Take This Tune

Thanks again to Jamie for encouraging and inspiring. Over at her meme, Take This Tune, she posts a thought-provoking video on Friday and challenges us to respond to it on our own blogs on Monday morning.

The painting she posted, September Morn, by Paul Chabas is exquisite. I had never heard of this artist, so I did a little Googling -- not much on him! I'll be on the hunt for more of his work now. Thank you!

And the video, ahhhh Neil Diamond. What a voice. In keeping with your theme of September, you highlighted that song. But it made me start thinking about his version of The Jazz Singer and the fabulous music it had in it. That made me start thinking about the scene where he sings the blessing for Yom Kippur. Of course, I had to find it on Youtube. I am not Jewish, but hearing these voices raised in praise to God strikes a chord deep in my soul.

Then I looked for "Coming to America" from the same movie and found that some people parodied it after September 11, 2001 and it became very unpopular because of that. All I can say is that if we let terrorists and small-minded people dictate our choice of music, they win. I refuse to let them have the date September 11, 2001 and I refuse to let them dictate my listening choices.

Let's Roll.

Appropriate Word Choice

I know my British friends feel like political incorrectness has stifled speech in Britain the way I believe it has in the U.S. But every so often you get someone in public life who calls something by its name -- and it is wonderful when the word choice is absolutely "spot-on". Yesterday, when sentencing the terrorists to life in prison, Justice Richard Henriques called it:

"a most grave and wicked conspiracy."

The individuals were actually sentenced to 40, 36 and 32 years minimum, but at their ages, that effectively means life in prison. In the U.S. we call that "getting LWOP'd".

Score one for the good guys. And many, many thanks to the countless people involved in the investigation and prevention of another 9/11. The majority of them go unnoticed and underappreciated. If you know/love someone who works in this field, please tell them a big

THANK YOU

from me.

/kw

Let's Roll

I didn't comment on September 11 about the anniversary. I'm not sure I can add anything meaningful. For people who lived in Washington DC at the time it was eerie. We're so used to air traffic overhead. For a few days, the only air traffice overhead was the sound of fighter jets protecting our airspace.

When I was in the Air Force and our conversations were interrupted on base by the sound of the F-16's lifting off we'd pause and count. It wasn't as if we could talk over their roar. We all called it the Sound of Freedom. Sometimes it was a four-ship, sometimes an 8. It was always very cool.

My job was to defend the young men and women who found themselves on the wrong side of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It was a privilege to serve them because although none of them were completely innocent of all charges (none of us usually are), all of them deserved a fair trial. When I was called to defend a case at Bitburg though, it was tougher. The young man was part of a group of jet mechanics who had been importing drugs from Amsterdam, and using them. He was getting high, and then working on jets. My husband was a pilot. See the difficulty?

Yet, our justice system is dedicated to the proposition that everyone deserves a fair trial. So I made sure that he got one too. I tried to get him to plead guilty so he'd get credit on his sentence. He refused. He was more afraid of street justice back home in Detroit (if word got out that he cooperated) than serving time in the federal prison system. He knew the system was fair, and would protect his rights. He knew his 'hood would not.

On 9-11, none of the terrorists on those planes survived. Yet, if any of them had survived, they would have been entitled to defense in the best justice system in the world -- at no cost if they didn't have any money. They tried to destroy something they fundamentally did not understand -- that we choose to live under a government that guarantees us the right to speak, worship, and assemble freely.

That's what I want to remember about 9-11. That no matter how horrible the acts or how tragic the loss of life, it did not change what America stands for.

/kw