I’m going to Coney Island have myself a dog
And reminisce why I still hate it here
It’s all these people with their cotton candy eyes
It’s so sweet, now put the train in gear

But I can’t let this go I’m on my way
You can only hold my diamond ring
But I’ll go crawling back to the city I love
Cause it’s already taken everything

Once you’ve lived here, you can never leave.  Sure you can move and reside elsewhere for the remainder of your days (and become a hoer), but a piece of you never gets around to leaving.  When you come back, the piece of you that you left behind finds you in the first few moments, and helps you to remember how much you love and hate it here.  It is the city that fails to fall on the spectrum that all other cities/places fall on.  It’s where a weekend can consist of seeing several people you don’t want to see from your high school days, falling asleep at 5:00AM, stepping in dog shit with your bare feet, and calling 911  at 4:15AM in the morning, and after all that, you  can still consider it a great weekend.

It’s a place where the only constants are the randomness and change that consume the people that walk it’s streets and fill it’s buildings. It’s a place where drinks cost so much that they give away free pizza’s with each purchase.  It’s a place where drivers honk their horns at the cars in front of them before the light has even changed back to green from red.

I won’t pretend that the changes that have taken place in this city over the last year aren’t mirrored somewhat within myself.  I won’t pretend that I haven’t knocked down some old parts of me and put up some newer (and maybe uglier ones).  I won’t pretend that I only come here to see the people I love to spend time with. I won’t pretend that I love it here anymore than I actually do, but I’ll go crawling back to the city I love, cause it’s already taken everything.

7 years ago 19 men hijacked 4 planes and killed 2,974 people.  Then the President, Vice President, 15 Cabinet Members, and other members of his Administration decided to pursue the leader of the organized attacks in the country he was located: Afghanistan.

Less than 2 years later, the same group of people decided to take advantage of the fear that blanketed the nation to wage a war in Iraq.  It took 1 lie to convince 77 Senators and 296 Representatives of the House to vote for Joint Resolution 114 in October of 2002.  Over 5 years later, this 1 lie, told by our President, has left over 4000 of our fellow Americans dead.

It took a terrorist network, lead by 1 man, several years to coordinate 19 men to end the lives of 2,974 people, and it took only 1 lie from 1 man, who was entrusted with the responsibilities to lead the American people and it’s armed forces to end the lives of so many more.  A man who had experience governing the people of a large state no less, so much for experience (unless his experience in Texas was also based on lies).

It’s sad.  Mass murders are sad.  Acceptable and anticipated casualties of war are sad.  If the Iraq war had happened in a single day, 9/11 would be dwarfed by any comparison of loss.

What isn’t sad is that you have the ability to vote for a man who has a lot less experience, in lying.  He also has a lot less experience in leading people, to war for oil which by it’s very nature will be depleted regardless of how many countries you conquer and people you kill. It’s sad if you don’t.