Hello. Welcome to my website. It started while I was in Europe for a semester, and I've kept it up since then. I'm now at the University of Chicago Law School, living in Hyde Park, and the story continues. If you want to say hi or visit me, email cfloyd at uchicago dot edu.
"Life is nothing if not the sum of your anecdotes." -Scotty The Body, on storytelling "But it ain't that bad, man. Just figure out the system before the system figures out you." -T. Matthew Smith, on the 1L year "The beer just doesn't taste as good when you're not drinking it with your buddies." -Anon., on being away from good friends "Somebody has to pay the rent around here. Why the hell not us?" -Cotton, on studying for exams
3/20/2003
War.
Here we go again. We all must pray for an outcome that isn't disaster.
I am safe and sound here, of course. Graz is the European equivalent of Norman. A college town with a population not dependent on the university. Certainly not a target. It has been interesting to watch the reaction of people here to the events of the last several days. Although the media here have been giving people the exact same information that Americans get, nobody here seemed to realize that war between the U.S. and Saddam Hussein was inevitable from the start unless Hussein was exiled or deposed. I started asking the others in my apartment about a week ago if I could watch CNN Europe on their TVs. They asked me why. I told them it was because war was coming in a week or less. The reaction was surprise: no...did I actually think war would happen? Surely European diplomacy would head this one off.
What has happened is a huge disconnect between Europe and America, not on morals or values, but on reality. Europeans I have spoken to don't quite grasp the change in the American disposition since September 11, 2001. We got our fix in Afganistan, right? Surely Osama's not in the penthouse of the Baghdad Four Seasons. Why are we going in, and why does 3/4 of the U.S. population support such a thing? The answer I give is simple: the towers fell and our world changed. I don't talk about my personal opinion--whether I think our actions are right or wrong, appropriate or unjust. I just say that it seems like people here underestimate the long-term effect that day had on our country. Americans aren't over it and won't be until Tom Ridge stops giving us the color of the day. Or at least until that color stays green.
3/20/2003 01:56:00 AM
