Nice thread intro. I've long considered the Undefended Frontier to be one of the great artifacts of civilization.

This isn't the game thread, right? 1-0 Jays in the second on a Myers home run?

Never mind; the thread showed up as I posted.

Ordinarily, this isn't a political forum. But I agree with Jordan's sentiments, and given my personal experience with tragedy, this isn't an ordinary day.

I had lunch plans at the World Trade Center shopping concourse on September 11, 2001. About three hours before my planned meeting time, I looked out at the burning towers from about a kilometre away, directly across the Hudson River from the World Financial Center. When the first tower collapsed, I didn't just see it, hear it and smell it; I physically felt the ground shake. Fortunately, the friend I was supposed to meet (who lived in nearby Battery Park) managed to pull a park bench over himself to be shielded from debris; one of the boats which had helpfully raced to Lower Manhattan offered him passage to Staten Island, where he spent the night with a family of strangers.

I'm a pacifist, and even at the time I hoped that this wouldn't lead to a militarily aggressive foreign policy by the United States; I've been consistently critical of subsequent foreign policy developments. Certainly, I don't think it's hypocritical or unfair for sovereign states to assist in the worldwide pursuit of terror organizations while refusing to participate in risky military operations that are, at best, tangentially related. A call for memoriam is not necessarily a call for acquiescence in violence that may beget further violence.

But the passage of time should not serve to reinforce the misguided relativism that motivated people to criticize the completely justified worldwide sympathy for Manhattan, Pennsylvania and Northern Virginia. Arguments like "things like this happen all the time elsewhere in the world" -- they don't -- and "American foreign policy practically invited this attack" -- it didn't -- should be disregarded.

Today's a day to remember the innocents who perished, including three of my neighbours in my apartment building. Today's also a day to remember the astonishing heroism of New York's police and fire departments, as well as ordinary citizens, whose rescue efforts were so valiant as to make hyperbole impossible. When one considers that 50,000 people, including many of my friends, were likely in harm's way at the time of the first plane strike...those rescue workers, many of whom having given up their own lives, deserve all of the "prayers, wishes and plain good words" I can muster.

I hope Jordan's wish is fulfilled that our nations, who are logically best friends, can take this opportunity today to remember what unites us.

Its too easy to suggest that "American foreign policy practically invited [the] attack." However, on a day that is reserved for remembering the innocence and heroism of those who perished, this day should also bring about some introspection. If some people on this planet feel so extreme in their anti-American views that they would commit this atrocity, it stands to reason that millions more harbour these same views but to not such extremes. There will always be extremists. It is those with similar but more moderate views that US citizens should be concerned about. "What have we done to make so many hate our country?" should be something that should be pondered on this day as well. Because of my background, September 11th has been a day of remembrance and sorrow for many years. For as many as I can remember in fact. It is sad to say that American foreign policy played a crucial role in my September 11th.

We all were affected by September 11, of course. Staying entirely away from the political cause and effect game played leading up to and since that date, since we've opened this door just a crack, I'd like to share something I wrote about what happened from, well, I can't say an "insider's" perspective, because as I just noted, we were all affected.

I had two cousins working in the towers, and two more were New York firemen. All four are safe and sound, but believe it or not, that wasn't the focus of my attention that day. Working in employee communications for American Airlines, trying to figure out what to say and to who and in what words, I think it's possible the only person in the world who knew what I was thinking was the person in the same position at United.

Anyway ... without revisiting the intermittent details, on September 24 of that year, this is part of an e-mail I sent out to the then-5,000+ manager-level employees of American, Eagle and TWA; I don't think it's bragging to mention that it's been republished in at least three places I know of. And I think it really captures our whole industry's attitude, even two years later:

As we head into what our CEO Don Carty has publicly acknowledged will be "still another difficult week at American Airlines," let's not forget how often those in our industry have been told what they can't do ... and how wrong those nay-sayers have been.

Lord Kelvin, president of Royal Society and a brilliant scientist who developed the absolute scale of temperature which bears his name, proclaimed in 1895 that, simply put, "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."

Perhaps Lord Kelvin can be forgiven, since we were still eight years away from Kitty Hawk ... But let's go now to an editorial in The New York Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print") from December 10, 1903:

"We hope that Professor Langley [the subject of the story and a colleague of Alexander Graham Bell] will not put his substantial greatness as a scientist in further peril by continuing to waste his time and the money involved in further air experiments. Life is short, and he is capable of services to humanity incomparably greater than can be expected to result from trying to fly."

The Wright Brothers took off exactly a week later: December 17, 1903.

The scientific community and the press still weren't satisfied, the flying-machine claims of Wilbur and Orville Wright were derided and dismissed as a hoax by publications including Scientific American and The New York Herald, as well as the US Army and most American scientists for the better part of the next five years.

In spite of scores of public demonstrations, affidavits from local dignitaries, and photographs of themselves flying, the very idea of heavier-than-air flying machines was simply too ludicrous to believe.

As an industry facing what may seem like impossible odds, it's never a bad idea to look back and realize that the very existence of the aviation industry was based on overcoming impossible odds. And we'll do it again. —MD

Someday, Sept. 11 will be just another memorial date, like Dec. 7. We are not there yet. We will be.

Mick, that e-mail is cool beans.

I had a rant ready to go on the topic September 11th; commercialization, exploitation, and how I feel about the po-faced solmenity of it all.

Can't do it. Not today. I'll stick it in the vault, maybe by next year the wounds will have closed.

Just please hug an American today and tell them that not only do you not hate that person, you like them. What all this should have done, for all of us, is put some love not only in our hearts but on our sleeves. It's not too late.

Peace. Out.