9/11 aftermath inspires effort of 'pure good'
Barbara Carmen, The Columbus Dispatch, August 9, 2002

Like many other people, Bret Vinocur is battling a case of the September elevens.

Angry, helpless, frustrated? Vinocur can identify.

He lived each day on a treadmill, starting with the real thing at 6 a.m. at a Dublin gym and progressing to the corporate version -- 12-hour days as a sales and marketing account executive.

Single and 35, he should have been carefree.

" I have a job I love. I'm living in a city I love,'' he reasoned. "My life is great. I've got it all.''

Everything except the kind of meaning we acquire from helping others.

It's easy to see why we feel frustrated after Sept. 11. Our itch to serve community and country follows a decade of navel gazing. We'd coined the term cocooning, bought bigger TVs and fed a demand for gourmet carryout.

Our social disconnection ended abruptly as we comforted strangers on streets. Some, like Vinocur, are turning to community service.

" I woke up and realized I could do something,'' he said. "I can't find bin Laden. I can't fight the war in Afghanistan. And there's nothing I can do about the stock market.

" But I can help take back America's future one child at a time.''

He devised his plan during a haircut.

" You know how it is: You sit in the chair and talk about the world. We were talking about the murder of Samantha Runnion, and it just came out of my mouth: 'I'm going to start a Web site to find missing kids.' ''

The hairdresser smiled. "You know, Bret,'' she said, "I just know this is going to be huge. This is pure good.''

Vinocur, who has a background in computers, dashed home and typed his first choice for a Web address into a search engine. No one else had claimed www.findmissingkids.com.

Vinocur's Web site -- a month old today -- is amazing in that he has compiled a ton of names and photos. It's depressing for the same reason.

" When I was putting together the Web site, I didn't sleep,'' he said. "Now, I can't sleep.''

He has nightmares.

Vinocur isn't yet a father, just a guy who wants to help.

No evidence suggests the number of kidnappings has increased. In fact, most are children taken by a noncustodial parent. But this summer's hot story pricks at our psyche like a Hitchcock movie.

Some kids are being snatched from drug-infested neighborhoods, like the little Philadelphia miracle who managed to escape. Some are disappearing from the womb of suburbia.

As a nation, we ought to wonder what has gone wrong with childhood. This concern registered with President Bush, who announced this week a summit on crimes against children.

Nice idea. But we need more than chitchat and informational booklets. We need adults to regard children like $1 million in cash. Never let them out of sight.

And we need laws to keep pedophiles in prison or supervised. Forever.

Some crimes deserve a "one strike and you're out'' approach. This is one. Experts say pedophiles are nearly impossible to "fix'' -- a hard truth facing the Roman Catholic church. For some criminals, there is no redemption, no rehabilitation -- only a next victim.

Is it coincidence, this first summer after Sept. 11, that our attention is riveted by the fight between evildoers and innocents?
Shark attacks and political groupies with more hair than scruples seem silly this summer. We have come to know Samantha, Danielle and Elizabeth by their first names.

" They've become America's children,'' Vinocur said. "If people would just look at all the photos on the Web site -- have their children look at the pictures -- we could make a difference.''

Nearly 1,000 people have visited the Web site in its first month.

Herein lies our test: Will the Web site draw as many hits next summer? Or will our national attention-deficit disorder resume and consign missing girls to the ranks of shark bites?