Twenty years gone.

I guess, since Saturday is the 20th anniversary of you-know-what, I should write something about that today.

But I don’t know that I want to. I grew up with “where were you when you heard the president had been shot,” and it’s been replaced by this tragedy, and few of the answers are all that interesting. I was in school. I was at work. I was in the subway. I was there. We all carry a little bit of that day in our hearts, and we all have our stories. Like most of daily life, they’re quotidian for the most part.

I remember the after-times. I once said that I forgive everyone in the world anything crazy they said from that date until…January 1. Bomb Afghanistan to glass? You said that? Fine with me. You said you were glad George Bush was in charge that day and not Al Gore? Sure, that’s OK, as long as you admit history has shall we say proven you wrong. And so on. After 9/11 came anthrax, remember. We saw news anchors flipping out on live TV. Maureen Dowd was howling for Cipro. It was a strange, scary time. You were permitted to be afraid.

All I want to remember this weekend is my own personal slideshow of moments. Like…we had digital cable installed that day, which necessitated turning the TV off for about half an hour while the guy worked on the pole outside. I could hardly stand it. When it came back on, I said THANK GOD or some such, and this incredibly mellow and chill cable guy glanced at the TV, shrugged and said, “Yeah. Crazy.” Like I’d been watching roller derby.

I remember the stupidity, the witless public statements, that no one was embarrassed to say out loud. A woman ahead of me in the Target checkout line went on and on about 9/11 and 911 as an emergency number, and wasn’t it obvious the attackers had chosen that day for that reason? The endless rumors, such transparent bullshit, repeated by people who should know better. Did you hear about the six firefighters who were found safe in the basement because they’d been in a sturdy full-size SUV that somehow stood up to having a building fall on it? Remember the photo of the guy standing on the World Trade Center observation deck while the plane zoomed in behind him? Professional debunkers had to take that one apart like the Zapruder film. The “speech made by the pilot on the first flight afterward” story? The advice to travelers? Pack a can of Spam in your carry-on, and throw chunks of it at the hijackers. Evidently they’d be repelled, like Kryptonite. And this was before social media. If Facebook had existed then, we’d still have our thumbs up our big dumb asses.

And the wars, oh my god. The marketing names alone. First it was Operation Infinite Justice, because we can’t just call a war a war anymore, but that was rejected because Muslims were offended or something, and so it became Operation Enduring Freedom. How’d that work out, everyone? Are the Afghans free? Is it enduring? How about us? In my brief period as a copy editor, I took sadistic pleasure in changing every reference in copy from the marketing name to “the Gulf war,” “the second Gulf war,” “the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan,” etc. Over the years, however, I’ve found it’s a pretty good marker for the sort of person I’m talking to/reading. “When I was deployed in Operation Enduring Freedom…” is a signifier that you are not dealing with a straight shooter. Anyway, there have been so many Operation Windy Adjective Patriotic Nouns of late, it’s hard to remember which is which.

The fear. I remember that, too. Sitting in earshot of the police reporter on Friday afterward, listening to the calls on the scanner, one after another, all of which boiled down to: Swarthy Man spotted on my street. Maybe he was walking with another Swarthy Man. These calls were especially prevalent around the east-side neighborhood in Fort Wayne that contained a technical college favored by South Asians. Who are swarthy, by and large.

The newspapers and websites are full of tell-us-your-story stories, already. There are some pretty good ones, but most are about Plucky People Who Never Gave Up Hope, because that’s what we like, I guess. I think of the stories I’d like to read, and I think of …maybe this WashPost piece on the summer before that September. My current editor worked there then. He was on the Chandra Levy story, for weeks on end. Spent two weeks in Modesto, Calif., knocking on doors. What an amazing indulgence that would never, ever happen today. I would like to read a story aimed at young people, telling them all the things we now take for granted that we owe to 9/11: Surveillance cameras everywhere. Taking off your shoes to go through airport security. That sort of thing.

I think I’ll try to tune out as much as possible this weekend. I don’t need to relive it, I don’t want to relive it. The local firefighters will hang a big flag from a fully extended ladder truck over the main avenue through town, and I’ll probably pass under it in the course of my usual Saturday grind. I’ll keep my eyes front. These guys, by and large, weren’t there. Some of them were still in diapers. I hate sentimentality. Everything changed that day, and most of it wasn’t good. I see no need to get emotional about it.

So. Happy weekend to you? Last weekend before we leave (still assuming we leave, which is not at all certain). Weather’s supposed to be nice. I hope yours is good.

Posted at 8:59 pm in Current events, Media |
 

62 responses to “Twenty years gone.”

  1. Suzanne said on September 9, 2021 at 9:21 pm

    This is one of the best articles I have read on living with the reality of loss after 9/11
    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/twenty-years-gone-911-bobby-mcilvaine/619490/

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  2. LAMary said on September 9, 2021 at 9:37 pm

    My sons and I had just flown back to LA from NY. We were spooked. A few what if conversations happened. What stays with me is what happened to my friend Martin. He’s a very talented actor. He was performing that summer in Pirates of Penzance staged on an old sailing ship docked near the WTC. He was playing two parts in the show: The Major General and Ruth. He was.interviewed and praised for his wit and brilliance in the NYT. Then that ship was destroyed. Martin also lost a dear neighbor who used to walk her dog with Martin and his sweet lab Mabel. That neighbor died in tower 2. Martin got the landlord to unlock her door so he could care for her dog. He was very depressed for months. He teaches drama now and occasionally does TV stuff.

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  3. beb said on September 9, 2021 at 10:17 pm

    I dread the fake piety and forced sentimentality of the coming weekend.

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  4. Sherri said on September 9, 2021 at 10:49 pm

    I mourn the self-inflicted wounds we perpetrated as a result of 9/11. That’s why I do what I do today. The Patriot Act was so appalling that I started getting involved with the ACLU.

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  5. alex said on September 9, 2021 at 11:32 pm

    For me, 9/11 marks the beginning of the current crisis in our democracy. It was when the GOP first discovered that it could generate mass hysteria with outright lies and sustain an alternate reality in an alternate media bubble.

    If you think it’s bizarre that Republican pols can’t stand up for the truth about COVID or January 6, consider that Joe Biden actually called it right when he said occupying Iraq would be a big waste of money and lives and would destabilize the region and that it would be easier to contain Sadam Hussein than to deal with the power vacuum that would result from overthrowing him. And then Biden voted in favor of the Iraq debacle because it was too costly politically to go against public opinion, no matter how wrongheaded.

    Good on him for standing up today against the nutters who would risk death just to own the libs. Here’s hoping he doesn’t back down this time around.

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  6. LAMary said on September 10, 2021 at 12:00 am

    Just calling it the Patriot Act and creating the Department of Homeland Security caused me to join the ACLU.

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  7. Jessica W said on September 10, 2021 at 12:58 am

    I landed at Dulles airport at 6:30 on 9/11, returning from a visit home for the unveiling of my father’s tombstone. A Jewish thing, done about a year after the death.

    I got to the office after the first tower fell but before the second one fell, with no idea what had happened. My boss pulled me into her office immediately and clued me in.

    I’m very glad that I didn’t decide to stay another day or two in California, as it would have been a long time before I made it back.

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  8. Dexter Friend said on September 10, 2021 at 12:59 am

    I’ll be concise: The New Yorker story about the Sikh cab drivers trying to make a living in Manhattan after the attacks bothered me for a long time. Anybody in non-western garb was at risk of beatings or death. A turban was a target for these “Were comin’ to get you” banner wavers. We were also told to report any suspicious activity around power plants. One night while dog-walking I saw a creepy druggie leaning up against a barrier fence by the local power plant. It flashed on me that I was supposed to call this in. To steal a line from the film “Withnail and I”, ‘what absolute twaddle!’

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  9. Dexter Friend said on September 10, 2021 at 1:12 am

    an anecdote I think I posted here years ago: my neighbor had gotten the “get here now” call to visit his dying brother-in-law in Baltimore. He flew down on Sunday the 9th. He made it in time for the goodbye, to fly back late on 9-11. He had a new job and had to get back. No trains available, sold out or cancelled, same with buses, as well as rental cars. Little money, either, as he had been laid off a long time. He bought a Baltimore Sun and scanned the for sale ads, saw a VW Jetta for sale, $100…did not run. He caught a ride to the seller’s, figured out what might get the VW running, went to an auto parts store and bought a battery and whatever else it needed, I remember a water pump. He bought the Jetta, got it running, and drove it back here to Bryan in time to hold onto his new job. Not needing the Jetta here, having a car, he parked it in his yard, for sale. I bought it for $500 and drove it like 80 miles a day for 3 years. He told me the story while getting a title squared away at the title department, a bit of a headache. I later found the Baltimore Sun in the car trunk, kind of greasy. About 10 cars, all cheap, had been circled in pen. I just thought it was a strange vignette to tell about altered lives.

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  10. David C said on September 10, 2021 at 6:06 am

    I was at work. That’s all.

    News on the dad front is looking better. My brother and sister thought they were looking for an ICU bed and he was going right into surgery when he got to the heart center. They were looking for a normal room. The new cardiologists said they’re reevaluating everything. They may do a bypass, they may be able to put in a stent, or they may just send him home with medicine and a strict diet. So fingers and everything that brings good luck crossed, I have a feeling they’re not going to do the bypass.

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  11. Mark P said on September 10, 2021 at 8:44 am

    The NY Times morning summary has a piece about what might have been done in response to the 9/11 attacks that could have had a positive, enduring effect on us. It might have happened if Gore had been President. Instead we got that affable stooge who has nearly destroyed us.

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  12. Jeff Borden said on September 10, 2021 at 9:51 am

    What I will feel most tomorrow is fury. Obviously, it’s sickening that religion could be so twisted and perverted by zealots as to celebrate the mass slaughter of civilians. But I save most of my anger for our “leaders,” who bit on the baited hook set by Osama bin Laden and never let go. Bin Laden had a manifesto: drag the U.S. into a long slog of a war in a Muslim nation, frame the war as a battle between Muslims and Christian crusaders and drain the national treasury. He got everything he wanted. . .and more. It’s been estimated al Queda spent as little as $500K on the 9/11 operation. And look at the return on investment!

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  13. LAMary said on September 10, 2021 at 10:21 am

    I listened to one episode of a nine part podcast last night: Blindspot The Road to 9 11. Excellent. It was about the Blind Sheik and the informer who worked with the FBI. It’s an NPR podcast and all nine episodes are availble if you’re interested.

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  14. Bitter Scribe said on September 10, 2021 at 11:15 am

    Excellent perspective, Nancy. Personally, I’m going to tune out all the opining and be grateful that I don’t have to write one of those anniversary pieces.

    BTW, I just saw something to the effect that France took the U.S. off the safe-travel list. Hope that doesn’t mean your vacation is ruined.

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  15. nancy said on September 10, 2021 at 11:29 am

    The news nearly gave me a heart attack, but it’s only unvaccinated travelers who are banned. We’re fully vaxxed up, so I’m hoping it just means somewhat shorter lines at the Louvre.

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  16. Jeff Borden said on September 10, 2021 at 11:36 am

    There are always lines at the Louvre.

    If I may, please allow me to recommend the Musee d’Orsay. It’s a beautiful gallery housed in a gorgeous old train station. There’s a nice restaurant located behind the giant clock, too.

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  17. Sherri said on September 10, 2021 at 12:03 pm

    It’s rage-inducing to me that the same people who were all for building a surveillance state and the Patriot Act and endless violations of civil liberties because a few thousand died on 9/11 are now throwing tantrums over vaccines and masks when over 600,000 have died from COVID.

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  18. Julie Robinson said on September 10, 2021 at 1:12 pm

    Nailed it, Sherri. The Patriot Act was the beginning of our modern day dystopia, with Citizens United and Bush v Gore the cause. Our library had a handy feature where you could look up what you had checked out, in case you forgot a title, or just liked to keep track. That went away with the Patriot Act, so the government couldn’t come to the library and get anyone’s records. We all lost, but it was really the only choice.

    Good news about your dad, David. I wouldn’t wish bypass surgery on my worst enemy. My sister’s recovery was so rough and she had so much pain. It was horrible.

    Wedding update: the bride and groom are requiring everyone to present their vax cards and a negative covid test, which means we’ll have to find a place to get tested after we get to NOLA. Our Air BnB host has been unresponsive to a couple of attempts to contact him over a period of six days, and today our daughter will contact the company. In the meantime we started looking for an alternative. Since the Jazzfest cancelation, there are lots of places available, and for less. We made a backup reservation just in case.

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  19. Scout said on September 10, 2021 at 1:19 pm

    I was going to write what Sherri did, but she said it so much better than I could have. That is exactly how I feel about the 20 year anniversary. It’s sad and painful and infuriating all at the same time, when you realize the US death toll from Covid is currently 200x the souls lost that day. We are living in the stupidest of times and so much of it began then. Osama bin Laden did exactly what he set out to do, and Putin helped finish the job. I don’t know if we’ll ever again be unfucked from all of it.

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  20. LAMary said on September 10, 2021 at 2:33 pm

    I know this is in the “get off my lawn” genre, but people seem to be seriously lacking in knowledge of how government works in the most basic ways. Also they seem far less aware of the rest of the world, even the rest of the US outside their little world. There was a photo online of our mayor touring the new tiny house complex that’s opening in my part of town. One comment was Impeach Garcetti. He’s the one who started the whole homeless problem. So much stupidity in that comment I don’t know where to start but it’s not at all unusual. One guy managed to include Ilan Omar, sharing the lie that she married her brother to get a green card and that she should be deported with the rest of the Muslims in a comment about a homeless project in northeast LA. Democrat lies, he said.

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  21. ROGirl said on September 10, 2021 at 3:07 pm

    There’s some kind of museum pass that you can get that allows you to go to the front of the line. They used to sell them in the metro stations. It’s worth it for the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay.

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  22. Deborah said on September 10, 2021 at 4:06 pm

    I went to the Louvre only once but have been to the Musee d’Orsay every time I’ve traveled to Paris. Love it. One of the best exhibits there is the scale model of the Paris Opera. The building itself is fantastic, the renovation design of the train station into an art museum was done by an Italian woman architect Gae Aulenti, she died in 2012. We have this coffee table that she designed in our place in Chicago https://www.2modern.com/products/tavolo-con-ruote-table?variant=401090445&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8KzGhJn18gIV-21vBB1fuAYfEAQYBiABEgIIBPD_BwE we didn’t pay nearly that much, nearly 30 years ago and we bought it on sale from an Italian furniture place because it had a tiny chip in the glass. It has a few more chips in the glass now, but who cares?

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  23. Deborah said on September 10, 2021 at 4:10 pm

    Is it just me or is the editing button not working on nn.c anymore?

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  24. jcburns said on September 10, 2021 at 5:27 pm

    Looks OK to me, Deborah.

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  25. Snarkworth said on September 10, 2021 at 5:29 pm

    I’m in Pennsylvania, but lots of people commute to NYC. The next town over lost 11 people, including one of the pilots, so the anniversary is pretty solemn in these parts,

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  26. LAMary said on September 10, 2021 at 5:49 pm

    A very good interview.

    https://www.vulture.com/2021/09/the-persistent-outrage-of-laura-poitras-an-interview.html

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  27. David C said on September 10, 2021 at 6:07 pm

    The hope lasted almost 24 hours. Dad is scheduled for bypass surgery on Monday.

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  28. Deborah said on September 10, 2021 at 6:28 pm

    Hoping for the best for your Dad David C, at least the hospital has enough beds for him to get taken care of.

    I’m not sure why the edit button isn’t working on my iPad and iPhone? I’ll check my laptop in a bit. Maybe I did something in my settings?

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  29. kayak woman said on September 10, 2021 at 7:01 pm

    I agree that the “where were you when this happened” gets a little old. But. I did not know about the Trade Center until my husband came home from his EPA job at 11 AM-ish. I made the joke, “Did you get fired?” Uncharacteristically for me, I did not have the radio on that morning. (((I *did* have what seemed to be a “prescient” dream about it early that morning…)))

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  30. Dave said on September 10, 2021 at 7:48 pm

    I went east to Bellevue, Ohio, on a train that morning, it was one of the piggyback (trailers on flat cars) trains, so we went right on over to Bellevue. We were sitting in the dining area of the railroad dormitory there when one of the cooks came out of the kitchen and told us that a plane had crashed into the WTC. That’s unheard of, I thought of the plane that had crashed into the Empire State Building and I also assumed that it was most likely a little plane, that was until they turned on the TV and we saw otherwise.

    Eventually, I went to bed for an afternoon nap, having to get some rest for the trip back to Fort Wayne that night. I remember that when I woke up, I was lying there and then I remembered, oh, something terrible has happened. I had to get up to see if it was something I dreamed. No.

    Thinking about a President Gore can send you down a path that takes us to a far different present than the one we have.

    I see the edit button on my laptop screen.

    Our next door neighbor’s grandson was born on that day, his grandmother tells us of being at the hospital to meet her new grandson but everyone’s mind was on what happened in New York City. She said it was very odd.

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  31. LAMary said on September 10, 2021 at 9:56 pm

    Twice impeached yadda yadda guy will spend 9/11 in Florida with junior at the Hard Rock Casino introducing and doing commentary on a match between Evander Holyfield, age 58, and some UFC fighter of about the same age.

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  32. alex said on September 10, 2021 at 10:26 pm

    Here’s lame local media bashing our mayor for implementing COVID rules. It’s almost as ridiculous as the reporting on our governor, congressmen and senators thumping their hollow chests doing the same shit to Biden. Hell, Biden’s giving them political cover for doing what most of the public wants them to fucking do. And these goddamned pussy wussies in the local media are letting the right-wing assholes pretend that it’s the left “politicizing” shit.

    GOP City Council members question mask incentives, mandates
    DEVAN FILCHAK | The Journal Gazette

    Republican Fort Wayne City Council members have sent a letter to Mayor Tom Henry, raising concerns with incentives and mandates released last week.

    Henry, a Democrat, said at a Sept. 2 news conference that masks or face coverings will now be required in all city buildings. He also announced a $200 incentive for employees who choose to share and prove their vaccination status with the city.

    The letter is signed by councilmen Jason Arp, R-4th; Tom Didier, R-3rd; Paul Ensley, R-1st; Tom Freistroffer, R-at large; and Russ Jehl, R-2nd.

    It is up to elected leaders to “both promote public health and protect individuals’ rights to make their own health choices,” the letter states.

    “Injecting partisan politics into this debate only weakens the public’s trust,” the letter states. “This is why portions of your announcement on Sept. 2 were so disappointing.”

    The incentive payment for vaccinated employees wasn’t brought before City Council, which is the fiscal body of city government. They question where the funding will come from, if not from an allocation approved by council.

    Henry said Sept. 2 that the incentive money will come from excess health care costs paid by employees.

    The council members also showed concern for Henry’s statements regarding how he hopes the mandate and incentives encourage private businesses to do the same.

    “State law explicitly prohibits local governments from mandating vaccines, yet you have laid out a series of policy proposals which seek to encourage exactly what the State prohibits the city from doing,” the letter states.

    Henry also mentioned a Nov. 1 deadline, by which the city will have put additional incentives “or disincentives, if you will” into place, Henry said Sept. 2. The council members asked what exactly those incentives will be.

    “By politicizing city employees’ health benefits, the legitimate discussion of employee vaccine bonuses is impossible, and the divisive ‘us versus them’ mentality is reinforced,” the letter states. “Furthermore, the use of public funds for a new employee benefit, bypassing discussions with the fiscal body or the taxpayers, is unnecessarily adversarial.”

    dfilchak@jg.net

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  33. Dexter Friend said on September 11, 2021 at 2:01 am

    I am watching all of it…”Turning Point” on Netflix and all the other 9-11 shows. Yeah, The Patriot Act and all the other crackdowns meant every phone call could be monitored. I thought that meant listened to, but it just tracked from which phone to what phone. All internet communications from anyone anywhere could be read.
    W Bush was a liar. Condoleezza Rice was a liar. Colin Powell was one of the worst, as he had such great respect from his leadership qualities which he sold for a few shekels to promote Bush’s folly. Rumsfeld was just a blathering idiot, making up WMD “verified sightings”. Dick Cheney proved to be in it for war profiteering, you all know that old story. George Tenet OK’d an entire cargo plane stuffed with bundled pallets of $100 bills to be delivered to that crooked lying adviser . Oh…then 2 more planes, same manifest. Al Gore was up in Canada and had to rent a car and drive all day and night to the Clintons’ home to crash for a night. Yeah, the world was all fucked up. We’ll never forget any of it.

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  34. Deborah said on September 11, 2021 at 11:24 am

    Yesterday afternoon a neighbor kid got her drone stuck up on our building roof and she and her mom came over to ask if there was anyway to access our roof. But there is not according to our condo bylaws it says that no one is allowed up on the roof except for roofers and chimney sweeps and such. The mom asked if her husband signed a paper saying we wouldn’t be liable if he was injured in any way could he climb up the two story building with a ladder and get it. I asked another owner if he thought it would be ok, and he was fine with the dad signing a note or me taking a video of the dad saying we wouldn’t be responsible. So the dad brought a note and a ladder and climbed up, then it turned out to be a little bitty cheap drone toy from Walmart, which I thought was amazing for them to go to all that trouble for. If something like that had happened to LB when she was a kid I would have said, “sorry, be more careful” or something like that. Am I the asshole? I have no idea if that note would have held up in a court of law if God forbid the guy would have fallen or something horrible. They were a really nice family the mom had a little baby with her too and she was very attentive to both her kids. It’s nice to know we have good neighbor’s.

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  35. Tajalli said on September 11, 2021 at 12:29 pm

    When the OJ Simpson car chase and trial happened, I decided to avoid the media circus and other attempts to fill my consciousness with garbage. So, when I saw a news video over an office mate’s shoulder of a plane crashing into a tower in NYC, I just said, “Nope, not watching any of this” realizing that the media coverage would enable people to give themselves PTSD with all the repetition. Heard enough snippets third hand to keep informed but not traumatized. Looking forward to participating in a CA Coastal Cleanup activity Sept 18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_CleanUp_Day

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  36. alex said on September 11, 2021 at 4:12 pm

    I’d forgotten this, but my parents were vacationing in Yellowstone on 9/11/01 and didn’t have access to a TV.

    My mom told me today she was glad to have never seen any of it and didn’t want it imprinted in her memory, as 9/11 is also my parents’ wedding anniversary (today is their 67th).

    Unfortunately, the commemoration coverage is so widespread today that my mom did finally see the repetitive videos of the planes crashing into the buildings and she wishes she hadn’t.

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  37. Deborah said on September 11, 2021 at 4:30 pm

    Tajalli, I had never heard of National Clean-up day. What a great idea, but it doesn’t get much play around where I am, but maybe it’s because I don’t watch much TV? Unfortunately I’ll be traveling that day, otherwise I’d try to put something together to clean up the little park by the river down the lane from us.

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  38. Deborah said on September 11, 2021 at 4:38 pm

    Good for W for including this in his speech: “We have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within. There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home… they are children of the same foul spirit”

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  39. ROGirl said on September 11, 2021 at 6:28 pm

    This is the time of year when W should atone for his sins.

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  40. Julie Robinson said on September 11, 2021 at 7:10 pm

    W should be atoning for his sins every single day of his life. I had the radio on this morning and I turned it off when he was introduced.

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  41. beb said on September 11, 2021 at 8:15 pm

    When I went to bed Wednesday night our street was the same as it had been for years. Woke up Thursday to find a speed bump installed in front of our house. Correction: a speed HUMP. In the early morning hours workers laid out thick rubber mats, archored them to the road and installed signs warning about the Speed Hump. They laid out these mats about every 100 yards down the road. I consider myself a responsible driver and hate the idea of having to all but stop to go over these but there are so many people tearing up and down rhe street that this is one inconvenience I can live with. This may be a city-wide initiative. Coming out of our local Post Office it’s impossible to make a left turn. So to go left a go right half a block to a side street where I can go up to a major road. Had to take route a week age and found they had regular speed BUMPS installed there.

    ROgirl’s comment about a museum pass that would let you get to the head of a line reminded me of the book MINE! which is a look at the concept of property and how access is a kind of property that can be monetized.

    LAMary @31 I saw Headline this morning asking where was Trump in all the 9-11 commemoration. All I could think was no one wants to hear what that self-centered sociopath has to say. Nor do I want to hear what “He kept us safe” Bush to say either.

    Read this morning that the Million Mom March (apparently a one woman operation) was incensed that a razor company was airing an ad for a special razor for shaving down there. Aghast I say. I can seen at or a similar ads just last night. I was surprised that a TV station (cable actually) had approved an aid showing a woman running the product around the edges of a bikini / panties. It seemed a bit risque but more for saying “pubic hair” and not some euphemism. I can see where some people might be embarrassed by the ad but it didn’t show anything new.

    Which reminds me, recently I’ve been going through a 30s British magazine, Britannia and Eve, a woman’a magazine that published a fair about of stories. I was looking for stories by a few of my favorite authors that may not have been reprinted in the US. There were a lot of ads for “foundation garments” — trusses going from shoulders to mid-thighs. Ladies, you are luckky this fad is over. The most interesting were full-page, full-color ads for undergarments done is a very bold and striking Art Deco style.

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  42. David C said on September 11, 2021 at 8:36 pm

    Earlier this week the million mom was complaining about an ad by some burger chain where two women were in a car talking about going through the drive-thru in her PJs and driving the carpool without a bra. They call us snowflakes.

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  43. susan said on September 11, 2021 at 8:42 pm

    beb, my favorite podcast, 99%Invisible, had an episode about that book back in June.

    Every year, fights break out on airplanes. Jim Salzman and Michael Heller are law professors and the authors of a new book called Mine! How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives. According to Salzman and Heller, confusing ownership rules are often the result of poor ownership design. This is true not just for airplane seats, but also for battles over digital privacy, climate change, and wealth inequality.

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  44. basset said on September 11, 2021 at 8:43 pm

    Alex, I can relate to that – as I’ve mentioned here before, Mama B was a small child in London during the Blitz and the WTC video freaked her right out, had some meltdowns seeing it and was never quite the same afterward.
    Meanwhile, I have managed to avoid seeing Lee Greenwood or hearing his stupid song all day so far, with just over four hours to go.

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  45. LAMary said on September 11, 2021 at 9:11 pm

    I don’t know if twice impeached election losing grifter changed his plans or if jetted to Fla afterwards but he showed up at a police station to thank first responders in NYC today.

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  46. Dave said on September 11, 2021 at 10:16 pm

    Lee Greenwood and Governor Deathsantis were at a memorial service today held at the cemetery where my in-laws are buried. No, we weren’t there.

    This cemetery, Curlew Hills, has installed two lights that shine 1,000 feet into the air, said to be the only ones in Florida.

    My poor father-in-law was one of the first people to be laid to rest there, when it was brand new, in 1979, and he was but 55. He missed a lot.

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  47. jcburns said on September 11, 2021 at 11:04 pm

    Deeply disturbing that they’d release this info late in the day on Saturday. Saturday September 11th.

    But…they did.

    “The six sustained cases should not diminish the heroic efforts of the United States Capitol Police officers.” Hmm. Hmmm.

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  48. Dexter Friend said on September 12, 2021 at 1:38 am

    I never toured Hitsville. I’ll simply have to when this fantastic museum is opened. https://www.motownmuseum.org/about/expansion/

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  49. ROGirl said on September 12, 2021 at 6:51 am

    The museum pass in Paris isn’t about privilege, it’s not like paying for a better seat on a plane. It’s offered by the French state for tourists who want to visit a lot of museums. You can select how many days you expect to use it and pay accordingly in advance so you won’t have to pay the individual entrance fees (not inexpensive these days), with the added perk of going to the head of the line instead of around the side of the building. There are also metro passes for however many days you think you will need. They are convenient (available online now) and can save you money. And you are in Paris.

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  50. LAMary said on September 12, 2021 at 5:08 pm

    It did happen. Sounds like it was just as shitty as I assumed it would be.

    https://tinyurl.com/8kx3vxez

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  51. LAMary said on September 12, 2021 at 5:40 pm

    I’m sorry. I read a lot of stuff on Sundays. This if from NY Magazine:

    “On September 11, 2001, Donald Trump honored the then-unknown number of dead in lower Manhattan by pointing out that the collapse of the World Trade Center meant that he now owned the tallest building downtown. To commemorate the event’s 20th anniversary, he visited a fire station and police precinct in New York City before flying back to Florida to guest-host a novelty pay-per-view boxing match with his son.”

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  52. Tajalli said on September 12, 2021 at 5:43 pm

    That’s the spirit, Deborah! The 3rd Saturday in September is CA Coastal Cleanup Day (sponsored by the CA Coastal Commission), National Cleanup Day, and International Cleanup Day. They’re not only about cleaning up once a year but about cultivating community interest in local environmental efforts. It’s estimated that ~60 million people will participate internationally, ~1% of the world population.

    People are adopting individual watersheds like Friends of Sausal Creek in Oakland or SPAWNERS (San Pablo Area Watershed Neighbors Education and Restoration Society which is a subset of the Watershed Project) or San Francisco’s Visitacion Valley Greenway Project which converted land that couldn’t be built on due to old gas mains into gardens, children’s park, allotments, and student environmental stewardship programs in a poor area of the City – all the inspiration of one woman who saw a need.

    I’m especially impressed by small vegetable garden projects that end up providing literally tons of produce to ghetto areas without good grocery store access. Facebook has Humans Who Grow Food and Humans of New York pages detailing these efforts. Novella Carpenter’s Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer describes her experiences living and gardening in a really bad neighborhood in Oakland. A truly hilarious read.

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  53. Indiana Jack said on September 12, 2021 at 8:29 pm

    COVID tests on Monday. If my wife and I test negative, as expected, our long-delayed trip to Rome should happen, with departure Tuesday evening.
    The airline approach has been to flood us with information, making it a challenge to sort through tremendous volume to find what is relevant for us.
    We’re going to try online check-in Monday night and will sign up for Verifly, a system/app that supposedly speeds the process at the airport. That means uploading PDFs of our CDC vaccination cards and our test results. Then we’ll complete the dPLF, that’s the “digital Passenger Locator Form,” the one they use to tell your relatives the bad news. And then, of course, we’ll have to be tested and cleared prior to our admittance back into the U.S.
    Travel becomes less simple with each passing day. But we’ll figure it out, bad websites and all.
    Just to make things even more interesting, we’re making connections at Heathrow, so they’ve thrown all the UK regs at us in a lump, even though they don’t apply as long as we don’t wander past passport control.
    Hope things go more smoothly for the Derringers.

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  54. alex said on September 12, 2021 at 8:53 pm

    Septoplasty to cure sleep apnea Monday. Early. Feeling the lame-ass Tramadol post-op pain relief already. Thank you to all the fuckers who abused narcotics and ruined it for those of us who need them.

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  55. Indiana Jack said on September 12, 2021 at 8:57 pm

    Alex, Hope the procedure goes well and that it makes a difference in your sleep apnea. The world looks better after a good night’s sleep. It’s still a mess, but it looks better when we’re rested.

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  56. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 12, 2021 at 9:53 pm

    Alex, healing mercies out of Ohio heading your way. And anticipation of easier breathing ahead!

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  57. Julie Robinson said on September 12, 2021 at 10:27 pm

    Tramadol did diddly squat for me after foot surgery, or some other injury. Boo. But I hope you get relief from the procedure, Alex.

    Air Bnb is working my last nerve. Our host for the wedding in NOLA has gone radio silent on us. We’ve contacted him three times over the last 10 days without response, so our daughter called Air Bnb and the person couldn’t have been less helpful.

    Apparently your host can wait until 24 hours ahead to cancel. What? They said they would contact him, then today they admitted they can’t get ahold of him either. Of course he’s got half our money, and it sounds like a refund will be very hard to obtain. At 72 hours out they will give him a warning, he has 12 hours to respond, and only then can we get our money back.

    He has blacked out all the rest of the days between now and the end of the year as unavailable, so what do you think our chances are? Our daughter made all the arrangements, and if I’d known it was nonrefundable I’d have never agreed.

    So I guess we’re going to look at hotel reservations but, Covid. Having a place to ourselves felt safer. I dunno, I’m not feeling this trip anymore.

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  58. Deborah said on September 13, 2021 at 9:06 am

    Hoping Alex’s procedure went well this morning.

    Julie, that doesn’t sound good. After hurricane Ida wasn’t there quite some destruction in NO? I thought a lot of people lost power for a long while?

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  59. ROGirl said on September 13, 2021 at 10:58 am

    Tramadol was too much for me. I would not make a good addict.

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  60. Julie Robinson said on September 13, 2021 at 11:01 am

    That was why we tried to contact him; also some 60,000 homes still don’t have running water. It’s ridiculous that he can cancel on us 24 hours ahead and just leave us in the lurch to have to find a new place that late. Their response/lack of response means I will never do business with them again.

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  61. Jeff Borden said on September 13, 2021 at 11:04 am

    On Friday, Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times noted how we memorialize the 3,000 deaths from 9/11 while an equivalent number die every day of Covid with next to no notice. I feel the same way about the coverage of mass shootings when Chicago sees double digit shootings and death pretty much every weekend.

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  62. LAMary said on September 13, 2021 at 12:21 pm

    I thought the same thing about the number of Covid deaths. We might hit a million in the next six months. All the antivaxxers who say there’s only a .09 mortality rate need to contemplate that million number. That’s a lot of sick people. OK, some are asymptomatic. But that’s a lot of sick people.

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