(If you’re just here for road trip business, watch Jon Stewart and then move on.)
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| September 11, 2001 | ||||
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I was a bit late to work that day. I think it was after 9 AM when I started my car. JB and Sandy, on Mix 94.7, were talking about two planes that had hit two separate towers. I didn’t quite get what they were talking about, but I distinctly remember assuming it was something that had happened in a foreign country.
During the drive to work I got the full meaning. The story wasn’t quite accurate yet. They were reporting that a small plane, like a Cessna, had hit the first tower, followed by a 737 hitting the second. Of course it was even worse than that.
As I got to work, I knew just enough to call my dad. He hadn’t seen the news yet. I told him that two planes had hit the World Trade Center, and he asked, “What kind of planes?”
That’s when it really hit me. It occurred to me that he, too, was probably thinking of a relatively small-scale event. He, too, was probably thinking Cessna.
“Um…” I said, and broke down, unable to finish the sentence. I took a breath. “I think one of them was a 737.” A tear ran down my cheek. I didn’t even wipe it away.
Not much work got done that morning, of course. I refreshed CNN.com dozens of times, only occasionally successfully loading a page. There was a lot of iChat-based morbid humor with my good friend Corey: “When you and I are in a foxhole in Afghanistan a year from now,” I told him, “promise me we’ll remember the good times.”
That was ten years ago, an unfathomable amount of time. More people are killed in a single month of driving US roads than were killed on that awful day. It’s striking how much the one event has changed how we view the world.
Do me, and yourself, a favor to commemorate this day, which I spent walking in the wilderness, miles and miles from the nearest Internet connection or cell phone signal. Go watch a movie called Four Lions. (Netflix streaming! Yay!) It’s a small British film that the Alamo Drafthouse distributed last year. It’s a comedy, about, terrorists.
Despite being an absolute farce, and damn hilarious, it’s the most accurate and moving portrayal of terrorists I’ve ever seen. You find yourself sympathizing with the protagonist and his wife—then you suddenly realize, Good Christ, they want to murder innocent people. The day after September 11th, we mostly viewed terrorists the same way they were portrayed in True Lies: wild-eyed lunatics with no basis in humanity. They’re certainly lunatics. They’re as wrong as wrong can be. But they’re humans anyway. And there’s no shame in admitting that; it helps us understand this unique kind of enemy all the better. Being able to laugh your ass off while you realize this is icing on the cake.
I hope that after this day, which I mercifully missed, September 11 can stop being a date spoken in a hushed tone. It can be just a day, like December 7th is, or May 7th (that would be the sinking of the Lusitania). That’s my wish for you. Feel a tremendous amount of grief for the lives that were lost, and then figure out the best way to move on.