[WW] Hopes and Fears, and the new world we live in.

[J Tolle <jwtolle@altavista.com>]

These are stories of how I and my family are affected.  They are only a small representation of the grief, terror, and resolve that all of the US must feel.

My father is currently in India.  We can not get in touch with him.  We do not know when he may return home.  Who knows when the US or Europe will accept a flight originating from India.

My wife lived in Manhattan for 2 years.  Her friends are all OK.  She can no longer watch the footage of the plane flying into the second tower.  I makes he physically ill.

I travel 75% of the year.  I do not know how this will affect travel long term, but the though of stepping onto a plane right now makes my head spin.

Several clients of mine work in Mid-town.  They are OK as well, but they could not see anything outside due to the smoke and dust.

My fraternity brother works right across the Patomic from the Pentagon.  He evacuated the city, and is now OK.

One of my groomsmen until less that two weeks ago, did temp work in the World Trade center.  He is OK.  His fiancee was one of the people evacuated from lower manhattan.  She walked home over the Brooklyn Bridge with the other stunned New Yorkers.

One of the men I gamed with for many years is with a west village precinct in the NYPD.  He has not yet returned my phone calls.  I think he is OK since Tuesdays are his day off, but I do not yet know.  He is of cource bound to be busy if he is OK, but I worry.  He is the kind of man who sees a nedd, and will rush in to help wherever he can.  A real Gamer's gamer.

And I am only on the periphery of the carnage, looking in, and wondering how and why this happened.  And I fear for the US.

I fear that we will not react strongly enough, and there will be others who try the same.  If we do not react strongly, swiftly, and decisively the message that other may percieve is that the US doen not have the resolve to take care of thier own.

I fear that we will react too strongly, rounding up ALL muslims, or ALL arabs in a knee-jerk reaction.  This is really the greatest threat to all that we hold dear.  This reaction will mean that the terrorist won.  Democracy and freedom will be sacraficed for revenge.  A truly chilling prospect.

We are walking a fine line right now.  I feel that the US has the capability and now the resolve.  More than I ever did on Monday or before, I see a UNITED States of America, not a fractous bickering collection of people.

My hope is that this event, tragic as it is, will temper us.  It will.  It will lead us through the bread and circus politics of sexual indiscretion and partisan bickering over non-issues into a new country where we can once again recognize that freedom, life and liberty are virtues worth dying for.  And that a life lost in the name of those ideals is not a life lost in vain.  God rest the souls who died in yesterdays trauma.

And heaven help those who did this to the US.  There will be a reckoning.

Jeff

PS Give blood if you can.

"I've got Dungeon Masters Guide / I've got 12 sided 
dice / I've got Kitty Pride / And Nightcrawler, too / 
Waiting there for me / Yes I do."

"In the Garage" Weezer
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