There’s a big anthrax scare going on right now. People have become infected in Florida and New York. No word on if it was related to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.
By watching all the protests against US attacks on Afghanistan, I’m beginning to see that there are quite a few people who are very mistaken. They carry around “Long Live Bin Laden” posters. If they could see the destruction in NYC they would see that Bin Laden is no hero. They think they can hurt us by burning American flags. They only succeed in making themselves look foolish and extreme.
On a non-political note, I’ve been watching the Real World San Francisco on Tivo lately. MTV has the first 4 seasons into syndication. It comes on at 4AM, but Tivo records it for me to watch later on. I can only say that San Francisco’s Real World has to the most politically correct Real World ever. MTV and Bunim-Murray obviously have some kind of agenda to push. The only one who is real on this Real World is Rachel. The rest are just 2 dimensional stereotypes.

When I got home from church Sunday, I found out that the US was starting to bomb Afghanistan. It’s like a flashback of the Gulf War…watching CNN all the time. The Emmy’s were cancelled due to the war, which is just as well. I can’t remember the last time I watched them. Just another show of self absorbed celebrities winning awards for TV shows which I don’t watch.
I’ve been having numerous problems trying to install a printer on my work PC. It would appear that the printer and the PC are not compatible….keeps on rebooting everytime the printer software is loaded. I’m taking it in to Desktop services tomorrow. Hopefully they can fix it.

We had 605 for worship services on Sunday morning yesterday, but it seemed like much more. There were people there who I hadn’t seen in a while. We have had 5 baptisms during the past 2 weeks and 5 responses of people asking for prayers. In times like this, people tend to look toward God for answers.
Amazing. It took the World Trade Center blowing up for MTV to start showing music videos again. I did catch some of a toned down TRL on Friday. Carson Daily was interviewing P. Diddy and N’SYNC members about their thoughts on the terrorism attack. Seemed a bit shallow to me.
Life is slowing getting back to some sense of normalcy. Tivo has been totally useless during much of this crisis since most all regular TV shows had been interupted for continuous news coverage of the events. I haven’t felt like watching many Tivo-taped programs. On Friday I saw the first real TV show on the broadcast channel – Oprah – whose subject was – of course – the terrorist bombing.
On the lighter side, I found a webpage, nomoreaolcds.com, who are collecting AOL CDs to send back to AOL. Once they have a million CDs, they plan on delivering them personally to AOL. I’ll probably send them some of my own given the time.

I continue to be dismayed about the recent terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The pictures coming from the sites are horrific. My friend was six miles from the WTC when it was attacked. He is ok, but a bit shaken up. He said they are stacking bodies on ferries to take them to an island somewhere. He said refridgerated trucks are lining the streets for bodies.
People are displaying the American flag everywhere. On my town’s main road, they have lined flags on the telephone poles. These flags are usually displayed for the 4th of July or Memorial Day. Church attendance last night was up. We had 450 for a Wednesday night service…normally we have around 300.
I noticed that MTV is scrolling a statement at the bottom of the screen saying it is “shocked” at recent events. It’s ironic that this time MTV is shocked.

It’s been a tough week. On Monday I attended the funeral for Elizabeth. It was very fitting. There were over 1000 people there in the auditorium of the high school she attended. We sang songs such as “It is Well with My Soul,” and “Blue Skies and Rainbows,” just like Elizabeth would have wanted. All of us tried to put on a happy face to this, but deep down we are hurting. A couple of the high school band members played taps at the burial service.
Then there’s the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. This seems like something out of a movie. Seems so unreal. I was at work when I found out about it. I went down to the cafeteria where there was a large screen tv with CNN on. Several other workers were there watching in disbelief. After a while, I began to feel unsafe in Nashville and headed home to work from home.
Just about all of the cable channels were broadcasting something having to do with the terrorist acts. TNT and TBS had switched to CNN coverage. MTV, VH1, and TNN switched to CBS News coverage. The Home Shopping Network and QVC suspended programming for the day. Walt Disney World was closed. We had a special prayer service at church Tuesday night. Afterwards we watched President Bush’s speech on the big screen, which had managed to tape while the service was going on.
I have found that there are some very evil people in this world. I can’t began to understand why someone would do such a terrible act.

I found out I’ll be telecommuting full time by September 30th. This is a mixed blessing for me. I like the idea of sleeping an hour later and not having to fight traffic. But there is a very real possibility of turning into a hermit. I like having home and work separated.
Just some random notes. Apparently some lady in Murfreesboro has found Jesus….on a dirty towell no less. While I am glad she has turned her life around, I am a bit discouraged that there are still some people out there who would base their religious beliefs on such unsubstantiated phenomenon. I would say the Tennessean has done a good job of putting a positive spin on things rather than concentrating on the muddy towell like some tabloid rag would.