On that bright and clear Tuesday morning I was in the kitchen in my home in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, making coffee as was my normal routine.  I switched on CNN and saw what I thought was a trailer for another DieHard movie; this time about an attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.  As I had worked on the upper floors of Two World Trade Center for a number of years in the 1980s, I turned up the volume.

As the newscaster spoke, I realized that the scene that I was watching was not a Hollywood trailer, but was a real news report.  I decided that the tourist companies had finally done the unthinkable, they had crashed into the towers.  I remembered back to the time when my office was on the 106th (if my memory serves me correctly) and overlooked New York Harbor.  Back then, tourist planes and helicopters would buzz the towers to give their customers a little thrill; they weren’t supposed to, but they did.  I always was afraid that one of those clowns would lose control and collide into the very floors on which I worked and the scene unfolding before me shouted out that the nightmare had come true.

Then I watched with horror as the second plane hit One World Trade Center and I knew that we were at war.

Since that terrible morning of September 11, 2001, I have not been able to be away from a television or a computer for even a few minutes.  I am constantly afraid that something, somewhere is happening that will impact my life.  My wife cannot understand my need to be constantly on my cellphone, computer, or even the radio.  I know that it is irrational, but I can’t let it be.

My question is:  Are you a breaking News Junkie?