Has it been five years already? It seems like yesterday that I rudely answered my phone after getting on the bus, and struggled to hear my sister excitedly tell me that civilation was collapsing, as it became increasingly hard to hear due to the phones ringing around me. This was before incidents were fully understood as attacks, and we all thought it was an ugly future where pilots were stupidly gliding into tall buildings, and explosions just happened at the Lincoln Memorial. Oh, for those innocent days of 6:45 AM PST, 9/11/2001.

What have we learned five years later? That everyone who hates America may have a point. I am mystified by proponents of the War, who insist everything is going hunky-dory. Don't they want to win? Bush isn't even pretending to crave victory anymore. He thinks that even establishing a objectives for victory is sending the wrong message. Heck, he wants to invade Iran, which would finish the proecess of reviving the conservatives there that the invasion of Iraq began. The cultural response from the Right has been even sicker. We must sacrifice freedom. Dissent is bad. there are conservatives who actually seem to admire Muslim societies. At least that's empathy.

I honored the anniversary the usual way, by watching movies. I screened a bunch of conspiracy documentaries, which were tedious, as well as a bootleg of World Trade Center, which was boring as all shit. The high point was when I watched 11'9"01, which was not great, except for Alejandro González Iñárritu's segment, which was mostly an audio montage, with clips from the big day. There's a part when you can hear the sounds of the WTC collapsing from the inside, each floor rythmically hammering at the ones below, accompanied by screams that sounds like they're coming from a rollercoaster. It's pretty hard to handle. Someone should post that part, and nothing else from the movie, on You Tube.

After five years, I'm starting to develop a little empathy for the affected. I read an article about the September 11th widows, which I would link to, but I can't find it. Basically, it's all about how widows and lovers got fucked around by greedy family members, and the injection of sudden wealth. It's bad enough to lose a loved one, but to then suffer through an existential Dickensian lesson on thrift and spending is pretty fucked up.

Click here for my real-time, day-of emails from September 11, 2001.

Click here for my mordantly amusing one-year anniversary article.

I figure I'll tackle the subject again in ten years, if I remember.