From the Heart

The world, as we know it, has changed. That's how it feels.

As I make calls to friends and sources, to see what they're hearing, the reaction is one of numbness and fear. Numbness about what has happened. Fear of the uncertainty. Everybody, it seems, knows somebody, directly or indirectly, who is most likely gone. Directly through friendships and business relationships. (We all know Bill Meehan, the greatest guy on earth, was on the 105th floor of the North tower of the World Trade Center.) Indirectly we knew them through their faces on television or quotes in a newspaper. Or as neighbors, friends of neighbors, friends of friends.

So many of us who traveled to San Francisco from New York have taken United Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco -- the plane that crashed this morning in Pennsylvania. ...