American failure

America has failed its friends and itself
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The more I read about US military prisons, the more disgusted I become with our government and upper-level military. It is really sick how often we've tortured prisoners, and I just can't believe anymore that each was honestly just 'an isolated incident.' I don't think it's possible for it to be so widespread but not policy. And, as far as prisoner treatment goes, some of the things we excuse as just barely legal are equally repulsive. Even worse, we allow many countries which we've denounced as enemies of democracy to torture some prisoners for us! "Enemies of Democracy" - ha! We are the enemy of democracy! The government continuously spouts this rhetoric about bringing democracy to the rest of the world, yet we deny it not only to those caught up in our War on Terror, but we also deny it to our citizens with instruments like the Patriot Act. Bush is not interested in liberty for the world - he's interested in total political liberty for himself, the power to accomplish anything he wishes and gain everything he wants. I am so glad the Iraqis aren't forced to live under a terrible dictator like Saddam anymore, he really was a nightmare of a leader and did horrible things to his people. But our leader has become just as bad! Prisoners in Guantanamo are denied access to lawyers, abused by their jailers, held without charge, refused all the basic freedoms we take for granted. If Bush really wanted to spread democracy and freedom throughout the world, he would extend the legal privileges of Americans to our prisoners. How can we push our system on other countries, force our values on foreign peoples, and then not even apply them to everyone under our jurisdiction? Instead, we brush off the report by Amnesty International on American abuse of prisoners as 'absurd', Cheney saying he didn't take AI seriously and Bush calling the report 'the work of people who hate America.' Funny how they did a 180 - just a few years ago, Cheney was citing Amesty reports on Iraq as part of the rationale for war. I was reading today (before the article on how Guantanamo prisoners are being denied their day in court) about suspected torture and mistreatment of prisoners in Burma. I found it mild compared with the reports of American maltreatment of prisoners - only 3 deaths! less than 30 tortured! While both are detestable, it's sad how far our country has fallen in this area. A beacon of freedom and democracy has become a hypocritical cesspool of rights breaches.

Nice Things :- )

Tonight, I walked home from the bus stop, and the sky amazed me. It was almost 2:30 in the morning. It was dark, but there was still light in the sky. In one direction, I could see clouds tinted a dark red. In the other, where the clouds broke the sky was an amazing bright blue, darker than the normal color of day, but very very bright. I couldn't tell whether I was seeing the last colors of the sun setting or the first colors of the sun rising. It was so amazing.

Skagen!

Skagen is the northernmost point on continental Europe. It's at the very tip of Denmark, where the North Sea and Baltic Sea meet. Jenn, Kristi, Erin and I all visited today. We walked down the pedestrian street after the four-hour train ride. It was really weird - every building matched. They all had the same basic, Danish shape and style, and every single one was yellow with a red tile roof. It got kinda creepy as we kept walking and they never changed. We weren't there for the shops, though - we were there for the beach, so we started walking towards it. A couple of houses broke the mold as we left town, but no more than I can count on one hand. We found a really beautiful beach - perfect white sand, sea grass, huge rocks by the water (which was absolutely freezing!). We had a picnic and played in the water, picked up cool rocks (Kristi is a geology major), took a bunch of pictures, admired the light (sought out by numerous painters). The color of the sky and the clouds was such an amazing blue - Erin called it an "emotional blue", and I think that description fit really well. Then we started walking to the point. OMG, it was rough - walking through soft shifty sand and smooth deep rocks is a real workout. We finally made it, and it was soooo cool. The two seas have different temperatures and the currents flow in different directions, so the color of the waters is slightly different, and the waves crash into one another in a line extending from the point. We took turns having our picture taken as the northernmost person on continental Europe. I got some awesome pictures of the waves.


After playing around at the north point, we began walking back into town. We were planning on seeing the buried church. Only the steeple is visible - the rest has been covered by sand drift. It's not like a sand dune heaped around the church - the level where people walk is now at the level of the steeple. But, as we walked back, it started raining, first lightly and gradually more intensely. It was pouring by the time we got to the train station, so we went ahead and took the train back to Aarhus (very soggy). We didn't get to see anything else, but everyone was still pleased with the trip. The beach was what we came for, and it was just as amazing as we'd all heard. It was an almost perfect trip.

Horsens!

Jenn and I went to Horsens today. We wanted to see the fjord (an inlet carved out by glaciers). So we took the half hour train ride south after almost no planning and arrived in the small town of Horsens. It was really cute, with a lot of very traditional Danish houses and a large gate over the entrance to the pedestrian walk that reminded me of something from Legoland. There was a beautiful park right by the train station, full of tall, flowering bushes. We meandered down the pedestrian walk and stopped in at the church in the center plaza. Outside were vendors selling fresh fish, cheese, flowers, and fruit - we bought some of the best strawberries I've ever tasted. Next we made it to the commercial harbor, where the water was full of jellyfish!!!!! Then we got to the harbor with all the sailboats (and more jellyfish). The view was pretty, although the fjord wasn't exactly all we'd expected. While we weren't planning on Norway (famous for its beautiful fjords), we were expecting cliffs. Newer fjords are tall cliffs (see pic of Geiranger Fjord) - older fjords, however, such as the one in Horsens, are filled with water. So it was pretty much just a bay. Maybe it would look cooler if you scuba dived in it. Anyway, we walked down the beach and had a picnic on the grass. Thank God the weather was good!!! It was warm and sunny and breezy, almost perfect. We stayed on the grassy beach for hours, dozing and eating and playing and enjoying the sites - such as the 50 or so year old man with a large gut in BLACK SPEEDO THONG!!!! He was very comfortable with himself, and he laid out right next to the water so everyone could enjoy his body. There was also the scrawny, bony man of about 70 or so laying out in his bright green Speedo that was puffy like a diaper. All in all, interesting beach characters I thought as we left and passed the 70 year old relieving himself in the bushes. I had a nice time (abhorrent scenery or no), the town was cute, the beach was fun, it was great to get away for a day. And I came back with a really crispy sunburn that should turn into a great tan within a few days!