When I got down to Command Central this morning, The Commander and Mona were standing agape in front of Mona’s boob tube. They peppered me with questions! (yes, Beach Urchins, I stole that phrase directly outta the Anne of Green Gables videos!) Is Bin Laden really dead? Did “we” kill him? Did we bomb him? Which branch of the service did it? There are plenty of people down there at Command Central who couldn’t care less about Osama Bin Laden (although most of them probably did ten years ago). The Commander and Mona are not among them. This was news to them and they were *on* it. They had gone to bed by the time I got the news last night. I got it via Twitter. That’s actually where I get most of my news these days (besides National Petroleum Radio, that is) but that’s a whole long boring story.

So the witch HMFWIC of Al Qaeda is dead. (I totally stole the “witch is dead” analogy from them thar tubes.) I dunno. I do not want to minimize the feelings of anyone who lost a family member in the attacks of September 11, 2001. I think MOST of us were absolutely terrified after that event. I know I was and there is a part of me who is glad he is dead. But now that I look back, I wonder how much influence Osama and Al Qaeda have had in recent years. Yes, we have had some terrifying near-misses. The Underwear Bomber landed at Daytwa Metro a couple days before Lizard Breath was scheduled to fly outta there. And I have work friends from the Indian subcontinent who probably travel that flight when returning from visits home. (Wonder what the Underwear Bomber’s reality is these days, since I *believe* — but could be wrong — that all of his legal crap is happening in the crumbling old Motor City.)

Still. What *is* next? Will there be a new Osama Bin Laden? I’m not sure that there will be, at least not someone who will have the “vision” of Osama. And I am not sure he had that in the last years of his life. Or maybe he did but couldn’t make it happen. What about this new generation? What about the young (and not-so-young) folks in Islamic countries who are sick to death of living their lives under corrupt dictators or rabidly fundamentalist mullahs and imams et al (am I making sense?) who proclaim “I veeelll declare jeeeehad!” at every perceived insult? I can only imagine how much the Jurassic Age version of Kayak Woman would’ve chafed if some Methodist minister had tried to tell her how to organize her life!

I have lost my train of thought, which is typical when I try to talk about politics or world events, because I see all of this stuff in RGB, not B/W. It doesn’t matter though, because I have more questions than answers. I wonder what’s next, both for the Islamic / Arab world and for our own country — with the three wars (count ’em, The Comm and Mona are) we are now involved in. I don’t know.

I know that a lot of people are celebrating Osama’s death. And that is okay. I guess I am too… I just hope that all of us who may have whooped it up about Obama’s “victory” over Osama will go forth in the world thinking about how to make it a better place and not just settle back in to watching reality TV and/or reading gossip magazines and/or spending Sunday afternoon at Woldemort. If we all paid more attention to what’s going on in the world (like The Commander and Mona and the majority of my five readers), maybe we would not get ourselves into the morass of debt and problems and wars that our country is currently in. I recommend starting with your own city or township or whatever council. What the heck are those folks doing with your money? You may be surprised.

But I’m just a baggy old kayak woman, so whaddoo I know?

Love y’all, KW

P. S. I am already as sick of the whole “Is Osama really dead, do we have evidence?” as I have always been about the derned birther crap. Sorry but don’t some of these people have something better to do? Fer kee-reist!

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