Smiley Face, Frowny Face

Now, he said, "I see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial even with Americans as jurors."

LA Times

I don't know if I see it as ironic, comic, tragic, poetically just, or what, but I like it.

Zacarias Moussaoui asked for a retrial after he was surprised at having received a fair trial with American jurors. He said, "I was sure that the justice system was just a charade and I would be given death." So he plead guilty to something that it turns out he may not have been immediately involved in and we didn't decide to kill him.

Oops.

That probably doesn't fit with the story he'd created for himself and lived by- was willing to kill for. He plead guilty and expected to get the death penalty because he hated America so much he thought that was the best that could happen. It was the best statement he could make. But it didn't happen. And because it didn't happen he had to confront who we can be.

I know I'm a hippy, liberal, faggot, pacifist and I'm supposed to hate America, but I don't. I often want us to be better than we are, it's because I know we can be better than we often are. And this, this is pretty good. It's not perfect, I don't expect it to be. There's plenty else to trouble us. But here's a reminder for us as Americans of our commitment to law and not personality, rules and not whims, our hope for more, when we are best, than just power and wielding it.

I know that is so tenuous and it might sound like I am merely casting my gaze from one thing to another. But I hope you've read enough to know that's not me.

And for us that claim to be Christians, what might it mean to have been praying, or to now pray, for this enemy as a person? I know it's a completely untestable claim, and perhaps offensive to those people who desperately want him dead, but is this what we can look for in praying for our enemies? I hope there was, or will be, a moment where he asks, "Who are these people I wanted to kill?" Or even better a moment where he asks, "Who am I and what have I been living for?"

You know what this means don't you? We'll make it to the semi-finals.