We Survived..Now What? Part 2

Had a hardy laugh when I rediscovered this post recently - an Echo parody post (unattributed) that had been re-posted on the Well a few days after 9/11.

quote:

---

This unattributed parody lifted from Echo is the first thing that's made me
smile in a few days:

245:1003: My neighbor's dentist had a meeting in Tower 2, and if he didn't have an emergency tooth-scraping, he would have been there.

1004: Oh, I'm so sorry.

1005: I'm so sorry for you and your loved ones.

1006: All the dentists need healing now.

1007: Here's an email that explains that a temple in New Jersey is collecting kreplach to send to bereaved families.

1008: That's nothing, he's an email with the list of every phone number located in the World Trade Center.

1009: Oh, I'm so sorry.

1010: I've seen the World Trade Center while flying into New York. I'm so glad kreplach is being collected. We all need kreplach now.

1011: I was going to get my teeth scraped on Tuesday. I'm in shock.

1012: Thanks very much everybody for asking if I'm okay.

1013: Do you think this terrorist attack makes me look fat?

1014: Yes, and you need healing.

1015: I'm so sorry you look fat.

1016: We're all sorry you look fat.

1017: The U.S. government and GHWB want you to think you look fat.
That's just trilateral compensation weight gain.

---

WHAT?
Jade don't you think I'm worth $1600.00 per hour?
LOL.
You know I am much to introverted to do a lap dance or the other dirty thing you mentioned.

BTW. The check cleared and I had a fist fight with a patron at a club owned by the brother of the woman who hired me this weekend. I wonder if I'll get hired again?

Imagine my embarassment, I only had two cosmos!

My first thoughts are always against the tide. The day after the towers went down I thought, oh no, people are REALLY going to start treating Arabs like shit. I started lunching at the Afghani restaurant on St. Marks. I figured it would be a show of support and I'd enjoy some good food. And it was VERY good! I'm glad they're still opened. They must be going through a difficult time. Ask Armen about living through the 80's as an immigrant from Iran.

Then, when all of the fundraising started I absolutely knew it was getting out of hand. I just hate mass American cultural movements. They are always reactionary and illogical. It reminded me of how stupid people acted over the Lady Di death or the Elian Gonzalas thing.

Now we have these surviving families complaining about only getting 6 million! Many of us have tragiclally lost loved ones to illness, accidents, whatever. No one handed us millions. The gross part is the way Americans expect more money for families of victims who made more money. It's all about protecting the status quo when it should be about disaster relief.

Meanwhile I'm sure all of those corporate donors are still donating the exact same amount of money to charities as they do every year. Instead of this or that disease/foundation/museum etc. they gave it to the cause that would get them a big pat on the back. My thoughts all along were that we should all be holding benefits... for anything BUT WTC. I just think that when something is so overdone in such a mainstream way, they don't need my help.



a

I saw the 6 proposals for the footprint. They all sucked. It looked like some guy from Tulsa was building a shopping mall there. In all of the world can't we find one archetect with some vision for the place. Oh, and why is the rest of the USA telling NYC what to build on the site? Tail wagging the dog? Seems so to me.

ps.

Crains Business News is reporting that Disney is planning a theme park/shopping mall in Coney Island? What the hell is happining to us?

T

From: Listening to the City
Subject: Join Our Online Discussion

"Listening to the City" is pleased to announce we will host a two-week online dialogue beginning Monday, July 29th. Online dialogue participants
will have the opportunity to review, discuss, and vote on the proposed redevelopment plans and other issues that affect our communities. The
online dialogues will give those who weren't able to join the live events on July 20th and 22nd a chance to join this historic conversation
conversation.
Last week's "Listening to the City" meetings have already influenced the local and national conversations about Lower Manhattan's rebuilding
process. The outcome of the online dialogues also will be documented and shared with decision-makers.

To learn more and sign up, please go visit:

http://dialogues.listeningtothecity.org/

In order to involve as many participants as possible, priority will go to those who were unable to attend "Listening to the City" on July 20th or July 22nd. Please forward this message along to any family members, friends, or colleagues who may be interested.

I hope you'll be able to join us online as we continue this historic discussion.

Sincerely,

Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer
Listening to the City

From: Not In Our Name NYC
Subject: Next Mtg August 15th
What: Not In Our Name Planning Meeting for October
6th Day of Resistance
When: August 15th at 6:30pm
Where: Judson Church Garden Room
241 Thompson (Between West 3rd and West 4th Sts.)

The Not In Our Name project calls on all people of
conscience to come to the next planning meeting to
mobilize for a Day of Resistance on October 6th. On the anniversary of US bombings of innocent people in Afghanistan and also as we sit on the verge of US led bombings of innocent people in Iraq, it is crucial for all of us to express our Resistance. We must let the rest of the world know that not all people stand behind President Bush as he wages wars around the world, that we will fight attacks on the civil liberties of Muslims, Arabs and South Asian people, that we will not stand by as the climate of repression continues to grow with measures such as the citizen spy program. We feel this message needs
to be heard especially loud from NYC, "ground zero" where the deaths of thousands of innocent people on Sept. 11 have been invoked as justification for the government's actions.

Imagine this: On Sunday, Oct. 6, the day before the bombing began one year ago, ten thousand people of different nationalities, backgrounds, communities, and political outlooks converge in Central Park to send a message to the people of the world that we stand with THEM and not the U.S. Government. People could hear the firsthand stories of those who have been targeted by the Government's actions. A huge wall could be created with children's artwork and messages from unions, community organizations and religious congregations that could be sent to people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and other countries
who are feeling the effects of U.S. actions. Angry, defiant and uplifting cries of youth for a different future could fill the air with poetry, chants and song. Ideas and plans for resistance could be shared and spread.

Imagine this: At a certain time that afternoon, the many thousands could physically stand together and create a gigantic image of the world with their bodies. Then, ten thousand strong, they would speak as one, take the Not in Our Name Pledge of Resistance, led by prominent artists, writers, religious figures and activists.

It may be a challenge to actually realize this
vision. But the times require nothing less. Every
willing hand and heart is needed to help develop this vision and make it happen.

Please join us on August 15th at:
Judson Church
Garden Room at 6:30pm

as we plan, strategize and work towards making October 6th, Day of Resistance a success. Please invite other people and organizations to the meeting.

For further information and to be part of the
outreach and organizing for the meeting and for
October 6th please visit www.notinourname.net or
call us at 212 969-8058.

Email us at nycnotinourname@yahoo.com.

In Resistance,

Reecha
NION

but this sounds like a good way to spend it if you're here. The teletwintowers project is brilliant - check out the website-

From Missy Galore

quote:

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hey friends,
come join us wednesday Sept 11 for a night of remembrance and unity at Walker stage -->56 Walker Street

U cAn'T FiGhT Pe@cE

this free party is possible because of the dedication and delicious talents of the following:::
love, Missy Galore
TeleTwinTowers.org

INSTALLATIONS:
*Antonio Garcia *DennyDaniel.com *HusH {sports}
* Feedbuck Galore* Kate Yareshenko* TeleTwinTowers.org*

PERFORMANCES:
*Amy Shapiro *Bitchcom *Malaika *Miko & Jake are SkyHunter *
* Militia Galore* Patrick Bucklew, aka the Mangina*
*Renegades of Punk featuring: Kid Lucky & Not 4 Prophet

SCREENING:
*GNN.tv in association with UnansweredQuestions.org
present
AfterMath--the Unanswered Questions of 911

LIVE VISION MIX:
* Brandon Emerik-Quantum Video Theory* Chiaki Watanabee*
*Feedbuck *Missy Galore *Pete23 *

DJs:
* Arrow Chrome* Drewdini & Rhythm Collective*
*Pow Pow *Ripley *Shane Digital *

INTERNET:
live webcast- TeleTwinTowers.org
NickNack.org* A*

Special Thanxxx
*Ana *Bitchcom *Lenny Charles *Miko *Paul Garrin
* PG2M* Rhythm Collective* Walker Stage*

---

Under the Veil: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), an exhibition in association with WorldPictureNews, is a selection of photographs taken illegally-at the risk of death-by women's rights activists in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. RAWA was founded in Kabul in 1977 (by Meena, who was assassinated in 1987) as an independent political and social organization of Afghan women fighting for human rights and social justice, and was directly involved in the war of resistance against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Since the fall of the pro-Soviet regime in 1992, the focus of the political struggle has been against fundamentalism and the misogynist orientation of the Taliban regime. In response to the stifling of women's voices and role in public life, the members of RAWA resorted to photographing the atrocities of the Taliban regime from under their burqas, using both still and video camera! s. ICP will show a selection of these images that illustrate the everyday plight of women under the Taliban, violence against the Afghan citizens, and the political activism of RAWA. Almost all of the images date before September 11, 2001, allowing the audience to witness the political events leading to the subsequent US military involvement in Afghanistan.

REMEMBER:
September 13 through December 1

At:

International Center of Photography (ICP)
1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street
New York
212.857.0000
www.icp.org

Hours:

Tuesday through Thursday: 10 to 5
Friday: 10-8
Saturday and Sunday: 10-6
Closed on Monday

Sitting in Hollyweird, just reread all the 9/11 posts in "Best of the boards" and remembered how comforting it was that the boards stayed up and how much of A lifeline they were. as a sometimes new yorker, i will spend the aniversery with sadness of course, but also with pride in all of you.

Di's post from the hospitol was very moving even a year later. Like the mother website says, if you want to remember, read it. Not everyone does but I am so glad you left it up.

Saturday the 7th was a beautiful day clear blue sky, cloudless. Di and I commented to each other that this was Exactly the same sky as on the 11th nearly one year ago. It doesn't seem too far off. Last year at almost the exact same time we were in a club in London called Vertigo. We watched the sunset from one of the highest buildings in London and commented to our friends about how we would love to take them to windows on the world.

One year later.

Fighter jets still fly over NYC and each plane that banks gives me an inward chill. I watched skywriters over the skyline yesterday writing "I love NY" and thought of Bioterror.


The village singnpost is still here and so are we. We have returned to an almost normal existance. Yet we wait. And hope.

America needs closure. I am afraid that will never come. People hate us. Whoever it is that we are. Hate is easy. Understanding is impossible.

T

NYC still remains a high target for people who would harm us. The US govt has now raised the threat level for the first time in 1 year. Perhaps it is 9/11 jitters, there still remain many who would hurt us if they could.

T

I am more concerned with the trigger-happy US military and the adrenaline addicted NYPD. I hope they use their heads.

[Never mind getting shot. You can't even vote in this town. They left of the switches for T. Golisano in the voting booths at my polling station. The Board of Elections conveniently hangs up when I call to report it. What's that quote from Janis,"freeedom's just another word for nothing left to do" or Ben Franklin, "We hve a republic if we can hold on to it."

It is always heartening when you have to instruct the poll keepers yourself how it is done.
The machine was broken for the 13 E.D. which meant we had to fill out paper ballots. I gave the man the card I got in the mail with my name on it and he said, "Mr. Votante.. I cannot find that name." I said, "That is because it is not my name." For the life of me, I could not understand where he got that from, so I took the card back and read, halfway down, in Spanish, Estimado Votante: Queda avisado(a)....(Dear voter: Please be advised...) I was stunned. Thank God he didn't try to read the Chinese written on the next line!
When I was done coloring in the circles of the paper ballot (which by the way, still listed Cuomo, but I guess that doesn't matter,) folded it and put it in the very safe looking cardboard box, I said, "Don't I have to sign the book?" "Oh yes," he said, "I forgot."
I give up. Nobody cares. Not the voters. Not the people working the polls. And definitely not the candidates. No wonder George W. Bush was elected.

Hattie,

When the NYPD and the U.S. Military execute me for wearing nail polish, you can start comparing them to al Qaeda.

As for trigger-happy, ever hear of rules of engagement? We use them, they (al Qaeda) don't.

All My Love,

DD

Terms of Endearment

won an oscar didn't it?

lv

T

I vowed I would not watch any of the news/television coverage of the anniversary events. I just didn't want to face it again ...
but this afternoon I had to go to the bank for personal business, and of course there was a TV on in there. When I finished my transaction at the teller window I stopped for a minute and watched it. They were discussing communication problems that day with the firemen, and one of the fire commissioners was saying how hard it was for him at one point to give the evacuation order to the firemen in the North Tower because the building was unsavable, knowing full well there were still hundreds or thousands of civilians trapped inside. Many firemen on the upper floors either didn't hear that order, or refused to evacuate in order to help civilians get out. Of course they perished. And in watching all of this I got all teary-eyed and had to walk out, on the verge of balling. Several people looked at me with knowing glances.

I still can't believe it happened. It was so huge, so catastrophic and unprecedented. And I'm proud to be a New Yorker.

Darla, dear, I don't understand. I did not mention al-Qaeda. I was thinking more the testosterone-pumped 18 year old soldiers, cute as they are, I have been seeing everywhere.
And, these days, if you wear nail polish and a dress at night in the Meat Market, you very well may be executed by the NYPD. Or at least thrown in the hoose-gow!

Well, I survived yesterday. An ativan at the start of the day at work (so I could focus on not freak myself out with thoughts of last year on this day), and then several cocktails yesterday evening helped me make it through this anniversary. To me, it seemed that life had returned to some sense of normalcy after last fall, and now all the has been dredged up again. I make the analogy like ripping off the scar tissue to reexpose the wound, and now it has to start healing all over again. Not that it shouldn't be remembered, but in such an American way (I guess that is a good thing really), so all that media hoopla & onslaught and constant reminders.

As I walked home last night down Broadway with the wind whipping down the street, I thought of how different it was last year, when I couldn't even get to my home. I am grateful that I can do so, and hope not to take such things for granted. I don't want America to go to war...enough already, why can't everybody just get along.

Well, the anniversary has past, so back to the healing and sealing over of all this...

i can only imagine how New Yorkers must feel... i have few friends in NYC and we were talking late last nite and i think the somber tone hasn't gotten any better. if anything.. my NY pals are even more embittered, especially now when it has been exposed that attacks on the U.S. were imminent, but the warnings ignored.. or that the fire exits of the WTC were not structurally sound on the top floors (had they been, hundreds, if not thousands, could have escaped)... or that airport security just fucking sucks as it always has but still nobody gives a shit.

quote:

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if anything.. my NY pals are even more embittered, especially now when it has been exposed that attacks on the U.S. were imminent, but the warnings ignored.. or that the fire exits of the WTC were not structurally sound on the top floors (had they been, hundreds, if not thousands, could have escaped)...

---

Betty -

Firstly, so great to hear from you in our other beloved city NOLA - where so many of us (daddy, glamnerd, myself, terence, goblin etc.) first got our groove back when we went for pre-Halloween weekend last year, with New York (and our lives) still in shambles.

Just wanted to give perhaps another viewpoint to this week's anniversary, as it felt in our little corner of the East Village. We had dreaded the day, planned to leave, then got too busy to get out on Tuesday as planned.

What actually happened was a windy, quiet, beautiful day, where a mile and a half north of the solemn ceremonies, those who could sat outside at a cafe, escaping the TV and its inevitable tears, no one in a hurry.

We chose the neighborhood fixture Cafe Orlin, where we had met up with the family a year before in the acrid air of September 12, in a closed-off, disaster-movie East Village. A year later, it was so fitting that the wind brought a fine layer of dust over everything - nature staging the most incredible tribute of her own.

And we talked only of all the good that happened from that day, and continues to happen from it:
How The Motherboards had their finest hour; how we got to know our neighbors in a profound new way; how a cop told me that after never understanding transgendered people before and being somewhat repulsed by them, in the terrible calamity he had an epiphany of sorts and now was a tranny-lover; how Art, not Commerce, was once again New York's most prized endeavor, as artists and organizations (including our own) felt a new importance to their work.

Some of us, it would seem, are actually LESS bitter now than before 9/11 ever happened. Love to everyone there - we'll be back this winter..

There is so much to be angry about these days, yet it is important to be reminded of how much dignity and compassion there is in this town and how we all have been forced to grow in the past year. Thank You.

Chi, I could not have said it better myself. I too promised myself that I would not look at TV and go about my day of work. I reflected on my year and found myself at a very happy moment in life. Ironically I've traveled more this year than any other. I've seen and learned so much and have met some of the most amazing people the planet has to offer. I can't believe sometimes how fortunate I am. But I think that is what we must do, live life as full and passionately as possible. Never stop. It's the best way to fight all the bullshit and darkness that seems to bombard on a daily basis.

http://www.nationalreview.com/dreher/dreher091002.asp

Have been following the story of Amiri Baraka's poetry battle with interest, and finally got to read the controversial poem "Somebody Blew Up America" today. If you haven't been following, Baraka is the poet laureate of New Jersy, a $5,000 a year job that he is about to be fired from because of an actual poem he wrote.

Here's a snippet and a link

quote:

---

"Somebody Blew Up America"

By Amiri Baraka

Somebody Blew Up America
They say its some terrorist,
some barbaric
A Rab,
in Afghanistan
It wasn't our American terrorists
It wasn't the Klan or the Skin heads
Or the them that blows up nigger
Churches, or reincarnates us on Death Row
It wasn't Trent Lott
Or David Duke or Giuliani
Or Schundler, Helms retiring

It wasn't
The gonorrhea in costume
The white sheet diseases
That have murdered black people
Terrorized reason and sanity
Most of humanity, as they pleases

---

http://www.bet.com/articles/0,,c3gb4059-4747,00.html

It is a stunning poem regardless of what you feel about the politics and this kind of "poetry battle" is unprecedented since at least the publication of Howl.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, as LeRoi Jones, Amiri Baraka was living in Greenwich Village and had earned some repute as a jazz critic, playwright, and Late Beat poet. He also became close to the Black Mountain Poets Charles Olson and Robert Creeley. However, during the 1967 Newark Riots, he and several others were stopped, arrested and beaten by the Newark Police. In the ensuing trial, his poem, "Black People" was admitted by the prosecution as evidence that he was fomenting racial unrest.
From the trial's transcript:

"THE COURT: Just a minute. This [the poem's] diabolical prescription
to commit murder and to steal and plunder and other similar evidences"”

DEFENDANT JONES: I'm being sentenced for the poem. Is that what you
are saying?

THE COURT: "”cause one to suspect that you were a participant in
formulating a plot to ignite the spark on the night of July 13, 1967
to burn the City of Newark and that"”

DEFENDANT JONES: You mean, you don't like the poem, in other words..."

Jones was convicted by an all-white jury. However, the case was overturned on appeal. He later changed his name to the Bantu Amiri Baraka and became active in Black Nationalist causes.

AVP
Lauds NY State Crime Victims Board Extension
of Surviving Partners Policy

Executive Order Will Now Be Applicable to All Partners

Today representatives from the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (AVP) praised the New York State Crime Victims Board (CVB) for moving to extend Governor Pataki's 9/11 Executive Order granting surviving partners of gay victims of the terrorist attacks benefits equal to those that spouses receive. Once the policy is in
effect, domestic partners of all homicide victims, will be eligible to receive benefits equal to those received by heterosexual spouses. Currently, such benefits can total $30,000 per year.

This policy change will go a long way to providing great solace for our clients who have lost partners to violence," said Basil Lucas, AVP's Bias-Related Violence Victim Advocate. AVP reports that in recent years, they've tracked anywhere from six to ten bias-related murders
annually. Information was not readily available on how many of those victims had surviving partners.

We have worked hard for years to move the State forward in its recognition of lesbian and gay families and have pressed for change in CVB policy on survivors' benefits for more than a dozen years," said Richard Haymes, AVP's executive director. "The issue of non-recognition of "gay families" is most pressing for our clients in domestic violence situations who remain unable to access Family Court, but the State's ongoing and callous disregard of the loss and suffering experienced by lesbians and gay men who have lost a partner to violence has been extraordinarily hurtful, and this change in CVB policy can begin to remedy that," said Haymes.

"We were quite pleased when Governor Pataki issued his executive order providing CVB benefits to same-sex surviving partners of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and truly hoped that that would open the door to the extension of benefits for all our community's surviving partners in perpetuity – the lack of that provision was
always a tremendous inequity. This move by the governor and CVB gives us hope for the future opening of doors to lesbian and gay families," continued Haymes.

"It's also important to acknowledge the hard work and collaborative efforts of the Empire State Pride Agenda on this issue. They have been a true force for change at the state level," concluded Haymes.

The New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (AVP) is the nation's largest service agency for victims of bias crimes against the lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, and HIV-affected communities. For twenty-two years, AVP has provided counseling and advocacy for thousands of victims of bias-motivated violence as
well as for survivors of pick-up crimes, domestic violence, sexual assault, HIV-related violence, and police misconduct. AVP documents incidents of
bias-motivated violence, educates the public about violence against or within our communities, and works to reform public policies impacting all lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, and HIV-affected people. AVP provides free and
confidential assistance to crime victims through our 24-hour bilingual hotline (212-714-1141).
###
_______________________________
Clarence
Patton
Director of Community Organizing & Public Advocacy
The New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence
Project
Building a Safer Community for Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual & HIV-Affected New Yorkers

Office:
212-714-1184, x55
Fax:
212-714-2627

24-Hour, Bilingual Hotline:
212-714-1141

Worldwide Web: www.avp.org

To make donation to AVP, call 212-714-1184, x21,
or
click here: https://magenta.site-secure.net/avp/donate/donate.htm

Thanks, Hatty

I wondered if I was the only person on earth who remembered LeRoy Jones.

PS-He is always present at John Vocarro's New Year's fetes.

http://www.lmdcresidentialgrantprogram.com/home.jsp

Anyone else see this tonight?

Incredible, as his work always is. The Philippe Petit tightrope-walk segment and the closing statements by Mario Cuomo and a tearful Ed Koch were devastating..

First two hours were about the building of, and early resistance to, the towers. Only the last hour was about their fall, but when he went, he dared to go deeper than anyone Ive seen - the footage of the jumpers and those watching them was almost impossible to watch but more powerful than any other single thing Ive seen on this.

Oh mais oui Empress! That was so extraordinarily good. I agree that Ric Burn's "The Center of the World" grapsed the depth and enormity of this subject/events better than anyone yet. The tightrope walking, and Koch and Cuomo at the end were my favorites as well. I was thorougly enjoying this as a history but when it reached the third hour, about 9/11 it opened up all the wounds in a very compassionate way. When Mario Cuomo was saying how something that includes every religion of the world has to be included at the site, I found myself saying "Yes!""Yes!" out loud through teary eyes. I had been thinking along the same lines. This was done with great skill, vision, and heart.

I have been waffling about signing up for the health study of people who were living and/or working in the proximity of Ground Zero on 9/11/01.
Although I think the concept is sound, I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the LMDC application process: it was laborious, unwieldy, and many of us have still not heard a peep from them months after the process was completed.
How do other M-Boards residents of Zones 1-3 feel about this?

The link BTW is:
WTC Health Registry

Hatches, I would sign up if we lived that close because I think there is going to have to be some reparations from government for misleading y'all just to get Wall Street back up and running.

On another note, this looked like a promising way to spend the 11th, for goths -

quote:

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SEPTEMBER 11TH

-Come protest the war profiteers at the Carlyle Group to mourn the deaths from 9-11 to the present as a result of these horrific wars.

520 Madison Avenue, at 52nd Street at
4:30pm-5:30 on SEPTEMBER 11TH. Please try to wear black or funeral related garb, and bring creative signs. At 5:30 follow us on a march to union square, where we will converge at UNION SQUARE Park to find reason, discourse and compassion. Please bring chalk, candles and your spirit.

---

Thanks for the tip, Chi Chi.

For those of us who weren't aware of Monday night's airing, Ric Burns's "The Center of the World" will re-air on PBS Thirteen this Saturday afternoon from 4-7pm.

BTW, I recommend Ric Burns's "Donnar Party" documentary, too. I rented the DVD at Kim's. Watch it late at night.

Being a Zone 2 resident, I don't want to register for this epidemiologic study. It is a personal issue for me. I would prefer not to have my habits (personal and environmental) studied and documented for the next 20 years. However, it is worthwhile for those who are concerned about their health and want to "know" what we breathed in 2 years ago. Personally, I know it wasn't good- the headaches and nausea from those smells that wafted north in those immediate days could not have been good. I think the EPA has some shame and guilt issues around this issue, and community pressure is forcing them to throw money to this study. Will our exposure have long term effects on our health? I guess we will find out in 20 years.

As for the LMDC grants- faceless government bureaucracy that also left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I'm not an epidemiologist. I don't understand how epidemiologists do their work. I once read a book by Laurie Garrett, The Coming Plague, that was amazing and disturbing, in which she explained how epidemiologists tracked down the origins of ebola, yellow fever, etc.

Anyway, I looked at the 9.11 Zone. It covers everything below Canal. I don't understand how they came up with that line.

I remember on 9.11.01 a friend ringing my doorbell 30-40 times. (Though I had intended to wake up early that day to vote for Mark Green in the primary, and then pass out flyers near polling places around the East Village, I overslept.)

I buzzed in my friend, frustrated by his persistence. Before he came in through the door, he told me that the World Trade Center was gone. That was all he said. He seemed so calm. Without saying a word I turned on NY1. The buildings were still standing, which I was quick to point out to him, figuring he was exagerating. But, of course, that was a picture from earlier. The camera cut to a live shot. The buildings were gone.

I watched for another minute. In more flashback footage, I saw a couple, holding hands, leap from the building. (Until I saw the K. Burns documentary, I had not seen that kind of footage again.)

I put on my shoes and stood outside on the corner of 4th/A. Ash was falling all around me. The air was pungent.

For me, that was the moment of realization.

I remember for weeks afterward, the air remained different. There were a variety of explanations. Some said the fires were still smoldering. Others said it was the scent of decaying flesh.

Every morning started with that scent and the emotion that came with it. Now, two years later, once in a while the memory of that scent comes back to my mind.

Anyway, as far as my question goes, how did they come up with that Canal line?

I was standing on 4th/A with ash peppering my clothes, my hair, and my lungs filled with tormented air.

I've never thought much about the longterm health effects. But I did read that article in the times about smaller babies being born to women who lived in Manhattan on 9.11.

I'd prefer to go on from here not worried with thoughts of cancer 20 years from now. (I'm three weeks off of cigarettes, but that's for a different discussion thread.) But all of us breathed in that air that day.

Did all the truly damaging particles and chemicals land below Canal? If so, fine. But my recollection is different.

Yumako-

Yes, anyone in downtown breathed in a load of horrible air that day - and perhaps other things.. that dust..it haunts me still. And there are many who say that when the wind chnaged and blew alot of the worst air for the next 12 hours to Brooklyn, that they actually bore the brunt of the first worst air. Certainly, there were many animals in Brooklyn, stuck in apartments with open windows, that got sick or even died from that smoke. Noone really talks about that, but on The Well there are pet owners and neighbors of pet owners that posted about it.

But what the study refers to is long-term exposure to that air and all the toxins released when the building came down and by the fires that burned for a month. And that is indeed much, much worse for the people living within a half-mile of Ground Zero, and of course the rescue workers and others working at the site.

Living in Park Slope (the wrong side of the tracks Park Slope, but whatever), our apartment living room was covered with dust. We only noticed it that night with only the TV on, this coating over everything. The lady and I both got pretty sick and cleaned up - all the while knowing that this was some pretty fucked up dust we were cleaning up.

And now I find out the EPA lied to us about the air quality and I just want to dump a load of WTC dust on the White House and say, "Screw your political calculations and breathe this shit in!"

Anyhoo, it's weird day, eh?

'in matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.'
-oscar wilde

In the evening of 9-11-01, across the Hudson River in Jersey City where I live, the smell was strong. It was a smell I had never before encountered, and I believe that the putrid notes were from the over 2,000 killed, pulverized and burned. My boss gave away hundreds of dollars worth of essential oils that aid in respiratory ailments to firemen to bring to their brothers working on the rockpile, and when I went down there with her (when they finally allowed people into the area), we kept eucalyptus and other essential oils soaked on cloth over our mouths and noses. Over 99% of the on-looking people I saw there had nothing over their faces, yet the airborne particulate was still noticeably high, and this was several weeks later! Everything downtown was still covered with chalky dust.

Something that once again struck me when I saw the Ric Burns "Center of the World" documentary the other night was from the visionary perspective of the Tarot, how starkly vivid the 9/11 events were the Tower card made manifest. The following is a brief on "The Fool's Journey" through the Major Arcanna of the Tarot, concerning the Fool's arrival at The Tower card:


Tower
How can the Fool free himself from the Devil? Can he root out his influence? The Fool may only find release through the sudden change represented by the Tower (16). The Tower is the ego fortress each of us has built around his beautiful inner core. Gray, cold and rock-hard, this fortress seems to protect but is really a prison.
Sometimes only a monumental crisis can generate enough power to smash the walls of the Tower. On Card 16 we see an enlightening bolt striking this building. It has ejected the occupants who seem to be tumbling to their deaths. The crown indicates they were once proud rulers; now they are humbled by a force stronger than they.

The Fool may need such a severe shakeup if he is to free himself, but the resulting revelation makes the painful experience worthwhile. The dark despair is blasted away in an instant, and the light of truth is free to shine down.


Keywords that often go with the Tower are such things as "Fall from Arrogance" "A Humbling experience that restores balance" "Being knocked from a position of arrogance" "Preparing the way for true realization" "Distress" "Crises" "Destruction of old ways" "New Cycle to begin" "Clearing House" "Awakening to the truth."

I am struck by the high numbers of those Americans who have dug in deeper to hold onto American Arrogance, so well symbolized by driving "Hummers." I read a quote from
Rick Schmidt, founder of the IHOG, the Internatiojnal Hummer Owner Group:

"Those who deface a Hummer in words or deed deface the American Flag and what it stands for."

I believe that the new leaders will truely lead us from the ashes of 9/11 and away from the old arrogance to a new understanding of the world today and our place in it. To take a piece of a Carol Mosely Braun quote: "...we're all in the same boat now."