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Re: Life in NYC



On Sep 11, 2001 Elizabeth <news}@palatine.demon.co.uk> wrote
   in <1WZE98TBOmn7EwLW@palatine.demon.co.uk>:

> Jeffrey Goldberg <jeffrey@goldmark.org> writes

> >Here is an excerpt from email I got in response to a query.

> (My software snipped the excerpt).

Oops.  Sorry.  I realize now that I quoted it in a way that might get lost
snipped as "over-quoting" by some news readers and that it was below my
sig.  The text of the forwarded message was

 Everyone is safe. The city is in shock. Sirens every minute. Lines at
 banks for money and blood. Everyone just waits to find out who and how
 many people. But your close relatives are all accounted for. We are home.
 Will contact you when we can. Keep in touch. Prayers.

> Your posting brought tears to my eyes. Is it silly to react that
> way to knowledge that strangers are safe?

I don't think it is silly at all.  I have personally refrained from
writing about my own emotional state.  I try not to think about the
passengers on the airplanes.  Or tens of thousands of people in and around
those buildings.

Most of us only really know fewer than 1000 people on a first name basis.
The idea of 10s of thousands, each with whole lives and stories and
families and lovers, killed this way is something that I am not coping
with particular well, even though I have learned that all of my close
relatives are safe.

> I just don't think I can comprehend that there are and will be so many
> who will not get good news.

Nor I.

> There's no way New Yorkers and Washingtonians and other US people can
> really know how many billions are in sorrow for them,

It is hard to think in billions.  It is even hard to think in 10s of
thousands.

> but I hope they can understand how much the rest of the world cares
> about them right now.

Thank you.

-j

-- 
Jeffrey Goldberg
 I have recently moved, see http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/contact.html
 Relativism is the triumph of authority over truth, convention over justice
 From line IS valid, but use reply-to.