What is Suffering?

The most traumatic place I’ve yet visited on this Earth is Auschwitz-Birkenau.  I was there with some friends in 2005.

I know I’ve talked about it before.  The awful things that were done to people during that war.  The humiliation.  The beatings.  The dreadful murders of so many people.  The intense fear and pain of those who watched others die so horribly.

People who were drowned, crippled, killed, or otherwise experienced devastation from the 2005 southern US hurricanes and the 2004 tsunami in the Pacific.  Many people left with nothing after the floods and other weather disasters in 2008.

Those who died and those who watched the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001.

People who have endured starvation, lacking …

I was subjected to scenes of Barack and Hillary playing nice with each other on stage at a rally in Unity, New Hampshire.  It was a bit over the top.

I don’t know what the real content (if any) of their speeches consisted of, and the newscasts simply showed snippets of each of them saying cute and insipidly stupid things about each other (Obama: “She Rocks!  She Rocks!  That’s what I’m talking about”).

At the same time, CBS covered Clinton supporters at the rally who are dead set against voting for Obama, and writing in Clinton.  Like that’s gonna work.

It’s intriguing that so many people are proclaiming they will not vote for one of the major candidates this fall.  I’ve be watching some bloggers …