Got this link off of Neil Gaiman’s webjournal:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,552408,00.html
Got this link off of Neil Gaiman’s webjournal:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,552408,00.html
I’m a sentimental person. I admit that, and I have no shame for it. But I find there’s great comfort in all the small heroes that have risen to this great and troubling challenge.
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/sage/ss2001-09-14.htm
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010914
I got this from Seanan :
http://spot.eroded.org/thankyou/
Wow…
http://www.nasa.gov/newsinfo/WTCplume.html
Holy Moley…..
I like what this had to say….
We’ll go forward from this moment
by Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/herald/content/features/columnists/pitts/digdocs/000565.htm
It’s my job to have something to say.
They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.
You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.
What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward’s attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.
Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.
Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.
Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.
Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We’re frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae — a singer’s revealing dress, a ball team’s misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We’re wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though — peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.
Some people — you, perhaps — think that any or all of this makes us weak. You’re mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.
IN PAIN
Yes, we’re in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We’re still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn’t a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn’t the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and, probably, the history of the world. You’ve bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.
But there’s a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.
I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.
In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We’ll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.
THE STEEL IN US
You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people who don’t know us well. On this day, the family’s bickering is put on hold.
As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.
So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that’s the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You don’t know my people. You don’t know what we’re capable of. You don’t know what you just started.
But you’re about to learn.
Hope and Mercy
Words and Music by Robert Wynne
© 2001
September 11, 2001
The world around me has gone mad
I cannot find the words
To make sense out of anything at all
I feel so hopeless and confused
So powerless and small
If anyone is there to hear my call
Hope and mercy
For this alone we pray
Send us strength from somewhere
To make it through this dayFaith and courage
To help us through the night
And draw us all together
To set the world to right
I know I cannot save the world
Not by myself alone
I’m not even sure how to survive
Please tell me there is still a chance
A reason to go on
There must be hope as long as we’re alive
CHORUS
So at last we come together
To comfort and to grieve
And lean upon each other in our fears
But dawn will bring a new day
And together we will strive
To build a new tomorrow without tears
CHORUS
There’s an mp3 on my webpage: https://www.autographedcat.com/mp3/hope_and_mercy.mp3
Nothing amuses me more than people who get themselves worked into a tizzy over gay people. I’d probably find it less amusing if I were gay myself…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also reported on the story.
Good heavens! How terrible! The next thing you know those gay people might start demanding, I don’t know, to be treated like human beings and given the basic dignity and respect that should be afforded decent people! When WILL the madness end?
I despair to live in a world where an entire group of people can be hated and despised because of who they choose to love! Cause that’s really what’s going on here, isn’t it? “We don’t like the way THOSE people love one another. It isn’t right.” Yeah, hate is a much better way to deal with people.
The really sad thing is almost every one of the people complaining would probably identify themselves as a Christian, and could easily express to you their belief in a infinitely loving God and their belief that the same God thinks gay people are an abomination in a single breath.
*sigh* I weep for the world, and all the darkness we bring to obscure the light.
The average person would have kept it. Or sold it.
But when Julie Geisler discovered that she had inherited an 80-year overdue book that belonged to the Boston Public Library, she returned it. The book, a first printing edition of Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of Species, was valued at between $15,000 and $75,000.
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/213/region/First_edition_Darwin_book_retu:.shtml
At a time when everyone seems to be out for themselves, it’s nice to see someone do the right thing for no reason other than because it’s the right thing to do. (In an interview on NPR, Geisler said the Boston Public Library agreed to waive the $1.50 maximum overdue fine for the book *grin*)
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/state/la-000056553jul10.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Ds
Now here’s a fun can of worms. You own a satellite, which is in orbit. It’s out somewhere over the equator somewhere, and nowhere near where you actually have your business offices located. But the country decided that hey, you’re here, and it’s worth X million dollars, so let’s charge property taxes on it as if it were here where your office is.
I’m not sure what to think of this. What happens when a company has multiple headquarters? Who’s liable for the tax then? If I have an office in Gwinnett Co and another in Fulton, I don’t owe Gwinnett Co. property taxes on my office in Fulton. So it seems to me that the taxes on the satellite are owned to whoever has jurisdiction over County Space.
But hey, anything for an extra buck.
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