The first leg of the flight is, best of all possible words and worlds, uneventful. The long corridors in the Cincinnati airport seem almost empty today. Like the World Trade Towers on a lazy weekend in the 1990s? Attention. The moving sidewalk is ending. Please attend to children. Watch your step . . . .

In the corner of a food court, a televised Christiane Amanpour is asking The Question in her plum accent: "Why do they hate us?" It's as if she'd accidentally picked up a script from 9-12-01.

The implications of the drearily familiar question are clear enough: We bring these things on ourselves by not understanding what drives these angry young men. Clearly we haven't been sufficiently interested in the psychology, religion, grievances, hobbies and general Weltanschauung of suicide bombers.

What was that Noel Coward song circa 1943? Don't let's be beastly to the Germans . . . . We must be kind/And with an open mind . . . . Why, oh why, do they hate us? As a passenger about to board an airliner, it's hard to work up an interest. The existential tends to take priority over the theoretical at such times. A more immediate question occurs: "How do we keep them from killing us?"

By random searches. By searching stereotypical suspects, too. By paying attention. By not letting the mind wander off into the kind of mental haze that a steady diet of televised punditry may induce. By not confusing Christiane Amanpour/Tom Friedman/Charlie Rose with anything that needs immediate attention.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm all for understanding terrorists -- but the way a pathologist would understand the growth and development of tumors, the better to excise them. The national security alert has been raised to orange. Do not bring liquids or gels past the security checkpoints or on aircraft. Please report any suspicious behavior to the nearest airport employee or law enforcement officer . . . . We set down at Logan in Boston without a hitch. Even a few minutes early. I get my Red Sox cap out of my bag. (When in Boston, do as the Bostonians do.) This may have been the smoothest flight I've ever taken. Outwardly.

Inwardly, a disembodied electronic voice keeps repeating: Attention. The moving sidewalk is ending. Please attend to children. Watch your step . . . .