Shut Up And Listen 165

Writing A Column In A Post-9/11 World

Because of the necessity of the modern world, of working within not just a local, but international context thanks to the chosen publication medium of my columns, being the internet, I ask myself, before starting each and every column, while mentally writing them, "Does this work in a post-9/11 world?" That is a constant consideration. How can you not constantly think of what you're saying within that context? The events of 9/11 were so huge, so world-altering that writing a column on current events without considering how that day impacted upon the events being written about would be totally irresponsible. If I'm writing on healthcare reform by the provincial government, currently headed by the Liberal Party, I have to think, "How did 9/11 change the way we look at healthcare in Ontario? How did 9/11 make it possible for the Liberals to win the election in the fall of 2003? How did 9/11 change my views on the issue of funding healthcare in general?" Dammit, you have to do that if you want to be taken seriously. In this post-9/11 world, everything, everything relates back to 9/11 and is impacted by it still.

Which is all a bunch of bullshit, obviously.

I've been thinking about this column for a while ever since I saw some footage of CNN on an episode of The Daily Show where they had some stupid bitch talking about the Presidential race or something totally unrelated to anything like the events of September 11 talking about how they have to consider whatever the fuck is was within the context of a "post-9/11 world". Jon Stewart made a joke about it and I was just killing myself laughing at how fucking stupid that woman was. And then I noticed that if you want any of those American twenty-four-hour news stations, you can't go five minutes without someone talking about something in relation to the WTC stuff when really there's no connection. I don't know whether to laugh at that shit or not. It's just so sad how out of touch with reality and how "smart" and "insightful" these TV pundits want to seem.

But then again, I'm a Canadian, so there's a very good chance I'm out of touch and maybe everything that happens in America right now has a direct tie to September eleventh. Maybe the pundits are totally accurate and everything from Martha Stewart's trial to the minimum wage have been altered forever because of two airplanes crashing into two buildings. For some reason, I don't find that very likely.

Mostly, all that's been forever altered by September eleventh is the twenty-four-hour TV news channels and their damn consultants. Now we've got them going 24 hours a day, always looking for sensationalized bullshit and talking to people who are basically just like me, except I only do my bitching once a week and maybe for a thousand words, while these people are in there every single fucking day talking about nothing. That's what those stupid news stations are: nothing. They sure as hell aren't news for more than 10% of the time. They maybe have some news for an hour a day and then it's nothing but bullshit talk from people who really don't know more than you or me the rest of the time.

But, as I said, I could be totally off and the reason I have like seven people reading this is because I don't consider things within the context of a world changed forever by a terrorist attack. I wouldn't expect any changes coming soon though.