Time to mourn, not entertain

One of the many affected industries of the terrorist attack on America is the world of sports, which has come to a screeching halt. Since sports is essentially entertainment, it is a very tender issue after such a tragedy.\nAre Americans ready to be entertained? Not yet. While the importance of regaining normalcy has been the theme of almost every official, I do not understand how any American could celebrate things like home runs or touchdowns, knowing that thousands of our own citizens are dead, and that the nation's biggest city lies in ruin.\n There will be a time when this has affected us so much that entertainment will be craved; when we will turn to sports and other performers to help us forget about our loss for a few hours. But for now, we as United States citizens would only be insulting those who lost their lives by entertaining ourselves.\nInstead, we must focus on helping as best we can. Whether it comes from blood donations, volunteers to help clean or simply keeping current with events and details of the aftermath, we can help. Even honoring victims by event cancellations is a way for us to show that we, too, were attacked.\nAnother reason America is not ready to resume entertainment is for safety. While teams have to travel across the country in airplanes for games, Americans may not feel safe gathering with tens of thousands of other fans. Since we do not know if these attacks are over, gathering in such large crowds puts innocent civilians at an unnecessary risk. If, indeed, these horrible terrorists strike again, stadiums are prime targets.\nOnce flights are again in regular circulation, much of the entertainment world will begin to slowly rebound. Each day of normalcy that passes will add comfort to citizens, eventually enough so that we can gather again to do and watch the things we enjoy so much. \nWhile nobody wants to appear defeated, it is more important to show respect for victims as well as remain as safe as possible. Until that time, the games and shows should not go on, as painful as that is for us to do. As excited as I was to watch football this weekend, or baseball as the playoff races heat up, I could not, at this point, rightfully root and cheer knowing what we are all going through.