Thank You for Saving Everyone

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For weeks and perhaps months after 9/11, the street side walls of practically every firehouse in Manhattan were covered with cards and letters, many of them written by children. You could walk from Ground Zero well up the length of the island and see them. In many cases the flutter of pinned up notes surrounded photographs of the fallen firefighters from that particular company.

The one I will always remember was the card with a drawing of the intact Trade Center Towers on each side. In between was a heart. Underneath was a message written in a child's hand:

Thank You For Saving Everyone

In many cases, of course, these heroes and heroines physically rescued no one. The leading group that went up the stairs of the second tower that was hit (the first tower to fall) all perished before they could lead a single person out. There was no time. Two made it up to the 78th floor elevator waiting area where the second plane had plowed directly through a crowd. There, they reported back on the conditions and comforted the shocked, injured and dying in the few minutes they all had left. 

Just as as a stretcher can help to save a body, an act of love - received or given - can lead to the salvation of a soul.

They all died. But it is not unreasonable to believe that on the 78th floor that day, the actions of those brave men saved some. Not everyone but some. 

Requiescat in pace.


Reprinted and edited from Save Versus All Wands, September 11, 2014.

Flight 93 - "Stand Up and Bring the Ship Down!"

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The last minutes on the fourth plane (from the film United 93)

This is a repost (with some edits) of a piece I wrote a year ago on September 11, 2017. Obviously I think the subject is as important and relevant as ever.

This post is not about Islam.

It's certainly not about any sort of "tragedy."

It's about heroism.

Another word for that is love. Love for one's neighbor. Love for justice. And, yes, love for life. Even if you think you might lose it.

"We've nothing to fight with, and may wind up dead,
But we've voted to stand up and fight them instead,
And we might keep them from getting through."

United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field on September 11th, 2001, killing all aboard - 34 passengers (including a near-term unborn baby) and 7 crew. 4 hijackers also died. The plane had been comandeered 45 minutes after takeoff by terrorists - confederates of the men who steered their 3 hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

These hijackers were a few minutes late in their mission (the plane had been delayed taking off), which gave the passengers enough time to figure out what their mission was - a suicide strike against the U.S. Capital Building or the White House.

"One man's been stabbed, and we can't reach the cockpit,
But somehow we'll alter the flight.
We've guessed that the target is likely the White House,
And if we fail, we'll surely die."

The lines above were composed and sung by Leslie Fish, the longtime libertarian activist and "filk" musician - "filk" (not "folk") being the term for music tied to the science fiction and fantasy fan convention scene. They are part of the song "Flight 93", the most moving and inspiring artistic tribute yet made to those heroes of 9/11.

"We've nothing to fight with except our bare hands,
But we'll keep on trying until the plane lands
One way or the other. We've taken our stand.
My darling, I love you. Goodbye."

If you listen to it and are not moved, listen to it again. If you still are not moved, then I cannot help you. If, on any listening, you do not cry, at least a little, then you are much stronger than I.

He watched while the passengers battled and died,
And knew that no help would be found.
The guard was distracted. Just one chance to win.
There's one case where suicide isn't a sin.
He weighed all his chances. He said: "Auger in!"
And drove the ship into the ground.

The passengers on Flight 93 almost succeeded in wresting control of the plane from the terrorists. Most believe that they effectively breached the cockpit. But there is controversy over who was at the controls at the end. The song implies that it was a passenger - "Jason the pilot" - but the cockpit tapes appear to indicate that a hijacker crashed the plane, fearing that he was seconds away from being overpowered. It's also possible, of course, that there was a fight over the controls.

Flight 93 hit the ground at full speed,
And no one aboard her survives.
But the White House still stands, and a few thousand folks
Can thank those aboard for their lives.
There's no guarantee, when the Bad Guys come in,
That they won't kill you all to a man.
So when some fanatics are out to have fun,
There's nowhere to hide and there's nowhere to run.
Then pray that the law lets you carry a gun,
But fight back however you can.

So the song is a tribute but also a lesson. Don't expect the bad guys to have any scruples or mercy. Sometimes, they just want to kill you, and perhaps thousands more in the bargain. No hero wants to die. But there are worse things than natural death. And better things than giving in.

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

"Flight 93"

by Leslie Fish

She took off from Newark on a warm autumn day,

With forty-five travellers and crew.
They all were unarmed at the will of the law;
Security passed them all through.
An hour into flight-time, four Arabs jumped up --
Two Ahmeds, Ziad and Sa'eed --
Announced a hijacking and waved knives around
(Razorblades, box-knives and steak-knives they'd found),
And a box that they swore was a bomb up and down;
They thought that was all they would need.

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

CeeCee the stewardess had a cell-phone,
And called up her husband to say:
"The plane has been hijacked. We'll do as we're trained;
Be quiet and humbly obey.
They'll dicker for money or some social cause.
The government surely will pay.
They'll put us out somewhere and leave with their score,
Or maybe police will come catch them and more.
That's always the way this has been done before.
With luck, I'll be home in a day."

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

Next was Mark Bingham, who had a phone too,
And used it to call up his Mom.
He said they'd been hijacked by "three foreign men"
Who had knives and said they had a bomb.
But some of the passengers plotted, he said,
To take back the plane as it flew.
"But first tell me, Mom, is it true what they say?
That three other airplanes were hijacked today,
Flown straight into buildings and blew them away?"
His mother cried, and said: "It's true."

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

Jeremy Glick called his wife on the phone,
And told of the bomb and the knives.
He said: "If these stories we're hearing are true,
We might as well fight for our lives."
His wife told him: "Yes, the World Trade Center's hit,
And maybe the Pentagon too."
He left the phone hanging, then came back and said:
"We've nothing to fight with, and may wind up dead,
But we've voted to stand up and fight them instead,
And we might keep them from getting through."

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

Thomas Burnett phoned his wife several times,
Reporting the course of the fight.
He said: "One man's been stabbed, and we can't reach the cockpit,
But somehow we'll alter the flight.
We've guessed that the target is likely the White House,
And if we fail, we'll surely die.
We've nothing to fight with except our bare hands,
But we'll keep on trying until the plane lands
One way or the other. We've taken our stand.
My darling, I love you. Goodbye."

Flight 93 no more will fly.

Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

Jason the pilot could hear the whole tale.
He'd signaled as well as he could.
He saw that the terrorists still held the cockpit --
And one way to stop them for good.
He watched while the passengers battled and died,
And knew that no help would be found.
The guard was distracted. Just one chance to win.
There's one case where suicide isn't a sin.
He weighed all his chances. He said: "Auger in!"
And drove the ship into the ground.

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

Flight 93 hit the ground at full speed,
And no one aboard her survives.
But the White House still stands, and a few thousand folks
Can thank those aboard for their lives.
There's no guarantee, when the Bad Guys come in,
That they won't kill you all to a man.
So when some fanatics are out to have fun,
There's nowhere to hide and there's nowhere to run.
Then pray that the law lets you carry a gun,
But fight back however you can.

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.


Cross posted at Save Versus All Wands.

"Flight 93" - Filk Singer Leslie Fish's Moving Tribute to the Heroes of 9/11

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Leslie Fish

This post is not really about Islam.

It's certainly not about any sort of "tragedy."

It's about heroism.

Another word for that is love. Love for one's neighbor. Love for justice. And, yes, love for life. Even if you think you might lose it.

"We've nothing to fight with, and may wind up dead,
But we've voted to stand up and fight them instead,
And we might keep them from getting through."

United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field on September 11th, 2001, killing all aboard - 34 passengers (including a near-term unborn baby) and 7 crew. 4 hijackers also died. The plane had been comandeered 45 minutes after takeoff by terrorists - confederates of the men who steered their 3 hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

These hijackers were a few minutes late in their mission (the plane had been delayed taking off), which gave the passengers enough time to figure out what their mission was - a suicide strike against the U.S. Capital Building or the White House.

"One man's been stabbed, and we can't reach the cockpit,
But somehow we'll alter the flight.
We've guessed that the target is likely the White House,
And if we fail, we'll surely die."

Who is Leslie Fish?

Leslie Fish is a writer, folk singer and "filk" musician - "filk" being the term for music tied to the science fiction and fantasy fan convention scene. She is a libertarian anarchist whose political activism has spanned the breadth of the movement. She has protested the Vietnam War, worked with the "Wobblies" (Industrial Workers of the World), defended gun rights and praised the Moon landings. On anarchism she wrote:

What sort of anarchist future would I like to see? There's no reason for a government-free society to be nothing but agrarian, no reason at all that it couldn't be industrial and space-faring.

She is a quasi-pagan. And a Trekker. Or "used to be," according to Fish:

I sort of lost interest when NEXT GENERATION came along; it's just too pussy, Yuppie-ish, and bloodless for my tastes.

Fish also wrote "Flight 93," the most moving and inspiring artistic tribute yet made to those heroes of 9/11.

"We've nothing to fight with except our bare hands,
But we'll keep on trying until the plane lands
One way or the other. We've taken our stand.
My darling, I love you. Goodbye."

If you listen to it and do not agree, listen to it again. If you still do not agree, then I cannot help you. If, on any listening, you do not cry, at least a little, then you are stronger than I am.

He watched while the passengers battled and died,
And knew that no help would be found.
The guard was distracted. Just one chance to win.
There's one case where suicide isn't a sin.
He weighed all his chances. He said: "Auger in!"
And drove the ship into the ground.

The passengers on Flight 93 almost succeeded in wresting control of the plane from the terrorists. Most believe that they effectively breached the cockpit. But there is controversy over who was at the controls at the end. The song implies that it was a passenger - "Jason the pilot" - but the cockpit tapes appear to indicate that a hijacker crashed the plane, fearing that he was seconds away from being overpowered. It's also possible, of course, that there was a fight over the controls.

Flight 93 hit the ground at full speed,
And no one aboard her survives.
But the White House still stands, and a few thousand folks
Can thank those aboard for their lives.
There's no guarantee, when the Bad Guys come in,
That they won't kill you all to a man.
So when some fanatics are out to have fun,
There's nowhere to hide and there's nowhere to run.
Then pray that the law lets you carry a gun,
But fight back however you can.

So the song is a tribute but also a lesson. Don't expect the bad guys to have any scruples or mercy. Sometimes, they just want to kill you, and perhaps thousands more in the bargain. No hero wants to die. But there are worse things than natural death. And better things than giving in.

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

A YouTube link to the song follows, along with the full lyrics. Here are links to a few of Fish's other more notable songs - The Day it Fell Apart, a righteous anti-corporate ballad, also about heroism, in this case, hospital workers dealing with the results of a mine explosion, Valhalla (warning: graphic paganism), one of her most well-known "filk" efforts, and Gamers (warning: graphic nerdity), a light-hearted hymn to gamers and their battles against prejudice and the government. I also recommend her blog, LeslieBard, whose most recent post has a distinctly nonconformist take on Charlottesville.

I've also included the full version of United 93, a straight-ahead, non-ideological narrative of the events, which manages to also be moving and inspiring. I highly recommend it.

"Flight 93"

by Leslie Fish

She took off from Newark on a warm autumn day,

With forty-five travellers and crew.
They all were unarmed at the will of the law;
Security passed them all through.
An hour into flight-time, four Arabs jumped up --
Two Ahmeds, Ziad and Sa'eed --
Announced a hijacking and waved knives around
(Razorblades, box-knives and steak-knives they'd found),
And a box that they swore was a bomb up and down;
They thought that was all they would need.

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

CeeCee the stewardess had a cell-phone,
And called up her husband to say:
"The plane has been hijacked. We'll do as we're trained;
Be quiet and humbly obey.
They'll dicker for money or some social cause.
The government surely will pay.
They'll put us out somewhere and leave with their score,
Or maybe police will come catch them and more.
That's always the way this has been done before.
With luck, I'll be home in a day."

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

Next was Mark Bingham, who had a phone too,
And used it to call up his Mom.
He said they'd been hijacked by "three foreign men"
Who had knives and said they had a bomb.
But some of the passengers plotted, he said,
To take back the plane as it flew.
"But first tell me, Mom, is it true what they say?
That three other airplanes were hijacked today,
Flown straight into buildings and blew them away?"
His mother cried, and said: "It's true."

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

Jeremy Glick called his wife on the phone,
And told of the bomb and the knives.
He said: "If these stories we're hearing are true,
We might as well fight for our lives."
His wife told him: "Yes, the World Trade Center's hit,
And maybe the Pentagon too."
He left the phone hanging, then came back and said:
"We've nothing to fight with, and may wind up dead,
But we've voted to stand up and fight them instead,
And we might keep them from getting through."

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

Thomas Burnett phoned his wife several times,
Reporting the course of the fight.
He said: "One man's been stabbed, and we can't reach the cockpit,
But somehow we'll alter the flight.
We've guessed that the target is likely the White House,
And if we fail, we'll surely die.
We've nothing to fight with except our bare hands,
But we'll keep on trying until the plane lands
One way or the other. We've taken our stand.
My darling, I love you. Goodbye."

Flight 93 no more will fly.

Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

Jason the pilot could hear the whole tale.
He'd signaled as well as he could.
He saw that the terrorists still held the cockpit --
And one way to stop them for good.
He watched while the passengers battled and died,
And knew that no help would be found.
The guard was distracted. Just one chance to win.
There's one case where suicide isn't a sin.
He weighed all his chances. He said: "Auger in!"
And drove the ship into the ground.

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

Flight 93 hit the ground at full speed,
And no one aboard her survives.
But the White House still stands, and a few thousand folks
Can thank those aboard for their lives.
There's no guarantee, when the Bad Guys come in,
That they won't kill you all to a man.
So when some fanatics are out to have fun,
There's nowhere to hide and there's nowhere to run.
Then pray that the law lets you carry a gun,
But fight back however you can.

Flight 93 no more will fly.
Dead on the ground or dead in the sky:
You might not survive, but at least you can try.
Stand up and bring the ship down.

Cross posted at Save Versus All Wands.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

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YomHaShoah, 2014

As part of Holocaust Remembrance Day or YomHaShoah, sirens go off all over Israel, and everyone stops whatever it is that they're doing to stand in respectful attention.

Videos show cars slowing down to a halt on highways. The drivers also get out and stand.

It is incredibly moving.

I don't think it would be as moving and important if it were merely "remembering." But, of course, it's not. It's symbolic of the unflagging determination of a nation that long ago collectively decided to robustly defend herself - always ready to fight back against those who wish to destroy her.

France could use a bit of that.

We could use a bit of that.

Is the Holocaust the greatest evil of the 20th century? I'm not sure it is.

Perhaps there should be a Gulag remembrance day across Russia.

The Chinese don't have a remembrance day. Instead they still have a giant picture of their very own mass murderer on their most prominent government building. They're too busy making money to take him down.

But if others, for whatever reason, don't wish to "remember", that's not Israel's fault. Rather, it's a comment on what makes Israel and it's citizens different - more (I'm struggling for the right word here) clear-eyed.

More honorable (at least in that one respect)?

We should do the same thing in New York, every September 11th.

Is there a 9/11 remembrance day? I suppose there probably is - people place flowers someplace or another, or whatever. Sixteen years ago, a sort of tragedy happened, and then many of us became Islamophobic. It's all so very sad. Hatred is wrong.

Let me amend what I earlier said. We should have a Cowardice Day. (And, yes, I mean the appellation to apply to us.) It wouldn't exactly be uplifting, but at least it would be accurate.

Former Tallest Building in Tehran Collapses in Horrific Fire - Perhaps 30+ Firefighters Killed

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The iconic Plasco Building, a fifteen-story concrete and steel-framed building in downtown Tehran, and the tallest building in the city from 1960 to 1963 collapsed earlier this morning in an horrific fire.

The collapse was witnessed by thousands on the ground and recorded live by hundreds of sources.

Though most news stories aren't mentioning it, it is of course impossible not to immediately think of the Trade Center collapse.

In some ways the cases are similar. They both happened on a sunny morning and were witnessed in awe and horror by commuters. In one of the videos, an unseen voice wails in Farsi as the Plasco Building starts to fall. Though I can't say precisely what he said, the conveyed emotion was eerily the same as that expressed in some of the most well-known videos from 9/11.

As with 9/11, I assume this was an unprecedented tragedy for Tehran's firefighters. Reports have varied as to casualties but it's clear that many died.

There's some debate on the internet as to whether or not Plastco had a steel frame. I assume it did as it would be hard to construct a 15-story building without one. It appears as if the fire melted the metal frame past the breaking point.

Of course a fifteen-story "skyscraper" doesn't seem high by modern American standards. And Tehran itself now has many taller buildings and towers. Some of the firefighters were actually able to spray water through the top windows of the building from cranes, and indeed one narrowly missed perishing as the wall collapsed next to his elevated platform.

Obviously, this tragedy was on a much smaller scale than that of 9/11, and today's fire was a "mere" disaster, not a terrorist attack. Many of those in the Middle-East now mourning the Plasco collapse were cheering the collapse of the Twin Towers.

But that makes no difference to the firefighters who died today or their family members.

The building was built by Jewish businessman, Habib Elghanian who named it after his plastics company.

That was in the days when Jews were allowed to build skyscrapers in the Muslim Middle-East.

Elghanian would later be executed for "espionage" in an anti-Jewish purge shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Here is dramatic footage of the collapse on live television:

And here is the latest from Reuters via the Daily Mail:

Troops, rescuers search for trapped firefighters after Iran building collapse 

By Parisa Hafezi 

ANKARA, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Soldiers, sniffer dogs and rescue workers searched for trapped firefighters and medics treated dozens of casualties after a blazing high-rise building collapsed in downtown Tehran on Thursday. 

One witness described the 17-storey commercial building's collapse as like a "scene from a horror movie." 

State TV reported that at least 75 people, including 45 firefighters, had been hurt when the building came crashing down in a giant cloud of dust early on Thursday morning. 

Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said there were about 25 firefighters trapped under rubble and the semi-official Tasnim news agency said troops had been sent to help dig through the ruins. 

One of the first firefighters to be reached shouted "leave me alone, let me go back inside and save my trapped colleagues" as he was brought out, Tasnim reported. 

Most of the hurt had been taken to hospital and many were quickly discharged, state TV said. 

An electrical short circuit caused the fire, Tasnim said, citing an official in the Tehran governor's office. Reuters could not immediately verify the cause. 

Earlier, President Hassan Rouhani had ordered an "immediate investigation" and compensation for those affected. 

The building's occupants were evacuated but firefighters had still been trying to control the fire when the building came down. 

State TV said the occupants included garment manufacturers and broadcast footage of business owners trying to re-enter the wreckage. 

Sniffer dogs searched for signs of survivors buried under giant slabs of concrete and heaps of twisted metal. The rescue operation could last more than two days, state TV said. 

The Plasco building in southern Tehran was more than 50 years old. Tasnim said it "had caught fire in the past". 

A fire department spokesman told state TV that the building's tenants "had been warned repeatedly in the past months by the municipality to evacuate the building because of safety concerns." 

The owner of a nearby grocery store, forced by police to leave the area, told Reuters by telephone that "it was like a horror movie. The building collapsed in front of me." 

The semi-official Fars news agency said police had cordoned off the British and Turkish Embassies that are located near the Plasco building. 

"The flames could be seen kilometers away from the old building," the Fars news agency reported. (Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Richard Lough)

The 9/11 Column that got Ann Coulter Fired from National Review

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This is war

Ann Coulter's piece, "This is War," appeared in the September 17, 2001 issue of National Review.

It was the last column she would write for that magazine.

The column was in part an elegy to her friend Barbara Olson, who died in the plane that hit the Pentagon, and in part a sort of manifesto on how we should view and react to 9/11. In my view, it was a great piece. I agreed then and I agree now with with every word of it. And I think it's just as relevant now, if not more relevant, than it was fifteen years ago.

I continued to subscribe to National Review for a few years after 9/11. In hindsight, I'm not sure why. I just reread, "L'Affaire Coulter," Jonah Goldberg's explanation, a few issues later, of why they dropped Coulter's column, and it drips with cowardly disingenuousness.

Goldberg claimed that National Review didn't fire Coulter - she fired herself after writing a bad column. The magazine's negative feelings towards the column had nothing to do with the political sentiments expressed but rather with the particular column's "sloppiness of expression and thought" and "crappy writing." The column - that one column! - showed that Coulter had "failed as a writer" and thus needed to be censured. Goldberg went on to condemn a follow-up piece that they refused to publish as a "long, rambling rant" that was "barely coherent" and then prissily snipped about his (former) columnist's public "behavior."   

All of that was baloney of course. National Review didn't want to be considered "Islamophobic," so they caved to the bad guys and smeared Ann Coulter.

Looking back, the controversy over Coulter and her column might be seen as a preview of the differences between establishment conservatism and what some have called the "Alt-Right."

It had nothing to do with international trade.

Rereading the column, one is struck by how Coulter so accurately sketched the self-absorbed defeatist attitude that she could see forming even in the heady - "let's declare war against the world!" - climate of late September, 2001.

Fifteen years later, there are terrorist attacks every day, most often in the Middle-East, but sometimes in Europe or the United States. There are terror networks, busy planning new 9/11's in every capital of Western Europe. And what Coulter called "fanatical murderous cults" control large swaths of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Nigeria and a number of other countries.

But against all that, even the War on Terror, which Coulter implied was itself a gross mislabeling, has faded into a twilight struggle with "lone wolves" and the mentally-ill. The current President and the woman in his party who wants to replace him are literally inviting into the country thousands of the same people who "cheered and danced" on 9/11 or who "smiled in response to the annihilation of patriots like Barbara Olson." And if you disagree with any of this and are publicly exposed, there's a good chance you'll lose your job or at least have your next job offer rescinded.

Yes, Coulter was right. It is war. There are soldiers, spies and of course collaborators - the full contingent, as in any war. Unfortunately, one side has still declined to participate.                  

THIS IS WAR 

By Ann Coulter 

Barbara Olson kept her cool. In the hysteria and terror of hijackers herding passengers to the rear of the plane, she retrieved her cell phone and called her husband, Ted, the solicitor general of the United States. She informed him that he had better call the FBI (news - web sites) -- the plane had been hijacked. 

According to reports, Barbara was still on the phone with Ted when her plane plunged in a fiery explosion directly into the Pentagon (news - web sites). Barbara risked having her neck slit to warn the country of a terrorist attack. She was a patriot to the very end. 

This is not to engage in the media's typical hallucinatory overstatement about anyone who is the victim of a horrible tragedy. The furtive cell phone call was an act of incredible daring and panache. If it were not, we'd be hearing reports of a hundred more cell phone calls. (Even people who swear to hate cell phones carry them for commercial air travel.) 

The last time I saw Barbara in person was about three weeks ago. She generously praised one of my recent columns and told me I had really found my niche. Ted, she said, had taken to reading my columns aloud to her over breakfast. 

I mention that to say three things about Barbara. First, she was really nice. A lot of people on TV seem nice, but aren't. (And some who don't seem nice, are.) But Barbara was always her charming, graceful, ebullient self. "Nice" is an amazingly rare quality among writers. In the opinion business, bitter, jealous hatred is the norm. Barbara had reason to be secure. 

Second, it was actually easy to imagine Ted reading political columns aloud to Barbara at the breakfast table. Theirs was a relationship that could only be cheaply imitated by Bill and Hillary -- the latter being a subject of Barbara's appropriately biting best seller, "Hell to Pay." 

Hillary claimed preposterously in the Talk magazine interview that she discussed policy with Bill while cutting his grapefruit in the morning. Ted and Barbara really did talk politics -- and really did have breakfast together. 

It's "Ted and Barbara" just like it's Fred and Ginger, and George and Gracie. They were so perfect together, so obvious, that their friends were as happy they were on their wedding day. This is more than the death of a great person and patriotic American. It's a human amputation. 

Third, since Barbara's compliment, I've been writing my columns for Ted and Barbara. I'm always writing to someone in my head. Now I don't know who to write to. Ted and Barbara were a good muse. 

Apart from hearing that this beautiful light has been extinguished from the world, only one other news flash broke beyond the numbingly omnipresent horror of the entire day. That evening, CNN reported that bombs were dropping in Afghanistan (news - web sites) -- and then updated the report to say they weren't our bombs. 

They should have been ours. I want them to be ours. 

This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack. Those responsible include anyone anywhere in the world who smiled in response to the annihilation of patriots like Barbara Olson. 

We don't need long investigations of the forensic evidence to determine with scientific accuracy the person or persons who ordered this specific attack. We don't need an "international coalition." We don't need a study on "terrorism." We certainly didn't need a congressional resolution condemning the attack this week. 

The nation has been invaded by a fanatical, murderous cult. And we welcome them. We are so good and so pure we would never engage in discriminatory racial or "religious" profiling. 

People who want our country destroyed live here, work for our airlines, and are submitted to the exact same airport shakedown as a lumberman from Idaho. This would be like having the Wehrmacht immigrate to America and work for our airlines during World War II. Except the Wehrmacht was not so bloodthirsty. 

"All of our lives" don't need to change, as they keep prattling on TV. Every single time there is a terrorist attack -- or a plane crashes because of pilot error -- Americans allow their rights to be contracted for no purpose whatsoever. 

The airport kabuki theater of magnetometers, asinine questions about whether passengers "packed their own bags," and the hostile, lumpen mesomorphs ripping open our luggage somehow allowed over a dozen armed hijackers to board four American planes almost simultaneously on Bloody Tuesday. (Did those fabulous security procedures stop a single hijacker anyplace in America that day?) 

Airports scrupulously apply the same laughably ineffective airport harassment to Suzy Chapstick as to Muslim hijackers. It is preposterous to assume every passenger is a potential crazed homicidal maniac. We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. 

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

Thank You For Saving Everyone

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The New York Times, September 23rd, 2001. 343 firefighters, 60 police officers and 8 paramedics died at Ground Zero.   

For weeks and perhaps months after 9/11, the streetside walls of practically every firehouse in Manhattan were covered with cards and letters, many of them written by children. You could walk from Ground Zero well up the length of the island and see them. In many cases the flutter of pinned up notes surrounded photographs of the fallen firefighters from that particular company.

The one I will always remember was the card with a drawing of the Trade Center Towers on each side. In between was a heart. Underneath was a message written in a child's hand:

Thank You For Saving Everyone

It is a tragic fact that some of these fallen heroes and heroines physically rescued no one. The leading group that went up the stairs of the second tower to be hit (the first tower to fall) all perished before they could lead any one out. Two made it up to the 78th floor elevator waiting area where the second plane had plowed directly through a crowd. There they reported back on what they saw and comforted the shocked, injured and dying in the few minutes they all had left.

They all died. But if anyone is ever redeemed by the sacrifice or kindness of another, those above words may have been, at least partially, true.

Re-posted from Save Versus All Wands. 

Philippe Petit on the Twin Towers

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Do you remember?

On 7 August, 1974, The French tightrope artist Philippe Petit spent forty-five minutes in the air between the newly constructed Twin Towers. He didn't merely go from one tower to the other; he walked back and forth eight times. Once, he laid down on the wire and rested.

A thousand feet below, crowds quickly formed. On the sidewalk, his girlfriend started things off by pointing into the sky:

Look! A wirewalker! A wirewalker!

If you haven't seen it yet, I urge you to view the documentary of the effort, Man on Wire. It is beautiful and fascinating.

The essay below, by Petit himself, was published in the Wall Street Journal two years after 9/11. It is quirky and strange. Some may even find it off-putting.

I remember reading it on my parents' porch and crying uncontrollably. It is difficult for me to avoid doing so now.

My Towers, Our Towers 

By PHILIPPE PETIT 

You breathe, don't you? 

So do I. And so did they, the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Whenever a cloud interrupted the sunshine that made their silver robes flutter chromatically, the drop in temperature caused the steel skeletons to contract a little; when it passed, they expanded again. 

You and I groan in anger at times. So did they, when gales forced them to sway, although they had been designed to win that sort of tug-o-war. 

All this I know for a fact; because I rigged a cable between the two towers, from crown to crown -- the appellation for the inclined set-back of the top floors that supported the roof, coined by Leslie Robertson, the buildings' structural engineer. 

That gray morning of Aug. 7, 1974, the twins, separated at birth, acquiesced in a temporary union, as they welcomed a trespassing poet determined to etch his destiny upon the sky. I linked them with a smile, that of my cable's catenary curve. The curve of my involuntary smile mirrored that of the cable as I took my first steps. The towers whispered in awe. At mid-crossing, I sat down to contemplate the horizon and noticed that it, like my balancing pole, was slightly curved; the towers had imparted to me a most important discovery: "The earth is round!" They quieted down the moment I genuflected, so that I could hear the clamoring of the astonished audience that had gathered a quarter of a mile below. The towers kindly held their breath as I lay down upon the wire, they eavesdropped on my silent dialogue with a red-eyed sea gull that hovered above me. 

That morning, the twin towers became my towers. 

Six years earlier, learning of their impending birth, I had decided to conquer them. I watched them grow. I spied on them. I fell in love. Then, under cover of night, I married them, with a seven-eighths-inch steel cable composed of six strands of 19 wires each. At daybreak, the entire world was our witness. 

For what seemed an eternity, we enjoyed each other. I visited them often, through the ups and downs of their colorful lives. I introduced them to my friends and family. And then, on a perfectly clear blue September morning, I watched them die, stabbed in the back by assassins who vaporized in mid-air. 

I heard my towers cry for help for a long, long time. I listened in anguish, powerless, to their last sighs. I witnessed their collapse and fell silent, eviscerated. Where had they gone? Who besides me knew that, despite 200,000 tons of steel, glass, concrete, and aluminum, the towers were made mostly of air? Between every piece of solid material, air! Mostly air. Could it be air to air? Like ashes to ashes? 

Fluidly, in a deadly cascade of smoke and debris, in a matter of seconds, they erased themselves, taking thousands of human lives with them. 

I close my eyes, I remember and pay my respect to the victims and their families. That dreadful morning, my towers became your towers, our towers. 

Eleven years ago, when my young daughter died without warning, the dean of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, the Very Reverend James Parks Morton, came to my side. He offered me guidance from his heart, but quite commandingly: "Speak of her in the present; you must not use the past tense!" 

When asked today, "Do you have children?" I answer, "Yes, I have a daughter named Gypsy. She is nine and a half years old, and no longer alive." 

So are my twin towers, our twin towers, gone, yet still standing tall, made of thin air, yet gloriously defying the sunset on this warm late summer evening. 

Look at them! 

Mr. Petit, artist in residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, walked on a high-wire from one Twin Tower to the other on Aug. 7, 1974.

Cross posted at Save Versus All Wands.