Where We Are Now

This Labor Day weekend I flew to southern California to hit the beach and rememeber what a hot summer feels like. At the airport I forgot to take my sunscreen out of my bag and had it confiscated by a stern dude wearing fatigues. At least, as my husband consoled me, it wasn't the expensive sunblock, which was safely tucked away in a checked bag.

But it made me think. Is this all we have to show for the 9/11 attacks? Does taking my sunscreen away make me safer? We're at war, thousands have died. There's no guarantee that we won't be attacked again. And, to quote Tom Lehrer, everyone still hates the Jews.

We had a 9/11 Commission, a fat report whose recommendations still haven't been adopted. We have airports where moms' breast milk is viewed with suspicion, and my sunscreen is taken away. And we now have made entertainment around 9/11, movies like Flight 93, World Trade Center, and apparently a docudrama on ABC filled with inaccuracies and the right-wing conspiracy theory that places the blame of the attacks at Clinton's feet. (Memos that scream "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States" aside.) We have first responders with lasting health problems.

Hendrik Hertzberg's New Yorker essay this week talks about how we squandered a post-attack unity, when the headline in France was "Nous Sommes Tous Americains." But five years later, what we have to show for it is being treated like the enemy at the airport.