Free Tibet

Now about my brother. I have several liberal bumper stickers smashed over the rear of my car, and one of them reads “Free Tibet.” At the first sight of this, my brother’s great proclamation was “You don’t even know where Tibet is.” Ever since he went away to join the Seals (and didn’t make it), my brother has been considering himself an authority on all things concerning world politics. If he were President of the United States we would now be occupying Syria and Lebanon.

He sure knows how to yank my chain. I told him about joining Drinking Liberally in D.C. and his reaction was a story about how someone made a cute, blonde Republican girl wearing a pro-Iraq war shirt in his store cry. He was suddenly animate about how he wanted to beat that person to a pulp, his face swelling up red and the veins beginning to distend on his neck. I was just shocked. Since we were at my father’s house I had to bite back a retort about how he’d feel if she’d been old and ugly.

My brother took me out to lunch for my birthday and bought me some clothes from the yuppie sporting goods store he manages in Georgetown- Patagonia. Which I loved. I mentioned that DL had gone out to see the movie “Thank You for Smoking,” which he was shocked to learn we all enjoyed. Strange thing, that I could actually mention my being Wiccan with him freely but it’s being liberal that’s so unspeakable.

I thought of him when I picked up a book last week called “The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier’s Account of the War In Iraq;” John Crawford’s little collection of Faulknerish short stories about being with the Florida National Guard in Baghdad. I was left torn between two feelings when I was done: wishing he’d done time in Iraq that would have left him with a more healthy view of war, and the relief that he was forced to stay home.
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