The project really was not a bad idea, although it didn't attain the heights the coordinator obviously expected it would. The paper didn't serve as an outlet for all stress and strain; it didn't suck every vestige of fatigue and apathy from our systems. But all in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend the period (ToK being the rigorous course it was). We had a grand old time scribbling down the names of profs and classes, foods and sports, problems and policies.

I recently rediscovered my hate list. It was folded like a pamphlet--hot-dog style, as elementary art teachers would say-- and sloppily scribbled on the front are a few faces twisted into expressions of utter disgust. Also, the words, "I hate" written about fifty times in my small, messy writing. The inside was practically filled with words in the same handwriting: "curry," "pity-fishing," and "plagiarism," to name a few of, oh, maybe a hundred and fifty. The words were pink and green; I seem to have been taking advantage of Keene's gel pens at the time, not that it matters.

Well, yahoo. Now I can add "people who go around yelling, brandishing curtain rods, and threatening others, and then come crawling back five minutes later apologizing, as if a word or two will make things all right again," to the list. But that's not the point, though I do wish the little Gorgon hadn't said that about smashing my laptop. This sort of thing unsettles a recluse, don't you know. The fact that the boy has, in the past, slammed holes through walls and doors, doesn't help much either.

I'm beginning to doubt this entry had a point to begin with. Therefore, now's as good a time as any to mention that I am not a mincer who doesn't actually hate anything. It takes talent to truly be one of those today, unless one lives under a rock. There are plenty of things to loathe in the world, and I can bloody well find something. I can hate terrorism, local espionage, or even the Elvis revival. It's almost too easy. I can hate bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and Elvis himself. That's tougher, though.

Viewed one way, Mr. Presley was nothing but a simple country boy with the voice of angel who ate a few too many peanut butter and banana sandwiches. And I can't hate that. But I can hate the fact that he thought he sounded fit for the public's ears and that he deluded millions of people into believing the same thing. The same applies for bin Laden and Saddam (the delusions, that is, not the singing). I can hate them for what they became, but I can't ultimately hate a person. No one is inherently evil, evil is a learned concept, and so on; everyone's heard the lecture.

That's not to say I wouldn't toss on the red cap and call for a leader's destruction; heaven knows, the world would be better off with a few less zealots. Going by my oh so enthnocentric American logic, I'm all for it. In several instances, the US has butted in where it wasn't wanted, but in many other cases, it's refrained from acting when it would have been prudent to do so. When there is a large possibility that something could negatively affect the country, to say nothing of the rest of world, why not take action instead of waiting around for the sky to cave in a little more?

Again, going by logic, not blind hate. Logic may be biased, but it's a heck of a lot more reasonable than the alternative. Decisions made out of hate are often the most tragic. Ku Klux Klan, Gestapo, Posse Comitatus, take your pick. It makes more sense, insomuch as there's any sense in hating at all, to hate people for what they believe rather than for what they are. And since I know very few people for who they are, I hate very few people, though the same hardly applies to quite a few beliefs.

I'm not a wishy-washy pacifist, not a bleeding heart, and I'd never pull a Cressida. Just thought I'd clear that up.

And this, my friends, is why Ivy will never go into politics.

Adieu.