Watching and listening to how others memorialized September 11th  against the background of our local experience reinforced the rightness of our observance here at home ... .

Found myself silencing my radio early this morning -- feeling mercilessly exploited by media insistent upon drawing a cynical bow across every emotional string in my patriotic soul!

To have participated in Tuesday's ceremony in which a master sculptor introduced his decade-long love-based response to the World Trade Center's horrific tragedy drew upon the positive responses within each of us, and transformed the rage and fear into an instrument that would evoke our very best selves in answer to those who wished to destroy us.

But there have been moments throughout the day when I was reminded that proximity is surely a factor.  We on the West Coast didn't witness the carnage.  Surely our emotions would have been deepened had the TransAmerica Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge been struck with an equal loss of life.  Surely our fear and anger would have been heightened, and recovery less easily achieved.

Yet  --I've found myself wondering whether there isn't an overt attempt at freshening the case for continuing to generate a rationale for a profitable and never-ending state of war ... .

... but it's difficult to believe that there would be enough cynicism among us to support such a state of being -- or is it?