Help me to Understand ...

I'm probably gonna receive alot of "anti-American" crap for this but, in surfing through the net, I've come across a series of blogs about a particular subject: photography. This photographer was apparently harassed by a security guard when taking photos of a downtown San Francisco building, as well as a photographer found in this story from Pittsburgh. It's happened in New York, Washington, Atlanta and probably nearly every major American city since 9/11.

Since day one, almost four years ago, we've been told that, in order to prove to the terrorists that they haven't won, we should live our lives as we normally would. It took many people months before they could fly a plane again or go up in a high-rise building, but slowly, lives began settling back down into at least something that resembled a bit of normalcy.

We're in a war we shouldn't be in in a country we shouldn't be in and for what? To date, there have been up to seven different reasons Dubya has given us as to being there, from WMD (proven to be false) to his part in the 9/11 attacks (proven to be false) to (my personal favorite which Bush had stated to the U.N. last year) "Saddam likes to play head games". Meanwhile, the madman who is responsible is off somewhere playing Dig-Dug and making teasing video tapes.

It's the redsagainst the blues from the Mom n' Pop diners to the political chatrooms. Everyone has something to say to the person of the opposite color, but no one has any answer because the answers they get only come from a source the believe in.

There have been more terrorist attacks in the four years since September 11th than in all the years prior to that fateful morning. Just because there hasn't been one on U.S. soil since 9/11 doesn't mean that we are any safer than when we were on 9/10. And if you believe we are, then you are living your life with your head stuffed up your own ass.

But I digress ...

Back to living normally again.

We are asked not to live in fear to show the terrorists we will not be controlled. We are asked to be wary of our surroundings and the people around us and report anything out of the ordinary to the proper authorities. We are asked to travel and fly to help promote tourism and keep the economy rolling.

But leave your cameras, binoculars, camcorders, sketchpads, and anything else you may have with you to remember your trip by home.

Enjoy your stay, and have a "normal" vacation...