My calendar has September 11 marked as "Patriot Day."

It's been six years since the Trade Center and Pentagon bombings, and I still fail to see how the events of that day were challenges to my loyalty to the land of my birth. I'm not convinced at all that the bombings were not more of an economic statement than a cultural statement.

I still fail to see how it was any more patriotic to be a dead file clerk after the collapse of the Towers than it had been, 24 hours earlier, to be a live file clerk getting the kids off to school so as to punch the time clock on time.

I still fail to see why, because of luck of the draw, I was obligated to grieve the deaths of the 3000 or so victims of the bombings, none of whom I knew, more than I was to grieve the 11,000 or so victims of the earthquake in India earlier that year, none of whom I knew. Why am I more of a patriot to grieve the death of certain Children of Gaia more acutely than of others just because of accidents of birth and location within the confines of lines on a map?

Does anybody really think that the events and the victims of 9/11 will ever be forgotten? Must its remembrance be tied to nationalistic loyalty?