Here in the UK I pray for everyone of you there. I have always loved New York so much. Its energy has always felt to me to be as much about love and ozone-positive fresh air as money and commercial dynamism. Whatever was intended in these acts of terrorism, they have created only more energy and more love. - Pete Townshend

Even if the Americans penetrated Afghanistan, their shells would only plough over the ruins. The Russians tried to destroy the Taliban's predecessors with 10 years of bombing, destroying whole villages, with their people, farm animals, fields, trees and mud huts. And still they could not get rid of the mujahedin, still they could not - to use Mr Bush's inappropriately folksy phrase - "smoke them out of their holes''.

"If the Americans go to war, I pity those boys," Yuri Shamanov, a former Soviet colonel, said last week. "I pity their mothers and sisters and brothers. It will be 10 times worse than Vietnam. Vietnam will be a picnic by comparison. Here they will get it in the teeth."

• standing.jpg - They are not coming back soon
  The Twin Towers are absent but still powerful, and the use of negative space shows their presence while acknowledging this perfectly. Along the bottom was written "WE ARE STILL STANDING" but it was covered by shadow, and I cropped it out.
• sunsetliberty.jpg - The sun sets on Lady Liberty...
  ...but don't forget that it always rises the next day. I love that the Statue, modeled on a woman of color and indisputably beautiful, is still dwarfed by the natural beauty of the sunset. I didn't love the political cartoons depicting the statue of liberty as visibly upset, angry, even militant. A more poignant image would have been simply a picture of the statue exactly as she stood, flames in background, because to me she is not a symbol that the US is the bastion of democracy and freedom but rather that we are striving to get there, and that it takes time. She is waiting for us, patiently.
• jewagainstviolence.jpg - Speaking of Liberty...
  My friend Rachel loves the New York Liberty, as do I. Here she writes words of support to "Another Jew against violence in the Middle East." Not only did she participate in the wonderfully organic memorial Union Square has become, she also brought posterboard (in fact, this piece of posterboad) so that others would have space to express themselves. Within an hour of us getting there, the four sheets she put down were full. (Happy New Year Rachel, let's make this one better than the last one.)
• ghost.jpg - A picture within a picture
  What pretentious pomo weblogger doesn't love that idea? Another photographer brought this picture of the old skyline to juxtapose with our new one. The "ghost" effect was not intentional, my friend Gita took a picture a split second before me and her flash caused the eery effect of the illuminated towers against the silhouetted skyline. I'm slightly annoyed that the WTC picture is from the Jersey side even though we were on the Brooklyn side.
• rightaway.jpg - Before it was a disaster
  Still half asleep, I took this picture before the second plane arrived. It can be juxtaposed with any of 15-20 randomWalks strips taken from the same window, which I can barely stand to look out now. Even two days laters from 45 blocks away at 30th and Park, the damage was visible.

The U.S. has already demanded that Pakistan terminate the food and other supplies that are keeping at least some of the starving and suffering people of Afghanistan alive. If that demand is implemented, unknown numbers of people who have not the remotest connection to terrorism will die, possibly millions. Let me repeat: the U.S. has demanded that Pakistan kill possibly millions of people who are themselves victims of the Taliban. This has nothing to do even with revenge. It is at a far lower moral level even than that.

Criticism of this most devastating of all intelligence failures has been muted; there seems a widespread assumption that the Arabs who have been rounded up since Tuesday must all be guilty. And there is unity in vengefulness, too. According to a New York Times-CBS poll yesterday, only 6% now oppose military action and a substantial majority would support war "even if many thousands of innocent civilians are killed". That support is especially strong among those too young to remember the second world war, Korea or Vietnam.

"The terrorist attacks will cause the widespread use of Carnivore and at the very least an acknowledgment of the Echelon system... The tragedy may soften our commitment to privacy as a public and allow for these technologies, once they are in place, to stay in place afterward. I can't think of anything that would better expedite the abuse of this technology than what has just happened." - Coralee Whitcomb, CPSR.

We owe it to our dream of America to offer comfort and support to the Muslims within our midst. They are not terrorists. Their religion is not a religion of terror. The hijackers are no more typical Muslims than Timothy McVeigh is a typical Christian.

As Palestinians who suffer daily from acts of Israeli aggression against our innocent people, we cannot find the words to express how shocked we were to see the horrific scenes on TV. We condemn such acts and we do not accept such horrific acts in the 3rd millennium where peace, prosperity, and freedom should cover the whole world. We reiterate our deepest condemnation of this horrible act on these innocent humans. No matter how can we express our sorrow, we can't find enough words to say how sorry we are.

The U.S. government set up a hotline to respond to increasing complaints of verbal and physical assaults against Muslims, Arab-Americans and other minorities. The hotline number is 800-552-6843.

People from every corner of the world have come to our nation to enjoy the freedoms we hold so dear and to escape the hatred and persecution that exists in their homelands. Let us not stoop down to the level of our attackers and also be guilty of senseless acts of hatred against the innocent. We must rise above our circumstances and show the world our resolve and what it really means to be an American.

I have been thinking about the words retaliation and punishment and act of war. I have been thinking about violence, what it feels like to be nothing to someone else. What it feels like to be a consequence of someone else's disassociated rage, disconnected fury. I have been thinking about the cycle of hurt for hurt, nation against nation, tit for tat. I have been thinking about how deeply something else is required. I have been thinking about the courage it requires to think about something other than violence as a response to violence. I am thinking about the complexity of this and the loneliness of this and the helplessness and the sorrow that would be felt in the space where violence once was and the grief. I have been thinking that for those of us who are living on the planet right here, right now, we must live in this dangerous space, allowing the helplessness, the grief, the sorrow to create new wisdom that can and will and must free us from this terrible prison of violence.

The plight of the Palestinians is the single most important issue to most Arabs. Professor Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland conducted a poll in which citizens of five nations -- Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates -- were asked how important the Palestinian issue was to them personally. In four nations, 60 percent said it was the most important. In Egypt, reviled throughout the Arab world as the state that made peace with Israel, 79 percent said it was.

On a so-called Christian station, I heard a preacher tell his listeners that Islam was a cult that worshipped the moon and preached total destruction of Jews and Christians. Callers seemed baffled about which religion the terrorists might have adhered to—-"Islam or Muslim?"—-or asked which Middle Easterners they'd seen on TV celebrating the bombing: "Is it the Israelis who don't like us, or the Palestinians?"

Our leaders have described the recent atrocity with the customary cliche: mindless cowardice. "Mindless" may be a suitable word for the vandalising of a telephone box. It is not helpful for understanding what hit New York on September 11. Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from.

i am about to go buy a flag to put in front of my parent's house so that you don't think that my family is anti american. we are very american, we love being here in america, we love everything american, it's people, it's land, it's culture (s), it's freedom, it's wide variety of choices for professions, everything about it. we loved it before we came here, and learned to love it more after coming here. but i am getting the flag merely to keep people wanting to hurt my family, from questioning how american they are, because they look different. having the flag does not make me love america more, it just means that i have a flag in front of my house. -- MetaFilter post

"Does anybody think that we can send the USS New Jersey to lob Volkswagon-sized shells into Lebanese villages -- Reagan, 1983 -- or loose 'smart bombs' on civilians seeking shelter in a Baghdad bunker -- Bush, 1991 -- or fire cruise missiles on a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory -- Clinton, 1999 -- and not receive, someday, our share in kind?" History did not begin on September 11.

Nineteen years ago today, the greatest act of terrorism – using Israel's own definition of that much misused word – in modern Middle Eastern history began. Does anyone remember the anniversary in the West? How many readers of this article will remember it?

Powerful commentary by Robert Fisk.
xowie@23:11 [reply]

"We should be careful when we use those analogies. If I ever used war analogies, I apologize. Football is not war." - Ray Brown.

Our government has a bad record in its “wars” against such ill-defined enemies as poverty or drugs. Terrorism in the modern world is effected across many borders and its remediation requires analogous forms of cooperation. “War” may sanction actions that increase our insecurity and vulnerability. War does not easily coexist with justice despite the best efforts to elaborate just war theory. War seeks the destruction of the other rather than efforts to find the best ways in which to coexist with those who are different.

Argentina: 2 missing Australia: 9 confirmed dead, 85 missing Bangladesh: 50 confirmed, more missing Belgium: 60 missing Brazil: 5 missing Canada: 2 confirmed, 100 missing (est) Chile: 1 missing China: 4 confirmed, 30 missing Colombia: 6 confirmed, 116 missing Denmark: 5 missing Dominican Republic: 3 missing Egypt: 1 confirmed, 3 missing El Salvador: 1 confirmed, 18 missing Finland: 7 missing France: 81 missing Germany: 4 confirmed, 700 missing India: 250 missing Indonesia: 1 confirmed, 1 missing Ireland: 4 confirmed Israel: 1 confirmed, 150 missing Italy: 8 missing Japan: 2 confirmed, 100 missing Lebanon: 1 confirmed, 2 missing Malaysia: 7 missing Mexico: 150-500 missing (est) Norway: 1 missing Pakistan: 3 confirmed, more missing Paraguay: 2 missing Peru: 5 missing Philippines: 7 missing Portugal: 3 confirmed, 20 missing Puerto Rico: 1 missing South Africa: 1 confirmed, 2 missing South Korea: 1 confirmed, 27 missing Spain: 9 missing Sweden: 1 missing Switzerland: 4 confirmed, 10 missing Taiwan: 9 missing United Kingdom: 100 confirmed, 200 missing (est) Zimbabwe: 6 missing

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

What would happen if instead of bombs, we instead bombed them with food and those 45 words?

Noelle: Will this bring peace?

Admiral Carroll: We can inflict grave damage, but it will not bring peace, it will not end terrorism, it may even exacerbate it. We will lose the sympathy shown around the world. We should make Americans safe from terrorism by reducing the motives. Terrorism arises out of abject poverty and hopelessness. If I can't protect my children, if I see my family dying around me, I become a terrorist out of a feeling of sheer helplessness. Without any hope for the future, they give their lives.

If we are to make progress as a civilization—or, more critically, survive as a species—we face the stark choice of either building a new global culture of compassion or continuing to ignore or support our current system's cultivation of inequality, militarism and the degradation of human life where economic and social decisions are guided only by market values. Without fundamental change, the forces who see violence as the only method to address legitimate grievances, symbolized in the carnage of lower Manhattan and along the Potomoc, will inevitably grow and become more destructive in this noxious environment.

[Friday's Congressional resolution is not] based on a quest for justice. It is an open-ended invitation to attack anyone U.S. leaders decide to target. And those leaders -- Dick Cheney and Colin Powell among them -- are some of the same people who during the Gulf War unleashed attacks not only on military targets but on civilians and the entire civilian infrastructure of Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people during and after the war. This resolution, and the statements from the Bush administration about an ongoing global war, suggest that what is coming will be even more frightening.

One target of operation "Infinite Reach" was bin Laden's paramilitary camp in Afghanistan. "The U.S. picked the highly accurate cruise missile for the strikes against the Afghan camp," reported CNN's military correspondent Jamie McIntrye, "because of their ability to fly with pinpoint accuracy." One of the missiles was so inaccurate it hit the wrong country, Pakistan, several hundred miles off-course.

Any explanation of Middle Eastern violence that relies upon the notion that Islam is an inherently violent or inherently anti-Western religion is false and misleading. First, Islam is one of the world's largest and most diverse religions and like Christianity or Judaism there are thousands of views within Islam about the religion and also about violence and the West. Secondly, there are major differences even among explicitly Muslim militants and activists regarding these issues - some insist upon non-violent struggle and others regard violence as a legitimate tool. There is no way one can generalize about Islam or any religion for that matter.

In response to Tuesday’s terrorist attacks, Clear Channel, the world’s largest radio network, has sent out a list of some 150 "lyrically questionable" songs by everyone from the Animals to the Zombies to its radio stations, recommending that the songs not be aired.

Suicide bombers are supposed to be 17-year-old zealots with nothing to live for but the hope of a martyr's welcome by 72 virgins in paradise. These men, the FBI reveals, lived middle-class lives, had degrees and jobs and wives and kids and a willingness to leave them all to kill us. Among the casualties last week was our sweet certainty that anyone lucky enough to be able to live in America, share its vices and freedoms and gifts, surely would not want to destroy it.

The simplistic stereotyping that goes on - equating Arabs and Muslims - must stop. Two-thirds of Arab Americans are, actually, Christian. And up to three-fourths of the U.S. Muslim population is not Arab.

Now what does this word Islam mean? Oh, wow, it comes from the word salaam, which means peace. Suddenly, it was dawning. Hey! Didn't I once write a song called Peace Train? It was fast becoming clear that I was now being confronted with something much greater than I had originally anticipated: possibly - the Truth!

Truly, our hearts bleed for the attacks that have targeted the World Trade Center (WTC) as well as other institutions in the United States despite our strong opposition to the American-biased policy towards Israel on the military, political and economic fronts. Islam, the religion of tolerance, holds the human soul in high esteem, and considers an attack against innocent human beings a grave sin. This is backed by the Qur’anic verse which reads: "Whosoever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if be had killed all mankind, and whosoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had: saved the life of all mankind." (Al-Ma’dah:32)

What is most depressing, however, is how little time is spent trying to understand America's role in the world, and its direct involvement in the complex reality beyond the two coasts that have for so long kept the rest of the world extremely distant and virtually out of the average American's mind.

The next thing I remember is that a dark cloud of glass and debris about 50 stories high came tumbling towards us. I turned around and ran as fast as possible. I didn't realize until yesterday that the reason I'm still feeling so sore was that I fell down trying to get away. I was on my back, facing this massive cloud that was approaching, it must have been 600 feet off, everything was already dark. I normally wear a pendant around my neck, inscribed with an Arabic prayer for safety; similar to the cross. A hesidic Jewish man came up to me and held the pendant in his hand, and looked at it. He read the Arabic out loud for a second. What he said next, I will never forget. With a deep Brooklyn accent he said "Brother, if you don't mind, there is a cloud of glass coming at us, grab my hand, lets get the hell out of here?" He helped me stand up, and we ran for what seemed like forever without looking back. He was the last person I would ever have thought, who would help me. If it weren't for him, I probably would have been engulfed in shattered glass and debris.

Dear reader, two Sundays in the future: you know vastly more than I do about what I mean when I say war. Do you envy me, living in this before, this last shred of relative innocence? I hope not. I hope I ought to envy you, the wild sweet peace you enjoy, the simultaneous epiphany of universal human amity and accord, the melting of all world guns into memorial sculpture which took place on, say, Sept. 16, the miracle that occurred in place of the carnage I’m dreading today. Oh, I hope I ought to envy you; I hope I’m a moron.

When we cry out for violence, we are indeed asking our leaders to do to other civilians and rescue workers precisely what has happened to us here. Let us use great caution and prudence in our solutions to this horror. We owe that to our counterparts the world over -- people who by no means deserve to suffer the way we are now. I think most people, having seen what I just have, would be hesitant to call for an expansion of this horror.

I woke with the images, the cry for retribution: brutality begetting brutality, blood in my eye. I need to believe that this is somehow un-American. Their whole point is to make us a nation at war. We should resist, resist becoming like those who did this.

- James Taylor, Singer, songwriter

For in all your inflicted horror, I will love with greater depth today. Be assured that today, I am the new mother and father of each child you rendered an orphan. I am the one who will fill in the gaps your violence had left. I will lift rubble. I will bury the dead. I will comfort the sorrowing. I will righteously rage at your injustice. I will rebuild what you tear down. I will heal what you damage. I will give back what you take.

I will not let you make me hate.

Not angry - haven't felt that once, strangely, and I am a reasonably irascible old man. Just surges of disbelief at the kinds of things said on tv and radio; the damnable dance of politicians and the professional pundit puke while shattered hearts lie bleeding true blood. Warm and wet. The stirring promise of endless battlefields to satisfy lust for metaphoric blood. Just experiencing, along with a legion of others, the advancing exhaustion of some subtle psychical strata due to encompassing more than the emotional machinery is yet (if ever) evolved to accomodate without something palpable and accessible to touch. Lots of pictures but no picture. Lack of effect leading to lack of affect. Absurdity of trying to comfort a grieving loved one by email. Not that there's anything to say, only the will to feel alongside of. O world of lost children believing in disbelief instead of doubting doubt. History returns to the starting point armed with ever less poignant weapons. Image of a Fireman on the 31st floor of a crumbling tower when the heavens suddenly open and forever rushes in like a leviathan come to reclaim her young.

Here is a poem by Randall Jarrell:

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world. But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be repeated, potentially with even more devastating consequences.

We do not believe that war is the answer to these crimes against humanity. The U.S. must not avenge these murders with attacks upon other innocents who may share the same nationality, faith, or ethnic group as the alleged perpetrators. Exchanging "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" in this manner will only leave the survivors blind and hungry. The people who committed these acts are struck with hatred. They saw the people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the aircraft as faceless enemies. They denied the humanity of their victims. The U.S. must not commit the same sin with its own acts of terror and war against another people, most of whom are innocent.

What can you do? Here are some things to consider:

1) Being peace yourself. Take the time to stop, breathe, and notice your feelings and reactions to all that has happened and is happening. In the face of the immensity of this tragedy, face your own sense of helplessness and powerlessness. And at the same time, consider how your every word, action, and interaction with another right now carries the potential for peace or war. Be gentle with yourself and others; our compassionate presence for each other will be required more than ever.

2) Cultivate an environment of peace and tolerance in your community -- stand up for and speak out for groups that are receiving the brunt of ignorance and hatred. Consider contacting Muslim organizations and mosques in your community and express your concern for their well-being and safety. Ask if there is anything you or your sangha can do in support of them, i.e. organizing a sitting meditation vigil in front of a mosque to express solidarity and offer protection.

3) Political Action: How the U.S. government responds to this situation will have ramifactions for generations to come. Military action right now has the potential to escalate the situation and increase violence across the world, and will not deter terrorists but rather solidify hatred for the U.S. Contact President Bush and your legislators and express your wish to see this national crisis handled in a sane way.

4) Gather Together: Organize gatherings to offer people a chance to share grief, sadness, fear, anger, and other feelings and thoughts about what has happened, and to discuss nonviolent and skillful actions that can be taken together.

Experts have opined that the US has to hit "someone" within 10 days, that cruise missiles targeted somewhere in the Middle East are the only appropriate action. The deputy secretary of state, Paul Wolfowitz, said that "the whole civilised world has been shocked... and even portions of the uncivilised world have started to wonder whether they're on the wrong side". How's that for the official American view of the planet?

There is a partial truth in the notion of the "clash of civilizations" attested here -witness the surprise of the average American: "How is it possible that these people have such a disregard for their own lives?" Is not the obverse of this surprise the rather sad fact that we, in the First World countries, find it more and more difficult even to imagine a public or universal Cause for which one would be ready to sacrifice one's life? When, after the bombings, even the Taliban foreign minister said that he can "feel the pain" of the American children, did he not thereby confirm the hegemonic ideological role of this Bill Clinton's trademark phrase?

"Our nation must be mindful that there are thousands of Arab-Americans who live in New York City," Bush said, "who love their flag just as much as the three of us do, and we must be mindful that as we seek to win the war that we treat Arab-Americans and Muslims with the respect they deserve." It's a message that 17-year-old Roula Abu Hassan says her teacher at school missed today. She says her health teacher told her class at a high school in Brooklyn that "Palestinian children all want to become terrorists." Both Roula and her mother Saud Abu Hassan, who moved to the United States from the Palestinian territories, are visibly upset by the statement and want the teacher to apologize.

The man who occupies the White House cried today. Good. Keep crying, Mr. Bush. The more you cry, the less you will go to that dark side in all humans where anger rages to a point where we want to blindly kill.

Tell the mayor, a guy most of us have not liked, that he is doing an incredible job, keeping the spirits of everyone up as high as they can be at this moment. Being there for a city I believe he loves, his own cancer still with him, he goes beyond the call of duty.

But do not declare war and massacre more innocents.

• Geoff at macrostate's photos of the aftermath
• First-person photos of the WTC evacuation
• Cynthia Malaran is the source of the quote below
• George Weld covers the attack and the aftermath
• James Nachtwey's photojournalism in Time
• Jay Boucher's eerie photos from New Jersey include the familiar skyline

We are at war, they said. And I thought: they have learned nothing, absolutely nothing, from the history of the twentieth century, from a hundred years of retaliation, vengeance, war, a hundred years of terrorism and counter-terrorism, of violence met with violence in an unending cycle of stupidity.

Falwell: I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'.

I have dropped my quarters in slots my daughter will never see, in buildings she will never enter, on observation decks that do not exist any longer, except in my mind. And I have listened as the timer counted down the time left before the viewfinder would fade to black. And I can imagine looking thru the viewfinder, and wondering why that plane looks so damned close. I can imagine looking uptown as the plane came closer, and closer, and seeing Harlem, and thinking, damn: I shoulda gone to Sylvia’s Soul Food. ‘Cause Harlem, far from being the bad part of town, was one of the safest places in New York yesterday. Even terrorists know which victims count the most in America. America, if you want safety, you’d best get your ass to the ‘hood. Get your boogie shoes to 123rd street. Move immediately into the Robert Taylor Homes, or Cabrini Green, or the lower 9th Ward in New Orleans. Do not pass go, let alone Wall Street. For there you are like sitting ducks.

The idea that one could ever be prepared for such inhuman terror is absurd. However, viewed through the U.S. television networks, Tuesday's attack seemed to come less from another country than another planet. The events were reported not so much by journalists as by the new breed of brand-name celebrity anchors who have made countless cameos in TimeWarner movies about apocalyptic terrorist attacks on the United States -- now, incongruously reporting on the real thing. And for a bizarre split second on Tuesday night, CNN's graphic "America Under Attack" disappeared and in its place flashed another one that said "Fighting Fat" -- an eerie ghost graphic that yesterday passed as news. The United States is a country that believed itself not just at peace but war-proof, a self-perception that would come as quite a surprise to most Iraqis, Palestinians and Colombians. Like an amnesiac, the U.S. has woken up in the middle of a war, only to find out it has been going on for years.

If we are provoked into war, it will involve none of the massive military campaigns of World War II. It will more resemble a cold war of antagonism always on the edge of hot war, with similar costs: titanic sums of money spent on security, civil liberties curbed, anxiety and paranoia displacing hope and trust, the life of the mind constricted and contorted, and vast opportunities for human betterment lost.

The definition of a "crime against humanity" is wide enough to cover atrocities by a terrorist group organised on the scale of that led by Osama bin Laden. But many countries, including Britain, still insist that it applies only to the acts of states and not of terrorists, however well organised and politically motivated. This is a sentimental hangover from the days when one person's terrorist was another's freedom-fighter and can no longer be justified: all belligerent groups, whether or not attached to a state, should be subject to the laws of war.

liz: I urge each and every one of you to TURN OFF your television and your radio for JUST ONE DAY. Try it. A media moratorium. A cleansing of your system, if you will. A fast from "the facts." I did it today and I feel so much better, so much more full of love and peace and understanding and hope for myself and all of humanity. Our brains, like our bodies, can only handle so much stress and trauma. After the 10 millionth replay of the plane hitting the tower, I knew I was being manipulated in a most unpleasant way. A migraine ensued that has only now, after several hours of yoga and media fasting, gone away. Right now is the time to sleep, take your B vitamins, meditate, and move your body. Love thy neighbor. MASTURBATE. Do that loving-kindness thing for yourself and try to remember that you're alive, which means there are still opportunities for you to do some good.

if you (or any other editor too busy to edit html) want to say something, post it to this list & i'll format it and put it up on rW.

zagg: There's been millions of thoughts, images, emotions, etc. that have run through my mind in the past few days. But the thing that really added a new layer of perspective of all this was that first night, sitting on a roof on 110th Street in Manhattan with a few friends. An F-16 flew over head and it was the only plane in the sky. I said that I had never seen one before. My friend who was born and raised in Lebanon said that it was the first time he had seen an F-16 and not had to worry about what it was going to blow up.

Of course, I'm smoking a pipe dream here, offering a strategy straight from LaLaLand. America will "retaliate," Americans will feel pretty darn good about it, and the president's approval ratings will shoot up higher than 110 stories. It all goes without saying, just like the reasons for terrorism go without saying -- meaning literally that the reasons can never be seriously discussed. The agony thousands of American families are going through this morning will be repeated -- first in an Arab nation, and then, soon, in America again. What goes around comes around. Again and again and again.

As one who professes to pray to Jesus every morning in the oval office, I hope our President will heed the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount who said, "..it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" ..."but I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

We who favor peace must create our own national dialogue before we can hope to influence the larger one.

We are calling on the political and military leadership of the United States and its allies to seek justice rather than revenge, and in doing so, break the horrible cycle of violence and suffering. During these difficult times, we call for tolerance and for people in the U.S. and around the world to stand firm against the persecution of innocent Arab and Muslim peoples. We vow to redouble our collective efforts towards social, racial, economic, and environmental justice, civil liberties for all, and nonviolent conflict resolution. Our hearts and thoughts are with the victims and their families. We join people around the world in praying for peace.

The enthusiasm of many who planned to participate in the protests has suddenly evaporated. The willingness of the American public to even listen to the protesters' message has surely diminished. Impassioned arguments about the depredations of global capitalism sound, for the moment at least, moot.

One Metropolitan Police Department detective put it even more bluntly. "Most of us are veterans," he said. "We're going to go [to the protest] and take care of business: kill, kill, kill."

A co-worker said when he went in to wake up his 4-year-old daughter yesterday morning, she asked, "Did any more castles fall down?"

The State Department has theorized that if the people of a rogue nation experience enough suffering, they will overthrow their rulers, or compel them to adopt more sensible behavior. The terrorist actions in New York and Washington are a clear and ironic implementation of this strategy against the United States. (...)

Above all, Americans need to remember that the rest of the world has an absolute right to self-determination that is as defensible as our own. A despicable act of terror such as that committed in New York and Washington is a measure of the revulsion that others feel at U.S. actions that seemingly limit those rights. If we perpetuate a cycle of hate and revenge, this conflict will escalate into a war that our great-grandchildren will be fighting.

The broadest goal today of progressives is one that transcends any ideology: we, all of us, as individuals, must become aware and participating citizens of the world, not just the U.S. We have to pay attention beyond our flimsy borders, and we must demand that the U.S. treat others as we would have them treat us. Because no matter who was behind the attacks, it's certain that they felt they were treating us as we have treated others.

And in countless cases, that is correct. The same emotions of shock, terror, grief, rage, and powerlessness that many of us felt yesterday have been felt before by the ordinary people in Belgrade, Dili, Mogadishu, Baghdad, Panama City, Beirut, and many other places where the craters take the form of American footprints. They know the world is a small place. So must we all.

• Mr. Rogers on helping children deal with scary news
• FEMA on caring for children
• David Walsh on talking with children; covers babies thru high school
• Q&A: explaining disasters to children, coping with grief
• PBS resources for educators
• PBS resources for parents
• USA Today on talking to kids
• more info and insight at Follow Me Here: "Don't become glued to the television and unavailable to your children when they need you most."

``I'm proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have,'' said 19-year-old Colin Zaremba who marched with the group from Oak Lawn.

When the WTC towers were built there was extensive controversy over their safety in emergencies. The NYC Fire Department protested, as did a host of other agencies and professional associations. The buildings were constructed in bulk and height far in excess of what municipal constuction and zoning codes allowed. However, the Port Authority, a quasi-governmental agency with exceptional powers inherited from the regime of Robert Moses, was specifically exempt from compliance with municipal codes. The real estate, construction and finance industries were powerful supporters of the project.

Aside, I add that in 30 some years of examining buildings in New York, I have found none, zero, which are fully compliant with municipal building codes. It is a terrible, little reported scandal of the city in which it is considered to be bad business to fully comply with codes.

Tuesday did not offer a flattering exhibition of America's leaders. President Bush gave a timid and stilted initial reaction in Sarasota, Fla., then disappeared for an hour before resurfacing in at a base in Barksdale, La., where he gave another flaccid address with every appearance of being on tranquilizers.

No American president since FDR after Pearl Harbor had faced quite the kind of rhetorical challenge that W. confronted on Tuesday night; and if it seems a tad unfair to hold W. to the Roosevelt standard, well, nobody made this guy run for president, or forced him to steal the position when he couldn’t win it at the ballot box.

It may seem presumptuous on my part, but I personally believe we need to think seriously whether a violent action is the right thing to do and in the greater interest of the nation and people in the long run. I believe violence will only increase the cycle of violence.

• Fear & Loathing in America
• Giuliani's Moment
• Refuse and Resist Anti-Arab Racism
• Shattered
• World response matrix

At 8:59 a.m., before he had heard the news, David Jacobs, a Brooklyn resident and software architect, posted to the Web log randomWalks a New York Times interview with Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber who recently published a memoir, Fugitive Days. While the Twin Towers were being designed and built in 1972, Ayers was planting bombs in the Pentagon and the Capitol. “I don’t regret setting bombs,” he told reporter Dinitia Smith in the interview, which ran, presciently, Tuesday morning. “I feel we didn’t do enough.” Only a few minutes later, Jacobs did what the Times couldn’t: He explained the strange synchronicity. “It’s a complete coincidence that I posted about the weathermen moments before the WTC & Pentagon fires,” he wrote on the site. “More soon.”

When I began crying I thought, ``Bury the dead. Bury the dead and tell each one of their mundane American stories, all with the same ending, and make everyone read all 10,000 or 30,000 or whatever, and see if that makes people thirst for more blood, when it's all told out, when they've heard the stories of all the dead, and when they understand that America will go and put the ending on tens of thousands of other stories, in Afghanistan or wherever we decide, then ask if they want that to happen, or if they want to figure out some way around it.''

They pay rent-a-cops $5.75 an hour to make sure the bad guys don’t get on my plane. That is what my life is worth - less than the cost of an oil change. Too harsh, you say? Well, chew on this: a first-year pilot on American Eagle (the commuter arm of American Airlines) receives around $15,000 a year in annual pay. That’s right - $15,000 for the person who has your life in his hands. Until recently, Continental Express paid a little over $13,000 a year. There was one guy, an American Eagle pilot, who had four kids so he went down to the welfare office and applied for food stamps - and he was eligible! Someone on welfare is flying my plane? Is this for real? Yes, it is.

Remy, a student of P.S. 139 in Brooklyn, said that he had been in school all day, and could tell something was wrong early in the morning, because teachers kept leaving the class to talk in the hall. He recalls, "My teacher said, 'I don't have permission to tell you what happened.'"

A caller asked Howard if he thinks the World Trade Center buildings will be rebuilt. Crazy Cabbie said they should be put right back up to show the world we haven't been defeated. He also said that his radio partner Cane said that when those buildings went down it was like chopping off the country's testicles. We need our manhood back so they should be put back up right away.

"We are Arab-Americans, yes, but today we feel American. This happened on our soil here. The people who lost their lives are our people, too."

"I said to the guy next to me, "It's going to crash in. It's going to crash in.' Then it crashed in,'' Lee said.

Over in Brooklyn, which is even more ethnically diverse than New York, the most unusual thing is the light. That and all the people. In Boreum Hill, about three miles southeast of the massive column of smoke, dust, and ash, you can still see scraps of paper hovering in the sky. The debris refracts the sun, touching everything on the street with a spooky, gray-gold patina. All along Atlantic Avenue, thousands of people walk home from work or school in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Some wear dust masks. Dozens gather on the street corners to gaze up at the sky.

Google Current Events. Many online news services are not available because of extremely high demand. Here are links to news sites, including cached copies as they appeared earlier today.