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8813. Try the refreshing sound of All Classical 89.3. Eighteen-year-old piano prodigy Evgeny Kissin opens the Pittsburgh Symphony season with Brahms piano concerto number two. Mariss Jansons conducts. Hear it live, Friday, September 14, beginning at 7.30 p.m., only on All Classical WQED FM 89.3. WQED's broadcast of OnQ Magazine is made possible by grants from the Howard Hines Endowment, the Eberly Foundation, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the McCune Foundation, the Pittsburgh Foundation, the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, and the Grable Foundation. Corporate funding is provided by UPMC Health System, making a difference in communities throughout Western Pennsylvania.

Each and every day we go beyond our walls and reach out to the neighborhoods we serve. UPMC Health System. 1-888-383-UPMC. And by the members of WQED. The devastating images out of New York, Washington, and Somerset County have been burned into the collective consciousness of the American people. There's a helplessness now, in seeing the symbols of our nation attacked and destroyed. Good evening, I'm Carol Lee Espy. Today is a national day of mourning and prayer. Here in Pittsburgh and around the country, millions prayed for their victims, their families, and for our nation. But along with the prayer, there is anger, there's shock, outrage, and there is confusion. Tonight OnQ, correspondent Michael Bartley talks with local people who say their conflicting feelings will linger for years to come. Some of life in Pittsburgh at the end of a horrifying week.

Shopping for groceries in the Strip District, luncheon conversation with friends, taking in the latest news. Children walking home from school, a flag at half staff, and in the distance, a commercial plane finally back in the air. By appearance, maybe, life looks to be getting back to usual. Yeah, I don't think we'll ever be the same again. I was just shocked. They killed our women and children. Cut them all, God. In our minds, life is changed, and will be anything but usual for a long, long time. I like, I'm going to wake up and think, you know, no, that was just a nightmare. It didn't happen, but it did. And down the street, that lingering mental misery turns to frustration, where many Pittsburghers came to buy American flags. I don't know that I want a decoration. I want to do something more. Only to find out, you are sold out of American flags.

Sold out. The only thing we have are some decorations. We have some wind socks, some house decorations, and that's it. A local clergyman said what happened on Tuesday was a tragedy that collectively broke the hearts of Pittsburghers and people all around the country. We haven't begun. We're still numb. Father Scott Seethaler says healing from the terror will take time a lot of time. All around Pittsburgh this week churches were filled. People turned to their respective faiths for answers. Seethaler believes they got some good answers. Well, the reason why we can go on living with hope and not give into the bullies, because they want us to live in fear, is that the final victory is ours. God sits upon his throne.

A people of faith will appreciate this. I know the end of the story. We won. This was just a temporary setback. The forces of evil will never win. It's horrible. It needs to be stopped. It needs to be dealt with here and now. People like Joy Carnes of Munhall, at least, got relief this week. Her brother David, a financial consultant and ex-Marine living in the New York area went into ground zero to help with the recovery effort Tuesday night. He heard voices from under the rubble, but couldn't call emergency crews on his cell phone as phone service in New York was jammed. So he called back to Munhall to his sister Joy, who called 911 in Pittsburgh. The emergency operator here faxed the information to New York and David Carnes' information led to the rescue of two Port Authority police officers. I knew that I had to help him. I just didn't know how to do it from so far away, but I guess my nursing background just kicked in and I walked through it and did what I could and then once they were rescued,

I knew it had worked. But yet so many others, thousands of others looking for the missing, only hope for relief. So he was definitely there. So if anybody knows anything, please, his wife and his mother and the rest of us are all waiting to hear. My brother was on that floor. I have a brother-in-law still that's missing. So what is the average Pittsburgher, the average American in any neighborhood thinking about in terms of what we should do next? Well, national polls indicate an overwhelming majority of people support military retaliation. And the opinions here in the Pittsburgh area are consistent with that. The majority of people we talked to say they want action. Every country that harbors terrorists, level and made into a parking lot. We find out who did it, definitely, let's take action. Definitely. I don't know. If killing other people is the answer,

but we definitely need to retaliate some way. They're going on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. What they did was despicable, and we shouldn't wait too long to retaliate. The end of a terrible week in Pittsburgh, in America, where life is changed. You know, on my way to work today, I saw a flag on just about every home, they were on cars. I even saw one on a baby carriage. And there's great comfort in that show of solidarity. And as you just saw, there's also comfort in talking it out. And that's what our Friday show has always been about, talking it out. Chris? Carol, joining us now are the panelists who make up tonight's Friday forum. Ruth Ann Baker is a columnist for the Post Gazette North Edition. Next to Ruth Ann, Alan Cox from Radio Station 1059, the X. We're also joined by Fred Hansberger from KTK Radio and PCNC TV.

Now, we thought a lot about who should be in the guest chair tonight. Maybe a politician, a community leader, or someone from the media. But we decided the biggest impact is on our children. So our guest is Barbara James. She's a teacher at Knoxville Elementary School. Ms. James, welcome to our program. Thank you. I don't know about you, but watching Michael Bartley's piece and people's reaction to it filled me up with emotion. And I wonder what your reaction was, your personal reaction was to the events of Tuesday morning. My personal reaction was fear. And the reason that I was so fearful was because I had three relatives that were very possibly involved in DC. My brother is an attorney. He works between the Capitol Building and the Pentagon. And we didn't hear from him for quite a while. I also had two cousins who worked in the World Trade Center. And one, in particular, we had reached him by cell phone.

But when the towers actually crashed in, he was still in there waiting to be evacuated. We didn't know until later that he had been evacuated and he was well on his way home. So there's been a great, there was a great deal of fear for me at that particular time. As an elementary school teacher, what have you observed with the children that you work with? A range of emotions? Yes, there's a range of emotions. Mainly, I see fear. There's a great deal of fear, they're afraid of the airplanes. They want to know what's going to happen next. Afraid of the airplanes? Yes, they're afraid of airplanes. They're afraid that perhaps the planes will fly in the building. They don't know what's going to happen whenever they see them. So just to even hear them or think that they hear them brings a lot of fear into them. The other thing that I notice is there's a lot of caring. I guess it is the results of what they're seeing on the television. They're seeing the different firefighters. and they were so happy that firefighters were rescued and looking at the different families.

So there's a lot of caring and hoping that they will be able to find more people. Ruth Ann, have you had a chance to process these events yet in your mind? Have you leaned on your faith? What have you done? What are you thinking? I've greeted them with such, almost like disbelief. And I would agree fear because I kept waiting for the rest of the hits to come. And I think that more might yet come in days ahead. So there's still-- I still feel a little bit on tender hooks, worried about what lies ahead. But yes, faith helps. I was very moved by the Catholic fathers' words during Michael's peace about, we already know how the story ends and it ends in the victory of the forces of good, the forces of God. Can you be so sure? Yes, I am sure. Beyond even doubt. Yes. Alan, I know on your radio station, you deal with a lot of young people.

You've taken some calls this week, haven't you? What are they saying? Well, oddly enough, I seem to be getting more calls from people who are the older portion of our audience. I mean, the younger people, I think they still seem to be a little bit unsure as to what to do with the information. I mean, they're kind of shocked and they're still trying to process it. The older people have kind of, who've called, I think, there's a sense about them that they have been-- although they've been through nothing like this, I mean, none of us have-- some of the older listeners from my show, I mean, some of them have been through Vietnam. They've been through the Gulf War. They've been through the first World Trade Center bombing. They've been through, you know, it really falls into a couple categories. It falls into people who think that there should be kind of a reasoned and measured retaliation. And people who want to carpet bomb the countries and wipe them off the face of the planet. Both reactions are entirely understandable. I know me personally, I kind of fall somewhere

in the middle. When we were talking about feeling fear or whatever. I simply felt shocked the morning that I turned on the television and saw what was happening. But it didn't really strike me so intensely until the next day, I was sitting in my apartment in the middle of the day and I heard this noise. And I immediately, I couldn't place it. It sounded like this humming or this whirring or something going overhead. And it was just someone next door to me mowing their lawn. But it would-- [Chris interrupts] So even everyday sounds... Yeah, in that short period of time, I was amazed at how kind of jittery I'd become at those noises. A lot of people have reported that reaction to us. And here at the QED Connection, we've opened phone lines with trained counselors. And you can access them by calling this number that you see on your screen right there. 1-800-232-8813.1800-232-8813. They are standing by and ready to take your calls. Fred, have you received the same kinds of calls? People who have that visceral reaction,

let's go level it, make it into a parking-- Bartley's piece, let's go level it and make it into a parking lot. Are there more, I guess, restrained people, too, calling? Oh, yeah, there are restrained people. There are people who want to make sure we do it right this time instead of just a cursory bombing that makes us all feel good. And we say, well, yeah, we got them. There are those who want to, let's nuke them, let's do the carpet bombing approach. And that's too extreme. I think what we're seeing now is they're looking for them. And it's not going to be a one-shot deal. I think we're going to have to be prepared for a number of things. I saw former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger on one of the shows this week who said, this is going to be ugly. There's going to be, quote, collateral damage. There are going to be women and children that are going to be hurt in this, just as our women and children and innocent folks were hurt because that's what happens in war. And if we start squealing like, oh, no, we can't.

We're not bombing just the bad, it's war. And nobody in this room, perhaps, except for you, and I don't mean to say that you're old, but I mean, my generation hasn't really seen the kind of sacrifice that's needed, the kind of gas rationing. Close the curtains in your house at night because if there is a bombing attack, you don't want to... We have seen Vietnam. We have seen the Desert Storm. But we've not, as a nation, had to sacrifice, like our parents had to sacrifice. We didn't have to go through the Depression. I hope that our nation is ready for this. If we, God forbid, we have to go through conscription and drafts. Are we ready to park our SUVs? Are we ready? That's right. Those among you who have children, are you ready to send your 18-year-olds off to fight in some country where they can't even pronounce the name of the place in order to find justice or seek retribution? I know that the president is trying to prepare us for something

that will last longer than a surgical strike that's over in three days. But does anyone really think that a war will ever go on again for years? I, don't... no, yes. But it's a different kind of war. I mean, we knew that we were fighting the Japanese and we were fighting the Germans. We don't know who we're fighting. We just don't know. There might be times of relative calm and unease and then times where things flare up just like this week. That's right. We'll find another... this was another attack. We strike back. They strike back. And when is it going to end? Is the real good question. Barbara, I want to get back to this question I tried to ask a moment ago about are we ready to send our children off in a protracted struggle? The very children that you're teaching in elementary school, years from now, 10 years from now, could be affected by this depending on how it plays out. Well, I'll do you one better. I am also a mother. And I have a son who was 25.

I have a son who was 23. So I can't say that I'm ready to push my sons out there and get ready to send them to war. However, I'm also wise enough to know that we're going to have to make some type of a move and it's going to have to be soon. As far as my students, I pray that after this is all over and everything is said and done, that perhaps we won't have to worry about things like this again. But I think the United States is going to, we are going to have to demonstrate again that we are a power. And I think that that's the problem that we let things go along... But does it boil down to just muscle? Ruth Ann is nodding her head. But does it just boil down to muscle? And I can kick your behind. You got it, you had it right. Because what really has to be done to the countries that we depend on, Middle Eastern countries we depend on for energy, are we prepared to say, you know what? We don't need your oil. We're going to park our cars. We have our own oil. And we're going to get, in the years... and then see what happens to the price of a barrel of oil. See what happens to their economy and see how fast they turn over the terrorists once... but are we prepared to do that?

I'm not so worried about what we're prepared to sacrifice materially, financially. But I think we have to be prepared, as you had mentioned, alluded to a little while ago for things to get really messy. In terms of violence and death and destruction? Yes, of innocents. Here in this country, within our borders? Not even necessarily here, but abroad. Because we've gotten very accustomed in recent years, since the nightmare of Vietnam, we've become wed to the idea that we can make war be cleaner than it used to be. And I think now we've gotten, my generation is accustomed to, again, those surgical strikes. And we have to be willing to say, the reason enemies have prevailed against us is because they're willing to kill our women and children. And we get upset if we bomb an aspirin factory. And we may need to-- [Chris interrupts] But it was the wrong place. That's what it was. It wasn't that we bombed the aspirin factory. It was wrong. What's wrong with the most powerful nation in the world-- [Ruth Ann interrupts] That's messy, that's messy And we can't get any kind of retaliation, right? We're still humans and mistakes are going to be made,

but are we willing to sacrifice our idea of ourselves as being completely above this fray? Alan? I think we're already getting past that idea that we're above the fray. It used to be, you know, I firmly believe that it's probably better to be feared than loved, and it used to be that way in this country where it's better to be-- [Chris interrupts] That's a hell of a statement, young man. Well, I think it's true. I mean, I think that-- [Chris interrupts] you sound like a schoolyard bully, Barbara? Well, as a nation, I don't think we should necessarily be so much in the business of worrying about if our pals have our back when we really need them. We're going to start to see an incredible resolve on the people, on the part of Americans in this country. Quickest thing you can do to break down every kind of petty disagreement among Americans is a situation like this. You're seeing friends of mine who live in New York will say, there's, over the entire city, there's this attitude where people don't even walk past each other anymore without looking each other in the eye and saying, hello. How are you?

(crosstalk) But why does it take a common enemy (crosstalk) for us to start to be able to get over our petty differences as Americans? It's unfortunate, but I think that's simply the way that it is now. We've had the luxury to be petty. You knew that a couple of months ago, when things were, I forget which conflict it was, I said, you know what we have to do? We have to remove Executive Order 12333... [Chris interrupts] So we can go assassinate the leaders of all the countries? Not only the leaders, but Executive Order 12333, signed by Gerald Ford says the United States will not sponsor the assassination of anybody. It's against that executive order. Well, you know what? They don't have that problem with us. We're playing by rules. They're not playing by rules. Would you have assassinated Hitler? What about all the Protestant ministers in Germany and other people who joined together? (crosstalk) They tried to assassinate Hitler. Yes, and they failed and they paid with their lives. Do you think that their effort was immoral? I think you have to decide what country you're going to go in and is Allende moral, and Chile? How do you decide... they talk about blowback all the time,

nobody ever asked the question, why do we get in this situation? All the evidence is pointing right now to Osama bin Laden as the chief culprit behind this. That's what the experts are telling us. But who created that man? He's CIA trained. He still has-- [Alan interrupts] We trained most of these people. He has stinger missiles that we gave him under the Carter administration and the Reagan administration that when our boys go over there to get them in there in a helicopter, they'll be shooting our own weapons at us. But there's nothing we can do about that now retroactively. I mean, you're finding out that these guys went to Embry-Riddle flight school and that they learned English at Maxwell Air Force Base and that we've got a long and ignobel history of training... I mean, we sided with Afghanistan in the Soviet occupation and this is how they pay us back. We trained them. I don't think that's right. We trained them. We housed them. They used our planes to come back and destroy us. But that's the price we pay for having an open society ensured, saying, come all, you know, give us your poor, your huddled masses

and some of them are like, yeah, and then I'm going to blow you up. But there's been-- [Ruth Ann interrupts] So we change it? And this is what I have to deal with with my children because my children are questioning, okay, what do we do? You know, we are supposed to be this open society, give us the free, the poor, whatever. And the kids are saying, okay, we're supposed to be the free, the poor, we let all of these people in, but Mrs. James, what do we do when they start doing things like this? You know, and it makes it very difficult to answer. Well, I tell the kids, we are the free, we are the brave, and we do bring in different types of people. And I say, and that's just the way our country is. And when things like this happen... because I have to make it, you know, like really easy for the kids to understand. And I tell them, when things like this happen, then it is our job to find out who it is. And I always tell them, thank goodness we have technology and we are able to go and try to figure out who these different people are. And we take action from there. You think they understand? They're starting to understand. Because the one thing these kids are doing, they're asking questions. They want to know.

Alan? Well, I was just going, you know, we've had the luxury for a long, long time, You know, deep within every American, there's this sense of, how can anyone hate us? We live in the greatest country in the world. And how can anybody... and I think there's got to be kind of this, you know, there are some dreams that you dream alone. And there's got to be this sense that we are complicit in so much that happens militarily. People reject that out of hand. You know that. Sure. But, you know, we've trained these people. There's got to be, at some point after the hurt, begins to heal a little bit, after the shock goes away when the rescue efforts taper off. There will be a time when we will have to turn the mirror on ourselves and decide, from now on, what country are we going to be? Are we going to be a country that seriously looks at immigration? Are we going to be a country that looks at profiling? Are we going to be a country that will have to consider things that up till now have been diplomatically or politically incorrect? There aren't a lot of Swedish guys coming over here

to bomb any of our buildings. So do we profile everyone who looks like there from the Middle East and say they're bad people? We've heard all sorts of reports of everybody from Pakistanis to anyone who might be wearing a turban who might not even be of the Islamic faith. Those are the decisions we'll to make. El Al, the Israeli airline, they haven't had an incident since the '60s. [Alan interrupts] Never had an incident. You've got to go through four or five people before you even get on the plane. Ask a guy that you might know, and a lot of people here at WQED know, and that's Jim Esser, who used to be the assistant news director at KDKA-TV, who loved to travel and apparently fit some profile. Because they literally strip-searched him. He was a big guy like me. He used to carry diet soda with him because he couldn't get diet soda when he traveled. And they wouldn't let him take it on the plane, so, they said, you got to throw it out. He said, no, I don't want to throw it out. I'll drink every one. I'll drink it all right here. But I mean, they detained him for hours. He missed his plane. He had to catch the next plane. Well, already there are reports in New York or Boston

where troops, based on some information, stormed on board a plane-- [Fred interrupts] Yeah, that happened. and took people off. And the other passengers said, okay, take them off. And it turned out there was nothing wrong (crosstalk). But everybody's ready to accept it. So are we going to forego, Ruth Ann, some of our civil liberties at this point? Our civil liberties? Yes. Or...because I'm, you know... In favor of more secure airlines or anything like that? I'm not sure any of our civil liberties have yet been violated. We have illegal search and seizure if there's... If nothing was wrong with these people. But they were suspect... Well, they were suspect because the guy lived in an apartment that happened to have been occupied by one of these guys before. Little did he know the apartment he took used to be occupied by a terrorist. So he put his address-- (crosstalk) [Chris interrupts] So that's guilt by association. Freedom of association. Yes, our civil and human rights. Yes. There's a difference in our authorities suspecting someone and stopping and detaining them for a while for questioning and throwing them in the pen and leaving them there for a few years.

Nothing like that has happened yet. And the mood is a little bit edgy. Are you afraid that there will be incidents where actual civil liberties are transgressed? I'm concerned that that might happen. I haven't seen it yet. [Ruth Ann interrupts] No, not yet. But you know, it's interesting. It's real funny because you still have that happen in different neighborhoods right here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where people go out and they are used to being stopped, searched. It's no different. There's not a bit of difference. So everybody, all Americans get ready for it. Is that what you're saying? [Barbara interrupts] Get ready, get ready. We have people outside about DUI checkpoints. And they say that's a violation of our civil liberties. They're stopping us without cause. So when you have that kind of course, the issue that's really high on, that you talked about, racial profiling. That's what we're talking about. Racial profiling. Only we're going against Arabs and Muslims. Barbara, I wonder what you think the future holds for the children that you teach today? I'm hoping. And that's all I can do. I can be optimistic and hope that it is bright. Much brighter than it was on Tuesday.

Ruth Ann? I... [laughs] Not a soothsayer. Not Miss Cleo. No. I hope. And you know what's an important point to me is, earlier I was talking about saying that I don't doubt that there will be victory for good. That doesn't necessarily mean victory for the United States. What does it mean? It means just at the end of time when all this is written up, good will eventually triumph. But I don't want anybody-- [Alan interrupts] Because they believe they're doing God's work as well. They do. [Chris interrupts] That's true. And at some point we will find out. But that doesn't necessarily mean, I don't want us to confuse our country with like heaven or God's country. We're not the shining city on the hill. We're an unusual place. If it comes down to religion, I guess it comes down to who's doing God's work like Alan said. We remind you that we have trained counselors at the Q Connection, the QED Connection. You can reach them by calling 1-800-232-8813. I want to thank Barbara James for being here this evening. And thank you to our regulars, Fred Hansberger, also Ruth Ann Baker and Alan Cox.

I also want to let you know that tonight at 10 p.m., just two hours from now, we'll be bringing you a special edition of OnQ that we're calling the Pittsburgh Connection. Join us as we talk with a panel of local people who've been impacted by past tragedies. And those who are now being affected by this one. Among them, veterans from the Gulf and Korean wars. A member of Pittsburgh's Islamic community. And the parent of a local girl who was killed by a terrorist bomb. Again, that's tonight at 10 p.m. on WQED-TV. We also want to remind you once again about the WQED Connection. It's our way of reaching out to the community during this troubling time. Now, QED is set up a phone bank. It's staffed by trained counselors. And they're offering support to anyone who has concerns or just feels they have a need to talk to someone about this week's tragic events. That phone number is 1-800-232-8813. The counselors will take your calls off the air until 11 this evening.

I'm Carol Lee Espy. Thank you for joining us. Good night. [music plays over credits] WQED's broadcast of OnQ Magazine is made possible by grants from

the Howard Hines Endowment, the Eberly Foundation, the Richard King Mellon Foundation.