When did 9/11 happen?

The tragic loss of life on September 11, 2001 should not be forgotten -- and I don't want anything I am about to write to imply that we should downgrade or diminish the deaths of thousands of innocents that day.

But over five years later, New York City seems to be doing OK without the twin towers. The airlines seem to have mostly recovered. Even the Taliban seem to be coming back from their little setback. Unfortunately the thousands who died aren't coming back. And we should continue to honor them.

It's way past time for politicians to stop using the "nine-eleven" buzzword for political gain. And it's way past time we stopped letting them. Cheney and his ilk are still playing this game. And Giuliani's entire campaign is based on what a great guy he was that day. Well guess what, he wasn't that great a mayor. The idiot built his emergency response center right there at the big bullseye, so it was also destroyed right away. And don't even begin to pretend he shouldn't have known it was a target.

The most "brilliant" aspect of the terrorists' planning wasn't the use of jumbo jets to kill, to knock down the WTC. No, it turns out it was the choice of "9/11" as their day of action. Not that we'd have forgotten it already had it been "8/13," but "nine-eleven" rolls off the tongue like "seven-eleven," and it's connection to the emergency phone number "nine-one-one" isn't lost on anyone. It's just tailor-made for brand-conscious Americans to drop the year (2001 if you've forgotten that part).

Often HOW we say things is just as important as WHAT we say. And by "branding" September 11, 2001 as "Nine-Eleven" (a registered trademark of the Republican party) we keep it current. What year is 9/11? It is every year. It is every single f'ing day, if you watch Faux News, who STILL have the "terror alert level" in their ticker.

I'm not going to argue (now) about WHY there hasn't been another terrorist attack here since then (hint: it's not because we're fighting "them" "over there"). But I am going say we need to remember and realize it was OVER FIVE YEARS AGO. And I won't go so far as to say that I am over it -- but guess what? I'm not afraid anymore. And we shouldn't let the Repugs play the fear game anymore.

Can we start saying "nine-eleven-two-thousand-and-one"? I know it is a little harder, a few more syllables, but it is one small, small thing we can do to start taking away some of its undeserved and abused power.