Saddam Hussein Is, Like, Dead.

The idea of Saddam Hussein has been around in my mind for over a decade. The thought of his death brings to mind that he was an actual person. Clearly, he could have used a reminder as well.
I don't condone torture in anyway. I don't condone torture in anyway. I don't condone torture in anyway. But my teachers are always telling me that yoga is union of opposites. Thus it comes to me that at this moment, while millions of people take his execution as justice, at this moment, there are those who are grieving his death. Sometimes i wonder how we haven't blown oursleves up yet with all the diametrical opposition.

I'm thinking about Tod Folds, my first boyfriend. We were in the sixth grade when the First Gulf War happened. He didn't believe that we would go to war. He thought the media were being sensationalists. I think he said something to the effect of, "It's just, so, like, commercials, and like sponsors, will like, i don't know, my dad said they, like, get more money, if people watch. And people will watch the news if there's, like a war." Something like that. We were precocious.

Since i was 11 when Saddam Hussein first came into my view, i think i maintained my 11-year-old POV of him: a terrorist action movie supervillain who would outrun a James Bond like superspy again and again. But no, he was a real human being who did things i don't want to think about to other real human beings and still insists that he will be martyrized in heaven. I saw a talk with Robert Thurman recently. Have i mentioned this before? I think it's worth mentioning again because it's a very challenging concept. He said (i'm paraphrasing.) that once we reached Buddhahood that we would be able to see all suffering and pain and despair as mothing but misunderstanding. That is, we will not deem events in history or our lives as good or bad, but see them as a series of actions, one leading to the next and to the next and to the next. I imagine that it will be like watching video of one of those magnificently-complicated tiles of dominoes designed to fall one after the other, running backwards and forwards at the same time.