("Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana)
I report and link. You decide. - BJon
From a Lucianne .com archives article, 9-12-01 - An Hour Before Dawn:
Wednesday, Sept. 12th, 2001
AN HOUR BEFORE DAWN and this gigantic engine of a city that never sleeps is trying to. It has never been so quiet here. There is no traffic. We are sealed off from the world. The tunnels and bridges are closed. People streamed out of the city yesterday and today will not be permitted back in while workers try to determine the enormity of what has happened. The death and suffering has just begun. Whole floors of the twin towers have been blown to kingdom come. There were people there. The sky rained bodies and paper, plaster and steel and burning jet fuel. Inside the towering apartment buildings and brownstones and tenements hearts are seized with horror and apprehension. We know not what the light will bring. We are a six-degrees-of-separation city. Everyone knows someone who knows someone else. They have not told us yet whom we have lost. They don't even know who is gone.
And in the stillness, there are tiny signs that life goes on. The New York Post lands with a soft and reassuring plop outside the door. The other papers are struggling to find a way into the city from their outlying printing plants. An E mail says that a long sought handle to an '89 frig has been located and is on the way. The noisy vent fan on the roof of the Chinese restaurant across the street grinds on. The cat knows nothing, simply wants to be fed.
The television runs the continuous loop of the horror of yesterday on mute. The Mayor is on a local channel, red eyed and broken hearted at the initial loss of 200 fireman and 78 police. On other channels, reruns of ordinarily meticulously groomed talking blondes standing in the street, covered with grime, repeating what they think has happened.
The stalled papers are being held up on TV. Their front pages say "War." We will never be the same again. We have just begun to weep.
Pray for us. God Bless America.
Lucianne GoldbergOriginally published Wednesday, Sept.12, 2001 @4:53AM EDT [My ellipses and emphasis]
Jim :) Smiling aka Brother Jonathan aka Toto Of Kansas | Link to my Blogs, Forums & Essays
