This is where I usually describe what I'm drinking, smoking or listening to while I write my pointless articles.  No one ever looks at this page.  So, I'll take this opportunity, for the few of you that have stumbled here, to be uncharacteristically serious for a minute or two.  

I've never considered myself fervently patriotic.  In fact, I've always been a little embarrassed by anything flagrantly pro-American. No "My Country Right or Wrong" bumper stickers, no political endorsements hammered into my front lawn, no fireworks on the fourth of July, even, if you can believe that.  The sound hurts my ears.

It's a shame, really, that it takes a tragedy to snap things into focus.

What a profoundly wonderful country we live in, where I can write whatever I want and post it to the World Wide Web, meaningless or meaningful, with or without artistic value.  I'm not sure I realized, until the eleventh, how fortunate I was to be able to live in a land where there aren't (weren't) armed soldiers in the streets, guarding against the constant threat of malicious, organized violence.  What a privilege it is to be able to maintain my steadfast belief that our president is a moron and not have to worry about him sending government operatives to whisk me away in the night to a camp somewhere until ten years after he's dead.  What a shame it is that I can only fully appreciate these things because some fart-brained fanatic half a world away wants desperately for me to despise all the things I  love about America.

A few months ago, if you'd asked me if I'd die for my country, I probably would have laughed in your face.  Today, I say bring it on.  Send your suicide pilots, and your anthrax, and whatever else you got up your sleeve.  Anything you do will strengthen my resolve.

God Bless America.