Well, finally, here we are. Terrorpalooza. :reaper: The tenth anniversary, megablowout, prices slashed, everything must go, day that changed everything, American pity party. Today is the day when people all around the nation – most of whom have never been east of the Mississippi (never mind NYC, DC, or PA) – throw a possum on the grill, pop a can of Milwaukee’s Best, crank up some Alan Jackson and Toby Keith, kick back on their front-porch sofa (settin’ on brand new cinder blocks painted red, white, and blue bought special for the occasion), and lament over the day “we wuz attack.” Back then, “Kabul” was just something a turkey said. Now it’s, um, some place “over there” filled with “them people” that we both hate and must honor with our protection forever (amen). You know what the worst part of this whole 9/11 thing is? It’s not the hate or the racism, or the war-mongering. Nope. It’s the self-pity. And I’m not talking about the people whose lives were messed up that day – either because they lost somebody or because they sucked all that EPA-certified fresh air into their lungs. I’m talking about the vast majority of us who got the vapors from watching the damn thing on TV (over, and over, and over) and then bravely rose up to meet the call to go shopping. Oh, woe is me, boo-fuckin’-hoo.

You recall anybody whining about Pearl Harbor? Hell no. Well, I wasn’t around then so I suppose I wouldn’t really know, but I’ve seen a lot of movies, and you know what? No fucking whining (not even that guy who lost both his hands – Homer, I think his name was). They donated their pots and pans for scrap metal and quit driving their cars ‘cuz there was gas rationing (and no rubber for tires), and they grew their own food and bought war bonds so their sons and brothers could go off to fight for truth, justice, and the American way, and the women went to work in the factories (which really opened up a goddamn can of worms when the boys came back home; you wanna know the real legacy of Hitler and Tojo? Women’s Lib). But they didn’t whine about it. No sir, they just smoked their Luckies and went about their bidness. And when it was all over, they f*cked like bunnies (which wasn’t easy, ‘cuz married people slept in separate beds until, like, the late 1960s), and thus here we all are today.

I heard a bit of ‘This American Life’ yesterday with survivors and families of the attacks, and, while I didn’t hear it all, most of what I heard was them saying, “f*ck you, this is my thing, not yours, and I’m trying to get on with my life.”

How about fewer parades and less flag-waving, and some more money for health care for these folks?

Yesterday I caught part of a show on NPR with Afghans (Afghanis?) and Americans. Apparently the point was to “open a dialog.” Stupid NPR. Stupid Americans. As if that will make one whit of difference. As if anybody in the American government gives a flying crap what you idiots think (or what the people of Afghanistan want).

I don’t actually know what it is we’re doing over there, but I know that we’re there because we went there, and because we are there, because we can’t leave until the mission is accomplished. Whatever that is. You wanna help them people? Start buying opium. Build a magnum out of it or something. Can you imagine how much opium we coulda bought with the half a trillion dollars we’ve spent so far? And I’m talking wholesale. Shit. We could pay those poor bastards twice what they get now, and still turn a profit on this whole thing. That, and all of Dick Cheney’s oil that’s gushing out of Eye-Rack, and we’d have this whole deficit thing nipped in the bud.

Anyhow, things are better today than they were 10 years ago. Back then, I was at work, but today I’m not. So that’s good. And gas prices were, like, $1.60 a gallon or something back then. OK, so that’s not so good. But back then we had a President who was in no way, shape, or form capable of rising to face the challenges that he was about to face. And today…. OK, another bad example. Let’s see….

Oh, I know. Back then I had one dog and, like, 15 cats (mighta been less; I’m a little vague on the whole cat timeline – they were kinda coming and going for a while there). Today, two dogs and two cats. That’s way better.

Well, as much as I’d like to wallow in self-pity, tomorrow is a post-9/11 world, and I gotta get ready to face it (by doing my laundry).

Have a sad day.