The schoolgirl chronicles, part I.

Gina and Whitney are best friends. They both hate Ilyse. Ilyse sits between Gina and Whitney in math class because the teacher assigned their seats like that. Gina and Whitney want Ilyse to switch seats with them, but she refuses, so Gina and Whitney throw spitballs at Ilyse all day, and she keeps throwing them right back. One day, Gina takes something belonging to Whitney, and they stop talking. Lonely the next day in math (and also looking for a little revenge), Whitney becomes friends with Ilyse. They both decide to ignore Gina. Gina gets frustrated, and, in an effort to both ruin the newly-formed friendship between Whitney and Ilyse and to gain attention and get what she really still wants (her seat switched), she starts throwing even more spitballs at Ilyse. Ilyse is angry, and she gets the teacher involved. The teacher petitions to Whitney to get Gina to stop throwing spitballs, but Whitney has no power to tell Gina what to do, and Gina doesn't listen because she knows that she is still in the right to get her seat changed. What no one sees is that Gina has valid reasons for being angry, because they're too busy focusing on her wrongdoing and not inviting her to express her anger in an environment where her frustrations can be turned into something productive.

Everybody's talkin' 'bout...

...moderate.


Today in Pakistan, a huge showing of police force to prevent a rally against Musharraf's emergency rule. Bhutto was barricaded into her house. But the real interesting part of this article comes when the United States gets an input, as the New York Times follows the government for its stories.

A spokesman for President Bush, Gordon D. Johndroe, called for the release of Ms. Bhutto, her supporters, other party members and all protesters. “It is crucial for Pakistan’s future that moderate political forces work together to bring Pakistan back on the path to democracy,” he said in a statement.

Moderate. An American policy buzzword in the later years of "The War on Terror." In Palestine, we're looking to deal with the moderate political players, in this case the secular Fatah party. In Iraq, we're looking to appeal to the moderate and intelligently thinking of the population. And here is that word again, this time in Pakistan.

This notes a very interesting, although slightly hypocritical, shift in policy. Instead of dealing with the extremists head on (and going into towns and killing innocent people and inciting the wrath of the gloal community), now we go around the extremist players and deal with the nice, less-controversial moderates. Right now it seems like policy gold: Look! They're working with us! They like us! But I forsee this as a massive failure. It's like having a fight with France so negotiating with Canada for it to stop. In the end, it doesn't make any sense, because the 'extremists' don't answer to the 'moderates.'

And the hypocritical aspect? When, ever, has this current administration opted to promote moderate thinking in policy-making?