On 9/11 Eight Years Ago

A time to remember:

8 years ago I was a freshman at University of Texas at Austin. While passing Gregory gym Huay-ying Lo asked, "did you hear what happened?" I of course I didn't because I was making a rare and sporadic attendance in my 8am class. I went into Jester west and saw a crowd gawking at the huge TV. By then only the north tower had been hit. A few minutes later, the south tower was hit. I didn't take it seriously until the buildings collapsed. In retrospect, honestly, I couldn't tell if it was a TV show or a movie. And even today I can't believe it really happened.

On the Origin of Ideas

"Few discoveries are more irritating than those which expose the pedigree of ideas."

 - Lord Acton, "Review of Sir Erskine May's Democracy in Europe" [1878], reprinted in The History of Freedom and Other Essays.