Duckbill Outdoors remembers Sept. 11th

It's already been 6 years since that unforgettable day when the United States was shaken to the core by the attacks against New York City and the Pentagon. So much has changed since then, despite the fact that it seems so recent and fresh in our memories.

The world seems like a much smaller place today than it did in 2001. This may perhaps be the result of trends that were happening before the attacks, but part of me thinks that the events of 9/11 must have had some effect on the way the world has seemed to shrink in the past six years.

Think of how often we use the Internet today, not just for research papers or news reports, which is all I remember using the Internet for back in the day, when I was still in junior high and high school, but all sorts of things - just look at the blogosphere itself - in the wake of 9/11, 24-hour news stations on TV and blogging sites that reported lesser-known news stories became very important to people - in a world that suddenly seemed so un-safe, we wanted to know what was happening in our world right now, to alleviate our fear. Networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn allow people to stay in contact around the world, at any time. Cell phone companies have seen incredible growth as well in the last six years.

Now maybe I'm making too broad of an assumption - maybe there's other more important factors that have contributed to all these things. I'll see what our readers have to say about all this. But I do think that we have become much more preoccupied with staying connected to people in the last six years than we were before.

All this leads back to talking about September 11th. It's important for us Americans to remember the freedoms we have in this country that other countries don't get to enjoy. In today's headlines we see places like Darfur and Afghanistan where people are suffering, and hopefully we realize that we take so much of our freedom for granted. We ought to remember the unity we felt on that day, and despite our political differences, remember that as a country, as citizens of these United States, we all share a certain common destiny, which is wrapped up intrinsically with our need to preserve liberty and justice for all. I think that is the most important lesson we can take away from that tragedy that happened 6 years ago today.

Take care out there everybody,

-Dennis