Welcome, my dear fellow humans, to this latest edition of the infamous Thread About Nothing. Nothing is what we do. Nothing is who we are. And damn are we good at nothing. We do nothing like nobody else.

So, I was gonna write a 9-11 tribute post but I scrapped it because it got too political. I've salvaged a few paragraphs that nicely summarizes what I was going for.

"For me, it was the first time I'd ever experienced a sense of unity in the context of 'my fellow New Yorkers' or 'my fellow Americans'. I grew up in a very tightly knit community but our relation to the 'outside world' was estranged at best. There is a dictum in orthodox Judaism that describes very plainly the incongruity of our clan and our nation. We're not supposed to break any laws of the land but we are not expected to hold them in the same esteem as we hold our religious laws. This inevitably creates a disconnect between 'us' and 'them'. The disconnect was part of what had made me question my religious convictions in the first place.

I was not inwardly religious when 9/11 occurred but I was not yet 'out', I was still living in the religious community. My place in life served as a constant reminder of the disconnect between the world I had come from and the one I was yearning to join. But in the weeks following the attacks on our city the disconnect hardly existed at all. We were all Americans, and that was what mattered most. I could have conversations with perfect strangers in which we expressed care for one another without any trace of insincerity or reservation. It didn't matter if we knew someone in the buildings ( I didn't then, I know two people who made it out alive now.) or what borough we were in when it happened (Brooklyn, I breathed the ashes like everyone else here did), it was a common tragedy. We all lived through it. It was a loss we all felt. And amazingly enough, we were all there for each other.

The unity of that period made me realize for the first time what I have since come to believe wholly; there is no difference between people here and people anywhere else. City life may breed a self-centered tinge and people might become closed off by the necessity of surviving an urban sprawl with its proportionate share of predators, but when the chips are down and things look bad, we have a mass of humanity seeking to lean on one another, and we have a proportionate amount of people willing to lend a helping hand just like they do in any other mythologized podunk town in the middle of nowhere. The uncaring New Yorker is an exaggeration, a caricature. Human nature prevails. The noble majority prevails. And yeah, we move fast. But we slow down when there's good cause to."

There was more, but that'll do.

And now, the rules, followed by one of my favorite old timey war songs. There were paragraphs that would have made for a better segue to the song, but yaknow. Rules are for everybody. And the song is awesome regardless.

1) No politics, no personal attacks, no excessive swearing, no porn, no graphic violence/gore. Period.

2) The mods have ultimate, mind boggling authority. Sportsfan86 and Smackdad are the TAN mods. If they say drop it, let it go. Same goes for any other mod/editor. Don't argue with them. They have final say, period.

3) If a topic is borderline we will warn you. Do not argue. Accept it and move on.

4) If there is a problem email Sportsfan86 at sp0rtsfan86@optonline.net or Smackdad atmacgregorwells@yahoo.com. They'll try to work something out so we don't have issues. They promise you will remain anonymous.