My 9/11 who, where, what.

Sep 11, 2006 19:45

Today is September 11th, 2006. I know a guy whose birthday is today. ...Yeah, sucks to be him.

I've been seeing a lot of stuff about it today on Livejournal, so I thought I'd throw in my hat. I don't have any reason to, but I will anyway.

I'm American. Texan, to be specific. (Born in Iowa, lived briefly in Illinois, then spent most of my life in Texas...to be unnecessarily specific.)
I've never been to New York and have never really felt much urge to visit. I have an uncle who at one point was going to be working in the area and extended an invitation to me to visit if I ever felt the need to get away from home. I never took him up on it, and 9/11 happened soon after.
Where was I when it happened? That's the standard question asked about it. I was at home. I was the first one in my household to figure out what was going on, actually. I'd turned on my radio for some music, but got only talking that I was not yet awake enough to make sense of. All I knew for sure was that Serious Shit was Going Down. So I went in the living room and turned on the news. I can't remember well, but I think I may've seen the second plane hit.
It was very much like watching a movie, but there was something real about the voiceovers of the reporters. They were horrified.
So me, and my family, watched the whole thing. I found myself comparing the destruction to that caused by the giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters. I also, feeling terrified and awful for thinking it, considered the possibility that it was some horrifying Wag The Dog-esque distraction from the government's short-comings (the Enron thing was going on at the time, and all but disappeared from the news afterward). I spent most of the rest of the day online trying to figure out WTF was going on and checking the message boards I frequented for updates to the "I'm Okay, I'm Still Alive, I Wasn't There" threads.

I don't have much opinion on the event itself. It was a bad thing, people died, and it sucks that it happened. It sucks a lot. That's it, that's my opinion.

I have more of an opinion on the fact that 9/11 has been used, abused, and taken advantage of by every asshole with an agenda. I consider that adding insult to injury and franky it makes me sick. I could go on, but I'm not really in the mood for what will no doubt degrade into me swearing and screaming at the US government for raping America.

That's who I am, that's where I was, and those are my opinions.

politico, babble

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