I Live in *This* World?

The recent news in the media has made me feel so thankful that I've lived in a relatively safe environment my whole life. Quite often, I think of all the different reasons why one must flee their own country. One of the reasons being that my father came to America as a refugee. And when I was growing up, he recounted his adventures to me as bedtime stories. So I drifted off to bed trying to get the vocabulary words straight in my head. China became "communist", my grandpa was deemed a "capitalist" and at the time the bad people were the "capitalists". The "farmers" were the good guys. Inevitable conflict. Since my grandpa was the bad guy the rest of his family were also bad. My father had to leave China. So, naturally, I empathize with displaced people. People who don't want to leave, but are forced out of their livelihood...or forced out of their right to pursue happiness.

Ugh, what is this?

http://poplicks.com/2006/07/bombs-over-lebanon.html
http://www.cmylebanon.com/images/displayimage.php?album=207&pos=28

My heart hurts looking at the pictures from the links above.

And then I think of how we are all interconnected. Khaled's extended family is in Lebanon and are all, thankfully, okay (I checked in with him today). But still, many disruptions to their life.

And out of the blue, I decided to check Oliver Wang's blog today and happened upon Junichi's. In his bio, I read that his wife's family is also from Lebanon.

All these people I don't know personally are real. And terrible, horrible, unimaginable things are happening to them. I feel unsettled today. How can we let this happen to each other and to our world? I need to do something about this. My action list includes but is not limited to:

1. Get more involved with local politics
2. Get more informed on the situation (read blogs, the Economist, other links)
3. Write in to editors in different news sources
4. Join some type of action group online to stay informed
5. Blog more about issues that matter

Two other interesting links I found on Junichi Semitsu's blog today that I intend to spend more time on reading.

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
http://americablog.blogspot.com/