One of the finest moments on television in the post 9/11 world was Wonder Showzen sending Beat Kid Trevor to Ground Zero to ask people to tell jokes. (Clearly the heads of Interweb, Inc. have yet to have a clip floating around for me to put up, but it, like the show, was full of satire and sick humor.)
It bothers me that we now say things like "post 9/11 world" to highlight the paradigm shift to attentiveness from the days when we were just face down and ass up to the world, but there has been a marked change. We've had a couple of movies about 9/11 victims and heroes, countless memorials, enough moments of silence to last days, but that's just the fanfare. We get cavity searched at the airport and the government can listen to our cell phone calls. We have a military operation that's lasted longer than WWII and daily debate over the direction of our country's role as the world leader. We have a rainbow of choices for how fearful to be and disdain for any foreigner coming from south of Europe.
National intelligence director Mike McConnell tells us we're safer than before, but that's only because now we're paying attention. Terrorism is like an STD that the US caught because we were fucking around in the Middle East. Now that we've had our burning discharge we're hyper vigilant to make sure the infection is cleared from that sweet vaj so we can get back to business grinding and pumping. Have we learned our lesson? I don't know, but for the time being the country is trying to get back it's old ways and old self with a renewed sense of caution.
Before space shuttles began having routine damage in their missions, the "do you remember" moment for my generation was the Challenger explosion. Now, like Kennedy's headshot or the Pearl Harbor fish-in-a-barrel strafing, 9/11 is that moment, and accordingly we have to be sternly introspective of the effect. The worst part is we've forgotten that were also pretty damn carefree and laughing before. Even if it's just gallows humor, the all the tension and hardened reflection has to be tempered.
We're going to be flagellating ourselves for years for sure, so let's at least have a spit take or a banana peel lying around just to change it up.
It bothers me that we now say things like "post 9/11 world" to highlight the paradigm shift to attentiveness from the days when we were just face down and ass up to the world, but there has been a marked change. We've had a couple of movies about 9/11 victims and heroes, countless memorials, enough moments of silence to last days, but that's just the fanfare. We get cavity searched at the airport and the government can listen to our cell phone calls. We have a military operation that's lasted longer than WWII and daily debate over the direction of our country's role as the world leader. We have a rainbow of choices for how fearful to be and disdain for any foreigner coming from south of Europe.
National intelligence director Mike McConnell tells us we're safer than before, but that's only because now we're paying attention. Terrorism is like an STD that the US caught because we were fucking around in the Middle East. Now that we've had our burning discharge we're hyper vigilant to make sure the infection is cleared from that sweet vaj so we can get back to business grinding and pumping. Have we learned our lesson? I don't know, but for the time being the country is trying to get back it's old ways and old self with a renewed sense of caution.
Before space shuttles began having routine damage in their missions, the "do you remember" moment for my generation was the Challenger explosion. Now, like Kennedy's headshot or the Pearl Harbor fish-in-a-barrel strafing, 9/11 is that moment, and accordingly we have to be sternly introspective of the effect. The worst part is we've forgotten that were also pretty damn carefree and laughing before. Even if it's just gallows humor, the all the tension and hardened reflection has to be tempered.
We're going to be flagellating ourselves for years for sure, so let's at least have a spit take or a banana peel lying around just to change it up.
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