I get to be as self-indulgent as I want without wasting anyone's time. Guilt-free solipsism -- excellent!

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My Internet service is back. I've missed having the Internet, because I was counting on a number of online communities and news outlets to help me begin absorbing all that has happened. Sometime soon I plan on posting my little story, one of hundreds of thousands whose starting point is 9am Tuesday. I want to do so as much for myself as for anyone else, to have a permanent record of what happened to me, what I did, what I felt, during that morning, hopefully unembroidered and undramatized.

In the meantime, there is so much to talk about. First things first: at this point, everyone I'm close to in New York is OK. I'm enormously thankful for that.

I'm adding a Red Cross button to my site...please donate.

There are so many dimensions to this, so much to be angry about, so much to be fearful about, and so much to be proud of.

I was not a huge fan of Rudy Giuliani, but he has done an incredible job holding the city together, being reassuring, informative and appropriately steely throughout everything. He also got his hands dirty, and I'm actually very proud that he has been representing us New Yorkers throughout this dreadful time. (As someone pointed out, he also did so without recourse to religious rhetoric, and frankly I was glad that he did so much good without having to enlist God on our side. Given the motives of the perpetrators, I'm loath to counter-invoke any higher forces at this point, thanks.)

In marked contrast to the rest of the country, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are sowing divisiveness and evil by choosing to blame gays, liberals, atheists, and the usual bloody suspects for the fact that terrorists hijacked four planes and crashed three of them into huge buildings in Northeastern US cities, killing thousands of people. If there was any doubt whatsoever that these people are disgusting and singularly small-minded, unspiritual people, these abhorrent comments [listen] should remove it. I hope that this deeply unChristian reaction to the enormous suffering of hundreds of thousands of people effectively ends their careers -- and if their comments get lost in the general commotion, I for one can be counted on to remind people later on of exactly what they said.

One of my immediate concerns is that civil liberties may be fucked for the time being. It's been encouraging to see some officials reminding us that if we curtail civil liberties in the name of security, then the terrorists have won. I of course support more stringent security standards, and am fully prepared to be inconvenienced by them, but I am not prepared to sign over my civil rights. I do not see the point in destroying freedom in order to save it.

I'm not being flippant when I say that the country needs the new Bob Dylan album. Listening to it for the first time last night was a profoundly healing experience (and I'm not given to throwing around phrases like "healing experience" either, so take my word for it.) I think W should spend some of that $40 billion on buying everyone a copy of it, so we could all bathe in its humor, strength, warmth and quintessential Americanness. If you're even a casual fan, you must get it. Plus, the band is phenomenal and he sings like a rejuvenated bastard as well. Run out and pick it up.

More later. Time to spend time with my wife.
| posted by Alex at 8:02 AM