So last Saturday I ran the Spinx half marathon during my Mastodon trip to Greenville, South Carolina. There was joy. There was fun. There was suffering in the sun. But that story is for another post. Suffice it to say I ran 13.1 miles and, so far as I can tell, lived to tell of it.
Sunday was a travel day, and I intended to take yesterday and today as recovery days before easing back into my training for the Vegas Rock 'N Roll half marathon in December. Apparently my dog / personal trainer Berkeley had other ideas.
Berk: "OMG! OMG! You're home from work! Time to play!"
Me: "Hey bud. Good to see you. Now settle."
"Settle? I don't think so! I've been napping all day. Time to play!"
"Bud, I'm tired."
"Fine. I'll entertain myself."
"Berkeley Cooper put down that bed! Come back! Your bed is NOT a toy!"
"OK fat boy, we're going for a run then."
"No, we're staying home. I'm still sore. Ouch! Ouch! Stop biting my feet!"
"You're wearing SOCKS. You know I own all socks in this house."
"Those are my work socks. Drop them. Stop chewing my socks!"
"OK, but I have ways to persuade you to run."
"Ouch! Dude, why do you have to punch me? I have so many bruises on my thighs, my doctor is going to ask me if I'm in a 'safe place' next time I see him."
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your call."
"OK, settle down and we'll go for a run. A SLOW run."
"That's more like it. Hey! What are those?"
"Gloves. It's chilly out."
"Those aren't gloves! Those are FRONT PAW SOCKS! ATTACK!"
"Ouch! Dude, my hands are in those gloves! Ouch!"
"Well let's run then."
"Slowly. Ouch! What was that punch for?"
"We're running fast. Get with the program."
"Ouch! Fast is fine then. No sprinting!"
"Wimp."
"I am sore. I've run two half marathons in the past two weeks."
"Whatever. You need some speed work, fat guy. Whoa! Trick or treaters! Bet they want to party. Hey kids! Want to play? Huh? Huh?"
"Berk! Enough! You win, we'll run faster. Stop scaring the kids."
"They aren't scared. They love me. Everyone loves me."
"I'm not loving you so much right now. My legs hurt. We're going to walk this hill."
"Hill? Yay! SPRINT!!"
"Aaarrrgggghhhh!!"
"Baby. Suck it up. It's just a hill."
"Aaarrrgggghhhh!!"
"Knock it off. You're embarrassing me. Now sprint home!"
"Can't ... breathe ... help ... me ..."
"Hey, good run! Now get me a treat. I said, GET ME A TREAT!"
"Chicken jerky OK?"
"It'll do. Oh, and we're running again in the morning."
Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt): "It's a soft opening. To test the place before the grand opening."
Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon): "Yeah it's kinda like a out of town preview on the town."
Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner): "Soft opening, grand opening. When they opened the Flamingo, one day it was closed, the next day it was open. End of story. I know, I was there."
It was a hectic last week. A major appellate brief to file. An unexpected three day trip to Phoenix to put out some corporate fires. The usual stuff that justifies my existence and my salary.
I got back into town after midnight Friday night, errr, Saturday morning. Berkeley greeted me with a slobbery assault, but was none too excited when I pushed him off his comfy perch on my legs at 7:00 a.m. to go coach my junior high Mock Trial team for our final practice before the regional tournament. Then it was off to Iowa City for some tailgating and night football with the sig other; well, tailgating at least, considering the Hawkeyes apparently forgot they had a game against Penn State. After a late night drive home, I finally crawled into bed after midnight, utterly exhausted.
So, why was I up again at 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning? Why wasn't I sleeping in late? Two good questions Berkeley was probably pondering as he once again lost the use of my legs as his pillows. The short answer—I'm an idiot. The long answer—I was registered to run the IMT Des Moines Half Marathon.
As I discussed recently following my Ali-like return to competitive road racing, I have been inspired by a bunch of poker degenerates to convert my irregular fitness routine into a quest to recapture the halcyon days of my running prime, or at least to give myself a physical challenge to pursue in an effort to deny the effects of advancing middle age. My major goal is to run a solid time in the Vegas half marathon, held this year on the auspicious date of my actual 43rd birthday. I don't have a lot of life rules, but one of them is, if you plan to run under the neon lights of Vegas, be in good enough shape you don't die—at least not in front of the Stratosphere or Circus Circus. Pro tip: Wynn and Aria are much classier places to collapse from ventricular fibrillation.
So I have been pushing an irregular training schedule since early summer, inspired by the sage advice/torture tactics of poker-running guru/fanatic Poker Peaker (a/k/a Dan England). Most of the Peaker's advice includes wisdom such as, "Run faster!" and "Kill you not, tempo runs will." Still, I have slowly regained some of my prior speed and stamina over the past few months, enough so I no longer fear embarrassing myself come Vegas—well, at least not in the half marathon. I can't make any guarantees about WPBT-related festivities.
This summer, I set an ambitious goal of breaking 1:51.26 (8:30 min/mile pace) in Vegas. Hey, it's good to have goals. I knew I would need at least one long road race under my belt prior to Vegas, just to get back in the road racing groove. So I looked at the Des Moines running calendar and focused on two races—the Capital Pursuit 10-mile race and the Des Moines Half Marathon. I figured Capital Pursuit would be a good test of my progress, sort of a "proof of concept" run. The Des Moines Half Marathon would serve as a second preparation race as well as the perfect training run six weeks out from Vegas. A soft opening if you will.
Of course, I signed up for both races before committing to the Spinx half marathon as part of the Mastodon experience. So, with the Des Moines and Greenville races on back-to-back weekends, what was the ideal solution? Well, other than getting one of the races rescheduled, which is actually much more difficult than one might expect.
Based on my fairly solid—and liquid—performance during the recent Capital Pursuit, I decided to keep my appointment with the Des Moines Marathon as a "serious" training race on my way to Vegas. The Spinxville race, on the other hand, would be a leisurely romp focused more on enjoying the company of friends than pushing my physical and mental limits in search of a personal record (PR).
PRs. Funny thing—I didn't have one for the half-marathon. I had run a lot of road races in my prime, but they were mostly 10Ks, 10-milers (Capital Pursuit), 20Ks (Dam2Dam), and one marathon. Ten years and twenty pounds ago, I ran a 20K (12.4 miles) in 1:32:13 (7:25/mile pace), which would translate into roughly a 1:37:00 half marathon. These days my older, fatter self has a Vegas goal of breaking 1:51:26 (8:30/mile pace). So, I figured if I ran 1:55:00 or better (8:45/mile pace) in the Des Moines Marathon, I would be in good position to make my goal for Vegas.
So, how did I do? Well, here are the splits via my Garmin watch and the official race timing chip lashed to my shoe:
All things considered, I think I will give myself a solid "B+" for the race. I broke my goal pace by over 30 seconds per mile (tough), and my pace was right on the money with my pace for the Capital Pursuit 10-miler last month (very tough). Even more satisfying were Miles 6-10, where I ran consistent splits right at my race pace rather than slowing down significantly, something I have struggled with in prior races (Coach Peaker's tempo run torture really paid off). I did tweak an ankle late in the race (around Mile 10), but after 25 years of basketball injuries, my ankles really have no ligaments left and are held together with the natural equivalent of balin' wire and duct tape. Also, my kick the last two miles was not as fast as I would have liked. But I finished the race feeling strong, like I left a little in the tank.
Suddenly, running Vegas in 1:51:00 seems rather ... pedestrian. Maybe I can shoot for breaking 1:45:00 (8:00/mile pace). Heck, it wouldn't even be my greatest run-good PR for Vegas. It's good to have goals.
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
In 1961, Roger Maris was chasing Babe Ruth's record for most home runs in a season. However, by that point in time, the season had been lengthened by eight games from the 154 game season played in Ruth's day. So, MLB Commissioner Ford Frick stated that, unless Ruth's record was broken in the first 154 games of the season, Maris' record would be noted officially as having been set in the longer 162 game season. The so-called "asterisk" debate stirred up great controversy, and led Maris himself to have a bitter view of how he was treated after breaking Ruth's record.
Yesterday, poker legend Phil Hellmuth became the first poker player to win both the WSOP Main Event and the WSOP Europe Main Event. The big win pushed Hellmuth into the lead for the 2012 WSOP Player of the Year award. Hellmuth's victory also extended his world record for WSOP bracelets to 13.
Or did it?
As reported by none other than poker media legend Shamus two years ago, there is (or at least was) some controversy over whether WSOP-Europe bracelets "count" as much as good old-fashioned WSOP-Vegas bracelets. Shamus even dug up a nifty quote from none other than great bracelet hound himself:
Phil Hellmuth, the all-time leader in WSOP bracelets won with 11, also chimed in on the subject this week. He was interviewed on the Hardcore Poker Show (the 9/27/10 episode) where he said he believed a WSOPE bracelet was "not the same thing" as a regular WSOP bracelet, adding that "everybody knows it's not really a bracelet."
The irony is delicious.
The debate over whether WSOP-Euope bracelets are equal in stature to WSOP-Vegas bracelets was hashed out thoroughly by poker media heavyweights BJ Nemeth and "Pokerati" Dan Michalski in the comments section of a Wicked Chops Poker post. To sum up, Nemeth noted that top poker pros did not regard WSOP-Europe bracelets as having the same prestige as WSOP-Vegas bracelets. Instead, Nemeth observed that poker players placed the greatest weight on WSOP Main Event and Players' Championship bracelets, then all other WSOP-Vegas bracelets were roughly equal in the next tier of prestige, and WSOP-Europe bracelets were yet another tier down the pecking order (often not counting as "bracelets" for bracelet prop bets). Michalski countered that if the Harrah's (now Caesars) empire declared an event a WSOP event and awarded a bracelet, then it was a WSOP bracelet regardless of the venue.
So, should Hellmuth's WSOP-Europe bracelet "count" as a "real" WSOP bracelet? As much as I love it when pesky hobgoblins come back to bite pompous jerks like Hellmuth, I nonetheless consider Hellmuth's WSOP-Europe bracelet the equal of his other bracelets (except his WSOP Main Event bracelet, of course).
If Hellmuth wants to justify changing his view as to the prestige given to WSOP-Europe bracelets, he can point to the fact that WSOP-Europe events now count toward the overall WSOP Player of the Year standings. But more fundamentally, I think WSOP-Europe bracelets are the equal of WSOP-Vegas bracelets on their own merits. Tournaments in both venues are generally among the largest in terms of buy-ins and numbers of players, and the player pools generally have greater depth and breadth of talent. Also, the WSOP-Europe events emphasize the "World" part of the WSOP. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, poker and the WSOP were dominated by Americans, and Vegas was the center of the poker world. Since the explosion of online poker, poker has truly become a worldwide phenomenon. WSOP final tables routinely have multiple non-American players, and non-Americans have won a sizable share of WSOP bracelets (including Main Event bracelets) over the past decade. Staging a WSOP series of tournaments in Europe—home to players like Peter Eastgate, Annette Obrestad, Pius Heinz, Antoine Saout, Viktor "Isildur1" Blom, and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier (just to name a few)—emphasizes the international popularity of the game and does nothing to diminish the accomplishments of the WSOP-Europe bracelet winners.
Disparagement of WSOP-Europe bracelets seems to be an extension of the criticism that the overall proliferation of bracelet events cheapens the value of a bracelet (there were fewer than 25 bracelet events per year prior to 2001, but then exploded into more than 50 bracelet events per year by 2007). This complaint misses the mark, however. The number of serious competitive poker players also exploded in the past decade in a perfect storm of internet poker, the Moneymaker boom, and poker media coverage, making a bracelet win a significantly more difficult accomplishment than even a decade ago.
Frankly, the discussion of the relative prestige of WSOP-Vegas and WSOP-Europe bracelets is just another contrived sports fan debate. It's really no different than the debate over whether Tiger Woods' four Grand Slam wins in a row constituted a true Grand Slam because they did not occur in the same calendar year, or an argument about whether current NFL passing and receiving records can be compared to records from the 1970s and 1980s when different rules were in force. These kinds of issues make for great faux debates, full of strong opinions but ultimately pointless. At the end of the day, players can only compete in the conditions as they are, not as they were, will be, or should be. Hellmuth's poker career spans over 23 years, with WSOP results of nearly 50 final tables in at least nine different poker disciplines, not to mention five runner-up finishes to complement his 13 bracelets, earned against increasingly larger and more sophisticated tournament fields. Hellmuth's WSOP-Europe Main Event bracelet is unquestionably deserving of the same prestige as his other WSOP bracelet wins.
But, if you have Hellmuth at your table in a tournament, I double dog dare you to tell him his record of 13 bracelets has an asterisk. Hilarity will ensue!
Some days, it counts as a win if you don't die or shit your pants.
I'm calling today a win.
Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to meet a good number of good folks who happen to love poker. I have enjoyed sharing some food, cards, and hijinks with a group of poker bloggers at the annual Winter Poker Blogger Tour (WPBT) held each December in Vegas. However, a subset of these fellow degenerates—loosely based in parts East—gather each year in G-Vegas (Greenville, South Carolina) for an event known as "Mastodon", a primal celebration of man's (and woman's) refusal to evolve. Mastodon has always been alternately alluring and frightening (check out the official invite/warning video), but this year, I figured it was high time I got high in South Carolina.
Part of this year's Mastodon festivities include an optional spin through one of the road races on tap for the Spinx Run Fest. Now I've been a runner since high school, but I gave up running road races years ago. As age and complacency have taken their toll, my commitment to running has gone from fanaticism to routine workout. So Mastodon—as well as the Vegas Rock 'N Roll half-marathon during WPBT in December—served as good motivators to kick my running up a notch.
I started training to get back in racing shape this summer, bumping up my mileage while throwing in the occasional long run (7+ miles) and tempo run (faster paced runs). I pegged the Des Moines Capital Pursuit 10 mile race today as a good training race, combining a long run with a chance to knock the rust off my road racing skills (such as they are). Back when I was a serious runner—10 years and 20 pounds ago—Capital Pursuit was one of the regular stops in my annual road racing repertoire, ranking behind only the Dam2Dam 20K as fun yet challenging distance races.
One of my best road races ever was finishing Capital Pursuit in 1:08:37 (6:51 min/mile pace). Considering I'm older, fatter, and lazier, my expectations for this year's Capital Pursuit were modest—don't die, and break 1:30:00 (9:00 min/mile pace). Secretly, I hoped to break 1:27:30. It's good to have goals.
Then last week happened. I was on the road for three days for work. I came down with a sinus infection I couldn't shake. I went to the doctor who put me on an antibiotic that led to, ahem, "intestinal distress". More ominously, the meds came with a four page brochure warning of horrific possible side effects. The most disturbing warning, taking up half the brochure, dealt with a rather alarming side effect. To paraphrase the warning:
CAUTION: This medication may cause spontaneous tendon rupture and random explosion or dismemberment of one or more extremities.
Well, that could put a damper on a casual run through the park.
Long story short, I took a full week off from running, mostly because running and intestinal distress make for an uncomfortable combination. I thought about skipping Capital Pursuit, but I had paid for my registration, my sinuses were feeling better, and my knee and ankle were feeling as good as they've felt in years, having had a chance to let my chronic tendinitis calm down.
So there I was this morning, waking up at 4:45 a.m. to start the pre-race ritual I hadn't followed in at least eight years. Rehydrate with a couple of Gatorades (the low-cal version for my older, fatter body). Munch a granola bar to get some carbs in my system. Curl up on the couch with my dog in my lap while I read my Twitter stream and Google reader feed. OK, so that last part is new. I'm a modern runner.
The weather this morning was about as perfect as could be asked for a road race. Temperature was upper 30s at the start, and mid-40s by the finish. Light breeze, low humidity. The stuff where personal records (PRs) are made.
The race followed the long-traditional course from downtown to the state capitol, then up to the Drake University area, on to the Waveland neighborhood, then back down the Ingersoll business district before the final dash though the heart of downtown Des Moines to finish at Nollen Plaza. The course is fairly flat, with no major hills and all inclines fairly gentle.
I committed the newbie sin of starting out too fast, letting the adrenaline of the start and the pace of the lead pack pull me out at a fast clip around 8:00 to 8:10 min/mile for the first three miles. For those of you who aren't runners, you have to trust me that running 30-45 seconds per mile faster than your goal pace is very difficult, and a recipe for disaster. Even thought I felt comfortable at the fast pace, I knew I likely could not maintain that pace over the entire course in my current conditioning level. I decided to pull back a bit for the middle part of the race, going closer to the 8:30 min/mile pace, and feeling good about it.
Then, disaster struck. Somewhere in Mile 7, I felt the dreaded signs of the return of my intestinal distress. Being three-plus miles from the finish line and the nearest kybos, I was in the uncomfortable position of not knowing if my guts wanted to break wind or make it rain. Letting out a small test sample was inconclusive, as the mind senses butt sweat and assumes the worst. So, I had no choice but to suck it up and finish the race with a noxious bubble of who knows what churning up and down my intestines.
Just past Mile 7, when I wasn't sure if I could finish the race, I spotted the sig other and our dog, Berkeley. Berk looked like he wanted to jump into the race himself. Seeing Berk (and the sig other) gave me a little boost, and I started to pick up the pace. I didn't have as strong a kick at the end as I would have liked, but I still tripped off the last three miles right at 8:00 min/mile. As I was pushing toward the finish line, some 40-something woman came sprinting out of nowhere to try to pass me in the last block. I tried to dig in, but quickly realized I was not going to beat her. So, I got my azz kicked by a woman—along with several dozen teenage soccer players, AARP members, mothers and fathers pushing strollers with infants, and people who outweighed my fat azz by 30+ pounds. Such is the world of running; all can compete, and often effort and training matter more than physical talent. Still, I finished in a comfortable and satisfying 1:22:21 (8:12 min/mile pace) (54 minutes in Paul Ryan timing).
As an aside, I must apologize to anyone who was in the downtown Des Moines Marriott approximately 9:35 a.m. and happened to stumble on to my version of this scene:
Altogether, I was pleased with my race. My pacing was not perfect, but I ran the entire race without feeling stressed or winded, and I feel like I could probably coax a little better effort in my next race. Coming off a rough week, I ran better than most of my practice runs. It's tough to extrapolate this race to the longer half marathons coming up, but I feel I have a solid shot at meeting my goals of running Spinx in under 1:54:42 (8:45 min/mile pace), and Vegas in under 1:51.26 (8:30 min/mile pace).
Assuming I don't die in a South Carolina bar during Mastodon, of course.
Like most Americans of a certain age, I remember September 11, 2001 well. I had pulled an all-nighter at the office, working on an appellate brief. I had gone home for a quick nap, shower, and clean suit. I was ironing my shirt, watching CNN, when news broke of the first plane striking the Twin Towers. I remember thinking it was a terrible tragedy, but the idea of a terrorist attack was just one possibility. Then I watched as the second plane struck in the background of a live news update. That second strike made it real. There was no way it was an accident. America was under attack.
I remember going to the office, and watching in one of my partners' office as the Towers fell. I remember heading to a noon hour special Mass with several Catholic partners, even though I am a lapsed Lutheran. I remember heading home as they closed my building, the tallest in the Des Moines skyline, because right then the idea of a terrorist attack on an insurance building in the Midwest seemed entirely plausible. I remember watching hours of news coverage as America tried to come to grips with the thousands of little tragedies spinning off from the greater tragedy we were still unable to process.
Every generation has its defining event. For my grandfather's generation, it was Pearl Harbor, when America was pulled into history's greatest war against tyranny. For my father's generation, it was the assassination of JFK, the man who steered America away from the brink of nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and was probably the last best hope to avoid the quagmire and historical-political repercussions of the Vietnam War.
For my generation, in 1995 I would have assumed our defining event to have been the Oklahoma City bombing, then the most significant act of terrorism on American soil. I still remember where I was when I heard the news of that attack—in my last year of law school, thinking about finals and the bar exam while supervising intramural softball. But somehow, the Oklahoma City bombing faded from the public memory in a few years, maybe because the terrorists turned out to be home-grown American radicals, maybe because times were good and Americans just wanted to move on. A few months ago, I was in Oklahoma City for a mediation. We walked past the Oklahoma City bombing memorial on our way from the parking garage to the soaring building where we were meeting. Our attorney rather off-handedly pointed out the memorial and mentioned how it was just part of downtown and not something he had visited in years. Just another historical marker for another historical event.
The terrorist attack on 9/11 truly was a defining moment for my generation. It dwarfed the Oklahoma City bombing in its scale, its brazenness, its evil. It was a sucker punch to the American psyche, an attack at the foundations of our culture on our home turf. The world changed for Americans when those planes hit the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania countryside. We solemnly vowed we would never forget.
I remember the bitter political rancor that divided the country less than a year prior to 9/11, when a few hundred ambiguous votes and a split decision of the U.S. Supreme Court decided the hotly contested presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Yet in the days after 9/11, I remember being inspired by President Bush as he visited the still smoldering ruins of the Twin Towers. I remember my pride at Al Gore solemnly declaring, "George Bush is my President." I remember how Americans—so recently and so bitterly divided—came together, their political discord mended by a renewed sense of common cause.
We forgot.
Since 9/11, there have been three presidential elections, each more vitriolic than the prior. Americans are more polarized politically than ever. Red states vs. Blue states. Republicans vs. Democrats. Politicians willing to lie, dissemble, obfuscate, and slander merely to thwart the other side, without regard for the merits of the issue in dispute. America no longer has a common cause. It's good vs. evil, and evil vs. good. Compromise is a dirty word, an unacceptable surrender to the enemy. Bipartisanship is dead, slain by ideological purity.
I remember after 9/11 how Americans were careful to separate the terrorists from their Muslim faith. How politicians and clergy spoke of treating Muslims with compassion, to recognize that their faith does not condone such senseless violence, to understand that Muslims worldwide condemned the attacks and sympathized with our loss. I remember how the terrorists were our enemies, not Muslims.
We forgot.
Today, barely a decade removed from the atrocities committed by a fringe radical group more similar to the Oklahoma City bombers than to the average Muslim in the Middle East, the idea of a mosque in the same area as the Twin Towers is grist for conservative politicians and talk show hosts to whip up their base into a frenzy. These same radicals turn "Muslim" into a pejorative slander against our President, who makes the electoral calculation that it is better to declare his Christian bona fides than to defend the millions of Muslims whose faith follows a path of peace.
I remember when we sought those responsible for the 9/11 attacks and were viewed as the good guys, the righteous people seeking justice, not vengeance. I remember the broad coalition of our allies, and the support of those countries and peoples who prior to the attacks might have shared the terrorists' view of America as an arrogant, hedonistic behemoth who imposed her will on the world.
We forgot.
America's thirst for justice was subverted and perverted. We used the 9/11 attacks to justify a war against Iraq, a country with no connection to the attacks and posing no threat to American security. We began to torture enemies and suspected enemies, using euphemisms like "extraordinary rendition" and "enhanced interrogation techniques". We opened and continue to operate a concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, enabling us to hold prisoners—even American citizens—idefinitely and beyond any judicial authority. We have Presidents of both parties asserting the authority to order the summary executions of not just foreign terrorists, but also American citizens thought to be terrorists. Those same Presidents who decry the loss of innocent Americans in the 9/11 attacks order drone strikes on terrorist suspects without regard for the collateral damage to innocent foreign civilians.
I remember when we viewed the 9/11 attacks as a fundamental attack on our American way of life. I remember how we swore we couldn't "let the terrorists win" by changing our core principles, by sacrificing our freedoms to assuage our fears.
We forgot.
Americans sold out their liberty for the illusion of security. Sensible security upgrades gave way to a nationalized system of security theater. Airports are filled with TSA agents irradiating and patting down millions of American citizens who pose no threat greater than transmitting the common cold with an unprotected sneeze. Now TSA agents are inspecting our beverages; it's only a matter of time before we all fondly remember the days when we did not have to strip naked before boarding a plane.
Even worse than the indignities of airport security are the more fundamental erosions of our rights. Today, the Homeland Security conglomerate mines the detritus of our daily lives, looking for suspicious patterns of behavior in the goods we buy, the books we read, the web searches we conduct, the people we meet. If we trip the wrong alarm, or piss off the wrong government official, we may find the full force of the government digging into our lives via secretive "national security letters" that circumvent our Constitutional due process rights. But it's all OK because the Government is simply trying to "prevent the next 9/11".
The 9/11 attacks unquestionably struck a major blow to the American way of life. But we do a disservice to those who died in the 9/11 attacks if we superficially remember their sacrifice while fundamentally altering our time-honored American values. Saying "we will never forget" is not about a monument or a memorial service. The best way to honor those who fell on 9/11 is to remember and celebrate the fundamental values of America—liberty, equality, and tolerance.
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