Remembering Sept. 12
Our leaders encouraged us to return as quickly as possible to our normal lives. Regrettably, they got their wish.

Who on Sept. 12 would have imagined that one year later a vital Homeland Security bill would be bottled up in Congress -- stalled by partisan bickering? That the most talked about initiative of our new Homeland Security czar would be his laughably lame color- coded terror warnings? That our airports would still be as porous as the S.S. Minnow, with security screeners routinely failing to detect guns, knives and simulated explosives smuggled onboard by undercover investigators? That a grand total of one person would have been charged in connection with 9/11? Or that business leaders would be marking the anniversary of the attacks by lobbying the White House to back off on heightened security procedures at ports and border checkpoints implemented in the wake of 9/11 because of their negative effect on corporate America's bottom line?

"Any more is going to kill us," bleated a vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last week -- a turn of phrase I doubt he would have used last Sept. 12, when the bodies were still being pulled from the smoldering rubble. [read more]

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How 9/11 Changed Our Lives

How has my life changed since September 11? My life goes on much the same--except that I'm not living in America anymore. In America, people are not disappeared. In America, cherished constitutional rights are not abolished with the stroke of a pen. In America, disagreeing with the government doesn't make you a terrorist. In America, ordinary citizens don't have to wonder whether their e-mail is being read and phone conversations taped by government agents. In America, there is no Ministry of Truth (for telling lies) or Ministry of Love (for making war). America doesn't wage unending war. America doesn't casually threaten first-strike use of nuclear weapons. I see the nation I love, in its fear and rage, stinging itself to death like a scorpion. [read more]

thanks to the bitter shackzilla of resentment