Today has been a big day. I had a job interview and as I was walking out of the house, I saw the first plane returning to San Jose airport. We live close enough that you can clearly read the label on each plane so it's been kind of eerie to not see any. It's also been very quiet, which was disturbing, and nice. But there it was today, a Southwest flight that made me stop in fear. Sure, security's tighter, sure the hijackers most likely aren't interested in a lovely bungalow outside of Willow Glen, but still, just for a moment I thought, what if they are?

On the way up 101 to my interview, I saw American flags on almost every overpass. It was stunning in it's power, deblilitating in the grief that sight caused. To know that now, we're united, but only because some assholes took out almost 5,000 (5,000! That's 2 Pearl Harbors, 3+ Titanics, more than many small towns) of our countrymen.

And let me remind you that by our countrymen, I mean everyone, even and especially those of Arab decent who today feel like targets. Remember Manzinar? When we decided it was ok to put Japanese Americans in camps because they were Japanese? Today, most of us agree that that wasn't the right thing to do. Let us not forget that now as we see our fellow Americans of all races walking down the street.

Beating up a woman with her face covered or a man with a turban will not result in Bin Laden's death, it will not bring back a single soul that we lost this week. It will only reinforce the panic and our arrogance, which, if you ask me (which you did, in a way, by reading this) that some of our actions as a nation, as a military power, have inspired. We're not the world's police, our way of life (my way of life, your way of life) is not the answer for everyone else, or really, for anyone else. Who are we to impose our beliefs on other countries and why are we surprised that they're pissed off when we do? When you're prosperous, when you have the strongest economy in the world and a government that is ostensibly run by the people, it's easy to get lulled into thinking things were always like this, that they'll stay that way forever.

Tuesday's actions changed all that, it shattered our sense of security, and I can only hope that it's caused us to re-think the extent of our self-appointed role as the world's police.

Oh, and I got the job.