Last Saturday I spent the day driving from St. Paul to Detroit, and then flying back to St. Paul. It was a long day, but gave me a chance to reflect on some of the events at hand.

Some observations…

The day after we began striking Afghanistan, several hundred protesters showed up outside the Federal building in Minneapolis to protest. There was a good mix of college students and older people (“long-haired hippies who protested the Vietnam War,” as someone on the bus put it, in a tone that made the Vietnam War sound like the Second Coming of Christ). They carried signs that said “An Eye for an Eye Makes a World Blind,” and “Drop Food, not Bombs”–which I found ironic considering we are dropping food.

On my way home I saw lots of American flags–patriotism like we’ve never seen, even during the Gulf War. I also saw close to a dozen billboards reading “In God We Trust. United We Stand.” I’m still not sure what to think
of that.

When I pulled up to the $2 tollbooth on I-90 just east of Chicago, I noticed that the woman taking my money was wearing rubber gloves. I’ve never seen that before.

When my dad dropped me off at the airport, there were three National Guardsmen in camouflage, talking to a police officer. When I got to the security checkpoint, there were three more standing around observing, all with pistols at their sides. I made it through the metal detector fine, but they still made me spread my arms and ran the wand over me. Anything time the wand beeped, they felt the metal to make sure that’s all it was–including the snap on my jeans. When the guy was almost done, he asked me to lift my feet, and he ran the wand over the soles of my shoes. I watched others go through the checkpoint–anyone with a belt had to remove it, and I saw a number of people have to put their shoes through the x-ray machine.

When I did finally board the plane, I had to check my backpack. Purses, laptops, and diaper bags were the only carry-ons allowed. I put a couple books and a notebook in a plastic CompUSA bag, and felt like a refugee.

When I got off the plane in Minneapolis, we weren’t greeted by anyone. Passengers only. As we rounded the corner and walked down the stairs to the baggage claim, three more National Guardsmen were standing guard–but these guys had M-16’s over their shoulders. One of them looked like he was 18.

It’s a different world.

Today I’m beginning to notice how easy it is to forget about the terrorist attacks of September 11. We seem to have moved on. It’s no longer monopolizing the news. While it’s certainly not far from people’s minds, we are moving on. It’s amazing that something so immense can slip into the background as we move forward.

I suppose it helps that the promised U.S. retaliation hasn’t yet come. That will certainly be a reality that will sink in painfully when it finally happens. The scary thing to think about is that U.S. special forces are probably in Afghanistan as I write this, at the least doing reconnaissance missions and gathering intelligence. That idea seems so out there, yet it’s true.

The world today amazes me.

Tonight I heard about the riots in Cincinnati for the first time. I feel rather disconnected that I didn’t hear about them before–which is odd considering I check three or four different news sites on a daily basis. I watched the footage on the news tonight and it was like some movie or footage from the 1960s on one of those PBS documentaries.

People screaming, the crowds reeling, the blood flowing. The angry mobs, the powerless leaders, the armored men fighting back the crowd. An innocent man killed.

Maybe not so innocent, but the parallels are still there.

Racial incidents drive me nuts. Nobody has any good answers. You can tell the kind of people you’re with by the way they react to news reports. Which side do they come down on, what kind of comments do they make? It’s very telling of a person’s racial attitudes.

So the black man is running from the white cop, he turns and reaches for something, possibly a weapon. Pop. The white officer fires in self-defense, fearing the worst. The unarmed black man drops to the ground, shot dead. It’s not a very good situation for anyone involved.

What causes a man to run from a cop like that? What causes a cop to fear the first and start pulling the trigger? And couldn’t the cop aim for a leg or a shoulder–or is that too much to ask in the heat of the moment? And why would a hunted man make a movement that could be seen as threatening when he’s facing a cop with a gun? Why have 15 people been killed by the Cincinnati police since 1995? 15 black people? 15 black males? Apparently white guys aren’t dangerous. Are African American males really that dangerous? Are they all gun-toting thugs that deserve to be gunned down in self-defense? Or is this just a senseless stereotype that is continually perpetuated?

It’s perpetuated every time a parent tells you not to go to that part of town. It’s perpetuated every time you watch the news and someone makes a comment about those people. You wonder where racism comes from? It comes from the innocent comments that go unquestioned and serve to perpetuate the stereotypes.

Will it ever end? No, I don’t think so. We’re only human.

I’m old enough to make my own choices.

That’s what teenagers say all the time. That’s how they justify their behavior. And perhaps they’re right. Part of growing up is taking greater responsibility for your actions. Sometimes that means you make mistakes, but that’s part of life.

But what’s interesting is watching standard explanations crumble when tragedy strikes. What happened at Santana High School? Was the student who injured 13 and killed two old enough to make his own choices? On a number of teen web sites today I found a lot of kids blaming the parents. Apparently teenagers aren’t old enough to make their own choices. Apparently parents need to be more involved in the lives of their kids.

Which doesn’t exactly seem like the thing most teens want to admit. They say it now during tragedy, but I wonder what they’ll say come Friday night? Wouldn’t it be great if we all lived up to our own hype?

Once again America’s schools make the news as violence explode in the hallowed halls of learning and knowledge. It’s kind of depressing. You’d think we’d take the hints. You’d think we’d realize we need to stop marginalizing the outcast. You’d think we’d realize we need to spend time with our kids. You’d think we’d realize that maybe violence in TV, movies, and music needs to be reevaluated. You’d think we’d realize that handguns are a little too accessible. You’d think we’d realize a lot of things, but we don’t.

That’s a messed up little freshman running around shooting his classmates with a smile on his face. He must live in a pretty messed up American family in a pretty messed up American high school full of pretty messed up American kids. He’s probably just like a million other freshmen in high school. That’s the sad thing. Maybe one of these days we’ll realize we’re doing something wrong.

President George W. Bush called this an act of cowardice. That may be, but I would say that a country that continues to watch its children murder one another is committing a bigger act of cowardice. And I’m not just talking about the suburban schools that make the news. I’m also talking about the back alley jobs and the ones that happen all the time. People are dying all over this country, you’d think we’d realize something is dreadfully wrong.

But we’re too busy sucking back on another pop, rotting our teeth, and minding our own business. It’s great to be an American.

Sorry about the hiatus. I skipped town for Easter weekend and was a little slow in getting back in the swing of things.

Elian. Just by starting with the name I’m driving some of you away. That name and his smiling little face has been in the news since December. I’m a college student who doesn’t keep up with a lot of what’s going on in the world, but I can’t help but know what’s going on with Elian. I really don’t care to know, but you can’t get away from it. This weekend Elian was forcibly taken from his relatives in Miami and reunited with his father. What I don’t understand is why this thing has dragged on for so long. The poor kid’s mother died, so put him with his closest relative, his father. What does it matter that his father lives in communist Cuba. You’d think we’d be over that by now. And what was with that forcible raid. The media flashes so many memorable images (there’s a contradiction) and the image of an INS agent in riot gear with an assault rifle aimed at Elian and the man holding him will stick with me. Who is acting in that child’s best interest when he has to be dragged away screaming at 5 in the morning by men with body armor and rifles? Obviously the government had to deal with the protestors outside and relatives who weren’t exactly cooperative. But a pre-dawn raid with machine guns? And what about Elian’s Miami relatives. What were they thinking? We love this child so we won’t give him up, even though that means you’ll come busting through our house with guns.

This whole thing just blows my mind. It’s utterly stupid. It’s the typical plot of a daytime talk show. What I want to know is how many other children like Elian are there out there? How many other children are caught up in sticky custody battles with feuding families? But nobody seems to care. Why should I be so concerned about a boy in Miami?

Tragedy strikes in an instant, somewhere far away. Six people are dead–Nine–Twelve. A log pile for a bonfire crashes at Texas A&M University. You have to wonder about the stupidity of it all. They were just having fun, crawling around on a forty foot high mound of timber. And now they’re dead. Life so quickly comes to an end. You have to wonder if they were ready for it. Is anybody ready for it? The families and friends ask their questions, and all you can do is pray for your fellow man.

Okay, it’s time to take a break from the vague, descriptive narratives and talk about something we can all easily understand without straining our brains. This whole JFK Jr. thing is really confusing me. Now I’m not a totally heartless guy, I feel for the Kennedy family. This is quite a tragedy and I can’t imagine having to go through something like that. But what I don’t understand is why CBS had live coverage of the entire thing all day Saturday. Why is this the biggest news story since the height of bombing Kosovo? Sure, he’s the son of JFK, he’s rich, he’s a Kennedy. But frankly, I don’t care that much about him. How many people die in plane crashes all the time, and the whole nation doesn’t stop and wait for every detail. Maybe I should correct that, the entire news media doesn’t stop and wait for every last detail. I don’t think the average American is too concerned about this whole thing. An online poll on cnn.com showed that 81% of the respondents thought there was too much news coverage (of a total 80,000 people). Now sure, that’s just an online poll, but that’s a pretty high percentage. People often refer to JFK’s days in the Whitehouse as Camelot, and subsequently JFK Jr. has been called America’s Prince. I hate to break it to ya, but America has no royalty. Not in name and not even in sentiment.