New York smelled like burning building again today. It hasn't done so in awhile, but I think that the warmer weather today had something to do with it. It's not a good smell. It's an odd smell. It's definitely a burning smell of some kind, but acrid. Sort of like burning rubber, but not quite. I doubt it's going away any time soon. It will probably smell like that when I get back from London in May.
Too many sad days in New York. Too many hysterical newscasts. The poor news stations seem so disappointed at the prospect that Flight 587 wasn't blown up by terrorists.
It's a very interesting -- and at times, disheartening -- time to be a journalism student. On Monday we had a guest speaker from Newsweek come into one of my classes. He expressed his disappointment with his publication for propagating a vapid sense of jingoism. And I'm inclined to agree with him.
Don't get me wrong. I love my country. I love this city. Osama Bin Laden is a bad, bad person. And I'm happy that the Taliban seems to be out of business.
I'm just not entirely convinced that the ends justify the means. Should we have been over there for the reasons we were? Should we have gone in a long time ago to help the people in Afghanistan? Will abolishing the Taliban help us find out who crashed those planes? Is the Northern Alliance much better than the Taliban? They've been known to execute dissenters as well. It's just that we're more inclined to agree with the Northern Alliance's political views, so Peter Jennings glosses over the fact that they killed 100 Taliban sympathizers yesterday (not necessarily soldiers mind you, just sympathizers).
It's all very confusing.
I'll get off my soapbox now. Anyone else want a go?
Robyn
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