Catchphrases get old, it's a fact. Not that long-ago, commercial-watchers were thrilling to the antics of a group of cell-phone-owning morons screaming "Whaaasssuuuuuuup!" at each other, but trying evoking images of that ad campaign now and you're likely to get punched out. Well, I've got another one that needs consigning to the scrapheap of history (heh.).

You see, I just punched "post 9/11" into google and got back "about 2,030,000" matches (I suppose that should be "about 2,030,001" now). Two-million, thirty thousand. I mean, really. Yes, we live in a "post 9/11" world, but for heaven's sake it's getting more and more post 9/11 all the time! We're now all but 20 months post 9/11! Can we please, please, try to stop basing our every action on that one terrible morning in 2001!? I do not mean by this that we need to forget what happened on September 11, 2001, or stop honouring and remembering those who died, or trying to punish those responsible, or anything like that. What I do mean is that we need to get rid of our pavlovian response to the phrase "post 9/11", the response which runs along the lines of "Because you invoked those words, any course of action you have associated with that phrase I shall take as reasonable and even necessary, up to and including inserting microchips under my skin in order to track my movements." Can we please stop caving in every time words "post 9/11" are uttered, usually with a resigned shrug of the shoulders by the utterer, out of fear that if we don't, we shall appear insensitive at best and treasonous at worst?! And could you, dear reader, the next time somebody tries to justify some piece of stupidity, or incompetence, or unpleasantness, using the images of the falling WTC towers, could you please make them lay out the connection for you in detail?! Please can we start doing this? Now?

And don't get me started on "...or the terrorists win."