over the past week my inbox has been inundated with various forwards regarding the attack on the world trade center. i've found some of them to be a bit insensitive, some were rather insightful, and some were astoundingly ignorant. i'm going to abuse my web space and get on my soap box for a bit, and then welcome back space girl will go back to being a web site about nothing.

first off, my sincerest condolences to those who have or may have lost someone as a result of this disaster. there was an hour or so where i had no idea where my boyfriend was. even though he didn't work in the financial district, i was unsure how what was happening was affecting the subways underground, and the panic i experienced cannot be described. i can't even imagine what the families and friends of the victims are going through right now. my sympahties also go to those that survived the attack, and i wish them a speedy mental and physical recovery.

although i'm very lucky in that i've lost no loved ones or acquaintances, it's still something that has affected me greatly. to put it simply, new york is my home, and my home has been fucked with. walking around manhattan now is not unlike walking through your apartment after being burglarized. someone has intruded, and you're afraid they're going to come back. the smoke from the world trade center blew debris to my rooftop in brooklyn, and i've smelled the stifling stench you hear about on tv; the combination of concrete dust, burnt plastic and electrical wire, and human flesh that sits in your lungs and stays there. i still jump when i hear the subway moving under my apartment. everyone is in a state of wanting things to return to normalcy, noone fully grasps the fact that this has actually happened.

i can remember when the towers were first attacked, one of the news commentators started saying "there is no way we as a country can go back to doing the irresponsible things we've gotten away with. our government, the media, and our global corporations are all going to change as a result of this". only adding to the tragedy is the fact that absolutely nothing has changed. our wacky ignorant president has only become a gung-ho charicature of his already laughable self. "infinite justice" sounds like a bad steven segal movie, not a tactical move in which more innocent lives are going to be lost. the citizens of this country are coping, not by educating themselves, but by hunting down the now elusive american flag like it's the newest beanie baby or pokemon card. people will applaud any half-assed attack at anything middle eastern, while having absolutely no idea that by filling up the gas guzzling suv at shell, heading over to mcdonalds for a super size extra value meal, and going next door to pick up a fabulously overpriced sweater at banana republic, they are helping to do more harm to the world than bush is probably (or should i say hopefully) capable of. people need proper information as to what is going on in this country and the rest of the world. the mainstream media in this country continues to focus on largely inconsequential news items to appease their advertisers. if you think that the most important thing happening this summer was a bunch of shark attacks i've got a bridge i'd like to sell you. i'm not even going to begin to get into the amount of misguided racism flowing through the country's veins right now.

i'm not saying we deserved this, noone deserves what has happened, and i'd be relieved to see proper actions taken against whoever is behind all of this. what i'm saying is that we as a country are headed directly down the wrong path right now, and quite frankly, i'm frightened.