Is an art form hidden within our desire to remain popular mourners?

And This Makes Us Safer How, Exactly? One soloist who has been feeling the effects of the UK baggage restrictions is London-based violinist Viktoria Mullova, who went so far as to smuggle her unprotected Stradivarius onto a Helsinki-bound flight in a shopping bag last month. This week, she's due to play concerts in the US, and there's a very real possibility that she will have to make the trip without her instrument. Comparing Notes (Minnesota Public Radio) 09/08/06

If we properly protected our airports, around the world, than this would not be an issue. What idiot would blow-up their Stradivarius for Allah? Hire baggage screeners with professional training (FBI academy training) and pay them an equally professional wage and we won’t have to throw-out our toothpaste before we board. Funding is an issue you say… well I have an answer to how we pay for such a program. All profits made by anyone (particularly the media) from the 9/11 tragedy, should be seized and distributed to insure national security in an efficient manner (this is where our government will drop the ball, just look at the brief history of Homeland Security).

Last night, Americans were blanketed with 9/11 “tributes” on television. Out of respect to the dead and my own sanity… I boycotted watching any of the programs. I am beginning to believe that we should enact a law that states no one can profit from a national tragedy. How do the surviving victims cope with the constant barrage of imagery that has repeatedly televised the death of their loved ones for the past five years? News shows, such as “60 minutes”, regularly air programs that discuss how the victims’ families have a difficult time “getting past the tragedy” – of course they have a difficult time, not a day has gone by in five years, without media images of the twin towers destruction. Every minute on television is designed to maximize profit for a network – therefore, they are always getting the most “bang” for their buck when they show something related to 9/11. Take away their ability to make a profit from the tragedy and the nation can move forward.

Now prepare yourself for what I say next… how narcissistic are we, as Americans, to continuously mourn for ourselves over a terrorist attack that took place five years ago? How many other civilized countries have endured nonstop terrorism for the past few decades? How many can we list? England as well as other numerous countries in Europe has had their fair share – any of my reader’s from the other side of the Atlantic want to chime in on how their country has handled misfortune? Any citizens of any city of the world want to speak out? London. Tel Aviv. Bali. Madrid. Do your nations put together quite the same spectacle as the United States? Those that actually knew victims of the attacks have every right to mourn and an equal amount of freedom to be left alone on the subject. Those of us that continue to “play the mourner” after five years, without having actually known any of the victims – are shameful. We are no different now than when we were in high school and the popular kid died, so we all pretended as if it was our lives that had ended. Yes, we do have a duty to those that have passed on in tragedy – we have a duty to live life to the fullest as free Americans, so their deaths signal our national strength rather than our downfall.

What does all this have to do with art, you ask? Well, it harkens us back to the eternal question – “What is art?” Are the divisive tactics used by the media and Bush administration to hijack our national tragedy, in order to manipulate our emotions… art? – DN