Subjective Morality

Barbers had a few more jobs than cutting your hair in the Middle Ages, during the time of the plague: they also served as de facto surgeons because of their skills with a razor. Bloodletting was a popular practice back then and people actually believed it worked. The barber would slit the person’s arm and let the blood flow into a basin while the person held onto a stick, to dilate the veins.

People couldn’t read back then, so businesses used signs that showed what they did; a barbershop displayed a sign of a hand with blood running down the arm in a spiral. Hence the modern version: a white and red spiral running down a pole.

Nifty, huh?

My English teacher taught us about Dante’s Inferno today, and he used this diagram of the levels of Hell. I thought I’d reproduce it for all you fine people:

(It goes without saying that you should click on it if you actually want to read anything. Excuse the typos.)

So, a breakdown and elaboration on the diagram is below.

Objects in descending order:

Gate of Hell: Self-explanatory.

Antechamber – The Neutral: Those who were neither good nor bad are chased by stinging insects through a field of maggots while a constantly changing banner flies overhead.

Acheron: The first river of Hell; newly-dead souls are ferried across by Charon.

King Minos: Judges each new entrant into Hell to decide where they go.

The levels of hell are divided into three main groups: incontinence, brutishness, and maliciousness:

• Incontinent: This section is reserved for those who lose control of their emotions.
• Brutish: Reserved for those who are attracted to sin.
• Malicious: Reserved for those who misuse reason for evil.

C1 – Limbo: Where unbaptized babies and virtuous pagans go. There is no torture. Kind of a boring place, really.

C2 – Lustful: The lustful are blown around by perpetual hurricanes to symbolize the whirlwind of their passions and excesses.

C3 – Gluttonous: Just as they acted like pigs in life, the gluttonous are forced to acts like pigs in death, made to wallow in a vile slush of all the yuckiest things you can think of.

C4 – Avaricious (greedy): The greedy wasted their time on Earth by hoarding useless money, so they are doomed to doing useless manual labor forever, much like Sisyphus.

C5 – Wrathful/Slothful: On the shore of the river Styx, the wrathful are forced to fight each other forever. On the bottom of Styx, the slothful perpetually drown in the swampy water.

Styx: Swampy river, filled with a bunch of nasty stuff.

C6 – Heretics: Heretics are trapped inside burning tombs, symbolizing their disbelief in life after death.

Dis: The city of Hell. The name makes sense: disrespect, dishonesty, disillusionment; it’s a very negative name.

C7 – Violent: Divided into three sections: the violent against man, self, and God:

• The violent against man are submerged in the river Phlegathon, which is a river of boiling blood. The level of submersion is relative to the level of bloodshed that person committed.
• The violent against self are turned into trees that can only talk when they are hurt, as Dante learns when he breaks off a twig of one and then hears a tale.
• The violent against God (blasphemers) are stuck in a desert of flaming sand while fire rains down from above.

C8 – Fraudulent: This circle is called the Malebolge, or “Evil Pockets.” It’s divided into ten bolgie.

• B1 – Panderers: Forced to march while being whipped by demons.
• B2 – Flatterers: Steeped in human excrement.
• B3 – Simonists: Inverted with their feet burning.
• B4 – False Prophets: Have their heads turned around on their necks, representing the way they mislead people in life.
• B5 – Corrupt Politicians: Immersed in a lake of boiling pitch.
• B6 – Hypocrites: Forced to wander around in lead robes.
• B7 – Thieves: Forced into a pit of snakes, the bite of which transforms them into other creatures.
• B8 – Evil Advisors: Encased in flames and can’t be seen, as their thoughts couldn’t be seen.
• B9 – Sowers of Discord: Forced to mutilate themselves over and over again.
• B10 – Alchemists: Afflicted with horrible diseases.

C9 – Traitors: This circle is divided into four sections: Caïna, Antenora, Ptolomaea, and Judecca. The sinners are immersed in a lake of ice known as Cocytus.

• Caïna – Traitors Against Kin: Named after Cain, sinners are submerged in the ice of Cocytus up to their necks.
• Antenora – Traitors Against Country: Named after Antenor of Troy, sinners are submerged deep enough that they can’t bend their necks.
• Ptolomaea – Traitors Against Guests: Named after Ptolemy, captain of Jericho, sinners lie supinely, submerged in the ice except for half of their faces.
• Judecca – Traitors Against Benefactors: The deepest level of Hell. Named after Judas Iscariot, sinners are completely encapsulated in ice. Lucifer exists at this level, buried waist-deep in the ice. He’s described as a giant, shaggy demon with six wings and three faces, each a different color: red, black, and yellow, and each chewing on a specific traitor: Brutus, Cassius, and Judas. He continually cries and beats his wings for escape, but the wind from his wings only freezes his tears and traps him further.

Hero—a word that conjures up the best in humanity; those who save frightened (and not all-together bright) kittens from trees, those who dive into a lake to pry old men from the seat of their sunken cars (seniors are notoriously bad drivers, after all), and those who go off to fight wars in far-away countries and kill those who would wish to do harm to those in said fighter’s native country. These examples could be heard by anyone asking passersby on the street what they think of when they hear the word hero. Like everything in the world, the conception of what is heroic changes over time, with the moods, fads, and advancements of society. What people considered heroic in the 10th-century is not what they considered it to be in the 14th-, and certainly not what they consider it now, in the 21st-. The stories of Beowulf, Sir Gawain, and the author’s sister, provide a good contrast to these different concepts of hero.

Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon heroic poem written sometime between the 8th- and 11th-century. It tells of Hrothgar, king of the Danes, whose mead hall, Heorot, is besieged nightly by a monster named Grendel. Beowulf comes to aid Hrothgar from his native land of Geatland, across the Baltic Sea, and waits for Grendel to come to Heorot. When the door of Heorot bursts open and Grendel appears, Beowulf takes no action until Grendel eats one of his Geatish comrades, watching how the monster works, and then when he (Grendel) reaches for Beowulf, grabs Grendel’s arm and, showing incredible strength, rips it off:

[Beowulf] kept him helplessly locked in a handgrip. As long as either lived, he was hateful to the other. The monster’s whole body was in pain, a tremendous wound appeared on his shoulder. Sinews split and the bone-lappings burst. Beowulf was granted the glory of winning; Grendel was driven under the fen-banks, fatally hurt, to his desolate lair.

Grendel is driven off to die, and Beowulf plus a troupe of Danes and Geats go after him, where they find that he has died in his mere, and Beowulf is highly praised for his deed:

Then away they rode, the old retainers with many a young man following after, a troop on horseback, in high spirits on their bay steeds. Beowulf’s doings were praised over and over again. Nowhere, they said, north or south of the between the two seas or under the tall sky on the broad earth was there anyone better to raise a shield or to rule a kingdom.

Beowulf does many more heroic deeds in his life, including killing Grendel’s mother and fighting a dragon, where he meets his match: “[Beowulf] had survived every extreme, excelling himself in daring and in danger, until the day arrived when he had to come face to face with the dragon.” Beowulf is killed by the dragon, punctured by its poisonous fangs: “Then the bane of that people, the fire-breathing dragon, was made to attack for a third time. When a chance came, he caught the hero in a rush of flame and clamped sharp fangs into his neck. Beowulf’s body ran wet with his life-blood: it came welling out.” Beowulf slays the dragon with the help of his young relative, Wiglaf, and then dies and is buried in a tumulus by the sea.

“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is the tale of Sir Gawain, a knight of Arthur’s fabled Round Table. In the tale, there is a knight who is entirely green, from his armor down to his beard, and he challenges Gawain to strike him with his axe, if he will accept the same blow in a year and a day. Gawain agrees and cuts the knight’s head off:

On the ground the Green Knight got himself into position, his head forward a little, the bare flesh showing, his long and lovely locks laid over his crown so that any man there might note the naked neck. Sir Gawain laid hold of the ax and he hefted it high, his pivot foot thrown forward before him on the floor, and then, swiftly, he slashed at the naked neck; the sharp of the battleblade shattered asunder the bones and sank through the shining fat and slit it in two, and the bit of the bright steel buried itself in the ground. The fair head fell from the neck to the floor of the hall and the people all kicked it away as it came near their feet.

The Green Knight was not dead after this, as he lifted his own head up and reminded Gawain to honor his promise and come to the Green Chapel in a year and a day, where he will be waiting. The rest of the tale involves Sir Gawain traveling to find the Green Chapel and fulfill his end of the challenge. He comes across a beautiful castle, owned by Lord Bertilak, who informs him that the Green Chapel is only two miles away and that he should rest in his castle until the anxiously-awaited date comes. Bertilak also proposes a game wherein he will go hunting each day and give Gawain whatever he catches for that day as long as Gawain gives him whatever he has earned the same day, at the castle. While Gawain rests in his room, Lady Bertilak makes a habit of trying to seduce him, but they never exchange more than innocent kisses, which Gawain gives to the Lord after he returns from his hunts, bearing his kill for that day. The first day yields a deer from Bertilak and a kiss from Gawain and the next day yields a boar and two kisses. The third day, when Lady Bertilak comes to seduce Gawain, she gives him a silken green sash and tells him that as long as he wears it, “No man under Heaven can hurt him.” That evening, Gawain accepts a fox from Bertilak in exchange for three kisses. The next day, Gawain travels to the Green Chapel wearing the green sash, where he finds the Green Knight sharpening an axe in preparation. Gawain bends over to receive his blow, but the Green Knight holds back twice, and on the third time, strikes softly, merely leaving a scar on the back of Gawain’s neck. It is then revealed that the Green Knight is really Lord Bertilak and that Lady Bertilak was pretending to seduce Gawain. The strikes corresponded to each day that Gawain and Bertilak exchanged what they had earned; two feints for the days that Gawain gave Bertilak kisses, and one soft-strike for not giving Bertilak the green sash on the third day. Gawain feels shameful for not honoring his pact with Bertilak, but Bertilak tells him that he is the purest soul he has ever met, saying, “I’m convinced you’re the finest man that ever walked this earth.” Bertilak admonishes Gawain to remember their encounter as he goes forward in his adventures.

The author’s sister is a single-mother living below the poverty-line whilst struggling to graduate college and find a better job. Currently, she has a tough life, and the author is truly humbled every time he sees what she has to go through. The author recently asked her several questions about heroism:

AUTHOR: Would you consider yourself a hero, modesty aside?

SHELBY: No, I really don’t believe I’ve done anything in my life to warrant me being called a hero.

AUTHOR: Would the modern definition of hero include perseverance in the face of incredible hardships?

SHELBY: Yes, I think a big part of someone being a hero is to have perseverance and face hardships head-on without fear.

AUTHOR: How would you define hero?

SHELBY: A hero is someone who is perseverant, determined, selfless, and also flawed in some way and willing to admit when they make mistakes, because how else will they learn from the mistakes they make? Also, a hero is someone who can be looked up to; someone other people can admire.

AUTHOR: List three things that you’ve done in your life that you consider to be heroic.

SHELBY: Working at Heartspring for the past 5 years, educating children with autism and special needs. Being a single-mom of a three-year-old and supporting myself. Being the first grandchild to graduate from college. [The author would like to point out that technically she will be the second grandchild in the author’s family to graduate from college, as the author’s cousin, Cammie, had already graduated, a fact that the author did not want to mention at the time of this interview.]

AUTHOR: What are some of your duties at Heartspring?

SHELBY: Educating special-needs and autistic students so that they can be more independent and show more socially appropriate behaviors in a classroom setting. I also mentor other staff and new staff in the residential house that I am assigned to. [Also, the author would like to point out that this “educating special-needs and autistic students” sometimes involves the changing of adult diapers, which, if nothing else, displays a courage that the author can scarcely imagine having himself.]

AUTHOR: Describe a typical day for yourself.

SHELBY: Waking up with my daughter, getting breakfast, working on things to increase her vocabulary and understanding. Monday-through-Friday afternoon I am a fulltime mother with my daughter, and Friday-through-Sunday evening I work 40 hours at Heartspring to support us.

AUTHOR: Who are some heroes that you look up to?

SHELBY: My parents and my brother. The support-system you have at home really comes to define you as you grow older.

Beowulf, Sir Gawain, and Shelby all show courage in their various exploits: Beowulf in facing Grendel, Gawain in going to meet the Green Knight, knowing he would probably die, and Shelby by just living (and changing adult diapers). Beowulf and Gawain both severed some ligament from another being’s body, something that (as far as the author knows) Shelby has not done. Beowulf and Gawain do their heroic deeds for different reasons: Beowulf to help Hrothgar and further his reputation, and Gawain because he accepted the challenge from the Green Knight and therefore would not be chivalrous if he failed to meet all the conditions of said challenge; in Shelby’s case it’s more that she just wants to live and make sure her daughter has a better life than herself. Beowulf and Gawain both show incredible strength, as Beowulf rips a monster’s arm off and Gawain cuts a man’s head off, and Shelby, while strong enough to restrain a full-grown autistic-and/or-mentally-imbalanced person, cannot really compete as she is held to more modern standards of strength. All of them are loyal: Beowulf to Hrothgar, Gawain to his code of chivalry, and Shelby to her daughter. Beowulf and Gawain are both adept at using weapons (though Beowulf prefers hand-to-hand when he can). Shelby has at least fired a gun once in her life (that the author knows of), but she has never actually used it on another person.

The Norse concept of a hero was someone who died by kicking as much ass as possible, and kicking it courageously. Norsemen believed that the female horse-riders known as Valkyries flew above every battle, scanning the turmoil below for soldiers who fought courageously, and upon seeing one, swooped down to take them up to Valhalla (or valor-hall) where they would enjoy mead in the company of Odin, their highest god. That differs quite a bit from today’s wars where soldiers can just aim-and-click and poof! their target is gone, often without ever knowing who shot them. Today’s soldiers never have to hear the crunch! of their opponent’s bones as they run them through with a sword (or cut their head off with an axe, in the case of Sir Gawain); swords are not used anymore for warfare, now that we have the simplicity of guns. In our modern world, war is fought with a higher goal in mind than dying heroically: we want to pick off the enemy one by one or blast them away in groups, and win the greater battle; there is not that microcosm of soldiers trying to be courageous and honorable in order to get into Heaven. This dichotomy shifts the modern concept of hero away from war and more into everyday occurrences, because there is no heroism in simply pulling a trigger. The modern hero differs from the heroes of the medieval era, like Sir Gawain, in that the modern hero has a more complex and diluted sense of loyalty and chivalry that Gawain displays and so values. The modern concept of a hero is more complex: A modern hero is someone who perseveres through incredible hardships and grits their teeth and continues on, no matter the economic, socio-political, or personal conditions at the time. While there may be many different concepts of hero that have existed throughout the ages, there is something similar in all of them: A display of the extraordinary; whether it be courage, chivalry, or perseverance, all are qualities of a hero that set them apart from regular people.

Microsoft, in a not-so-well-thought-out move, has actually let this horrible, horrible, horrible advertisement for Windows 7 launch parties out of the torture chamber basement to see the light of day (not to mention the stares of disbelief and disgust of several thousand unwitting people). What do you get when you cram four people into a room, give them a script to read like mindless robots, and then have them pretend to like each other? This monstrosity:

Around the 5:42 mark (and I’m amazed I made it that far), the black guy asks, “Can you believe that Microsoft put the launch of Windows 7 in our hands?” I’ve got a better question: “Can you believe that Microsoft actually made this and then put it on the internet?” Sadly, I can, having experienced the utter strangeness of the Seinfeld ads (and MS has had even stranger ads before).

Common’ Microsoft, you guys were doing OK for awhile with the Laptop Hunter ads (not). Get it together!

A while ago, when I got into school late because my alarm just decided it didn’t want to exist anymore and exploded all over the place sending shards of shrapenel through all the furniture but thankfully not through my sleeping body, my seat, which is right next to my boyfriend’s on this little island of two tables pushed together with four seats on two outer sides, was occupied by a huge rather large kid. This fact took several moments to register with me, upon which mental-registration at some mental-registration desk in my mind or something, I went into a mode of anger that I don’t usually feel every day, and my left eye twitched. I do not like it one bit when someone sits in the seat that is rightfully mine. By what possible logic can you justify sitting in my seat, Large One? Did Mrs. W— change her seating chart all of a sudden so that you could have my seat? No she god-damned didn’t. You have your own seat and you know where it is, you just choose not to sit in it and would rather sit in my seat by the only people you could conceivably call friends in this class (not me or my BF, but the other two people who sit with me and my BF at this table-island).

I will go Captain Ahab on this kid’s blubbery ass if he ever sits in my seat again. And I know it may be irrationally harsh to say that, I know that that seat that I call “mine” contains the bottoms of at least four kids every day, and I know that I may be over-reacting to such a small little thing and that it doesn’t really take much effort to just sit somewhere else or tell the kid (politely) to get the fuck out, but it still just pisses me off to no conceivable end.

Don’t take my seat. Just don’t.

I just made a font out of my handwriting using fontcapture, and I’m uploading it here for all you silly masochists to download. Have fun with that.

The door was big, black and heavy as all hell. There’s one of those buttons that open it for people in wheelchairs or for people who are otherwise similarly so disabled that they can’t open a door by themselves. There’s this porch-like thing in front of the building with some plants nearby in big porcelain pots. The door swings with no small expenditure of energy on my part and I enter the waiting room of my neurologist’s office. My father enters after me and walks to the desk to talk to the receptionist and get everything all sorted out and such. I go to a seat that’s far away from anyone who could conceivably bother me. There are two rows of plastic, blue chairs that aren’t altogether uncomfortable, but I suppose are more comfy than those wooden desks students are used to sitting their buttocks in at school. There’s a Hispanic family sitting in the row of chairs behind me, speaking Spanish to each other and talking about that horrid children’s show Special Agent Oso (which I shall rip on in a different post since it deserves one all its own for ripping on). There’s at least one kid with that family that I can tell, since this is a pediatric neurology clinic, but I can’t be sure how many. The carpet is gray with four little, red boxes in each tile, spaced, I’m sure, in equal proportion from one another. The smell of the room is stale, like a hotel lobby but not nice. There’s that weird chirbling sound in the background, you know, the high-pitched electronic squeel you usually hear in offices. I think it comes from fax machines. There’s this wallpaper on the wall in front my seat (the position of which basically forces me to look at it) that is this castle that has this optical illusion effect going on, like some of the turrets look like they’re moved to the left, but they aren’t. Not sure how to describe it. The castle has little strips taken out of it here and there, leaving that papery residue you get when you try to carefully tear a sticker off a book or something and you fail and you’re sad because now the cover of your book is marred by papery residue and such and then you feel angry every time you see it, which’ll be often if you haven’t read it yet or are just starting or something, you’ll feel this abject sadness and frustration that your book isn’t pretty and pristine anymore. But yeah, I’m assuming the castle-wallpaper was ripped by one of the mental children, and indeed, much of the stuff in the waiting room looks to have been either brutally played-with or bitten or torn in some way. I think there are bite-marks on the plastic armrest of my chair, which disturbs me, and all the while I’m waiting I’m trying really hard not to let my arms rest on the armrest, but I’m taking notes for this here post I’m writing now and my arm is getting fairly tired from all the writing with my Pilot Precise V5 (which is my pen of choice) and I just kinda want to rest my arm, so I do on that armrest that looks like it’s been chewed on by kids with mental problems.

Speaking of mental problems, I feel a deep sense of shame whenever I’m in this waiting room and I get uber-paranoid that the people around me think that I have some mental disability when in fact I just get migraines sometimes and I’m not mentally disturbed or any such thing, but I still feel the need to disprove their assumptions that may not even exist and so I bring a really thick book just to show that I can read or I write a lot in my notebook and kinda make noises like I’m frustrated with my writing, which probably makes it more likely for them to think that I’m mentally challenged or something so then I play it down and act nonchalant and cool and stuff, which I don’t do well.

Anyway, the receptionist is an intimidating woman named Kanya, I’m assuming, or at least that’s what the little plastic name-thing on her desk says, and it’s a neat name I suppose, but anyway I observe or rather hear a conversation she’s having with a caller who is apparently trying to call Dr. Shah himself (Dr. Shah being the leader or head doctor or whatever of this place) and this conversation (one-sided for obvious reasons) goes somewhat like this:

“You’re looking for Doctor Shah? This isn’t him. You’re calling his practice? He’s a physician. He’s in with patients. There’s no good time to see him.”

And then she hangs up the phone. I think she was rather rude, but I suppose it would be a sucky job to sit there all day answering phones and signing in appointments with those ugly yellow walls staring at her. (On a tangent note, the wall that holds the door isn’t too bad to look at, just a black door and some windows out of which you can see the plants growing out on the porch thing, which is a pretty sight amidst all this depressing yellow.)

While I’m waiting, some patients who are lucky enough to be done with their appointments leave, and one of them shoots out the door rather quickly, leaving it open and letting the breeze through, which is cold. So I’m just sitting there awkwardly looking at the big open space where the door should be which leads outside to the brutal cold and wind and I’m debating internally whether I should get up and close the thing but no one else in the room has gotten up and done it yet, and so, right before I resolve to get up and close the door, the damn thing closes by itself after what has to be at least five minutes.

Finally, the nurse comes out and calls my name, and I can’t stand it when nurses call me into an appointment because they always call for Alexander, which makes me feel even more uncomfortable than I already am usually. So the nurse takes my weight and height and leads me to room #3, which, thankfully, is not the room with the examination table in the shape of a lion. The nurse tells me to hop up on the table-that-is-not-a-lion and takes my temperature and does all the stuff nurses usually do, barring “nurses” you find in adult movies. When the nurse leaves, I sit there on the exam table and kick my legs and look around the room. On the inside of the door, there are three signs, one of which reads:

PLEASE DO NOT DISPOSE DIRTY DIAPERS IN THE WASTEBASKET. THEY LEAVE AN UNPLEASANT ODOR. PLEASE JUST GIVE TO ANY NURSE YOU ARE ABLE TO FIND. THANK YOU.

There looks to be a diaper in the wastebasket. I imagine a parent holding a diaper over their naked child and just looking around for a nurse and calling one over and saying, “Be a doll and take this for me. Thanks.” and I know that no woman, in the history of the world, has ever said the phrase “be a doll,” but maybe a man might, though that would still be exceedingly strange and awkward.

This ruminating over the whole mother-diaper-nurse issue manages to keep me occupied long enough for the doctor (who is not Shah) to enter and ask me questions and generally assess my mental health and such. She ends up giving me an extended prescription of the migraine medication RELPAX, which I was already taking, which works fine for me as I’m fairly anxious to get this over with and get the hell out of here.

My father makes another appointment with Kanya and I wait outside in the cold while he does so. Father then comes out and says, “Well, that was a waste of time.”

There’s a question posed by Chuck Klosterman in Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto that goes like this:

Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while his head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but completely immobile. And let us assume that–for some reason–every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes. You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots. Would you attempt to do this?

Now, I hate animal cruelty. Nothing incenses me more. Nothing. If you want me to beat you to death with a bent crowbar, you should try putting a kitten in a blender with me in the immediate vicinity. You’ll be a bloody mass on the floor before you can even press the “purèe” button. I’ll be like the Bear Jew on your ass.

Keeping that in mind, I would totally kick the horse to death. Without a doubt. Now, I probably couldn’t do it within twenty minutes, because I’m weak as fuck, but I could probably kill it, at least. Well, it doesn’t matter. The point is: if you don’t kill the damn horse, nothing will change. If you do, something will. Strange that the concept of nothing changing scares me more than the thought of something changing, since humans don’t like change, but hey, it’s freedom for a shitload of people. Isn’t that worth killing a worthless horse that just eats and craps and pulls people around for tours of slightly interesting farms that have fences that curve around trees because the fence-builders were too lazy or too soft to just cut the damn thing down? Yeah, I think so. I value freedom way more than a horse. Any horse. Even if it could talk. I’d kick it in the mouth. Yeah? Cool.

It’s late, I know, but here’s my own little reminiscence about 9/11:

I was in elementary school and I was sitting in my little wood-metal desk with my friend, Garrett, sitting next to me. Our teacher, Mr. Puckett, had brought in a television and had it on some news channel. All I saw on the screen was what I thought to be two smokestacks. I remember thinking, “Why are we watching this?” Yeah, horrible, I know, but I was a kid, and kids percieve things differently; they don’t really see things clearly. At least I didn’t.

It was only after I got home and I saw it on the evening news that I realized what really happened, but didn’t fully understand the implications. Naturally, I asked my parents about it and got ambiguous answer. I remember asking my sister why everyone was talking about it, and she said to me, “Alex, textbooks will have to be rewritten because of this.” And she just kinda shook her head.

I still didn’t really get it. It wasn’t until later, when I was able to properly process the things that happened that day (people jumping out of 90-story windows to avoid being burned alive; people being crushed by tons of concrete and steel beams; people just dying in really horrific ways, all because of religious zealotry and lax airport security) that I had that same catharsis that most people had on 9/11.

It’s nine years later and the site of the World Trade Center is still a big hole.

I saw 9 on Saturday, and I wasn’t too excited about it. I didn’t look it up on Wikipedia or anything, so I went into it not knowing anything about it. It was produced by Tim Burton, so I figured it couldn’t be horrible.