Tag: thoughts

politics

Yes. We. Did!

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Let’s start with the obvious: Barack Hussein Obama is now the President Elect of the United States and will become the 44th President when he is inaugurated on Jan 20, 2009. I have only two words: hot damn.
Last night, I started the evening in my apartment with a home cooked meal, a great bottle of wine and even better company before moving on to a bar in the UES. Before I left, there were many high fives and fist bumps traded as CNN reported state after state going to Obama. At the watering hole, I continued to watch CNN which was playing on a wall mounted TV and when I noticed a countdown clock for when the west coast polls would close up shop, I turned to a friend and said, “They are going to call it for Barack the second the polls close. You watch.”
Soon the clock struck 0:10 and I, along with a roomful of others, proceeded to audibly count down to zero like it was New Years Eve. When the clock hit 0:00 sure enough “Barack Obama Wiins Presidency” flashed up on the screen and everyone went wild. There were toasts, cheers, hoots, claps and hugs exchanged by all. Quickly, my small group finished our drinks and moved to another establishment a few blocks away, one with better TVs and a much better sound system to listen to the speeches.
The whole bar quieted down when both of the candidates spoke. McCain’s speech was the best I’ve ever heard him give. That being said, it cemented in my thoughts the idea that he’ll always be a soldier – ready to dutifully follow his leader – and not the general he hoped to be. I think he secretly knows he isn’t General or Admiral material and I think we are better off with him in the Senate.
Then came Barack. If you missed Obama’s acceptance speech I would highly recommend that you listen to it. The words powerful, moving, emotional and inspiring all come to mind. To see him walk out on stage with his wife and children, to see the multi-hued crowd explode, to hear the multi-hued bar I was in explode, man oh man, it was flat out cathartic. I believe I was shouting “yes yes yes” over and over again.
One thing is for certain: Brand America just got a serious dose of anabolic steroids. One part of the awesome power of Brand America is its “Shining City on a Hill” ideal and the fact that we have a Statue of Liberty crying out in New York Harbor, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Obama said in a 2007 speech that “I still believe that America is the last, best hope on earth. We just have to show the world why this is so.” I truly believe simply electing him as our President is a huge step in that direction.
Take for instance what prominent Saudi columnist Dawood al-Shirian had to say:

“Today, reality in America has superseded fantasy. … Americans have struck a deadly blow to racism all over the world. Americans have regained themselves and have regained the American dream. The picture of the U.S. that was disfigured by the Republicans in the past eight years fell from the wall today. The picture of the America we had in our minds has taken its place.”

The Kenyan government declared a national holiday (Barack’s dad is from there) and people are partying all over the world. To steal Reagan’s line, its morning in America and the future, while daunting, looks brighter than it has in a long, long time.
I care so deeply about America’s image abroad because if it wasn’t for it’s “Last, best hope” reputation I might not even be alive. My ancestors all left the Pale of Settlement (basically Poland / Russia) around 1910 and came to America because it represented their “last, best hope.” They faced vicious pogroms and ever increasing intolerance in their native land while America offered the possibility of a better life – for them and their descendants.
Their decision to head West across the Atlantic was monumental because everyone in my family who stayed in Europe was killed in the Holocaust. Its not hyperbole to say that if my ancestors had decided to stay put and not uproot their entire lives to head to the Lower East Side, if they did not tie their future to the promise of America, I probably would not be around.
I’ve been deeply affectedly by my family’s immigrant experience and recognize how lucky I am to be a 3rd generation American citizen even though I was disappointed when Bush won in 2000 and crushed when he defeated Kerry in 2004. I have never been able to fathom how the country I love and believe in so much has been heading straight to hell in a hand basket (I will not rehash 8 years worth of problems in this post). I’ve prayed for things to turn around before I get so dispirited that, like my ancestors, I begin to entertain the idea of “Where would be better?” While that still is a far way off, we’ve been heading down a dark path. A McCain victory would have only validated the past 8 years worth of nonsense and it truly would have made me question the motivations of my fellow citizens. It also would have made me incredibly fearful about what the next 4 years would bring.
Thankfully, Obama’s victory has pulled America back from the brink of insanity though this is just the end of the beginning. The 4th generation Americans in my family (namely my daughter and my niece) need their future’s promise restored. There are many challenges both foreign and domestic ahead and we all should be prepared to make sacrifices, whether they be time, money, resources or some combination of all three. That being said, the day is full of promise. As our President Elect said, “Let’s get to work.”

politics

Stop the Fiscal Insanity

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“This election is not about issues” so much as the candidates’ images, said McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, in one of the season’s most notable pronouncements. Sadly, no truer words have been spoken.
As I’ve watched everyone focus on Sarah Palin’s babies and hunting prowess, I’ve been especially frustrated that the real issues that we should be taking about, like the economy, the environment and health care, are being virtually ignored. I feel like we are witnessing a reality television-like election where the winner, instead of taking home a cool million, gets to be President of the United States.
The issue of paramount importance, the one that is being paid lip service but is not being thoroughly examined, is how can we possibly get out of the massive monetary mess that we are in. What mess you ask? Let us see what has happened over the past few years shall we?
First off, in case you forgot, we are a nation at war. We have been fighting in Afghanistan for almost 7 years and invaded Iraq, a sovereign nation that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks – remember, we went to war on stove piped and completely false intelligence – over 5 years ago.
How much has this cost? Good question – one that almost no one ever asks. With enactment of the FY2008 Supplemental and FY2009 Bridge Fund (H.R.2642P.L.110-252) on June 30, 2008, Congress has approved a total of about $859 billion for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for the three operations initiated since the 9/11 attack.:
Yup, we’re about to hit $1 trillion. Can you hear Dr. Evil in your head saying that number? I can. Unfortunately, it’s not as funny as it was when I first heard him saying it in 1998. Back then, I saw the movie before I moved to Europe for six months. While there I traveled the continent and paid in Lira while in Italy, Guiders while in Holland and Francs while in France. More about the Euro in a bit though – I’m getting ahead of myself.
More recently, say over the past two years, we’ve witnessed the painful near collapse of our nation’s housing market. This collapse was driven in large part by the U.S.’s addiction with debt. We espouse a “live for today / not for tomorrow” mentality that has strongly taken root in this great land of ours. Savings accounts have gone the way of the Dodo, instead we now have been charge cards that incur a debt that will be paid off “some day.”
Then, for some mysterious reason, debt addicts were allowed to upgrade from charge cards to mortgages. People were given loans that they could never repay to buy homes they could never afford in a short sighted rush by banks to increase corporate profits.
Why were these banks so willing to make these risky loans? Simply put, because they were flush with cash and were able to polish a turd. China was buying up trillions of 20 year Treasury Notes which allowed the Federal Reserve to loan money to private banks at astonishingly low rates. These banks then just gave the money away because they were able to hide the fact that they were loaning money to losers with new magic trick – “safe” debt instruments created out of the broken apart bits of the risky mortgages. They said “Well, we know a few of these people are going to default but overall most won’t [wrong]. So, what we’ll do is break down all of these shit loans into tiny bits and then group the bits based on likelihood to default. Voila! A polished turd!
Well, as one foreclosure led to the next, those “safe” debt instruments lost all their value and mostly everyone got pretty hurt in the resulting crash, rich and poor alike. Don’t believe me? Just check out what happened to Bear Sterns. Somewhere, a managing director is crying over a lost Ferrari. Trust me.
So far, as a direct result, 11 banks have failed in 2008 alone and we’ve probably not yet seen the bottom either. By the end of 2009, Moody’s predicts that nearly 2.8 million U.S. households will either face foreclosure, turn over their homes to their lender or sell the properties for less than their mortgage’s value.
To prevent further mortgage related problems, our government has been forced to initiate a bailout of Freddy Mac and Fanie Mae. Yes, they have dumb names but they guarantee half of the $12 trillion (there’s that trillion word again) mortgage market. In essence, they are too big too fail because if they fail, possibly the entire US housing market could collapse and then we might as well go back to the gold standard.
Are you wondering what this will bailout will cost? It could cost tax payers anywhere from $25 to $100 billion. Compared to the war cost though this is not that much.
Since we’re just throwing money around, we might as give Georgia (the nation, not the state) $1 billion in aid as a reward for provoking Russia into a war and losing two of their territories in the process. I mean come on! Georgia had to have known that Russia was going to go ape when it attacked those two terroritories. I am definitely not defending Russia’s actions – they brought a bazooka to a knife fight – but why are we rewarding Georgia for their stupidity? Still, $1 billion is chump change compared to the war cost and the Freddy & Fannie bailout.
Last but certainly not least, have you either walked through SoHo and gotten hit by a European carrying 17 shopping bags? No? Okay then, have you traveled abroad lately or decided against it when you saw how much everything costs? The dollar’s slide, more like free fall, is more than annoying, it’s a very troubling sign that all is not right in our economy. In the past decade , the Euro has come from nowhere to become a serious currency that is used by individuals for commerce and by governments for their reserves. It is worth a lot more than the dollar though still less than the British Pound. If I still lived in abroad, I would definitely hop across the pond right now to do some shopping. It’s like America is on sale.
So, the overall question is “From where do all of these problems stem?” I posit that they can be traced back to the single greatest failure of the Bush Presidency – the failure to use the human capital that was spontaneously raised after the 9/11 attacks.
At the end of 2001, our entire nation was motivated to sacrifice and start “rebuilding” America. We wanted to flex our freedom loving muscles to serve our communities and show the world what it meant to be an “American.” We reflexively and defiantly wanted to live up our “shining city on the hill” ideal. Organizations like Citizen Corps and Freedom Corps were formed and existing ones like AmeriCorp and the Peace Corps saw huge increases in the amount of applications they received. Many other similarly themed institutions, ones intent on helping local communities whether domestic or abroad, received extraordinarily large amounts interest. In the end, where did all of this energy and interest go? To the mall to go shopping. Who told them to go there? Their fearless [cheer] leader President Bush.
Bush sadly chose to focus on the wrong capital. He thought that keeping monetary capital flowing through this nation’s economy was more important than harnessing the human capital that had presented itself before him. This decision to waste this country’s motivation sent the absolute wrong message to the American public: you don’t need to spend your time and energy, just simply spend your cold hard cash. We’ve unfortunately been living its result.
Extraordinary deficit spending, the irrational housing market, the funky debt instruments that were developed to fuel it, the past decade’s hedge fund largess, the highly leveraged private equity deals that have saddled so many companies with unnecessary debt – all of these stem from the present not being grounded in reality. “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream” goes the song, right?
Who needs to sacrifice? Who needs to save? Me? Hell no – I’m going to get rich or die trying. I’m going to get onto reality TV, grab my 15 minutes of fame and then never let go as I fade into D list celebritydom. That is what it means to be an American. It means to be a child always and forever. It means that responsibility is overrated.
Now, every party has a bill at the end. If you’re at a wedding, while you always should try to “cover your plate” it’s either the parents or the kids are paying for the caterer & band so who is fronting tab for our American misadventures? While America institution sell major stakes to keep themselves solvent (i.e. JPMorganChase sold a 10% stake to the UAE), from the average citizen’s standpoint, everyone is on the hook for the Freddy & Fannie mess. As for the war, who do you think is paying for the $1 trillion bill?
Well, since we’ve been at war, have you been asked to ration your food purchases? Has anyone ask you to buy a victory bond? I mean, how quaint and World War II-ish does that sound? Have you seen a major fund drive on TV to buy snacks, phone cards or even body armor for our troops? No? Me neither.
This is not a small problem. This is the hidden cancer that is destroying our nation. We have the dubious and disgusting distinction of living through the first time in our nation’s history where a war was fully funded by the next generation. You read that right. Read it again in case you just learned this fact. My daughter and my grand kids are the ones who will be paying for our Afghan and Iraqi adventures. Not you and not me. The only ones who are paying right now, and theirs is more of an emotional cost, are the 1.3 million men and women on active duty along with the 669,281 civilian personnel and the 1.1 million National Guard and Reserve members. These 3 million people represent 1% of America’s population. The other 99% are getting away scott free, that is unless they have kids and care about their children’s future.
America’s first secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, identified the Revolutionary War debt as a threat to the nation’s very existence. Ever since, Hamilton’s principles for securing the country through sound finances have guided leaders from Madison and Lincoln to FDR and George H. W. Bush as they have fought to protect the United States — with the invention of the greenback, a progressive income tax, Victory Bond campaigns, and cost-sharing with allies.
Robert D. Hormats’s recent book titled The Price of Liberty strongly criticizes the Bush administration for failing to adhere to the principles that have paid for 230 years of American liberty. The author isn’t some tree hugging Suburu driver, rather he is the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs (International) and a managing director of Goldman, Sachs & Co. He has served in numerous presidential administrations and is a former member of the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. He actually sounds pretty conservative. I think the problem is even worse than we thought.
So, back to the present and the campaign that has less than 60 days to go. The campaign has definitely become more US Weekly than US News and World Report and that really troubles Frank Rich who wrote in his 9/6 column that:

America loves nothing more than a new celebrity face, and the talking heads marched in lock step last week to proclaim her a star. Palin is a high-energy distraction from the top of the ticket, even if the provenance of her stardom is in itself a reflection of exactly what’s frightening about the top of the ticket.

What he finds frightening is that McCain’s “decision-making process is impetuous and, in its Bush-like preference for gut instinct over facts, potentially reckless.” McCain’s gut didn’t tell him to stay from the Keating 5. If we start to focus on the issues, namely the fiscal insanity of the last 7 years, I think that electing Barack Obama President is the last best hope for my daughter’s and my country’s future.

ramblings

Since I've Been Gone

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Any time I stop posting, it’s usually because I’ve been pretty busy – this time is no different except that I’ve been rolling along at an overall even pace. Since my last post:

  • I rented with friends an apartment house near the Leidseplein in Amsterdam and then the following weekend a swank hotel room with my wife in New Amsterdam because why not.
  • I was bumped up to 1st class randomly on my transatlantic voyage back home from Europa and loved every second of it – truly ka is a wheel.
  • I truly learned the value of the adage “You catch more flies with honey.”
  • I’ve been busy trying to launch a web site – which will happen sometime next week.
  • I started a new footie season and in our 20-12 game one victory, my stat line was just the way I like it: 1 goal & 3 – 4 assists.
  • I remembered to buy Serj Tankian tickets for his show in May at Terminal 5 and was able to score a few.

Things keep happening and most of them are good. We’ll see what the next few weeks bring. I’m looking forward to them.
April showers bring May flowers. Mayflowers bring pilgrims. Pilgrims bring promise. Etcetera etcetera etcetera

politics

6 Years Later

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In everlasting remembrance of those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001:

Today is the sixth anniversary of when two planes flew into the Twin Towers, bringing with them destruction and death on a quiet and sunny almost Fall morning in the Big Apple. This is the first time that the anniversary has happened on the same day of the week [Tues] on which the disaster took place so I’ve had a bit of deja vu, maybe self imposed. While I have keenly been emotional today, I felt like I was the only one who knew what the day was as in my office, everyone that I came in contact with acted like nothing ever happened.
No one was especially somber, though no one discussed anything related to 9/11 so I don’t know who else but me was actually a tad down today. Time does and should move on but when unions do not have parades on Labor Day, its too much for me and this is similar because I went to the office today expecting a lot of things but dying in the office was not one of them.
I was living and working in NYC six years ago today as well and wasn’t expecting to die that day either but some people, people just like me, actually did. I sit in front of a window on the 8th floor that looks out over Houston Street towards Broadway. I look out my window frequently throughout the day but never expect to see a plane flying directly towards me, yet that is exactly what happened for hundreds of people that fateful day. I do no think I will never forget what I felt, saw, heard and smelt, not just that day but in the days and weeks after. Anytime I hear a plane that I feel is too loud, I still look up. Anytime I smell burnt rubber, I think of the stench that emanated north from downtown for weeks on end.
That being said, six years later “ground zero” is still a construction site, just like last year when the NYT wrote:

“Five years after Sept. 11, 2001, ground zero remains a 16-acre, 70-foot-deep hole in the heart of Lower Manhattan. High above it, a scaffolded bank building, contaminated during the attack, hulks like a metal skeleton, waiting endlessly to be razed.”

Since last year, little progress has been made and the bank building mentioned above caught on fire which lead to another 2 firefighters losing their lives – I know, when I heard it too for the first time I said, “Are you fucking kidding me?!”. This is beyond asinine at this point: for the love of all that is holy, rebuild the site!
While others may simply go about their business today, I just laid some flowers down in front of my local firehouse tonight to honor the 9 guys they lost 6 years ago today. While my wife and I were there placing the flowers in a plastic bucket vase already brimming and overfull next to many others just like it, we were next to a father who had two little kids with him, a boy and girl, and the girl looked younger than six, so she wasn’t even alive when this event first happened. Time marches on. Never forget.

politics

Post-Tribalism

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Last Saturday, my cousin asked me a rather general question about the prospects for peace between Israel, Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza and all of their neighbors. This started a long semi-rambling discussion whose thesis was related to something Thomas Friedman said in his Feb, 07 “Rules for the Middle East” op-ed piece. Rule 14 said that the Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi had it right: “Great powers should never get involved in the politics of small tribes.”
I found it funny that the next day, the NYT’s Sunday Magazine’s featured article titled “The Politics of God” had an intro paragraph which is very related to what I was saying that night and what I have been saying about tribalism in general. To the average American, the Middle East is simply full of Arabs. To me, it is fully of Persians, Egyptians, Alawites, Hashemites, Druze, Sunnis, Shi’ites, Kurds, Jews, Bedouins, Bahá’ís, Yezidis and many more sects, nationalities and/or tribes. The Middle East’s tribes are completely intertwined with religion so I do not mind intermingling say Persians, who are mostly Shi’ites and who live primarily in Iran, with Kurds, who have no nation of their own and who generally practice Yazdanism. While many of these sects or tribes believe in in the same deity, their Hatfield versus McCoy differences often can prompt extreme cases of violence. Over the past few years, I seen that common religious beliefs are not strong enough to overcome tribal differences. For example, look at how in Iraq the Sunnis and Shi’ites are wantonly destroying each other’s mosques.
I also see that Middle Eastern tribalism is closely related with religious theocracy and dogmatic thought which is why I am linking this term with the article. Tribes are not made up of individuals who are the free thinking Westerners that you and I style ourselves to be. I do not believe that the Western world understands how tribal some parts of the world still are and the intro paragraph neatly sums up this thought:

“We in the west find it incomprehensible that theological ideas still inflame the minds of men, stirring up messianic passions that can leave societies in ruin. We had assumed that this was no longer possible, that human beings had learned to separate religious questions and from political ones, that political theology dies in 16th-century Europe. We were wrong. It’s we who are the fragile exception.”

Keeping with this tribal theme, although incredibly modern in terms of its society, economics, government and culture, in the end, the modern State of Israel is simply a gathering of the biblical 12 tribes of Israel. Zionism can be considered rooted in tribalism because it is a term used to describe the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. Speaking about Israel, an extremely provocative recent New Yorker article titled “The Apostate” is about how one of the country’s foremost Zionists has lost faith in the future and his thoughts on the situation there. I found some of the reasons behind his pessimism very true and compelling and other parts actually quite deplorable. Here is one part which shows the provocative nature of the article:

Burg warns that an increasingly large and ardent sector of Israeli society disdains political democracy. He describes the country in its current state as Holocaust-obsessed, militaristic, xenophobic, and, like Germany in the nineteen-thirties, vulnerable to an extremist minority.

In another part, Burg talks about the 3 things that lead to the founding of Israel and how since they have been met, there is great stagnation in the society. Again, interesting food for thought:

Burg said, “after some fifteen, twenty years in political life I had a feeling all of a sudden that, to use the Biblical term, Israel was the kingdom without prophesy. I realized that the three founding narratives of the national idea of Israeliness were over: the mass immigration to the land, aliyah; the security of the land; and the settling of the land. All three had served their purpose and were no longer the core of the nation’s narratives. I asked myself what was the alternative. This was a long process of thought. I didn’t feel that the political system in Israel was trying to renew its thinking.”

Neither of these articles provide answers. For the most part, they only raise questions. However these questions might be ones that you have not pondered as of yet. The more we think about the possibility that maybe we, the Post-Tribal world, is “crazy” and the rest of the world is “sane” the more we might get somewhere closer to peace, in whatever form that concept exists to tribes.

ramblings

Where am I?

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It seems that I have not posted a damn thing for the past almost 3 weeks. It’s the summer: TV shows should be in repeats, your shrink should be away (oh wait, that is just August) and everything moves a bit, well, slower. That being said constant reader, look forward to a post barrage coming your way!

television

Don't Stop

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The Sopranos are dead. Long live the Sopranos. I am sad, yet exhilarated that the show ended the way it did. After watching the Sopranos finale titled “Made in America,” you will find yourself in 1 of 2 camps, you loved it or hated it, and it’s all because of those last 5 minutes in the diner.
I for one loved it. I think it’s because I’m a writer and one who believes the show is more art than entertainment. Who are we to makes demands of an artist? To me, David Chase created art that was displayed on a television screen. Who am I to argue with his vision? Who am I to tell him how his story should end? As an aside, during the episode we see a “Twilight Zone” episode and Little Miss Sunshine playing on background TVs. I think its Chase saying, “Look – writing is important. Its the story that makes the show.
In keeping with that thought, here is a great quote from the Chase. He said,

“I don’t think art should give answers. I think art should only pose questions. And art should not fill in blanks for people, or I think that’s what’s called propaganda. I think art should only raise questions, a lot of which may be even dissonant and you don’t even know you’re being asked a question, but that it creates some kind of tension inside you.”

For all those that want (and demand) closure, go find Da Vinci and ask him why the Mona Lisa is smiling. Oh wait, he’s dead. I guess you’re going to make up a reason….
Getting back to the show itself, there are 2 major theories and 1 dark horse theory about what happened. They are: Tony was killed, Tony was not killed, the audience was killed.
If you want to read more on first 2, The NY Times has 2 great posts in its Lede blog about them. I would read this post and then read this post to get a good sense of what is what.
I am in the “Tony wasn’t killed” camp because for 5 minutes, we get inside of Tony’s head. We get to know, and feel if your heart was thumping like mine was, what it is like to be Tony, where every second everything needs to be analyzed like it’s a threat. He is never safe, never truly happy, even at “happy times.” Sure, its possible that he died, that the Members Only guy is supposed to be Nicky Leotardo and that he kills Tony when he comes out of the bathroom but that is the beauty of this final episode: we just don’t know. That being said, the Nicky Leotardo theory has been slammed due to it having some huge semi-sized holes in it.
Here is another theory, more of a dark horse theory, but one I am now in love with it because its a combo of the one that I agree with (a.ka. Tony wasn’t killed): WE were whacked. WE didn’t see it coming. WE don’t see anything or hear any music because WE just died. You can read more about the “WE got whacked” theory here. Basically, the idea is that the show goes on, like life after we are dead, except we aren’t around to see what happens.
Lets talk about the music now. For a show that was so musical, the lack of music was telling. Steven Van Zandt said on Yes Network’s Centerstage the show featured the best music in any TV show ever. If you can, watch this interview on repeats. He is very smart, very artistic and very, very cool. In fact, I made as background noise for the dinner party we threw in honor of the show ending a music mix that only featured music used in a Sopranos episode. I couldn’t wait to hear what song they used as the last song so the silence to me was shocking and in the end awesome.
If you are on the fence about Tony not dying or about us being the ones “whacked,” think of the words in the Journey song: Oh, the movie never ends – It goes on and on and on and on – Don’t stop believin’ Even the band name is telling as many people say that life is a journey and we should enjoy the trip, not the destination you hope to reach. If that is the case, this is more weight behind the “Tony wasn’t killed” theories…
Adieu to a fantastic show. TV will never be the same again.

ramblings

Dearth of October Posts

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I’ve been very busy with work, school and life and some peoplehave noted that I haven’t been posted at all lately. That usually happens for a few weeks after something I’m rooting for loses, whether it be the Yankees or John Kerry. I’m out of my funk and back. Look for much more in the next few minutes and days.

ramblings

NYC: Before and After

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For many people who live in NYC, there is a clear line between those that were here on 9/11/01 and those that were not. In prepping for the 5 year anniversay next Monday, the Times has an article today about this very topic.

“I’m amazed because it was such a big event, and people never mention it,” said Deenah Vollmer, 20, who moved to the city last year. “When you do mention it, everyone has these crazy intense stories.”

I myself have a crazy intense story and unless you were here on that day, and by here I mean in NYC close enough to smell the odor of burnt everything in the air, to see the fighter jets circling Manhattan like slot car racers and to hear the deafening wail of sirens then you have a much different understanding and experience of that day than I do. Unfortunately, I got to experience it live with all five senses.
I do not know if I’ve touched on my personal experiences from that day on my blog yet. I’m not sure I want to frankly but in my hopes that “100 years from now a researcher, in his attempts to learn more about the late 20th and early 21st centuries, will discover these words on a server somewhere” I feel that I should. Stay tuned.
Old New Yorkers, Newer Ones, and a Line Etched by a Day of Disaster by Micahel Brick
Five years ago, on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center. Downtown smelled like Coke cans and hair on fire. It was televised live.
In New York City, 2,749 people were killed. About eight million remained. Since that day, the numbers have changed.
The population grew by more than 134,000 from 2000 to 2005, the city’s latest Planning Department calculations show. In that time, 645,416 babies were born and 304,773 people died. A half-million more people came from other countries than departed for them, and 800,000 more people left for the 50 states than came wide-eyed from them.
The meaning in the math is that today a great many New Yorkers lack firsthand knowledge of the city’s critical modern moment.
Five years on, New York is a city of newcomers and survivors. And between them runs a line. The line makes for no conflict, no discernible tension; it works a quieter breach.
Borne of the routine comings and goings of urban life, of births and deaths, the line divides views of a singular moment. Across the line, consummately familiar events can appear contorted.
On one side, the newcomer side, a man seeks accounts of that day; on the other side a man withholds his account. On the newcomer side, a woman visits the absent towers to feel some connection; on the other side a woman feels connected, and then some.
On the side of those who lived in New York, you can share a sense of trauma both layered and ill-defined.
“It’s like someone who has been in a war zone,” said William Stockbridge, 50, a finance executive who was working downtown during the attack. “It’s different.”
On the other side, you can feel like the new boyfriend at your girlfriend’s family reunion the year somebody died — somebody young, somebody you never met.
“You feel like you’re on the outside,” said Matthew Molnar, 26, a waiter in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who lived in Middlesex County, N.J., in 2001. “You feel like you missed out on a little bit of history.”
Newcomers and survivors: those terms ring harsh and blunt only because the line is so often unspoken. It runs soundless and invisible down Broadway from Harlem over the Williamsburg Bridge out to Coney Island and to Fresh Kills, up past the airports across the Grand Concourse into Yankee Stadium, through the bleachers where you can’t drink beer anymore and up out of the park into the nighttime sky.
The line flashes into view on the city streets for moments at a time. When jet fighters buzz the skyscrapers for Fleet Week, some of the people below — the ones who were here on Sept. 11 — flinch. More frequently, though, the line operates beneath the surface of conversations, of interactions, of transactions, of life. The line controls small things, controls the way people react to the phrase “and then Sept. 11 happened,” as though a date on the calendar could “happen.”
The line’s contours emerge in conversations. Ask about the attack, and people will describe a sense of ownership.
“You either experienced it firsthand,” said Amanda Spielman, 30, a graphic designer from Jackson Heights, Queens, who was in the city, “or you didn’t.”
Others describe that sense differently, but draw the line in the same place.
“I think for the people that seen it on TV, it is more painful than for the people who saw it here,” said Paolo Gonzalez, 29, who manages a parking lot under the Brooklyn Bridge and who saw the attack. “For the other people it was real. If you was here, when the buildings came down the only thing you were thinking was, ‘Run.’ ”
Across the line, the new arrivals recognize that sense of ownership.
“I’ve been told that I just don’t get it and that I could never understand what it was like to be there in New York on Sept. 11,” said Laura Bassett, 27, who moved to the city from North Carolina after 2001. “I hate that five years later, people still debate which bystander is allowed to be more upset, the New Yorker or the American.”
The line emerges perhaps most powerfully around the fallen towers, 2.06 acres of concrete known as ground zero. Because of the line, the site is a paradox, an emotional contradiction, a mass grave and a tourist attraction.
Some people feel so strongly about the place they cannot agree on an arrangement for listing the names of the dead; others feel so strongly about the place that they make sure to visit between Radio City Music Hall and the Statue of Liberty. Between those emotional poles is a middle ground, and the line runs through its center.
“People who moved to New York, everyone wanted to go down and see it,” said Dede Minor, 51, a real estate broker who was in her office in Midtown on the day of the attack. “For New Yorkers, it was too real.”
Jose Martias, 57, a construction worker who was drinking coffee near the East River when the attack began, said he knew why the newcomers visit the site.
“They don’t understand it so they go down there to see the hole,” Mr. Martias said. “It’s an attraction to them, like going to the circus.”
But across the line there is genuine emotional curiosity, a feeling that people in less cynical times used to call empathy.
“I’d didn’t think I’d be that affected,” said Leah Hamilton, 24, a logistics consultant who moved to Manhattan from Washington State last year. “But when I went to ground zero, it was the first time I’ve felt an emotional reaction like that to something I wasn’t a part of. You feel the energy and you could feel the sadness.”
The line can reach into the future, forging perceptions of New York and its destiny. Some new arrivals speak of the attack as a reason to come to the city.
“We felt like there was a lot of energy here,” said Meg Glasser, 26, a student who moved to the East Village from Boston this year. “We wanted to be a part of it in some way.”
But across the line, that sense of energy is tempered by standards for comparison.
“I know people who have been here a year or two, and they find New York fantastic,” said Father Bernard, 67, a Roman Catholic monk who was born in Brooklyn and who goes by only that name. “They’re right, but they didn’t know the New York before.”
The line reaches into the past as well, dividing memories. Each generation tells the next where they were when the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, when the Kennedys and Martin Luther King were killed or when a space shuttle exploded, but a major act of destruction in a major American city creates more firsthand accounts.
Psychological studies suggest those accounts have played a role in drawing the line. After the attack, a group of academic researchers interviewed 1,500 people, including 550 in New York City, to gauge memories of detail, said Elizabeth Phelps, a professor of psychology and neural science at New York University. Proximity to Lower Manhattan during the attack, Dr. Phelps said, “increases your confidence in your memories, and your accuracy as well.”
In a separate study, the researchers measured activity in parts of the brain connected to memory. With verbal cues, subjects were asked to conjure visions of the terror attack and of personal events from the summer of 2001. Only half registered a difference in neural activity.
“Those who did show a difference were, on average, in Washington Square Park,” Dr. Phelps said. “Those who didn’t were, on average, in Midtown.”
Among those who have come to the city since 2001, the line dividing memories is undisputed.
“I had been there as a tourist to the World Trade Center, so I have memories,” said Marielle Solan, 22, a photographer who moved to the city from Delaware this year. “But obviously I can’t have any sense of what it was like. Every Sept, 11, you get a sense of fear and depression, but in terms of actual visceral reactions, I don’t really have that.”
The new arrivals have found a conspicuous void of shared memory.
“I’m amazed because it was such a big event, and people never mention it,” said Deenah Vollmer, 20, who moved to the city last year. “When you do mention it, everyone has these crazy intense stories.”
Across the line, many of those who lived in the city hold their memories close.
“The people I already knew know my stories from that day, so there’s no need to repeat them,” said Ms. Spielman, the graphic designer. “The new people I’ve met don’t ask me. It’s not something I bring up.”
But each year the calendar brings it up. Alexandria Lambert, 28, who works as an administrative assistant, sees the line run through the center of her office. Each year, a co-worker who witnessed the attack asks for the day off, and each year a boss who did not declines the request.
“His point of view is, ‘Don’t let it get you down,’ ” Ms. Lambert said, “but she just doesn’t want to be here.”

politics

The Reasonist Party

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My friend and fellow “reasonist’ Mr. Neu sent me a depressing link today. I’ve known for a while that Pat Roberson is a nut but yesterday Pat had David Horowitz, a right-wing writer, on his Christian Broadcast Network new show. Keep in mind that Pat’s TV network is one that most of America doesn’t watch but that a lot of God fearing voters do watch. Keep in mind that half of Americans do not vote – obviously the “Rock the Vote” and “Vote or Die” campaigns just aren’t working – so you really need to pay attention to the ones that do in order to properly gauge the nation’s pulse.
Part of what depressed me was how the show featured paranoid ravings about MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, America Votes and the “shadowy group” Media Matters and how they are forming their own party as part of a George Soros plan “to take over the political structure of the United States.” While doing so, it repeated a baseless slur that Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew, collaborated with the Nazis as a 14-year-old boy. It was a sickening and sad display, and anchored by a smiling preacher who is worth between $200 million and $1 billion dollars. Say Hallaluyah!
Maybe Horowitz was attacking Media Matters because this moderate group showed how his recent book on these groups titled Shadow Party had “doctored quotes, shoddy scholarship, factual errors, and baseless insinuations on matters both small and large.” I know he is scared by MoveOn.org and CAP most likely because these moderate, centrist, “third way” organizations all advocate reason and restraint, not hysteria and fear. If you go point by point through the groups he trashed, you see how they are on the side of reason and moderacy – virtues and not sins in my book.
What really made me feel down in the dumps is that this sort of thing airs every day in the good old U S of A. This poison is being fed and happily swallowed by millions of voting Americans. I cannot stress enough how voting maters because as the Middle East has shown, democracies can be perverted by religious fundamentalism if those leaders win elections. Hamas was elected by the Palestinians because their secular leaders, the PA, were letting them down. One cannot deny the strong link because the fundamentalist movement and conservative Republicans. Rick Santorium, one of the most radically fundamentalist Republicans around, is one of only a hundred Senators in the entire country. He is one of only two Sentors from the great state of Pennsylvania. He is also believes that homosexuality is the same as if not worse than bestiality and he probably watches his good buddy Pat all day long whenever he can.
I bring all of these points up because I think the time is right to start a new poitical movement called the Reasonist movement to counteract the nutso religious fundamentalism that is running rampant in America. Our slogan is “We make good sense.” We will advocate for laws that make good fiscal and moral sense, for policies, both foreign and domestic, that make good fiscal and moral sense. We won’t shout down the shouting opposition’s lies. We will simply wait out their yelling and bluster the way a parent endures a child’s temper tamtrum and then will logically respond with facts that simply make sense. I am a rational philosopher – instead of hysteria I prefer reason. The more extreme our nation becomes, the more I will take the middle road of reason. At the lead up to the 2004 election, I was solidly blue and very anti red but I don’t want to make a Blue State thing. Barak Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention said it best – to paraphrase, we are all basically purple – both red and blue. To that end, I want to reframe the entire discussion and create a third way: a way of reason. Who’s with me?