This photograph was found in the Local/State section of today’s Macon Telegraph. Look carefully at the sign on the right-hand side of the picture. Then note the name of the coordinator, as mentioned in the caption. Anyone else find this combination amusingly ironic?

Hah. While looking around Radio-Locator, I was presented with this advertisement for a book by former Georgia governor Zell Miller. Now I can understand misspelling the name of my state once— but twice in the same ad?!

And incidentally, the Internet connection here in the residence halls at Mercer is going to be upgraded to 10mbps this weekend (and in the process, split apart from that used for the university’s Atlanta campus). Those of you who have dealt with the sluggish network performance in the dorms and computer labs will very easily understand why this makes me happy… and those who haven’t, well, let’s just say that the connection rates I’m getting right now make those from my old Compu$erve dialup actually look good, heh.

I would have written something longer about today’s events at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but Kat has already written an excellent commentary, and as is more often than not the case, her opinions on the issue are practically identical to mine. So, I’ll just use her blog entry as a starting point and add a few comments of my own…

I still find these whole happenings surreal. Despite the fact that I’ve been bombarded (no pun intended!) with scenes of the attack playing throughout the day on television sets around the campus, despite the fact that I heard the news as it happened while listening to the radio, despite the fact that classes were even suspended today in memory of the victims– I just can’t believe that it actually happened. Kat’s right; it’s just so bizarre, so unexpected, that it seems more like something from a piece of alternate-reality fiction than anything which actually occurred. Perhaps that’s part of the reason she and I can’t really feel much emotion toward it; don’t get me wrong; I sympathize for those wounded or killed during the event, it’s just that, like Kat, I can’t emotionally connect with anything that’s happened. I’m too separated from anything that’s gone on to really feel any grief, in the usual sense of the term.

Indeed, what I’m more afraid of– living only miles from a major air force base, especially– is the fact that this can only go further from here. Will this lead to all-out war? Is this “the next Pearl Harbor,” as many commentators have suggested? Only time will tell– but one thing’s for sure: this has definitely made its way into the history books.

To think that the Pentagon has been attacked for the first time since its inception… To think that the Twin Towers will literally be unknown to our descendants, a vestige of history… wow. Again, it’s just so surreal, so outrageous, that it’s simply unbelievable…