By Emily Bowers and Jonathan Spicer
Ryerson professors reacted with shock and horror to the events Tuesday that they predict will change the entire world.
Colin Moores, chair of Ryerson’s politics department, said the attacks on several major cities across the United States show that those responsible knew exactly what they were doing. “It was pretty damned well co-ordinated. That doesn’t happen overnight,” he said. America has made plenty of enemies with their heavy involvement in foreign politics, Moores said. “They’re a superpower. You’re not going to attack… Canada or Britain.” Moores also said the calls for retaliation will come fast and furious and from anyone with an opinion. “The scary part is all these people going off half-cocked,” he said.
“With George W. Bush as president, who knows?” Ruth Panofsky, professor of Canadian literature at Ryerson, has a niece that lives in Greenwich Village in New York and works at MTW in Times Square. She said her first reaction was to call her sister-in-law to ensure her niece is OK. “I was stunned,” Panofsky said. “I was teaching between nine and eleven (o’clock), I walked out of class and I just couldn’t believe it.”
Alan Wargo, chair of the history department said, “this is the stuff out of novels.” “Nobody would have believed this could happen. It’s terrorist action on an utterly unprecedented level,” he said. Wargo’s first reaction was concern for his son who works in Nashville, Tenn. “The demand for retaliation is going to be very powerful (from Americans).”
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