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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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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.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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"!
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Joined: Nov 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
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addict
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addict
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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.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
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Joined: Mar 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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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]
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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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.
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
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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!
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