Archive for the ‘9/11’ category

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Pat Downs

November 19, 2010

Uncomfortable, maybe, but truly a nightmare? ( Sorry- the elephant search above is not a true "pat-down" or even "trunk-down.")

Maybe it’s because I’m a New Yorker, used to the jam of bodies on the subway system, or maybe it’s because I’m a New Yorker who was an  an eye witness to the second plane hitting the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11.  Whatever the reason,  as a New Yorker, I find the consternation about increased airline security, particularly body pat-downs, at best ridiculous, at worst, maddening.

I can understand the worry about the radiation hazards of body scans, but the pat-downs–  Come on, People!

The protest over the patting seems, in part, a sign of the of the over-sexualization of the culture (which tends to fill every touch with innuendo).

Yes, I suppose it’s possible the searches can, and will be, abused.  (Already I find myself backtracking!)  But many are complaining about the concept of any physical search.  (Some of the complaints remind me of a conversation I overheard in Florida just after the ban on taking liquids overseas;  “if Americans can’t take their carry-on on airplanes, the terrorists have won!” )

In many places in the world, these types of searches are routine.  In India, visits to the Taj Majal at night as well as to many museums, and certainly any airplane flight,  involve universal pat downs  – women police officers patting down ladies behind a screen, men patting down men.

Now there’s a thought!  Maybe the answer in this country, given its more sexualized culture, would be to give passengers their choice, gender-wise, of “patter-downer.”

But the part of the controversy that makes me truly upset is the part that places convenience and avoidance of discomfort over concerns of airplane security.   The other day, thinking about this, Patrick J. Brown came to mind, Paddy Brown. (Maybe I thought of him, I realize now, because of the rhyme.).  Brown was an NYPD captain, killed on 9/11.  I did not know him, but several different friends did–one group, because he practiced yoga; another, because he was a martial artist who taught karate to the blind.  All agree that he was a truly remarkable person.  He died because he refused to leave a group of injured people on a high floor of the WTC, waiting with them in the hope of further help.

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First Time Away From New York on 9/11 – Missing Bagpipes

September 11, 2010

This is the first 9/11  since the 9/11 that I have not spent in the City.  (I’m guessing I don’t have to tell you which one.)

I don’t particularly like 9/11 in the City.  I live a block or so from Ground Zero.  It is a somber difficult place on the anniversary, full of detours and no-crossing barricades.  The only thing good are the bagpipes.

There is always the question of whether or not to go to the ceremonies.  I usually just listen to the bagpipes–the sound travels–and then don’t go, or if I do, it is by chance, walking past the site to work while some of the names are being read.

This is not because I don’t respect the names or the day.  I simply find them too sad.

I realize this evening that I have never been away before because on every other 9/11 I’ve had a child living in the City, and I’ve felt, silently, that I could not risk being away from a place and time that reverberates with crisis if one of my children is there.

I know that if something (something else) happened, I would not necessarily be able to help my children, no matter how many cars mothers are supposed to be able to lift.   But there it is–something that 9/11 has left with me, not only the sense of past loss, the understanding of potential loss.

Away from the City, there is television coverage.  It too is sad–the footage of the actual day completely intolerable– but also maddening–actual commemoration nearly outweighed by posturing, schmaltz, sensation.   With only the barest wheedle of bagpipes.  Bagpipes are really not the same on tape.

For a poem (a villanelle) about 9/11 and also children, click here.

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More on “Ground Zero” Mosque – CBS/New York Times Poll, Goldman Sachs building, that guy with the flag draped on his car, Cherries!

September 3, 2010

More on Park51, the mosque and Islamic Center proposed to be built two blocks from Ground Zero:  a CBS/New York Times poll says that a substantial majority of New Yorkers feel that the statement: “it should not be built because, while Muslims have the right to do it, they should find a less controversial location” comes closer to their views than the statement ”it should be built because moving it would compromise American values.”

The poll also finds that many New Yorkers (of the whopping 892 randomly asked) oppose (rather than favor) the construction of the mosque near Ground Zero.

Boy, do I hate polls.  They carry the aura of science–black and white data–when in fact they are often reductive, self-fulfilling, and manipulable.

I’m not saying that the findings of the poll are inaccurate–I’m quite sure that many New Yorkers would just as soon (i) that the controversy would go away, and (ii) that if Muslims have to build a mosque, they budge it over a bit.

But one problem with the poll – despite the self-fullfilling terminology- is the fact that the questions had no control, no placebo, as it were–no context.  (No one was asked, for example, if they were actually familiar with the topography of Ground Zero.)

Here are some other questions that were not asked:

Which of the statements below reflects your opinion about construction at Ground Zero?

1.  Yes, Burger King has a right to have a franchise at the corner of the site, but they should move large outdoor pictures of Twilight’s vampires, such as Robert Pattinson, to a less morbid location.

2.  Yes, shoppers have a right to get great discounts on designer goods at Ground Zero,  but the huge “SALE” banners should be draped more decorously.

3.  Yes, N.Y. Dolls can have a strip club two blocks away, but they should drape some banners (maybe from Century 21–oops, maybe not) over the outlines of naked women.

4.  Yes, that guy with the big U.S. flag with all the stenciled names of victims can hang out, but he should not scam tourists on Sundays.  Ditto the people with all the burning WTC postcards.

5.  I don’t love Jeff Koons, but his balloon-flower sculpture looks like cherries.  (Who can can argue with cherries?)

6.  Okay, Silverstein has a right to some bucks, but should he really construct an office tower on a de facto burial ground?

7.  Yes, Goldman Sachs can (even perhaps should)  build its $2.1. billion headquarters just across West Street, but perhaps, after getting over $115 million in NYS and local tax breaks PLUS the use of $1.65 billiion in tax-exempt Liberty Bonds, it should not have been so active in the collapse of the U.S. financial system.

8.  Yes, the 9/11 attackers were Muslims, but they do not represent all Islam.

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Bozo With Holy Books – Abuse of September 11th

August 26, 2010

One Set of Ingredients for Bozodom in America

Feel sick after reading last night about Pastor Terry Jones.  He is the Florida ex-hotel manager turned “Pastor” planning to burn a bunch of copies of the Koran on September 11th.  This bozo admits that he has “no experience” of the Koran, but feels that burning it is his right as an Amerian Christian.

Oh, great.

Jones claims to know the Bible (excluding, I guess those parts, about brotherly love.)    (By the way, Terry, Yahweh appeared as a burning “bush” not a bookpile.  Also, fyi, –those best known for burning books were certainly not “not-Christian”, but not exactly folks you’d want to emulate.)

It’s idiotic, embarrassing, dangerous, sickening.

What is additionally upsetting to me as a downtown New Yorker is that he is staging his outrage on September 11th.

For people who lived in downtown New York on September 11th, the anniversary of the day is very somber.   We ran, we walked, we stared, we wept.  We breathed air, thick with dust, ash, bone, asbestos and the smell of burn for months.   We were fearful of crowds, saddened by bagpipes.

We worried (still do) – what if it happened again?  How would we meet up with children?  Did we have duct tape?  Face masks?  Iodine tablets?  Could we get across the Hudson?

We became, at least if you are someone like me, even more sympathetic to people who live with a risk of violence on a much more frequent basis–people who suffer “shock and awe” in war-torn  or simply difficult societies.

If you feel any kind of connection to 9/11, you do not want to augment idiotic symbolic violence.   You want to promote tolerance, peace.  This is not just because you want don’t want to foment another attack on yourself, it’s because you understand that any violent/burning extremism, especially when combined with religious fundamentalism, causes woe.   (You are down on woe.)

This ridiculous vicious ignorant intolerant hoopla from people whose connection to 9/11 came primarily through media exposure (i.e. seeing it on TV), and who are seeking (you guessed it!) more media exposure (i.e. seeing themselves on TV) is beyond sickening.

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Attacks of Amnesia – Giuliani, Perino, Matalin

January 16, 2010

Not quite breaking news:  Rudy Giuliani has fallen victim to a sudden infestation of swine amnesia.  Unlike the former brain glitch of Mr. Guiliani, a rare “towerettes” symdrome which caused him to blurt out the numbers 9/11 every few moments, the new affliction has  caused his brain to blank out these numbers.  Symptoms were manifest recently during a televised discussion of the attempted Christmas day attack by Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in which Mr. Giuliani insisted that there had been no domestic terror attack under the presidency of George W. Bush.

Other victims of this amnesia appear to be Dana Perino, ex-press secretary to George Bush, and Mary Matalin, a former senior advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney.

To give Ms. Perino the benefit of the doubt,  she may not have truly “forgotten” the attacks of 9/11, but have attempted to make a distinction between an attack carried out by a U.S. citizen, such as the shootings at Fort Hood, and attacks by foreign nationals.   (I’m sorry not to have done better research here—the tapes of people saying things like this make me too upset to spend a long time listening to them.)

Without wishing to diminish the horror of the terrible shootings at Fort Hood, I can’t help but remind Ms. Perino of the U.S.-born Beltway sniper,  John Allen Muhammed, who spread terror throughout Virginia and Maryland in 2002 (a Bush year).

Unlike Ms.  Perino,  Ms. Matalin seems to have simply “xed” out the first year of Bush’s presidency; her disorientation alloting it to the Clinton column.

All of these killings are horrible; the fact that they are used to score political points is itself a sickness.  Hopefully, this amnesia will not be contagious.  Unfortunately, Giuliani, Perino and Matalin, are already beyond cure.

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Proposed 9/11 Trial in Downtown Manhattan

November 16, 2009

I live in downtown Manhattan, all too close to Ground Zero.  I did not live quite as close on September 11, 2001, but close enough.  I saw the second plane hit, ran down the blocks from my apartment to the site.  I remember trying to moisten towels before I headed down there with some idea that these would be useful for breathing through smoke and dust, but the water pressure was so low, and the emotional pressure so high, that I can’t be sure if I actually either wet the towels, or carried them.   For weeks and months afterwards, the smoke and smell of the extinguished towers hung over our daily lives; for years afterwards, it’s caused great sadness.

It’s also instilled a fear of further terrorism.   It is difficult for me, for example, to leave family members in Manhattan if I need to travel elsewhere.   Many who live in this neighborhood hate the fireworks over the Hudson River,  summer nights.   I don’t mind the fireworks but I freely confess that I may not be able to continue living here once the “Freedom Tower” actually goes up.

As an already terrorized New Yorker,  I am fearful of any activity that makes downtown Manhattan a greater target.  We have already been through the trial of 9/11 itself down here.  But my stronger, and perhaps overly-idealistic, feeling is that  you have to at least try to live your beliefs, both on a personal and national level.  If you tout your legal system, then you have to trust it.  If the whole conflict is about what the U.S. stands for (other than materialism), then we have to actually stand for those things, things like trials.

Even as I wish it weren’t all going to take place just a few blocks away.

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USS New York

November 2, 2009

USS New York

The USS New York sailed by Battery Park City this morning, an LPD-21 (whose name, I believe, means something like “landing platform deck”) stopping opposite the World Trade Center site.  My camera didn’t work (or I didn’t know how to work it on a brisk morning), and settled for holding my shivering  dog under my jacket, so I only have the “artist’s rendering” above.

The ship, in honor of New York, is made in part (probably extremely small part) from steel from the World Trade Center.  The Hindu-temple-like stupas at the front are missile defense systems.

Bagpipes played the Marine corps anthem “From the Halls Of Montezuma”.

Fire boats sprayed blue and white water.  (Their spray in the morning light, with the Statue of Liberty and huge grey ship in the background, and Hudson rippling on all sides,  and ferry boats, and police boats, and little coast guard rubber style boats, was really quite beautiful.)

Eleven helicopters were counted.

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Last Villanelle for a While Re Aftermath of 9/11

September 11, 2009

Anyone who reads this blog is probably heartily sick of villanelles.  Sorry!  But here’s one more–re the aftermath of 9/11.   (

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

I do write non-villanelles.   And, while this is not the last villanelle I’ll post, I promise that it will be the last for a while.  (Future posts will also be more cheerful!)

Shattering

The shattering of lives should take some time.
It shouldn’t come in flashes, clods of dirt,
no moment for altered course, for change of mind.

The actual choice ahead should be well-signed,
the frailty of good luck, a blood-soaked shirt;
the shattering of lives should take some time.

He knew that road was risky, heard a whine,
but in the end those warnings were too curt,
no moment for altered course, for change of mind.

Hard to foresee your own true body lined
with metal plates and plastic tubes of hurt;
the shattering of lives should take some time.

So many hours after to refine
what happened in that second’s blinding lurch,
no moment for altered course or change of mind.

Or was it fate?  A studied path, not whim?
His heart tried hard to measure out the worth
of shattering lives.  It would take some time,
without moment for altering course or mind.

(All rights reserved.  Karin Gustafson)

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9/11 (Villanelle)

September 11, 2009

9/11  (Villanelle)

The burning buildings woke me from a sleep
of what I thought important, nothing now.
I ran hard down the smoking, crumbling street,

praying that my child was mine to keep,
dear god oh please dear god I whispered loud;
the burning buildings woke me from a sleep.

Some stopped to stare, all of us to weep
as eyes replayed the towers’ brutal bow.
I ran hard down the smoking, crumbling street.

North sky a startling blue, the south a heap
of man-wrought cloud; I pushed against the crowd;
the burning buildings woke me from a sleep.

I’d never complain again, never treat
with trivial despair–or so I vowed.
I ran hard down the smoking, crumbling street.

I’d change, give thanks—I saw them leap—
and begged for all the grace God would allow.
The burning buildings woke me from a sleep;
I ran hard down the smoking, crumbling street.

(All rights reserved.  Karin Gustafson)

P.S. This is an old post, and an older poem, written shortly after 9/11/01 – but I am linking it to Victoria C. Slotto’s writing blog liv2write2day .

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Reasons To Live in Downtown Manhattan Post-9/11

September 10, 2009

With 9/11 literally around the corner (I live a couple of blocks from Ground Zero), the perennial question once again arises in my mind.  Why do I live in downtown Manhattan, (very) downtown Manhattan,  post 9/11?  Why would anyone want to live here post 9/11?

Here are some reasons

1.  Fitness.  You get a lot of exercise.  There are a couple of Hudson River parks where, on a nice day, every spare inch is devoted to sport, i.e. soccer, lacrosse, ultimate frisbee, baseball, football, rugby, cricket, and the shielding of one’s self and one’s offspring from stray soccerballs, lacrosse wickets, baseballs, cricketballs, frisbees,  and runners unable to stop their strides.

There’s also the esplanade by the river where you can jog, rollerblade, skateboard, ride your bike, or walk (with a careful eye out for joggers, skateboarders, the wiggly spandex fannies of backwards rollerbladers, and bikers who seem to think the esplanade,  a slightly wider than average New York City sidewalk,  is the perfect place to race).

Besides all that, the nearest subway stops are all several blocks and stairways away.  So you can get considerable exercise just getting to your train.

2.  Safety.  Putting aside terrorism, downtown seems extremely safe.  For one thing, there’s hardly anyone here at night.  (There are no good restaurants.   Another health benefit by the way–home cooking!)

The wind of the ocean also makes it too cold much of the year for muggers to lurk.  (See Reason No. 3 about proximity to nature.)

Nor is there any place for criminals to park their getaway cars.  And forget about running to the subway.

Besides all that, there’s a whole host of pedestrian walkways, meaning that residents of downtown can walk around texting without fear of causing a car crash.  (A great safety feature in modern America.)

3.  Proximity to Nature.  The rivers, the harbor, are right here.  And they are beautiful.   Every season, every hour of the day.

Then there’s that wonderful sea breeze, errr… wind, which in the fall, winter, spring, you can feel from the tips of your toes right into the marrow of your bones.

Every winter, there are a few days of actual ice floes.  (Not only in your toilet.)

Being so close to the river also brings a measure of safety.  I mean, if there were another act of terrorism, which you can’t help thinking about it when you walk past Ground Zero twice a day, you could always dash out to the Hudson, right?  Steal a boat?  Hitch a ride with the Coast Guard as they zoom into the Marina to go to the Starbucks in the Financial Center?

Swim?

Maybe better keep your Starbucks card handy for barter purposes.

4.  Smugness.  Yes, it is incredibly annoying to have to scoot through the crowds at Ground Zero every day.  (I really do prefer to call it the World Trade Center.)   Yes, you do want to shake some of the ones who pose coyly.  Yes, every time you see the hawkers’ pamphlets opened to photographs of the fireball of the second plane hitting the second tower, you really do feel sick.

Still, the whole passageway does give you a daily opportunity to feel a fair amount of unmitigated (except by nausea and rage) smugness.

5.  Pride.  All New Yorkers have the stubborn pride of the survivor.  They had this long before 9/11;  New Yorkers who have moved here since 9/11  probably have it as well.    It has something to do with the general grittiness of New York City  (probably too,  the particular grittiness of the New York subway system.)

I did not live down here on 9/11.   I did live in downtown Manhattan (but about thirty blocks from the World Trade Center rather than a couple.)   And I did run down here on that day to look for a daughter who was in school a couple blocks from the towers.

Even so, I have not earned the full extent of grim pride of the people in my building who lived here then.

I do understand it though.  And we, who did not live quite as close, but close enough, who smelled the smells, and breathed the dust, and watched the smoke, have some small share of it.

I would not call this pride a reason to live down here.   But there is some benefit of being near a place that reminds me, when I am obsessively worrying, whining, frustrated, that there was a day in which I swore, if I found my daughter safe, I’d never complain about anything again, that my lifetime watchword would be gratitude.

6.  Low Rent.  Compared to much of the rest of Manhattan at least.   For some reason.

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