Bay area commuters may be "shrugging off the threat", but Ken, who works on Treasure Island these days, has been told to bring extra food to work in case they get stranded on the island.

my office is right next to the Bay Bridge and helicopters flew overhead all day.
kinda nervewracking.

But it may be that my current reading material is making me, um, nervous.

Actually, I finished it this evening- "Chienne de Guerre," by Anne Nivat, a French journalist (Moscow correspondent for Liberation). She disguised herself as a Chechen woman (aided by many people and the fact that she speaks fluent Russian) and traveled through Chechnya for 6 months. She finally was arrested by the Russians (she went completely undetected for six months, even through hundreds of Russian checkpoints) and deported back to Moscow.
I can't even begin to describe the horror.
perhaps I'm overly sensitive.
maybe I'm just tired.
but I cried this morning, reading on the bus on the way to work.
At lunch I forgot to breathe while I read the chapter in which she describes being in a house in a village that's bombarded for over four hours.
"The bombardment is horrific. The windowpanes are blown to smithereens. Burning bits of steel tear through the air. The walls tremble. The doors fly open of their own accord. During the attack, Iakha goes imperturbably about her household tasks, sweeping up the splintered window glass, putting the kettle on for tea. Her grandmother is lying against the wall in an adjoining room. I know that the old woman is a little deaf, but she can't fail to hear what is happening around us. During a moment's pause, she shouts out suddenly, in a hoarse, tense voice, 'Is there anyone still alive?'"
When they all emerge afterward every house around them has been flattened.
It's unbelievable, all of it.

here you may read a short interview.
To listen to a longer interview with Nivat by Terry Gross, go to the site for Fresh Air and select April 9th, 2001 (or do a search for Anne Nivat on the archives page).

I've been feeling so incredibly numb about the bombing of Afghanistan- the American media tells me nothing, nothing.
I feel constantly disoriented. I think maybe this book, and the book about Fred Cuny, have given me an extremely helpful perspective about war, about wars like these-
big nation pummels tiny, impoverished nation in the name of fighting terrorism, then distorts the truth and feeds the folks back home a bunch of bullshit.
of course, now I feel I have some perspective, but I'm also totally disturbed.
and I'm possibly more confused than I was before.