Stories that changed our lives

All of the first week in January or the last week in December WTMJ out of
Milwaukee WI did a top ten list of stories that changed our lives. As I
don't recall the full list, I will concentrate on the top two stories, those
being /#2 9/11 and how it spawned two wars and changed the world and at #1
the digital revolution.

9/11 is certainly one of those stories where you remember what you were
doing when you heard about it as well as remembering that day and, likely,
the days that followed it. Who can forget where they were that day? I
can't as I was listening to the radio after speaking with my husband,
something which usually happened as he left before I did at the time. I
called him and told him that WBBM was taking feed from New York and I didn't
know why. The whole world would soon learn why. The World Trade Center
(WTC) became ground zero in the war on terror; but more importantly a field
in Pennsylvania gave us our first casualties in that war. The fact that the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were spawned by this attack cannot be
understated. They showed the U.S. resolve to go after these animals
although the war in Iraq was not a popular decision by any stretch of the
imagination. Now you have to wonder about that resolve with Obama in power
and a team who doesn't even know how the hell to handle a terrorist suspect,
i.e. enemy combatant.

Now, eight years later we're still dealing with the fallout from 9/11,not
the least of which is the ill-advised sale of the Thompson prison here in
Illinois to the Federal government for use in bringing Guantanamo to
Illinois. Then you have the difference in how Republicans and Democrats see
this issue. The Republicans see terrorism as a military issue while
Democrats see it as a law enforcement issue. Where has that gotten us?
Nowhere fast. Are we more or less safe today than under Bush? Less safe in
my opinion precisely because of how this issue is seen by those in power.

The #1 story though is the digital revolution. It has changed our lives for
better or worse. I'm typing this blog on a netbook. Who would have thought
ten years ago that we would have full-blown computers of this size? I
certainly wouldn't. We have the social networking sites such as facebook
and twitter. We have I-pods, cell phones that do all manner of things and
the ability to access the Internet on the go through the use of air cards.
Technology is becoming smaller and more ubiquitous in our lives. /While
that's not always good, it is what it is. It has also changed political
campaigns as well. You saw it in 2008 and you are continuing to see it
today. The use of twitter, text messaging and more has changed the
political landscape. Blogs have also done this.

The digital revolution brings up new issues, including Internet security and
cyber security in general. You hear terms such as spam, virus, worm and
more. These things can get down to national security concerns, something
which I wonder about with this administration especially given the fact that
they don't know how to handle an enemy combatant caught on U.S. soil. How
scary is that?

Stay tune to find out my feelings on the state of the union.