2001-12-14 - 12:17 a.m.

Apparently, "they" have Bin Laden all holed up in his Tora Bora cave complex. I want that motherfucker to die.

I'm a very rational person, and keep myself pretty informed. I'm no expert, and do not claim to be. But I do get very mad at the ignorant "my country, right or wrong" folks.

I don't think that we should bomb Afghanistan to smithereens. The now old joke how do you bomb a country that's already been bombed to pieces comes to mind. Nonetheless, I think so many Americans forget that Bin Laden is a Saudi and that the Taliban is a hostile regime imposing itself onto the people of Afghanistan.

Obviously, they're not too well received by the women that live there. I've known that since I was twelve. I always thought that Afghanistan was a Feminist's wet dream of an example. The ultimate unbridled (and unchecked) "male fantasy."

But those Afghanis were partying like it was 1999 when Kabul and Khandahar (for lack of a better word) were "liberated."

But first impressions are hard to break. The first impression most of "us" got of Afghanistan was of the really bad thing that happened (I refuse to call it September 11th, because I hear it thrown about so much, as if to commerate it as part of our rich cultural and patriotic history).

I watched the news like the good patriot that I instantly became. I was impressionable. I saw an immediate and questionless future without irony. I watched coverage all day and all night. I hated those fucking Afghanis and I was glad when I saw that British journalist's video-phone footage of the anti-aircraft fire coming from Kabul (?). I thought that our (America's) vengeance was swift. I didn't care. I just wanted to see some motherfucking vengeance. I wanted death. Death.

Of course, I later learned that it was (what has now become) the Nothern Alliance's vengeance for the Taliban's assination of one of the tribe's leaders.

I cried and cried and fucking cried like a fucking little baby after the really bad thing. H. was staying over my place during all this. I was living with three girls. I wanted to be strong for them.

I learned that M.'s father died on the second plane to hit the World Trade Center about thirty seconds before the Girlfriend walked in the door. I was cool about it in front of H. When the girlfriend came in, I brought her into the kitchen, out of H.'s sight. I told her that something really bad happened. I started sobbing uncontrollably, even though I had never met M.'s dad. The Girlfriend and I were still concerned about S., who lived in NYC. She thought it was him. We were both bawling before I could even finish telling her who had really died. H. ran out, god bless her, and started crying too, even though she had no idea who we were talking about.

I'll never forget that fucking day. I'll never forget that shit fuck shit fuck day. Fuck it. Fuck that fucking day.

If our positions were reversed, and I was staying at H.'s place, I would have come running out too, ready to grieve for anyone.

Whenever I see smug and arrogant little college intellectuals discussing the events (and making up "facts,") I feel nautious.

This is how society is supposed to work.

Most of the people in this country don't think that it's all that bad that our own fucking government killed, through bombs, (probably not on purpose) hundreds of citizens of a country who were secretly unhappy the Taliban because the representative of the Taliban fucked with people other than Afghanis.

And then Bill Maher (and I do love him, by the way) asks, "Why do they hate us?"

You can't forgive people when you're dead. You can't see things from a more broad perspective when, after years of living in fear of the old regime, the new one facelessly flies overhead and kills you.

It is appalling to imagine that the vast majority of this country, three months from now, has settled for now ragged and soon to be discarded American Flag antenna ornaments. And they still hate Afghanistan.

Let me put it this way.

Some wacked up fuckers slammed planes into OUR buildings and KILLED OUR PEOPLE because they hate us. They happened to be living in a country (Afghanistan) whose regime they controlled. We respond by loving our idiot President, whose father was a surrogate sponsor to this tragedy, by pinning patriotic flags to our stuff for a five month period (my prediction) and celebrating the date once a month, and by hating a country that has been fucked with by the British, and that has been slaughtered by Kruschev and the Russians (who we were supposed to hate).

We heard it so much on the really bad day, "If blah blah blah (does or doesn't) happen, then the Terrorists have already won." It's kind of funny to say now, because we've kinda gotten back to normal.

We're still psychotic and paranoid, we're still just as ignorant, and we still care about other crap more than the very immediate crisis we're wading through.

Let me make my "point clear." The following is an editorial reply to an editorial (God save us all).

I swear to God that this is real and repeated word for word. Yes, the punctuation remains true to the original. Yes, it is OK to laugh. Please, please laugh.

Appreciate freedom and doughnut shops

I am writing to express my disappointment with a letter in yesterday's Boston Metro. Pierre Duponde wrote in, seemingly advocating that Boston should have more Dunkin' Donuts restaurants.

But then I realized that Duponde's letter was written in an ironic tone, that he was saying the opposite of what he meant, that there are too many Dunkin' Donuts in Boston.

Now I ask you, in these times of trouble and uncertainty, why must Duponde choose to be a Sarcastic Sam?

Does he really think it helps anything? Those Dunkin' Donuts shops provide jobs and tax revenue for the city, and also, doughnuts. And consider this -- you know where there aren't any Dunkin' Donuts restaurants?

Aftghanisan, my friend.

I think my point is clear.

No comment. (I do realize that it is highly possible that the author was "in on the joke" for lack of a better term, but it doesn't matter. This was in high circulation throughout the Boston area.

I think that the really bad thing that happened disturbs me so much because it's not fucking Ally McBeal or Survivor or the Backstreet Boys or whatever. This is something that happened to us all, and I have to (fucking) goddamn respect the feelings of morons because they arbitrarily happen to be my Country-kins.

But this thing affected me deeply too, and I'm not getting that fucking respect back (I never thought I would, but I was raised polite).

Obviously, one crime is worse than the other, but only slightly.

I get so fucking pissed when corporations USE FUCKING SEPTEMBER 11th TO FUCKING SELL ME STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And I don't get really pissed that much. I get pissed over cleaning or over bounced check fees.

Watching the coverage without any commercial break kinda made me proud to be an American. In fact, lots of people suddenly became proud to be Americans (which is kinda funny--why be proud after something bad happens, but that's just an aside). After awhile, when there wasn't much new news developing and the media was covering mourning stuff, I started joking about when we would see our first commercial.

Wasn't that much longer 'till I saw it.

Didn't mind. Just meant a slight, respectful return to capitilism. 'Scool. I was ready for it.

But then, not too long after, commercials started surfacing that used a fucking tragedy where thousands of people died (and this wasn't some tornado in trailer park Kansas) to sell me stuff. It makes me so mad, I want to cry again.

Anyway, that now old joke is true. The terrorists shook us to the core of our capitalist being. And we went on to try to use this tragedy to our own advantage.

I'm a rational man. No matter what I say, I'm a patriotic man. I love my country. And I'm no dirt hippie, either. I don't hate Afghanistan through some juvenile act of misplaced anger or egotistic savagery.

Regardless, I still want to kill Osama Bin Laden with my bare hands. I want to strangle him.

But it wouldn't make me feel all that much better, and it wouldn't solve anything. Temporary solution.