ugh

I swear to God, I'm filled to the brim with the misery of refugees and at my busiest I only work a couple of days a week. Meeting the shells of people who've lived through wars and terror--these are the healthiest of survivors, too--would turn anyone into a pacifist. Anyone. Maybe even Dick Cheney, after some drug therapy to turn him into a human first. Every few months I've had enough. I'll be fine on Monday or I'll quit--but I'm always fine on Monday.

I don't know how Doina and others can do it 60 hours a week. I don't understand how people who do it full-time for years and years stop themselves from marching to the White House and handcuffing themselves to the fence until some idiot in charge makes it stop, or at least tries to make it stop.

Every politician who doesn't actually make an effort toward peace should be forced to meet the damned collateral damage they're responsible for and apologize face to face. No press allowed. Oh, and politicians should stop just shaking hands. They should use those hands to change some dressings on wounded soldiers. And forget fundraisers that go on til the wee hours. They should sit up all night with someone who's lost her family. Never mind the grip and grin opportunities on a weekday, they should go stand in line for someone who needs medication for a war that ended years ago and who is still so damaged he can't hold stand in that line for more than five minutes before panicking and needing to go hide.
They have to meet what they've done and live with it for a while. Lucky them, they'll get to walk away and go on with their well-established, barely interrupted lives in the country that hasn't been bombed beyond recognition.

Okay. Time to drive some healthy, happy, well-adjusted and whiney kids around.

The photos come from here. Not for the faint of heart, but hell, no one asked the people in the photos if they were up for the harsh realities of a war. . .Oh yeah. These images should cover the walls of every posturing chicken hawk pol's office.