NEWS FROM WORLD: The Beauty of Nine Years After

9/9/01 Alia drove us north in her Porsche Boxster. She was a British diplomat to the UN. A mother of 6. We were friends since meeting at the Cafe de Paris. Leicester Square. 1986.

I acted as navigator to Minnewaska State Park outside of New Paltz. It was a hot day and we were looking forward to swimming in Lake Awosting. I had boasted of the granite slab slanting into cool water surrounded by a pine forest. A boreal paradise. We parked the car and hiked toward our destination. A park ranger on a ATV stopped us.

"Where you heading?" She was a hefty female. 30 and thick of limb.

"Lake Awosting." I had been coming here since the 80s. Once I had jumped off the cliff into Lake Minnewaska. A good drop of 70 feet. Once was enough.

"You're not going swimming there?" Her voice adopted a tone of authority.

"Why not?" I was dumbfounded by her interrogation. This was America. The Land of the Free.

"Because it's against the law to swim in the lakes after Labor Day."

"You have to be joking." Alia touched my arm. She had diplomatic immunity. Also tact. I had neither. Only a sense of outrage.

"There are no lifeguards." The ranger stood as if she had been instructed to enforce this mandate by GW Bush himself.

"I can swim three miles. What's the problem?" I knew that the problem was that lawyers were waiting for some drunk fool to jump into the lake and break their back, so they could sue the state parks for several million dollars.

"It's the law."

Explanations were a waste of breath. Law was the law. We turned away from our destination. Swimming in the crystal water was a forbidden pleasure.

"I hate this America."

On the way back to New York the radio announced the USA bailing out of the Racism Conference in South Africa in protest of a nearly unanimous condemnation of Israel for their occupation of Palestine.

"Another thing I hate about America. Israel." Police against swimming were synonymous with the Israeli Defense Force smashing down doors in Jericho. I needed a drink. Alia and I stopped at a bar in New Paltz. Three beers later I was ready to resume our return to New York. Alia was sober. She never drank liquor. Her thrill was speed and the Porsche hit 140 on the Freeway.

The next day it rained from morning to night. I nursed a hangover with more beer and woke the next morning to a thump. A funny sound. Almost like an explosion. I got dressed to see what was the problem.

Black smoke filled the southern sky. A neighbor said a plane had hit the World Trade Tower. It was no joke. Neither was the second plane or the collapse of the iconic skyscrapers.

America was under attack.

By Al-Quada.

And we were out for blood.

First Afghanistan. The Taliban were sheltering the enemy.

Next up Iraq.

"Nuke them into the Stone Age." My older brother wanted revenge. We all did.

"Iraq didn't have anything to do with 9/11." 15 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. None of the pilots. Something was fucked up about that, but I couldn't put my finger on what. "why do you think we were attacked?"

"It's unimportant. Fucking the Arabs is what we have to do."

And that's what America has done since 9/11. Bomb the shit out of Iraq. A billion bullets a year in Afghanistan. Torture the towelheads. Beat their feet with rubber hoses. Drone missiles to every corner of their backward lands.

TORA TORA TORA.

Without mercy.

And now the towelheads want to put up a mosque several blocks from the site of the devastated WTC.

"Sacrilege." GOP.

"Freedom of religion." Democrats.

An election issue for November 2010.

Not for me.

I believe in the temple of non-belief.

How many people have been killed for atheism?

Zero.

But both sides hate godlessness.

So let them slaughter each other in the name of their idols.