Last April, President Barak Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. The act created a National Day of Service and Remembrance. Hmmm. Service and remembrance. Two things that, while valuable on their own merits, aren’t typically seen combined into a National Day of Anything. It’s not as if service and remembrance are the peanut butter and chocolate of things in need of a national day, yet not quite important enough to have one individually.
Oh, wait. Looky there. The National Day of Service and Remembrance is 9/11. Of course, how silly of me. It makes perfect sense now. Because if there was ever a day that needed a little something extra tacked onto it. A little more gravitas. A skosh more attention. Just a little more icing on the cake of solemnity, it’s 9/11.
Please.
Some things are best left alone. Like Coca-Cola and Mickey Rooney. There is simply no need to add to – and by “add to” I mean “subtract from” – the importance of 9/11. Yes, service is a good thing, even a great thing. If we all gave more of our time and/or money to charitable causes, the government would have less excuse to tax us into the ground in the name of compassion. (It wouldn’t stop them, of course, it’d just make their thievery more transparent.) So sure, have a National Day of Service. Just leave 9/11 alone. We don’t have the D-Day Donuts Memorial Fry Fest or the Fourth of July Independence and Psoriasis Awareness Day. It’s called having a sense of decorum. Look it up.
And four days from now, mark the moment with a prayer for those we lost and those they left behind. And give thanks that the last eight years haven’t provided any more days that will live in infamy.
Later,
Fox
Oh, wait. Looky there. The National Day of Service and Remembrance is 9/11. Of course, how silly of me. It makes perfect sense now. Because if there was ever a day that needed a little something extra tacked onto it. A little more gravitas. A skosh more attention. Just a little more icing on the cake of solemnity, it’s 9/11.
Please.
Some things are best left alone. Like Coca-Cola and Mickey Rooney. There is simply no need to add to – and by “add to” I mean “subtract from” – the importance of 9/11. Yes, service is a good thing, even a great thing. If we all gave more of our time and/or money to charitable causes, the government would have less excuse to tax us into the ground in the name of compassion. (It wouldn’t stop them, of course, it’d just make their thievery more transparent.) So sure, have a National Day of Service. Just leave 9/11 alone. We don’t have the D-Day Donuts Memorial Fry Fest or the Fourth of July Independence and Psoriasis Awareness Day. It’s called having a sense of decorum. Look it up.
And four days from now, mark the moment with a prayer for those we lost and those they left behind. And give thanks that the last eight years haven’t provided any more days that will live in infamy.
Later,
Fox
Agreed…it’s become more of a news byte for media vendors, but I think that those directly affected by the tragedy still need to have something to hold on to…it was a deep wound for many people…so, although the media makes it a circus, I followed your lead and quietly marked the moment, the hour, and the day, when I was in the agency with my mouth opened. Our agency had 22 people traveling at the time, stranded all over the US. We lost friends, and relatives…a lot, really, for being an agency in Lincoln, Nebraska. Our niche was Aviation, so 9/11 deeply affected the agency…Gulfstream, Raytheon, Garrett Aviation, even Union Pacific, pretty much STOPPED advertisng at that point…