The 9/11 post I wish I didn't have to write

At the beginning of the week I was ruminating on subjects for the next update. Perhaps something about British novelist Somerset Maugham? What about the curious and frankly scary parity between the sensations I've experienced when sitting at a slot machine in at Atlantic City and while sitting in a friend's apartment playing Street Fighter III ranked matches on his PS3? Why not an anniversary post, seeing as how Beyond Easy is now almost a year old?

But suddenly all I can think about is 9/11.
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When I drive to work in the morning and switch on the radio, everybody on NPR is talking about 9/11.
When I walk past a television set on my lunch break, the CNN anchors are talking about 9/11.
When I grab a free copy of the local news rag to do the crossword puzzle, two of the three above-the-fold front page stories are 9/11-related human interest pieces.
When I return from my break and pass the same television set, a different set of CNN anchors are talking about 9/11.
When I drive home and switch on the radio, different people on NPR are saying the same things about 9/11.
When I arrive home and check my inbox, I find a mass-email from Senator Menendez, inviting me and his other constituents to share our reflections on 9/11.
When I check the daily batch of editorial cartoons, I find more than half of the cartoonists are already showcasing their latest batch of mawkish memorial kitsch: Lady Liberty with a single tear rolling down her cheek, Uncle Sam hanging his head, the godlike martyrs of the NYPD/NYFD digging through the rubble, bald eagles, flags, a pair of shadows, a pair of candles, flags, Liberty Bells, flags, Never Forget, flags, flags, flags -- the same cartoons they've been phoning in every September for the last decade.
When I open up my news tabs, it's all the same. 9/11. 9/11. 9/11. 9/11.
How has the tragedy changed our lives? How has the tragedy changed your life? Who in your community has been directly affected by the tragedy? Who in your community has been indirectly affected by the tragedy? Who in your community knows somebody from another community who has been directly affected by the tragedy?
We talk to members of Generation X to see how they feel ten years after the tragedy. We talk to members of Generation Y to see how they feel ten years after the tragedy. We talk to Manhattan residents to see how they feel ten years after the tragedy. We talk to Muslims to see how they feel ten years after the tragedy. We talk to politicians to see how they feel ten years after the tragedy. Post comments about how you're feeling ten years after the tragedy!
And now we'll hear from the same analyst we we spoke to last year about how the tragedy of 9/11 changed America, and he's going to tell us about how the tragedy of 9/11 has changed America.
Where were you when you heard about the tragedy? What were you doing when you heard about the tragedy? What did you do the day after the tragedy? What were you feeling one year after the tragedy? How do you feel about how you felt about the tragedy now that ten years have passed since the tragedy?
We talk to people who lost spouses in the tragedy of 9/11. We talk to people who lost friends in the tragedy of 9/11. We talk to people who lost parents in the tragedy of 9/11. We talk to people who lost children in the tragedy of 9/11. We talk to people who lost casual acquaintances in the tragedy of 9/11.
The date on the bottom-right of my computer monitor is 9/7/2011. The anniversary is still four days off.
In related news:

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie orders that all flags at public buildings be lowered to half-mast in observance of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, beginning two days before the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

Ninety-three syndicated newspaper comic strips will run remembrance strips on September 11's Sunday comics page.

The Onion is, as usual, spot on.

Jiminy Christmas, enough is enough. If we're going to observe a National September Eleventh Remembrance Week, let's declare the damn thing and make it official, please.
But I would really rather we not do that.
What occurred on 9/11/01 was horrific -- no doubt about that. There is no reason we should not observe its anniversary, remember those we lost, commemorate those who demonstrated heroism, and strive to learn what we can from the event.
But that doesn't seem to be what we're doing today.
In the days after 9/11/2001, public figures and media personalities in the United States were engaged in an undeclared patriotism pissing contest.
In the days leading up to 9/11/2011, public figures and media personalities in the United States are in a contest to see who can be the saddest and most remorseful, even though most of them weren't in Manhattan when it occurred.
If a nation's mass media is a reflection of its consciousness, it would appear that the United States is observing the anniversary of a very bad day by putting its thumb in its mouth and whimpering like a toddler with a stubbed toe.
Viewed in the broad historical perspective, 9/11 was a slap in the face. More of an insult than an injury.
What's an injury, then?
The western end of Continental Europe was razed in the last century. Twice.
Seven million civilians were killed in World War I. Forty to fifty million civilians were killed in World War II; about 77,000 of those deaths can be attributed to the Allied Forces' firebombing of Dresden and Hamburg, and about another 246,000 to the United States' atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We've counted about one to three million Vietnamese killed during the United States' involvement in Vietnam's civil war. If you want more details, run a pair of Google image searches for "vietnam napalm" and "vietnam agent orange."
The U.N.-authorized military actions in Iraq during the Persian Gulf War resulted in the deaths of something like 103,500 Iraqi civilians.
Moscow burned during the Napoleonic Wars. London endured seventy-six consecutive nights of bombing raids in 1941-2. Japanese soldiers murdered and raped thousands of civilians in Nanking. Israel gets slammed by rocket attacks on a regular basis. How many people were getting killed every day in Rwanda a few years back? And the Khmer Rouge -- let's not talk about the Khmer Rouge.
Ten years ago, a terrorist attack on the United States killed three thousand people and destroyed a block of office buildings.
It was a horrible day, but I wish the mass media would try to keep it in perspective. I can't help but worry that this makes the United States look like a land of wimps and whiners. We can dish it out, but we can't take it. One would think that a nation with the strength of character to match its military muscle would treat the anniversary of terrible event with a little more restraint and a lot less melodrama.
The events of 9/11/2001 occurred ten years ago. The rubble has been cleared away. Osama Bin Laden is dead, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is rotting in GITMO, and we hear about another high-ranking al-Qaeda member getting nailed by a drone attack almost every other month. Hundreds of books and thousands of articles have analyzed the event, its causes, and consequences from almost every conceivable angle.
Keeping it to a somber, tasteful minimum is not an option: sensationalist human interest stories attract viewers. And so the media unleashes a typhoon of pieces wherein everyone who remembers the two big kabooms and two big crashes is put on the air and asked to remind viewers about how awful it was. Ten-year-old footage of of the day's events are re-aired and reanalyzed ad nauseum, just in case anyone missed the last nine years of annual 9/11 remembrance coverage or has spent the previous decade in a coma.
Recovering from a tragedy means getting over it and moving on. The victim needn't (and probably shouldn't) forget about what happened; but at some point the grieving needs to stop. No competent therapist would encourage a trauma victim to continuously harp on the event for the rest of his life. Obsessing over a terrible emotional or psychological blow from the past rarely helps ease the pain.
So how should we commemorate 9/11's anniversary?
I have no specific suggestions, but a stiffer upper lip would be a start. Keeping the 9/11 remembrances limited to 9/11 might be another.
I've long thought that David Rees (of Get Your War On fame) has the right idea. Whenever September 11 rolls around, he replaces his whole website with an image and a brief quote for the duration of the day. (As I write this at 1:15 a.m. on 9/11/2011, mnftiu.cc's normal front page is up, but perhaps this only means the switch isn't automated and Mr. Rees plans to do it later.)
In case you miss it this year (and in case he ends up not doing it, though I can't guess why he'd break with tradition), here's a screen grab of mnftiu.cc taken back in 2005. (Click to enlarge.)

I have nothing to add.