States of America have been put under considerable stress by the events of the last ten years – albeit mostly by their own government. Maybe they need a royal wedding to cheer themselves up – I certainly feel much better knowing that thirty thousand flowers were sacrificed for the occasion.

So… conclusion. I’m really not so good at these, but I suppose my opinion is something along the lines of “Don’t sneer, but don’t sneer at the sneerers either”.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 2nd, 2011 at 3:33 pm and is filed under General Rambling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.