Thank you Jenny for lending me your Lonely Planet guide books. I am discovering some truly magnificent info!

I normally steer clear of politics and religion, but as a future resident of the world and travel blogger I feel like it is my duty to provide my perspective on the situation that seems to be plaguing our global society.  So to start off, my thoughts around religion and about life in general is “live and let live.”  I don’t necessarily know what I believe when it comes to faith and religion, but I’m not about to discount anyone’s deities, prophets, gods, whatever.   What I do believe with all of my heart is treating people with kindness and good will.  I like the idea of Karma, though I’m not sure I’ve seen it in action enough to believe that its true.

That all said, I am pretty angry with the hate and violence being directed at the US and all Americans right now.  How can someone claim to be a person of faith and spew such hatred and garbage! I refused to believe that any religion has a base in hate, and violence in the name of god just makes me sad.  ‘Death to America’ is being chanted across the Muslim world right now, and as an American who would not dream of demeaning another person or their faith or religion, I am hurt, frightened, and angry.  I will never understand why people think it is okay to attack and kill at random over one persons idiotic actions, that were thoughtless and disrespectful for sure, but didn’t actually cause harm to anybody.  I will not even try to say that I am fluent in global politics, but I’m sure the US ambassador in Libya that was killed, over a video on the internet, did not deserve such a heinous death.  He was there to endorse peaceful relations between our two countries and his death was pointless and unnecessary.  In fact, all of the deaths related to this video are sickening.  I certainly condemn the people who created the video (which I haven’t even seen), but more then that I condemn the actions taken by people around the world as a result.  It’s shameful and I think they a doing a disservice to their religion.

And I also understand that there are plenty of Muslim’s out there that have been and remain peaceful, so this is in no way meant to be a blanket statement about the Muslim world. I only wish that something good been done to stop the madness and bring some peace and reason to the world.  That is my Miss Universe portion of this post :)

Next year I will taking off to experience everything our world has to offer.  I hope I do not have to fear visiting certain areas, neighborhoods, or countries, scarred that as an American I will be harassed or targeted by hateful people.  I hope that a peaceful resolution can be reached, for everyone’s sake.