| Show Standard-Examin- Opinion IDA Tuesday September 18 2001 er Standard-Examin- er SERVING THE TOP OF UTAH SINCE 1888 ' Scott Trundle Publisher Don Portef Editorial Page Editor Ron Thornburg Managing Editor Feds should increase Olympic security funds tempting target for murderous terrorists is hard to imagine A more high-profi- le Sept The ripplestoofspread Olympic Games are not made the target of another Terrorist strike 11 It JL now seems assured that there will be even more security at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Utah than anticipated before the terrorist attacks in New York Washington DC and in the skies above Pennsylvania Ironically Salt Lake Organizing Committee chief Mitt Romney was in Washington when the attacks occurred meeting with government officials to lobby for the remaining $127 million in federal funding to pay for expected Olympic security costs Now to no one’s surprise it appears he’ll get more than he was asking for The deficiencies in this nation’s security apparatus were laid bare for all to see last week and everyone wants to make sure the To that end SLOC will likely receive more funding for extra peace officers and more equipment And we can expect beefed-u- p security at aU venues - including the downtown medals plaza where tens of thousands are expected to revel nightly during the Games It is a sad commentary on our times that we must go to such lengths to protect athletic contests and public parties But these are sad times in which we live The people of Utah appreciate the federal government’s willingness to increase funds for Olympic security 'We hope these expenditures and increased planning will deter would-b- e killers A quieter Clearfield years of hoping and waiting residents got stateto build sound wall After i Persistence pays off North and 200 South Mor- gan The only thing between Morgan’s Clearfield home is her back yard and The incessant traffic noise hasn’t stopped for almost 40 years And a couple of times grass fires started by the side of the freeway We spread into her yard The last time that happened in the Morgan promised herself she would do something about it This week the Utah Department of Transportation began an $800000 construction project to build a sound wall behind Morgan’s home - and those of her Clearfield neighbors between 450 1-- 15 mid-199- 0s ransa Larger anti-terr- or Indeed her tenacity and ability to work within the system got the project OK’d and will soon enough bring her relief It is important to note that only about $1 million a year is available to build sound walls statewide So Morgan’s victory achieved alongside her neighbors who rallied to the cause and kept pushing on Clearfield officials Rep Don Bush and transportation officials for the past half decade is significant Hats off to Morgan her fellow Clearfield residents and public officials who listened to the citizens’ pleas The wreak destruction To do that diplomats will be as important as soldiers Finding the loose networks Exactly a week ago I was about to leave home for my office when the phone rang It was my secretary “I’ve been watching television so I’ll be a bit late this morning” she said “Huh?” Janet is a diligent professional Being late for work because she was watching TV just didn’t make sense “Everything OK?” I asked “You haven’t heard!” She said Early Tuesday mornings I always bury myself in my home office getting music and worship materials set up for Sunday -- 1 don’t even turn ron the TV for background noise Janet quickly outlined the news for me A few seconds later I had the television on and saw the unbelievable tape of the aircraft slamming into the World Trade Center towers My first thought was about the almost identical scene described in the concluding chapters of Tom Clancy’s 1997 novel “Debt of Honor” Entertainment Weekly described Clancy’s conclusion as “ a shocker climax so plausible you’ll wonder why it hasn’t yet happened” Well now it’s happened My second thought was the selfish notion most of us have had that it’s nice to live in Utah which offers improbable metropolitan targets for terrorists And then thought number three: “I guess we won’t be a target until the Olympics come to town” How are we going to cope? Everyone I’ve spoken to remembers exactly how they first learned about the attack a week ago They’ll never forget as they try to cope We began to do the things we have to do to live our lives in a national crisis My church quickly mobilized and we held a somber service of wholeness and prayer that MMfeTop of Utah Voice goal and easily concealed hiding places of terrorists will require the cooperation of Countries many nations in Asia and the Middle East that worry about Islamic fundamentalists within their borders are rightly being told they have no choice but to help The United States and its allies will in return be obliged to more vigorously support certain undemocratic governments - think of Pakistan’s military rulers At least the reason for such relationships will be clear - Los Angeles Times voices They won’t forget And for a few minutes they coped with the crisis by singing love songs about their country We have a lot to remember as we try to cope with this crisis We must remember that not every Moslem is a terrorist or even sympathetic with Layton resident Neal Humphrey grew up in the holy war insanity that has infectCalifornia He is the pastor of Westminster ed a tiny fringe minority of their cochurch in Fruit Heights religionists We must remember that not every Arab is a Moslem very evening In the coping categor One of my friends is Munther ry of “life must go on” the women a Christian from Lebanon and men who serve as elders govMunther’s family has been Christian erning our ministries still gathered since the first century becoming last Tuesday for our monthly busifollowers of Christ hundreds of ness meeting years before any of our European ancestors In fact we must rememThe next day Wednesday I was ber that most Moslems are not Arscheduled to lead a devotional for abs Hatred for Moslems or Arabs is school-agstudents at a local high not coping it’s merely as stupid as if I kids school asked the parochial presuming that all Southerners are they remembered how they found sympathetic with the Klan or all out about the attacks They all remembered I told them about what it Irish Catholics support the IRA Jab-bu- e was like on Nov 22 1963 when I was in high school to try to cope with the national crisis of having a president assassinated Kids like that don’t have much tolerance for adults talking religious talk at them for the amount of time I had so I came prepared with a noisy electric guitar and some amplification equipment to accompany some singing We sang some contemporary Christian rock and roll then shifted to familiar patriotic songs As they sang “America the Beautiful” I pulled away from the microphone to just listen to their beautiful voices while I played I couldn’t sing anyway -- 1 was weeping We concluded with an exuberant “Star Spangled Banner” I tried to keep up grinding out crunchy guitar chords under their bold We will also cope by engaging in whatever war has begun It will be a new kind of war that will probably require more patience and resolve than past hostilities We’ll have to remember the ghastly images on our televisions We’ll have to remember the quiet and empty skies of last week We’ll be reminded again and again as we travel by air and have to endure the inconvenience of new levels of vigilance In early 2002 we will host the world at the Winter Olympics - and all of us will be affected by the heightened security How will we cope with that intrusion into our lives? By remembering last week Neal Humphrey accepts at revnealixnetcomcom Explaining attacks to kids a difficult task POSTON - This is how the world shatters the protective shield we wrap around our children: A turns from the news to her father and asks “Are we safe?” J Greater US involvement in world affairs is required for ‘war’ to succeed White House is building to combat the global terrorists who struck the United States last Tuesday In the days since passenger planes commandeered by terrorist hijackers crashed into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon swift vengeance is tantalizing But the United States and its allies also seek a more enduring goal of neutralizing terrorists’ ability to Now is time for remembering and coping A fourth-grade- r rushes into a classroom whose teacher is primed for a careful discussion and yells out “The United States is under attack!” A small girl calls her frequent-flyin- g ‘ grandmother to announce “Bad men blow up planes and maybe we shouldn’t take planes because-baipen are in charge of them” News infiltrates our home like the ubiquitous dust of disaster over lower Manhattan Just two years ago we were angrily forced to interpret Columbine to frightened Now we are expected to the explain crumbling world to children we would comfort How long has ij been since parents had the luxury of filtering the world for their children? When I was small - before JFK before Martin Luther King before TV - trouble was screened If cancer was only whispered about the Holocaust was treated with silence It was years before the children of my postwar era grappled with the evils that shook their parents’ view of humanity Now adults who believe in being both honest and protective are The news hits caught in mid-gas- p the at and the grade-schoole- rs the same raw moment As David Walsh founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family says “We wouldn’t give a second grader a quadratic equation to solve But in an information-anywhere-anytim- e world we have children exposed to quadratic equations of moral infor- mation” in the world canAll the not screen out reality And we are peppered with the same questions a small witness to the disaster asked her father: “Why would they kill people? Why would they kill them- selves?” In the emotional emergency kit put out in the aftermath of this attack psychologists offered their basic tools Make children feel safe (even if we do not) Tell them adults are in charge (even if we doubt it) Listen But the larger question is how we frame this world for our children How do we reconstruct the debris of events into a moral house of right and wrong good and bad that they can grow up in? The stories we tell about human nature about victims and heroes justice and revenge may determine not only what they believe about the world but who they become As New York City dug through the debris and parents made some attempts at normalcy I asked a handful of psychologists the same question What stories would they choose to tell and retell children from the growing Rolodex of dramatic narratives? About the New Yorkers who survived the long hike down the stairs? About airline pas- sengers Who apparently wrestled the terrorists? About good and bad people? Without a second thought David Walsh chose the firefighters Tell children he said about “people who had a choice who harnessed their own horses of fear to go into that inferno to help people” James Garbarino of Cornell University who has worked with children in war zones around the world ” said “choose stories of caring-in-action- rescued rescue worker whose first questions were about others A man who carried a woman on crutches down dozens of floors Go to the helpers they all agreed for our heroes Go to the helpers Stories that are both true and bearable offer comfort and confirmation to our children And to ourselves Pulitzer columnist Ellen Goodman is associate editor of A Prize-winnin- g The Boston Globe |
