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Location: Home.
Listening: Yet more soundbites.

The aftermath of emotion is running as recklessly as I feared. Driving home, listening to NPR, I heard Trent Lott (R-Mississippi), state that the debate between heightened security and civil liberties is "purely academic...when we are in a state of war, as we are now, civil liberties become [sic] less of a priority.". Just now, on CNN, on a call-in show, more than one person advocated forbidding the entrance of "anyone from a Middle Eastern country" into the United States and, more chilling, "rounding all of those Arab people up and putting them in camps like we did to the Japanese in World War II...detain them until we find out what their stories are and keep them occupied.".

I wish I could say that I didn't expect this, but I did. I wish I could say that I've never heard sentiments like this before--but I have, often from my own family (my grandfather was a brilliant heart surgeon who also happened to be a conspiracy theorist and a frequent contributor to the Aryan Nations and other groups). I wish I could say that I believe that pleading with others for compassion and reason will stem the coming flood of anger and hate. I wish I could say a lot of things.