Just before my husband and I left for our Labor Day Weekend trip last Friday, we heard brief news reports about a large earthquake which had struck Christchurch, New Zealand. I was instantly interested. After traveling to Auckland, New Zealand, in April, I’ve been a little more attuned to stories tied to that part of the world. Do you find this true for you, too? Once you’ve visited a new destination, do you feel that now that place is a little bit “yours,” and that you are drawn to any mention of that place? Granted, Christchurch is located on New Zealand’s South Island, hundreds of miles from Auckland, on the North Island. Still, I had met Kiwis last spring who I knew had family and friends in Christchurch, and certainly such a small and geographically isolated country would feel the shockwaves of such a large natural disaster from one end to the other. But we were on our way out the door to a remote lodge with no phones, TV or newspapers. By the time we returned late Monday, the story was apparently an old one — at least for U.S. news organizations. I had thought there would be a few follow-up stories over the course of the next week, but one really had to search to find them. Even though the earthquake that struck early Saturday morning on Sept. 4 registered 7.0 on the Richter scale, thankfully there was no loss of life and only two serious injuries. Perhaps that is why the story fell off the front page so quickly. Certainly the damage to homes and commercial property and infrastructure was significant; estimates of insured losses range from 2 to 4.5 billion dollars, and John Key, New Zealand prime minister, has said that nearly two-thirds of the 160,000 homes in Christchurch had been damaged. While not as extensive as the damage caused by the massive quakes in Chile and Haiti earlier this year, certainly this will have an impact on New Zealand’s economy and the lives of a great many of her citizens for some time to come. So, again, I wonder what determines how much prominence one story gets over another. Its impact on the rest of the world (or our corner of it)? Loss of life? Where the disaster occurs, or to whom? How many other “big” stories compete with it for air time or column inches? No doubt it is a combination of all these factors. I am thankful that travel, whether for business or pleasure, helps draw us out of our own sheltered, narrow focus and makes us aware of and concerned and compassionate for the places and people we encounter beyond our familiar boundaries. Today we remember the events of September 11, 2001, a day whose events we as Americans will never forget. We honor the memories of those innocent lives lost, those whose lives were forever changed, and the heroes who gave their lives or risked them and their health in order to help their fellow human beings. — Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor