How Far, How Fast, How Long?

I am really starting to get excited about the marathon. I have had so many people ask me about it or encourage me these past few days. It should be a lot of fun to see Kevin Stone and assorted others with crazy messages painted on their chests.

It's funny that sometimes I get on here with absolutely no idea what to write, and something will come to me as I sit here, and other times, like today, there is nothing rolling around in my head that feels incredibly significant. I think that I need this time each day to simply sit down and order my thoughts and to give voice to the things that concern me. If I sit down and write/type I will sometimes be inundated with these incredible thoughts and ideas to share, but other times it seems that I am just detailing the day to day things that I see, think and feel, and that can be special in and of itself many times.

One of the things that has really been troubling me lately has been the documentation of torture and mistreatment of prisoners that has been coming out of our detention facilities in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. If there ever was an opportunity for Americans to show that these principles that we live by of liberty, justice, due process mean something in the day to day way that we live, this is it.

Instead, there have been far too many cases detailing abuse of prisoners and tactics that seem to toe a line pretty close to torture. I realize that these people that we are dealing with are bent on destroying our way of life, and using themselves as the projectiles at times, but if we are to lead the world, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. Everyone deserves to be treated with common dignity and decency, even if our worldviews and motives are diametrically opposed. That is the least that we can do. This means giving people food, the opportunity to sleep, and other basic human needs such as shelter. One of the ways that we deter future terrorist actions is to act in such a way that we do not give them more reasons to hate us.