Patriotism =/= total lack of sanity. I think.
Tomorrow is the ten-year anniversary of al Qaeda’s attacks on the US, and we Americans are approaching this fact about as can be expected: by going totally and completely batshit insane for about a week, drinking heavily, and shouting “GO ‘MURKA!”
I can understand being raucous on Independence Day, because it’s supposed to be like a big birthday party. But occasions like this, if they’re given attention, should be attended to with either solemn subtlety or wry self-deprecation. There’s nothing to celebrate about innocent people dying. Conversely, people who wail on obsessively about terrorism make me want to ask, “dudes, did you die or something?”
I’ve been told that there really is no middle ground for an issue like this; you’re either someone stuck in the past, or you’ve moved on too quickly. Maybe that’s correct. Other, older countries have suffered far more, but to decry the importance of human suffering in growth would be to shun evolution altogether - and that isn’t very liberal, is it?
Here’s where I’m going to slice off the obligatory political bit. You’ve (whoever you are) heard it all before. Instead, here are a few more things that happened on various September 11ths throughout history:
1847 - “Oh, Susanna!” is first performed
1985 - Pete Rose scores his 4,192nd career hit, breaking Ty Cobb’s record
1997 - NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor finally reaches Mars
… plus a lot of people died, even more people were born, some more bad stuff happened, and some good stuff happened as well.
Which is really the way it should be. And that alone is worth celebrating.
