HipNerd

I live in Los Angeles. As I was getting ready for work, I got a call from my grandmother, who lived in New Jersey, about the attacks. I don’t think she even said what was going on, just something like, “Turn on the TV, there’s something terrible happening in New York.” I turned on the TV and had a minute or two of cognitive dissonance as I saw only one of the two towers standing. The idea that one of the World Trade Center towers was gone was too strange, and I quickly put the thought out of my mind. A minute later I saw a replay of the building falling.

I remember the days that followed as feeling really strange. All the media concentration on the attacks, and how it was nearly the only thing that even friends and family talked about for a few days straight, made all the predictions of “the death of irony” and how “the world has changed forever” almost believable.

The day after the attacks, I saw a car driving around the streets near my work, horn blaring, with an American flag flying out the window, and a big, hand printed, cardboard sign on the back that said something like “U.S.A. TIME TO KICK ASS!” and I thought, “Oh, this is going to turn ugly soon.”

A year later (nearly to the day), my son was born. And, while my personal life has changed considerably, it seems the world has not.

1. The Crisis of Credit Visualized
2. All the videos on the Marketplace Whiteboard
3. The Giant Pool of Money
4. Our Confusing Economy, Explained

“If history’s judgment is that the war was positively related to the fact that there was no attack on America after 9/11, then history’s judgment of the commander in chief will be much less severe than today’s unhinged critics of him can imagine. Furthermore, some, and perhaps many, Americans probably are alive today because persons conspiring to commit mass murder were thwarted by the president’s ferocious focus after 9/11.”—George F. Will

The scene: Dick Cheney walks into the Oval Office to find President Bush banging a couple of sticks together.

DC: “Mr. President, why are you banging those sticks together?”

GWB: “I heard that banging a couple of sticks together keeps the terrorists away.”

DC: (Without a trace of irony) “But, George, there are no terrorists here in the White House.”

GWB: “See, it’s working!”

DC: “George, if you really want to keep terrorists away, you should start a war with Iraq. That will show them how big, powerful, and nearly invulnerable the U.S.A. is.”

GWB: “Wow, really? What else?”

DC: “Well, we can put the names of all the terrorists on a list, and we can give that list to people at airports. That way the people at the airports can know the names of all these bad guys and stop them from getting on planes.”

GWB: “How will the people at the airports with the list know the names of the people trying to get on the planes?”

DC: “They’ll ask them their names.”

GWB: “I don’t know, Dick. What if they lie about their names.”

DC: “Terrorist bad guys are too dumb to lie. Only good guys like us are smart enough to lie.”

I take pride in my Jewish heritage, and I even take pride in Israel when I can, but what’s going on in Gaza right now breaks my heart, and makes me as angry as I can be. I heard (I think it was the Israeli ambassador to the UN) being interviewed, and when the reporter asked him to respond to the disparity in the number of Israelis killed in rocket attacks vs. the number of Palestinians killed already in this current action, he replied, “Look, this isn’t a numbers game…” I say, bullshit. There’s numbers games, and then there’s massacres. This is a massacre.

Both sides need peace now. Both sides need to drop any claims to any land based on The Bible, or any religious claim. Both sides need to accept that the level of ill will that exists between Israelis and Palestinians means that there will always be some level of violence, even during peace negotiations and “cease fires”. That such violence can no longer be an excuse to call off peace negotiations. What the US can do is start being more critical of Israel, and become more of an honest broker that stands behind human rights for all.