September | 2001 | Nil By Mouth

This afternoon I remembered there

This afternoon I remembered there are other auditory choices besides NPR and BBC World. I popped in Bob Dylan’s Desire and tried to pep myself up for a day at the flea market. I wasn’t very successful at the pep part but i did manage to get to the market. It didn’t really cheer me up all that much. Although I found this fabulous wooden-hand-jewelry-keeper thing (the jewelry was already mine).

It really didn’t lift my spirits as much as it should have (I mean, look at the fingers at the bottom…neat-O). Tuesday’s tragedies are weighing me down. I miss Jeff who was here last week and who made Paris infinitely more beautiful and made this place feel like home somehow. And worst of all I have this icky feeling of impending doom. I’m hoping it’s PMS. I’m not very clairvoyant, so I don’t put any weight on it besides for bumming me out. It just seems like things are going to suck for sometime now.

Can someone cheer me up?

Sep 15
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Susan sent me this link:

They can’t see why they are hated

Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad

Seumas Milne

Thursday September 13, 2001

The Guardian

Notable Quatable: “Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world. ”

It is especially apropos as I was having an e-mail exchange with Steven in which I began another rant:

I am getting really incensed at the political speeches and media

coverage that seems to imply that Arabs and Muslims have some sort of

mutant gene that makes them suicidal terrorists. Obviously it goes without saying that flying populated passenger planes into full office buildings is completely intolerable, but it will never stop if we don’t understand the history and cause of their hate. People do things for reasons. Always. It would behove us to investigate the reasons of our “enemies” before throwing missiles at the first plausible target. From media coverage alone, one would think that all Arabs live in tents in the desert, and they really like being locked in poverty and totalitarianism; and not that it might have anything to do with short sighted colonialism of the early 20th century, or cold war residue, or the pervasive corruption fostered by foreign governments (especially the US).

—

On my flight to Paris I was reading a great issue of Harpers with the cover The New Rome. It was a brilliant start to life as an expat, and has resounded many times. By my first month away it had become crystal clear that America does not stand for “freedom”, “democracy”, and “possibility” in the rest of the world. Not in the least. I mentioned this casually in July. And when I try to picture the unimaginable: the rubble that lies where the World Trade Center used to be, I can only think of the ruins of “great” civilizations whose pictures and descriptions occupied a couple pages in my high school history texts.

When GW & Co calls the attacks, an attack against freedom and democracy, I don’t get it. I can be almost positive that the orchestrator(s) of these attacks hadn’t the governing system of the US, or any part of that, in my mind. They went after innocent citizens in a spectacular display of horror for one reason, to kill people. People living in the most powerful nation in the world. To attack democracy? What do they care about democracy? About “freedom”? Most anyone who watched the last presidential election, or more pointedly the death of campaign-finance reform, will surmise that we Americans are perfectly capable of whittling away freedom and democracy all by our-damn-selves.

I’m hardly a peace hippie, but in the same way that killing thousands of innocent citizens will do absolutely nothing for the cause of Palestinians in Israel, children in Iraq, or even anti-Americans the world over, hastily dropping bombs on suspected groups will do nothing to weaken the resolve of ruthless terrorists (and resolve is their deadliest weapon).

I don’t know what the answer should be. But I know it’s not an easy one. If any of this were easy, bloodshed around the world would have ceased centuries ago. All i do know is that I don’t trust GW to act with any more forethought than a teased bull. But we have been silent, and maybe he will surprise us. But if his last statement promising to “rid the world of evil” was any indication, we’re in for a several more rounds of bloodshed. And all of it in vain.

Sep 15
2,301 Comments

World Trade Centre – New

World Trade Centre – New York – Some Engineering Aspects

Why Did It Collapse?

Excellent link, thanks Gus. I’ve been aching to hear about this part.

I really miss the city now. I can’t stand not being there. I have a ticket for halloween. I counted the weeks – it’s 6.

Thank god for the internet – i can’t imagine not being able to read all the accounts, to not be able to listen to NPR and BBC streaming non-stop. Last night I am practically falling asleep in my chair but I can’t turn off ABC. Barbara Walters is showing pictures of passengers on the doomed flights. Les calls her a tearmonger. She is. In this case, it doesn’t take much talent though.

There is also continuing NPR interviews of relatives of lost people. They are searching the streets with pictures of family members who worked in the WTC and are unaccounted for. They say when their last contact was, and they say which tower and which floor the person worked on. This is the calling card of tragedy. I’ve always hated the WTC. I thought it was ugly and overbearing in the new york skyline. It’s only positive was to point out which way was south. I also always hated the inside. It was huge, always full of commotion, questionable lighting. I’d had drinks in the Tall Ships Bar a coupla times and Windows on the World. Neither was particularly good. I want them back now. I want Tall Ships Bar, and Windows on the World, and that hotel which is the only place in lower Manhattan that you can definitely find a yellow cab that won’t rip you off, and that Duane Reed where i bought my 2nd to last tube of toothpaste and the seats outside of i-forget-which-chain-coffee-place where i sat down because my feet hurt after a long walk during my lunch hour a week before i left NYC. I want that back.

I hope they rebuild something wonderful.

Sep 13
16 Comments

yes i’m posting like there’s

yes i’m posting like there’s no tomorrow.

in case you wanna look at something other than burning skyscrapers, i posted a new set of pics (that is 100% burning-skyscrapers-free):

Fall Begins..

Sep 12
1 Comment

OK Jeff was trying to

OK Jeff was trying to persuade me of Guiliani’s grace and control under pressure over dinner in Amsterdam last weekend. Watching his press conference right now, I’m persuaded. He’s not gonna be first on my list of party guests, but he genuinely makes me feel like the city will put itself back together.

Meanwhile, Parisians are as horrified as possible, and there are police officers everywhere. Especially in my areas, because my work neighborhood is arab and my home neighborhood is jewish.

Sep 12
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Mike Daisy with a poignant

Mike Daisy with a poignant report

Sep 12
4 Comments

And what else? I can’t

And what else? I can’t work. I can only sit here glued to streaming BBC, waiting for NYC to wake up and talk to me.

Sep 12
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So the only decent streaming

So the only decent streaming i can get is the BBC world news. Now we talk about retribution.

Now I’m nowhere near an expert on any of these complicated affairs of world politics, but that won’t stop me from pointing out a couple of things.

On Afghanistan

I hope against hope that in the news reports and patriotic speeches to come, there will be at least a smidgen of the history behind the Taliban situation. For instance that during the cold war the US government (the Reagan administration specifically) armed half of the Afghanistani people to the teeth. Meanwhile the USSR was invading and arming the other half of Afgahanistan to the teeth. And what insued was a bloody, brutal, and inhumane game of ideology between 2 superpowers that could care less about the people and land and Life of the pieces they were playing with.

And the cold war ended, The USSR had no soldiers left to send, and no money left to give. The US had nothing left to prove. And all that was left to Afghanistan was an unimaginable amount of weaponry. No governemnet, no schools, no rules, nothing. When a neighbor stole one’s last piece of bread, the only thing to do was pick up an M16 (paid for by either by US or USSR citizens) and blow his head off.

And that was the situation when the Taliban came to power. They are young, (because everyone older in Afghanistan is dead). They are fanatic (because they are desperate). They hate the US (because the US has screwed them).

And when I see petitions and outcries on the state of Afganistani women without any mention of this, i am Pissed. And now it is those “dirty arab backward terrorists” that are hiding the dirtiest backwardest arab terrorist. He was trained by the US folks. Let’s keep this in mind. We wanted him to go out and kill commies, which he probably did.

Now clearly I have no absolutely no respect or understanding for whomever is responsible for this, and I think the Taliban is fanatical, extremist, and just plain bad. But the thing is, we have to look at this with a more critical eye. I hope these things get discussed on the news and at dinner tables in the states. But I doubt it. And to be honest, I may be wrong on some of the finer points here, and I can’t give any great sources but an incredibly enlightening charlie rose i saw one evening.

I just hope we can look deeper on this one. Out of the ashes there is possibility. Endless possibility.

Notes:

Attacks Show That Political Courage Is the Only Real Defense

William Pfaff International Herald Tribune

Wednesday, September 12, 2001

BACKGROUND NOTES: AFGHANISTAN

PUBLISHED BY THE BUREAU OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

THE SOVIET WAR IN AFGHANISTAN:

HISTORY AND HARBINGER OF FUTURE WAR?

General (Ret) Mohammad

Yahya Nawroz, Army of Afghanistan

& LTC (Ret) Lester

W. Grau, U.S. Army

Sep 12
1 Comment

all our blogs are the

all our blogs are the same. an ordinary crisis topped by a monstrous one.

i was at work in the afternoon in paris when i got a “Knock-knock” on aim from someone i didn’t know,

TypeButter (9:08 AM): !

TypeButter (9:08 AM): the WTC just blew up again

nilsoill (9:17 AM): whos this?

TypeButter (9:17 AM): butter Jaylo’s friend

nil so ill (9:18 AM): oh – hey – do you know who i am?

TypeButter (9:18 AM): yeah

nil so ill (9:18 AM): what’s with the wtc?

TypeButter (9:18 AM): i must have put you in my buddy list at some point

TypeButter (9:19 AM): the World Trade Center blew up again

nil so ill (9:19 AM): holy shit!?

TypeButter (9:19 AM): seriously

nil so ill (9:19 AM): i’m living in paris right now

TypeButter (9:19 AM): lol

nil so ill (9:19 AM): where’s the story

TypeButter (9:19 AM): US tv

TypeButter (9:20 AM): dude… giant smoking hole in each tower

nil so ill (9:20 AM): hmm – i can only do websites – was it bad? a bomb?

TypeButter (9:20 AM): not sure

TypeButter (9:20 AM): i think a plane crashed into it

TypeButter (9:20 AM): but then there was an explosion in the other tower

TypeButter (9:21 AM): i was half asleep… my tv is on a timer

TypeButter (9:21 AM): it turned on and there was an explosion followed by static

nil so ill (9:21 AM): you are so lying~!

TypeButter (9:21 AM): im so not

Here’s the full transcript from Butter

he was a friend of a coworker that had put me on his buddy list three years ago. The jetnoises, or TV, or jetnoises on TV had woke him up. And mine was the only lit globe on his buddy list.

i scrambled for an url.

cnn.com was down.

msnbc.com was down.

npr.org was down.

abcnews.com was down.

finally i managed to get a 1 sentence newswire from AP. I could only title it as “oh shit!”. The office didn’t believe me at first. i didn’t believe me at first.

“yer lying” i punched to TypeButter

no no no he punched back. and slowly im windows started popping up everywhere on my screen. We found a french webcast and watched in horror.

“Hole vache!”, a cry from a french coworker.

Me, hands on my face. I knew the enormity of the Worlde Trade Center. The people pour from it daily. This was the worst anything; And no one had any words.

We watched the building come down in a pixelated window. “Oh God,” was all i could come up with. Hands on my face. For 3 hours this went on. Head hurts, lunch stoppped digesting hours ago. Aim windows everywhere. And no one had any words. I rode the metro home when i couldn’t take anymore. The ordinaryness of the paris train was soothing. We could walk slowly home. Stopping off to buy a bottle off red wine. And then i began to cry. And i have no words for it.

It was only this morning that I saw the real pictures. The rich quality zoomed ones. The worst ones. The ones that show the terror of the poeple above the smoke.

On my walk to work this morning, I tried to imagine the new york skyline without the World Trade Center. What about that simpons episode? The tourists postcards? Everyone’s awestruck cityscape snapshot from the Brooklyn Bridge? All with a new meaning now.

Who of us could ever have imagined our temples in ruins? A modern parthenon for a modern Rome.

And what will replace it? A memorial I imagine. Another high rise? And what about the scores upon scores of people, business, machines, Life? From the ashes there is horror, sadness, disgust, helplessness, and heaps and heaps and heaps of possibility.

I have no words except: New York I love you. America I love you.

Notes:

Death Grips the Heart of Lower Manhattan

Peter Slevin and Barton Gellman Washington Post Service

Wednesday, September 12, 2001

A new breed of terrorism

By Laura Miller

Salon.com

U.S. probe focuses on Bin Laden

By Karen Gullo

Sept. 11, 2001 | Washington DC (AP)

Attacks spark global red alert