9/11, five years and a day later...

So, yesterday was 9/11, five years after the attack.

I have to say, by yesterday, I was getting a little sick of the coverage. I feel bad to say that, because some of the ceremonies were well done, and because there are a whole lot of people who lost family members and friends on that day. And it is important that we remember it, and that we remember that there are people who would like to destroy the US and all that it stands for, who would like to kill anyone - people going to work, people going on vacation, kids, adults, whoever, just for being American.

But there's been so much pre- 9/11 coverage that it's been beaten down. And because the tragedy is no longer fresh, it's subject to the typical watered-down politicizing.

I'm saying that mostly because yesterday my boss had the TV that's in our office on and tuned into CSPAN. In typical CSPAN fashion, they were running clips of the ceremonies with call-in in between, and in typical call-in fashion, most of the callers were morons, wackjobs, and freaks.

I hate call-in shows, and talk radio and talk TV. I don't care about the opinion of the man on the street, especially since the man on the street who has time to call into a show probably doesn't have a job or a life or anything better to do. And th CSPAN callers were typical - a guy who thought the US could have prevented it (but didn't say how), a guy who thought it was misleading that Bush mentioned that Saddam funded suicide bombers because they were Palestinians (because clearly, terrorism is OK if you are killing Jews, and it's completely reasonable that Sadaam would have been pro-terrorism against Israel, but wouldn't think to support it's against the US, who he hated enough to try to have a former president assasinated), a Buddist who was annoyed that the ceremonies were primarily Christian and wishes people would stop being so angry (gee, I wonder what made them so angry?).

And on my way to class at night, I passed the "peace walk" - a bunch of hippies standing along Charles Street holding "peace is patriotic" and other slogans. (I firmly believe that any political philosophy that can fit on a bumper sticker is probably lacking).

So I think that's part of my annoyance with the day - it's become politics as usual. Instead of remembering what happened, the main response is to respond to the political occurances that have happened since. (And I have to admit I'm guilty of it too - at one point John Corzine, the NJ gov, was on TV reading names of the dead, and the first thing I though was "man, I can't stand that guy").

I think it's important to remember 9/11, especially as a reminder that we need to always be vigilant about terrorism, that it can happen any time, and that thousands died just for going about their lives on that day. When it happened, I thought America was going to turn into Israel, where acts of terror happened regularly, where going to the grocery store or getting a piece of pizza or getting on a bus could kill you. That didn't happen, and I think the fact that we've been vigilant has been much of the reason.

But I wish the day could just be a reminder of the tragedy, and not another day of the same things people have been saying for the last 5 years.