Monitor Duty by Randy Lander "Disaster Relief" So two weeks ago, a handful of terrorists killed several thousand people, decimated two symbols of modern civilization, and served notice that America isn't any safer than anywhere else. We've all been reacting ever since. I can't count how many times in the past two weeks I've seen someone apologize for entertaining me in some way. I watched Jon Stewart and Dave Letterman both deliver powerful and effective addresses and apologize for doing so. Every bit of entertainment starts off with "I know this seems trivial right now" or "this isn't really all that important, I know" or something like that. I've done it myself, the week we started reviewing again. And while I understand and respect where it's coming from, I've come to think that maybe it's a bit wrong-headed of us to be doing that. When people are still worrying about the missing and grieving for the dead, contemplating all the ways our lives are going to change, I suppose that comic books, television, movies and discussion of the same might seem a bit trivial. But they are not. The entertainment mediums also seek to examine and explore the human condition, and that is not a small matter. Writing, acting, drawing may not seem as important as medicine or law-enforcement or military action in the wake of the attacks, but they define our society as much as our actions on the world stage. Socrates said "The unexamined life is not worth living." He may have been talking about philosophy, but I believe you can extend that quote to our entertainment and literature. We can't grasp the shape of what happened easily. It's no small thing, and even those who were there can't really get their minds around all of the implications. Not even our leaders, who may have the most complete set of information, can fully grasp all the intricacies of what has happened, because everyone comes from a different point of view. But through reading and viewing the interpretations of others, we can begin to see how others feel, how others have viewed the tragedy. And the more we see, the more interpretations we get, the better our picture gets. The better our understanding gets. And with enough understanding, enough empathy, we can get past it and incorporate this event into our lives to broaden our understanding of the world and maybe make ourselves better people for it. I was quite moved by Mike Deodato's Captain America picture after the events. I'm looking forward to seeing what Aaron Sorkin has to say about these issues on West Wing. I'm curious to see how Greg Rucka's Taliban story will read in Queen and Country. And I'm very anxious to see what J. Michael Straczynski will offer up in Amazing Spider-Man. At the same time, I'm impressed at the personal sensitivity shown by Bryan Hitch in realizing that the widescreen destruction of the Authority Widescreen Special might not be appropriate right at the moment. Every one of these reactions, and the stories we will see as a result of some of them, helps me to get a handle on my own feelings. It has helped me to put things together in my own head, and start to sleep better instead of staring at the ceiling in the darkness while I struggle with the anger and the sadness as I did in the week after the attacks. More to the point, perhaps, is that not everything needs to revolve around these events, even so soon after the incident. Letting these thugs and their actions envelop every aspect of our world, such that we can think of nothing else, is exactly the reaction they want. Getting back to normal isn't a realistic expectation, but we should at least try to approximate that routine once more. I desperately needed the laugh provided by Gail Simone's You'll All Be Sorry last week. And though I couldn't tear my eyes away from the news coverage while it was on, I have never been so glad to see a Seinfeld rerun as I was when Fox finally began showing something other than 24 hour news with no real updates. I can't describe the joy and pride I felt at seeing Jon Stewart and the rest of his crew being brave enough to get back on the air at The Daily Show so soon after the attacks on their home city. Our entertainment defines our culture in many ways. The terrorists sought to destroy our culture. In a way, continuing to create, continuing to explore and illuminate and just plain entertain is a slap in the face to these thugs, with their cowardly attacks. It shows that we still believe in our culture, we still believe in the good things that our civilization can create, and that many of us believe it is more important to create than to destroy. On the day after the attacks, we still had art, music and literature. We still had Captain America, Superman and Spider-Man. We still had hope. All they had was the focused anger of the entire world. You tell me which one of us won that day. Email Randy Lander comments about this column, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board.