Every morning I get up and go to work in a building which IS a terrorist target. I ride to work on the subway, which is another terrorist target. I live in a city which has been on elevated alert since the morning of 9/11. We've had three anthrax scares in my office complex (all hoaxes) in the past year. My father watched one of the planes hit the north tower from his office, which is about five blocks away. I lost one acquaintence in the attack, and the fiance of a friend of mine (he had proposed less than a month earlier) perished that day as well.

For the terrorists to win, these sorts of things need to elicit not only sadness and anger, but more importantly fear. Fear forces us to give up civil liberties, change our way of life - compromise our principles for a false sense of safety.

The odds of me being run down by ANYONE using a car as a weapon in an act of domesitc terrorism seem pretty slim. Yes, there are plenty of threats to our lives out there. Some are real, some are mere slivers of possibility. I'm not going to suggest that any should be ignored, but how you choose to shape your life once you're aware of those threats determine whether or not the terrorists win. Yes - the threat of terrorism is real, but how you meet that threat is up to you. You've got a choice - either face it head-on, or go hide. I'm going to work tomorrow.