The News

Since news servers are sometimes uncoordinated, this may or may not have been discussed already.

by

industrial

Note that this Post/E-Mail was originally concieved at 10:35 this morning, when the tragedy took place.

Chris Smith

Any of our regulars live around NYC or DC? Anyone know if they're OK?

I'm about a county away from the Pennsylvania crash - not nearly close enough to have heard it or seen it, but too close for comfort. It's eerie to hear little local towns like Somerset, Jennerstown and Shanksville mentioned on the international news.

M Man

------------

"I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve ... "

Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (following the attack on Pearl Harbor)

M Man wrote:

I live about an hour away from Philadelphia. Fortunately, there were no attacks near Philly; however, I work at a community college library and take classes there, and the schedule was completely disrupted. It was near the end of this class in Cultural Geography I'm taking, when we got news about the attack on the Pentagon and the collapse of the World Trade Towers, and class ended early (it was nearly 11:00), then the college closed early. Still, I suppose the inconvenience is better than being attacked.

I hope that's what whoever caused this series of attacks finds out!

Belle Book

I live in Tuckerton, NJ, about 90 miles to the southwest. I turned off my computer and TV _before_ the first attack, went outside, did some chores. While I was almost finshed doing them, as it was getting toward 9:30 AM EST, I heard some weird thunder. It didn't sound normal.

Looked up. Not a cloud in the sky. Shrugged, thought "sonic boom", finished what I was doing, and went back in and took a nap.

Woke up in the afternoon, turned on the TV, and realized that what I'd heard had probably been the _second_ impact -- muffled, distorted by distance, and taking several minutes to cross the intervening distance.

I'm not an engineer, but I suspect that the energy release was somewhere between 10-100 tons TNT equivalent per impact, between the kinetic energy and the fuel-air explosion -- so we're talking about an explosion equivalent to a very small nuclear warhead. The wonder isn't that the towers fell, it's that they stood for so long after the hits.

I used to work 1/2 mile north of those buildings. Me and my buddies would go down to the Stage Door Deli, catty-corner northeast from one of the towers. Sometimes we'd go to the park between the towers and talk into the night.

I never got around to riding to the top of the towers. Now, of course, I never will.

Goodbye, towers. I'll miss you.

I did ride to the top a couple times. I remember looking down and being in awe about how far up we were, how small everything looked.

I don't want to think about it now.

Jeff M.

Jordan S. Bassior wrote:

I'm not an engineer, either, but I am a Firefighter/Paramedic. We study building behavior in fire situations, so I know something about the topic, though not the specifics of this one.

Supposedly, the WTC towers were designed to survive the impact of a jetliner. They did. No steel framed building, however, can survive extended exposure to intense fire. The fire is what caused the structure to fail.

I worked 7PM to 7AM the night before, so I was asleep at the time of the first incidents. My son woke me up about 9:30, saying that I had been placed on alert at work, and they said that I'd know what radio channels to listen to. At the time, the plane that ultimately crashed in Stonycreek Township was still in the air, about fifteen miles south of here, and was obviously a threat. But I digress...

I tuned in to the news reports, and saw the fire situation at the towers. It was sickening. I knew that the fire, police, and EMS people must be in the collapse zone. They were "risking a lot to save a lot", as one of our fire service dicta says. And I knew that they knew that time was running out. I started talking to the TV: "OK, gang, time's about up. Clear the collapse zone." But I knew they were going to stay there until the last possible moment, at which point it would be too late to do much. "Risk a lot to save a lot", and there was a lot to be saved.

When the fire had caused the steel to reach its failure point, the buildings collapsed. Fortunately, they did so according to design. Engineers know that every building, no matter how big, will eventually have to come down. So they're designed to fall in an "interior curtain fall" collapse, commonly though somewhat inaccurately called an "implosion", to minimize damage to surrounding structures. A "hinge" collapse at the failure point would have been devastating orders of magnitude beyond anything we're seeing now.

Anyway, my heart goes out to all affected, especially the rescue workers.

Peace Kevin

"MMan37x" wrote in message news:[email]...

Trade

House

hell

now

in

morning,

enough

hear

the

terrible

That quote says it all. It helps us to remember the last time someone launched a sneak attacked on the US. And its consequences.

But God help us all if the only way to end this crap is to have a couple of cities go up in nuclear fire.

Firah.

"Firah" wrote in news:zZEn7.19564$[email]:

In terms of innocent death that would make the US govenment as bad as the people that attacked it.

Yes I know I'm gonna get flamed for saying this.

I hope that it will not come to this tho.

Phill.

"Phill Harvey-Smith" wrote in message news:[email]...

{SNIP}

The US has already been *bad* about doing stuff like that.

Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

The only difference is that in WWII the US was the ONLY country who had nuclear weapons.

This is no longer the case. Most of the *enemy* has access to nuclear weapons and are not afraid to use them. (Can you say Pakistan?)

The current state of the world right now is like the Cold War times ten!

Which is why I said God help us all if it does come to that.

If someone does decide to go nuclear, we could all be facing Armaggeddon...

Firah

Please before anyone reacts to this read my statement at the end of this post.

[email] (Firah) wrote in :

Yeah that great experement to demonstrate how good nukes are at killing people.

Depends on why you are counting as the enemy.

Though to be fair Pakistan probably does not have very many nukes, and they are somewhat less advanced than, and smaller yeild than those belonging to the more established nuclear states (US,Russia,UK,France, China etc). They probably also don't have as advanced a delivery system maybey short rane missiles, but I would have thought nothing long range.

Pakistan have also said IIRC that they will co-operate fully.

There I'd have to disagree, at least during the cold war you had ballance of terror, which pretty much prevented anyone using nukes in anger, because both the USA & USSR knew that to launch an attack on the other would end in total destruction for both sides. Now we have a situation where the USA whist it has a large stockpile it's much smaller than it was, same for the Russians, but unlike during the cold war the USA could pretty much use nukes with impunity against a smaller country, I believe they'd think twice about atacking the Russians or maybe the Chineese.

I do think also that US forign policy has been a little shall we say tactless over the past few months, they have annoyed some of their allies never mind their potential enemies.

I don't think it would end up as any kind of large exchange, not like in the old days where US+Israel+Western Europe would have been lined up against USSR+Muslim countries+Eastern Europe, things have changed since then, and at least at this point the Russians & most of the rest of the world are on our side. Though if the US where to use any weapons of mass destruction, they would IMHO be inviting more acts like the ones on tuesday.

<nit pick mode> Which is actually a place, not a time. </nit pick mode>

I feel I must stress that I am *IN NO WAY* supporting the terrorist acts committed in New York and in Washington, neither am I attacking in any way the right of the USA to seek to punish the purpitrators of the attacks. I do support thinking before reacting, after all history has shown us that blind use of force after an act of aggression can sometimes be directed at the wrong place, for example the bombing that happened a couple of years ago in the US was initially assumed to be the work of middle eastern terrorists but turned out to be a person from within the USA (yes I admit unlikely in this case). But it is kinda hard to apologise to a country when you just reduced a couple of their cities to craters when it wasn't even them !

Phill....from the UK.

"Phill Harvey-Smith" wrote in message news:[email]...

Exactly. What I'm saying is that if cooler heads do not prevail, in the US and amongst the people who perpetrated this attack, AND someone decides that nukes is the way to go, WE...ARE...SCREWED!

Judging by what information the government has uncovered so far it seems that the attack was planned years in advance.

NO ONE is to be trusted right now. If that seems a little cold, so be it. The US has been successfully attacked by an enemy it doesn't know and who is not going to show itself.

Not unless it's dragged kicking and screaming into the daylight that is.

You're still thinking in Cold War terms. You don't need a delivery system. Hell you can sneak a nuke in if you have to. Whose to say that the enemy hasn't done it already? Or if they can't sneak one in they can make one. Don't get me started on the Tom Clancy scenarios. Although what has happened in the past couple of days sounds like something right out of his novels.

We'll see...

because

in

twice

Maybe I should rephrase myself. It's not the Cold War times ten. It's something worse! In the old days, there was the USSR and America. Each had nukes pointed at the other. But both parties were scared to use them on each other because it was understood that no one would win.

Now it's the 21st century and weapons of mass destruction are cheap and a lot easier to get a hold of than during the Cold War. Anyone with a grudge/cause, money, and enough determination can pretty much wreck havoc on ANY country it chooses.

Didn't Tuesday morning show the world what a group of men with knives, box cutters, and a little bit of flight training, can accomplish?

<school mode> According to Mirriam-Webster it also means, and I quote, a usually vast decisive conflict or confrontation </school mode>

Well according to the evidence gathered so far it is not some home grown terrorist this time. It is from outside the US.

Back to my original point, God help us all if the only way to end this crap is to have a couple of cities go up in nuclear fire. The consequences will be that the enemy, or the friends of that enemy, will retaliate in kind.

Firah

On Wed, 12 Sep 2001 08:25:03 GMT, "Firah" wrote:

All Osama Bin Laden has done is to piss off 250 million people without impeding their ability kill him in any way.

If you go around poking lions in the ass with a barbeque fork, nobody should feel sorry for you.

Bin Laden and the Taliban knew the job was dangerous when they took it.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

Then, there's the possibility that domestic terroists (survavalists, racists etc.) are trying to overthrow the country. Everyone says "Bin Ladin" but I wonder how much actual evidence there is.

Christopher Morton wrote:

On Thu, 13 Sep 2001 08:26:47 -0700, Fong Chih wrote:

Those others don't kill themselves.

It's Bin Laden and he's history.

If we don't kill him, the Taliban will to save themselves.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

In article ,

What if it's OUR ( American, I mean ) cities that go up in nuclear fire?

[email] (Juan F. Lara) wrote in :

IMHO this is very unlikley to happern, as if it where going to then I believe that it would have happerned on Tuesday.

I don't think there is any country in the world that is stupid enough to launch a nuclear attack on the USA (despite what some of the Mcartyites would tell you). And while it is feasable for a large terrorist organisation to build a nuclear device, it is pretty unlikley, if you look at the physics of doing it.

Phill.

Phill Harvey-Smith wrote in message news:[email]...

To build a low yield, crude fission device (hiroshima or nagasaki style) is horrifically simple with access to trained staff and good machine tools. The hard part is getting the fissile material, but could be done in a theft on a russian power plant for example and smuggled in small amount.

[email] (Mark Whickman) wrote in :

Correction Hiroshima style, Nagasaki bomb was a complex implosion system using Plutonium. Note also that a gun type weapon will only work correctly using Uranium-235, *NOT* Plutonium.

The figures I have heard quoted is a reasonably well equipped machine shop could build such a gun type weapon in about a week, asuming that they had enough U235.

Maybe, but reactor grade Uranium does not contain enough U235 to make the bomb work properly, you would get almost no nuclear yeild with such a device, ok yeah it would be messy, and would probably make a (comparitivley small) area radio-active. To make the bomb work like the one dropped on Hiroshima, would require purification of the uranium till it was almost all U235, which is not a trivial thing to do, infact it took the original Manhatten project a couple of years to get enough to make the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

A good reference for this sort of thing including an overview of the physics involved can be found at :-

http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/index.html

Phill.

Phill Harvey-Smith wrote in message news:[email]...

I should have made that clear. Sorry.

one

was

bomb

But they started from low grade uranium.

Another alternative is a radiation bomb, which is impure fissile material surrounding an explosive core. It's detonated in a gun mechanism and spreads highly radioactive dust over a large area.

Thanks.

WARNING: the following is a very long post. Reader discretion is advised.

Hey, y'all.

I've been AWOL from this newsgroup for about 6 months - my life since my last post has consisted of more valleys than peaks. I lost an uncle to cancer and diabetes, a favorite aunt to old age, my ex-fiance/best friend to another woman (who wants him to have nothing to do with me), and last week Friday - my 35th birthday - I lost my job to downsizing. Add to this the fact that I'm apparently losing my eyesight to glaucoma, and you can basically see that I've been dealing with a lot of feces hitting the fan, to the extent that the fan blades won't even turn. (And, oh yeah, my computer kept melting down and I couldn't enter that contest to be in the next Daria movie.) And just when I thought things could not POSSIBLY get worse . . . .

Tuesday, September 11, 2001, 7:40 am CDT-I have an appointment with a temp agency. As is my habit in the morning, I flip my TV on to the Weather Channel & go to the bathroom to get a shower. I get back to my room & a glance at my TV shows my that it's NOT on the Weather Channel; I'm thinking, "Must be HBO or something - why else is there a movie showing a plane crashing into a building?" Then I realize that it's the Today Show, and I'm not watching a scene from the latest Hollywood schlockbuster.

(I'm not going to go into what happened next because (a) we've all probably seen the images a thousand times over the last 4 days, and (b) I can't come up with any words strong enough to relate what I've been feeling as I watch those pictures. Words like "shock," "disbelief," "numbed," "sickened," "enraged," seem so weakened by overuse by news media that they no longer seem to have any effect. The words have become empty, impotent, completely meaningless to me. To think: in the time it took me to brush my teeth, wash my face, and get a shower, two of the world's tallest buildings went from standing proud to being on the verge of oblivion . . . it's still unfathomable, almost 4 days later - yet it's true.)

The first thought that struck me was, "I have family in NYC - where is everyone, & are they all OK?" And so began a 3 � day odyssey of abject worry, which got worse b/c phone, fax & e-mail access to my NY kin was cut off after the WTC towers collapsed. (Damn, I can't believe I just typed that - the World Trade Center towers COLLAPSED. I wish this was just a bad sci-fi story I was writing. . . . ). One person in particular dominated my concern - my aunt Jessica (Jessie) who works for Verizon Communications. Their skyscraper is (or was?) just up the street from the WTC - you could see it in the skyline near the Chrysler Bldg. While the towers were still standing, I could still see the Verizon Tower in the camera shots. After the North Tower finally buckled & fell, I didn't see Verizon anymore. For the past 3 days, whenever I passed a TV set, I looked in vain for that building in the skyline.

Wednesday, September 12: I get a call from the temp agency - they need someone to work at the Red Cross answering phones on Thursday, can I do it? I take the job. Yes, it's only one day, and it only pays $7 an hour, but at the moment I'd rather work there than anyplace else - and it beats staying at home staring at the TV. Then Mom gives me the news I've been dreading: all the relatives in NY have been accounted for EXCEPT for Jessie & her twin sister Joyce. Joyce is a schoolteacher who often takes her Brooklyn students on field trips to Manhattan. Joyce is also 8 months pregnant. My family is now among thousands of others awaiting word on those who were in the WTC, or on the Avenue of the Americas near the WTC, or at the Pentagon, or on that plane that crashed in PA. Was Joyce with her students in Lower Manhattan that day? Could Jessie have gotten caught in that tidal wave of cascading debris as it rolled down the Avenue of the Americas for I-don't-know-how-far? (When the South Tower fell & people began running like hell, I saw at least one man trip and fall - and then the dust completely enveloped him & he was gone; I did not see him emerge from that cloud.) I suddenly felt WAAAY older than 35.

Thursday, September 13: I go to work for the day at the Red Cross, in their brand new local chapter office. After a few hours, I was pretty much on auto-pilot when I answered calls. "Yes, we still need blood donors." "Yes, we still need all types, not just O+ an d O-." "Yes, we're accepting monetary donations - make your check out to the American Red Cross and in the memo section of the check write 'Terrorist Attack Fund.'" " Yes, we accept credit cards - VISA & MasterCard only." "Let me transfer you to so-and-so and they can give you more information on fund raising/volunteering/the current waiting time on blood donations." (Tuesday & Wednesday they were accepting blood donations until 1am). Just before I left for lunch a got a tearful call from a woman whose brother works for the Pentagon & she hasn't heard from him at all. She spent all day Wednesday shopping so she wouldn't have to watch TV. She was worried and she felt helpless and she couldn't give blood right now because she'd donated too recently but she wanted to at least put up an American flag. Problem was, there wasn't a single Stars & Stripes to be found in the tri-county area - every store that carried them was completely sold out. Did the Red Cross have any more American flags? After learning the Red Cross was also out of flags, I tried to calm the woman down while I racked my brain as to where a US flag could be. I directed her to the local Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the Fourth of July flag postings along the highway - maybe they have some leftover flags. She thanked me, and I think it's more because I just took time to listen to her, rather than because I helped her find a flag.

I go home for lunch (a bowl of corn Chex, because I've have no real desire for food these past few days), and then go back to work to handle more phone calls. I direct people to the Blood Donors Room, or to the room where we have Donation Boxes and a Living Memorial book set up. The pace slows up, & I pray for more phones to ring & more people to come in so I can stop worrying about my missing aunts for a few minutes. I'm also waiting for five o'clock to come, not so I can go home, but so I can sign the Living Memorial myself - and give blood, something I've never done before (well, except for that plasma I sold when I was in law school & needed to make ends meet). Throughout the day, the lines for blood donation were short or non-existent. By the time I fill out the required paperwork, I'm in line with folks who've just gotten off work, so now there's a two-hour wait. And that bowl of Chex I had at 1pm isn't going to sustain me as long as I'd hoped. I turn in my paperwork, and sign the memorial book while I'm waiting.

Sometime after 7pm, as I'm lying on a recliner (or whatever you call those things - they're not stretchers), and wishing the TVs were turned to something other than Fox News Network or CNN (how about Cartoon Network, or Nickelodeon - hell, I'll even watch a Road Rules marathon right about now), a phlebotomist sticks what feels like a knitting needle (or a small railroad spike) into my left arm. I pray that my vein doesn't collapse again (like at my last trip to the plasma place 4 years ago), and I lie there for what seems like an eternity as a pint of B+ leaves my body. I am trying not to think about how many victims in NY and DC might be needing this blood, or worse - that it's already too late for them; they are beyond ever needing blood or anything else. A few minutes later, as I sit in the recovery area, I try to convince the Red Cross volunteer that I'm perfectly fine as I try to direct a glass of orange juice to my mouth without pouring it into my lap. I am freezing & feeling very loopy. The volunteer's name is Brandi. She looks to be in her 50's. Brandi tells me she knows I'm trying to act OK when I'm not - not because of any medical training, but because she's a mother & she has eyes in the back of her head. Feeling too loopy to dispute this, and thinking that I really CAN see those eyes in the back of her head, I accept her help. I call my mother to come pick me up (no way am I getting home by myself after this). I listen to Brandi explain that she volunteers her time because she can't donate blood - she's a hemophiliac. Her 3 pregnancies were difficult, to say the least. If I'd been able to talk and keep my head from floating away, I'd have asked her how she handled her pregnancies when she had such a serious condition. When I was able to stand up on my own, I went outside to warm up a bit & wait for my mother. I waited along with a family of 3 - Middle Eastern, I think they said they were Egyptian - who had also come to donate blood. I wondered if they were suffering from the racial backlash that's resulted from these events. I had a hard time trying to engage in a conversation (it was only ONE PINT of blood --oh, yeah, well, it was on a nearly empty stomach). I barely made it to the car when Mom drove up.

As my mother and youngest sister & I drive home, I hesitate asking if there's any news from the NY kin. I figure if there was good news, Mom would've told me already; if the news was bad, she'd hold off until I was in better shape physically. I crawl into bed & turn on the TV. It's more of the same - the planes crashing, the buildings collapsing, people looking for their loved ones, their friends, their colleagues, the rescue workers who became victims themselves, the politicians posturing & pontificating ad nauseum. I consider putting in one of my Daria tapes and think a personal Daria-thon seems like a pretty good idea. Then I think about that scene in ILAP, where Daria & Tom watch that parade float burst into flames & wonder what they would think about THIS particular lack of humanity? Would there be a special "Sick Sad World" devoted to this? (Of course there would - what could possibly be sicker & sadder than THIS right now?) I realize that I'm wondering about what CARTOON CHARACTERS would think about this. I dose off into an uneasy sleep, with the TV still on.

Sometime around 3am, I hear a news report that people are being asked to give very specific details about missing friends and relatives: What were they wearing? Did they have on wedding rings-if so, what were the inscriptions? Did they have acrylic nails? What color was their fingernail or toenail polish? Did they have tattoos or piercings & what do they look like? If it's a missing man or boy, was he circumcised or not? And the one thought I'd tried to banish from my mind since this whole thing unfolded - the absolute worst thing, as far as I'm concerned, is something I could no longer ignore & had to accept: The question may not be, "Is my loved one still alive under that rubble?" but rather, "Will there even be anything left of my loved one if he/she is dead?" It's a miracle that those firemen were found alive two days after the WTC towers collapsed; it would be amazing, too, if there were any bodies found INTACT after the collapse. Can you imagine (if you dare) a body NOT being pulverized after 100+ floors, one on top of the other, falling on it? I prayed about my missing aunts again. I cried myself back to sleep. The TV stayed on.

Friday, September 14: Still no word from my missing aunts. However, we received word that my cousin Robert, who also worked near the WTC, made it home Wednesday morning, after walking all night from Manhattan to Brooklyn. There's a glimmer of hope: maybe Jessie had walked home too. Maybe Joyce decided to stay home, or at least not go on the field trip. We are still waiting to re-establish phone contact. I watch the memorial service & cry some more. I curl up in bed; I'll look for a job later-even with bills piling up, employment seems so irrelevant right now. Besides, I couldn't stop thinking about all those people who had jobs Tuesday morning and were suddenly unemployed when their companies literally went under. I started rereading "The Age of Innocence" - set in a time in New York before there were airplanes or ridiculously high skyscrapers. I wonder if my NY kinfolk have contacted the Red Cross, or if they've gone to the media with pictures of Jessie and Joyce. I decided that if there is no news on the twins by tonight, I would take action myself: contact the Red Cross & the media, put notices on websites, even post a plea for help on alt.tv.daria. If I'm really desperate, I might even call Miss Cleo!

CHANGE OF PLAN: Friday evening Sept, 14, approx. 10:45 p.m. CDT: GOOD NEWS - all my NY relatives are present and accounted for. I've been given these bits and pieces: Aunt Joyce is at home with her husband, safe & sound; she and her students were not on a field trip in Manhattan that day. Jessie managed to walk home; she got back late Wednesday night only to discover the phone lines were out in her Brooklyn neighborhood. And her employer Verizon (whose phone service sucks on a GOOD day) had its cell phone tower on the top of One World Trade Center ('nuff said there). Once the land lines were working again by this evening, she was able to call one of our uncles, who relayed the message. My family's gratitude is, however, tempered with knowledge that there are THOUSANDS of families that will not be so lucky. Only a small fraction of the 50,000 workers in the Twin Towers have been accounted for; countless thousands may be gone forever - their bodies disintegrating either when the planes exploded on impact, or when the buildings succumbed to the fire's immense heat and crumbled, floor upon floor upon floor. The same goes for those who perished in the Pentagon and on the plane that crashed outside Pittsburgh.

For those of you who did not have relatives, friends, colleagues or nodding acquaintances in lower Manhattan or the Pentagon or in one of those four planes -- those of you who won't be facing the anguish my family & I just went through and what others are still going through - say a prayer of thanks, thank your lucky stars, do whatever it is you do to express gratitude. And don't forget to think of those who are missing and are being looked for; think of those who are searching (and possibly - sadly - in vain); think of those who are treating those who were lucky enough to escape; think of the rescuers that did not escape. Go to your local Red Cross/ Red Crescent/ Red Mogen David and donate your blood, your money, your time, whatever you can spare.

And also, beware of any telephone solicitors that call you claiming that they are collecting funds for the victims of the attacks - there are no legitimate major organizations (Red Cross, Salvation Army, United Way, etc.) that claim to be doing this at the moment.

Another sick, sad, note: In dealing with credit card companies, financial institutions, catalog companies, etc. over the past couple of days, it seems that the excuse "We can't help you right now --our computers are down" has been replaced with "We can't help you right now - our corporate offices were in the Twin Towers [of the WTC]." If it's true, I respond with "I'm sorry about that - where are your backup files located? You DO have backups, don't you?" If it's not true (as with a small catalog company based in - um, I think it was someplace in the Midwest), I pretty much cuss them out and cease any further business with them. They probably never HEARD of the Twin Towers before Tuesday.

FINAL RAMBLINGS

1) As sucky as my life has been the last 6 months, it clearly could be worse. (Heck, it could be OVER, just like that.)

2) You know that scene in "Airplane," where the plane knocks over the disco station's radio tower? That was one of my favorite scenes, but it suddenly doesn't seem so funny now. In fact, it'll be a long time, if ever, before I watch that movie again. Same goes for Airplane 2.

3) After this week, how long do you think Hollywood will go without making a movie with buildings blowing up? You know what that means - they may actually have to come up with (shudder) a PLOT, and even (I can barely say it) INTELLIGENT DIALOGUE! ;) (Or, maybe they'll just make more movies with horny teen boys putting pastries or glue on their privates. Whatever.)

4) I wonder who'll be the first to write a Daria fanfic around these events? (I'll bet at least one is already in the works.)

4) The day of the attack, there was a tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico. Because all planes had been grounded, the military couldn't even send up a reconnaissance plane to check it out. The depression became Tropical Storm Gabrielle, which dumped a bunch of rain on Florida Friday & not much else happened. But what if that had turned into a major hurricane - with no recon plane and scant news coverage about anything besides the attack, how would people who don't have access to the Weather Channel even have known about it? A major natural disaster on top of this - oy, I don't want to think about it anymore.

5) Don't forget to contact your local Red Cross or relief agency - all help is welcomed!

Thanks for putting up with my catharsis. I promise -- it won't be another six months before I post (unless I have absolutely nothing to say!) And hopefully, I'll have something happier to talk about (or, at least, more Daria-related).

Chirping through the night (and still very sad, but less sad than last night), Cricket

In article , [email] (Cricket) wrote:

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And thank Goddess your family is OK.

Take care,
--.\\<-H--

On 15 Sep 2001 10:29:04 GMT, [email] (Cricket) wrote:

[...]

Thank you, Cricket. I wish courage and strength to you and all Americans.

I gave blood on Friday; probably more a symbolic gesture than any real help, as America hasn't called on foreign reserves and now seems unlikely to. The good news is that Americans have been donating vast amounts; the bad news is, no-one has needed any.

Cricket wrote:

Well, I read it, and I'm sure glad all your family and relatives are okay!

Incidentally, Erin Mills wrote a brief fanfic called "Nightmare", which deals with Jane and Daria's reaction to the tragedy. You can find it at Outpost Daria.

Belle Book

"Belle Book" wrote in message news:[email]...

advised.

deals

There is also a couple of them featured in the Daria section of Fan Fiction.net.

Firah