Seven years ago on 9/11 our vows were confirmed. We, for better or worse, were wed to terrorism and every year we celebrate that anniversary. Every year we are bombarded from multiple sources about what that union means.

Tomorrow there will no doubt be plenty of photo Ops for the presidential candidates. Obama and McCain will reach deep down and give what their prospected constituents will agree as emotionally pure yet firm speeches about the war on terror, how all the victims and their families will not be forgotten, we are all united because of 9/11, etc….
The network news anchors who will probably be broadcasting from the site of ground zero will tell a poignant story about a survivor or a family who lost someone. They will tell us about the ongoing rebuilding process. One of the survivors may even be standing next to one of the candidates maybe even President Bush who will give one of his sideways across the stage nods in a good gesture sort of way.

The papers will have stories about survivors as well. Stories on the implications on the attack to Afghanistan and Iraq and the changes in airline security.
On top of the news, the conspiracy theories will be mass emailed. Perhaps in 50 years or however long it takes for documents to be unclassified we will get to the truth of what happened or more importantly what led up to those terrible events. But, this is America and its citizens will probably get a few hundred photocopied pages heavily blackened by a large tipped permanent marker leaving the document to read like a pile of vomited conjunctions.

I thought about this in the car ride to work this morning while listening to NPR. The story on was about how President Bush was going to reduce military personnel out of Iraq towards the final days of his term and then add more military personnel to Afghanistan. McCain thinks it is good as long as we have won the war in Iraq and Obama said it was too little too late and we should pull all our troops out of Iraq and bring them home. Obama goes on to add that he will if president deploy more troops to Afghanistan. When will the government realize that this particular war has no national boundaries. In certain ways the “war on terror” is more like the “war on drugs” than most any other war fundamentally speaking. The war on drugs has been going on for a long time, the rate it is going it will be the new 100 years war. The United States believes that it needs to use force when it can and this is where it fails. Force does not solve every problem and more than not leads to more problems.

Here in Massachusetts the weather is perfect after a week of humidity and what was left of Tropical Storm Hanna. The air has that same crispness of biting into a fresh apple from the local orchards. Even though the forecast calls for 83 degrees, the wind is whispering a prelude to autumn. If it were saturday, I would be hiking early in the morning trying to spot some migrating hawks catching the thermals southward, but it is sunday and I will be sitting in front of the television watching grown men, throw, kick, catch run with and otherwise try and rip each other apart. Yes it is the 1st NFL sunday: kickoff weekend. Although I already saw The New York Football Giants (defending superbowl champs for all you degected and still flabbergasted Pats, fans) on thursday night win their season opener, I am still enthralled to be watching any game today. Beyond all the endzone dances or the first down hand gestures or the 300lb guard beating his chest after sacking the opposing teams quarterback is a game of determination, skill and heart.

http://www.nativeamericans.com/JimThorpe_FootballGear.jpg

Let the campaign begin!

(Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots; I always wondered why they were red and blue)

It can be easily inferred how I personally feel about Sarah Palin. However, in all fairness to the proceeding report I wonder how factual it is.

This is the big story about Palin. It centers around a letter being circulated by Anne Kilkenny, a resident of Wasilla, Alaska while Palin was Mayor, sent to some friends telling them what she purports are facts about Palin’s term as Mayor. Interspersed with those facts are personal viewpoints that make this letter even more interesting.

Her reason for writing the letter? “I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter,” she writes.
By the way Kilkenny is a registered Democrat. I wonder how the republicans will respond to an average citizen who is a PTA member, attends City Council meetings habitually, and a housewife.

Some responses to the letter by bloggers suggest that Kilkenny is jealous of Palin’s success. I find that to be insulting and an attempt to discredit when all the facts pointed in the letter need to be validated and if they are then it doesn’t matter how one woman feels about another. Yes, there is a lot of opinion, but so was a majority of Palin’s acceptance speech at the republican convention. Let’s let the facts speak loudest.

Though not an avid reader of “The Nation” a liberal magazine, I am using their page on the letter because it seems to be the whole thing where as other sites have only partial parts.

Also to show the legitimacy of the letter, here is an interview of Kilkenny by NPR

All the major facts have been checked and found to be true – Anne Kilkenny is a real person who resides in Wasilla, Alaska.