Asleep through Collective Disaster

So. Here we are. Another attack on the homeland and another outpouring of "patriotism".

It is a bit strange to me, I must confess. In 1993, I was listening to 880 WCBS, (I was a dork then, too.) while driving from UConn to Uncasvillle to pick my youngest sister up from High School. (I always listened to News Radio 880. I don't know why. Back then it seemed to be news, not opinion.) In any case.....

Sitting in the parking lot of St. Bernard HS. I listened intently as the announcers relayed information about smoke coming out of the Trade Centers. They thought it was a fire or some other disaster. Moslem terrorism being quite far from the national viewpoint at the time.

How naive we were.

A potentially apocryphal story about one of the perps being flown over the site to a new jail cell, the cop accompanying him pointed and said, " It's still standing." The perp said, "Wait until next time."

I listened to that event live.

In 2001, I was working nights at my papermill and slept through the September 11 attacks. I woke up at 4pm, turned on the TV and my first thought was, "Well, they finally did it."

Now, in 2013, the latest radical moslem attack on US soil in Boston. I was in Shanghai, China when this one happened so I was quite removed from the relentless news cycle and all its yapping heads.

My colleagues, all of international descent, were taken aback when early on I said that, "The US media will be wishing this was perpetrated by a white American." They don't understand what we are living with in this increasingly irrelevant country. I was ahead of the curve.

I see many people that are happy that one of the morons was taken alive. I can't honestly understand that point of view. We don't need explanation. Moslems wish death to westerners. How much more information do we need.

If the "sharpshooting"  Boston cops could have plugged the mother-fucker while he was still in the boat, nothing would have changed except for sparing us the trial and public platform for recruitment that we are going to allow him and his ilk.

So, I guess having Neil Diamond (a New Yorker), perform during the 7th inning stretch at Fenway, and singing the anthem fervently enough to merit mention on the sports channels is good enough to require some notice. (Although I will say that Big Papi's speech choked me up a little.)

But, this will happen again. (Though, I've always thought a NASCAR race to be the perfect target with the sheer number of people to be maimed on national TV. Re-thinking that through the Lefty Political Lens says that no one in the US would see it since the news would just use that type of attack as an example of what happens to people who are allowed to carry guns.)

Our society and government are too concerned with politically correct bullshit. They worry too much about offending some worthless minority or another to actually consider taking actions that might actually protect their citizens.

So, all I can say is, "I hope I miss the next one, too."