The moon had it coming

Jonathan's post yesterday on l'affaire Zimerman contains one surreal detail -- how Zimerman's Steinway was destroyed by American officials after 9/11 because they thought the glue "smelled funny." Which tells us something about the hysteria of the times. As Jonathan wrote in a subsequent comment, "we have a lot of ground to make up, as a nation. I feel good about the start we've made, but my *God* was that a ridiculous, nightmarish period."

True indeed. What's funny to me is how passions that gripped us so strongly such a short time ago (only 6-7 years ago, really not that long a time) seem so distant, so much a historical thing --  funny wrong things we used to think, like believing in witches or trepanning or something. Jonathan's comment reminded me of this Mr. Show clip, which I discovered on a political blog under a heading something like "History of America, 2001-2003." It was a strange time to live here.

Comments

[Michael Monroe]

Yeah, I can't imagine why people would've thought something equally horrible might happen again after 9/11.

It's easy to make fun, but it was appropriate to be terrified at that time (that's the point of terrorism, after all), and whatever awful things people want to believe (justifiably perhaps) about the Bush administration, it's at least worth considering the possibility that a 9/11 hasn't happened again in part because of govt action.

But even if you now think me a right-wing nutjob (which I assure you I'm not) for suggesting something so outrageous, I still have to admit to being stunned by the Steinway-destroying story. It is unbelievable. I'm not saying Zimerman made it up, but I am wondering if there's any corroborating evidence that this actually happened, or are we just taking KZ's word for it? I don't remember hearing about it, or about anything quite like it. Does anyone else?

[Phil Ford]

It was (and remains) eminently reasonable to suppose that other terrorist acts would be committed after 9/11. But many of the things we have said and done since that day have not been reasonable. I don't hold myself aloof from the foolishness I'm deploring. I was as foolish -- irrationally vengeful, looking for someone or something we could hurt or destroy -- as anyone after 9/11. Changing one's point of view (as I have) doesn't have to mean forgetting the lessons of 9/11; it means learning something else from 9/11.