(If you linked here from this week's Christian Carnival, welcome. You'll find the post Dunmoose spoke of here. He apparently didn't choose to link directly to the submitted posts - at least not in my and a few other cases. Enjoy your stay.)

Empty. I am not running on empty. I am sitting on the side of the road with no help in sight empty.

Physical - up late last night chatting and eating and lying around trying to sleep. Woke up and headed into the city to run Russ' last 10 miles of his training run with him. Sad that slamming a 10 could suck me so dry, but its been a tough few months for me - no time to stay in shape.

Emotional - probably didn't sleep last night because mom called with an update on the cousin. By the end of the phone call I was so angry I couldn't speak, I just told her I had to go. She felt bad, and I had to call back today to make sure that she knew that it wasn't her I was angry at. She knew. I think dad has a better read of where I'm at on this whole thing and has avoided giving me the painful details for just that reason.

As if that weren't enough, I decided it was time to see Hotel Rwanda, just to suck the tank completely dry. I should have known what I was getting myself into, having visited the idea lately in my thoughts.

The movie is a true story, and a clear and accurate picture of the complete peace-keeping impotence of the UN. Sadder still, its telling evidence of the turn-a-blind-eye mentality that most of the civilized world has. To paraphrase one of the characters, "I think most of the world will see what's going on here, say 'that's terrible,' and go on eating their dinners."

I'm not trying to trivialize the death of nearly 3,000 in our homeland in one day, or even the 1,500+ lost defending our country from terror threats in the Middle East. But nearly 1,000,000 lives lost in 100 days? Were we just not watching the news?

As the movie shows, the target of the ethnic cleansers was not just the Tutsi people. It was primarily their children. That's how cleansing works.

While somewhat traumatic, I left feeling that the viewer only got a dumbed-down, Americanized version of what the horror really was like. While there were some beatings, shooting, etc. - there was less brutal violence in this movie than in, oh, Gladiator? Not that I want to be exposed to what it was really like. But maybe I need to be.

Maybe we all need to be.