TomFlannery.com

I was half asleep in bed with the TV on. I heard a voice say Bin Laden was dead. I didn’t really wake up. It was strange. I thought I was dreaming.

I woke up early this morning and drove my daughter to school (she missed the bus, a truly unpatriotic way to start the week). I had the Ipod playing in the car. No radio.

Then off to work.  Pulled up facebook (isn’t that what you do when you get to work?) and there it was, every post I saw. Bin Laden really was dead. Crowds were piling up at the White House and in Times Square and at Ground Zero…..waving flags, chanting. Jubilant.

Obama gets the credit for being in the right place at the right time. That’s how politics work. If Reagan “freed the hostages”, then Obama “killed Bin Laden”. Some major political hay for the Democrats. That birth certificate thing suddenly seemed even more goofy than it really was. Fox News is practically dribbling on itself, not sure what to say, like they are trying to hold in an enormous shit. To gloat would make Rush and Beck mad. This was supposed to happen 10 years ago you see. With a real American in the White House. Not some non-white Kenyan socialist with the sinister middle name pretending to be Hawaiian

But still, “ding dong the witch is dead” and all that. And good fucking riddance. A lot of good men and women have died trying to bring this bastard down. Vengeance is never pretty but sometimes it feels pretty damn good. He can’t be too dead for me. Bring on the pictures. I hear he was shot in the head. I hope he knew it was coming and crapped his robe.

So now what? Not sure. Bin Laden may be more dangerous now that he’s dead. He’s an idea now, and not some living breathing thing. Dare I say, a martyr. When religion makes people batshit, as it generally does, you can’t expect rationality when you cut the head off the snake…..because rationality was never there in the first place. Those who kill because they truly believe a man in the sky wants them to are notoriously difficult to reason with. Muslims aren’t alone in thinking their deity considers them swell and everybody else suitable only for target practice. All the major religions teach this…..er……exclusivity. The most radical of muslims just happen to do god’s work with more panache lately. It’s fucking madness.

So I don’t see militant islamists suddenly being cowed over Bin Laden getting plugged, anymore than millions of catholics suddenly realizing that canonizing a man who harbored pedophiles might not be a good idea.

But radical muslims. We’re on them, yes? Remember, they think when they die there are 100 virgins with legs spread waiting for them. So blowing themselves up and taking a bunch of heathens with them is not always un-appealing, especially when earth-living consists of dirt floors and sipping cold tea with guys who stone women to death for not covering their eyeballs. Sadly, I think the killing will continue. It may even spike for a time. People who kill for religion have always been very PR savvy. One must get the message out when the cameras are around.

I was in NYC this weekend. I’m not big on the crowds and the $7 pints and all the horn blowing, but one thing I do like about NYC is that nobody really gives a shit what you look like or what you sound like or how you dress. You walk down the street and you’re pretty much ignored unless somebody wants to rob you or convert you to Scientology. I like not being judged by weirdos. I really like anonymity in the midst of Times Square and the fact that taxi drivers will run you over regardless of your religious beliefs….or lack thereof. New Yorkers tend to stand out when they’re outside of New York, so it’s ironic that they’re invisible otherwise. This is as it should be. NYC is pretty much a judgement free zone, unless of course you drive airplanes into her buildings. Then she gets pissed and short-tempered. Sounds about right to me.

As an uber-liberal, it feels kinda squishy for me to be saying I’m glad a guy got a bullet in the brain. But I am glad. A stain has been wiped away.

I do hope we don’t go overboard with the chanting and the “god bless america” stuff though. It will be said that this will, temporarily at least, “bring the nation together”, which is horseshit of course. Our nation is way too big to be brought together by any one thing. When Bin Laden’s body is dumped into the sea, the poor will still be poor and the rich will still be rich and the ideological pin-heads will continue to drive the national discourse by driving a big wedge into smallish-minds. Boys will continue to die in Afghanistan. Fear will return and we’ll be back to Obama’s DNA and Trump’s comb-over and $4 gas prices in a few days.

But for today at least……the world feels just a tad safer. Let us revel.

In a bit..

–tf