Can we have a little less 9/11?  Actually, how about a lot less?

I'm not talking about any events or ceremonies meant for the people who were there or who lost loved ones that day. It's not my place to tell them how they're supposed to feel or what they ought to do to remember. I wish them the best and I wish them peace.

No, what I'm talking about is the rest of us, that vast number of us who did not participate in the events of that day in any way other than being horrified. I heard about it when I was on the phone trying to get rid of a salesman. Who the hell cares what I remember about 9/11? It sucked. Lots of people died for no good reason. What possible good comes from reliving it? If you were alive that day you remember. If you weren't alive, or were too young to remember, lucky you. 

Something that makes me absolutely nuts is people telling me how I'm supposed to feel about something. That's why I don't want anyone twisting this into some sort of attack on survivors, victims and families. They need to do what they need to do. And the rest of us need to step back and give them some space.

And save me the "but this is the day American lost its innocence" and all that crap. If America was innocent that day it's only because it wasn't paying attention. "But it's the day everything changed!" Um, no it's the day some idiots flew planes into a bunch of buildings and killed a bunch of people for no good reason. Anything that happened after that was a choice. We, as a country, made choices. That, to me, is the crux of the matter. America has made a bunch of choices since that clear, cool September day. It's no secret that I think most of them have been wrong and America has pretty much driven itself off the rails.

The worst time to make big plans for anything is when you're traumatized and I think it's fair to say we were traumatized.  And fetishizing the events of that day just because the earth has circled the sun ten times since then can serve no other  purpose than to try to recreate that feeling of trauma, to relive the feeling of helplessness. It's claimed that all this "coverage" is meant to help people remember the events. Bullshit. No one has forgotten. What it's meant to do is artificially recreate the sensations of that day.

And there's a word for that. 

 

And it's every bit as good as you might imagine.

http://www.gocomics.com/badreporter/2011/08/10/

...I want this building to be my headquarters.

I'm working in Detroit this week. I'll mostly be in the heart of downtown. I'll post random thoughts and photos. No ruin porn. I have a complicated relationship with this city. I think a great deal of my father's life was about escaping what he was in Pre-WW2 Detroit. I try to see the city he saw, but he wasn't that enamored of the "old" Detroit. So I think it's OK to just concentrate on what is, not what was.

I will always be an Astros fan, but I've always been impressed by the passion of Reds fans. There are fair-weather fans here as much as anywhere, but Opening Day is special.

This is 8:40 am at the city's oldest bar, Arnold's. People have been coming here to celebrate Opening Day for as long as such a thing has existed. The modern structure of baseball was created a few blocks from here, officially at a hotel but likely at a biergarten on Vine Street.

There is no better place to be today.