911. Nine, One, One. A mere two years ago, those three numbers were all Arabic. Not only that, but the connotation they had was completely different. Those three numbers were what we were to dial in an emergency. We were all taught this as children and none of us have forgotten it, but it has since taken secondary meaning. Our minds first and foremost recall the infamous date that corresponds to those numbers. But don’t you miss the days when we were young enough to believe that those three numbers were all we needed to save the day? Those three numbers have now become only two. Nine. Eleven. I miss those old days though. When the news didn’t make me cry. When we didn’t feel somehow tricked into believing in, paying for, dying for a war. Each day that has gone by since that day two years ago has gotten grayer and grayer. And God, we are so sick of it. Sick of the news and the cities that we can’t pronounce, damnit Dan Rather can’t even pronounce them. I now have to take a college level course to understand the news. And I worry that our fearless leader should perhaps enroll. I am so sick of being told to fear. Fear something, fear someone, fear a religion, fear airplanes, fear powder, fear unemployment. Just be afraid. We are sick to death of the new adjectives that have suddenly forced their way into our lexicon, like slang. Everything is now “Post 9-11” and even “September 11th” has become and adjective. I heard a news report refer to another country’s “September 11th-like tragedy.” I guess it’s our closest point of reference for that kind of death and despair. For the people who have lost love ones, I can only imagine how many times a day their hearts break at the sound of these new adjectives. I am so sick of looking at September 11 news coverage from an academic point of view. Am I not supposed to cry when it’s shown during class? “We just saw the buildings fall 15 times in 20 minutes of news.” Really? I hadn’t noticed. Two years is not time enough for subjectivity. Especially not since nothing has been solved, nothing has changed, not one loose end has been retied. This year, President George W. Bush kept the anniversary very quiet. He didn’t leave Washington all day and called it simply a “sad day.” Quite a change from last year’s barrage of media appearances. I guess he is keeping this anniversary quiet in preparation for next year’s, when the Republican Convention will convene blocks from the World Trade Center site days before the anniversary. If anything, I have to congratulate this administration’s keen use of emotional campaigning. Two years after the day, we have not recovered in the slightest. On that day our country caught a disease and it has only since spread. Recently I was in New York and figured I would make a stop at the site. What I learned is that sadness can be turned into fear and into anger, but when face to face with a footprint that large, it all rushes back. All the tears for the people who lost their lives that day, for the people who are still dying in a war that someone told us was connected. The war that someone told us is going to save the day, just like that magic telephone number of our youth.

-Marisa Franchini is a senior journalism major.