9/11/2001 in Anchorage Alaska

While driving to work we heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center and there were ongoing news reports via NPR regarding what had taken place in NYC. Our take on it was "wow, they are really big buildings and probably nothing will come of this; freak accident and hopefully everything will be okay (except for those that were initially impacted by the rogue plane)

I dropped my partner off at his workplace in downtown Anchorage and then headed to my office in South Anchorage. As I was driving I was listening to NPR, as we had been our our way to work. News became more grim as I was listening and it became rather intense.

As I was driving to my office I noticed military jets flying low around downtown/west Anchorage and then local radio hosts broke into the NPR feed to let us know that a Korean Air plane was possibly hijacked and that downtown Anchorage was being evacuated.

I turned my car around and called my partner and picked him up at his office downtown. We proceeded home to Wasilla listening to NPR while on the road and we spent the rest of the day on the internet or watching horrific accounts of not one Trade Center impact but two and two buildings falling and then we learned of flight 93 grounding in Pennsylvania.

It was a surreal day. The thing that brought it all home for me was when I was picking my partner up downtown in Anchorage and military jets were literally screaming through the air around the inlet and the downtown buildings. I kept thinking to myself "who would target downtown Anchorage, of all places, for a terrorist attack", but after hearing what had happened elsewhere, I also began to think "why not"?

Luckily the KAL hijack was a mere miscommunication between tower and pilot, but the surreal feeling of that day is still something that I can recreate in my head whenever 9/11 is mentioned.

It was a strange day in Anchorage and every September 11 I remember the feelings of fear and disbelief that ran though my head on that day.

We Don't need no Education

I just realized this was a title of a post I'd done many months ago...I guess that post also had to do with a certain political party not recognizing the value of education. Now here is another post, about a certain political party not recognizing the value of education.

Well, here it is in a nutshell. To those people that are so afraid of our President giving their children advice on why it might be a great idea to remain in school and excel educationally as far as their intelligence will allow, well, keep your kids home. I don't care because even if you deprive your children of a chance to become inspired and perhaps excel beyond your educational level, that's a family issue, within your family.

Me, I'm happy, because so many parents will allow their children to become inspired by our President's speech and they will go on to make advances in medicine, technology, and a whole lot of other fields that will benefit me.

To the parents that keep their children home and ignorant of the importance of education. That's okay too, because the US military-industrial-war-machine always welcomes C students and dropouts as "fresh meat" in their latest war, heck they even recruit them heavily at the local Army/Navy/Marine office here in my town. Wal-Mart also needs your underachieving children; it welcomes them with open arms and pays them $7.15 per hour with NO BENEFITS. Same with any fast food joint.

Here's my heartfelt "thank you" to the parents that keep their kids from hearing Obama's inspirational speech tomorrow.

I'm very happy to know that there will always be dupes to fight unjust wars for me, sell me cheap crap at Wal-Mart and hand me my favorite "guilty" fast food snack through the drive thru window of my local burger joint. These servants will always be here for me because their parents denied the importance of education.

Actually, really, thank you, thank you and thank you again to the parents that are fearful of Obama's pro-education message, because I don't know what life would be like without having your little underachievers in MY life.

Please, keep your kids home, perhaps watching Faux News with you...yes, please do, because if you let these kids get educated, well, it may very well create a disturbance in MY way of life and that is just too horrible to comprehend.