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Friday, January 18, 2008 12:00 AM

"Cloverfield"

Do we really need the horror of 9/11 to be repackaged and presented to us as an amusement-park ride?

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  • Friday, January 18, 2008 11:56 AM

    Anonymous @ 10:15 & Zandru

    Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do feel for victims of natural, or unnatural, disasters around the world. Do you? In fact, some of the big ones drive me to tears, and I'm not being facetious. Basic human decency, the quality of mercy, does not stop in one's own backyard (at least not in mine).

    And Zandru, you're right, I didn't see your second post, but I still must disagree. Have you stopped feeling for those left dead, homeless or bereft by Hurricane Katrina? After all, it happened two-and-a-half years ago, to people a long ways away that we don't know. How about the cyclone in Bangladesh last November? Three thousand gone, a quarter of a million homeless, but it's no one I know. The Asian tsunami of 2004? Old news. Why doesn't everyone just get over it?

    9/11, or any one of a number of horrors, may not have happened to you personally. But the thread that runs through all of these examples and countless other catastrophes, including terrorist attacks, is that they strike randomly, without warning. They can happen to any one of us, at any time - even you. When it does, we learn very quickly the meaning of charity and mercy, and the real measure of our fellow man - those who open themselves to the suffering of others, and those who say "get over it".

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