I had my first run today, after months of dead, real-dead, time. Took me 40 minutes to run 3 miles. Real bad, but not bad for starting back up. I love sprinting at the last 100 meters just to open up my lungs (to get rid of all the smoke particles in my lungs I suppose).

Anyway, I got my afternoon coffee which was free, by the way, because I know the girl at the cafe and, to put it mildly, "we have some kind of a connection." Haha! Then I found a place to sit and just rest (and reflect!) while people pass by. I looked at the newspaper stand and read the headlines of each newspaper. Hmmm... no mention of the Israel-Lebanon thing, except from a minor headline in the New York Times. It seems a little alienating to think that in another part of the world, bridges and buildings are destroyed which really means that the social fabric of a society is being violently disrupted, and one can just imagine the cries of kids and the shame of parents not able to explain to their kids why such things happen in our world. Meanwhile, I see people going about their business, enjoying the afternoon sun, and playing with their kids, talking to friends, and trying to live lives in the best way possible.

I started to wonder if these people care about what's going on in another world. But, fast as the thought came, I also realized that they have every right to live their lives happy, connected, free from violence, injustice, and (for lack of a better word) disruption. My God! Everyone has the right to this kind of existence! Even the people right now who are being bombed and raped and violated by things external to them.

Then I started a prayer, a hope, that one day the world would be like this; not the isolated, individualistic, "fragmented and atomized" as Chomsky puts it, but rather a free and interconnected society, at all levels, with warmth and affection, and sharing... of the pie having both joy and pain ---a world where no bombing exists, no aggression by another, where truth, justice, and togetherness (I have to inch in Chuck Berry on this) prevails.

I know you can now start calling me an idealist, but such things occupy my mind. One of my favorite shirt has John Lennon on it with the word "Revolution" in big bold letters (haha! i love that shirt. Almost like Che on everyone's chest). And of course everytime I pick up the guitar, I strum the chords of his song ---his one song everyone knows.

But I don't really want to be called an idealist. In fact, I think that it is really possible. So this is what I suggest. Let's do what we can do now. It does not have to be a grand masterful, ingenious work that most likely only Superman can do. I'm talking about little things! Just little things that we can do here and there. It amounts to much, you know... especially when you do it because you really care.

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PS. I had a date last night. We watched Superman. It's was ok. Both me and my mom had fun. :) Believe it or not, she missed the classic Superman I, II, and III (I think there's IV too, right?). But at least he knows Christopher Reeve, "the one who has a lot of non-profit foundations..." hehehehe! Yep! That's my Mom!!!