9/11/21 / Afghanistan thread

Cancel culture

 

I feel incredibly sad this morning for the country this once was, even if that once was is more a product of my selective memory than historical fact. But it is undeniably different.

 

As I’ve mentioned, I worked for a company which suffered heavy losses on 9/11, although I started a few years later. Once I left there a few years ago, I didn’t have it in me anymore to commemorate the day. I was too emotionally draining. And as Dan said, there is something fundamentally different about this country the past few years and zero sense of unity.

 

US drone strike appears to have hit vehicle belonging to California-based charity.

I didn't see this posted elsewhere -- a pretty sorry end to a 20-year foreign policy bungle.

 

Born Too Woke

 

Bruce this morning at the memorial.

 

I don’t want to spoil it because I suspect CBS will reuse it this afternoon for Air Force-Navy. But the intro to the Army game just now was excellent and very much on point. These two games are the exception to my rule because they aren’t using it as cheap sportsball marketing.

 

I didn’t intend to spend an entire 92-minute block on 9/11 yesterday but my partner and I thought we had to do something because the 20th anniversary and the military pull out a month ago. Just knowing how draining it all is, I really wanted to mention 9/11 and move on. I thought we would need maybe 45 minutes but the kids kept asking great questions and it was as engaged as they had ever been all year so far. Some were even crying by the end and a couple of kids commented about how much they enjoyed the lesson. I just don’t know how many more years I want to do this kind of a lesson. It is even harder when I have an emotionally draining day and want to tune out only to see the have-to-post-everything brigade on Facebook is out in full force this morning. I don’t want to tell people not to be emotional about an event that holds such an emotional memory but damn I just want to tune out.

 

It was worse this year, not only because it’s the 20th anniversary but also because the 11th is on a Saturday so TV has had two days of all day remembrances

 

I worked for an a.m. paper and frequently had to wake up early to take care of our baby when my wife went to work. I was hoping to be able to sleep in a little, but my wife woke me up by telling me a plane hit the WTC. My first reaction was just like your’s. Thinking some idiot was goofing around, crashed in the building, they’ll be talking about it all day, no real biggee. Then my wife kept telling me to wake up, and finally told me about the Pentagon getting hit, and then I finally got up to see the TV.

Among multiple memories, one thing that stands out was that nearly all the TV stations had the news on, except for Nick Jr. which I was glad because our son liked watching cartoons and I didn’t want him watching tragedy.

 

I was walking the dog on a day off. Came back, turned on TV to see how the market opened and saw, well, you know. My wife was out running an errand or two. When she got back I told her what happened and said, "I'm going to the office, there'll be work." By the time I got there, everyone in editorial was in there, night copy desk folks, the food writer, everybody. So mingled in with the shock and horror and anger was pride in my paper and my profession. I think that got me through the experience of hearing dead people's voices on their answering machines.

 

Kudos for stepping in and dealing with this difficult topic. A lot of shameless people will take the moment to exploit emotions for political benefit. You're in a position of trust, and young minds look to you.

I was in high school at the height of the Vietnam war. My history teacher bravely incorporated the war into his curriculum. He got some shit from students, including the nickname "Ho chi," but everything he taught was insightful and proved to be true.

Just as an aside, he noted the work of Vo Nguyen Giap. Vietnam was long ago, but check out the man's accomplishments. He was popularly unknown in the America I grew up in. Võ Nguyên Giáp - Wikipedia