Rememberance

Everywhere I go, people keep asking me how I'm going celebrate (or commemorate, I suppose) the 10th anniversary of 9/11.  Actually, that's not true.  I'm nowhere near important enough for anyone to care what I do any day.  And if you know that it's a Sunday, and that football's in season, then you know exactly how I'm going to commemorate that day.  By sleeping in, eating meat, and watching football.

And, despite many predictions, I'm not going to do this:

Jenga! 

Besides, if I'm going to demolish a double tower, you guys should all know by now that it would be more like this:

Never forget...
...this double tower of onion ring awesomeness.

But in all seriousness, I'm always amazed at our fondness for round numbers.  The 10th anniversary is clearly a much more important anniversary than the 7th or 8th.  Those were just lame.  So there's that.  But really what's got me a little riled up is the dim-witted folks that you hear on the radio, even more so than usual.  Don't get me wrong.  I spend like 12 minutes a day in the car (yeah, I've got a 6 minute commute, 4 if I can catch the light quickly).  So it's not like I'm listening to the radio all day.  But one of the promos they did was commentary from this guy asking how people were going to commemorate 9/11 (which is fine).  But then he continues on to describe how he feels that we should be spending more time remembering who did this to us, presumably so that we can continue to brand brown people as terrorists.  And I suppose the the amusing part is that this is a reasonably common sentiment.  For example, we can get a lot into the psyche of these folks when browse Facebook.  Here's one of my "likes," who is Facebook friend of one of my real-life friends.  So, we're blurring out the names of the stupid, to protect the names of the... uh. Yeah.

Shockingly, this guy likes NASCAR, and is from Michigan.  But wait, there's more...

How awesome is that?  But there's even more behind this guy.

Smart-ass book titles.  Check.  And no, this isn't my Facebook profile.

As you look through his Facebook "likes," you get all sorts of goodies.  First, he's into Mudvayne (modern, hard rock band) and also Third Day (Christian pop/adult contemporary band).  And he's into book titles that: a) mock Democrats (Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Janet Reno) and black poeple (Mike Tyson), and b) love the Detroit and the Bible.  So, as you think of this fellow, images that come into your mind may include, moderate IQ, NRA, Tea Party, Fox News, Westboro, etc.  Let's see if this works...

Fox News.  Check.  Gun reality TV show. Check.  Restaurant: Impossible?  What? 

Sort of.  And of course, we see Charles Spurgeon and C.S. Lewis, both of who are probably rolling in their graves right now. 

Now, this is just one dude.  On Facebook.  So does it really mean anything?  Probably not, if you didn't see this sort of sentiment permeating conservative and Christian culture.  Think about the appeals that folks are making to the conservatives.  For example the big deal about Sharia law.  We've never drawn precedent from Sharia law in this country, and now we need to have specific laws that prevent that?  Or worrying about where mosques are built?

We're letting morons drive the bus.

Between the morons that are driving the bus in the Middle East, and the folks here in the U.S., you know who's winning?  Atheists.

Some folks coordinate something destructive, kill a bunch people, and as a public, we attribute it to their cause, not to the individuals.  Do we really want to go down that path?  If so, then clearly, the conservative, white, Christian behavior must be stopped.  After all, it blew up buildings, and targeted children in Norway this summer:

Ground Zero, or however you translate it in Norwegian (or whatever language they speak in Norway).

Love Twitter.  Let's everyone else speak w/out a filter, which makes for amusing blog content.

Or perhaps in OKC years ago.

Pop Quiz.  When did this happen?  Never forget... unless you do.

White, conservative, Christian, wanted smaller government.  Yep.  Check.  Let's start the profiling now.

Seriously.  The generalizations that are made are dumb.  And certainly, folks get defensive very quickly.  We saw how quickly Bill O'Reilly tried to distance Christianity from the Norway attacks this summer.  And yet, across the board, we see the moderate IQ, conservative sentiment toward Islam and 9/11 as being something different than what the attacks in Norway were. 

But seriously.  Even the Anti-Defamation League, a group that aims to stop the defamation of Jews, stepped up to say that it's dumb to discriminate against Arabs and Muslims because of 9/11.  But clearly, the voice of reason isn't one that's particularly appealing.  Especially if you're conservative and Christian.

As I'm looking for a new church, I should see if they've got one of those Westboro ones out here...

Their church activities seem to be pretty fun and energetic...

And they seem to have a vibrant children's ministry.

Okay.  So here's the thing.  When you make a really dumb generalization, and do it in all seriousness, then you welcome comparisons.  And if I identify as conservative and Christian, and all you see from "conservative Christians" is bombing Norway, protesting military funerals, and Michele Bachmann (check that - Michele Bachmann is awesome, I don't care what anyone says, including Michele Bachmann), then basically, people think that I'm the sort of person that may bomb Oslo, hold up rainbow signs at funerals, and dig Michele Bachmann.  And they may be right.  But still.  It's sort of dumb that you would assume that, isn't it?

Here's my major issue.  There are a bunch of jackasses out there.  Sure.  But what drives me nuts is when folks just sort of jump on the bandwagon because they're not smart and/or motivated enough to think for themselves.  What irks me even more is that so many people that have similar political/religious values as I do are content to simply repeat what someone else (who probably wasn't very well informed, and/or disingenuous in their intent) said.  Don't drink the kool-aid.  Don't let the jackasses win.  For me, 9/11 was about religious dogma, ideology, and what jackasses can do.  When you let religious dogma and ideology drive the discussion, you get dumb things like planes slamming into the side of buildings.  For me, the response to 9/11 is about thought, understanding, contemplation, being smarter, and being better.  It's about not going with the common memes that are prevalent.  It's about calling out those who should know better, but are too lazy to think about it and come up with a thoughtful position.  But most of all, it's about finding cool pictures on the internet and putting up goofy captions.

Never forget.

-Chairman