9/11

I was going to write up something fancy, take my time, edit, cut paste, link, etc., and decided in the end to just sit and type this all spontaneously. Across the nation, people are holding memorials, rememberances, etc. My office is roughly 90% empty as most of the staff is either 1) on patrol, activated because Governor Davis has decided that California must be on a higher state of alert than the rest of the nation (after all, he might say -- has said -- "All Those Planes Were Coming Here"), and 2) they're down by the Capitol, at Sacramento's big memorial. So, it's quiet, a stark contrast to one year ago today.

One year ago, I was just waking up and clicked on the television to check weather and traffic. Only they were reporting that one of the towers of the World Trade Center was on fire. I sat up in bed and thought, No way! High-rise fires are horrific things, and it's staggering to imagine trying to fight one in so tall a building. I changed channels over to Fox News. Sure enough, there's a burning tower, waaaaay up there, too. Annette was already up and drying her hair, so I told her what was going on. She came in, watched for a bit, and went back to her morning prep work.

They were already reporting that witnesses saw a "large aircraft" hit the tower. There was some clown on with the reporter, saying how this could all be an accident, that the sun was rising, glare off the buildings, lots of traffic, blah blah BOOM!

The Fox News camera was a little too zoomed in. What I saw via this live broadcast was an enormous fireball rising up into the screen. The cameraman zoomed out and now you could see the true magnitude of what had just happened, that something had happened to the second Tower. I jumped to CNN, which in a few moments replayed what they had just recorded. Their camera hadn't been as tight on the first tower, so you could clearly see the approaching 767, watch it disappear behind the towers, see the horrific explosion, and I said out loud, "Accident my ass!"

When I was buying my morning Starbuck's mocha, the first tower fell, and it hit me hard that the world had become a different place. By the time I got to work, the second tower was gone, and not a lot of regular work got done that day. Often, the words of someone else sums up best what you feel, think, or even say. This time, I followed a link to Leonard Pitts, Jr., of the Miami Herald, who wrote:

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.

The paper says it's around 700 words in length, and stands as a better speech than most of those delivered by Our Leaders. It would be magnificent to hear it read today, rather than someone trotting out the Gettysburg Address (as appropriate as it might be).

This morning, in front of the restored Pentagon, President Bush pointed out that within a week, men and women within the damaged Pentagon planned the United States' response to attacks of 9/11. That within one year we had hit back and liberated a country from oppression. What more fitting memorial can there be? What more need be said, other than we shall continue to pursue our enemies?

This morning, during my commute, NPR cut away from the Pentagon speeches to one being given in Pennsylvania by the widow of pilot Jason Dahl, who was flying United Flight 93. She attributed to Martin Luther King the famous Nietzche quote, "That which does not destroy us makes us stronger." Maybe King said it too, but it sounded strange. Her point was dead on, though; we're not destroyed, we're stronger.

What I find incomprehensible are those who oppose our actions. Osama bin Laden, Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, the entire Family Al-Saud, et al, are the oppressors of the world. They are some of the worst despots of the world...yet we're not supposed to touch them. The Ted Ralls of the world tell us that when a terrorist speaks, we should pay attention and take them at their word, yet when we do and try to act to prevent terrorists from carrying out their threats, we are evil incarnate.

Insane.

We support the only Democratic country in the Middle East (i.e., Israel), and are told that is a Bad Thing. What we need to do is support the creation of another despotic, dictatorial welfare state (i.e., Arafat's Palestine). That will make things better, not throwing out the existing despots. Eek, mustn't do that. Might destabilize the region, you know.

Insane.

I'm getting a little peeved now, so I think I'll wind down. Music of the moment is the John Williams score for "Saving Private Ryan," especially track #1, "Hymn to the Fallen," music that would be perfectly appropriate at any of the numerous memorials being held across the country and around the world. I'll leave you today with the words of Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Great Britain, from October of last year:

So I believe this is a fight for freedom. And I want to make it a fight for justice, too. Justice not only to punish the guilty. But justice to bring those same values of democracy and freedom to people around the world.

And I mean: freedom, not only in the narrow sense of personal liberty but in the broader sense of each individual having the economic and social freedom to develop their potential to the full. That is what community means, founded on the equal worth of all.

The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of Northern Africa to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan: they too are our cause.

This is a moment to seize. The Kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us.

Today, humankind has the science and technology to destroy itself or to provide prosperity to all. Yet science can't make that choice for us. Only the moral power of a world acting as a community, can.

"By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more together than we can alone".

For those people who lost their lives on September 11 and those that mourn them; now is the time for the strength to build that community. Let that be their memorial.

Amen to that.