I'm glad that you deleted the post and apologized, K'OB. I thought your response was very uncharacteristic, and I'm glad to see that it was just a matter of reading too quickly and responding.
I replied to quick to the stupid comment and probably failed to disprove the stupid comment in the end.
You missed the boat on this in multiple ways... first, my response including the 9-11 piece was a response to a post who claimed many didnt get the 9-11 connection in this. Second, and more alarming, is that you think “never forget” means replay the image of what happened that day. I think its meant to mean dont forget the lives that were lost, and dont forget who did it, and that the threat that may foerever exist. I doubt many would want to replay the actual crash repeatedly, or see something constantly that is a reminder of it.
Thank you for being the arbiter of what “never forget” means for everyone. Oh, and you misread MY meaning as well.
You’re right, nobody would want to replay the images from that day repeatedly, but for someone who witnessed it up close and personal, it may not be an option when they hear those words. Also, that’s not the only reason that helmet blows.
Well, this went down the crapper alright. And tomorrow is 9/11. Being a native New Yorker makes it a little harder for some of us and I think we've earned the right be sensitive about it. Sensitive, that is the most poorly used word in the English language. It has other shades of meaning besides being defensive. There personally isn't anyone that I know who wasn't directly or indirectly affected by 9/11. The horror stories at my tailgate, I'll never be able to wipe them out of my mind. We also lost fire-fighters from my town, the old man lost 17 union people he knew, I lost some old commuter train friends, my cousin miraculously survived and so on. My cousin was working in TWC the first time it was bombed in '93, and barely escaped with her life in 2001. Please get a new job. Nobody owns the rights to grief and it's not a game of oneupmanship, but 9/11 was and continues to be a horrible, horrible thing that makes me feel deeply traumatized if I dwell on it slightly more than topically. I'm sure I'm not just speaking for myself. I've never been to Ground Zero to this day and I certainly wasn't going in the aftermath, which I found very disrespectful in the beginning. Why? Because some people were flocking there and they weren't doing it out of reverence. A part of me feels that I would somehow be gawking and rubbernecking at dead bodies in a huge murder graveyard. I know that sounds irrational, but there's been enough separation time-wise that I will go at some point for all the right reasons. I'm in NYC constantly and I always go on avoid mode. All that being said, I don't think anyone was making light of it, maybe just slightly missing the gravity of it. I said it another thread, I can't remember which one or why at the moment, but some jerkoff Seattle fan on a Seattle board (Seattle Huddle) made a series of sick jokes years ago and he got fukking destroyed. He posted pictures of the smoking rubble. Here, I can't believe I actually found some his gems: "Q: What's Al-Qaeda's favorite football team? A: The New York Jets." "Q: How many New Yorkers does it take to change a light bulb? A: Nobody knows since they keep jumping out the window when it gets too hot!" I'm not making this up. I wouldn't doubt it if he was in fear of his life and never showed his face on the internet again after that. Over football? For real? What a scumbag. It took me until last year to finally watch the documentary simply called 9/11 (2002). In a way, I'm glad I did, in a way, I'm sorry I did, but mostly glad. Glad, what a terrible word choice here but I'm at a loss for another one. I'm sure everyone knows what I mean, though. There were times where I had to cover my face with my hands or cover my ears, and this is coming from a die-hard horror flick fan/aficionado. You know why? Because that shit was real. I slept poorly for a few days, no surprise there. I'd recommend that film to anyone who was too young or too removed from it emotionally or geographically to fully understand why people were so affected. Yes, we mourned as a nation, but having it happen in your own backyard made it that much more horrific. So anyway, the helmet is terrible, and as a bunch of us have opined, myself included, how dumb do you have to be to not realize what some people might infer from it? I'll hazard to guess that the designer is either too young or too stupid, but c'mon. Why don't they just put the bombing of Nagasaki on there and insult Japanese Americans? The Armenian Genocide? Auschwitz? Classier, what say you? Only the Jets.
Great post, particularly your second paragraph - I could have written it. Even the term "Ground Zero" grates on me because it sounds like something a screenwriter came up with. I wonder who actually first used it. Oh, the helmet is indeed horrible too.
