David Rothstein writes:

>Without debating if the day warrants silence on the waves or not, the issue
>is: "Should there be a collective & national decision to "shut down" or
>not?, Should the silence be official or not?"

The problem is, how do we know that the silence is official if all sources
of news are shut down?

>This is very similar to the one day in Israel where official stations are
>silent, i.e.  "Yom Kippur".

To this, one could reply several things.  First, it's, in a sense,
commemorative and occurs with regularity.  A disaster like 9/11 (we hope)
does not.  Second, in the U.S. we have a tradition that one doesn't have
to pray in a state church or even, outside of courtesy, have to go along
with the religious beliefs of the majority of our citizens.  And, indeed,
those who do not, perform a public service: they make others feel purer
and holier and get various blood flows moving just by existing.  That's
a gift!

Steve Schwartz