this morning every radio station i could possibly tune to was broadcasting the speeches, the moments of silence, the bullshit happening at ground zero.
i was particularly amused by the "journalists" talkover during said moments of silence, god forbid there be dead air on the airwaves, we must fill up this time with words and thoughts, lest anyone be allowed to ponder.
i couldn't help but envision the second wave of attacks, couldn't they start happening, right now, six months later, and wouldn't that be a smart move by those crafty terrorists, or maybe one year later or two years exactly after the kenya bombings or yemin. yemin yemin, start again then.
in all the talk of the "attack on america" everyone overlooked its sheer genius; hardly like an act of war at all, everday objects, familiarity, turned into weapons filled with plenty of gas to cause an eruption and damn, that was smart, and why didn't anyone think of that before, and what will they think of next, those crazy terrorists?
"turn it off, turn it off!" cried the voice in my head, what with the documentary that i missed most of last night and the ceremony today and the lighting of the memorial tonight, does anyone know what kind of damage we are doing further upon what's already been done and i laughed at pataki saying we had responded to an act of evil with an act of good; perhaps he meant the actions of so-called heroes and not operation enduring freedom [is it still called that, or is it now 'operation shhhhhhhhhh' or 'operation still happening?' or 'operation no one seems to care anymore' or 'operation civilize those crazy ragheads'?] but i couldn't help but chuckle, kill more people, kill more, kill more, kill more. that's all that will satiate anyone.
research suggests that a third of survivors will develop post-traumatic stress disorder, symptoms. who are the survivors? the average american watched 8 hours of tv on september 11. the rate of ptsd symptoms is directly correlated with the amount of television viewed. and shit, i don't have all the research here with me, and i'm trying really hard not to make any point at all, lest the veil of my callous heartlessness drop to reveal nothing at all but an invisible sort of mirror image.
it seems that emo is the adjective of the moment, and that emo threatens to be wildly popular this year. this scares me more than the terrorism.
buster said at 12:02 PM 03-11-2002: actually a few years ago someone did think of "it." a disgruntled fed ex pilot attempted to hi-jack a fed ex plane with a hammer and a spear gun. his plans were to crash into the memphis hub and he almost succeeded. not quite the scale of the wtc but thousands of people work there and it is sitting on top of fuel tanks.
milky [email] said at 12:18 PM 03-11-2002: I saw, for a few seconds, as the mayor of NYC said, let's pause for a few minutes as the second plane hit, laughed at the stupidity of dragging this shit on, and changed to some cartoons.
One day we'll start getting nostalgic about last week, last thursday, or the day before...
milky [email] said at 12:34 PM 03-11-2002: it is actually a ruse for journalists to get out of doing 'real' work, I'm afraid. (Everyone forget Enron is the subliminal chant)
angele [email] said at 8:52 PM 03-11-2002: I haven't seen a dentist in five years. I have terrifying images of how deteriorated my teeth are. Even more horrifying is the visualization of drills attacking my teeth. I bet dentists refer to a person's early twenties as "the lost years." I wonder if they swap "One time I saw this twenty-five" year old. . . " stories like teenagers swap "one time I got sooo drunk. . ." tales.
milky [email] said at 9:47 PM 03-11-2002: Angele, if it is any help at all, I didn't see a dentist for over 6 years while I was in college, drinking tons of soda and not generally brushing regularly at all. I was scared to go to the dentist. When I finally did, I didn't have a single cavity. The dentist just told me to start flossing so my gums wouldn't be so puffy.
milky [email] said at 6:15 PM 03-11-2002: My teeth are sorta glowing...they were never this shiny or whiite ever before. And I just had them cleaned in the Fall.
kara [email] said at 6:39 PM 03-11-2002: I was "ringing up" this woman at work today and I outloud tried to remember todays date. "March 11," she said, "6 months after September 11th." I rolled my eyes at her and we didn't speak another word.
Hey it's the "5 months and 3 days anniversary" of September 11th. Big deal. People who were affected are going to be thinking about it any given day, so why make a big fuss about anniversaries like there's some numerology involved.
I'm not putting down the effect of this or any disaster, just putting down our societys way of finding excuses to bring it up and make it relevant.
xmeredithx [email] said at 6:43 PM 03-11-2002: i feel the same way about this day as i feel about new year's eve/day. so what. you can say happy new year on any given day, just like you could mark the anniversary of sept 11 any day or minute. so what?
geez, if only i could have stated that so simply and eloquently in the original post. oh well.
i like the image of kara being mean to people at work. it makes me smile.
Shell said at 9:30 AM 03-12-2002: I agree that the media shamelessly bottom-fed on the "anniversary," but cannot discount the fact many people *feared* an act of retribution on March 11, as it was a "significant date". The terrorists succeeded in sowing terror in the minds of many.
Nathan said at 1:20 AM 03-12-2002: The section of the skyline where the towers were seems disordered. I always thought that the two mirroring buildings presented some regularity within the southern cluster of buildings. That regularity was a nice anchor, in a way, for the end of the island. I wonder what the beams look like from Manhattan. In viewing the photos, I wish they were a little thicker. Can you look up from anywhere within the city and see them? As far as the crashing of airplanes being an act of genius, I can't agree. It was logically clever, yes. But I don't think that a real act of genius involves one's own death. Nor do I think that such an act would resolve in the oblideration in the homelands of one's allies.
josh [email] said at 1:41 AM 03-12-2002: Well, the people that died didn't come up with the idea, though. They were footsoldiers, basically.
But yeah, it seems to not have achieved what they set out to do. There isn't any jihad against the US going on. If anything we are more powerful than before 9/11.
