JiM's Dreams

Four years ago, I got up and stared at AOL and watched the video of a plane hitting the tower and remember desperately praying that it was a CGI. It simply couldn't be real. In an odd way, it still isn't.

I don't mean that the people aren't dead and their families don't grieve and the incredible stories of courage and compassion and sheer commitment to life didn't happen. But what's changed in the world?

Americans are less well-liked than ever before? Not exactly. It's just that we know it now. (I remember traveling overseas and being so appalled by the behavior of my fellow American tourists that I spent a fair amount of time trying not to speak English so that people would more easily mistake me for some other nationality - Canadian for preference. No one seems to hate the Canadians, except the Quebecois.) I'm not sure we've been all that well-liked since 1945. Of course, we've been muscling around the world since then, too. There could be a correlation.

Which is not to suggest that I consider terrorist attacks the just desserts for our disastrous foreign policies. Rather, the scenes of Palestinians and other Arabs dancing in the streets as they heard the news of the attacks merely showed us the truth about how some countries and their populations view us.

But I choose to think of the millions of messages that came from people all across the world that contained shared grief and shock and a sense of sympathy and love for those who were suffering and those who had died.
Not unlike the responses we have seen from individual and countries to the plight of Hurricane Katrina's victims -- some surprises, like Cuba and some disappointments, like Germany's Economic (?) minister.

The Good People of the world are out there, praying and feeling for us on this day and during the continued horrific aftermath of the hurricane. To answer my question posited above, that is one of the things that hasn't changed in the world. I take some comfort in that.

May God bless and bring comfort to those whose lives were changed forever on this date in 2001 and may God sustain those who struggle now.

(What, you thought a slasher wasn't gonna be religious at you? Ha!)

So, I'm explaining about my Live Journal to my husband yesterday as we rocket down the freeway. It's not a great road, the car isn't high end and he has a slight hearing loss. So I burble away happily about icons and tell him about finding the mood icons and using the "ferret" patterned ones.

OK, to be fair, I might have said something like, "And now I have Mood Ferrets!"

He is unusually quiet for about five miles, then asks (in that same calm tone that people usually use around dangerous lunatics, fruppy babies and cracked out gym teachers),

"Um, how can you tell if the ferrets are nude?"

I had to pull over.

So here is the question for the ages -- How CAN you tell if the ferrets are nude?

Many thanks to troutkitty and her adorable girl for the Nude!Ferret philosophy icon.