Extraordinary rendition?

Google it.

Before today, I can't remember having heard the term. Now, just the thought of what it means, as interepted by U.S. officials, fills me with terror.

Are we fighting terrorism with terrorism? Are we perpetrating the very crimes against humanity we say we want to protect the world from experiencing? And if we are, has our government lost sight of what the repurcussions could be while an ignorant America remains oblivious to the atrocities we allow our government agencies to committ.

I won't write again about the little old ladies who called me after September 11 asking why, except to say, this is even worse than then. Just as they couldn't fathom anyone hating the United States, Joe America is clueless about just how awful we can be.

Who will be the next victim of the world's retaliation against our actions? I don 't want it to be me.

Never enough

      I hate the term "9/11". I've written those words before, yes, but tonight, surrounded by and contributing to the media frenzy marking tomorrow's fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on America, I feel them so much more.

      My memories of that day are still vivid. My fear and sorrow and simple the exhaustion that came when the day finally ended haven't become foggy with time. I can't forget the tears that were shed, or the exhilaration -- perhaps over-stimulation would be a better description -- that allowed us to work, without stopping to eat, into the night.

      I still feel a tightness in my chest when I recall the second one of our reporters, claiming to have found the only working payphone in Lower Manhattan, was cut off. Most will remember it as the moment the South Tower began to fall. In my mind, it's always been the time I thought Ana died.

      Just as clear, are the fifteen seconds that followed, me lamenting the fact that mine may have been the last voice she ever heard. And I remember immediately snapping out of it when an editor ordered me to "get back on the phone and find someone who's still alive. We can be sad later." She knew Ana had always been rude to me.

      I've often called the day a blur. I've claimed I worked on autopilot until they told me to go home, or better yet, to a bar. (I chose the latter.) The truth is, I remember the day with a screaming intensity I'd rather forget.

      Earlier in this post, I used the word exhilaration to describe the false energy we called upon that day. It's only partially off the mark. That day, letting people know seemed so important. Our jobs seemed to mean something that day. That day, I learned why I'd come back to journalism.

      Part of me is ashamed to admit it, but I felt more helpful that day, than in the ones that followed -- spending any moment not chained to my desk volunteering for the any of the charities or disaster relief orgs that where suddenly everywhere. Anything was better than sitting at home, waiting for calls we feared might never come.

      Eventually, all of my closer friends were accounted for. Ana, the reporter I'd always thought despised me, reassured me that she was fine. My colleagues at the paper became a family, of sorts, and I was overcome with wonder each time I recalled I'd only started my job there at the end of June.

      So, I hate the term "9/11". That shorthand, that nickname, suspiciously close to that of a convenience store, will never be full enough to express what that day did to and for me. What it did to and for this country.

          Does anyone out there remember the episode of M*A*S*H when a a crazy general, played by Harry Morgan (who would later play Colonel Potter), asked a Black soldier to sing for him, or failing that, to give him a little tap dance exhibition? No one I've asked, so far, remembers it. But the scene, and my sense of incredulity while viewing it, has been playing through my head nonstop.

          “I mean Cuban, Puerto-Rican, they are all very hot. They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it.”

          So said California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to tapes obtained by the Los Angeles Times and reported on in today's paper. An audio clip of the meeting was posted on the paper's Web site.

          Schwarzeneggar had apparently been expressing his appreciation of Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia's passionate legislative verve with Susan Kennedy, his chief of staff when he made the gaff.

          Arnold seems to have spent the day trouble-shooting, though, as far as I'm concerned, his sincerity is questionable.

          “I called several Latino leaders,” NYTimes.com reported him saying. “It was very clear that all of them understood that this was an off-the-record conversation and they all said to me we are not preoccupied with these kind of things.”

          Call me crazy, but what I'm hearing in that statement is, "It's okay to make racial generalizations -- as long everyone understands (if it gets out, that is) that I was only giving my private opinion." Because we all know public servants are all endowed with the rare ability to keep their private feelings from interfering with their decisions for the public.

          As much as I believe it's impossible to live in America -- and probably the world -- without developing some sort of racial bias, those who hold public office are, in theory anyway, should be held to a higher standard. So, if you just can't resist telling your best friend from sixth grade that White men can't jump, or that Italians make the best lovers when they're not off making Mob hits, you might want to reconsider running for governor.

Last night, in a dream borne of faded memory, I danced. Years ago, the real scene took place. Id nearly forgotten it all.

I don't know now why I was out with my bosses and colleagues that night, except that we were a close-knit group and often in one anothers pockets. We ate sushi and laughed and swapped clothes and cooked really good vegetarian meals and drank wine together. We watched each other fall in and out of love. We gave one of our number away to a man who felt just like one of us, and waved good-bye as he took her across an ocean.

But on the night I dreamed last night, for the first time together, we danced.

I can't remember whose idea it was to take our newest member to New York Citys biggest tourist-trap nightclub, but I remember protesting, loud and often. I campaigned in vain for someplace more exclusive. Yet, The Tourist-Trap was free (for those in the know, like us) and it was banal enough not to frighten off a recent immigrant from the wilds of Colorado, but still cool enough not to be a total waste of time.

I went along because I was more connected to these people than I had ever before felt towards anyone I worked with. But, me being Tara, I grumbled about the venue right up until we walked out onto a balcony overlooking the main (and empty, as we'd arrived early enough to give the $25 cover a miss) dance floor.

While our Coloradan exclaimed over the vast space, the really tall women and the cage dancers, we let her enthusiasm slough off our cynicism. I found myself enjoying her joy, if not the club itself.

And then, the music surged through my veins and I could barely see my friends for the desire firing every nerve in my body. My boss, seeing Id become a race horse at the gate, pushed me off.

Go. Dance, she mouthed. And I did.

I drank the music. I breathed melodies. I became the pounding beat and stormed the world away with its pulse.

I was light and darkness and moved like mist. The world-that-wasn't filled with more light and darkness and colors that writhed around and through me. And we were one, but we weren't. And we were all beautiful.

The world drifted back in. A sheen of sweat coated my heated skin and the floor heaved around me with bodies moving in unison and not and though I still heard the music, I wasn't the music anymore.

So, I grinned at the mist and light and darkness and colors writhing around me, but no longer through me, and went in search of my friends.

Though it felt as if I'd been music for a lifetime, just over an hour had passed. But it was enough to stop me complaining for the rest of the night.

Ooops!

      Looking at Algernon's new blog reminded me that I've had this one sitting around doing nothing since January.

      I was so frustrated with both Friendster and MySpace back then, I created this one. Then, faced with the daunting task of uploading the entire Frienster blog here, I gave up. Still, it's good to know I've got the alternative.

......

      Hurt has a way of sneaking up on you. Maybe you think you're over the worst of it, or maybe you were under the impression that you had nothing to be sad about in the first place. Then you find yourself hlding back the hurt and you realize you've still got some miles left in your journey.

      Take heart. Joy can approach just as stealthily.