9/11
I still remember where I was when this happened. I was in my dorm, sleeping. I woke up briefly to find my roommate at the time sitting on the computer, telling me that the first tower had been hit. I thought it was a dream since it just seemed too surreal to be real, and I went back to bed.
Waking up a second time, I remember how the rest of the day was a blur of media frenzy. Everywhere I looked I saw TVs tuned to coverage of the tragedy. Worse yet, I saw camera after camera turned to small towns in the middle east with people celebrating. I remember thinking, "Oh God, we're going to go to war over this, but not just against those people." Nine years later and we're still at war, even if there was no actual declaration.
It saddens me to see all the controversy and basic insanity that surrounds this day. The Koran burning is dumb. The dispute over the building of the mosque near Ground Zero is dumb (I'm sorry, but a mosque is not representative of a small fringe group of terrorists who followed a warped idea of their religion; and even if you disagree, we have an *obligation* to allow this construction to take place. The government absolutely cannot or should not step in to influence this, and denying the right to build it would have been in violation of the First Amendment.) Many people lost their lives over a group of terrorists founded on intolerance so extreme as to warrant the death of any with opposing views, and in honor of the lives lost we perpetuate raw intolerance to this day. Like begets like, and so the hate visited upon us gets visited onto others. There's no other way to say it. It's dumb.
I think I'll end with a link to this youtube video. Sometimes laughter is the best way to deal with such things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdtFk_V6A4M&feature=player_embedded&skipcontrinter=1
Waking up a second time, I remember how the rest of the day was a blur of media frenzy. Everywhere I looked I saw TVs tuned to coverage of the tragedy. Worse yet, I saw camera after camera turned to small towns in the middle east with people celebrating. I remember thinking, "Oh God, we're going to go to war over this, but not just against those people." Nine years later and we're still at war, even if there was no actual declaration.
It saddens me to see all the controversy and basic insanity that surrounds this day. The Koran burning is dumb. The dispute over the building of the mosque near Ground Zero is dumb (I'm sorry, but a mosque is not representative of a small fringe group of terrorists who followed a warped idea of their religion; and even if you disagree, we have an *obligation* to allow this construction to take place. The government absolutely cannot or should not step in to influence this, and denying the right to build it would have been in violation of the First Amendment.) Many people lost their lives over a group of terrorists founded on intolerance so extreme as to warrant the death of any with opposing views, and in honor of the lives lost we perpetuate raw intolerance to this day. Like begets like, and so the hate visited upon us gets visited onto others. There's no other way to say it. It's dumb.
I think I'll end with a link to this youtube video. Sometimes laughter is the best way to deal with such things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdtFk_V6A4M&feature=player_embedded&skipcontrinter=1