castelluna's dad asked how i am, said you seem a little less calm. i told him what was happening briefly, mentioning the world of hurt we're in and the five hour film of iraq and he said you have to watch that stuff and i said i know, i do, and i said it's just so brutal, and he said yeah, but it's always been that way, and i said no, uh-uh, this is different, this is a superpower annihilating a little country with space age weapons of mass destruction for oil. this does not remotely resemble centuries of tribal conflict. so i felt no better talking with castelluna's dad, no better than talking to fen's dad who said yeah but they were at war in the bible. shit, is there no question of integrity, empathy, compassion, or scale? how can they compare? i am less calm. i am radically un-calm.