X-Message-Number: 17600 Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 14:13:29 -0700 From: Kennita Watson <> Subject: Signing off the global terrorism watch For the past week, what time I haven't spent listening to or watching news about the WTC et al has been spent reading or writing email about them. I find the news more than interesting, more than engaging; more like consuming. And because I read, understand, contemplate, type, and edit more slowly than before, due, I think, to physical and cognitive complications of MS (did you know that signals travel ten times more slowly along a nerve fiber without its myelin sheath?), I have been spending four to six hours per day reading, understanding, contemplating, typing, and editing email regarding the attacks, and offering my arguments for or against various sentiments voiced on the mailing lists I frequent (thank goodness I never started reading newsgroups!). I need to get back to my life, and have had little luck exercising restraint in limiting my input (teladdiction?), so I think I'm going to have to give up WTC coverage cold turkey. Please don't take my silence on any issue as lack of concern or opinion. My closing comment, apropos to nothing I've seen online (I haven't read email yet today and plan to file anything that looks like it might discuss WTC, response to WTC, or terrorism in general unread): Estimates that I've seen of damage done by WTC are probably low by a factor of 10, 100, or 1000, because they don't include lost productivity by both the dead and the living, costs to transportation, commerce, etc. of security measures, lost capitalization and investment due to stock market declines and erosion of consumer confidence, etc. I can see myself being swept away on an analysis wave, so I'll stop here. See you when I wash up on a beach of discussions other than of war. -- May you live long and prosper, Kennita -- Kennita Watson | Way Cool Internet Radio: http://www.live365.com | http://www.kennita.com | Great Minds Think Alive! -- Lee Corbin Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17600