In early April, 1993, I went to Waco, TX. with my future wife, and two friends, in order to try and fake our way into the media encampment around the Branch Davidian compound. Our intention was to interview the media that had been there since February 28th of that same year for our college cable access station. February 28th, 1993 was thirteen years and one day ago. We arrived later, and passed through the second ring of security, into the press encampment using our fake NTTV Press passes. We could see the compound, with our own eyes. We didn't have to see it through the eyes of the media. We could see it. It was right there, about a half a mile away.

We interviewed reporters from CNN, CBS, NBC and others. We laughed. We took pictures of the funny structures the reporters had set up over the intervening weeks of the ongoing raid. We laughed about the golden oldies that the government played at night for the Davidians who were cooped up in their compound with their leader, David Koresh. What we didn't know was that, out in the outer ring of security, the one we'd passed through, among the protesters that we'd seen, was a young, fresh faced man, recently back from Iraq. His name was Timothy McVeigh. He saw something dreadfully different than what we saw that day, and acted on it two years later.

On April 19th, one week after we had laughed in the media camp with the reporters, the Branch Davidians died in fire.

I've been thinking about this a lot today because I have to write a paper and give a presentation in my anthropology class about Timothy McVeigh. About what his motives were. About why he thought blowing up innocent people was a good idea. About what drove him to his action. It's dark thinking, but it's still interesting. I'm finding that his motives were more complex than I had at first thought.

I'll be posting the video we made in '93, once I get it converted to mpeg. It never aired on cable access because it was to have aired the day the compound burned down, and was pulled by our producer. I hope you enjoy it!

I've finished converting the video. It's an avi file, you may have to have quicktime to view it...I hope you have it. Here it is: Sattelite City. Oh, and by the way, I'm not in the video this time...I'm behind the camera.

What percentage would you think the United States gives of it's per capita gross domestic income to non-military aid internationally? 10%? 5%? 2%? No. Keep going lower. Try .02%. To be sure, the United States populace makes up for some of this disparaging number by private giving, but what does it say about the wealthiest nation on the planet that our government can't even convince itself to give even 1% of it's income toward ending hunger?

It is an atrocity.

There is enough food in the world to feed every single person on the planet about 2000 calories a day, and yet people starve to death every day.

Something has gone terribly wrong with our morality.

Sorry, I'm just incensed.

Current events have impacted our class. Hamas has won the election in the Palestinian Authority, and threatens to destabilize the region. Bush has said that this is a clear indication that people were not satisfied with the status quo, and I agree. However, I have to ad that this also shows that people want services, they want health care, and all those things that Hamas was providing them. While it's true that Hamas' military tactics are questionable, their social programs have won them many followers. Why couldn't the Fatah party get this together?

One other thing that I don't think is coming through all this is that democracy doesn't always give the results that we wish for. Sometimes, the US doesn't want to hear what the population of new democracies thinks.

I am super amazed. I don't often say that, but I am. I've been so incredibly impressed by the professor for this class, and not just because I've worked with her on other projects (like the Anthro Conference last year). In one week she raced through an economic history of the world, bringing us up to where we are today, with amazing clarity of thought. She talked about the important stuff, and mentioned in passing the stuff that we should already know.

This week she's talking about the stuff (sugar, coffee, tobacco, etc..) that have shaped that economic development over time. The stuff she's talking about is absolutely essential for our subject matter also, as it leads us to the real questions, the effect of economic change over time, and people's reactions to it.

For me, almost every reaction, be it peaceful revolution, violent revolution, or simple policy change to accommodate change, boils down to one thing; inequality. People react very strongly to being unequal, it seems to me. Even in societies where one knows one's "place," when that "place" is challenged, or changed, an inequality occurs, and a reaction ensues, it seems to me.

We've also been given our assignment for our final papers. I think I'm going to write something about David Koresh and his religious movement, and what it was a reaction to, and how the government dealt with it. Why? Because I was there, that's why. I watched it happen on television, and I also went to the media encampment and interviewed the media that was there. Weird stuff. Who knows, it might be an interesting paper. As always, I'll post it out here in PDF format when it's finished.

I've started my Anthro class now, this was the third day. I think it's going to be a really good class. The prof is someone I know and have worked with in the past, so it should be fun. I really like the way she's approaching this potentially volatile subject matter, we'll see if the class can keep it's cool when facts are brought up and challenged.

There's alot of reading for this class, and I think I'll be hard pressed to find time to do it all, but I'll do my best. The first book we're reading out of is Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. Reading chapter three now, and it's technical and dry, but pretty good.

With all the weirdness that's been going on around work, I was considering not even taking a class this quarter, but I think I'm going to go ahead and do it...I just have to. But I will, actually, take a different kind of class in the spring quarter, I think... Creative Writing (if they offer it)... I've been thinking of spreading my creative wings more using the written word.

But for now, I'm going to see if I can't get into Revolution and Development in the Third World this quarter.

Check here for updates to see if I get in...

My final exam/paper/essay for this class is HERE in pdf format.

My final thoughts on this class are as follows; the subject matter is not comfortable. It is, in fact, quite uncomfortable. Most people will not want to hear what is taught in this class, however most people need to hear what is taught.

We don't want to know that the health care system in the United States is fundamentally flawed. We don't want to hear that at the motivational root of much of our health care system is profit. We don't want to know that there are people living right here in the United States that have less access to adequate health care than similar people in other countries. We don't like to hear these things. Why? Because we've been trained to think that if we do it here, it must be the best, it must be right, it cannot be worse than anywhere else in the world.

While it is true that we have the highest level of medical technology, and the best and most talented doctors on the entire planet here in the United States, the fact remains that we do not provide the same level of care to all people. People's ability to pay, peoples ability to find and maintain work, peoples ability to get off work and seek treatment, all work against people in many different situations have the ability to obtain and pay for adequate health care.

What is to be done about this? I don't know. I don't have the answers. Many people seek alternative treatments because of this disparity. This was one focus of this class. Alternative medicine in the United States. We even had a healer from Healing Way here in Spokane come and talk to us about the "energies" that surround our bodies. He even proved the existence of this aura by way of a few good parlor tricks.

My ultimate thought is this: people are being taken for a ride. People who need to be given proper treatment are seeking alternatives that sometimes help, and sometimes hurt. While it is often positive to seek something like prayer or other intercession for the positive placebo effect, it is unfortunate that so much Naturalpathy and other un-tested alternative practices give people false hope.