Needed Changes?

What a crazy last twenty-four hours. News that Castro's dying, Saddam's brother's head is ripped off in his execution and do we really have two more years of Bush?

Cuba needs to enter the 20th century and hopefully the current one. What needs to happen is a peaceful revolution that takes the leftist principles of the socialist takeover from the 50s but a democratic government to allow people to truly speak their minds. For a nation to be starved and deprived for a half-century is ridiculous. Both Cuba and the U.S. are to blame; regardless, what needs to happen is something that allows doctors to make more than $800 a month but to keep the capitalists from immediately dominating the island nation.

More executions in Iraq which continue to divide the already factious nation. Now thousands of Kurd soldiers will be aiding the U.S. and Iraqi forces to suppress terrorist insurgents. Is this safe? Smart? Or, will Americans blow off whatever happens, even if the news coming out of Baghdad is good? Do we have short attention spans or do we want to see Iraq as "Bush" and by pulling out, the country is bidding adieu to the president's major action as our fearless leader? Two more years? Really? Do we have to? I guess I better shut up or else he's going to pull my bank statements and tag me for donating money to PBS and joining the ACLU.

Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been seventy-eight today. To think of a Christian minister pushing for social change, an end to a divisive and damaging war, equality, peace and love. How should we remember this man and his legacy? Not by simply playing the tapes of his speeches and wishing for yesteryear; we need to promote tolerance, pride, patriotism through service and a demand that the government represents us and deserves to topple when it does not. Dream tonight and may your dreams be realized.