The Truth is Out There!

I am undecided on the whole 9/11 conspiracy theory situation. My very first thought as I watched the first tower fall (after “Holy Shit!”) was, “Those bastards did it. This will make every one of Big Dick Cheney’s wildest wet dreams a possibility.”

So I started on the side of the ‘Truth’ movement. Since then I have moved more to the middle.

Anywho, this cracks me up no matter which side of the debate I happen to be on:

Uncomfortable Questions about the Death Star Attack

So now I’ve outed myself as a conspiracy nut and a geek.  Be who you are, I guess.

How Bad is the Iran Situation?

Pretty bad.

We are telling a member of the United Nations that he cannot visit the 9/11 memorial and lay a wreath to show his respect. I’m so embarassed.

Any grace and poise that this country ever had seems to have been completely destroyed by 9/11.

But how could we let Ahmadinejad pay his respects? Aren’t we bombing his country in a few weeks?

Homeland Security.

From the Durant Daily Democrat, ‘the Gateway to Lake Texoma’

A briefcase taped to a slide on a playground at Northwest Heights Elementary School as part of a harmless scavenger hunt was detonated Friday afternoon by a bomb squad robot.

snip

A robot was used to approach the briefcase that was taped with duct tape to the top of the slide. The robot was equipped with a pole to prod at the briefcase.

snip

The robot tipped over while prodding at the briefcase, and a few minutes later two OHP bomb squad technicians, wearing protective suits, walked out and uprighted the robot.

snip

One of the technicians then pulled the briefcase down from the slide. The briefcase was placed on the ground and the technicians walked away.

Here is the state of America today. First off, how much did that robot cost? A quick search of the Googles indicates that these things are at least a quarter of a million dollars. Why is it so funny to me? I mean, the damn robot couldn’t even stay up (the robot tipped over while prodding at the briefcase), nor could it actually pick up the object (…pulled the briefcase down from the slide. The briefcase was placed on the ground and the technicians walked away). WTF? Bumbling robot aside, I know this reminds me of something…

Ahh, yes. The time that the Mooninites invaded Boston. You know, the time that 10 cities had light-brites spread around, and only Boston panicked? I was kinda pissed I never saw any of them here in Seattle. Anyways, I thought that incident captured the absurdity of the post 9/11 America perfectly. Who needs terrorists when we have so many pearl-clutchers and scaredy cats? Our leaders are hoping that we react this way. It is how it is supposed to be.

So here’s my challenge: Cringe less. Take deep breaths. Focus on the positive. AND STOP BEING FUCKING SCARED OF EVERYTHING THAT SEEMS SLIGHTLY OUT OF WHACK!!!1!

Too bad the people who really need to heed this advice will never visit the lowly pages of Donkey Punch. Too bad indeed.

9/11

I have recovered from my dark mood yesterday. It is politics. It can drown you if you don’t go up for air enough.

So today is some sort of anniversary? I can hardly elicit strong feelings for today. So we were attacked six years ago. How many times have we attacked other countries with much more devastating results?

How many people die from drowning in the US each year? About 3500.

How many people died in 9/11? 2973.

Okay, that’s not fair, because drownings tend to be accidental, while 9/11 was on purpose, but do you get where I’m going here? I guess a better analogy would be to compare it to Pearl Harbor(ask the PNAC). I remember what day the attack was on , but I suspect this has more to do with the fact that I had an old advent calendar when I was growing up, and we always put the little yellow plastic fighter plane on the seventh. But a day of rememberence? What does that mean?

I feel horrible for all the Americans who lost their lives on September 11. I also feel horrible about the wholesale slaughter of people in Iraq. (And Rwanda, and Palestine, and Israel, and many other terrible places as well.)   Nationalistic fervor is the only thing that sets the 9/11 deaths apart from any other group of 3,000 people. And that fervor has been exploited at every turn.

So forgive me if I don’t feel particularly sad today. Every day is the anniversary of something horrible that politicians have used to their advantage. Let’s find something to be thankful for today, instead of dredging up the murky past.

(I wish I could remember the story behind that picture. I think it is an entire French town in WWI. Bunker Mentality…)