{"id":22638,"date":"2011-09-11T20:58:18","date_gmt":"2011-09-12T02:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=22638"},"modified":"2011-09-11T20:58:18","modified_gmt":"2011-09-12T02:58:18","slug":"911-a-decade-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/11\/911-a-decade-on.html","title":{"rendered":"9\/11, a decade on"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The Statue of Liberty on 9\/11<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was 7:30 in the morning or so. \u00a0I was at the office. \u00a0My folks, who’d been visiting, were at Denver International Airport, waiting for their flight.<\/p>\n

And I posted this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Nothing is Certain<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I write this, news outlets are reporting (with ghastly pictures) that two planes have run into the World Trade Center. Given that each plane hit a separate tower, my initial assumption is that this was a deliberate terrorist act.<\/div>\n

In an free and open society, there is no such thing as perfect safety.<\/p>\n

Damn their eyes, and damn those who overreact to this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And here we are, a decade later. \u00a0One war, possibly justified, poorly planned. \u00a0Another, long-planned, poorly justified, just as poorly planned. \u00a0An economy in shambles at least in part due to that. \u00a0Some of the bad guys who planned this dead. \u00a0Many, many more arisen in their place. \u00a0An ever-growing security apparatus in place where government agencies watch us with little to no oversight. Air travel is more likely A few brief moments of world support and sympathy squandered, along with any perception of moral high ground, with torture and renditions and black prisons now not only open secrets, but defended as a patriotic and moral imperative.<\/p>\n

Part of me wants to say that the 9\/11 attacks were, though tragic, not something we should be obsessing about. \u00a0How long did we continue to mourn and commemorate, nationally, Pearl Harbor, the Maine<\/em>, or the Jonestown Flood, or the Galveston Hurricane, or the \u00a0Battle of the Kasserine Pass, or the San Francisco Earthquake, or the Chicago Fire? \u00a0We’ve suffered horrible disasters before. \u00a0We’ve suffered attacks, and defeats. \u00a0And we mourn, and we survive, and we come back, and we do better.<\/p>\n

And maybe that’s the difference here, and why we do need to keep talking about 9\/11. Because something really awful happened that day — something beyond the awful death and destruction in NYC and Arlington and Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

We changed. \u00a0We changed ourselves, and we let others change us, take control and advantage of the attacks. \u00a0We let ourselves become a nation where waterboarding is no longer torture and off-limits. \u00a0Where we take off our shoes to get through security, then watch a little kid get groped. \u00a0Where we don’t mind that the government can listen to our phone calls, check out our library check-0ut lists, or pretty much anything they want, without a warrant, or (if there is a warrant) without your knowing it happened, just because “national security” or “terror!” is mentioned. \u00a0Where we’re so phobic about a world religion that makes up 0.6% of our population that people are willing to argue with a straight face that Those People shouldn’t be allowed to build any more houses of worship here because they’re not really a religion. Where we spend so much money on “off-budget” wars that, hey, surprise, we don’t have the money (or aren’t willing to raise it) to restore a collapsed economy, extend unemployment benefits, rebuild our bridges, or fly into space.<\/p>\n

So there is reason to mourn, and remember, and be resolved to survive, and to do better.<\/p>\n

It’s just not the one you’ll find talked about on the mainstream media and the talk shows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was 7:30 in the morning or so. \u00a0I was at the office. \u00a0My folks, who’d been visiting, were at Denver International Airport, waiting for their flight. And I posted this: Nothing is Certain As I write this, news outlets are reporting (with ghastly pictures) that two planes have run into the World Trade Center. … Continue reading “9\/11, a decade on”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-9-11"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/911-statueofliberty.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":128137,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/22\/the-universal-new-yorker-cartoon-caption.html","url_meta":{"origin":22638,"position":0},"title":"The Universal "New Yorker" Cartoon Caption","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 22-Sep-15 7:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Which, for a variety of personal reasons, is a hell of a lot funnier now than it would have been six months ago. A New Caption That Works for Every 'New Yorker' Cartoon And it's not \"Christ, what an asshole.\" View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31131,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/05\/are-we-there-yet.html","url_meta":{"origin":22638,"position":1},"title":"Are we there yet?","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 5-Nov-12 6:24am","format":false,"excerpt":"From today's XKCD (http:\/\/xkcd.com\/1130\/), \"Poll Watching\". (Hover caption: \"The choices we make Tuesday could have MASSIVE and PERMANENT effects on Nate Silver's blog!\")Google+: Reshared 1 times Google+: View post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3452,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/11\/19\/less_with_moore.html","url_meta":{"origin":22638,"position":2},"title":"Less with Moore","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 19-Nov-02 6:44am","format":false,"excerpt":"Spinsanity has another fine skewering of Michael Moore and his film, Bowling for Columbine. Putting aside Moore's claim to be in it for the humor, the column points out the...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32847,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/elvis-has-left-the-building-cosmic-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":22638,"position":3},"title":"Elvis has left the building (cosmic edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 22-Mar-13 10:12am","format":false,"excerpt":"Worth clicking through to the cartoon just to read the ToolTip caption. \u00a0(h\/t +Amy Shira Teitel)Reshared post from +Jason MajorLOL @ this. ;-)(Via\u00a0http:\/\/xkcd.com\/1189\/) View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2216,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/24\/sure_guvner_he.html","url_meta":{"origin":22638,"position":4},"title":"“Sure, guvner, he has a flat right up behind the clock face!”","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 24-Jul-02 8:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"The content of the story aside, I find it amusing that the BBC, in describing the arrest of an al-Qa'eda suspect in Denver, uses a (mediocre) photo of downtown with...","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129494,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/15\/and-one-last-alan-rickman-thought.html","url_meta":{"origin":22638,"position":5},"title":"And one last Alan Rickman thought","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 15-Jan-16 10:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The caption reads, \u201cHere\u2019s to the best damned antagonist a guy could ask for.\u201d(Original: http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/cartoons\/daily-cartoon\/bonus-daily-cartoon-remembering-alan-rickman) \u00a0 View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/01-14-16-rickman-10005B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/01-14-16-rickman-10005B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/01-14-16-rickman-10005B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}