i was looking through the pictures on the new york times‘ recap of the past decade, Documenting the Decade, and a couple photos really struck me. what struck me wasn’t necessarily their beauty, but their meaning.

what strikes me so much about this one is not just the breathtaking beauty of the canadian rockies, but also the photo’s caption, which reads “Since I first visited the Canadian Rockies in the late 1970s, the Athabasca Glacier has receded several miles. However, to put things in perspective, geolocial markers that date back to the 19th century show that the glacier has been receding for centuries. Whether glaciers demonstrate that the past decade is meaningful or not, I leave to Nature to argue. And, while many glaciers are melting, others are stable or even growing in the Himalayas and Alaska. There is no question that there is global climate change. The biggest problem … it has always been so.”

look at the raccoon, staring with fascination at the photographer, as if to ask “what does that thing do?” every time i see a picture like this, it reminds me how precious and beautiful even the littlest of critters is, and how much like us they really are. or rather, how much like them we really are. it shocks me every time i hear people debate whether or not animals can really think or feel in the same way we do. is the raccoon’s expression any different from that of a baby who has just seen something new for the first time? conversely, is our animalistic side so much different from the raccoon’s?

statements like this are a slap in the face to me and everyone who makes a conscious choice to serve their country. many, like me, with degrees from prestigious universities have willingly sacrificed far higher paying jobs in the civilian world, gone far away from our homes and families, have forgone personal comforts that most americans take for granted, and have laid it all on the line, including our lives. even my soldiers who do not have a college degree have left their homes as young as seventeen. these men and women are great americans, who wear their uniforms with pride. the ones worth their salt, anyways.

it is not that we are asking too much of this generation — it’s that we aren’t asking anything of this generation, leaving the entire burden to be shouldered by a select few. what the hell has this generation done to deserve the luxuries it feels so entitled to? twitter?! television?! video games? text messaging?! all while sitting around getting so fat that their very health is jeopardized by their laziness?! so what has this generation done? at most, self-serving, self-gratifying but ultimately empty finger-pointing, protests, and agitation over issues they might actually understand if they were willing to dig deeper intellectually than wikipedia.

for all i’ve heard about the war in iraq and afghanistan, whose war is it really? whose lives has it really impacted? is there a draft? of those who say they suppost the troops, who amongst them has ever raised their hand to serve their country and see what is really going on? do most families even have a single service member amongst them? it is mere lip service. this isn’t this generations’ war, because it doesn’t really mean a damn thing to them, and they have never felt any direct impacts beyond a few minor inconveniences. this is a soldier’s war — a burden and experience shared by them alone, along with their families and the iraqi and afghani people. these are the ones who preserve and embody the american spirit and make america great, not the public.

true, not everyone is called to serve their country in the form of military service, but at least do something! join the peace corps. become a civil servant. plant a public garden. volunteer some time and money to a local food shelter or humanitarian organization and give back to society. check on your damn neighbor. live responsibly. until then, you haven’t earned the right to voice your opinion.

…

and to close it all out, an excellent quote by stephen colbert from TIME’s Top 10 Everything of 2009:

“Twitter went down today. If only there was some short, shallow, self-indulgent way to express my horror.”

—Stephen Colbert, sniffing at the year’s biggest online fad

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 22:18:09 and is filed under animals & plants, army, life, miscellaneous, the world. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.