Big Day

Apparently I missed out on a lot of news since last night. We were still catching up on the Royal Wedding details which Amanda recorded and never even heard the big news until today about Bin Laden. I would be remiss without inclusion of such a big event on this blog and will include 3 links for your own perusal. Firstly, quotes from sundry world leaders about the event. I find these meaningful and they help depict many countries' formal positions on the event. Second is a day in pictures of the celebrations and events marking Bin Laden's death. These pictures aren't as poignant as such a big event should dictate, but I think they still capture the feeling of the moment. Lastly is the BBC live feed. Unlike CNN it isn't duplicative in its entirety, instead trying to have many different people on the interviews, including those people who were close to Osama Bin Laden himself.

And then three of my own thoughts from this. It is good that such an abomination to world peace, human rights and mutual understanding has been removed from a position of power. I think this event spans far beyond just an American event even though the US has certainly been the focus of attention. It is also ironic that the CIA misinformation got us into a lot of this mess about a decade ago, and that the CIA got this result too. Also ironic is the fact that Obama got this "result" just as everyone was really starting to put the heat on him and his many flawed campaign processes. Now time will tell how this impacts world events, but hopefully this has weakened the influence of global terrorism.

There are some really big, defining moments in history and this day in my life as a citizen of the US stands alongside other such days as watching the Bosnia conflict on TV, hearing about 9/11 from my sister, hearing about our second invasion of Iraq and the later the discovery of Hussein when in church on Sunday, and then this on the radio this morning. I heard it, and didn't believe it and still now am having trouble grasping the vastness of the announcement. But it doesn't really change anything in my own world until we actually make progress towards fixing the problems that Bin Laden represented.