My dad was a child when that happened, just past 10 years old. He told me once that he first heard the news reports on the radio at his aunt and uncle’s store. They listened to President Roosevelt’s speech later on the same radio. Dad’s description made it clear that like the attack on the World Trade Center, it was not a thing anyone old enough to vaguely understand what had happened would ever forget.

Oddly enough, as shameful as that episode of American history was, I find hope in it. We recovered from that particular insanity. It was very clear who “The Enemy” was and where to find them after Pearl Harbor, and we took the war back to them. We also pinned the label of Enemy on anyone who had the remotest genetic connection, and suspended civil liberties in the name of “security”. To me it looks remarkably similar to our reaction to Al Qaida’s attack, though our response was far less well considered. But once again, we pinned the label of Enemy on anyone with a remote connection to the real enemy, this time based on religion as well as nationality. Certainly our attackers were genuinely evil men led by intelligent, ruthless, utterly evil fanatics. I’m even sure they have the quiet aquiescent backing of some of their countrymen, out of shared hatred or fear or simple indifference. That doesn’t make a third generation Arab American an automatic terrorist or sympathizer, any more than it automatically made the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Japanese immigrants spies for the Emperor.

As a nation, we didn’t recover from the fear engendered in 1941 until that “other” was no longer The Enemy, and we went from that pretty directly in the anti-Communist hysteria of McCarthyism. I don’t know what it will take this time. There is no single nation or alliance we can point to, which makes it that much harder to figure out when we are safe. Osama bin Laden is dead, as are many (possibly all) of his chief lieutenants. We’ve arguably been at war for all the ensuing ten years against the wrong enemies. We are, at the moment, ethically and financially near bankrupt. We have people in office who, like McCarthy and his House Committe on UnAmerican Activites, feed the fear and hatred to stay in power. But we did, eventually, remember what our Constitution said. We did, eventually, repudiate the purveyors of fear. We did, eventually, relearn that we were Americans first, regardless of where our ancestors came from or a few rotten apples in their baskets.

So yes, I remember where I was on that perfect clear Spetember morning. I was driving to work listening to NPR, when I heard the report that a plane had been flown into the first tower earlier that morning. They were describing it as a tragic accident. Then less than five minutes later the report came that the second tower had been hit, and my immediate thought was that someone was declaring war on the United States, and that we didn’t even know yet who or why. I watched in horror and in pride as the country and the world responded. Since then I have watched in grief and in shame and in dread as we have quietly surrendered our constitutional rights and as our alleged leaders continued to milk the events of that single day for political capital and personal profit. But we have been this way before. Today, ten years after, I hope we find our way back to the nation I grew up loving.

/end announcement

What it made me think of, though, was of an adventure in muzzle-loading weaponry that ended…differently.

A friend of ours who lived in our apartment complex was an aficionado of most types of historic weaponry. Swords, muzzle-loading firearms, long bows, you name it, he thought it was cool and wanted to get his hands on it. So at some point, he acquired a muzzle-loading pistol. When he first told us about it, he was intending to take it out to a firing range and try it out.

Patience was not his distinguishing characteristic. He couldn’t wait. Disassembling, assembling, cleaning and oiling was only satisfactory for so long. He knew he couldn’t shoot it in the city, but he thought he’d just try loading it.

The problem was that he really hadn’t thought it through. Unlike a modern weaporn, a muzzle-loader can’t be unloaded without special equipment once its been loaded. So he loaded it without a problem, to then find himself with a dilemma. He couldn’t transport the thing safely while loaded because flintlocks don’t have a safety as we know it. He couldn’t unload it, and he couldn’t fire it in the city. What to do, what to do?

Finally he concluded that the only safe thing to do was discharge it in a way that would not allow the ball to travel any distance, feasible because musket balls do not fire with the same force and modern rifle bullets. So he put the muzzle up against the sidewall at the foot of a king-sized mattress and fired.

He and his wife continued to use that mattress – with the hole with slightly charred edges at the foot – until it wore out. She was fairly philosophical about the damage to the mattress. The thing that really annoyed her, though, was that he didn’t take off the sheets before he committed mattresscide.

“You know the rules! You’re not to include yourself in the illusions.” The young woman was clearly set to lecture her opponent. He cut her off. “I have not included myself. I am a dragon. And you, my dear, are a virgin. The scent is quite clear. Now, shall we complete the competition, or go directly to dinner?”

“Dinner, I think. Just let me change my dress.” Her arms swept up, becoming scarlet wings shading into iridescent scales. “You’re right, by the way.” she went on conversationally. “I am a virgin. I’d been told that’s what you were looking for.”

]]> http://sharktank.yarinareth.net/2009/11/02/dinner-dress/feed/ 0 http://sharktank.yarinareth.net/2009/11/02/transphibians/ http://sharktank.yarinareth.net/2009/11/02/transphibians/#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:36:01 +0000 sharktank http://sharktank.yarinareth.net/?p=1119

With thanks to my friend K. for the title.

It’s traditional. At a princess’s christening, one offended fairy pronounces a curse instead of a blessing. Fenland was no exception. Stygia appeared with a rumble of thunder, proclaiming “Her name is Ann Phibia.”

It was anticlimactic.

Ann grew as her fairy gifts promised, intelligent, kind and (of course) beautiful. At 16, her ball fell into a pond. A crowned frog returned it, requesting a kiss in exchange. “The spell will break and we can marry.” he said.

She remembered the stories, shrugged, and kissed him.

Ann vanished in a brilliant flash. A second crowned frog appeared.

They croaked their vows.

So here’s my question, for those more clueful in matters techie-toy related:  what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

This is pure curiousity.  At the moment, I don’t know that I need either one.  In fact, I have a more than sneaking suspicion that I need neither, having as I do a perfectly good laptop.   But then again, so do those of my friends who actually have e-readers, so now I’m curious.

Service Outage:

Dear World,

The United States of America, your quality supplier of ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for its 2001-2008 service outage. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service interruption has been located. Replacement components were ordered Tuesday, November 4th, 2008, and have begun arriving. Early test of the new equipment indicate that it is functioning correctly and we expect it to be fully operational by mid-January. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage and we look forward to resuming full service and hopefully even improving it in years to come.

Thank you for your patience and understanding,

The USA

Seven Things:

1.  I can’t knit.  I can’t seem to learn to knit beyond the very basics of knit and purl.  I’ve tried times beyond number, but the patterns simple enough that they don’t confuse me bore me.  I can, on the other hand, crochet without need of pattern and sew anything I can see, so I don’t find my inability to knit to particularly be a lack.

2.  I learned to bake bread from my grandmother.  She taught herself from her American Jewish Cookbook first, expressly so that she could teach me, so we essentially learned together.  I also learned the attitude that learning goes on forever from that.

3.   When most flustered, I have been known to mix French, Spanish, and Russian into a single sentence.  ( I was lost in Montreal, and the passers-by I stopped to ask directions of wouldn’t speak English to me.  So I started to stumble through my request in my extremely minimal French, got even more flustered, and not only tripped over my tongue, I did it in three languages.  When they stopped laughing, they didn’t just give me directions; they escorted me.)

4.  The only reason scary movies no longer give me nightmares is that I flatly refuse to watch them.

5.  I love maps, especially old maps that let me see how political boundries have changed.

6.  I love chocolate and almond together, but can’t abide chocolate and hazelnut.  (No Nutella for me, thank you.)

7.  Despite the way I sing now, until I was about 13, I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.

I’m like Dorothea; I don’t tag people.  If you want to play, consider yourself tagged.