misplaced aggression...

yay!...

yay for US! USA! USA! USA! when i turned on the Met game last night after returning home from potential employer #4, i first heard the chants of USA. i logged into my fantasy baseball team to check what had become a close week in a head to head, match-up with an old TORCHIE, when the news of the evening revealed itself...

so yay! we're so great, we got Osama Bin Laden!...

i'm not trying to downplay the significance of this event, i know the grass is greener for 3,497 families and the countless others who lost their lives in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center. but it was viewing some facebook posts and hearing the chants of USA over and over from Philadelphia fans, that caught me sour. it reminded me of a day in 1995 when the OJ Simpson verdict was announced, not just for the cheers of elation that came from African-Americans in this country but the disdain it caused amongst most white folk. i remember sitting in my History of Sports class, with the entire range of emotion exploding around me and thinking 'how is my life any different?'...

it wasn't. in fact i was still enraged from the fact that OJ and his cohort in arms Al interrupted the Knicks/Rockets game 3 the summer before. misplaced aggression i guess...

i awoke today of varying thoughts on facebook regarding the the death of Bin Laden, some are measured, some are sublime, but some are downright ridiculous. as if this will help us remember the fateful events of September 11, 2001. like we need help. i remember the sinking feeling when the second plane hit standing atop Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadows, the eerie drive to Whitestone, onto Bayside and the days after. the smell of death in the south plaza of the National Tennis Center that had wafted from lower Manhattan, the vigils, the rage, the fear—all of it. i remember that night the next January walking to a bar to meet up for judge roughneck's birthday, taking the wrong turn and approaching the site with a growing anxiety in me, only to turn around and find my way to the pub. or the day, years later when i would first step in the footprints of the towers. a bone-chilling late winter day with a mix of freezing rain and snowflakes, traversing the scaffold stairs lower and lower into what was a mass grave site turned into a 16-acre puddle of mud. later, i stared at the dried mud remnants on my shoes going home on the E-Train, leaving a trail from Church St. to 94th avenue. no, i don't need last night to remember September 11th...

today OJ is in jail for some foolishness, and Bin Laden gets his date with oblivion, but he doesn't mean shit to me. my life hasn't changed, neither has yours. we're just as vulnerable to a terrorist threat as we were yesterday and will be again tomorrow. our biggest threat still isn't the terrorists, its ourselves and our inability to identify the real problem, our misplaced aggression. the world isn't different today, its exactly the same and going according to plan, its just not our plan, and no, its not god's either...

there is a seen in the film 'Miracle', where Kurt Russell portraying US Hockey Coach Herb Brooks walks into the corridor of what is now named the Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, takes a moment and exults to himself about coaching the team that beat the vaunted Russian squad in the 1980 Olympic Hockey Semi-Finals. for those who know the scene, it was measured and it was right. even if Brooks' actual reaction was nothing like that which was portrayed it felt right, and it is one of the best snippets from a film i've ever seen, (for sports films it rivals Gene Hackman's face-wash/nod after Ollie hits the second foul shot in 'Hoosiers')...

and that's how it would be. you should emote, in solace. elate, weep in joy, sadness and relief. repose. give a shout-out to the boys who are the best trained fighting force next to the Mossad and tip your hat to the man who had the wherewithal to pull the trigger without prejudice. something his two previous predecessors could not accomplish and move on because today is another day...

and ain't a damn thing changed...