Web Logs
10/9/2001 - A Nation's Mood
They opened the road that passes the Pentagon this week. I'd been taking a detour to get home everyday, but now I drive right past the famous building and its huge blackened scar.
I have to tell you its an eerie sight. The Pentagon always had an aura of permanence about it. A spartan and angular building, legendary in American culture. To see a huge blackened wedge bashed out of its side is just plain disconcerting.
About a week ago I came across this picture on a restaurant whiteboard. I thought it rather succinctly summed up the Nation's mood. I know I've been checking CNN.com all the time to see if we had bombed someone yet.
And so now its begun. Not quite the "spectator sport" the Gulf War was, but still with plenty to see. Shadowy night scope footage, maps of Afghanistan with little bomb markings, and endless interviews conducted by grave-faced anchormen.
Somehow my interest is really waning. Its not that I'm apathetic, far from it. I just feel numbed and fatigued by too much news, repeated too often. The same stories again and again. It has made the whole event feel less like a war unfolding and more like a massive episode of "America's Most Wanted". A televised manhunt that has seized all primetime slots and will continue airing indefinitely...
And so I've put the war way in the back of my mind. Its like the machinations of Wall Street: vitally important TO me, but not requiring attention FROM me.
Still, I do not believe we've seen the end of Terrorist attacks in the US, and I do live so very close to DC....
