Tree of Life, 1.7

He left his house apartment early that morning because needed to leave work before 5 p.m. that day. He decided to go in early to make up the time. He arrived at the train station at about 6 a.m. While he was standing on the platform, an older man, dressed shabbily, approached him and asked him whether he knew what time the next train was leaving for the suburbs. He told the older man he didn't know. Then the older man began talking about how he had been traveling all night from the state capital, where he had been working, and that he had come into the city's central train station, then hopped on the subway, and now had to take another train to finally get to his hometown. He'd have to walk a mile from the train station closest to his house. The younger man, who was Jewish, sympathized with the other man, until he noticed a swastika tattooed on the older man's hand. When the younger man's train arrived, the older man held out his hand to shake the younger man's hand. But he was afraid and hesitated. The older man got upset and began yelling at him as he boarded his train to work. The older man shouted out, You think you're better than me? The truth was that the he did think this.

Lighting Strikes Once

We were sitting in a dorm room at NYU when we heard the news. The World Trade Center had been bombed. We turned on the television and all the channels had news airing. Apparently a truck bomb had gone off underneath the North Tower. We watched as people with black faces were escorted out of both towers by firemen and rescue workers. We could see the Twin Towers from the dorm window, but the fire was so small that we couldn't even see it. Apparently by the time we had turned on the televisions, it had been completely contained. By the end of the day, there was a lot of speculation on whom had carried out the bombing, but no one was in custody. Over a thousand people had been injured, but only a few seriously and just a handful had died. We were lucky; disaster had been averted.

Prelude to Lisbon

The Czech prime minister watched the news in horror. All twelve nations had ratified the Treaty of Maastricht. A "European Union" had been created and would come into force the following November. He couldn't believe it. They were trading away their national identities! His own country was splitting in half, Slovaks demanding a separate state of their own. And the prime minister was glad to let them go! Let them have their own state! The more diverse a Europe the better! This is one case in which I'm glad we were under the Russian yoke, he thought to himself. I would never ratify such a treaty.