Blogging Like I've Never Blogged Before

Tuesday, May 03, 2011


I do not envy kids in future social studies classes, who will have the unenviable task of trying to remember that it was Obama who was president when Osama was killed. As a person who is TERRIBLE with remembering names, I know it will not be easy for those who didn't live through this era. I mean, it's hard enough for folks now, so imagine being a kid who is reading this in history books. Or history memory robot brain chips or whatever they'll be reading in the future. Or even if they will be reading.

Helpful hint, kids: Obama - remember the B for first Black president. Osama - S for son of a motherless goat.

Anyway, Sunday night was a nutty thing, huh? I had to work at 6 in the morning on Monday, so I was about to go to sleep when this Tweet got all Tweety in my Tweet Tweet. So I thought, Well, that's some weird shit for a Sunday night. Probably aliens!

So of course I was going to wait up for that alien shit. Then the announcement was delayed... and delayed... and delayed. And by the time the President announced it, everyone knew bin Laden was dead. So his speech was anticlimactic. And I was tired. But I couldn't go to sleep.

I stayed up and listened to the talking noggins. I tried to be funny on Twitter. But at no point did I really feel like running outside and jumping up and down. Celebrating a death seems wrong, no matter who it is.

NOW LET ME BE CLEAR.

I am completely fine with Osama bin Laden being dead. I am glad he is dead. But did it make me want to go run outside wrapped in an American flag whilst chanting USA! USA!? No. No it didn't.

When they showed the people gathering outside the White House, I thought, Well, that's kind of cool that people are just going down there.

But then it turned into a fucking frat party. I think I was watching MSNBC, and there were two guys doing chest bumps. CHEST BUMPS. Like, violent high fives and chest bumps. It was weird, and it didn't feel American.

Honestly, after I was trying to make funny hahas, I had that moment of every awful memory from 9/11 coming back. And then I saw these kids out there celebrating, and realized most of them weren't older than 13 when 9/11 happened. It was like they were out there to get great Facebook photos and to have a better story of where they were when bin Laden was killed.

Man, I'm a grumpy old man, I guess. I just don't think that this is a moment to be celebrating in the way it was celebrated. It doesn't bring 3,000 people back. It doesn't make 9/11 any less awful. I hope that it does help to destroy Al Qaeda, but even if it does, something else will sprout up. Osama is a martyr now, and there will be people who rally behind that.

I wrote this way back in the stone age of 2004, and I don't think my sentiments have changed.

I guess, in conclusion, I have some cautious optimism about this whole situation. I mean, I hope we made sure he was really dead. I've seen this movie before. The bad guy goes under water, everyone thinks he's dead, then a few bubbles float to the surface and TO BE CONTINUED??? shows up on the screen.

Whatever. Sorry for babbling. Hope he gets raped by sharks.
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