Osler's Razor

Not-so-Fun Moments In Lane History (Eighth Anniversary Edition) --

Whoops.

My bad, everyone.
 

My husband had a ticket on flight 93 for that day. He would have been on that plane but he and his friend had canceled their trip because they go too busy with work to go.

Nine years later, kind of makes me sad there is STILL no like memorial on the site or whatever. Not on ANY of the sites...
 

thank you.
 

Wow Lane -- I'm impressed. That must have been pretty tough.

I was in the air when the planes hit, flying from Miami to Chicago. I spent the day with some friends of a friend, warm strangers, just near Chicago O'Hare. Given how many people I knew working in finance in NYC, I was very surprised to learn that I didn't know anyone directly who died in the attacks, but did have many second degrees of separation.

That all said, this video typifies the fear that the government stoked more than the genuine tragedy of the event itself. The music is unnecessarily emotive, and so overly mediates the experience; the reference to the stymied British attack needlessly mentions that the men arrested were Muslim; and it ends with the portents of fear.

I often wonder what a better response would have been. Something like India's response to the the siege of Bombay last November? Perhaps the attack on the Taliban was inevitable...maybe even a good thing, though I'm not wholly sure of that even. Perhaps recognizing that the attack came from somewhere, for some reason, that the choices and actions of the US and other western governments contributed to their motivations in SOME way or another, and so trying to learn from them? Perhaps focusing the same amount of money that has since been spent on military destruction on economic development, on construction? Perhaps building partnerships with those in the Muslim world who will dialogue?

I don't know...but I hope we get to the time in our society when we can begin thinking about what we could have done better.
 

Well Sep, I didn't suffer. But the tragedy of the attacks got pushed aside by my community as a way for the locals to feel justification for their racism, xenophobia and violent tendencies.

It's hard.

Personally, what I recall the most was feeling horrified at the tragedy people were suffering in New York, while being horrified with my second period substitute that stood on her desk, blamed this on the Palestinians and prayed for their death. Or disgusted with the tough-guy posturing of my classmates that said we should go kick "their" asses.

Then, I came home to death threats and being told I should be made to "walk point" in Afghanistan. Excuse me, can we stop hating the weird kid to care for the people hurt by the attacks?

That's what I want people to take from the experience. Before hatred and bloodlust take over, let's practice compassion.
 

Glad to see that Lane and Septimus have taken this opportunity to inundate us with more of their usual psuedo-intellectual post-modern progressive nincampoopery. Good form gentlemen. Good form.

Where is all-caps anonymous liberal guy when mocking is really needed.
 

GLAD TO BE BACK, RRL.

(THOUGH MAYBE I WASN'T GONE...)

--ANON
 

The woman who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C. would be a good choice to design a fitting Memorial for Ground Zero.
 

WEIRD KIDS SHOULD GO LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE IF THEY DON'T LIKE THE USA. IF YOU DON'T WANT FREEDOM, YOU SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO LIVE HERE. I WILL PURCHASE THE BOAT FOR YOU TO LEAVE WESTERN TEXAS IN.
 

In October 2001 I traveled to Ground Zero for work. While there, I happened upon a handwritten note left by the daughter of one of the victims of 9/11. It read:

"Dear Daddy, I love you so much, and it is so hard to deal, but all heroes go to heaven, and this is why I lost my hero, my heart, my daddy. Love, Your Little Girl."

September 11, 2001, was not only a terrorist attack on our Country; it was many, many, instances of personal human tragedy. My chest still tightens when I recall how overcome I was with emotion that day. Please remember the victims, their families and friends, and the personal effect of such a tragedy. I know I can never forget.
 

People jumped out of windows to avoid burning alive.

No music could ever be "overly emotive."
 

The staircase I used to climb each day when I went to my office at 7WTC is (was) the only thing remaining when I visited the site a few years ago. It was so said to see!
 

Hmm . . . I wasn't expecting the ending of that video, but it explains the bombardment of images of the planes striking the towers . . .

It's so hard to watch those images again.
 

I AM NEVER READING THIS BLOG AGAIN YOU HIPPIES. A NATIONAL TRAGEDY HAPPENS AND ALL YOU WANT TO DO IS FEEL SAD?!? GO KILL OBAMA ALREADY!!!!!