Audi List/World Trade Center

[cjcasati at hotmail.com]

re: someone on the Audi list in Finland:

I read your comment, thank you so much for your sentiments.

I spent time in Finland on a Rotary scholarship (Paul Harris fellowship in
central Finland to study government there) and know how closely-knit and
strong the people of Finland are, and here in the States, friends are
calling friends; New Yorkers are reaching out to each other to help; people
are lining up in small and large cities everywhere to donate blood.
Everyone is calling each other in D.C., New York, and Pittsburg, making sure
people are safe, my friend Marc saw everything live across the river in
Brooklyn, where the view is (was) OF the World Trade Center.  At the first
explosion people ran into the streets, then, discussing it on the streets,
they saw the second plane bury itself into the second tower.  The
reverberations increase as my financial friends in London, Paris and Hamburg
express their shock. These were their colleagues, many who started their
careers in the financial district in New York before being promoted to
London and elsewhere.

Here, where at 6 p.m. our Richmond, Virginia street is normally filled with
joggers, mothers strolling babies, women walking in groups with their
dogs... it is quiet, people are in their homes with their family and friends
and the feeling is of utter loss, (my nephew who is 5 years old in
kindergarten saw tv in the classroom today which totally infuriated his
mother- that should be for the parents to explain and discuss) but also...
vengeance.  The majority of people in the United States have been inwardly
focused for too long and expect to see a major change in national
consciousness and foreign policy.

One thing I fear is that there will be a repeat of anti-Arab in general
sentiments.  People need to remind themselves that there is still no finger
to whom we can point, no face to address.  And many nations in the Middle
East on whom we need to call on for support.  There are so many intelligent,
kind people all over that geographical area.  Please remind yourselves that
just like hate, kindness and love is universal.  Do not let yourself weaken
easily into a stereotype.

Without going into any politics I just hope that... well nevermind I will go
into politics.

As a Virginian who studied & worked in international affairs in New York,
Eastern Europe and Latin America, the whole Israelei/Palestinian/U.S. issue
has bothered me increasingly in the past years.  My personal feelings, and
ones few politicians express because of the leverage they would lose, is
that Israel has for too long encroached on their neighbors under the wing of
the United States.  If anyone tried to pull what Israel has done to their
neighbors on a southerner, taking farms, a community, a hillside... oh,
wait, we already lived that. And are still talking about it a hundred years
later.

This has nothing to do with our friends, many, that have families in Israel,
but of the aggressive policies their government has taken in bold
irreverence to those that were there before them.

And:
Our friend Daniel, who fled the Iranian revolution to Paris in his teens,
later New York (where we met & became friends & are "family" to each other;
we're the only "family" he has here) has two weeks ago returned to Iran for
the first time to visit his family.  He was worried, but excited.  He left
Iran this morning, early, to fly home, 3 a.m. our time.

We do know he made it to Frankfurt, thank god; if he is still stranded there
we can send him to Christoph's family in Hamburg. At least he is out of the
middle east- by a hair!!!! We think his plane may have been diverted to
Newfoundland, because it would have been in the air by 9 this morning, but I
have the 11th written down and Christoph has the 12th. And no word from
Daniel. But we just learned 5,000 people have also been diverted there, and
they probably have 3 pay phones & a swarm of mosquitoes to greet them.

Well that's not true- and I'm confident: kind people like all of us waiting
to take them in.

COPELAND CASATI

wife of Christoph Casati, driver of our 1988 90s, a great girl and wife in a
troubled world