The Strain of Gaiety » “Pearl Harbor” http://www.planetdanforth.com/wordpress The writings and doings of writer/comedian Danforth France. Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:54:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Infamy moot http://www.planetdanforth.com/wordpress/2009/12/07/infamy-moot/ http://www.planetdanforth.com/wordpress/2009/12/07/infamy-moot/#comments Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:19:27 +0000 Danforth http://www.planetdanforth.com/wordpress/?p=188 I wanted to address the anniversary of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor by remembering being at the actual Pearl Harbor memorial in Hawaii many years ago. I can remember the American tourists giving Japanese tourists the stink-eye. The picture-snapping and posing at photo-ops by the Japanese struck the Americans as “insensitive.” There were a few glances and murmurs in the direction of the Japanese, and a grumbling sense that they were unwelcome, as if they were ruining people’s reverence.

But standing there, on the little platform, some feet above the sunken wreck of the USS Arizona, I can still remember considering the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and thinking we’d paid the Japs back pretty good. I remember I wished we’d all draw a line under everything and just be friends.

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