9/18 -- I Don't Care About 9/11 Day

Editor's note: I realize this will be my most controversial post since the debacle of me reducing Johnny Law to a simmering pile of ashes, when I lost one follower and three others refused to speak to me for two days. That and death threats from every police force in Missouri. But I feel the time is right, and America can now bravely face the plain truth, that it's time to move on from 9/11. If you also think so, and are ready, as I am, to undo the knots our little panties have been twisted in, then join me in celebrating this, the first 9/18, now and forever to be known as "I Don't Care About 9/11 Day."

This is going to be a great thing, undoing the knots America's little panties have been twisted in, and getting America back on track. It's been one week since 9/11, the day that everyone's sadly been conditioned to "really care about," aka Patriot's Day, ignorantly so-called. But today is 9/18, when we declare that we're over it. Imagine how it might be on September 11 next year. No more vigils at the Tomb of the Unknown Stranger, no more reciting the names of people we don't know, no more cheap yellow ribbons, and, best of all, no more replays of George W. Bush and his idiot bullhorn. I feel better already!

Right away, I know the objections. A little under 3,000 people died on 9/11. To answer that, there's more than 3,000 people who die everyday, from one damned thing or another. Or, you're being insensitive, because the nation faced a huge trauma on that day. True, if your little panties are all bunched up and you find a lot of joy in that, you'll want to nurse your traumas along. Or, how about this, 9/11 reminds us to be alert to the dangers facing us in an ever-threatening world. If you need a particular day to remind you to watch out for yourself, you pretty much deserve what happens. Beware always, we don't need a reminder. Minutes ago I was patrolling the shoe store for potential shoe bombers. You know 'em because they're learning to tie their shoes but not untie them.

The original 9/11 is now a long time ago. And just because we "remember" it doesn't mean we need to linger. I remember lots of traumatic things in my life, but if I carve out a whole day for each one, there's no time left for normal stuff. We don't need it, leave it behind. We took a licking, but kept on ticking. We're just giving the bad guys more glory by keeping our little panties twisted in knots over their deeds. Those who do you harm, you should wipe the dust of your feet off against them and press on with your journey.

Therefore, you and I and every intelligent, right-thinking, clear-headed, guts-and-glory, true red, white, and blue American, must advance past this. I know there's some contradiction in making a day in response to a particular day. But sometimes you need to take two steps back to rediscover the correct path, then go around an obstruction. Therefore, yes, after a while, "I Don't Care About 9/11 Day," we trust, will be superfluous. That day has not yet come, with our little panties still so terribly twisted.

At this point, though, proclaiming it on 9/11 itself is not a welcome thing. So many folks are into it, as we see from our Facebook friends. They're putting up the various icons of that day, firemen looking at oddly askew flags or holding children in remorse, folks in prayer, beams of light, tangled girders, yellow ribbons, and the aforementioned Bush and his aforementioned idiot bullhorn. Yes, it makes us gag, but these people can't be reasoned with in the heat of the moment. By the time of a week's passing, though, they've sobered up a little, and, I would hope, they're subconsciously (at least) thinking over the folly of the observance. Bush with a bullhorn ... That evokes something other than complete revulsion?

This is going to start small, OK? You and me and a few other right-thinking Americans. I purposely keep my blog small and insignificant for occasions like this. To address huge mental issues, widespread societal insanity. That way there's no gigantic reaction against common sense. Our better angels can appear and bring hearts and minds back to sanity slowly, untwisting our little panties as we go, which is always how it is in the best therapy.

So my counsel to you is to share this occasion with a few trusted friends, those most open to reason and intelligence. In their strength, and in our strength together, perhaps over years, we will help America find her guts again and methodically untwist her knotted panties. The only people who seriously counsel licking old wounds are themselves feeble-minded, or, more nefarious, profiteering bastards.

We have better reasons than they for not caring about 9/11, so we'll have a generally healthier outlook in life. Join me today, on 9/18, the day we proclaim, "Our little panties have been twisted in knots far too long! We're through! We simply don't care about 9/11!"

9/11 -- The Dirty Bird of Days

Nobody knows what to do with this day. The usual rules don't apply. You go to the diner and Trixie isn't herself. She's muted her usual boisterousness, her usual lust for life. The past comes rushing in on us. However long ago it was -- perhaps we could look it up -- doesn't matter. The same somber tone, the same unwelcome sobriety descends upon us, one and all, and once again we're beside ourselves.

Once we were beside ourselves with terror -- utterly perplexed, finding devils in the smoke -- and now it's with reflection and a shaking fist, at the sky, at somebody, as we chant, "Never again!" I remember the first time I heard that familiar chant. We adults were stoic, standing stolid in complete silence. I remember my own stolid stance, the evil wind of that day moving my hair, that's it. I didn't know what to say, no adult did. The chant started then, wonderfully enough, with a little kid, maybe not more than four or eight, something like that. He or she raised his or her little fist, and with an angelic voice, as if from the clouds, he or she started in: "Never again! Never again!"

Other than that, does anyone really remember what they did? I don't. I remember my first day of kindergarten, my first Valentine, my first kiss on the playground, my first school lunch, my first (and second) Cub Scouts pins -- Fox and Bear, actually the only ones I ever earned, the day LBJ had his surgery, and the day I lost my virginity to myself. But that day, that terrible day, so long ago and yet as fresh as today to so many, is a weird blur, a distant nightmare that I mostly remember only because others remind me.

I know this much about it, though, the world hushes itself in its presence. Every lip is sealed, every voice struggles, every eye sheds a tear. There is no laughter. The decree goes forth, binding on one and all, "Let laughter subside!" Give it up, let it be, a pall falls, and that same dread we faced, and have pretty much repressed, returns to the fore, and what seemed so proper just yesterday -- Ha! Ha! Ha! -- is at once set aside, perhaps never to be heard again ... We just don't know. Can we make it? Will anything ever be the same? I don't think so...

This is now the dirty bird of days. You know the dirty bird. The dirty bird emits droppings on everything in its path. Straight below it, around the yard, around the block, then the town, and finally the world. Joy and happiness are far from its path. It may be the most joyous occasion of all, a picnic, a birthday celebration, the day of your first marriage. But when the dirty bird gets hold of it, it's nothing anymore, a waste, a void, something to be buried and forgotten. Your happiness that seemed permanent and set to endure, in the twinkling of an eye, is turned to despair.

Have you washed your hair? The dirty bird passes, or lands, and again it's a mess, as though it were never washed. Were you proud of your car, the sheen, the shine, the glint of the day's noonday sun beaming on it? Passing is the dirty bird, doing what the dirty bird does, and your car's just as crappy as ever. Or you have a brand new set of shingles on your house. You're showing it to your priest, but even he has to turn away -- he's who's heard every squalid confession there is -- as the dirty bird passes, emitting, dropping, and bombarding everything in its filthy path.

Let introspection reign, then, on this day of days, the day of the dirty bird. May each heart be gripped with moroseness, completely seized up and bound. As for me and my house, we're staying in today. And now ... to silence.

grandmaslump.com

I can't keep anything under wraps for long. The guys at Wikileaks, always revealing my secret plans for the blog, leaked it a few days ago. And now I can announce it officially as true. I have a brand new address: grandmaslump.com.

Yes, I've joined the big boys, with my very own "dot com," hopefully not just in time for the bubble to burst!

I've had my grandmaslump.blogspot.com address for quite a while, so it was a complete shock to me that grandmaslump.com was even still available. But it was!

The honest-to-God truth is maybe it wasn't available, if you know what I mean. But the government has the means to twist a few arms when they want to. So let's say some other guy had grandmaslump.com. They put pressure on him to give it up, which is only right, because it was meant for me.

You're probably wondering why I made the switch after all these years. So here's the real deal. As part of the government's push to make the homeland safe, they've been designating certain internet sites as vital to the national interest. And because I gave a couple hundred bucks in the last election cycle, and with 2012 looming, and them hoping my generosity will continue, I qualified. I am officially "vital to our national interest"!

Seriously, the Department of Homeland Security contacted me one day, offered to pay for the domain name, and after making them pass the sniff test, I accepted. Simple. And they were more than generous. It's not just for one year like I was expecting. It's for life! Isn't that something! I've got the grandmaslump.com domain forever! [I'm fist-pumping the air.]

The ironic part about it is this, that I actually think the Department of Homeland Security is by and large a lot of crap. We had 9/11, the powers that be "didn't see that one coming," so now we need an entire department just to sit around and buy people websites. LOL, it's ridiculous! Hell, one of my neighbors got his driveway graveled for nothing, just because the police occasionally turn around in it to chase a speeder. This guy's driveway is "vital to our national security"! Anything to spend money .... and keep us safe! :)

The way the Department came about, though, if memory serves, is that the Democrats proposed it, of which I am one. The Republicans were against it, then they embraced it and it took on a more Republican slant and was even promoted by them, and dare I say, exploited by them. Remember all the duct tape we bought? Someday archaeologists will be digging through a mound, come to a stash of duct tape, and immediately pin it as "post 9/11."

We had -- oh, what was that clown's name? -- that big doofus from Pennsylvania ... -- I'm drawing a blank -- oh, yeah! Tom Ridge! He was George W. Shithead's man, and he kept us busy, didn't he! The alert is red, orange, blue, chartreuse, the chart is throbbing, the thermometer's exploding at the top! Then, fortunately, the 2004 election was over, Shithead was again ensconced in the White House, and we were safe!

But by now they had all this money. So they threw it at crazy stuff. I literally saw wheelbarrows of cash being pushed down the street, with the wheelbarrows having the Department's logo on the side. They turned in to this big heavy-duty truck shop and came out with a Command Post for the local police, something like $250,000. An armor-plated Winnebago. Meaning the July 4 parade would be safe, since that's what they did with it. Parked it at the main junction, monitored the crowd, and sold cotton candy out the window.

Now, with the next election season upon us, they're cozying up to guys like me, and I can't complain. I'm happy to have my own web domain. Ten bucks a year ain't chickenfeed! And since it's for life, and let's say I live another 25 years, that's roughly ... hundreds of bucks ... Unless, and this is my biggest fear, we get another idiotic Republican president and he cuts the funding, with Obamadomains going down the tubes.

But I'm going to live for today, not for what is to come. And today I have "grandmaslump.com," giving my blog some real credibility. You realize, I hope, that yahoo.com and google.com are dotcoms just like me. Once upon a time, any schmuck could've registered google.com. Think about it. It was just sitting out there! I could've registered google.com once upon a time, then what became Google might have been grandmaslump.com. People would be looking up stuff on the internet, saying, "I grandmaslumped it!"

Today, thanks to the Department of Homeland Security -- and their tireless work protecting the Fatherland and upholding the Motherland -- you can "grandmaslump" it. Just by checking out my blog, not at the old address, although that will still work, but at the newer, better, bigger web address!

More About 9/11

I was rereading my post about 9/11, some of the interesting things I had to say about birds and dogs, and it put me in a nostalgic frame of mind, making me test my knowledge of my own past, specifically what dogs and birds I've owned, or have been in the family.

I had my first dog when I was around 5 years old, and his name was Eggard. Other dogs in my family included Poohie (collie), Peanuts (beagle), Spoochie (collie), Bozo (beagle), Cinnamon (like a terrier), Frankie (collie), Fritz (sort of like a German shepherd), Zoi (Pomeranian mix). I'm probably leaving out a dog or two. Fritz only lived a week after we got him. We got him at a dog pound, then it turned out he had worms, and he crawled under the stairs outside and died. I cried like a baby carrying his big old body over to his grave.

I remember when Eggard died, too, and basically where we buried him, down by the fence, actually less than a quarter mile from the Slump residence here. (There was another family dog at that same time, my brother's, named Rats, and he ran away.) There were several dogs, then, that Grandpa and Grandma had, but they were mostly around when I was just a small kid, and I don't remember them ever having a dog after I was over 5 or 6. So I don't know their names.

As for birds, well, there were several birds that Grandma had, always parakeets, with names I can't recall. Kind of like "Perty Boy" kinds of names. I had a few birds over the years, a parakeet that was named Morgan Featherchild (ha ha). Then there was a finch family, a couple named Man and Woman, who hatched out two babies, Cakes and Wilson. Man, Woman, and Cakes all perished in the course of things, then Wilson lived for quite a while longer. He must have lived three or four years, because I know he was hatched out in 1988 or 1989, and he died on the 30th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's death, November 22, 1993.

Wilson was a fairly smart bird. I could take the lid of his cage across the room, stand up on the couch, hold the lid near the ceiling and call to him and he'd fly over and land on it. I don't know German, but we sometimes called him Der Vilsonfleiger, and one of the calls to him to come to the lid was, "Vilshy Mission!" He was friendly, would land on your shoulder, would play with a wooden egg I had, fight with pencil erasers being poked at him, bite at a piece of floss, try to stand on the floss, and that's about it. I said he died in 1993, and I still have (2008) some of his poop. I had a cassette shelf that was hooked on the wall, and he'd land up there. One day I was looking at it and there his poop still was, just spots of it! So I covered it with some paper so it wouldn't get wiped away, and there it is still to this day.

It's amazing how important national and international anniversaries (9/11) make you remember lots of other interesting things, too!

This is a stereo picture of Wilson in 1989. If you look at Wilson kind of crosseyed, and let the pictures drift together you can see a fuzzy 3D view of him.

Local Man Thinks of 9/11

It's something to think about, when anniversaries roll around, whatever the anniversary is of. Like if you got married, that is your wedding anniversary -- whether it's your silver or golden anniversary or one of the others in between those or one below. Our birthday is called our birthday, but that's just a fancy way of saying it's the anniversary of your birth. If you're one year old in our country, you have been alive for a year, although in some countries, I've heard, they consider you one when you're born.

Scholars tell us that anniversaries are arbitrary, in the sense that to commemorate a particular date is only the result of a convention, i.e., our contrived way of marking time. On some other planet, or country, depending on the conditions there, were we to be there, we might choose to mark time in some other way. Then our equivalent of one year here might be a hundred years there. This is what scholars say. Scholars of course have many opinions, some quite treasured, some not worth the paper they're written on. One thing seems certain. The way we do it is the way it's done and likely will continue to be the way it's done, no matter how the intellectual class may buck and belittle the idea.

There are other ways of looking at time -- one of which engages my thought processes on certain occasions, such as when I'm out in the wild, studying nature, which is the effects of the passage of time on other creatures. From childhood we've known a curious fact of life for the canine (dog) family, which is that for them one year is equivalent to seven of our years. To break this down even further, a day for them is like a week for us. The key to this understanding is that everything is a multiple of seven, a fact not contradicted by the equally curious fact that they eat in a day more or less the equivalent of what we would eat in a day. This leads me to muse that a week's worth of time, if it only requires a day's worth of food, means the dog is eating relatively little food. We have the phrase, "to eat like a bird," meaning a small amount, but pound for pound, the dog may be eating much less, simply because of the passage of time as it relates to them and their size compared to birds.

I have had dogs and I have had birds. It does seem like dogs eat quite a bit more, until you factor in their size, as I said, compared to the typical housebird. Dogs are typically in the 10-30 pound range, so they eat 12 ounces to a pound of food on a typical day. Birds weigh around three or four ounces, sticking for the sake of argument with the finch or budgie (parakeet), and they essentially peck at their food and consume very little of it. I've seen enough seeds on the bottom of a cage, and scattered around the floor -- unless there's a very good cage skirt -- to tell me that they're wasting more than they're eating. If it's scattered on the floor, it's hard to separate and reuse. I feel it's best to just let it lay and they'll find it if they get hungry. After all, in nature, observation will attest, they do a lot of pecking at the ground. The housebird hasn't lost that instinct, it's only somewhat stunted because we favor them (spoil them) by too much unnecessary assistance. I was raised on this idea: An animal will eat if it gets hungry.

Really, in addition to birds, and getting back to dogs, I think people pamper their dogs too much. I really do. Things have changed, and we can attribute a lot of it to television advertisements, a transference or attribution of human desires to animals, and the babying that comes from too much attachment or sentimentality in our relations with animals in the home. I could go on. Whether it's allowing them in our beds, on our other furniture, feeding them from the table, or tolerating their many messes, you can plainly go overboard, and people do! This is not necessarily doing them any favors.

When I was growing up it was quite a bit different. The dog was a dumb brute animal in those days. Maybe it knew how to hunt but that was it. The rest of the time it was tied to a tree, and might just as well choke itself to death by being tangled up in a chain. Nobody paid much attention to it, even though it'd be yipping and begging for a minute of your time. We used the dog like a garbage disposal, taking our table scraps out, all mixed together in a kind of soppy bread slop and just dumped it in an old dirty dish. The thing is we got very few complaints because the average brute dog in those days would wolf it down practically in mid air.

I saw enough sickening dog antics to turn me off forever, but I've softened up quite a bit in later years and now have a great deal of compassion for dogs. This is something I've come to, dogs are intelligent, sensitive creatures -- I could almost say beings. They know how to love and they truly are man's best friend, no question about it.

Today is the seventh anniversary of the terrible attacks of September 11, 2001. Our nation observes the anniversary. We will not forget, but also we must not dwell on it.