Reflections from the Mount
Shortly after midnight on September 10th, I began my 53rd circuit 'round Ole Sol. As momentous as was that moment, I slept through it. If my calculations are correct, I've now orbited some 30,370,080,000 miles and spun some 474,825,000 more. We be flying, dude. Other like celebrants of this date include Arnold Palmer, and once included Roger Maris and Nikita Khrushchev.
Last year on this date it was a wonderfully different world. We were still unsullied by one of the more heinous acts in the history of man. Today, we still haven't avenged the crime, but we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying. Sort of trying; most of the money went into the pockets of war-mongering friends of the administration. Some things never change.
The biggest change is that despite spending all that money we are all moderately sure that there will be more attacks. Indeed, the greatest pain of last year's horror is that it opened a door we're not likely to see closed soon -- a gateway to the unsettling realization that we now live in a world where psychotics have access to weapons of mass destruction and are not unlikely to use them.
Hoping for the best, we've planned all sorts of excess is for the first anniversary. The looney-tune mayor of San Francisco asked the city's traffic folks to put all the signals on red for a minute at 5:46am, the time when the first plane hit the first building. Dunno how many people will be affected, will realize it's happenin', or will think it's a terribly good idea.
Would I fly on September 11th? Sure. My father is flying to Paris. His late-afternoon flight of the Tenth was rescheduled to leave several hours before dawn on the Eleventh, not because of anything to do with last year, but because Air France was recovering from a four-day work stoppage just last week. French labor terror is more benign, but aren't you glad they live on the other side of The Big Pond?
Speaking of traveling, the TSA -- they're the new air security people -- was scheduled to announce support for a "trusted traveler" program, whereby people who want to get through security lines at airports more quickly can be checked out in advance and then be allowed to use express lanes, thus reducing line-time from two hours to 15 minutes. One system under consideration requires a background check, interview, and annual fee of about $20; it works with a hand scan. I'm old enough to remember when there were no security checks at airports.
My view from the mount? Thomas L. Friedman wrote in the Times the other day, "We Americans are not better than any other people, but the Western democratic system we live by is the best system on Earth." I agree with the second part, but not with the first. I think we are a better people, when we are at our best, and on my birthday, I renew my commitment to do my part to prove it.
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.
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