2002-09-06
11:20 a.m.

Well, we've gotten this far anyway....

The one year aniversary of September 11th, 2001 is just a few days away. And I don't know how I feel about it. Scratch that. I know exactly how I feel. I just don't know how I'm supposed to feel.

Anniversaries of any type are a funy thing. Completely manufactured. Not that they're meaningless, far from it. Still and all, remembering something one year after it happened makes as much logical sense as remembering it 3 months and 5 days after. The exact span of 1 year, or 10, or 50 adds no prfound meaning. It's just convenient for us.

That being said, one can't help being reflective right about now. Of that day, of that specific *moment* that we all had when we knew the world was going straight to hell. It hurts to think about that day. And it should. And we shouldn't shy away from thinking about it.

Maybe that's why all these netowrk news shows and newspapers and magazines hawking their "9/11 A Nation Remembers" special editions rub me the wrong way. A nation remembers? How could we have forgotten? As a few online columnists I've read have said (Lileks, Sars) I don't need to remember. That day is carried with me. Always. It's important to move on from that day, but it's not ok to forget. It's just not. If we forget we get soft and we get arrogant and it all will happen again. Righteous anger. We must now and forever persue justice with righteous anger. Let that be the lesson from last September.

And, yes, I know the networks and the news outlets are cashing in on the anniversary just to make a buck. Yawn. I know. It's crass and it's cheap.

But, as offensive as their money grubbing and as crumudgeonly as I am (In my day, we'd never need to be reminded of something like nine-eleven.) they do serve a worthwhile purpose.

Can you get away from 9/11 images? No. Does it make you angry all over again? Yes.

Good.


downtown----uptown
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