Too Much To Dream

Today

Well. Instead of saying anything about September 11th I ended up not saying anything at all. Except.... I'd like to thank Greg Hlatky for posting the quote that is now featured in my header. I think I used to have it up there, but I had forgotten about it.

And here is this from Richard Bennett's entry today about his memories of that day:

I've seen a lot of the world outside the United States, living in Libya as a child and in India, Singapore, and Malaysia as an adult, and I've seen a lot of politics as a former lobbyist in Sacramento, but this was beyond politics. It was also beyond the usual goofy fanaticism of the Muslim religion with its call to prayer five times a day, its strict dietary rules, its fear of women and its maniac fasting month when people sit on the curbs in Malaysia with bags of fruit juice in their hands waiting for the Imam's call to break their fast at the official sunset. This was insanity and a viciousness that breaks all the human boundaries around conflict and war and aggression. This was a direct attack on perfectly innocent people who had no stake in the governance of the Middle East, no responsibility for the backward condition of Arab states shackled to outmoded values by corrupt mullahs and political leaders mis-educated in Western universities suffering under the burden of fashionable ideas long ago and no interest in oppressing their counterparts halfway around the planet. This was beyond all of that, a new standard of bad behavior that could only be captured in old-fashioned words like "evil".

Yes.

Update: what marc said, especially this:

I may not entirely like the way the war is being fought, but there is a war going on. One declared upon us. You can pretend it isn't or doesn't have to be there, but don't give me a surprised look should the gun ever come to your head. The choice is not between fighting this war the way it is being fought now or walking away. The war will be waged by them whether we fight back or not. The division of with us or with the terrorists was not made by the President, merely acknowledged. The terrorists are the ones who divided up this world. So you're damned right I'm going to be angry. I'm angry that I've been marked for death along with everyone else in this world. Not subjugation, but death. I'm angry that when they attack, my death is the goal, not an unfortunate part of getting their target. I'm angry that I am that target, not because I'm special or that my name is on some list, but because I exist. I'm angry that should these people manage to kill me, someone else they want dead will shake their head and try to blame me in the shameful hope that their tsk-tsking somehow protects them.

Posted by Andrea Harris at September 11, 2003 10:17 PM