Kicking off a culture shift

Sunday's fourth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were overshadowed by relief efforts in New Orleans. This page will always be sympathetic to those who lost love ones on September 11, 2001, but remains anything but sympathetic to those who try to turn Post Traumatic Stress Disorder into government policy.

The most visible sign of America shifting from a "post-9/11" to a "post-New Orleans" era was at National Football League stadiums around the country, as the pre-requisite military cheerleading was resigned to a backdrop for the various pre-game shows, and the players emerged from locker rooms without being led by the stars and stripes. In the case of the New Orleans Saints, they took the field at Raleigh's Alltel Stadium for their game against the Carolina Panthers with many of them holding hands.

If the NFL is an American cultural barometer, perhaps the imperial maxim of "You're either with us or against is" is graciously eroding towards "We're all in this together".