Ten years after 9/11, I find that I am still insufficiently terrorized. This is odd, as I have been panphobic nearly all my life. If anybody is going to be terrorized, you would think it would be me. Maybe it's that I haven't hung on cable news the way that most Americans do. I figured out a long time ago what "If it bleeds, it leads" means, and therefore prefer to dwell on the seven billion people who DIDN'T die today, rather than the ones who did. I sense that a lot of Americans cannot keep this straight in their minds, and just focus on all the bad news.
Then again, maybe it was the formative influence of growing up during the Cold War. The nuclear balance of terror was a lot more all encompassing than anything we seem to face today. Universal obliteration was a lot scarier, fear of it was constant and that fear looked to be never-ending. When it ended, the relief was lasting. And even if idiots can wipe out a building, buildings, or even larger places, there is no sense of a universal threat anymore. Regardless, sorry terrorists; this timid person just isn't terrorized.
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