RICH WEBB WRITES:

“…Now we have bin Laden set up to be our straw man. Hell, he might even actually be guilty. But I can’t help but think that we jump to this conclusion at our peril. Yet there will be calls to bomb his compounds, to seize his assets, to have him assassinated.”

SEATTLE WEEKLY CONTRIBUTOR GEOV PARRISH WRITES:

“Tuesday was a day of complete horror in the history of the United States; and the American public as well as its leaders will demand retribution. Let’s not forget, however, how we got to this day.”

SEUMAS MILNE writes in the British daily The Guardian:

“[Americans] can’t see why they are hated… Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international coalition for an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such counter-productive acts of outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of which they arise. But for every ‘terror network’ that is rooted out, another will emerge – until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are addressed.”

EVEN THE NAKED NEWS anchorladies are being serious. Chief MC Victoria Sinclair wears a plain black dress (and keeps it on) while reading her summary of the eastern U.S. grimness. Only after moving on to other topics do she and her Toronto-based colleagues return to celebrating the flesh (in their standing-up-straight, plain-speaking, non-lurid way).

CAPITOL HILL began to return to its normal rituals Thursday. The coffeehouse and bar chatter was again about interpersonal issues, money worries, and least-favorite bands, as well as that one overriding topic.

At Six Arms last night, a young woman came up to me bearing a big smile and intense blue eyes. She held my hand, looked compassionately into my eyes, and told me she could see that I, like a lot of people these past few days, are doing far too much worrying for our own good. She said we all need to stop fretting and replaying old fears; and to start giving love instead.

Then she tried to sell me on the Landmark Forum, the self-improvement course derived from Werner Erhard’s old “est.”

But even if her primary purpose with me was solicitacious, not altruistic, the first part of her message still holds. As some ’70s self-help book said, “Love is letting go of fear.”

Spread the love to all around you on these days of sorrow and remembrance, freely and unconditionally, without asking for anything back (including self-improvement-course signups).

NOAM CHOMSKY WRITES:

“…The crime is a gift to the hard jingoist right, those who hope to use force to control their domains.”

NY TIMES: “Web Offers Both News and Comfort.”

PONDER-AGE #1: I believe there likely won’t be another big terror attack of this sort within the next weeks or months. The state-of-seige measures now in place or considered are a matter of locking the barn door after the horse has gotten out, a universal human reaction but one which, in this case, should be guarded against. We don’t want the defense of American property to become an excuse for the destruction of American freedoms.

PONDER-AGE #2: Besides the immediate destruction and mass murder, the attack (and the reactions to it) could very well destablize an already teetering economy.

At least one airline, Midway, has said it won’t resume business; this week’s suspensions had been the last of its many fiscal woes.

Also, “just-in-time” manufacturing and distribution systems (not to mention catalog and e-commerce retailers) have made American business even more dependent on its air freight system; even as budget-cutting companies have reduced their use of passenger business flying. The lack of air-transport options means truck and van delivery systems are glutted and sluggish.

Not only have movie theaters and other entertainment attractions been closed one to three days, but the lack of TV commercials means movie openings this and near-future weekends will face diminished attendance.

On the almost-positive side, four days without the NYSE and NASDAQ might provide an overdue breather from the past year and a half of irrational selling that had followed four years of irrational buying.

PONDER-AGE #3: I really wish Harper’s Magazine had an adequate website, because I’d love to link to editor Lewis Lepham’s big essay a month or two back on America’s contradictory image of itself as all-powerful AND all-innocent. It’s precisely this national self-image might’ve helped lead to the bombings.

In Lapham’s argument, the U.S. (or at least its top management and the punditocracy) likes to think of itself as both The Only Superpower and The World’s Peacemaker. Thus, everything done in the country’s name is unquestionably Good, from backing the Contras and Pinochet to bombing Belgrade.

This is not to justify the terrorists but to understand the feelings they successfully exploited among their suicidal foot soldiers. From at least the Spanish-American War on to the present day, the U.S. has instigated, supported, and/or sponsored all manner of terror attacks, coups, counterrevolutions, proxy armies, covert actions, etc. etc.

Yes, superpowers (Rome, Japan, Spain, England, Russia, the Ottomans) have historically and regulalry abused their power as means of maintaining it. But if that’s what it takes to be the world’s single most powerful entity, we should ask if we really want to keep being it.

THE FOLLOWING EMAIL is rapidly spreading around the Net (I don’t know who originally sent it):

“Let us all join together, STAND TOGETHER, neighbor to neighbor, across the entire United States and show our unity as a people. This is our time to show solidarity with the people of New York & Washington, and with the families, friends and colleagues that lost loved ones. Your pain is our pain, Our hope will become your hope.

This Friday evening, September 14th, at 9:30 PM Eastern Time (6:30 PM PST), I ask that you all come out of your homes, LIGHT A CANDLE and observe two minutes of silence. We will all stand together as one nation and one people. We will be a beacon of light unto the world.

TIME: FRIDAY, September 14th 9:30 PM Eastern Time / 6:30 PM Pacific Standard Time

Please forward this message to all your friends, colleagues, family, newspapers and media sources.

God bless America.”

MICHAEL MOORE WRITES:

“Well, the pundits are in full diarrhea mode, gushing on about the ‘terrorist threat’ and today’s scariest dude on planet earth–Osama bin Laden. Hey, who knows, maybe he did it. But, something just doesn’t add up.

Am I being asked to believe that this guy who sleeps in a tent in a desert has been training pilots to fly our most modern, sophisticated jumbo jets with such pinpoint accuracy that they are able to hit these three targets without anyone wondering why these planes were so far off path?

Or am I being asked to believe that there were four religious/political fanatics who JUST HAPPENED to be skilled airline pilots who JUST HAPPENED to want to kill themselves today?

Maybe you can find one jumbo jet pilot willing to die for the cause–but FOUR? Ok, maybe you can–I don’t know.

What I do know is that all day long I have heard everything about this bin Laden guy except this one fact–WE created the monster known as Osama bin Laden!

Where did he go to terrorist school? At the CIA!

Don’t take my word for it–I saw a piece on MSNBC last year that laid it all out. When the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, the CIA trained him and his buddies in how to commits acts of terrorism against the Soviet forces. It worked! The Soviets turned and ran.

Bin Laden was grateful for what we taught him and thought it might be fun to use those same techniques against us.

“We abhor terrorism–unless we’re the ones doing the terrorizing.

We paid and trained and armed a group of terrorists in Nicaragua in the 1980s who killed over 30,000 civilians. That was OUR work. You and me. Thirty thousand murdered civilians and who the hell even remembers!

We fund a lot of oppressive regimes that have killed a lot of innocent people, and we never let the human suffering THAT causes to interrupt our day one single bit.

“…Let’s mourn, let’s grieve, and when it’s appropriate let’s examine our contribution to the unsafe world we live in.”

A MOVIE we’re not likely to see revived soon. And another.

BILL CAUGHEY WRITES with some suggestions for the media, and for the rest of us:

“1. No speculation, the pundits and so-called experts need to be quiet. ‘Just the facts…’

NO ONE SHOULD REPORT OR PUBLISH TV RATINGS FOR THIS PERIOD. That should stop future excesses by the networks!

Stop the replays of the crashes; one viewing of the planes hitting the buildings is enough!

Stop the journalistic posturing, the investigations will tell us ‘how could this have happened.’

Go back to commercials; we need to return to a sense of normalcy as soon as possible.

Quit looking for the ‘scoop;’ journalists are already getting in the way of investigators.

Remember that children watch TV too; enough of the hysteria and talk about war.

Stop showing the celebrations in in the mideast; no need to fan the flames, we know some people hate America.

2. FIND THE HEROES; we are not a nation of victims!

3. Respect for everyone; no scapegoats. Let the investigations run their course.

4. MORE prayers and blessings for those who suffer.

5. No mercy for the criminals and those who helped them in any way.

6. No politics; we rally behind the president and follow his lead.

7. God bless America and those who stand with us.”

MIKKEL URUP WRITES FROM DENMARK:

“It’s difficult to grasp the concept the amount of hatred and the brutal Nazi -like efficiency this one was carried out with.

The terrorist action in New York possibly killed 10,000 people but has depressed and scared a nation, even the world. I think the second accomplishment was their primary intent.

One feel depressed as one can do nothing; there is not even, as of now, a known target for retaliation.

But one can stop the terrorists in succeeding in their prime intent by flourishing and prospering, regardless of the onslaught!

By the way, I think it’s so much against our basic nature to destroy each other, that living with having done this at some level is a brutal punishment. I know it eventually will eat them up from the inside.

Take care everybody and: Flourish and prosper!”

JON CARROLL WRITES:

“There will be pressure to suspend our freedoms, to allow the government to invade our privacy and control our speech as part of the glossy new war. If terrorists force America to give up its freedoms, then they will have won.”

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY has a page of links to past articles on terrorism, including one in which ex-CIA higher-up Reuel Marc Gerecht talks about how difficult it is to get real intelligence about terror cells.

ANOTHER LIST OF LINKS to online reports and comments is at SiliconValley.com.

CORWIN HAECK WRITES:

“Not quite a morbid aside, but this occurred to me early in the unfolding of the story: Some buildings are just too damn tall.

“I always felt that way about the World Trade Center. Not only were they too tall, but they visually unbalanced the entire island of Manhattan. The towers, by virtue of being featureless, untapered rectangles, looked top-heavy and ungainly.

I admire some tall buildings. The Empire State Bldg. is a brilliant classic. The Patronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur are too tall but at least look cool. Overall, though, most really tall buildings are excessive and ugly.

“Now we see again that they can be targets, too.

“The loss of life in this attack is terrible. The loss of the buildings is no tragedy.”

NOT ONLY HAVE news websites struggled to stay online with the heavy demand, but the founder of one of the leading bandwidth-supply and server companies was one of the slain.

Also confirmed dead: Frasier co-creator David Angell, who as much as anybody invented the modern image of Seattle as a smugly sophisticated, or sophisticatedly smug, place.

And, of course, the image of Boeing jets might forever be changed in the subconscious minds of millions.

BLOGGER, the page-generation service I’m using to update this site, has been working at less than optimal efficiency this night. Not only are Net connections swamped worldwide, but many Blogger users are, like me, trying to post many updates. I’ve still got my regular FTP access to the Speakeasy servers, and can use that as a backup means.

ARTS AND LETTERS DAILY bears the simple masthead statement: “JESUS WEPT.”

MORBID ASIDE #5: There’s no knowing when baseball games will resume, and whether all the games canceled would be rescheduled. It might be that once the Mariners clinch the AL West title (just two Seattle wins or Oakland losses away), the Major League Baseball honchos would simply let the canceled M’s games remain canceled. Thus, the team might not get to try for the all-time best regular season record in baseball history, which it was on a pace to break.

THE NORTHWEST CABLE NEWS SITE is back up tonight, and has this moving account of local reactions.

The cable channel is also now reporting brisk business at military recruiting stations. (Perhaps my fears of an uprising of war-lust are, alas, coming true.)

SCRIPTING NEWS quotes an email posted from a Seattle hotel room by John Perry Barlow, a pro-corporate Libertarian with whom I often disagree, but who here has a salient warning:

“…Nothing could serve those who believe that American “safety” is more important than American liberty better than something like this. Control freaks will dine on this day for the rest of our lives.

“Within a few hours, we will see beginning the most vigorous efforts to end what remains of freedom in America. Those of who are willing to sacrifice a little – largely illusory – safety in order to maintain our faith in the original ideals of America will have to fight for those ideals just as vigorously.

“I beg you to begin NOW to do whatever you can – whether writing your public officials, joining the ACLU or EFF [note: Electronic Frontiers Foundation, a group opposing Net censorship], taking to the streets, or living visibly free and fearless lives – to prevent the spasm of control mania from destroying the dreams that far more have died for over the last two hundred twenty five years than died this morning.

“Don’t let the terrorists or (their natural allies) the fascists win. Remember that the goal of terrorism is to create increasingly paralytic totalitarianism in the government it attacks. Don’t give them the satisfaction.

“Fear nothing. Live free.”