The most notable thing about tragedy in America is the remarkable way we have of soon trivializing the most heinous of acts and turning them into marketing opportunities.

When Princess Diana died, the world was shocked at the death of this great humanitarian.

Within weeks, supermarkets and newsstands were flooded with calendars, posters and cheesey memorabilia of all descriptions attempting to capitalize on the death of this gentle woman.

In a similar vein, now that the dust of the twin towers is beginning to settle, maps, calendars and all sorts of tourist crap can be found flooding Ebay and are available from mail-order catalogs.

Supposedly patriotic marketers are attempting to give Americans their very own piece of history at rather reasonable prices.

Now, to be fair, capitalism IS the American way and it has been a longstanding tradition to make the best of a bad situation.

Taking that into account, it is not fair to bash people who were simply in the right place at the right time business-wise.

Since the events of September 11, people have felt the need to show their pride by displaying the old red, white and blue.

The lucky storeowners and manufactures who stood in the way of this financial windfall are probably the only retailers making a profit in the midst of the current recession.

Within days of the attack, there was an unprecedented run on stores carrying flags and the backorder list grew to three weeks.

Of course, it wasn’t very long before reports of theft tainted this patriotic upsurge.

Car windows displaying flags were smashed and lawn flagpoles were stripped.

In the city of Pasadena, a flag carried by an American POW in World War II was stolen right off the front porch of that vet’s granddaughter.

Unfortunately, opportunists are still trying to make a fast buck from the suffering of others.

Several auction houses reported they had turned away people attempting to put memorabilia from the towers on the block.

The FBI is currently investigating some New York construction companies that instead of taking rubble from the disaster site to a forensics site were instead selling the metal as scrap.

As bad as these examples have been, how tragic is it when people start using America’s fight against terrorism to justify their own personal perversions?

Just a few weeks ago, a man living in LA county was shut down by the city for running an illegally licensed business out of his home.

This man was holding “swingers” parties in his house and charging admission, in essence an ongoing orgy every weekend.

When the city shut the guy down, his lawyer immediately files suit claiming the man’s civil liberties had been violated.

The lawyer claimed his client’s freedom of self-expression had been curtailed.

The lawyer was quoted on national television as saying, “It’s like the Taliban all over again.”

How dare this shyster equate his client’s pervert parties with the repression, beatings and killing of women by a tyrannical regime?

There is something seriously broke with a society when people feel justified in trivializing such atrocities.