Upward and onward

It’s a question that will be asked and answered by us all for the rest of our lives.

I was sound asleep about 6 a.m. when my colleague and friend, Kelley Lang, called me. She was frantic. She had woken up early that Tuesday morning to finish writing a story and turned on the television shortly after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. As she watched live, the second plane rammed the other tower, exploding in a fireball.

Her husband, Dave, was in Chicago on business and was supposed to be just getting on a plane. Kelley, understandably stunned and worried, called me. I groggily answered the phone.

I couldn’t believe what she had said. I got up, turned on my TV and saw the view of the New York skyline, with two towers damaged and in flames. They soon showed the video that we’ve all seen by now of the second plane hitting the building.

This can’t be happening. This isn’t real.

My generation has never seen anything like this on American soil. I am not sure that any generation has seen anything like this on American soil. It’s surreal. It’s scary. It makes most things that we do in our day-to-day lives seem kind of silly.

But there’s nothing to be gained by sitting in front of a television or computer screen. As horrible as the chaos is, we have to go on.

That’s why this issue of the News & Review, with the exception of this column and Deidre Pike’s View From the Fray, is exactly the same as we planned it before all of this happened. We seriously considered scrapping our current cover story and/or our news stories and mobilizing our staff to cover how the terrorism that struck the East Coast is affecting Northern Nevada. But in the end, we decided against it for now.

Yeah, a controversy over a piece of art at Burning Man and the issue of a struggling new hotel-casino seem frivolous in comparison to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and their aftermath. But they are important, if for no other reason than that we need to keep on going. Our lives go on—granted, they may not quite be the same, at least for a while. But they go on. And so does the RN&R.

Next week, we’ll bring you that coverage of how these heinous acts of terrorism have affected Northern Nevada. But we’ll also bring you our normal film, food and theater reviews, arts stories and other news.

Because that’s our job. And we need to go on.

Speaking of moving on, next week will mark the debut of a new and improved RN&R.

Here’s what’s changing:

· This is the final Editor’s Note, at least for now. I am not going anywhere; I am just going to be placing more of an emphasis, in terms of my time and space in the RN&R, on news coverage. You may have noticed more of an emphasis on community-based news coverage in the RN&R during the last few weeks. Well, you’ll be noticing it even more now.

· This week marks the end of our Scene & Herd column, which has been appearing on the Arts & Lifestyle page. This will allow us more space to dedicate to a larger A&L story with more compelling art—in essence, giving us a second cover story every week.

· Our Health, Sports & Fitness, Child’s Play and This Week calendar sections are being combined into one section starting next week. By merging them, we’ll be saving space without eliminating any listings. We’ll use that space for more news coverage and other things.

Let us know what you think about these changes. We believe you’ll enjoy them.