When I arrived at work, the UPS delivery man was ringing the doorbell. I let him in, remarking that the front desk person "normally" would have been there. Normally. "Don't you know", he said, "we're under attack". I had not watched the news before leaving the house. This was the first I heard of it. For the next three hours in between searching for further news about what was going on on my computer, I obsessively watched television in the conference room with the three other people in the office.
At around eleven I headed out. No point in staying, nothing would get done, everybody had gone home.
In Northbeach I spoke for a while with Mohammed and the Algerian at a hamburger joint, before heading up the street to visit Abdullah and his family. Abdullah's wife was somewhat panicky.
The others were disturbed.
Yes, everyone knew this wasn't another Timothy McVeigh.
And that had been bad enough, at the time.
This would be worse.
Over the next several weeks we read reports of Sikhs being attacked, a Yemeni gas station worker being shot at (photo of a depressed dude behind bullet proof glass that had held, when several rounds had been fired at him), random violence towards immigrants and people of colour (I say random, because clearly the perpetrators did not know their victims from Adam), and hatefilled outbursts from the very worst elements in American society (preachers, politicians, and rightwing pundits).
And, about a month later, the entire company sat down to a sumptuous Afghani lunch. When I suggested to the boss that that might be a good thing, and that a restaurant we both loved needed support, he agreed.
I think everyone thoroughly enjoyed the food.
Yeah, things did get worse. We've had to listen to a lot of bullshit since then, from hate-filled preachers, many politicians, and Fox News "pundits". And there has been a lot of flag waving by some of the worst elements in American society.
Also, we can no longer bring shampoo onto airplanes.
The horror, the horror.
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