#41301
09/12/2001 9:56 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
You go to bed hoping to wake from a nightmare. Screams live around me now. I want to break out in them. Tears I cannot shed. They rise in a column of smoke and gypsum. They scatter their ash on us. The thousands, the thousands who died. Who lie buried in broken steel and concrete. Alive. In hope. Aircraft carriers to the harbors of the free city. The city I love. Army on the street. Come downtown and you will be arrested. Every threat to every bridge, credible. Schools closed. How many children's parents will never bring them there again? Remember them. Send us your hearts. Our's are broken.
|
|
|
#41302
09/12/2001 10:23 AM
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Send us your hearts.
So we do, sir; so we do.
MaxQ has given us a beacon to light our way: "Inhumanity at its worst has given humanity a chance to shine at its best."
|
|
|
#41303
09/12/2001 10:38 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Screams live around me now. I want to break out in them.
Of course you do--go ahead, darling one. You and all who were eyewitnesses. And some of us who weren't. You have had our hearts since yesterday morning. I don't know if the feeling of being in a nightmare will ever go away. I know how badly I want to wake up--it must be thousands of times worse for you.
|
|
|
#41304
09/12/2001 10:55 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Max, I think you may be the wisest of us all. Witness:
Or, at least as percieved by some fundamentalist, mostly Shi'ite, Muslims. Not all Muslims feel this way, and to tar them all with the fundamentalist brush would be to give the pepetrators another victory.
The ability of so many so close to the tragedy to see clearly the perils of overreaction is an inspiration, and ought to strike real fear into those unspeakable fiends responsible.
Inhumanity at its worst has given humanity a chance to shine at its best.
|
|
|
#41305
09/12/2001 10:55 AM
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Partial List of Hijacking Victims; .c The Associated Press
- Christine Hanson, 2, Massachusetts.
- Juliana Valentine McCourt, 4, Westford, Mass.
dear god, dear god, dear god ...
|
|
|
#41306
09/12/2001 11:24 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
that the first thing that everyone wants to do after a disaster is: talk to somebody about it?
|
|
|
#41307
09/12/2001 11:52 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
An earlier generation knew the neighborhood where I live as "Hell's Hundred Acres." Outside of history books, the name is all but forgotten, now. But around the corner, the firemen of the local company remembered, and christened one of their engines that. Unostentatiously. You would only notice if you passed close by the open garage door where, on pleasant days, they would pass the time. If you didn't know the men by name, you did by sight. We often laughed watching them shop, planning gourmet meals for their duty. These men. Strapping. Almost surly, if you can mean that 'in the best sense.'
Being no near the disaster, the company was among the first to arrive on the scene. Presumably, before the buildings toppled. Because they were too close. The engine, flattened. Of that company, none survived.
And the company on Broome Street, just a block or two further away, lost half its men.
|
|
|
#41308
09/12/2001 12:23 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
John 15:13 "Greater love hath no man than this, that
he lay down his life for his friends.".
|
|
|
#41309
09/12/2001 12:35 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
Jackie, I thank God for your heart.
|
|
|
#41310
09/12/2001 1:18 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
Oh Insel. My heart breaks as yours does. Courage love, courage. Know that all of us have you in our heart and minds always.
The call came this morning that NY needed blood badly. Donor clinics have already been set up all over the city and people are flocking. We're on our way do not dispair.
Love,
Gin.
|
|
|
#41311
09/12/2001 1:54 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819 |
this looks like an attack on the two great satanic evils of present-day Islam.
And the satanic evils of present-day Ralph Nader, and Noam Chomsky, and myself. It cannot be Islam itself, but a perversion of Islam, that may be to blame. Remember that the Golden Age of Spain resulted from a coopertion of Islam and Judaism. It was destroyed by a corruption of Christianity. They all spring from the same root. May they all remember that, and become brothers and sisters again.
Inselpeter, I hope that you have friends, a clergyperson, and/or a psychotherapist at hand. The terror of this is something that we on the west coast can only share vicariously, but we do share it.
|
|
|
#41312
09/12/2001 2:30 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Dear Helen, Inselpeter, and all. To see it on television was horrifyings. Then the other crashes. Horror upon horror. To have actually seen it must sear the soul.
I once read somewhere : "God preserve man from enduring all that man is capable of enduring." To that I can say only Amen.
Thank you seems so poor a response to our friends over the seas but what else can one say for all the kindness, in such circumstances. Thank you.
On TV just now it was announced that in Boston, Mass., there is a fund being set up at Citizen's Bank for donations to help the people in the disaster.
ABC News just announced that the "dead and missing" at Pentagon is now 200. Not the 800 originally estimated at first. Apparently there was an area under renovation and the aircraft appears to have struck there.
In NYC 260 firefighters and police are dead and/or missing.
I was told that even China sent condolences and support for any action US may take, saying that terrorism is "a cancer that must be cut out." Anyone else hear that?
It's one small solace (gratefully received) to read of the concern and plain decency displayed by posters on this Board over yesterday and today.
Puts all our petty differences here and among our own family, friends and acquaintances in proportion doesn't it?
|
|
|
#41313
09/12/2001 2:33 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
I'm not sayin'... I'm just sayin'...
“We lost something like 245 Marines in Lebanon, there
was the Mogadishu thing, the Cole, Khobar Towers and
embassies in Africa,” said Professor William Turcotte,
chairman of the national security decision-making
department at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport,
R.I. “We haven’t had a clue as to what to do.... The
fundamental issue we have not addressed: If the harborer of
terrorists — Iran, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan — if they have
said the U.S. is ‘The Great Satan,’ and even without a
smoking gun we know they have encouraged this, do you
attack the country? So far, we have not. Will our mood
change?”
“We will make no distinction between the terrorists
who commit these acts and those who harbor them.”
-G.W. Bush
|
|
|
#41314
09/12/2001 3:01 PM
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
I do so hope that good sense and common humanity will prevail in America, once the anguish adn anger have abated a little.
An act of retaliatory vindictiveness will lose the USA the synpathy that is currently being poured out by the whole world.
That leaders of nations traditionally hostile to the USA have roundly and promptly condemmned this atrocity is witness to the wisdom of Max's remarks, above.
But it is well to take note that the pupils in my sister-in-law's TEFL class, from Palestine, Vietnam, China and Chile, whilst properly appalled at the needless bloodshed, were not very complimentary about the USA,s foreign policy as applied to their own countries.
This is a time when the hearts of all good thinking people are reaching out to the good, ordinary folk all over the USA, and in NYC especially.
Please, please do not let this beautiful fund of goodwill be sullied by a further act of violence.
|
|
|
#41315
09/12/2001 3:08 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
If I may: to my knowledge, the United States is not in the habit of acting out blind revenge. The closest that I can think of was in the Persian Gulf War, and then we--mostly--tried to target only the guilty, or the threatening.
I know I'm showing my ignorance, but I am really surprised that people seem to think we're going to do the equivalent of dropping a nuclear bomb somewhere.
|
|
|
#41316
09/12/2001 3:13 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
jackie, I'm not sayin'... I'm just sayin' (part deux)
THE SCALE of the attacks and the loss of life —
mostly in New York City’s World Trade Center, but also
near Pittsburgh and Washington — ensured that “no option
has been taken off the table,” senior U.S. officials said.
Asked if that included nuclear weapons, one senior official
said: “I said no option is out of the question. That’s
precisely what I mean.”
[from msnbc.com/news]
|
|
|
#41317
09/12/2001 3:37 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Have started new thread for "what's next," in Info/Announce
Perhaps we could move response/remedy discussion there?
A young mother and wife - a customer at my son's business - is a flight attendant for American Airlines. She flies the Flight 11 all the time -the plane that crashed into the WTC towers -- however -- she decided to take this week off to spend some time with family as children are going back to school and since husband works locally they could spend a few days together.
She knows all the crew on the plane. She is devastated.
The co-pilot of Flight 11, Tom MacGuiness, is from Portsmouth, just up the road a few miles.
We are all in shock. People have tied purple ribbons on trees and posts as expression of shared sorrow with his family.
|
|
|
#41318
09/12/2001 4:00 PM
|
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 609
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 609 |
We share your sorrow and send our hearts as Inselpeter asked. Europe has declared Friday as a day of mourning with a 3 minute silence as a gesture of respect and sympathy. Only a gesture but this shows a shared emotion.
If anyone can think of anything practical that those of us further away can do please just ask. We will take a close interest in the "what next" discussions here and elsewhere, because ensuring this does not happen again anywhere is important.
My thoughts and love are for those with a close involvement in the tragedy. May they take strength from friends, colleagues, and the support of strangers.
|
|
|
#41319
09/12/2001 4:56 PM
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
Rhuby:
I'm reading your post as a plea for America to turn the other cheek because retaliation would "lose the USA the synpathy (sic) that is currently being poured out by the whole world."
I must disagree. Human individuals may turn the other cheek and ignore a slight or an injury, but a government cannot do so, since it then ceases to be the protector of its citizenry. Our Constitution starts:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
We have made a career out of altruism. We have sent billions of dollars all over the world to feed, to clothe, to heal those less fortunate than ourselves. We have opened our arms to immigrants from literally every country in the world. We have thrice (if you include the Cold War) fought world-wide battles to establish a world atmosphere where every individual has the same rights and responsibilities as the person beside him or her. Our inventions and innovations have raised the standard of living to unparalleled heights. Our medical advances have helped raise life expectancy all around the world. We have in the main been even-handed in passing our good fortune on to others.
But we have let ourselves be pushed around once too often. Today as many as 40,000 of our citizens lie dead, incinerated and crushed by an evil hatred for our way of life (and our good fortune). If our country does not take strong, timely, and measured steps to prevent this from happening again, it will have failed to live up to at least four of the main phrases of the Preamble to our Constitution.
To paraphrase the late John Kennedy, Let the word go forth from this moment on YOU FUCK WITH US AT YOUR OWN PERIL.
Terrorism delendum est.
TEd
TEd
|
|
|
#41320
09/12/2001 6:44 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
To paraphrase the late John Kennedy, Let the word go forth from this moment on YOU FUCK WITH US AT YOUR OWN PERIL.
Or in the words of a Japanese Admiral following Pearl Harbor
"We have awakened a sleeping giant."
|
|
|
#41321
09/12/2001 7:26 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
Two steady streams of pedestrians on Broadway, south of the Houston Street perimeter. Heading north are the triage teams. Doctors and nurses, some in scrubs; unidentified workers, police in jeans and t-shirts, dusty, 9mm pistols at their sides. Others head down, shift on shift, or drive by in emergency vehicles. They are transporting heavy earth-moving equipment west along the shabby length of canal. Sanitation trucks hose down the streets, attempt to rid them of the ubiquitous gypsum. Dump trucks. Humvehs. Ambulances. Some race, some politely wait for the light and let you cross.
It is-like a Sabbath, here. Unearthly quiet for this place. Subdued. Alert. A time to reflect.
The world is divided between upper and lower Manhattan. There, north, the workers may not even pass through downtown on the way to work, the bereaved are fewer. And divided again. Those of us who live downtown are mostly spectators, not admitted to the perimeter as much as enveloped by it. The Battery still echoes with yesterday's explosion. The shockwave drove bereavement across the rivers, skimmed the harbor waters. We are in the eye of the storm: around, a wall of unimaginable pain, and lives ravaged.
What God could ask such sacrifice? If God *is the God who creates in destroying, we are bound to deny him. Not to pile hate on hate. And if to deny such God is folly, then folly is the best of humanity.
|
|
|
#41322
09/12/2001 7:30 PM
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Human individuals may turn the other cheek and ignore a slight or an injury, but a government cannot do so, since it then ceases to be the protector of its citizenry. ... But we have let ourselves be pushed around once too often. Today as many as 40,000 of our citizens lie dead ... Let the word go forth from this moment on YOU FUCK WITH US AT YOUR OWN PERIL.
Agreed, TEd. In hindsight I wish I'd previously posted this thought under our "rudeness" thread, for it would resonate here:
We can all deplore rudeness, and cruelty, and bullying, and violence, but we cannot stop with mere deploring words. In the real world they will ever exist, and we are responsible for how we act - or fail to act -- accordingly.
Cruelty, bullying and violence are weeds, and will spread ever-wider unless checked. There is but one way to deal effectively with the most vigorous and vile weeds: to deracinate them, thoroughly and promptly. One can hope to be careful and gentle, but never at the risk of losing sight of the job that must be done.
|
|
|
#41323
09/12/2001 8:31 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
Just beginning to emerge from the fog of shock that overcame me as I watched the first World Trade Tower crumble to the ground...New York is very special to me, I grew up 30 miles away in Plainfield, NJ, lived downtown in New York on E. 11th Street in the 70's, and always considered myself a New Yorker, so this was not just a national assault for me, but a very personal invasion as well. I thought of Helen, insel, and all the friends and acquaintances I have known in New York and the New York area over the years...the casualty numbers are liabel to have many faces. Spent until this morning trying to get in touch with the family of a friend, John Elsberg, who works for the Army in Washington as an editor of their Military History magazine and who is also a poet and publisher of an Anglo-American literary journal called "Bogg"...finally reached them this morning and he's okay. Turns out he had a meeting scheduled concerning some funding matters in the part of the Pentagon that was hit, but he decided to take the day off instead. The woman he was supposed to meet with is now among the missing. Then word came today that a young surgeon, the son of a doctor who saved my father's life back in '86 and who lives just a few blocks away from us here in Wildwood Crest (NJ), had an office on the 108th floor of the WTC and his family has not heard from him. So that really brings it home. Then the daughter of one of the pilots of the downed aircraft is from Mays Landing , NJ, on the Cape May County/Atlantic County border, just about 30 minutes from here, and a crew member of another plane is from Marlton, NJ, not far from here either. And, yet, as harsh as it may sound, all these personal connections seem trivial in light of the horrendous losses that will unfold to us. Celebrities, artists, sports figures, friends, family members...how can any one be an iota more important than the loss of any other in the magnitude of so overwhelming a tragedy? I especially think of all the children who have to be subjected to this gargantuan evil, how their innocent lives must now be forever changed by the horrible images they'll see on their screens, how their sense of youthful safety has been blown away by monsters. What kind of world are we bequeathing to them?
I weep for us all, I weep for humanity...to quote an old folk song, "When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn....?"
By the way, the State of New Jersey has declared a state of emergency, and teams of emergency personnel from every city and hamlet are heading to New York to help in the rescue and recovery effort.
Cape May County has already sent a contigent of firefighters, police, and EMTs, organized by the county sheriff with representatives from every town in the county, to the rescue scene.
A madman behind any mask is still a madman! ...ditto "barbarian" and "murderer"!
|
|
|
#41324
09/12/2001 9:10 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
I especially think of all the children who have to be subjected to this gargantuan evil, how their innocent lives must now be forever changed by the horrible images they'll see on their screens, how their sense of youthful safety has been blown away by monsters.
A psychiatrist on Public Radio said that parents should shut off the images and play a tape or play with their children. He went on to say that seeing the images over and over are hard enough for adults but can traumatize children.
Just thought I'd pass it along.
|
|
|
#41325
09/12/2001 9:37 PM
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 544
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 544 |
So glad to hear inselpeter and Helen are okay. I lived in New York for a few years, and I'm still trying to get in contact with a number of friends there, but I think everyone I know and love there is okay.
I'm sure there are many people who will have "what-if" stories - I keep being stopped short by the thought that my partner and kids just flew from the east to California on Sunday, and that my mother was supposed to fly from Boston to San Francisco on American (not on one of the targeted flights, but still so similar) on Wednesday! She is thinking of flying on the weekend, and I'm torn - I've told her to drive or take the train, but I know we must not let fear grind us to a halt, for then the villains win, but it's hard when it's one's own mother.
On the broader question of our response - I agree that action must be taken, and that it must be swift and decisive, both to deter such acts in the future and to reduce the likelihood of reactions against muslim communities around the world that had nothing at all to do with this heinous act. At the same time, I have some hope that this will change the way Americans act in this world. Ted is right, that we have contributed in huge ways in this world, but we have also shown great arrogance in how we operate. I guess my hope is that from this experience we will develop some sort of guide for our own behavior - that the US, and most especially US corporations, will ask "Is what we're doing fair?" or "Can we do it in a way that makes everyone better off?" before acting abroad.
By this I do not mean to say that I sympathize with the mad, evil people who did this in any way - looking back at what I've written I fear that will be the interpretation. I think I'm looking, in the midst of all immediate loss of life, and the huge, difficult changes this tragedy will bring to our country and our world, for some good to come of it, for some basic change in the way we all treat each other, that may make it somehow a better world than we had before these horrible events.
|
|
|
#41326
09/12/2001 9:49 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Just on ABC News -- they belive five or six men - believed to be the hijackers - took flying lessons in Florida.
It's so hard to know where to put the anger and the terrible sorrow.
|
|
|
#41327
09/13/2001 1:13 AM
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
A psychiatrist on Public Radio said that parents should shut off the images and play a tape or play with their children. He went on to say that seeing the images over and over are hard enough for adults but can traumatize children.
Having been through something similar, I must disagree with that authority.
One morning thirteen years ago, when my older kids were in 4th and 1st grades, a madwoman entered their school, loaded her guns in the bathroom (and shot a boy there), and then entered a classroom and began firing. 6 kids were hit, one fatally.
In the aftermath the school, on the recommendation of psychiatrists, held special sessions for the kids to talk it out, individually, in groups, and in groups with their parents. That talking was, all agreed later, absolutely critical for all of us. To this day I vividly remember the shy little who broke the ice, and was the first to speak up, hesitatingly, in my daughter's fourth-grade class.
In general the older kids (3rd grade and up) managed to resolve their feelings once they talked it out. The younger kids had varying reactions. Some worked their way through it quickly, indeed seemed little affected. But those most affected at first were too young to have the verbal skills to talk it out, and had a good deal of trouble over the next few years.
|
|
|
#41328
09/13/2001 1:39 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
It has just been announced that the Empire State Building and Penn Station have been quickly evacuated due to a significant threat. They say Washington officials were briefed today in a security meeting that there was "high probability" of follow-up attacks. And they just reported that they believe 10,000 commuters lost their lives in the transportation mall beneath the WTC...I know so many people who live downtown and all over the city who could've been traveling through there...I just can't take anymore of this...God help us all!  [tear-e]
|
|
|
#41329
09/13/2001 2:11 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
<<Whitman>>
There is time enough to pause, laugh, after all the days tears, a small miracle in the midst of all the horror. I know, Whitman, all of us are in terrible pain. Those of us here and elsewhere. The heart you all have extended us, I extend my heart to you.
I would like to tell you all how wonderful the state and municipal governments have been. I have never been a fan of Giulianni's, but he has been incredible. Everything is very well organized. If there is a military presence, it is not on the street. All the civil control is in the hands of the police, from what I've seen, and they've done a fantastic job. The firefighters have suffered terrible losses. There is an entirely new company in the firehouse around the corner, and new equipment. Flowers pile up in front of it, and candles. These women and man are truly valient, carrying on in the face of everything. And, for the most part, the citizenry has banded together.
Thank all of you for being all right about my going on. You have been a great help.
|
|
|
#41330
09/13/2001 3:16 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
Thanks, insel...truly, there is room to pause for a positive breath and a light rumination in the midst of this churning dimness. I love you all, I love New York, I love America, I love all the decent and kind-hearted Citizens of the World...I closed a poem once with the line "death denies nothing that is loved." WE ARE NOT DENIED!!! We should, indeed, allow ourselves to share a smile in the face of all this imposing denigration!  There...for you, insel!...and for all. But, mostly, for those who did this...that they will be diminished by the courage of our humor!!! Love and goodness will prevail...it has to!
|
|
|
#41331
09/13/2001 7:54 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>have never been a fan of Giulianni's, but he has been incredible.
He has come over very well on television. I am impressed with his efforts.
The latest figures on British dead are "more than a hundred with the final figures likely to be in the mid hundreds" to quote our Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw on radio this morning. Yesterday several children at my daughter's school were still waiting to hear about relatives. The financial sector of Edinburgh, like many cities, has a very close relationship with Wall Street.
Today's "Thought for the Day" on Radio 4 was a senior Muslim religious leader who, like everyone I have come across, was appalled by the tragedy.
|
|
|
#41332
09/13/2001 11:05 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
The air has been filled with an acrid smoke, here, since last evening, but this morning it is clearing. I walked through the empty streets and noxious fumes last night, again to find a place to help the effort. South, to Canal and the west toward the river. Nearer the west side of the island, brigades of heavy equipment line the avenues. The crews of dump trucks, earth moving equipment, welding rigs chat, sleep in the cabs, feet thrown up on the dash. I recognize the names of contractors from New Jersey. Their trucks all bear small American flags. My attitude is completely changed toward these displays of patriotism. At Houston St. and 6th Ave., a group of civilians have erected a makeshift monument of flowers, candles, writings to the fallen. The stand cordoned off behind plastic tape and applaud each time a rescue worker passes, walking north from ground zero a mile or more south of where they stand. A young woman offers me a cotton rag to tie around my face to breath better. Someone has cut up sheets, and she carries strips of cotton cloth around her neck and hands them out to people she meets. But the air is clean on this side of town, the wind blowing from the west. A report comes over a police radio at one of the barricades on Houston. There has been a shooting somewhere. I can only wonder who from the over-taxed police force will respond. I awoke this morning with the sense something had happened. The lights from the entrance of the closed Holland Tunnel burned across town in the West, outside my window. I remembered that some of the tunnels and bridges had been closed or restricted. But I couldn't remember why. Eventually, the image of the pile of the World Trade Center in wreckage forces its way back into my consciousness and I am shocked all over again. Weep. This unspeakable, enormous tragedy, dissolves the differences between us. There is almost nothing but shared grief, mutual support, a desire to help and tremendous sacrifice. It may also be you learn the word "enemy" in a new way. I fervently hope, though, that what we, here, in this city have learned for each other-the fact, or sacred invention, of common humanity-will fly ahead, and in the face of, winds of hatred and prejudice; that tragedy not follow on tragedy, the concrete slabs of falling buildings. That we learn to recognize in the eyes of others, thousands of miles from here and different from us, our own needs, loves and terrors. They were office workers who died. Men and women with families. Not titans, but people. Let us not visit more tragedy on our own. For that is who 'they' are. Us. Let the new theater of war finally begin with empathy.
|
|
|
#41333
09/13/2001 11:31 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Inselpeter, my heart weeps for you. Love. Perhaps your clearing air will be both local, and in another sense, worldwide, before too much longer. I hope.
|
|
|
#41334
09/13/2001 1:29 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
For the past two days in Emails with friends and on this Board I have mentioned my deep anger and sorrow and that I did not know where to place it.
Today I recognized that the sorrow is really compassion for all who are and will suffer and what I felt was not anger but outrage ... outrage that has now turned to resolve.
To inselpeter and all here who were so close to this horror my heart goes out to you.
we are more united, more resolute to combat terrorism and terrorists, and more ready to do something about terrorism than we have ever been.
These quoted words from another post say it well.
We Americans may have been brought to our knees by the attack but we have prayed, each in our own way, and we rise like the Phoenix, stronger than before and filled with a profound resolve.
It is just the beginning of a long road and it is my hope and prayer that our government will move to a deliberate and thoughtful measure.
We cannot abandon our Constitution. That would be a real victory for those who are responsible for the attack.
Revenge has no room in my heart towards any peoples.
The *Powers that perpetrated or supported the attack must be identified and - with the help and support of all civilized nations - be rooted out and stopped once and for all.
This may be disjointed, especially for someone who spent so many years as a writer. Please forgive that and read this with kind eyes.
|
|
|
#41335
09/13/2001 1:43 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Dear Kieva, I agree with you totally about the need for children to be counseled.
What the psychiatrist was talking about, I believe, was the effect of the relentless repitition of the *images on the very young children and that should be avoided, to guard against *deepening the trauma.
Am I making sense? {sigh-e}
|
|
|
#41336
09/13/2001 1:48 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
<<'apologies'>>
It is very difficult to write coherently in these cirumstances. I admire the skill and resolve of those who can. Let us agree that in this thread, at least, such apologies are uncalled for.
Thank you, Wow, from everyone, I'm sure, for you caring thoughts.
|
|
|
#41337
09/13/2001 1:54 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
we are seeing, here and elsewhere, how events like this can bring out the best in people. but it also brings out the worst (bomb threats at the pentagon??). do you need to be reminded of these things? maybe not, but.
Scam artists capitalize on tragedy
Spam urging Red Cross donations sends users to trick site
By Bob Sullivan
MSNBC
Sept. 13 — Consumer protection advocates are
warning Internet users that scam artists are
trying to take advantage of Tuesday’s terrorist
attacks. Spam solicitations have been sent out
urging Netizens to donate money to the Red
Cross or other relief organizations. But the
e-mails direct potential donors to private Web
sites apparently designed to steal credit card
numbers.
|
|
|
#41338
09/13/2001 2:10 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Scam artists capitalize on tragedy
Apparently there were people going on ebay to sell pieces of the WTC building.
To their credit, ebay has announced it will not allow any offerings that try to take advantage of this terrible situation.
|
|
|
#41339
09/13/2001 4:08 PM
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
this just in, 5 firemen have just been unearthed, alive.. 2 walked away on their own power, 3 needed to be assisted..
|
|
|
#41340
09/13/2001 5:30 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 36
newbie
|
|
newbie
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 36 |
I've lived and gone to school in NYC, but have never been south of Houston. My only map of the city is pre-WTC days. Would you mind telling me exactly where it is--was--located? Thanks for you horrible/wonderful descriptions--there are no better people in the world than New Yorkers.
|
|
|
|
|
