20110502

My Focus is Elsewhere

Last night, around 10 pm, the best battle buddy I ever had texted me to turn on a news channel. My half asleep brain decided it would be best to look outside the window to see if it was storming and then considered the possibility that it was storming back east. It was quite logical to me since it is tornado season.

Next move was to get on the internet. As always, first comes up Facebook, then UK Yahoo sports, then the news tab in my bookmarks.
Nothing interesting was on the sports and the news was still loading, so Facebook it was. And the news hit me in just about every form imaginable. Osama bin Laden was confirmed dead by President Obama.
I’ve had several reactions to this news. The first, and best, was my text back to my battle buddy. The basic concept was that it happened because I just finished reading Tom Clancy’s latest Jack Ryan/John Clark book. They got their bad guy captured and Clancy’s stuff can be eerily like real life.
My other reaction is one of pure frustration. To me, Osama has been just an ideal for a long time. Our beef may have started out just against him, but it is not the endgame. Our real battle is in the ideals, like how most battles in American history have gone. Osama was just the tip of the iceberg. It may bring closure to families who have lost loved ones, but Osama out of the picture does not mean the fight will magically go away.
My frustration also extends to the fact that I really, really, love soccer and with real summer competitions, this is the best time of year.  Arsenal beat Manchester United yesterday, Championship teams are finding out who will be promoted, and the Champions League is heating up with some INTENSE Barca/Real rivalry. To top it off, Arsenal just released photos of the 125th anniversary home kit. It’s still growing on me, but I’d much rather focus on that than people debating and celebrating a dead guy that still has the possibility to cause as much damage dead as alive.

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