| 11:51a |
ATTACK ON AMERICA
or at least that's what CNN's been calling it all day.Yeah, I haven't really written in this thing in a while. Partly cause I'm lazy and partly cause I'm busy. Maybe someday I'll write about the rest of my summer and first week of college and stuff. Not right now though. I'll write today cause of all that stuff that happened. It's kinda my generation's Pearl Harbor, and when my kid's learning about today in History class it'll be cool to look back at my livejournal entry. Heh, like it'll still be around.Anyway, I guess the big bang went down around 8:30 in the morning. You know how everyone remembers where they were when Kennedy was shot? Well I remember exactly where I was. Asleep in bed. And I stayed that way until about 11 (gotta love tuesdays off). Got up, showered, ate, whatever. I sit down at my computer and look out my window. What do I see? A huge flaming building!No, just kidding. It was just a chipmunk. He was climbing in a bush, eating berries. Awwww. So I sat and watched him stuff his cheeks for a couple minutes simply because I had nothing else to do. Then Jimmy IMs me. Jimmy: PETEMe: hey jimmyJimmy: DID YOU HEAR WHAT HAPPENEDMe: ??Jimmy: TERRORISTSMe: what?Jimmy: THOSE SICK BASTARDSMe: terrorists?Jimmy: THEY BLEW UP THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BUILDINGS Me: uh-huhJimmy: THE PENTAGON IS ON FIREMe: rightJimmy: THEY HIJACKED PLANES AND CRASHED THEM RIGHT INTO THE BUILDINGSMe: bullshitJimmy: I'M SERIOUSMe: look, jimmy, if you want to try and screw with me, you're gonna have to at least be realisticJimmy: TURN ON THE NEWSMe: alright, i will(two minutes later)Me: holy fucking shit!And there it was. Terrorists from wherever somehow managed to hijack four passenger jets and flew them right into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon. The Pentagon is alright, as of now, but the WTC is gone. Completely. Like, the two tallest buildings in all of New York City are completely gone. Not a little banged up, not a few broken windows, not on fire, just gone. Madness.And so I watched. I mean, this was a pretty big deal. Homework can wait...we're in a state of emergency! Again, I had no class, so sitting on my couch watching the same recycled footage of the plane smashing into the building all day was no big deal. Jess came home around 2, apparently RIT went nuts too. Prayer services, people huddled around televisions, counseling meetings to go to. I notice they didn't cancel class though. They're announcing Wednesday as a national day of mourning and all businesses and schools should be closed on CNN, but President Simone feels that "closing school will have let the terrorists won." Oh I see. So this is a matter of principles. It really makes no difference to me if there's school or not, but I'm sure there's a few students from New York City whose families just went through Hell, and I imagine they might not appreciate having to decide between helping out at home or making it to class. But at least we sent a message to those terrorists!Bin Laden: ahaha! we sure showed them, eh? those puny americans are weak and stupid! they're closing everything because of what i have done!Lackey: uh, excuse me, sir? I'm afraid RIT is still having class tomorrow...Bin Laden: What?? Nooooooo!!! my plan is ruined!!That's showing em who's boss Simone. Anyways, back to the tragedy. Everything's gone insane, and now there's talk of war. We don't even know who did this to us, but we're more than ready to bomb the shit out of them. Meanwhile, people are burning. My mom IMs me frantically, talking about a war draft. A war draft?? Come on. We can't go to war with a terrorist group. Now, if this group happens to be a country, then I suppose we could declare war on them. And then all of our allies would declare war on them. So let's see, that's the United States, Canada, Russia, Australia, and most of Europe vs. a desert country the size of Georgia. Plus it'll be like Desert Storm, all air strikes and missile attacks. If we do launch a ground attack, theres thousands of soldiers already in the army who'll proudly kick their asses first. And after them comes volunteers, and *then* would come a draft. A draft that I would be at the bottom of, because I'm a full-time college student. So mom, chill.President Bush made a speech about how America is good and terrorists are bad. I've actually given oral reports in English class that were longer. But at least it gave CNN something to talk about for another two hours. I should know, I watched!I dunno, there's not much else to say for now. It's going to take days to search through all that rubble. Thousands of people died today. No one I knew personally, but I have friends who do and my thoughts and prayers go out to them, and anyone else who got caught up in this whole thing. I dunno, at the risk of sounding simple, this whole thing fucking sucks. But I also thought of something. For a few brief moments, as the whole concept of the situation swirled around in my head, petty differences and quarrels seemed so insignificant. "We're all Americans, we're all in this together" kinda crap. Maybe someday it won't take a tragedy like this to weed out all the stupid shit.Hmmm...I got kinda philosophical there. Remind me to stop that.Yeah that's about it. Apartment's sweet, new car's good, classes are ok, it's the end of the world, update update update, blah blah blah. I'm going to bed. |