Day: September 12, 2001

Web offers both News and Comfort Couldn’t have said it better myself. The human story, how this is touching everyone, not the media view … that is what I crave. That is what I need.

Know what keeps sticking out in my mind? The news clips of those people walking, so calmly (also known as in shock) across the bridges, out of Manhattan. It gives me chills every time I think about it. I am also very proud that there have been no reports of looting or rioting. Americans have a bad enough reputation for doing that. Come to think of it, if you leave the United States, we generally have a bad reputation around the globe. I don’t blame people from other countries for thinking this – we have an incredibly high crime rate. We are rude to people from other nations, even when we are guests in their country. We start fights. (I witnessed both of those things too often when I lived in Germany and when I travelled across Europe.) Sure, they are generalizations, but we have earned them. There have been moments when I lived in Germany where I didn’t want to admit I am an American … yesterday was NOT one of those moments. They walked, so calmly, so orderly, across the bridge…

Mike Daisey has a very poignant account. As do so many other blogs online.

Today, I am proud to be an American. Thank you to all of those that have stood so tall in this time of such tragedy.

Reading this article over on MSNBC… thinking:

“MSNBC.com confirmed reports that authorities had seized a car at Logan airport that contained Arabic-language flight training manuals. Five Arab men, a trained pilot among them, were identified as suspects. At least one of those men flew to Logan on Tuesday from Portland, Maine.

The luggage of one of the men who flew to the airport Tuesday didn’t make his scheduled connection. The Boston Globe reported the luggage contained a copy of the Koran, an instructional video on flying commercial airliners and a fuel consumption calculator.”

That’s very scary.

“The Miami Herald reported Wednesday that a passenger on Flight 93, Tom Burnett, the vice president of a Pleasanton, Calif., medical devices company and father of three, called his wife and indicated that he and other passengers were about to try to overpower the hijackers.

Burnett told his wife that somebody on the plane had been stabbed, said the Rev. Frank Colacicco, of St. Isidore’s Church in Danville, Fla. “We’re all gonna die, but three of us are going to do something,” Burnett told his wife, according to Colacicco. He added: “I love you, honey,” before the call ended.”

That is a brave man. I bet in the future, more people will feel that way – that if your plane is hijacked, you are going to die anyways, try to stop it. Who knows how many other lives they saved?

Regarding Bush leaving Florida: “He stopped first at Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport, La., and then flew on to Offutt Air Force base outside Omaha, Neb., where he was taken to an underground bunker at U.S. Strategic Command headquarters.”

I think he’s still their. They tell us he is in DC to try to give us peace of mind, a sense of security. But the reality is, why would they fly him back across the country for the press conference? Has he been on the news at the House of Representatives or the Senate? Did I miss that? And if he was in Nebraska at 6pm, how did he get to DC by 8:30pm EST? Isn’t that awfully fast? I have always heard that they have “mock” White House rooms set up in other locations, so that we think that the president is really there when he isn’t. I don’t know, I just think he is still hidden in a safe location, and that is very understandable.

“Officials and terrorism experts said few, if any, other organizations are believed to have the cash or expertise to mount attacks like those of Tuesday.

A spokesman for Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, which has been accused of harboring bin Laden, condemned the attacks and denied that bin Laden was behind them. The sophistication of the coordinated assault required the expertise of a government, the Taliban said.”

Cash? What they did yesterday did not take that much cash, other than the plane tickets for the terrorists involved. They used the planes, they didn’t buy them. That statement bugs me every time I hear it. Expertise, yes – they had to coordinate the times, lay out the planes, more than likely train people to fly. Doesn’t seem like that took much cash either – they had manuals and videos. Creepy, it’s not like you can get that sort of thing off of E-Bay. At least I hope not. As for the “expertise of a government” … ? Why? Government members are just people. They don’t have super powers. It took the careful planning of some people that knew enough to pick flights flying across the country so they were full of fuel, large planes that hold a lot of fuel, and leaving at about the same time. Different airports so as to not raise suspicion. Even I could look online and see that there are 2 flights leaving Boston for LA 18 minutes apart. It does not take a government to coordinate that.

Just my thoughts as more news unfolds.

Naomi has posted her elegy, the graphic is gorgeous (my first reaction was “how pretty!” until I realize *what* I was looking at) and the poem is very moving. We had talked throughout the day yesterday, she was very concerned about her cousin in NYC. She has since found out that she is ok, and I breathe another sigh of relief.

The news is still on. And yet the weather outside this morning was gorgeous. The birds were singing. And life goes on.