Don't call it "Patriot" day

Well, here we are. September 11, 2006. Five years later.

On December 18, 2001, President Bush signed into law a measure calling for an annual day of remembrance and prayer, to be called "Patriot Day".

But what is a patriot? Dictionary.com defines it as such: a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.

Sounds pretty benign, hmm?

But here in the Commonwealth of Massachussets, and the State of Maine, we already have a Patriot's Day, and we're pretty pissed that the name has been hijacked by the Bush 'administration' in the name of propaganda and demagoguerey. Here in the Commonwealth, we know the truth of Patriot's Day.

On April 18, 1775...Paul Revere made his ride from Charlestown to Lexington, followed the next morning by a column of British Regulars, intent on capturing Sam Adams, John Hancock, and the small patriot arsenal at Concord. At dawn on April 19, this column was met on Lexington Green by Captain Parker and a small band of Minutemen, and the rest is history.

"Patriot's Day" is meant to commemorate the birth of our nation, the start of the revolution, and to honor the true patriots that fought and died to be free.

While the victims of the attacks on September 11 may have been patriots in name (and in the case of Flight 93, in deed) the name is already being used for a nobler day, and in my opinion, the taking of the name to play on the base emotions of the country is wrong, and dishonors all those who died today.

So, while the 'president' and his loyalists fly from photo op to photo op, I'll not be doing anything different or unusual today. Instead, I'll go to work and do what I always do, and pause for just a minute to ponder what my friends in the North Tower must have been thinking as this all happened. (Fortunately, they survived...but are different men today than they were on September 10, 2001)

And I'll leave you a research project, if you're so inclined. Before September 11, the worst attack on American soil came at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. What was the United States doing on December 7, 1946?