I was thinking on my walk home about all the stories that are walking in and out of that building, and I was desperately hoping that someone would capture at least some of them competently. I expected to have to wait and watch the press to see if it would happen. I didn't dream of walking in the door to this.
Thank you, Patrick.
I don't think of it as a matter of putting it behind us. We all carry our images and thoughts of that day with us, wherever we watched from. I think that's why I find the media coverage/rehashing so offensive. In their haste to tell us that they are providing a 93service,94 the news outlets are strongly suggesting that we have forgotten, that we can forget.
However, I try to give the people who say, "Get over it," the benefit of the doubt. They do have something important to say, and if they don't know how to express it, it's not entirely their fault. We don't talk about tragedy in this country. We've never really developed a vocabulary of sorrow. I hope that if we did, these people would be saying something much more like, "Don't let this stop you from living. Don't let this pin you down."
When tragedy first occurs, the burden of it seems unbearable. We're weak, fragile creatures, and we've just been reminded so terribly of that. We can't possibly be strong enough pick up more; often, we can't even continue to hold up what we92ve carried every day up until now. Some of us fall ourselves.
This happens. It's what terrorists like to point to as victory, but it isn't. It's just human nature. Their real victory only occurs if that's where it stops. Every person who never figures out how to carry that new burden is another casualty, stuck forever where they were then. Life is motion. Stasis is death.
That isn't to say that everyone has to grow strong at the same rate, or that this is a burden we each must bear the full weight of, or that we shouldn't put it down sometimes to rest or be weak or even forget momentarily. We don't even have to carry it very far at a time. We just have to try--to make unafraid decisions about our future, to let the world back in instead of cringing away from it, to trust ourselves to remember when the time is right.
We owe it to the dead, who can't. We owe it to our living loves, who would do all this for us if they could. And we owe it to terrorists, as sheer spit-in-the-face defiance.
Whew. Sorry, Patrick. I didn't mean to take up all that space, but apparently this has been preying on me and reading the post and comments was the right catalyst.
Jeff, thank you. You--officially--rock.
And that's not the margarita talking, either. The cackling you heard a couple of minutes ago? That was the margarita--or a hysterical release of the tension raised by those numbers. Either way, blessed, if temporary, relief.
Jon, in a twisted way, you do almost have to feel sorry for the man. He did sign up to be our first forty-hour-a-week president, after all. It wasn't until well after the ink was dry on the contract that someone pointed out the "other duties as assigned" clause.
Of course, if he'd been the manager he claimed to be, he could have kept the underlings from running away with the company and making more work for him.
Or maybe that corporate analogy is slightly flawed. Anyone want to ask and see how he feels about it now?
I'm waffling between Bob Fosse and Gene Kelly. At least one of them goes on my list for their contributions to the vocabulary of dance and their bodies of work. Fosse's quality level is more consistent, but Kelly had the studio system to deal with. Kelly laid critical groundwork, but Fosse took it so much farther. They both produced work that was severly underappreciated at the time and looks much better now.
Grr. This is going to take a while.
In the meantime, a few that have to go on my list:
John D. MacDonald--for his pulp fiction as literature or vice versa
Madalyn Murray O'Hair
Enrico Fermi
Crystal Eastman
Alexander Fleming
Elizabeth Loftus--a fairly young nominee, but she's championed the cause of legal and policy decisions being based on scientific, rather than pop, psychology
Not that I wear my prejudices on my sleeve.
As a serial obsessor, I can't really comment on whether knowledge is better deep or broad. I only found out what I wanted to do by trying enough things that I could find out which ones didn't get boring when they got easy(ier).
But I have noticed that the same people whose eyes go wide and who go a little quiet when I show some evidence of deep geekery are often the people who can quote advertising jingles for hours at a time, or who will debate endlessly, say, who was the best of Charlie's Angels. Or they're the people who know who had their good year when and on which team. Heck, they're the people who know who announced for which team when.
If I had watched TV endlessly as a child (or an adult) or was rooting for the "home team," no one would even notice. Flash a little grammar or make someone's computer do what they want it to do, though...
Gorey was a thorough New Englander. But don't think being British would have stopped him. He didn't shy away from the implicit. In fact, if you want to read a lovely (ahem) story told entirely by implication, check out "The Curious Sofa." If possible, get someone to read it first and then read it out loud to you with (in)appropriate inflections.
Further sad proof that "them people over there" just aren't as civilized as us lofty Americans. I mean, it's free and all, but anyone really discerning would be holding out for Apple's 23" cinema HD display.
I think the toughest part of using a demonstration to get your message across is the anonymity. People in crowds that large tend to stop being individuals. While that's bad from the inside of the crowd (think mob behavior), it can have even worse consequences from outside.
Who here hasn't passed a group of people with signs and linked arms and loud slogans--supporting whatever cause--and thought, "Oh, those people"? We've seen enough people protesting enough causes, using all the same tactics and theatrics, that we start to lump them together and to be a little fatigued when we see a new protest.
Which is not to say that these protests don't have their place. They can demonstrate numbers and passion to a government that is open to listening. Ours currently is not.
So if you want to reach the people who will be voting in the next election instead, try something a little more risky, something that makes you less anonymous. Unless you've surrounded yourself with a little pink bubble, chances are good you have friends, neighbors and coworkers who support Bush and support the war. Talk to them when the opportunity arises.
Tell them you're afraid. Tell them you're concerned about a president who neglects our economy for a war in which we have nothing to win, who takes away our rights in the name of bringing them to someone else, who dismisses our allies and makes new enemies in order to defeat one "enemy."
Tell them this respectfully. Don't tell them they should be afraid. Don't tell them you hate Dubya or that he was never elected to office. Those are fighting words that make you "Oh, those people."
Then listen to them. They may agree with you on more of those points than you think and feel vindicated by finding someone else who thinks this way. Or they may tell you why they're not afraid of Bush or why they are afraid of voting for a liberal. Listen to them. Don't argue.
If the person you are talking to is reasonable, you will now have established yourself as another reasonable person with whom a safe discussion of differing political opinions is possible. And you will know what motivates this person politically.
Now you will be in a position to be persuasive. I don't mean ranting or preaching. That will shut down this new political relationship as quickly as anything could. But it is amazing how persuasive one can be simply by demonstrating that one is rational and open to discussion and still holds deep political beliefs.
It is risky. It requires you to be diplomatic and vulnerable. But it works remarkably well on all but raving loons.
Sorry for the long post.
It does make me wonder sometimes how many of us really want to live in a democracy. We're willing to accept the freedoms we get and the nominative participation in and responsibility for our governance. But how many of us are willing to accept that every fellow citizen has (in theory) and should have the same voice and the same vote we have? How many of us are willing to recognize that everyone has the same rights to be listened to, informed, and respectfully engaged in dialog about the course of the country?
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 2 |
| 2003 | 12 |
| 2002 | 10 |
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