Sorry Osama, Hello Obama

Here is how Barack Obama has defeated Sept. 11 in New York City. When Plot and Duck traveled to Ground Zero in October of 2001, the city was still filled with smoke and the air smelled like its very heart had been singed. Lines of people ten deep crushed against the barricades to catch a smoldering glance at the hole in the ground where the Twin Towers had only recently stood so proudly against the Lower Manhattan skyline. Gospel groups sang uplifting hymns and everyone sang along, at the same time that impromptu clutches of visitors and locals huddled against sides of buildings with tears in everyone's eyes, staring into a most uncertain future.

The only people who knew exactly what Nine One One meant were the West Indian street hawkers. Within hours of the attack, bumper stickers appeared displaying embossed likenesses of the World Trade Center. Tens of thousands of American flags and New York City Police mugs and New York Fire Department pencil sets and t-shirts with Mayor Giuliani's picture, in all sizes from XXX-S to XXXXX-L, showed up on top of wooden tables or on blankets spread across the sidewalk or in kiosks nailed together with refuse from the construction zone. Men in rasta caps and dark glasses stood behind each display of gifts, selling everything they had as fast as their suppliers could pump it to them. This extraordinary commercial effort began at the blast site, but soon spread to every tourist site in the Shmapple, and the patriotic memorabilia sale never stopped from that day until -- November 4, 2008,

Sorry, Osama, hello Obama. Before Plot and Duck had lunch with Dance-Nik on Wednesday, they walked to Ground Zero, which is only a few blocks from her office. They were astonished to realize EVERY bit of 9-11 memorabilia has been replaced by Obama t-shirts, Obama pencil sets, Obama refrigerator magnets, Michele Obama calendars, first family children's books, Hypoallergenic Dogs of America pamphlets and ski caps emblazoned with all four Obamas and the skyline of Manhattan. The new skyline. There are NO American flags, NO "Love it or Leave It" bumper stickers, nothing mean and frightened and hateful. Nothing at all.

There was only one BARACK FOR THE FUTURE hat pin left and the Plotniks snagged it.

The hole in the ground is still there, but even it is being filled in. The hole in our hearts seems to have been replaced by good old-fashioned West Indian-tinged mob-run (most likely) American commerce. It couldn't possibly be tackier and it also couldn't be more wonderful.

Looking for a sign for the times? Here you go. Gimme one a dese and one a dose.