Thursday, September 13, 2001
11:28 a.m.
I got this in an email from my cousin, and while you may have seen it already, for those who haven't or would like to read it again, it's here. It really made me feel better.
America: The Good Neighbor.
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a
remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a
Canadian television Commentator. What follows is the full text of his
trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:
"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the
most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the
earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were
lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in
billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts.
None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its
remaining debts to the United States. When France was in danger of
collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their
reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was
there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that
hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were
flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped. The Marshall Plan and the
Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries.
Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent,
warmongering Americans.
I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the
erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any
other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo
Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10?
If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines
except Russia fly American Planes? Why does no other land on earth
even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about
Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German
technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American
technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not once, but several
times - and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the
store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are
not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of
them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American
dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down
through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the
Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody
loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of
other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone
else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was
outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned
tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this
thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to
thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present
troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."
My mother wrote me this morning and had this to say:
"PS - It's been really weird not
having ANY planes overhead for 2 days...last night we
were at the park and saw what seemed to be a military
recon plane overhead...
...the ONLY one in the sky."
Out here in the country there aren't many planes which fly by except those from Harrisburg, so I hadn't noticed. But our house back home is directly under the flight path of hundreds of planes a day from Philly, Newark, and who knows where else. I can only imagine how eerily quiet it is there now.
I was scheduled to give blood tomorrow afternoon, but that's been cancelled since the Red Cross can no longer accept any more blood donations at this time. Hopefully I can give sometime in the upcoming weeks.
That's all for now.
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Tuesday, September 11, 2001
10:34 p.m.
I'm still in shock and am having a difficult time processing this day. I was not able to call home until 3:30 this afternoon to see if everyone at home was okay. They are, so I'm thankful. My heart goes out to those people who have lost loved ones and friends today.
What I cannot understand, though, is why. Why would anyone want to do something like this? And how can there be people out there who would celebrate this tragedy? I can't understand how anyone could hate our country that much. We're people, just like anyone else. I'm not ashamed to say that I'm scared about what the future may be like.
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