Skattershooting after a month of three jury trials that seem amazingly insignificant right now:

• I bet I have seen the videotape of the second aircraft crashing into the World Trade Center tower about hundred times. I could watch it a thousand times more and still not believe what I was witnessing.
• We will all remember where we were when we heard the news. For me, I was on FM 1810 listening to The Ticket on the AM radio. The boys on the air were giving me play by play as they watched the television screen. I'll always remember personality Craig Miller saying "I know it didn't happen, but it looks like a plane hit the building" after the first tower was damaged. Minutes later, after the second attack, Miller would say "This is the most horrific thing I have ever seen". I was scrambling for the car telephone.
• I suggested the following to anyone with a small infant: Take a photograph of your child sitting next to the Dallas Morning News edition of September 11, 2001. Your child will thank you for it some day.
• Peter Jennings is the best anchor on TV.
• That being said, ABC News did a horrible job four days after the event when it erroneously reported that four would-be terrorists had been arrested in Washington DC attempting to board a commercial airline. The rumor wasn't helped by Senator Joe Biden, when asked that night by Jennings about the report, told him he couldn't answer because he was on "thin ice" and might "disclose something he shouldn't". It scared me to death.
• During the days after the attack, I had an incredible desire to watch every minute of news coverage simply so that I could share the pain of the victim's family. I almost felt an obligation to do so.
• Every time I thought I had come to grips with the tragedy, I would watch a segment on TV and cry again.
• A Time-CNN poll revealed that 64% of Americans cried during the tragedy. Shame on the other 36%.
• The NFL made the right decision not to play football on the Sunday after the incident. Did you know that the NFL did not cancel its games after the JFK assassination?
• The UIL made a horrendous decision to let high school football games take place.
• When the Big 10 Conference initially said that it would be playing college football on the Saturday after the tragedy, the University of Illinois said "no" even if it meant forfeiting a game.
• There was nothing more moving that watching the Star Spangled Banner being played at Buckingham Palace during the Changing of the Guard per order of the Queen.
• I tried to buy a newspaper off the news rack on September 12, 2001. I drove around for 30 minutes (really) and could not find one.
• Isn't it a bit creepy that one of the two NFL football team in New York  is the known as the "New York Jets"?
• Not to be negative, but how in the world will the Red Cross equitably distribute what will ultimately be billions of dollars to the victim's family. For example, does the estranged husband receive as much as the loving husband of thiry years. Who makes that call?
• I wonder if the upcoming imploding of the tornado damaged skyscraper in downtown Fort Worth will be quite the entertainment spectacle as it would have been.
• Even while watching the two World Center Towers burning moments after the crashes, I never dreamed they would collapse.
• The star studded show put on by all the networks last Friday night was amazing. If you didn't know who the stars were, you were in the dark. No master of ceremonies was there to give introductions and no graphics appeared to indentify who was speaking/singing.
• Seeing Dan Rather cry on David Letterman's show was incredibly moving.
• Rather cried when he said we would never be able to sing the following line of America The Beautiful in quite the same way again: "O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years. Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears."
• One question that is guaranteed to start an argument is this: "Are the terrorists correctly labeled 'cowards' even though they were willing to die for what they believed?"
• The biggest email hoax is this quote attributed to Nostradamus:"In the city of york there will be a great collapse, two twin brothers town apart by chaos while the fortress falls, the great leader will succumb to the third big war." He never said it.
• Email photos making their way across the country: the Devil's face in the smoke of the burning buildings, the WTC rebuilt into an obscene gesture, and a group of middle easterners leaving the desert in two trucks that are overpacked beyond belief..
• Whatever happened to Gary Condit?
• There were a lot of remarkable stories that came out of the tragedy but the most remarkable to me was this one: Two female friends ride to Boston Logan Airport in order to journey to Los Angeles. One gets on a United flight while the other boards American. They chose different flights only due to the fact they had different frequest flyer miles. Both planes they boarded crashed into the World Trade Center. One more note: one of the women's brother was at the base of the World Trade Center at the time of the crashes. He survived. (I saw this story on either on NBC's Today show or MSNBC).
• Why did local news agencies feel compelled to send one of "their own" to New York. For example, we got to see WFAA's Brett Shipp broadcasting live from the other side of the Hudson River! Why?
• On the morning of the attack, the first "talk radio" caller that WBAP put on the air was a guy from Bridgeport. I swear his comment was "We need to round up every guy from Iraq, Iran and every other country over there and ship 'em out of here". Sheesh.
• It was hard not to smile at Utah Senator Orrin Hatch's first comments broadcast on CNN: "We're going to find out who did this and we're going after the bastards."
• When President Bush declared the attack as an "act of war" many people pointed out that most insurance policies have an exclusion for damage caused because of an "act or war".
• I saw the long lines for gasoline at the Walmart gas station on the afternoon of the attack. The power of The  Rumor is incredible.
• VP Dick Cheney said on Meet the Press that the terrorists "act like those in an internet chat room – they get in do some damage and then get out". What the heck is Cheney doing in an Internet chat room?
• As much as America wants to retaliate, we will come to the realization that there is simply no one to bomb.
• Compare this: Americans witnessed the attack as it happened on live TV. It wasn't until nine days later that the mainland saw photographs of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. (USA Today, 9/25/01, p. 8B).
• Did you know the two World Trade Center towers were connected at their base by a 20 story Marriott Hotel?
• I'm not the biggest fan of George W. Bush, but he has proven he is smart enough to listen to those around him.
• On the othe hand, I don't understand the criticism of Bush for not immediately returning to Washington D.C. from Florida after the attacks. That was the last place he needed to be.
• I suspect Bush would want to take back the fact that he referred to the terrorists as "folks" on the morning of the bombing.
• Reporter Ashleigh Banfield became famous in wake of the tragedy (but did she still need to have debris in her hair six hours after she ran for cover when the buildings collapsed?).
• A couple of the convenience stores in Decatur are staffed by folks who are obviously of Middle Eastern descent. I asked one of the clerks the other day if any of the local Bubbas had said anything rude to him simply because of his race. He told me he hadn't received one unkind word.
• I finally understand what "unbelievable" means.

Barry Green served as District Attorney for Wise and Jack Counties from 1993 through 2000. He is now a partner in the Decatur law firm of Smith & Green, P.C.