"The Day the Earth Stood Still" was a 1951 Sci-Fi movie, where Klaatu and the robot Gort land their spaceship on the mall in Wash. D.C., from somewhere in the universe, arriving here to give that newly nuclear-powered earthlings a message.

Klaatu, a human-appearing alien, insists he must talk to all world leaders at once, but they can't decide where to meet. To get everyone's attention and let them know he means business, for a half hour one day Klaatu "neutralizes all electricity", and everything mechanical freezes. From a scene in a New York City subway, "people come pouring up the stairs wildly, feverishly anxious to escape the darkness below." Worldwide people are frightened, unable to figure out what has happened. By 12:30 p.m. Klaatu restores power. However, instead of world leaders heeding him, he is killed. Gort the robot rescues and resurrects him. Before they return home, Klaatu tells a gathering of scientists that earthlings must not leave the planet with those nuclear weapons.

"There must be security for all - or no one is secure.This does not mean giving up any freedom except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace. Or pursue your present course - and face obliteration. We will be waiting for your answer, the decision rests with you," Klaatu says.

Klaatu and Gort go back in their spaceship and soar away.

The Day the Earth Stood Still for real was on Sept. 11, 2001. Nineteen hijackers crashed into the world and got everyone's attention. Their message was not as clear as Klaatu's. They did not tell anyone what they wanted to accomplish by killing more than 3000 innocent people.

Some believed they were puppets of the "evildoer" Osama bin Laden.

Still others believe that the multimillionaire bin Laden and his upper class Al-Qaeda cohorts, including hijack leader, son of a doctor, Mohammand Atta, were altruistically representing the world's poor downtrodden exploited by the wicked western colonialist empire.

While the Bush-Blair brigade sent American and British soldiers to bomb every shrub and rock to root out Al-Qaeda and bin Laden, the rest of the world's people looked for peace in their hearts.

World Wide Web pages appeared showing Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders and Africans bringing flowers and candles to American Embassies. Songs of harmony and shared sorrow played in the background of nighttime vigils of grieving and calls for peace. Montages of messages to the American people were seamlessly sewn together, sent far and wide for all to know that we all call this world home. All the saber rattling and speeches from caves and bunkers couldn't change what is really in people's hearts.

Sept. 11, 2001 transformed the world. On Sept. 12, Hans van Waardenburg, a Dutch bulb grower and supplier of bulbs to New York City, sent a fax to Lynden Miller, a chairwoman of New Yorkers for Parks. She told The New York Times that he wrote that he was heartbroken and wanted to do something to help. She asked him if he had any extra bulbs, and he replied, "How would you like half a million bulbs?"

Adrian Benepe, then the Manhattan parks commissioner, was receiving calls from people asking what they could do to help "the city to be reborn." He kept thinking about the Sting song about fields of gold, he told The New York Times. He said, "yellow is the color of remembrance." He started thinking about planting a million daffodils, because they are perennials. He contacted authorities in the Netherlands, and the city of Rotterdam arranged for a half a million daffodil and 90,000 yellow tulip bulbs to be sent to New York City. An additional half million daffodil bulbs were donated through city and private organizations. In a few months, 1.5 million bulbs were delivered.

New York City Parks Department joined with New Yorkers for Parks and the New York Restoration Project to organize 10,000 volunteers. Children, women and men planted the first 250,000 bulbs on Oct. 20, continuing until December to plant every one.

Fields of gold are now blooming from Harlem to the tip of Manhattan, in empty lots, traffic meridians, every patch of dirt transformed into gardens of life. Staten Island residents, who suffered a double tragedy, with many firefighters dying in the World Trade Center rescue, and then still more residents dying in a plane crash a few weeks later, have also planted fields of gold.

Amid all the death, ashes, and devastation, new life is growing in homage and honor to those 3000 innocent lives lost on Sept. 11.

When given a choice between war or peace in our hearts, most people chose peace.