Where were you?

Even when people know what I do for a living, that’s the first question I always get asked.  No questions about how I almost took off into the recently closed airspace that morning (because there was no FAA tower to tell me it was closed).  None about how it happened or “do you think it could happen again?”.

No one asks if I knew the pilots who were viciously slaughtered by a group of al-Qaeda terrorists.  They don’t even ask about the so-called “20th hijacker” Zacharias Moussaoui, a student I knew at the flight school where I taught.

Nope.  People always ask me the same thing:

“Where were you?”

Asked of my grandparents the question would be about Pearl Harbor.  My parents – JFK.  For me however, people are of course asking about 9/11.  It was my daythatchangedeverything.  They ask where I was because of what we endured that day and the days that followed.  We felt confusion, shock, fear and anger as we watched the symbolic and tangible crash to the ground.  Survivors, covered in dust, rushed away from the buildings while rescuers rushed towards them.

We experienced all of this live as it happened.

Collectively, but individually we lost some of our innocence, some of our very selves.  Asking “Where were you?” is more than just about the details.  It is about reassuring and reconnecting with each other and trying to understand our own identity.

I’m not inclined to give any thought to the 9/11 “truthers” today.  Instead I choose to honor the memory of the people who perished.

So, where were you?

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The Lord Giveth?

courtesy of coloribus.com

Evidently, the HIV virus evolves so fast that scientists might not be able to develop a vaccine.  The findings were published in Nature a few days ago.

I can’t wait until Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps hear about this one.  Their collective heads are going to explode as soon as they start thinking about how to spin it!!

Hmmmm…

Will they say AIDS is God’s rapidly evolving punishment for homosexuality or that Satan is so evil because he made the virus good at being subject to natural selection?

Oh wait, viruses aren’t alive.  Does that mean they don’t have souls?

No doubt about this one

In my last post I equated withholding proper psychological treatment from a disturbed child and actively cultivating their delusions with child abuse.  Some might say this is a stretch.

Well not this one.

It seems Ria Ramkissoon’s son Javon didn’t want to say “amen” after a prayer.  This was a sign of disrespect that Ria felt needed to be remedied.  If her child wasn’t going to obey her and show respect for their cult, I mean religion, then he just wasn’t going to be allowed to eat.

For two days.

Did I mention that little Javon was 18 months old?  Gee, imagine that. A toddler who doesn’t do exactly what they are told!  When Javon died, Ria sought help from other members who prayed for a message from god in the form of a resurrection.

It didn’t happen.

Instead Ria stuffed her son’s body into a suitcase with mothballs and dryer sheets.  The group left the suitcase outside of their Philadelphia house when they relocated to New York.  Ria’s attorney now says that the group she belonged to was a cult .  Ya’ think so there, Sherlock? He claims she was brainwashed and not responsible for her actions.

What tripe.

Religious extremists don’t just come in the form of the Taliban, or crash airplanes into buildings.  It isn’t just suicide bombers and dictators with WMD’s that we should worry about.  This child was starved to death by his mother because of her radical beliefs, fueled by a manipulative cult of quacks.

I’m disgusted.