9/11

I'm a tad late with these thoughts, but I took a little time to digest them. I heard a lot of lead up to the anniversary of the September 11th attacks yesterday on the news and such, but it felt kind of contrived. It was like the various news outlets looked at the calendar and just realized that it was almost September 11th and they should probably do or say something about it. You really should acknowledge it, right? They were mainly along the lines of USA Today wondering "Is 9/11 becoming just another calendar date?" The news accounts came across as obligatory and insincere.

I was pretty jaded about it myself during the lead up and most of the day. Although I had heard about it and certainly was aware of the upcoming date, I didn't really have strong feelings about the event. The only mention of anything was the media, but during the day, I never once heard anyone I was around even mention it. I thought about it a lot myself, since, due to my job, I write the date often. Usually I just noted the coincidence and moved on.

Until I got back to the hotel and flipped on the TV.

The first thing that was on was a retrospective of that morning. One tower already had a hole in it and the other was just being hit by the second plane as I tuned in. The commentators were completely lost as to what to say about it. It brought the actual morning crashing back to me. I suddenly remembered exactly what I felt that day, watching as the news showed the crashing and falling videos over and over again. I felt a sudden rush of adrenaline, and I remembered the feeling of just being mad as hell at whoever had done this.

Moreover, I felt pissed off all over again. First, I was pissed at Osama and his minions. How could anyone possibly think this was a rational action? How could intentionally killing civilians be justified? How could we tolerated the existence of someone like that? But the more I stewed about it, the more I realized that I am still very angry that we have not remedied the situation. The person most responsible, both by our accusations and his own admission, is still running around taunting us with videos on the anniversary of the most devastating attack on American soil in 60-odd years, and the best we can do is debate whether or not he has dyed his beard. We're wasting time and money and lives running around in the wrong damn desert while the person who started us out on the War on Terror is still out there, as effective a figurehead as he ever was, at least in part because he has so far evaded the most powerful military on the planet. Why, after all the American (and even world) outcry, did we send only 11,000 troops into Afghanistan, where we knew the man and organization responsible for the attacks was taking refuge? And why did we then send over 100,000 troops (and now over 160,000) into a country that had been pinned down and helpless for 10 years, effectively hamstringing ourselves from doing anything further on the original problem?

Yeah, I'm still pissed. At the original problem as well as our response to it. Sorry for the rant, but yesterday affected me a lot more than I thought it would.

Happy 4th of July!

I think it's awesome that we get a chance to celebrate telling King George and England to stuff it. And to think it was all just because they decided to slap a little tax on the tea. (Oregon just told our legislature the same thing when they tried to put another 5 cents per beer tax in place. Although I'm not sure how we would have declared independence from Oregon. It's the thought that counts anyway.) So here's to diplomatically giving the finger to the King.

In the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson in The Declaration of Independence:

You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person! Ah blow my nose at you, so-called "[George] Keeeng"! You and all your silly English Knnnnnnnn-ighuts!!! ... Ah don' wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food-trough wiper! Ah fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries! ... Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!

I couldn't have said it better myself.

---------

On a serious note, Franny and I were discussing the state of things the other day, and it got me thinking about our country and what direction it has come and is going. I can't for a second agree that "We're number #1" about everything, but we do a pretty good job about a lot of things.

We've got the longest lasting constitution in the world, and although we were about 3000 years late for the first democracy, we have one that is surviving quite well despite the beliefs of those at either end of the political spectrum. We have one of the highest standards of living in the world, some of the best unspoiled protected wilderness, the ability to grow something like twice the food we need, and the strongest work ethic and ingenuity around. We have shown time and again that as a country we can rise to whatever challenge confronts us. The Japanese hit us with an attack that was intended to cripple us and we came back out of a decade-long depression to beat both them and the Nazis. The Soviets launched a little beeping satellite and we sent so many men to the moon that the country got bored watching. The Asian tiger economies looked like they were about the buy the country right out from under us, so we invented the internet (thanks Gore), which has shown itself to be a dominant new paradigm in world-wide communication.

This is not intended as a flag-waving, toot-our-own-horn, we're-the-best type of jingoism. We clearly have some issues. I just mean to point out that for all our faults and foibles, this is a pretty good setup we have here. Mexicans will still want to move here. Gays will still want to get married. Hunters will still want assault weapons. Whatever. We will absorb all that, settle somewhere in the middle, and move on to the other "big" issues to keep ourselves occupied, all the while remaining one of the most successful countries on the planet.

For the most part we disagree endlessly about lots of things, but I can't think of a single time when a governing official in this country has refused to relinquish power after an election, or when we had anyone forcefully take control of any part of government. We have the occasional close call that sparks lots of debate about the "real" winner, but with 300 million opinions to worry about, that's not surprising, and we somehow manage to keep functioning anyway regardless of the outcome. We make a lot of noise about contentious issues, but in the end, almost everyone agrees that peacefully continuing the system we've got is far better than anything else we could come up with right now.

I hear too often that what's going on right now is the worst ever or that this is the straw that's going to break the camel's back, but from what I know of history, there's pretty much always been someone saying those things. And as far as the worst ever, we've survived the British trying to take us back, all out civil war, slavery, and two World Wars. The fact that we don't completely approve of what the president is doing right now is hardly even noteworthy in the long run. As long as we have the national will to give a damn about Paris Hilton, our situation is not that bad.

So Happy 4th of July and enjoy what we've got going here. Wake up tomorrow and work to make it better; just don't forget what you've got to work with.

The Northwest's not so wet after all

I came across an article about rainfall in various cities. Apparently, the Northwest isn't that wet after all. The wettest cities in the country are mainly in the Southeast. They don't rain as often, but they do it really well when they do. The first Northwest city on the list is Olympia, WA at number 24. Seattle and Portland don't show up until 41 and 42, respectively. The northwest is well represented in number of rainy days, however. But if you've ever been here in the winter, you know that. The study didn't even get into number of gray days. For any statistics nerds, the actual report from Weatherbill is here.

We're number two!

NPR had an interesting story last night about the makeup of the various states versus the averages for the country as a whole. According to this analysis of 2006 census data, Oregon is the 2nd most average state in the country. Looking around, I wouldn't have guessed that. Illinois is apparently the most average. It's interesting to be at the top of the list by being average. Washington and Pennsylvania are up there too. My readers in Colorado and Virginia might be interested to know that they are in the middle of the list, which I guess makes them of only average averageness. I would have guessed that Washington, DC would have been the least average, being just a city and heavier on the minorities than other places I've been, but interestingly, there are apparently 8 states that are even further off the norm. West Virginia is number 51 on the list, which according to the interview with some WV government hack last night, doesn't surprise them. West Virginia is older, poorer, whiter, less educated, and less mobile than average for the country. They seem to think that if they can just get more industry to move to the state, then these other things will sort themselves out. Good luck with that.

This interactive map linked in the story is an interesting look at the data in various categories.