If You Haven't Seen 'Em

I was laying up stone veneer for a living room chimney in a lawyer's country house on September 11, 2001. There was a nice guy upstairs doing tile in the new bathroom. We were listening to the radio. Every few minutes we'd say, to each other, "Goddam!" After the fourth plane went down in PA, we decided to just go home and watch the teevee. The most remarkable thing, here in central NC, about the week of 9/11, 2001, was how amazingly quiet the skies became. I mean as concerning actual reality, and not what was on the teevee. The sky was blue, clear, empty. The weather is almost identical this year, the first wonderful week of fall by the light and sky, if not by the calendar.

Here's what Charles Pierce wrote about the event yesterday, on it's anniversary:

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/9-11-anniversary-2012-12604849

Of course for people who were there, that day was not serene, as it was for me and my tile-setting co-worker. For people who were there it was a singular hell. Some survived and told about it:

http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/ESQ0102-JAN_WTC_rev#ixzz26Bu1J5NO

The mistake of electing leaders without any wisdom echos down through the years and decades, yet one of the parties now seems intent on only short-term victory. Republican "pundits" yesterday said that the GOP should simply disband if they cannot win the Presidency this year. Well, while I'd like to see that, such a statement is really just another indication of how myopic the GOP leadership has become. It is possible that the shrill has actually become so intense as to be noticed by even the typical GOP voter, or at least some of the ones not blinded by pure racism and prejudice.

Where I work they come in talking about the Chicago teacher strike as though it was insane, yet typical of "them." Where I work they come in and talk about how the country is "broke." But where I work we mostly deal with white, middle aged, southern men. So far, they have not restored the voting rules to enable only that smallish subset of the voting citizenry.

Update: I wrote the above knowing nothing of events in Egypt and Libya, much less Mr. Romney's remarkably un-Presidential remarks about them. He now stands squarely with Jim DeMint and no doubt Mr. Limbaugh. The rest of us watch the Gorgon's Knot of the Middle East with sadness and concern. A President Romney seems to portend, from his half-baked comments on the crisis, George W. Bush cubed. Now that's a plan from hell.