That whole 'bin Laden' thing

Earlier this week, I contemplated writing my column about the whole Osama bin Laden thing. I figured I had put it off long enough, and I was starting to feel goofy because practically every other IDS columnist had already written about how war is good, or war is bad, or Afghanistan stinks, or the United States is cool.\nBut I decided not to babble about my opinion, mainly because I know I really don\'t have anything to add to the debate. Everything has already been said, and other columnists have already looked like either heartless, hawkish, ethnocentric goons who want to bomb the bejeezus out of Afghanistan or wimpy, idealistic, pacifist whiners who\'ve smoked way too much pot.\nAnd to be honest, I haven\'t really been paying too much attention to the whole thing anyway. Whatever I wrote would be repetitive or misinformed, or both. (Not that my columns aren\'t usually repetitive or misinformed.)\nMaybe I haven\'t paid attention because I\'m anti-social or selfish or introverted or whatever. Seriously. It\'s football season. That\'s all I really need at this point. The NFL provides me with enough gratuitous violence. I don\'t need to watch a war, too.\nI\'m also not paying attention to the whole bin Laden thing (I call it that because it kind of rolls of the tongue. Well, at least my tongue, anyway) because it all just makes me angry.\nOsama bin Laden makes me angry because he\'s basically just another spoiled rich brat with too much time on his hands. He claims to speak for the regular, Middle-Eastern Muslim, but my guess is he has no idea what\'s it\'s like to be a regular, Middle-Eastern Muslim -- poor and powerless. He should try actually working for one day in his life.\nAnd speaking of spoiled rich brats, President George W. Bush makes me angry because, despite all the fervent patriotism, he\'s still a doofus who\'s watched way too many John Wayne movies. All I have to say is, thank God for Colin Powell.\nAnd it makes me angry that the whole country loves Rudy Giuliani now despite the fact that he\'s an egomaniacal, limelight-loving, vindictive little man with fascist tendencies. We residents of the Empire State know him for what he really is -- a petty dictator. Three more months my butt.\nAnd speaking of all things Empire, it really makes me angry that all of these Hoosiers around me suddenly care so much for New York. Before Sept. 11, many folks in Indiana thought New York City was a dirty, hedonistic, East Coast city full of slippery lawyers, weasely businessmen, scary minorities and those dirty rotten Knicks. But not now. Nope, Hoosiers just love New York now. Let\'s all give Latrell Sprewell a big hug.\n It also makes me angry that Big Business wasted no time cashing in on the massive amount of death and destruction. Within a week all sorts of companies were running commercials espousing their love for America and expressing sympathy for the victims and their families. Whatever. Those board presidents, chief executive officers and other assorted MBA clowns don\'t give a crap about anything except making money. The tragedies of Sept. 11 are just another vehicle for doing so. Hell, to them the terrorist attacks were better than the Super Bowl.\nSo that\'s why I don\'t want to write about the whole bin Laden thing. It just makes me angry and cynical, and the last things I need in my life are more anger and cynicism. I get enough of that watching the Dolphins choke every year.