On the 11th anniversary of 9/11, it is some consolation that the man most responsible for that terrible morning will not be smiling smugly to himself as satellite TV brings to the leafy boulevards of Abbottabad the somber images of New Yorkers commemorating those who perished in the Twin Towers.

On that terrible day, a nation became a neighborhood. All Americans became New Yorkers.

I think the most interesting New Yorkers are the people who were not born here.

I am one of the 11.5% of New Yorkers who remain traumatized by the events of September 11.

Through a trick lighting technique
the skyline was made and faded
with the care of a pointillist—
maybe aiding us to think nothing was
missing. We traded verbs

about what was happening
in the metropolis, realizing,
in the scorched plum of dusk,
actual human infinity was occurring
on an island before us....

If we attempt to block the development of new technology, we effectively have ensured that the most responsible parties will not develop them.