Porn (Not the Good Kind)

Along with pointing out that people who claim Ground Zero (why is it even called this? does anyone remember how it started, or why we take it's name for granted? strange) is some hallowed, solemn place that New Yorkers treat as holy ground have no idea what the fuck they're talking about, THIS READER over at Sully points to one of several reasons: 9/11 porn. I have no idea why people have no problem with such a thing, although I still believe what I wrote HERE re: why it even exists in the first place:

9/11 was bad, sure; but what nobody wants to say out loud is that it wasn’t THAT bad. It was just bad enough for us as a country to embrace our very own “tragedy,” to give ourselves a JFK Assassination date if you will. To give ourselves a reason to practice rituals of collective mourning. It was a tragedy, but it was small enough that we don’t mind commemorating it with any gift shop piece of crap that we can sell. I don’t see shot glasses with pictures of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and I certainly have never seen wifebeaters with INFLUENZA 1918: NEVER FORGET pictures on them. Something that "real" I guess it's easier to just try and forget it. Anything "real enough," we love to collectively hurl ourselves on the casket during the funeral and cause a scene. Fascinating to me.

Of course because we are who we are we made 9/11 worse than it actually had to be, snatching even more defeat from the jaws of defeat by doubling down: "3000 dead? Eff you, here's a trillion bucks down the shitter - in your FACE, Osama!!!"

We're a funny country. On one hand we have 9/11 porn, on the other we have Dead Poets Society, which is pretty awesome. Maybe we really are exceptional; I believe it was Marley who said "We live in a time and place of American exceptionalism, and if you don't subscribe, feel free to cast off your imperial garb for a more appropriate "David Woodley: Super Bowl MVP" T-shirt."

David Woodley!  Ha!