Crap

I had a pretty good day going today.
I took my '94 Honda del Sol in to get the muffler replaced. The dealer did it in about half the time estimated and didn't charge me a dime because the previous muffler was a Honda replacement that carried a lifetime warranty. I hadn't dared to expect such a good deal. I figured they'd at least charge me for labor and probably pro-rate the warranty based on the number of years of use. All my experiences with that dealer's service department have been positive, which is a relative miracle in the world of car repairs.
Then I went to lunch with my wife and her coworkers and we had a delightful time.
It was when we got back to their office - a newspaper newsroom - that my day turned to crap.
That's when we noticed the breaking story on CNN about the beheading of Nick Berg by Islamic extremists.
Like most of the civilized world, we were stunned and horrified.
Suddenly, I had the same awful feeling in the pit of my stomach that I got on Sept. 11, 2001 when I watched people raining down from the upper floors of the World Trade Center.
The fact that this comes at a time when the news media is focusing the nation and world's attention on our treatment of Iraqi prisoners makes it all the more instructive.
It's a reminder of the deranged savagery we face.
Ever since 9/11, I've worried that we're not nearly angry enough. We've treated the 9/11 attacks like some bad television show. The "show" ended, we changed channels and we're moving on with our lives. Those were real people, most of them Americans but a lot of other nationalities too, who died that day. That was a real person - a 26-year-old American who wanted to help rebuild Iraq - whose head got hacked off in that video released today. There are thousands, maybe millions, of fanatical fools who are willing to give their lives for a chance to do the same to me and to you and to your family and all of your friends.
Never mind that we just liberated Iraq from a cruel dictator who ruled through torture and murder. Never mind that we brought freedom to Afghanistan. And in both instances we did it with the greatest precision and regard for civilian casualties in the history of warfare.
What these people obviously don't get is that, up to this point, this has been us being nice.
Perhaps they forget that only one nation in the entire history of the world has ever used nuclear weapons. Us. And we did it twice.
At the risk of sounding like Toby Keith, they provoke us at their great peril. They don't ever want to see us not being nice.
I, for one, am tired of us worrying about what the rest of the world thinks of us. Let the spineless Spaniards worry about that stuff. And the cowardly French and the rest of continental Europe. It has become increasingly obvious that when Europeans emigrated to the U.S. in the previous two centuries, we got all of the strong, adventurous, bold and able genetic stock. The cowards, the lazy and the sheep stayed behind and gave rise to the present generation of Europeans.
I can only hope that Nick Berg's hideous, cowardly murder makes us stop whining about a few thugs being subjected to the equivalent of college fraternity hazing. These poor abused Iraqi prisoners are the same beasts who brutalized, raped, tortured and murdered their neighbors for decades. Yes, it's not nice to bruise their inflated macho Arab egos, but it's hardly worth the ink and airtime it's getting, especially considering how they'd treat our people if the tables were turned.
We got a good look at that on Sept. 11, 2001 and again today.
End of rant.