Another Nine Eleven

So that makes eight, right? -- since we started noticing nine elevens? Man that's a long time. And still no Giant Memorial yet either. Sort of makes me question our resolve. People just go knocking over our buildings all over the place and crashing our jets, and we just practically ignore it is all? That's wack.

Well, yeah, sure, those couple of wars, but that's a whole different issue. I mean, that was practical. I'm talking symbolism. You know, what really matters. Maybe a human chain of hand-holders or -wringers zigzagging across the free-speech zones of public commons -- something meaningful and evocative and enlightened. Thank god the cowboy is gone. Man I hated him so much. Isn't Obama the bomb? So elegant and eloquent. Did I ever tell you about the time I picked him up hitchhiking, and we shared a motel room? Dude could sweet talk the cherries off a slot machine. And I should know, girlfriend. But don't ask and I won't tell. Oh, I see I've gone all homoerotic all of a sudden. Here, let me just make a little adjustment ... left ... right ... ah, there. That's better.

What is not a fitting memorial is the call to service Obama is, uh, calling for. Service, yes, of course -- a good and fitting thing. But we do not, in the actual world of reality, meet evil with kindness. Not on a societal level. Society is a corporation, the charter of which is to promote the benefit of its shareholders. It's capitalist. Individuals can be as noble and self-sacrificing as possible. More than is possible. Sure, go ahead -- be a saint. The world needs saints as much as it needs fools, as I should know. But while we are enjoined to turn our own cheeks, it is profoundly immoral to compel the turning of someone else's cheek. Obviously. It would be not merely to ignore the oppression of the weak, but to advocate it. No. We meet evil by opposing it.

Hence, two wars.

That's the memorial. That's how we remember atrocities. Sure, soup kitchens too. But there needs to be a fist, somewhere in all that velvet glove. I confess that I'm very primitive and simplistic in my approach. It's not that I don't understand the other side -- whether left, or islamist. I just don't agree with it. Something to do with observation, experience, psychology -- you know, actual reality. Theories? Love them. (This is where I would have said "I love to masturbate, too.") But eventually we need to stop being so adolescent.

The issue is about how to live. It's an ethical question. I've been vegetarian for over 30 years. I'm not about killing. But we have to play the game by the rules. Regardless of how God first created the world, it has been recreated, and death is a tool of righteousness. Don't like it? Get in your time machine and prevent a certain dialogue in a certain garden. Otherwise, keep your eyes open for someone with a sign on his forehead. You'll know him by all that blood in the earth, crying out for justice. He strikes from behind. He's the enemy of all mankind.


J