and I gladly stand up next to you

by mg at 01:20 PM on September 10, 2002

I've been looking through the Bad Samaritan archives from last year, trying to understand what I was feeling and thinking in relation to all the events of the year since. One thing I've realized is that I still feel as scared and angry and out of control about September 11th as I was while everything was still going on.

I hadn't gone back to those archives until the last couple days, not really wanting to relive those first few moments after the attacks. It was really pointless to not specifically read those archives, because there has not been a day over the past year that I haven't thought about the events of September 11th. I wont go into what I think about what I felt then; I'll save that for tomorrow. But I did I notice something strange and sort of quasi-prophetic about my post from September 10th. Here is an excerpt:

The webring I started, ameriBLOGS, has finally topped twenty members. Check out the list of ring members, visit their sites, and tell them all how groovy you think they are.
And if you happen to be a weblogger (or e/n or a/c person), and you reside within the United States, you should join the ring.
Why a ring for American webloggers you might ask? Well, Australians webloggers have their own ring. So do Great Britain, Canada, and I’m sure a whole slew of other countries that don't even speak English. So, to the world the United States is like some sort of hidden gem amongst all those other countries. In my opinion, there are not enough people who know about us in the U.S., but they should. It is kind like that beach in the movie The Beach, only, America would be a much better place if more people knew about us, came here, hunted sharks and smoked pot. Don’t you think so too?
So, do your part by joining the ring and sharing with the world the little known features of American society, like our food (hmm, McDonalds French fries), entertainment (the world deserves to know about Rat Race), fashion (blue jeans and t-shirts are just too comfortable to keep to ourselves) and culture (guns don't kill people, people kill people).

I find it almost staggering that I wrote about the ring I started to help highlight American webloggers the day before the greatest tragedy in American history, considering the role bloggers played in helping get information out that day (I remember every major news website being brought down by excessive traffic), and the discourse they've helped generate since.

In the past year, many things have happened, one of those many being that the ameriBLOGs webring is now creeping up on 300 members. Go say "hi" to one (or many) of them now. If you haven't already, you should Join the ring, but even if you don't, remember to stay proud. I still am.