re: #783 Spare O’Lake

When I saw the second plane hit the WTC on live TV in my Toronto office tower I was traumatized.

Oh, me too. Ice-up-the-spine freakout time. For a week I hid under my bed whenever I heard a military plane fly over. And that’s in Oregon, which I knew damn well had no chance of being a target.

Hey, remember being really really concerned about the people in New York? Yeah, now we don’t care about their opinions, we just tell them what they can and can’t do with their town. Remember all of the emergency workers who came from neighboring states and Canada to help out? Yep, now the GOP voted against giving them a little extra health care coverage to help with some of the health issues that 9/11 created. One day, Sarah Palin is excluding New York from her “Real America” map, the next day she’s tweeting commands to her followers regarding the horrible tragedy that she cares about so much. One day Glenn Beck is sobbing about 9/11, the next day he’s sick of hearing from all those “whining” 9/11 victims’ families. Those whose concern for 9/11 is only activated when politically convenient, I have less than no use for.

As freaked out as all of the rest of us were, it’s hubris to pretend that our trauma was in any way equal to the people who directly suffered from the devastation, or that it elevates our opinion to the degree that we can overrule theirs. We can get over it. But as long as we keep telling them what they can or can’t do because they live on “hallowed ground,” they won’t be able to.

It’s not “hallowed.” It’s not “sacred.” It’s just a place where a really bad thing happened one time. America is supposed to be able to bounce back and get on with getting on. It’s kind of one of our selling points. So let’s do that.