Sean-Ward.com

I thought of this toothpaste for dinner comic today. I thought of this last night while watching the New Jersey Giants play the Indianapolis Colts. I say “New Jersey” because that is where they play. End of story. Continuing on…

Anyway, it would have been kind of hard to forget much of anything about the terrorist attacks of 9/11, what with the movies, tv series, graphic novel, magazine and newspaper articles, and the Internet. The upcoming stories list has included 9/11 articles for the last couple of days. I think if I belonged to a hive mind, I’d have a better chance at forgetting.

It makes me wonder: did the attack on Pearl Harbor cause this much constant remembrance? That attack on December 7th, 1941, pulled us into World War 2 completely.

Interesting fact: to the Japanese, the attack was launched on December 8th, not the 7th, as they were on the opposite side of the date line. Let me say now, that’s why the International Date Line should be where GMT starts, and then have it wrap around, instead of starting in Greenwich, England, and going 12 hours up and down.

But I digress.

Certainly not without their respective conspiracy theories, did the attacks on 9/11 receive the same response as that attack in 1941? It’s hard to tell, since less than a year after the event, everyone was being introspective of that day, and drawing conclusions. Hell, they were doing that days and weeks afterwards. Even if those people in 1941 thought or did similar things, most of the conclusions they made are gone. Sure, the media outlets may have not been as vocal about certain things back then, or the government had a tighter control on information, but still, the fact remains.

Thanks to the Internet and 24/7 news/talk shows, the 9/11 attacks have constantly been mentioned and talked about. We haven’t had time to get introspective without taking enough time to see what has happened. They say that most events can only be studied through the lens of history a couple decades removed from the events themselves. Many don’t want to wait that long.

In regards to the Internet, have you noticed that some places have archived the front pages for different websites from that day, such as Google? It’s kind of like keeping the newspaper for the say an event happened. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

On September 11, 2001, I was assisting students in getting connected to the network in Founders. I think I had class. A lot has changed since then, but then again, somethings haven’t. It was a sad thing that the attacks happened, but nothing I can do, say, or think can revert what happened. Perhaps forgetting for a year or two might give people a better idea of what is happening in the country and world around them.

Ah well. Maybe everyone will remember “love thy neighbor” one of these days. Probably after we have defeated the bodiless “terror” we’re waging war against.