Monday, September 12, 2011

Overheard in Roomie's Bedroom:

The TV has cut on as alarum clock. The local newschick is standing by the Al Qaeda Victory Monument they unveiled in downtown Indy yesterday and explaining its symbolism at Volume 11 as a groggy roomie fumbles for the remote on her nightstand.

TeeWee: "...and the two columns are positioned to represent the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Atop one column is a bronze eagle facing New York..."

Me: "It should have been a bronze B-52 facing Mecca."
So now there are two bronze eagles facing in auspicious directions atop monuments in downtown Indy: One atop the noggin of Lady Victory on the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument which faces south, towards the ashes of a Confederacy which had barely stopped smoldering when the monument was erected, and one on the 9/11 Memorial, which faces New York, where they have bronzed their craters like a pair of baby shoes.

I was also reminded that the monument features a poem by a Hoosier school teacher, entitled "One", in which the teacher fondly remembers the Wonderful Unity We All Experienced As Americans On That Day. (You know, before the nasty partisan GOP neocon teabagger racists ruined everything. I got an eerie feeling that she thought 3,000 corpses was a small price to pay for the sanctifying group hug of victimhood and the transcendent thrill of Caring A Lot.)

I'm not sure which America she was in ten years ago, but in the one where I was, by sunset, half of the country was wringing its hands and wondering "Why do they hate us so?" while the other half, like my boss at the time, was chewing up the scenery and calling for Arabs under glass.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I like your former boss.

Terry

Sport Pilot said...

That's the way I remember it to Tam. Shock. Why us. Anger. No real concept to the fact that people hat us for what we are. It's hard to prove you have a better system to rule or enslave other's while we are here, even if our own goverment pull's some stupid stunt's itself.

dakotared said...

Tam, thanx for the memory shuffle. At work the next day I got a call that said,"would you like to volunteer to deploy" what a hoot.

Anonymous said...

Add me to the "I wanna get the [rude words here] that just ruined my sky!" group. I was working as a pilot at the time.

LittleRed1

Bubblehead Les. said...

You know, I still can't get this idea that a 10th/20th/25th/50th/ Anniversary is "More Important" than a 7th/14th/23rd/46th. A Bad Day is a Bad Day.

Boat Guy said...

Glassing over the FATA is still damn good idea...

Brad K. said...

Tam,

People often build monuments because of deep feelings.

The city or whatever location lets them because monuments get listed in tourist guides. Gatherings bring tourists to town, get face time in front of voters for the local hoi polloi and in front of media.

I suppose one could think of a bronze bird on the girders as a decoy to assure a steady supply of birds-on-monuments moments.

Cincinnatus said...

Krugman is really a despicable person.

Trent said...

Some of us are still calling for Arabs under glass.

Crotalus (Dont Tread on Me) said...

Better yet, Arabs wrapped in bacon!

in Islam, the pig is an unclean animal, and to be touched by one is to be cast out by Allah if one dies unclean, even if he dies a martyrs death. Legend has it that General Pershing used this to good effect to stop the Muslims from attacking his troops.

Tam said...

Crotalus,

I was going to tease you for that comment, but I suppose we may have a reader who has been in a coma since 9/10/01 and was therefore unaware of that. ;)

Anonymous said...

Tam, just in passing, you have two "anonymous Terrys".

I'm the "euro one".

I witnessed the attack on the Pentagon in person. I was pissed then, I'm still pissed now.

Terry

Kristophr said...

Best monument would have been a few radioactive craters in the mid-east.

Anonymous said...

Euro Terry,

I will go back to signing

Terry
Florida

ps. Seems like we kind of agree on this one.

The Freeholder said...

I would have preferred Arabs turned into carbon shadows rather than under glass.

Anonymous said...

I still think the Kaaba stone that the towelheads go to every year in Mecca would look just great in the Smithsonian...

cap'n chumbucket

Tam said...

The Freeholder,

"I would have preferred Arabs turned into carbon shadows rather than under glass."

Same thing. (cf. what sand does when exposed to thermonuclear fire.)

Ancient Woodsman said...

I didn't lower my flag yesterday. I couldn't bear to think that group of unwashed sand monkeys would ever get me to lower that flag. Too many good folks sacrificed too many good things so that we could fly it as high as we want. They did what they did in part because we can pretty much fly that flag as high as we want just about anywhere we want, including the moon.

10 years after Pearl Harbor, we used a humiliated, subordinated, & partially radioactive Japan as a base from which to fight off yet another enemy in Korea. Maybe we didn't 'win' there, but we did stop them, with the willing & humble help of our previous enemy. 10 years after 9/11 and we're all supposed to be prostrated before the alter of PC & Kumbaya?

Reading your last sentence, I wondered when it was you were working for me, as I was that kind of boss then, too. I truly thought - and shared aloud - that we had a license to nuke just about anyone for about a week or two that September. And yes, that's what I wanted. I was pissed off, not humbled.

Cybrludite said...

My opinion at the time was borrowed from Campbell's "Who Goes There?" "No hooves & mouths, no hoof & mouth disease." I really don't think I could have shown the restraint that Bush showed that awful day.

Old NFO said...

I STILL think like your former boss...

Stretch said...

Neca eos omnes. Deus suos cognoscet.

As true today as it was in the 14th Century.

Justthisguy said...

Umm, by "glass" did your boss mean "trinitite"? I have long thought, that that region suffered from a mineral imbalance in having too much petroleum and not enough trinitite.

avidus said...

I've always been for a bronze monument with firefighters lumbering up stairs in the world trade centre flanked by soldiers climbing up hills in Afghanistan.

Heaven forbid a monument promotes the courage and sacrifice shown that day and our response to it.

Ross said...

"Arabs under glass"... The Mistress of Snark strikes again.

Gotta stop reading your blog at work, Tam... my cow-orkers keep wondering why I'm snorking out loud.

Crotalus (Dont Tread on Me) said...

Tease me, Tam? Girl, you cut me to the quick! ;-)

I guess we all know about Gen. Pershing. The ones in the coma are the ones prosecuting the war. It should be done a lot, and made public. "But that will really make them mad!" They already hate us with all their hearts. It's time to make them FEAR us as well.

ParatrooperJJ said...

We definitly should have glassed Mecca and Medina.

Justthisguy said...

Oh, yeah, Para, a coupla tons of lithium deuteride heated instantaneously to incandescence, right on the Ka'aba!