Happy September 11th.

So, it's the end of the working day, there's rain outside, and the subway feels a little more somber then usual. I didn't see anyone crying, and besides a terribly deep urge to drink copious amounts of hard liquor, I don't think I'm as badly effected as I was last year, or the year before that.

So I guess that is what this anniversary will become for New Yorkers of my generation; a morning when everyone's memories of the towers become somewhat clearer. A day when everyone speaks a little less, but has a little more to say. An evening when glasses drain a little quicker, and the table seems somehow incomplete. A night when the emotions for what was lost cuts even deeper, and the anger at the murderers feels even more bitter.

On that cheery note, I'd like to add that I happy that kids won't remember this day as the Day The Towers Fell, but rather the September 11th National Day of Service and Remembrance. It's what we should have done in the first place. We should have rebuilt it; taller and sturdier then before. We should have driven ourselves to surpass our wildest dreams, so as to make the ranting and conspiracies of those jealous, obscene little men so much filthy bile in the eyes of world. We had the money and the technology to change the world for the better, the mandate of every country on earth to Make Things Right and we had the destroyed potential of three thousand lives to live up to.

But instead we remembered only the smoke, the terror and the anger of that day, and it's driven us all insane. We've been mad - as a nation - for 8 years, and while we're slowly coming back to sanity, we're still divided, still enraged, still trembling in fear at the eyes that peer at us from their gloomy cover of superstitious ignorance and fundamentalist hatred.

We need to escape that state of mind. We need to build, because bombs and bullets do nothing but turn civilizations into rubble. They are good for creating an empire, but what lands could we conquer that might improve our nation? Our only means of expansion lies upwards, our only means of improvement are in our labs, schoolrooms and homes. The more money and willpower we waste on brushfire wars, the less we have to spend on efforts that will make our nation great again. We need dreams and ambitions that build upon our national foundations of advancement through self-improvement; elevating ourselves through the destruction of others only warps our core into the same dark and inhuman monsters we fought almost 70 years past.

But I don't know if we are ready for such thoughts yet. Part of our country is still fixated on purging any perceived weakness that might allow the terrorists access to their sleepy hometowns and gated communities. "Weaknesses" that include the philosophy of battling confusion with reason, disagreement with conversation, and hatred with mediation.

After all, who needs to actually fix things when we can distract ourselves by labeling liberals as the offending "other"; that villainous parasite who can leave no baby unaborted, no grandmother unpoisoned, and no wallet unplundered. Who needs to actually help our sick and dying fellow citizens, when we have mobs storming town halls, panicked over the thought that people are even *expressing* an opinion contrary to their. Why should we address our still-ailing economy when we can distract ourselves with calls for revenge, and justice for imagined slights, slights which must be increased and indulged with every retelling to satisfy some perverted urge to be the repressed majority, thus excusing any actions taken to achieve "liberation".

Fucking hell, now I'm ranting and angry. Perfect drinking mood for mid-September, on the anniversary of when Everything Went To Shit.