Mike Piazza knocked a two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth to jump the New York Mets ahead of Atlanta 3-2. One quick half inning later, New York had triumphed once again over adversity.

This, of course, is because God is on our side.

Apparently he wasn't really paying attention when the planes slammed into the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon. So, just to make up for that tremendous oversight, New York sports teams will fare well in the coming year.

I'm not trying to make fun of the sacrifices many New Yorkers have made in the last couple of weeks. I'm just trying to put things into perspective.

The home run, just like the plane crashes, were acts of mere humans. Sure, the humans might have felt the hand of their God on their shoulder when these events happened, but humans still did them. There was no moment of divine intervention. These were not otherworldly deeds. They were, sad or great, acts of humanity.

The last couple of weeks have shown us the best and worst of human nature. When good things happen, everyone thanks God. When bad things happen, everyone asks God, "Who's gonna pay for this?"

The answer to that is simple. We, the citizens of the U.S., are gonna pay. If you think the 15 billion given to the airlines by our government is the last huge allocation of money to occur because of this tragedy, you need to read the paper a bit more.

A car ad in today's paper had an open letter pasted over the pictures of used cars available for sale. The letter expressed regret and sorrow for the horrific acts that occurred on September 11, 2001. After this heartfelt expression came a plea to KEEP BUYING SHIT. Buy anything, it said. The best way to help America stand tall and proud is to go back to our normal lives and consume. Yes, think about the bad things, but don't let them get you so down you don't go out and buy that car, washing machine or Playstation 2 you were going to pick up before parts of New York, D.C. and Pennsylvania went up in smoke.

Clear Channel Communications, a behemoth network of radio stations around the country (which also owns and operates many of the largest outdoor amphitheaters in the country), put out an "unofficial" list of songs that might be inappropriate to play on the radio right now. It was not a mandate, but it was the type of thing that many might call censorship--if the country wasn't in the situation we are in. The situation of trying not to piss anyone off at all.

The funniest part of the list was not the inclusion of "Jump" by Van Halen or "Crash Into Me" by the Dave Matthews Band (both songs--like about 3/4 of the songs on the list--are about fucking), but the line "All songs by Rage Against The Machine." Not because every song by this band might be offensive to listeners, but so DJ's wouldn't have to say "Rage Against The Machine" on the air. You see, the United States is the Machine in question.

And, even with the recent economic downturn, the U.S. is still a machine. There will always be a need to rage against parts of it. But for the next month or so, we won't be hearing Rage's remake of N.W.A.'s "How I Could Just Kill A Man" on the radio. Even though the military part of the U.S. machine is gearing up to do just that.

Revenge is a tricky thing. There is a good history of revenge in the history of man. God kicked out Adam and Eve for eating the apple. Adam and Eve kicked out Cain for killing Able. And a lot of the Corleone family died in hails of gunshots--I'm pretty sure they did something to warrant it. But it was all done in the name of revenge. You did something to me, and I'm gonna get the biggest bat I can find and do it back to you (or someone really close to you).

I have a feeling that the U.S. is about to mount a big campaign of revenge. The Prez calls it war. And he is ready to use all the toys of war to exact revenge for our fallen comrades of consumerism. It will feel good for a while. It will feel right for a while. Then it'll start looking really ugly. T-shirts with caricatures of Osama bin Laden in cross-hairs will crop up in malls all over the country. Some of them will replace the cross-hairs with a bullet hole in the middle of his head. America has a nasty side for this type of thing. And we've got the machines to make any t-shirt we want.

Walking to a restaurant on Friday night, my roommate and I fell into a group of people playing on drums, chanting, holding signs and giving away free Mentos. It was a peace march. At the end (long after my roommate and I stepped out for a pitcher of Imperial Stout), four of the peace marchers got tickets from cops because they were getting into verbal fights with people driving by in cars.

I ate a couple of the Mentos this morning. They were cinnamon and chewy. A few minutes after I popped them in my mouth, they were gone. For just a second, I thought, "Well, I've still got another pack of two. I could eat all the Mentos now."

I decided to save them for another time.

Matt Worley occasionally takes candy from strangers.