Sitting here at my normal coffee haunt on 9/10 and preparing for the onslaught that will be the 9/11 memorial coverage tomorrow, I got hit with one thing:
9/11 has now become just like any other day of remembrance
The Real Estate agents have already gone around and placed flags on the lawns of my neighbors. Not in remembrance, but to sell more homes. CNN has finally started to analyze the Nexus of Politics and Terror a little bit each day, I can't wait to see what Jack Cafferty has to say tomorrow. The chain letters and memorial e-mails have already hit my e-mail inbox. My picture of New York from 8/01 with my Brother and I from the Statue of Liberty sits on my desk among my Convention credentials and my picture from the floor of the California State Senate.
And Osama is still alive five years later.
But today on 9/11 I'm sitting here watching the repeat broadcast of the 9/11 coverage from CNN. In fact Westley Clark's interview is replaying right now. The flag at my post office was at half-mast, but the flag at the Orange Circle is not (Maybe the city didn't get the memo? They lowered it).
A lot of the papers and news outlets have been asking the question: "What Has Change?"
It seems to me that very little has changed since 9/11. We get hassled a little bit more at airport security (I seem to always get picked for the secondary inspection every time. It must be the fact that I'm a Democrat or an Agnostic with a penchant for local politics). Officers seem a little bit more itchy with their trigger fingers. We still squabble about national security and a little document called the Constitution (About the only thing holding that 200 plus year old document and our rights together is fishing twine and duck tape). Bin Laden and his cronies have a new playground in Iraq and Afghanistan, with Iran and North Korea building up their weapons while we are tied down in the Middle East.
Instead of building a "Stronger America" we failed to look internally at the problems that this country is facing. Katrina wiped out a major American city and "Brownie was doing a heck of a job." Talk about low standards.
It's five years later and their is no closure to 9/11. It remains as an open gaping wound in American history which is ripped open even further every time an election rolls around.
And on a local side note: When did the OC Register become a mouthpiece for Rick Warren? They have one of his services on their video feed.
