September 11, 2001. Where were you? I think everyone over the age of 10 in the year 2001 is going to be able to answer that question for the rest of their lives. Everyone in America held their breath. Many of the kids of my generation were raised by parents on either side of the Vietnam War and those of us with the ability to see next week were talking about the possibility of a draft by about noon eastern time on Sept. 11. These suspicions seemed founded in inevitable fact by the actions of the Bush administration in the months that followed - first the invasion of Afghanistan, which to this day has not yielded Osama Bin Laden, and then the abrupt western turn of our country's attention to Iraq.

Like many, most people were torn. We've seen the effect that a war like this can have on a country, the repercussions it can have on history. To borrow from the untitled ramble that I never could quite make into a full article....

"On the one hand, you have Bush the Second. I see that man, and I just, well, I get the wiggins. Something about him just makes me go, "Ya know......no. I don't think so." He really does seem to be just a little too militant about it for my taste. It just seems like he went, "Okay, we've got Afghanistan, now....who else is near....Saddam! I remember you! My dad had to open a can o' whupass on you a while back......might as well finish the job! Wheee!"

"On the other, you have Saddam Hussein, who is undebatably....well, an asshole. He oppresses his people to the point of using chemical weaponry on them just to show he can, and rules his country with an iron fist. Peace demonstrations? Hah! Such things do not exist in his world. Saddam? Pretty much not someone I want in charge of a hot dog stand in Times Square, never mind a country in the Middle East."

Yet, there we were. At war. Whether we liked it or not. And everyone that had watched Bush steal the 2000 election began to look to 2004, hoping like hell there was someone who could oust the Napoleonic warmonger out to prove he could finish his dad's work.

All of the above factors are just background to where I was politically at about 3:30 today when I walked the mile down to the movie theatre to see Fahrenheit 9/11. I pretty much knew which way I'd be voting in November, but for the most part, I left the militancy to those who were more knowledgeable about such matters.

At 4:20, the movie started. Two hours later, I walked out with the decision that I'd be sending my parents tickets to go see it in New Hampshire, because I can no longer hold my tongue for the sake of peace in my family.

next....