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Wednesday, September 11, 2002
911 linkroll 
| | When Chip East was handed the bag containing Biggart's gear by his widow, Wendy, he was convinced that no pictures had survived. The avalanche of falling debris had blown off the backs of the two film cameras. There were several rolls of film in Biggart's bag; however, the lids of the film canisters had been peeled back, allowing light to fall into the cassettes. Finally, East turned his attention to the digital camera. It was covered by ash. The lens had been sheared off at the flange. But when he opened the chamber that held the compact flash card, it was pristine. |
| | Chip adds: "Bill was killed when the second building came down, and he was crushed under all the debris. I don't know if he jumped back under the underpass, or whether the direct debris killed him. We know in his last picture he was working to the very end, and that's telling of the commitment he had to his work." |
| | Remember, spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side. Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent. |
| | Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you. |
| | Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again. |
| | Give time to love, give time to speak and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind. |
| | Love and thanks to my daughter for the pointer. |
| | This is a defining moment in international affairs. Authorization for action is clear. We have made endless efforts to bring Saddam Hussein into line with the duly considered judgments of a unanimous U.N. Security Council. Let us go to the Security Council and assert this case with the care of a country determined to take decisive action. And this powerful case for acting now must be made promptly to Congress. Its members will have to stand up and be counted. Then let's get on with the job. |
| | Even where a growing consensus is apparent, as in the case of Iraq, such a synthesis remains elusive. Why does the left oppose war on Iraq? Do we oppose it because the US government's reasons for going to war are always deceitful, or because the United States has no right to unseat foreign governments that haven't attacked us first, or because this war is ill-timed and is likely to backfire? Do we oppose it because it's unilateral and illegal under international law, or because the American government has failed to put forward a coherent vision of Iraq after Saddam? As with Afghanistan, there are more than two ways to be for or against an intervention in Iraq. Like the war on terror, the debate on the left over the uses of American force has no end in sight. |
| | And no box office, either. |
| | The best help I know of comes from George Lakoff, below. |
| | ... and backthanks to everybody who emailed pointers to many of the above. |
Force? Matrix? Juxtapoetry?
| | ...at Ground Zero there is a monument to the 21st Century right where Church and Liberty intersect... |
Just a thought
| | Is there not a successful precedent of sorts for Iraq in the former Yugoslavia? Did we not fight and bomb our way to peace against a proven despot on behalf of populations that largely were, in fact, Muslim? |
What a shame
Remembranes
| | It's 9:40am, New York time. All the TV networks are showing memorial services at Ground Zero in Manhattan and at the Pentagon. As names of the dead are being read at the New York service, ABC is running them, like subtitles, at the bottom of the screen. So was NBC for awhile. While other networks break away for speeches from the Pentagon, only CBS stays with the New York story, with pictures of nearly every victim. Kristin Lee Hanson, age 2, and her mom just went by. I believe they were on one of the planes. No doubt her mom held her tight and said everything was okay, right up to the final moment. |
| | So much love, colliding with hate. |
| | On the radio, Howard Stern is doing a terrific job (as he did a year ago) today, working without ad breaks and instead giving air time to owners of surviving business in the WTC blast zone. Right now he's interviewing a guy who worked on the 61st floor of the South Tower... and now the owner of a shipping store whose business was nearly wiped out in the catastrophe. Even his interview with a stripper is somehow moving, especially with all the off-the-cuff jokes thrown in. (Wish I had better reception. The L.A. station carrying the show is 100 miles away and the San Diego station is 150. Interference from the laptop obliterates reception of either station unless I move the radio ten feet away. I suppose no local station in Santa Barbara carries the show because the prevailing ethos is on the politicall correct side.) |
| | NPR is just airing the New York service, occasionally cutting away for reports and commentary from Scott Simon there, or other correspondents in Washington and Pennsylvania. |
| | As I watch the names being read off, I'm struck that nearly all of them were younger than me. So many in their 20s and 30s. So many families. There must have been eight Clarkes and ten Lees. The late Lees were of many ethnicities. |
| | Tom Ridge is giving a very strong speech in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 went down. "They won the first battle," he just said. |
| | [Later...] Just got back from dropping the kid off at school (I lingered, making the most of George Carlin's advice, above). On the way home I listened to Howard Stern, who is now repeating his show from one year ago today. His calls for dropping nukes on Afghanistan weren't exactly helpful, but they were heartfelt and unfiltered, and a welcome break from the endless memorializing on television. |
A constructive suggestion
| | ..has no one noticed? It's a graveyard, a holy ground of pulverized human bodies, a shrine forever where thousands of souls ascended in a great, mass apotheosis. Are we going to put a Starbuck's there? Leave it alone. People will come to pray. And if we're all worried about the loss in commercial land value—nothing wrong with that, by the way—the Americans (and others) who visit in the future will more than make up for it when they stay at hotels and buy food and raise a glass. |
Floating the hard lessons
| | ...imposing norms and rules on ourselves gives us the credibility to demand them from others. It gives us the credibility to demand the rule of law, religious tolerance, consensual government, self-criticism, pluralism, women's rights and respect for the notion that my grievance, however deep, does not entitle me to do anything to anyone anywhere. |
| | It gives us the credibility to say to the Muslim world: Where have you been since 9/11? Where are your voices of reason? You humbly open all your prayers in the name of a God of mercy and compassion. But when members of your faith, acting in the name of Islam, murdered Americans or committed suicide against "infidels," your press extolled them as martyrs and your spiritual leaders were largely silent. Other than a few ritual condemnations, they offered no outcry in their mosques; they drew no new moral red lines in their schools. That's a problem, because if there isn't a struggle within Islam ‹ over norms and values ‹ there is going to be a struggle between Islam and us. |
Peace
| | A year ago today I sat on this same couch, watching TV while blogging away. Like I'm doing tonight, I made a few posts before going to bed. Then my sister called around dawn, right after the first plane hit the North tower of the World Trade Center. |
| | I haven't been the same since. None of us have been. |
| | There's a terror alert right now: The Threat Level is high. In the fuzzy language of the Homeland Security Presidential Directive, this means |
| | Taking additional precautions at public events and possibly considering alternative venues or even cancellation; |
| | Preparing to execute contingency procedures, such as moving to an alternate site or dispersing their workforce |
| | Restricting threatened facility access to essential personnel only. |
| | So would you fly today? Guess it depends on whether airports and airplanes are "threatened facilities" or not, I guess. Nobody is saying. |
| | Nightline remembers interesting facts about the Twin Towers: the 20-minute weddings at Windows on the World, the Spanish music in the middle of the night, when the cleaning crews came through, the French guy on the high wire... |
| | I just channel-surfed into a PBS POV program on humanitarian relief in Afghanistan. The story is cutting back and forth between two little boys in a hospital, both alive but terribly injured. One is saying how he picked up a shiny thing on the ground that looked like a mirror, but exploded. I can't bear to watch. My own little boy is asleep in his room right now, enjoying the peace we have long taken for granted here in this blessed country, so far from the world's constant battlegrounds. The boy with the cut-up face is terribly cute: bewildered, curious, innocent and trusting. Trying hard to be strong. |
| | Now the show reports that one of the boys died. Not sure which one. It's too much. I'm going to bed. |
Archrolling
| | I'm experimenting with another column of links, over there on the left. The idea is to come up with sort of a "best of" list of archived blog days, selected mostly by Google. No need to grant it any special significance. I'm still just kinda screwing around with it. |
There are responses to this message:Re: Wednesday, September 11, 2002, lou josephs, 9/11/02; 11:15:16 PM Re: Wednesday, September 11, 2002, lou josephs, 9/11/02; 10:54:12 PM Re: Wednesday, September 11, 2002, lou josephs, 9/11/02; 4:35:07 PM Re: Wednesday, September 11, 2002, lou josephs, 9/11/02; 4:32:16 PM Re: Wednesday, September 11, 2002, lou josephs, 9/11/02; 9:57:02 AM Re: Wednesday, September 11, 2002, lou josephs, 9/11/02; 9:33:10 AM Re: Wednesday, September 11, 2002, lou josephs, 9/11/02; 9:07:44 AM
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