West Coast Sojourn: Season of 9.11

Would America have gone to war had the attacks come in spring?

10. Never Forget (Well, could you a little?)

Shoutout to my Oscar-winning colleague Jazzbo.

Is it too late on this solemn mourn-oliday to ask, which was more humiliating, that airplane lady episode or being the New York Giants in its Sunday Night Football home loss to Dallas? 

Before you answer, remember that the distressed lady shitting through the sky only had a cabin-full of passengers claiming trauma. Daniel Jones shat the bed on prime time NBC, disheartening a major metropolis. This game was the most devastating home opener that I have personally witnessed, perhaps in any team sport.

On the shitstorm upside, at least this newest foul Jersey stench can help dial back macabre 9.11 celebrembrances of the sort that preceded last night’s game. Military pageantry, a country-sung anthem. Let’s let them go.

I was in Brooklyn and lost neighbors on that day. Bless the dead. But I also remember October 7. On that overcast Sunday my son and I and another dad and son were rushing around Coney Island, cramming in the park before Forrest and I jetted back to Cali. The four of us peered into the booth of a vendor who had a TV on. It was beginning, the invasion of Afghanistan and the battle against the Taliban.

I don’t remember fierce debate about the wisdom of attacking. Could have been robust-er.

New York got so dumb in the terror attacks aftermath, I have in the past felt bad for splitting. Dumb, and desperate for security. Witness the rise of Guiliani. And I’ll never not wonder whether the enabling of Donald Trump would have contributed if, say, reformer—and 9.11 a.m. front runner—had been elected mayor over Michael Bloomberg. But the wars? I know what happened for sure.

Mourn the dead, but mourn too the biggest military policy failure of my lifetime. The Sunday night Giants of payback.

Go Jets?!

9. College Football Has the Purest Polling

Strange to be in the midst of a political campaign in which no candidate who stands a chance is actively campaigning. The front-running Trump’s money is going to lawyers, not trail stuff, while Biden’s off days are likely spent getting the youth restoration injections that 45 lost upon leaving office.

But Iowa flashed a taste of meaningful competition at Saturday’s Cy-Hawk rivalry game. The contest itself was close, a 20-13 win for the visiting Hawkeyes over the Cyclones, but the right-wing political maneuvering was equally watchable. Booed by Jack Trice Stadium fans, Trump also provoked a “Where’s Melania?” banner flying overhead.

DeSantis, who in national polling is 37 points behind the criminal former president, began running an Iowa advert that highlights Trump’s past soft-on queers behaviors, as if that’s the magic bullet that will turn things around.
Washington Post