Archived Weblog Entry - 09/11/2006: "Some good cheer on a bad day"

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09/11/2006 Archived Entry: "Some good cheer on a bad day"

NPR IS NO BETTER THAN FOX NEWS when it comes to "depth" (and I use the word loosely) of 9-11 coverage. True, they may interview people like the woman who became an atheist activist after the fall of the WTC persuaded her that there was no divine purpose behind life. But their coverage is still on the "firemen as heroes" and "how were our lives changed" variety. Neither liberal nor conservative news coverage is asking the hard questions -- at least not this week.

I still feel shell-shocked and heartbroken by the memory of the towers burning and such wanton slaughter. Accounts like "Cousin Scott" by Chris Matthew Sciabarra bring the horror back with choking vividness. And I defy any dog lover to read, Alexander Theodore's "Welcome at the Rainbow Bridge" even now and not tear up. Five years later, I still bawl merely from typing out the title. (The Rainbow Bridge, for those who aren't into pet lore & legend, is the place where the souls of beloved dead dogs wait for their humans.)

But (like a lot of you out there?) I feel far more shell-shocked and heartbroken by the wanton devastation the alleged "good guys" have unleashed on the world and their own nation in the five years since.

I've been avoiding today's news coverage because I couldn't bear all the empty-headed flag-waving and hand-wringing that's replaced our capacity for actual thought. So when I got in the truck a while ago, I skipped over to a newish NPR affiliate that I knew had a local folk music show at this hour. I was listening away and enjoying the Celtic and bluegrass tinged music when I suddenly realized that every, single song they were playing was -- I had to start laughing my head off -- a jab at the Bushoisie and its wars and propagandistic jingoism. One song (scroll down) even said of the WTC:

Now there's flags flying on every lamp post
Red white and blue 'gainst the sky
It's September and I can't help but think that
It looks like the Fourth of July

I drove home smiling. Today's a sad day, but thank heaven somebody, somewhere still has enough balls not to sink into the maudlin wallow.

Posted by Claire @ 02:53 PM CST
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