Bin Laden

     As the confines of my desk job prevent me from making any extensive commentary on the matter, I'm keeping this brief.
     Am I glad he's dead? Certainly, but as the intelligence community has attested again and again, Bin Laden had, of late, far more closely resembled the symbolic architect of terror than any kind of literal one. As such, his death serves a psychological function much more thoroughly than a practical or strategic accomplishment.
     Psychological relief is a thing to which the people of New York were greatly entitled, but for me at least, it arrives in tandem with a huge host of concerns.
     The first, as always, comes in the form of the massive crowds of revelers at Times Square chanting "USA! USA!," the kind of nationalistic eruption that has a strong historical track-record of leading to trouble.
     Second, and more intensely, it distracts from the concerns at home. As a symbolic figure, Bin Laden posed far less a threat to the American people than the rising tide of Islamophobia or the right-wing's War on Women, and while it's possible that the venting of aggression that comes with his death might relieve a little of the population's proclivity for the former, I can't imagine how national discourse will avoid losing track of the assault on health care, contraception, and reproductive rights that wreaks havoc on over 50% of our country's population.
     Again, I'm extremely grateful for any peacemaking that this development might have provided to the survivors of 9/11 or the families of its victims, but given our media's sickening enthusiasm for myopia, to say nothing of the likelihood that Bin Laden's death will do little to deter Al-Qaeda, my excitement is muted.