Culture & Sociology Examiner: Lindbergh and Flight 447--things haven't changed much
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Thursday, June 4, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Billy O'Reilly's Guilt Complex
Guilt betrays people. It is the unwanted emotion. We cannot dictate our emotions and guilt is like an unwanted guest at the party. The murderer, embezzler, adulterer, thief--all have this little telltale hangover of our Puritan conscience. A true psychopath will not have guilt. A true sociopath feels nothing. But for the rest of us guilt comes along with the baggage of being human.That is why it is almost comical if not tragic to watch Billy Oreilly trying to exorcise his guilt over the death of George Tiller on national television. He does not look like the old confident Bill. There is a tinge of uncertainty in his wan expression. His eyes are eager, looking for salvation in Glen Beck or Sean Hannity therapy sessions where they assure him that he had nothing to do with George Tiller's death. Bill needs this even as he crows that he has absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. But he does. He feels guilty as hell and the Keith Obermans and Rachel Maddows will never make him feel the cold hand of remorse as much as his own suspicion he might have triggered the death of this man in his own church.
It is the three AM hour that undoes us. It is when the television lights go off and Billy lays down to sleep that the nagging question rolls in with the night. Did he really get this man killed by calling him Tiller the Baby Killer for years? Did his incitement really push the lone nut to do his bidding. He proclaims that Tiller was heinous and deserves what he get. Who stands up for all those dead babies he asks nodding guest after guest who tell him Fox friendly tones that he has absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.
But Billy cant get enough absolution. He suspects something and it is nagging him. A man walks the planet no more. Hatred eventually produces a result and Billy spewed hatred for years toward this man in a very powerful medium. Only he knows what his intended design behind all that hate really was. He is not an avenging angel. Only a man. Vengeance will be mine sayeth the Lord. Even Billy Oreilly can't claim to be the Lord. He found this out too late and George Tiller is dead. Billy will now have to find his own salvation.
http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Hallowed Ground--visiting 9/11
It's our new Grand Canyon. Our Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor. You cannot believe a space like this can exist in New York. Something came and took out those buildings and those people. They are still there. You can feel them in the heat shimmer and the large steel skeletons starting for the sky. What did they think when those planes darted out of the clear blue September morn? Some thought of family and friends before fire or a hurtling death.
"They jump," the taxi driver says. " I see them and never forget. They jump because the fire is worse than you know jumping into the air."
You hear those words as you stare across the hazy chasm. Large white buildings used to be there--gone. No more. People ant climb around the chasm in a chain of silence. The steel workers are impervious now. They have worked in this space for years. Almost ten years but it still clings--the past battlefield of our republic. Go to any Civil War battlefield and it still clings there too. The death of all those people is in the still air. The heat. The grinding enormous cranes working like stoical robots to rebuild a city.
"I had to come see this," a man next to me says. We stand and stare into the yellow later afternoon void. "I had to," he says quietly.
Yes. No more spoken as the people stream by. A respectful silence. Young children have no idea and chatter away. You do have to see it. It is a memorial site and you cannot come to New York and not come pay your respects. That is what you are doing. You come to see those people who died all those years ago. Over three thousand. The cab drivers tell you there is nothing to see anymore. Not true. It is still there in the Grand Canyon of our sorrow. All those people lost in the wink of an eye.
You drift up to St. Paul's church. This is where it gets you. Here is where the firemen and the cops came to rest between shifts. It is right on the edge. Incredible this old church George Washington sat in with the time worn graves still there. You enter and you see the shrines of pictures still there. All those people looking for people no longer of this earth. All those fire department badges and then the pictures of the fallen. They are men of old America. Big bushy mustaches and wide smiles. Germans, Italians, Irish. The cops and the firemen. They have a fine sheen of dust on them. The Teddy Bears are coated in dust. It has been almost ten years and we are creeping around the remains of battle ships or tanks or any other debris left over from a war. Except these were civilians.
The church is stone quiet as people make their way past a cot used for firefighters to rest. The shrines of mementos left after the devastation brings you back to those days. Such heavy sorrow in the small shoes, slippers, boots, left outside the church. Where did all those people go? Women wipe their eyes and men hide behind shades. It still breaks your heart. Amazing we became such a divided nation after this. Seems nothing could have pulled us from our collective sorrow.
But you emerge back into the sunlight and start walking toward Broadway. You can no longer hear the cranes and the sorrow lifts as you pass into New York again. You walk on and it is behind you, but you will never forget. You will never let it go. Not until you follow your countrymen and breathe your last.
05/02/2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
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