Sept. 11 and another rally
Getting ready for work Thursday and driving into the city, I listened as television and radio stations replayed the news - verbatim - of Sept. 11, 2001.
At 8:45 a.m. on that crystal clear Tuesday morning 13 years ago, an American Airlines Boeing 767 carrying 20,000 gallons of jet fuel rammed straight into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York.
That year, I was also behind the wheel of a car. I was south of Atlanta, en route to Florida to attend a newspaper seminar. My husband called me on my cell phone to tell me about it.
My first response was, "Didn't we just see this in some movie, recently?" As we hung up, I turned on my radio and kept driving. Less than 20 minutes later I listened as a horrified news announcer said a second plane had just sliced into the south tower. Suddenly it became quite clear that the first tragedy was no fluke. Our country was under attack.
My husband called again. "I think you should turn around," he said.
I kept driving until shortly after 9:45 when a third plane circled over Washington, D.C., before slamming into the west side of the Pentagon military headquarters. Then came news that a fourth hijacked plane had crashed in Pennsylvania when passengers and crew members fought back against their abductors. Soon all air traffic was halted.
By the time I rolled northward back through Atlanta a few hours later, every construction crane I passed -- and many buildings -- held make-shift flag poles and fully unfurled American flags whipping in the wind.
It was a day of grief. More than 3,000 people were killed -- including more than 400 police officers and firefighters. But it also was a day when the nation rallied beyond petty home-grown biases.
This week, on the 13th eve of Sept. 11, our president made it clear that nightmare may not be over. In the 13 years since, we've done some smart stuff and some stupid stuff. We made some friends and probably more enemies. President Obama has outlined the start of new actions that we hope will undo some of the stupid stuff.
It's time for us to rally again and put petty prejudices behind us. Get the flags out.
The fat of the land
Most of us have gained too much weight, and we don't need reports to tell us that, but one report outlines some startling bulges. Especially here.
In three decades, the national adult obesity rate rose sharply, more than doubling since 1980, according to the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Today the rate of increase finally is slowing, but significant geographic disparities persist -- especially in the South and especially in Tennessee.
The Volunteer State ranks 4th in the entire country for its obesity and overweight rates. Only Mississippi, West Virginia and Arkansas are fatter.
One in three of us is obese. Two in three (68.4 percent, actually) is overweight.
Alabama ranks 8th. Georgia ranks 18th. North Carolina is 25th.
Mississippi and Tennessee rank No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, for physical inactivity.
From the groups' report, the average American is more than 24 pounds heavier today than in 1960. In 1990, no state had an obesity rate exceeding 15 percent; now, no state has a rate that low.
In other words, we don't eat right, and we're a bunch of slugs. Ouch.