Wake You Up In the Middle of the Night...
Last month as the family was driving through the downtown area, Rainbird behind the wheel of the mom wagon, we noticed people waving tea-bags. I knew of course about the tea parties but remained silent as we wove our way through the area. Then suddenly my 15 year old son, formally known within these pages as Piss-boy, made a lewd comment about teabagging. This threw me off kilter, he clearly understood what teabagging was.
I always considered myself to be advanced, but I didn't know about that until I was in my 20's. I'm sure some people that read my blog, might even run to the Urban dictionary to define it for them. Perhaps it's just something that guys know about. Rainbird laughed. Somehow it left me feeling a little sad. When they (who ever they is) say that kids grow up fast, they aren't kidding. I thought I grew up fast but...just a few short years I had the kid completely convinced at age 10 that Santa was completely real. Fast forward five years, and the kid is talking about teabagging.
What should I have done? Should I have been embarrassed by such language, or his knowledge? Should I have said something to him about it not being appropriate or should I feel grateful that he is comfortable enough to say such things around his mother? I know if his grandmother were in the car he would have kept his mouth shut, so he does have common sense. Maybe his edit is just shaky.
Words Small Enough to Hide
The English language is full of words, lots of words that have similar meanings. For example if you go to thesaurus and look up a word you might find another 20 words that have similar meanings or connotations. For example the word Torture which at worst can mean impalement, and at best, abuse with words like misery, pain, persecution, etc., has many such meanings. We tend to dumb-down words and meanings. For example a child that repeated used as an ashtray and made to eat their own vomit, might be called abused...I dunno it seems like torture to me.
I'm torn about this when I read about Water-boarding of prisoners. Surely our government the pinnacle of good, wouldn't knowingly torture people in an attempt to extradite information, right? We are the country that gets on the asses of countries that do that; I mean look at China and their human rights violations. Yet it seems so. We have people with varying opinions on the subject, most claiming it isn't torture. Oliver North was heard on Fox news that he was water-boarded as part of his training. The implication is that it's not a big deal. Maybe not for him since he knew he wasn't in immediate danger.
One Thing Leads to Another
On one hand we have our President Obama, saying that water-boarding is torture and will NOT be done anymore. Then we have former vice president Cheney, going on about how we got valuable information that saved lives because of this. Saving lives: Good, Torture: Bad. This leads me to the question, how can something that did yield some valuable information, which may or may not have directly led to American lives saved; no big deal? If it wasn't a "big deal," then why would it yield any information?
So, let's say someone believes that you have information, could be a bus schedule, or something really important. You are kidnapped and kept awake for hours, which turn into days with very little sleep. Food is horrible and, you're mentally exhausted and don't understand the language. You are led into a room and likely handcuffed (if you weren't already), and made to lay on your back. Your feet are raised slightly, a blindfold is applied covering your eyes and plunging you into darkness. You can't see, you hear words you don't understand, people shouting. Then you feel water splashing against your face, up into your nose, into your mouth, you can't swallow, or breathe. You try holding your breath. You can't hold it that long, and inhale water. You feel you will drown. You swallow as much of the water as you can, your stomach aches and becomes distended adding to your overall discomfort.
It suddenly stops, you hear a voice in your own language, asking you a question you can't quite comprehend, then it begins again. The water coming quicker it seems this time, you struggle for breath, exhaling and inhaling. Drinking, and breathing in water. It again stops, you're coughing up liquid, and someone again asks, after you start to calm slightly, the same question. You know they really don't care if you live or die accidentally during this. Your mind isn't working, because you haven't slept or eaten anything you'd call food, you're exhausted and now you're scared. This treatment continues for as long as it takes you to give up the information, you urinate on yourself out of sheer fear and then humiliated for it, you can tell from their tone they are laughing.
You give up whatever information you can to make it stop and once you do your cleaned up, allowed to sleep and given something more decent to eat, while they check the validity of your information. You're not treated wonderfully, but it's a step up than before.
Some might think this is just the bleeding-heart liberal side of me coming out but this is actually from the account of Chase Nielson, when he testified in Shanghai China in 1946 about his 40 months of being a prisoner of war during WWII against his Japanese captors. He was one of eight captured during what was known then as the Doolittle Raid in 1942. Or maybe I should say he was one of the four that survived and were rescued when the war ended.
Not okay for the Japanese during world war two but alright today?
© 2009 Whimsical Ranter
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