"You don't know?" She said in hushed tones. And then proceeded to explain to me.

After a few minutes I said, "This is horrible of course, and maybe it isn't right for me to say this right now, but in a way I'm kind of relieved. Now maybe some of the terrorism and antisemitism that's been going on, will get people's attention and be addressed."

"We don't know yet for sure who did it." She said quickly.

"Yes we do." I said.

How come I was the only person I know, who knew immediately that it was Al Queda?

First of all, politically, I was open to the possibility that Islamist terrorists would attack America. Although most of my friends were "progressives", I was not of them, on many issues. I had been an anarcho-capitalist in college in the early 1970s, and as I matured I moderated my libertarianism into a "economically libertarian socially liberal" position which also supported such common social goods as, say, museums and libraries and (market-based) environmental laws. (Almost identical to Glenn Reynold's politics today.)

At the same time, I had the smug liberal disdain for conservatives, who I thought were socially repressive and just as bad as big-government liberals, but in the other direction. I was very concerned with abortion remaining legal (still am). I voted for Al Gore in 2000, and was outraged that George Bush won the subsequent vote parsing.

So I already had a skeptical stance toward liberal shibboleths and was used to not following the crowd, which made it possible to adjust my worldview without severe psychological dislocation.

I had read an article about Islam in 1985, in The Whole Earth Review, which at the time was a very interesting journal which always had thought-provoking articles on obscure social and technical topics. Only WER would write 20 years ago about the growth of Islam in the 3rd World and say "You better pay attention to this." I didn't learn more about Islam but I did file that away in the back of my mind.

I was a news junkie. I was already getting some of my news from the internet, mostly reading newspapers online, and email lists which circulated various bits of news, for example Phil Agre's Red Rock Eater News Service which sent out long lists of interesting news links about 3 times a week. (This would probably have morphed into a blog a year later, if he had kept it up).

I had been following Israel news since the intifada began, at Rosh Hashanah in 2000. And watched with horror as, after 10 years of slowly increasing international acceptance of Israel as a normal country, the leftist antisemitism of the 1970's began to resurge. The infamous 2001 UN Durban conference on "racism," which was hijacked by Palestinian extremists and because a hate-Israel rally, had just ended the week before. Liberal Jews were reeling from the shock. Some were already blaming themselves. Phil Agre's links showed him turning from from a political fellow traveler of mine into a virulent anti-Israel campus academic. (Which he probably was already, but the subject didn't come up.)

I began to participate in online forums where I read much the same. I was desperate to refute the ignorance and deliberate smearing and scapegoating. I continued to be shocked by Jewish political masochism. I began to pull away from my "progressive" friends and seek out people who got what was happening. It was too painful otherwise.

As a feminist, I had been following the treatment of women under the Taliban. Because I knew about the Taliban, I knew about Al Queda. And because I knew about anti-Israel terrorism, I knew about Al Queda.

On September 9th, 2001, Ahmed Massood had been assasinated by Al Queda, which put them in the news right before the 9-11 attacks.

So I knew who it was.

Right after my friend called I turned on NPR and followed their coverage. I had to return something at Best Buy, so I went there that afternoon and I stood watching replays on their wide-screen TVs for 3 hours.

That evening NPR had a call-in show, with a couple of pundits. If anyone tells you that leftist crowing about how "we got what we deserved" only developed in the following months, I am here to tell you that's not true. Less than 24 hours after the attacks, the breast-beating and gloating and rationalizations (and blaming Israel) had already begun on NPR, both from the pundits and the callers. I recall only one caller who objected, and the pundits verbally patted him on the head.

I redoubled my efforts on the forums and email lists.

I had been planning to move to New York that fall. I put it off till spring. Around the time I moved to NYC, I discovered blogs. The first ones I read were Meryl Yourish, Winds of Change, Instapundit, Kesher Talk, and LGF. (That was back when LGF posts got about 10 comments each.) I still read them. That summer the founder of Kesher Talk invited me to co-blog and eventually had to stop posting for job reasons, and gave me the blog.

So here I am, six years later, doing my part on a blog instead of newspaper forums.