This story at the link below was written on the one year anniversary of 9/11, remembering the mood on Calgarypuck that day.
http://www.calgarypuck.com/Charlton_091102.htm
The assumption on the board that day was that Afghanistan would be first, with Iraq a close second, long before neocon was put forward as a general topic for discussion.
The mood was certainly different for a while . . . . here's a quote from a New York Giants season ticket holder, commenting two weeks after 9/11,
"I DON'T THINK THE TERRORISTS ARE DONE. They're going to make it a very public event. A Monday night football game, a big game everyone is watching and all of a sudden everyone will be dead. I have to keep working and I have to keep flying. I don't have to go to a Giants game."- John Stefanelli, NY Giants season ticket holder since 1975, talking to CNN.
Condo and apartment prices in downtown Manhattan took a dive as people tried to frantically sell . . . .
Stock markets reacted negatively with every statement or burp from Al Queda, real or imagined.
That kind of fear gradually died away.
Stadiums re-filled.
Manhattan real estate is pricier than ever.
A significant terrorist attack on Saudi Arabia in the spring of 2003 elicited barely a yawn in stock markets, the first of many future yawns in markets . . . . terrorism effectively ceased to be the economic weapon it was on 9/11.
9/11 was also the birth moment of that monumental, churning, time-waster known as the Off-Topic Board.
Cowperson