I was reading a CNN news article the other day about how all these torture movies coming out could be "affecting our youth."

Bull.

But this quote actually made me think a bit: "Torture is entertainment," said John Roth. "It's not new. You now have a wave of kids that were 10, 11, and 12 years old when 9/11 happened. Now these kids are 16, 17, and 18, and they've grown up with 'Terror Alert Orange,'

'You're going to get blown up,' and 'Every time you get on an airplane you x-ray your shoes.' And for me, I still go, 'I can't ****ing believe I have to take off my sneakers,' but for these kids that's totally normal. And every time you think, 'We better do this or we're going to get blown up. Don't travel. The war in Iraq that's never-ending and is getting worse…'

If you're 16 or 17 years old, I'd be ****ing terrified that the draft is coming, especially with [the war] not ending. And you're 12, 13, 14, and the war is getting worse and still going on and you're getting closer to that age? That's really ****ing scary."



I never actually considered this. Is this why kids can handle more violence in the media, be it entertainment or just news? Was 9/11 an actual turning point in history? Up to this point, I always considered 9/11 to just be another paragraph in a textbook and that was it, but now looking back at it, so much has changed since it happened.

Now I realize that in sixty years, I can say to my grandkids, "I can still remember what I was doing when those planes hit like it was yesterday." Makes you think, doesn't it? I'd like to end with a short piece I received in an email.

As you might know, the head of a company survived

9/11 because his son started kindergarten.

Another fellow was alive because it was

His turn to bring donuts.

One woman was late because her

Alarm clock didn't go off in time.

One was late because of being stuck on the NJ Turnpike

Because of an auto accident.

One of them

Missed his bus.

One spilled food on her clothes and had to take

Time to change.

One's

Car wouldn't start.

One went back to

Answer the telephone.

One had a

Child that dawdled

And didn't get ready as soon as he should have.

One couldn't

Get a taxi.

The one that struck me was the man

Who put on a new pair of shoes that morning,

Took the various means to get to work

But before he got there, he developed

a blister on his foot.



He stopped at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid.

That is why he is alive today.