The Sky May Not Actually Be Falling, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #196 | @MDWorld

September 11, 2012 Arthur Tebbel 0 Comments

Dear Art,
Here we are on the eleventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, the most important anniversary until the 99th (the nine eleventh anniversary) and I just want to check in with you and see how you’re doing.  Last year you wrote about that day and the affect it’s had on you since and I just want to make sure you’re doing ok.  How are you doing?
-Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City and Public Health Crusader

Mike,
Thanks for looking in on me.  I really appreciate that level of interest.  Also, thanks for the large soda campaign, I touched on it a little last week but some of that shit is really getting out of hand.  How am I?  I’m surprisingly fine and I’m struggling to really explain it.

For ten years September 11th was a really rough day for me, one I would spend in quiet reflection, fits of despair and depression or drunk as a skunk.  On a couple inauspicious anniversaries I would do all three.  In the eleventh year I’m doing great.  I’ve barely noticed the approach to the date at all.  I was visiting New York this weekend and I turned off a local news broadcast that was running clips of the carnage of that day but I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have a reaction that strong to any violent footage on the news, it’s not as if I eagerly watch footage of wars or natural disasters either.  I think I might finally be over it.

I can come up with other explanations of course. Perhaps the death of my father five months ago has just swamped the parts of my brain that deal with pain and trauma and have offered me a sort of temporary reprieve from 9/11 panic in favor of a persistent feeling of general malaise.  Perhaps over four years living in the seasonless wonderland of southern California has desensitized me to the time of year such that my brain is more capable of being surprised by the anniversary and not having time to start reliving horrible event in earnest.  It could be something much less complicated, I could have just been caught up in too many other things to worry about it this year and next year it’ll hit me like a Mack truck and I’ll be right back where I started.  I definitely appreciate the temporary reprieve though, wherever it comes from.

There’s one thing that could help in this recovery process of course, if every politician on the planet didn’t use this event to score cheap points.  Story after story about what politician is doing what and what it means in the bigger political narrative.  Romney needs to use his 9/11 address to the National Guard to make up for previous blunders on troop issues and prove he has foreign policy bonafides.  It’s an outrage that President Obama didn’t mention God in his speech on the topic nor did he point to religion as something that helped people through the aftermath of the crisis.  Paul Ryan voted against giving health care to 9/11 first responders. OK, maybe that last one’s different as that’s at least related to actual policy and democratic process but it still shouldn’t just be trotted out on this day; Paul Ryan doesn’t want lots of people to have health care, not if it costs the government one red cent.  This should be a quiet day of mourning and reflection for the people involved and the rest of the world should back the fuck off and pay attention to something else.