2001-09-11 08:58:33 Skytel [002399634] A ALPHA
Initial reports indictate that AAL11, B767, after initial hijacking on flight from BOS-LAX, has crashed into the side of the World Trade Center in NY. ATCSCC/bl
2001.09.11 08.55 to 2001.09.11 08.59 (text)
It is becoming more evident that all the photographers who took the image record of the attacks on September 11th, 2001, in New York City and in Arlington, Virginia, were key co-conspirators to a plot---an inside job undertaken and covered up by secretive members of intelligence agencies working for a worldwide elite.
Whether professional, free-lance or amateur, every image released to the public bears hallmarks of in-authenticity, which we can begin to recognize in the dawning light of reason and truth.
For instance, understanding that an approximately 200-to-300-foot-tall central section of the South Tower's core columns stood for 31 hours after the buildings disintegrated Tuesday morning, damns any image taken of the vicinity during that time frame which lacks this 15, to 20-story element. (See yesterday's blog.)
All the images were filtered through a central office for vetting. Some passed muster after errant details were obscured by photoshopping smoke effects---or fire hoses endlessly spraying WhiteOut into the Pentagon. Any authorial distinction was discouraged, or edited out, although some people were hand-picked for special fame and fortune. This obscuring of meaningful detail further homogenized the work product into a witless gruel, which didn't do its intended job of telling us a believable story---but instead, the story has became about what was not told.
It would be a startling coincidence for such a broad cross-section of news journalists to have produced an image record nearly completely lacking in personal identification, using the standard news journalism photo captions. Instead, those captions were utilized for a repetitive drumbeat about suicidal Arab hi-jackers, with their preferred method of crashing big Boeing's.
Apparently, 9/11 was viewed conceptually as so traumatic an event that editorial boards, on down to gumshoe reporters, uniformly decided to forgo this normal operating procedure as unnecessary journalisticly to sell the story.
So far I have only found two shots from the 11th and 12th, which carry any identification. Both were published in the New York Times. In one, taken in Brooklyn by Suzanne DeChillo, a distraught young woman, Sharnise Wingate, "who witnessed the second plane flying into the tower," is depicted after the first collapse. A motive here is clear, if not her sightline.
In another image, taken by Andrea Mohin, a dazed and bloody Joseph Sylvester walks homeward across the Brooklyn Bridge. This illustrates that any photograph primarily focusing on one or two such individuals should likewise have carried their identification.
Interestingly, naming names wasn't a problem in the dozens of images showing Palestinian women and children celebrating the attacks in the West Bank and Gaza by firing guns and throwing candy in the air. This storyline went circling the globe by Wednesday, September 12th.
The failure to gather names and report on them is especially glaring in the images of grieving family members attending memorial services. The international news photographer Peter Turnley's images are marred by this inherent disrespect---calling someone "the wife of a slain fireman" is a generality when a specific is called for---especially when she is seen delivering a solitary John-John salute to her husband that only she can spot. No, make that especially when getting an arm assist by an unseen woman handler!
In the context of the "vicsim" research currently underway at the Reality Shack forum, categorizing a cast of characters simply as "mourners," does not legitimize and authenticate the reality of an established and individuated life. Nor does using the lump category, "funeral for a fireman killed on September 11th," suffice to do honor to anyone "real"---but that may be the point.
The very successful photojournalist Peter Turnley, (his twin brother is an equally successful one,) made an interesting professional contribution during 9/11. His 9/11 story is told mainly in an article Seeing the Horror Part II, at The Digital Journalist (Part I is good too.)
In a nut shell,
"I discreetly made my way through a makeshift morgue and triage center for injured victims that was established in a Brooks Brother's store at 1 Liberty Plaza, and found a dark stairway leading upstairs. I went up and found an empty floor of racks of clothes all covered by two inches of dust, and in front of me was a wall of blown out windows, looking over the destruction of ground zero. I found a small office that seemed discreet enough that I wouldn't be in anyone's way or be found there. I sat down to spend the whole night until 7:00am, mostly by myself, looking out and photographing the incredible scene in front of me. I will always remember the unique and surreal feelings of solitude and intimacy I felt with this scene that long night. Around 3:00am, I began to feel very cold and walked into the Brooks Brothers display room and borrowed a cashmere overcoat covered with two inches of dust. I carefully put it back in the morning before leaving."If you examine the 30 images attributed to him in Peter Turnley's Photo Gallery, only eleven were taken at Ground Zero on the first evening and the morning of the 12th. Six of those are rather obvious efforts at fire department hagiography---depicting glum firemen posed sitting around, or just standing there looking blank. But Turnley does his part in constructing this bogus emotional narrative when he captions some images, "Firemen exhausted after an all-night search for victims. September 12."
These two images are clearly of the same buff-colored building at 116 Liberty Street. Directly beside the building should be the New York fire department headquarters of Ladder 10 & Engine 10, with it's bright red equipment door. The two images would appear to me to be mutually exclusive.
Taken in the morning of September 12th, well before five p.m. that Wednesday, of what we may presume to be the South Tower remains.
Having this number of "rescue workers" clambering over "the pile" at this point in time is at odds with the narrative of having the precarious remains of the Tower Two remaining standing.
It was over at the Reality Shack forum recently that someone had the presence of mind to question this street-art phenomena as being an illegitimate and synthetic ploy for sympathy and validation by the plotters themselves.
This image pleases me immensely. To see the fabricators of a narrative element so badly overplaying their hand, provides for some confirmation that this visual manipulation was not real. It also results in what I would call near-art.
Hamas Militants Gaza 1993
Peter Turnley at the West Bank 1993
Jew Praying on the West Bank 1993"The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservatives, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history."
-Ari Shavit Ha'aretz News Service (Israel) April 5, 2003
"...in My American Journey, Secretary of State Colin Powell explained his reasons for advising an end to hostilities in the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam had ordered his forces to withdraw from Kuwait, and their escape route out of Kuwait City had turned into a shooting gallery for U.S. fliers. Reporters began referring to this road as the Highway of Death. “The television coverage,” Powell wrote, “was starting to make it look as if we were engaged in slaughter for slaughter’s sake.”
Several pieces of evidence in the written record of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Arlington support a version of reality at odds with what it would appear to be in the limited and stylized photographic record of the event.
For instance, a little-known article by Jennifer Steinhauer published in the New York Times on September 13, 2001, As Remnants Collapse, Workers Run For Cover, describes "the steel and concrete wreckage of the south tower" falling about 5 p.m. on Wednesday the 12th---32 hours after the buildings were struck, This caused a "rolling pillar of smoke" similar to the three pyroclastic dust clouds on September 11th. Although Steinhauer quotes an unnamed firefighter as yelling, ''[t]hat part will go! We are waiting for it to collapse,'' only moments before it did so, she attributes the timing to "seeming aftershocks"---while limiting her description of the ruin, calling it only the "remaining floors of the south tower."
This single-source reference to a dramatic "stampede" by rescue workers "fleeing" danger 24 hours after the already delayed destruction of Building 7, was effectively unknown until December 2008, when Peter Duveen posted hard copies of five articles from the Times, and three from the New York Post into digital existence online. Since all eight contain information which calls into question details of the official narrative of the attacks, it seems plausible that an effort was made to suppress the journalism, an effort which was entirely successful for eight years.
It would not be surprising perhaps, given the tumult in the days following the attacks that even a significant occurrence could fail to be reported on. What is surprising however, is reconciling this newly perceived physical reality with seemingly deliberate lacuna in the homogenized image record---of what is then perversely touted as being the most heavily photographed event in world history.
A larger implication here is the ability of thousands of responders to Ground Zero to keep this encore dust cloud a secret---although several oral histories allude to the matter.
In one of them, that of Battalion Chief Tom Vallebuona, we can also see the subsequent efforts of government operatives posing as 9/11 truth seekers who attempt to cover-up the truth with disinformation. Vallebuona is quoted in full by both Killtown and The Web Fairy,
"We thought 7 World Trade Center was going to fall and push the side of the World Trade Center that was still standing, and then it was going to go into 90 and I thought the scaffold was going to fall and cover the block and kill another 30 people." Cachedalthough they don't draw any significance from the statement. While a poster on an abovetopsecret thread, 186000, Swampfox46_1999, truncated the quote, and nips potential nagging doubts in the bud with a bald-faced lie.
"We thought 7 World Trade Center was going to fall and push the side of the World Trade Center that was still standing." (Before you jump on this one, this refers to the five story piece of exterior metalwork from WTC1) CachedQuoting Battalion Chief Tom Vallebuona in a fuller context, and referencing his remarks to a site plan, makes it plain he feared Building 7 could have a domino effect on the South Tower, which could then impact 90 West Street.
"90 West St. also had next to it a scaffold covering the whole building and with everything we've been through with scaffolds, I mean that scaffold would have covered the whole block. We were very concerned about the scaffolding, so we tried to knock down the fire.
snip...
"I couldn't get rid of that feeling like everything is going to collapse. 7 World Trade Center---I couldn't even watch that. I said that's enough. I refused to watch that. I took R-and-R. I said you guys can watch that one.
snip...
"We thought 7 World Trade Center was going to fall and push the side of the World Trade Center that was still standing, and then it was going to go into 90 and I thought the scaffold was going to fall and cover the block and kill another 30 people."
"First, we went to Liberty and Church and that was the big pile from the south tower that came down. There was a pile there, had to be 15, 20 stories high with guys roaming around on the pile."This would be a good point to remember that before Ground Zero became known in the public imagination as "the pile," it was referenced in the media as "the pit." Sending out the right signals about the amount, nature and composition of the debris is one thing. Inventing a "pancake" demolition theory that could incorporate standing sentinels of massive steel core columns is something else. Like the total absence of any images showing fire in the south face of Building 7, the motive for the cover-up is very clear.
"I walked by where they had the landing gear or whatever in the street, I mean I'm looking, I'm saying what are you kidding me?
Correction to This Article
David Charlebois, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University graduate and American Airlines first officer who died in the American Airlines Flight 77 crash, was incorrectly identified in a Sept. 16 article.
A Sept. 16 article recounting the events of Sept. 11 incorrectly reported the first name of John Ogonowski, the pilot of the American Airlines plane that crashed into the World Trade Center.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38407-2001Sep15
First is the Getty image from February 2002---and it comes fully identified (anybody who makes a joke about a "high-speed ferry" will get a quick, spasmodic cream pie in the eye.)
401354 04: (L to R) Christine Lategano-Nicholas, Rev. Patrick Fitzgerald, New York City Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, Dympna Jessich, twin sister of Father Mychal Judge, and New York Waterway President Arthur E. Imperatore Jr. christen "The Father Mychal Judge" high-speed ferry February 20, 2002 in New York City. Judge was the New York City Fire Department chaplain who died along with 342 firefighters in the September 11th World Trade Center attacks. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) Dateline: New York, NY, United States
For the dense crew of 9/11 researchers over at Reality Shack (or should that be Reality Hytten? Har, har: Heightened Reality!!!!) who must research their way out of a wet paper bag, I offer the following images.
2006_saint_of_911_004 Al Paglione, 1974, The Record, Bergen County, N.J.
2006_saint_of_911_002 Al Paglione, 1974, The Record, Bergen County, N.J.
2006_saint_of_911_005 Rich Gigli , 1982, The Record, Bergen
2006_saint_of_911_010by Ozier Muhammad, courtesy of Newsday
2006_saint_of_911_003 Photo by Michael Goldman
2006_saint_of_911_007 Photo by Michael Goldman
2006_saint_of_911_006 Father Mychal Judge
2006_saint_of_911_001 Fr. Mychal with FDNY Commissioner Thomas Von Essen
This doesn't necessarily mean they are "real," in the sense that they have been verified as having indeed been published in The New Jersey Bergen County Record in 1974 and 1982; with the Ozier Muhammad photo published in Newsday at an unknown date. But they would indicate a "back story" of some rather extreme effort at the very least.
Any real discussion group requires an overt organizing principle for it to be considered probable reasoning. The newly established InvisionFree forum message board Reality Shack, formed by the recently homeless members of a suddenly shuttered message board 9/11movement.org does not constitute a "real" discussion group---nor can any of the other myriad discussion boards operating under the InvisionFree model be considered as such. In fact, the very terms of service deny such a reality to exist.
Somewhere at the dawn of the computer age, a disconnect was postulated. This disconnect hazarded that internet message board users had left the real world behind them. They hence were to go forth with "nicknames"---avatar shields to their former identities and lives---into this new, vast cyber reality.
Affinity corrals were constructed with software, which allow these new denizens of cyberspace to rally round others with similar belief systems and agendas. These message boards were headed by "administrators" and "moderators" who could edit submissions and enforce orthodoxy by banning members.
The very Terms of Service [the "TOS"] or Terms of Use [the unfortunate "TOU"] underlying the use of the software demanded that all the participates refrain from posting any identifying information about the real names or origins of the membership. It became the first rule and cardinal sin not to break this "container."
The fundamental problem with this structure is that it was created by nefarious self-serving entities like the U.S. military-run program D.A.R.P.A., and other covert intelligence organizations, like the CIA. Conceptually, what might have been designed for freedom's sake, became a fearsome trap. Whatever one said or espoused online on the Internet, from political opinion to material advocacy carried with it a new price of exposure.
This eventually led to a preponderance of nonsensical intrigue, as "sock puppets" appeared---sub identities known only to board cognoscenti, who often posted on message boards alongside their master identities. They could frequently be found having discussions, fights, even flirtations with themselves!
This flawed model sought to impose on the reality of open social intercourse the conventions of a subterranean world inhabited by spooks, spies, agents, and operatives of clandestine forces, which exist ostensibly for the safety and protection of society. But these organizations---the United States military is a prime example---which have long held lustrous reputations, have in recent generations seen them tarnished as a consequence of the illegal and immoral wars undertaken at the behest of a profit-driven military-industrial complex.
Many message board communities sprang up in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th, 2001 whose stated purpose was the quest for the truth of attacks whose narrative storyline in the mainstream media---television, newspapers, and magazines---was confusing, contradictory and chimeric. Groups ran the gamut from orthodox support of the official view, to a more and more skeptical outlook, then back again to debunk the skeptic's claims. Nobody ever claimed to be in support of something less- or else than the truth.
But that is what it would appear to me. The denizens that regrouped at Reality Shack are advancing a radical new theory about the attacks of 9/11. They suggest that out of the nearly 3000 people who were said to have died that day, nearly all of them are synthetic creations of a hidden government's propaganda machine---"vicsims" they are called, for simulated victims. This was carried off, they say, by an army of real-life actors and actresses playing the be-grieved roles of widows and orphans, surviving spouses and coworkers, aunts, uncles and cousins---coaches and school mates, all the interpersonal accouterments of the dying and the surviving, and all of them lying.
This theory naturally is predicated on the belief that tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of our fellow Americans, along with a wider world of citizenry, could somehow take part in a collective scheme---even if only at various levels of knowledge and witting complicity---which surely must rank as the most horrendous affront to human dignity and morality to have ever occurred on the planet Earth.
For the record, I believe this theory, or something like it, is true. How such a thing could be accomplished, is, for me as an outsider, still mind-boggling.
But the same group of activist researchers and 9/11 truth seekers at Reality Shack who are promoting this theory, ask us to believe that they are somehow outside of this selfsame scheming system. They want us to know that they are the great truth tellers in the drama. They have uncovered the deepest secrets. They have divined the organizational blunders. And then without a hidden motive, or ulterior agenda, they spill forth their collective knowledge for the betterment of mankind. They will settle for nothing less than the full punishment of every criminal---even if that suggests a fundamental reorganization of all societal norms and mores, a cleansing, purging, and cathartic epiphany of universal proportions.
So then, why do they act like spooks and spies themselves? Why are they afraid for the world to know who and what they are? Might not theirs be a tendentious story line equal to any others?
There is much infighting between the group and their outliers. The prominent group leader who goes by the pleasant sounding name Killtown, headed the previous message board, 9/11movement.org, a board which mysteriously disappeared, taking with it a collected body of research---a loss symbolically on par with the burning of the ancient library at Alexandria. Alas, no member had made a copy, or mirror of the work, and no one seems to really care very much.
Killtown is only a junior member of the new community. The incorporating triad of the new board goes by the internet nicknames, dduck, hoi polloi, and Simon Shack.
A prominent antagonist of Killtown's, as well as several other senior contributors on both message boards, runs a blog called Killtown's Secret Archive. It is here that the tight corset of secrecy binding these identities begins to unravel.
(Apparently the rules governing free speech are looser at blog hosts than forum message boards. I should know. For four years Google Blogger has allowed me unfettered access to an internet soapbox. When a government-released image I'd posted drew the ire of unknown officials, my entire Yahoo Flickr account was terminated, but Google allowed me to repost a copy of the image without further censorship.)
The fight amongst the principles apparently has nothing to do with 9/11 truth, skepticism or denial at all. It is a cat fight of wounded egos and sexual ids, principally between two men---the unidentified Killtown---and someone I know by triangulating postings as an Australian named Vincent Scott. Scott has a serious hard on for two other board members in particular too, one named ozzybinoswald, and another Fred---both of these internet personas are likely to be Neil Edward Thomson of Sooke, British Columbia, Canada, although Fred might be a Fred Weber of New Jersey.
I was a member of Reality Shack from October 20th until October 29th---for all of nine days, and that has to be a world record for me. Being outside of the power dynamics, and a rather volatile and reactive character to boot, it is easy for me to misstep and alienate the supervisory powers. Being subject to unilateral editing and the threat of summary banishment also never suited my mood.
Understanding board dynamics is as important to success on a message board as it is to a corporate board of directors. I had been banned from the previous board incarnation by Killtown as a preemptive gesture. But with the revived board, which was founded (I thought,) by two new friends of mine, men with whom I had only recently spent an intensive week of around-the-clock researching, I really had to push the issue to get canned.
Through it all however, I gained a clearer focus on what established allegiances between a group of men who refuse to publically identify themselves portended---especially in the context of a public feud with a nominally secret opponent.
This whole sorry tale is told (mostly) on a thread here.
PART ONE: CHECK BACK SOON FOR UPDATES
Hi Steve,
Thanks again for the compliments.
I see you got yourself banned from RS. That was quick. What's the deal over there? I was surprised at what happened to you, considering that you just went all the way to Italy to hang out with them. I would have though you guys were buddies? I guess not.
I'm not sure what to make of what's going on there? Especially after everything that happened to me over on **, I don't trust anyone anymore, so maybe I'm being over sensitive. But something doesn't feel right there.
Peace
*****
Well *****, it came as a complete shock and hard emotional blow to get canned the way I did, but I'd call this God doing for me what I couldn't do for myself.
Yes, we were buddies. Visiting Simon in Rome was my great breakthrough moment, when I finally aligned myself with someone in the movement. When movement.org coincidentally (?) went down and Simon and hoi started Reality Shack I was surprised when they didn't invite me to be an administrator. The only good thing to come out of the whole episode was the revelation of the power dynamic---that Simon is beholden to D.Duck (hoi/Max is 26-years-old and seems to be a relative innocent to the power machinations.)
Simon is a *** ** * ****, IMHO. There is no evidence that he himself did the video analysis work attributed to him (Am I envious of his growing stature and fame? Is my perception flawed as a result? Open questions.) Killtown, Killtown's enemy (***** *******/******* *****,) Ozzybinoswald, and certainly now this dduck person, are all some sort of operatives in something. I have never been able to sort the good guys out from the bad guys. I fly on a wing and a prayer. I may be doing harm to responsible, good people, but I wouldn't know. (I do know who the good girls are though---SLaD and DYEW!)
I still believe in no planes and video fakery. I think someone needs to do a more sober analysis of the video record (it can wait; it's not going anywhere; it can't be tampered with.) I believe some ratio of victims are vicsims but I can't fathom what the agenda is of Simon and hoi's presentation of the material---with their autocratic unwillingness to correlate their work with other aspects of the record. "Everything is photoshopped" is nihilism. We stop dead in our tracks. Are they trying to be off-putting?
The truth is---amongst my mainstream friends, the concept that no planes hit the towers is still seen as an absolute absurdity. To rush in to a 100-percent vicsim storyline would be viewed as outrageous beyond the pale. All it would take is for a handful of legitimate grieving family members (I still believe in my theory of mock death for most of the remainder of the listed dead,) which might be the kind of destabilization that the PTB could use to effect some sort of shut down of the internet (my only possible retaliatory scenario.)
Let's keep in touch, SW
"We are the harbingers of a very new type of research so let's try to manage it well and leave it inspiring rather than alienating."
What utter nonsense. Proof the Vicsim Report is right on the money. Why Mr. Margolin would get all sentimental eight years after the fact, when it had apparently never moved him to editorialize before, is sign they are trying to shore up these identities. A lost Masada cause.
Published: September 11 2009
Op-Ed: An Everlasting Memory by Levi Margolin (www.crownheights.info)
Link
I grew up in a Chabad House. Chabad of Tidewater to be precise. Throughout the years, hundreds upon hundreds of different people have come and gone. Some we remember quite well. For others, it may take a moment. But only a select few are etched in our everlasting memories.
Michael Allen Noeth was born to a Jewish mother and Roman Catholic father. Sometime after, his mother turned Roman Catholic and his father an observant Jew. Michael was a very gifted artist and joined the navy as a painter. His father requested he visit Chabad wherever his military duties lead him. In 1997, it was Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, VA. Michael was added to the catalog of people to stroll through our Chabad House doors. Instantly, he became a fan favorite.
Michael was as kind as they get, and - some would say - as interesting as they get! Michael was a Navy man, there's no mistake about that - he was very proud of who he was. He always tried to rival Tzivos Hashem - the Army of Hashem - with the Navy of Hashem!
We were privileged to share many firsts with Michael. It's hard to forget the faces he made when he unknowingly gulped down Marror as if it were sugar. Michael learned to chant Kiddush with us. I can still hear him yell “Attention Gentlemen” just before the blessing of Hagofen.
Michael quickly became a part of our family. He once attended a family Simcha decorated in his Dress Whites - gloves, hat and all. Almost every Friday afternoon Michael taxied over for Shabbos, with his Stetson perfectly situated upon his head. The conversation with him was always innocent, interesting and heartfelt. He yearned to know more about his faith. As youngsters, we tried our best. We loved Michael. He related to us. He showed us a good time.
After each deployment and trip abroad, Michael always routed his way back to our home. Seeing him never got old - we loved it. In 2000, after a lengthy mission abroad, Michael was officially re-stationed. This time, he was assigned to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in the Nation's capital. Oh, Washington, DC. wasn't far. We would see Michael again.
But we didn't. You see, Micheal's new post was in the western side of the Pentagon and on the morning of 9/11/2001, he was proudly positioned there.
He was gone. Senseless hate and a cowardly act had taken my friend away from me. My family had lost an honorary member. I was only 17 years old, but still I cried. I wept. I mourned.
It's eight years later, and I still tear up when I think of Michael Allen Noeth. A gifted artist. A one-of-a-kind. A Proud Jew, enlisted in the Navy of Hashem.
DM2 Michael Allen - Michoel Aron - Noeth USN, truly etched in my everlasting memory.
Who the fuck fired them?
Spent shells, stacked. Long ones, short ones, double banded ones. I was right on February 27, 2008 and I am right today!
Propel Charge Launcher
and a glancing view here at:
another significant view is DM-SD-02-03911 which is no longer current in the government archives but a copy is here:
In any of these images, click on the expanded view and scroll down to the lower right-hand corner. There you'll see what I take to be spent high-explosive casings but what Mr. Paisley contends are rolls of roofing-tar paper, or some other kind of rolled construction material.
Vincent Danz in a 14.27KB image
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His was the first memorial service of the 23 police officers, and a highly publicized event, behind which it would have been easy to hide other vicsim P.O.'s. It is unclear to me whether Danz was supposed to be on duty on 9/11. I find his phone call to his wife while traveling up in Tower One to be utterly specious.
Squad 1 from Truck 3 returning to the office after a counter-terrorism assignment. Left to right: Tony Otero, Richie Gundacker, Sgt. Will Flores, Ray Neuman and John Latanzio.P.O. Vincent Danz Fallen at the World Trade Center September 11, 2001If you were in trouble who would you call to help you? You would call 911 of course and the Police or Fire Department will come to help. On 9/11/2001 a great many police and firefighters needed help. So whom do they call when they need Help? In New York they call Special Operations Division for the Emergency Services Unit or ESU.
The NYPD is a little different than many other large city police departments. They have no SWAT teams. The Emergency Services Unit functions as SWAT and much more. If you have a hostage situation, an auto accident, a derailed subway car with people trapped, a collapsed building, then you call ESU. If you need to rappel down a building to rescue a trapped jumper or thrill seeker or perhaps people trapped in an elevator you call ESU. If you need someone to handle special weapons to secure a dangerous felon or special tools to capture a “pet” tiger kept in a housing project apartment you call ESU. If you have any situation that needs special training, special equipment, special weapons and most of all special people, you call ESU.
What kind of man would be attracted to join a unit like that? Where would a man like that be on September 11th? The answer is obvious and may explain why 14 of the 23 NYPD officers who lost their lives were from ESU. And one of those was Police Officer Vincent G. Danz.
Officer Danz wasn’t born into the ESU of course. He grew up in Southampton, New York as the youngest of 9 children. Perhaps the environment and demands of growing up the youngest in a large family made him desire a life of adventure and activity. His life was one of seeking out the next challenge, the next exploit, the next way to serve others. After high school he got started in life as a carpenter with the Dockworkers Union. For many that would be a challenging enough atmosphere, but it wasn’t enough for him so he joined the Marine Corps and served in the Reserves. He then had the opportunity to join the NYPD. For 8 years his beat was the very active environment of the New York City housing projects. After taking his share of bad guys off the streets, Vincent learned that the NYPD was forming a new elite unit called ESU. It sounded like something perfect for him and he became a member of EM3.
Vincent’s brother Greg would always ask him if he had gone on any “good” jobs lately. There would always be a story about this or that accident but then he would complain that he never seemed to be on duty for the “Big Jobs”. On that September morning Officer Danz was on duty for the biggest job ever. He was among the first to get to the towers and entered the WTC after the first airplane hit but before the second. What was he doing that day? It is estimated that Officer Danz and the other first responders saved perhaps 25,000 lives that day by assisting in their evacuation. But they didn’t get them all.
While Vincent’s body was doing its duty his thoughts were in another place thinking of his wife and three young daughters. Taking a brief moment he called his wife Angela but got only the answering machine. "Hon, it's 9:50 and I'm at the World Trade Center. I'm up in the building. Say a prayer that we get some of these people out. I'm OK but say a prayer for me. I love you." It was the last message the family heard. Pray we get these people out … oh, and pray for me too. He was posthumously awarded the New York City Police Department's Medal of Honor for his heroic efforts to save others.
Aside from being a member of an elite unit, Vincent Danz sought out other ways to serve his country. Police Officer Danz joined the United States Coast Guard Reserve drilling at CG Activities New York near the Verazanno Bridge on Staten Island, just across the harbor from the twin towers. He was a Petty Officer Second Class and served as a member of the Port Security Unit (PSU).
September 27th is known as Heroes Day in the Coast Guard and is the day when all Coast Guard heroes are remembered. The day was chosen in honor of Signalman First Class Douglas Albert Munro who was awarded the Medal of Honor for saving the lives of 500 Marines that day in 1942 at Guadalcanal. It is appropriate that on September 27, 2002 in Munro Hall at Training Center Cape May, New Jersey a plaque and memorial were unveiled. A room used to train Reservists was dedicated in memory of Officer Danz and Firefighter Jeffrey Palazzo, another USCG Reservist lost at the Trade Center. Two more heroes to be remembered on Hero Day and every day.
Carpenter, Marine, Coastguardsman, and Police Officer; but that hardly sums up the life of Vincent Danz. More importantly he was a brother, a son, a husband to Angela, and a father to three daughters Winifred, Emily and Abigail. Vincent’s sacrifice is complete while theirs continues.
John 15:13
Police Officer Vincent G. Danz
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
New York City Police Department, New York
End of Watch: Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Age: 38
Tour of Duty: 14 years
Badge Number: 2166
2,000 Mourn Fallen Officer
First memorial for police victim of terrorist attack
By RICHARD WEIR
Daily News Staff Writer
October 6, 2001
Some 2,000 police officers turned out yesterday for the first memorial service for a city cop lost in the World Trade Center disaster.
They lined up 10 deep along a Long Island street to offer a white-gloved salute to the widow and daughters of Emergency Service Unit Officer Vincent Danz, 38, one of 23 Finest believed killed in the terror attack.
As Danz's family waited in a silver limousine outside St. Kilian Catholic Church in Farmingdale, the NYPD Emerald Society's Pipe and Drum Band marched slowly up Conklin Ave. tapping a solemn beat on the black-draped snare drums.
"Mommy, it's the bagpipes," cried out Danz's redheaded daughter, Emily, 5. His wife, Angela, walked into the church holding the hand of her oldest daughter, Winifred, 8, who carried her father's police hat.
During the Mass, Winifred hopped onto a step stool in front of the alter's lectern and read from Ecclesiastes.
"There is a time to be born and a time to die," the girl said. "A time to keep and a time to cast away."
Angela Danz, who was born in Dublin, stood before the overflow crowd of mourners who filled the church to read a letter she wrote to her husband, recalling how, as a new immigrant, she met him in a Southampton, L.I., pub.
"It would be 15 years in February that you walked into Buckley's Irish Pub and changed my life forever. I told you that day that I would marry you, and then you threw your head back and laughed," she said.
"I had just come here, and you were my personal tour guide. From the gas tanks of Queens to the World Trade Center, you loved New York and you knew everything. But then again, Vincent, you always knew everything."
The couple also has a third daughter, 6-month-old Abigail.
Deacon Jim Murphy, in a homily, said Danz, in his last words to his wife, left on their answering machine, showed his selfless nature.
"Hon, it's 9:50 and I'm at the World Trade Center," he said from his cell phone. "I'm up in the building. Say a prayer that we get some of these people out. I'm okay, but say a prayer for me. I love you."
Danz was in Tower 1 when it collapsed at 10:29 a.m.
"Some people have asked where was God on Sept. 11," Murphy said. "God was running into the World Trade Center with Vinny and our other heroes."
Mayor Giuliani praised Danz, a former Marine and a 14-year police veteran who joined the elite Emergency Service Unit in 1995, for his extraordinary sense of duty and heroism.
"He laid down his life for people who weren't his friends, people he didn't know, people he'd never get to meet," the mayor said.
So Many Saved
The deeds of the police and firefighters, he added, helped save some 25,000 office workers who were evacuated in the minutes after the suicide planes crashed.
"That's never been done before in our history. Yes, this was the worst attack on America, but it's also the biggest rescue mission ever accomplished," he said.
Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said that when Danz entered the Police Department in January 1987, he took an oath to protect and serve.
"For 14 years, and up until his last breath, he did just that," Kerik said, noting that Danz had earned seven decorations.
First Deputy Commissioner Joseph Dunne mentioned that Danz, who also served as a reservist in the Coast Guard, was not scheduled to work the morning of Sept. 11.
"For reasons only God will know, Vinny was supposed to work a 4-to-12 shift, but switched it in order to attend engineering school" that night, Dunne said.
In a funeral without a coffin or a hearse, Danz's family members each placed a white rose in a wicker basket beneath a picture of him as a choir member sang "America the Beautiful."
Recalling a Comrade
Danz's colleagues at ESU Truck 3 of the Bronx remembered the fallen officer, an avid Rangers and Mets fan, as a "good E-man," a spit-and-polish cop who always dressed neatly and loved to kid around.
He took some ribbing over his height. "He was short, so he took a lot of short hits," said Detective Eddie Foley, who broke Danz in as an ESU cop. "We taped a measuring chart by the door to measure his growth spurts over the years, like you do for kids."
Most of all, his colleagues said, Danz lived for his wife and daughters, and they would tease him for racing out the door when his shift ended so he could see them.
"He adored his wife and kids," said Detective Eddie Foley, who trained Danz in the ESU. "That's all he ever talked about."
"He was great to his girls," said Dianne Langon, 43, his neighbor in Farmingdale for eight years. "He was home a lot with them. They were always riding bikes together, or taking walks or playing ball in the yard."
Paige & Ruth"He went through the front door on the ground floor and a lady was about three seconds in front of him. She was hit by a terrific fireball. She subsequently died."But John Clifford is speaking about Jeannieann Maffeo on 9/12, when she wasn't supposed to have "subsequently" died until 40 days later! 2
"He said that unfortunately, while he was OK, he had a feeling that his sister - my sister - had left Logan Airport to go to Los Angeles with her daughter at around 7.30 in the morning." 2Not only does the human interest drama sound too contrived and off-color to be real, its rapid dissemination would confirm it.
"Ruth Clifford McCourt and Paige Farley Hackel were inseparable in life. Tuesday, in a fluke of airline ticketing, they became inseparable in death."Their inseparability was caused because they were incomprehensibly separated in flight.
One 9/11 victim got two versions of his tribute profile in the New York Times---part of the Gray Lady's effort at Vicsim stabilization in 2001. Which one do you think carried Too Much Information? CNN has taken down not only Berkeley's photographic image, but his entire profile too! Oops! Why would the Times publish two profile versions for a simulated victim?
(The following were both published in the New York Times on Friday, October 5, 2001 Link 1)
"When hot-air tension ballooned, Michael J. Berkeley knew just how to prick it. Once, as he and his wife, Lourdes Perez-Berkeley, were driving in a fancy neighborhood, their car sputtered to a halt. Yet again, Mr. Berkeley, a risk taker, hadn't filled up the tank. Her temper ignited. Mr. Berkeley knew she was itching to shout, ``I told you so!'' But the born charmer grinned and burst out laughing: at himself, their problem, at the lecture he knew she so badly wanted to deliver. His wife couldn't help laughing, too.Compare that as real journalism, with sourced quotes even in a second version, also titled: Everything Was in Place Link 2
"Mr. Berkeley, 38, the founder of the Berkeley Group, a securities brokerage-investment firm on the 79th floor of 1 World Trade Center, had superb people skills. He believed in reading people accurately to cultivate business - "Everyone has something for you," he used to say - but he also had a deep-seated belief in treating all people, no matter their station, with respect.
"He moved as comfortably among fellow members of prestigious golf clubs like Winged Foot and the Atlantic as he did among caddies. He could get anyone to laugh, not least the couple's two little boys: ``Get tough, get tough, show me your game face!'' he would shout, just before he flung pillows at them."
"At 38, Michael Berkeley was soaring: following in the footsteps of his cousin, John Utendahl, one of the country's most successful African- American financiers, Mr. Berkeley recently founded his own brokerage firm, with 79th-floor offices in the north tower of the World Trade Center. He had a house in the Hamptons, two young sons, and had been married for more than 10 years to Lourdes Perez-Berkeley, a top portfolio analyst who is also a former Miss Puerto Rico.Lourdes Perez-Berkeley Campaign Contributions and Donations ... $2,300 to Obama's campaign in the 4rth quarter of 2007 from an address in Mt. Kisco sounds pretty damn real Simon!
"But Mr. Berkeley, the son of a homicide detective and a head nurse, "was a regular guy, the greatest," said a cousin, Ronald Culberson, who described Mr. Berkeley as upbeat, warmly generous, welcoming. Another cousin, Ellen Turner, said that Mr. Berkeley and his wife, "never lost sight of themselves."
"Husband and wife referred to each with a deference and respect that only seemed to increase during their marriage, Ms. Turner said. "There was a giddiness about them - they always joked and smiled around each other. They protected each other. He didn't create her and she didn't create him. They complemented each other."
on a thread here, and discusses the following image: (the DoD High-Resolution version.)
Her thinking was that the buildings and vehicles looked like models and the figures were unnatural, so she considered whether they had been photoshopped in.
But her deconstructing the elements within this " Where's Waldo" scene as possibly being an example of still-image fakery misses my original point entirely. These figures dressed in white had caught my eye for a particular reason. They represent one of the very few instances in the image records of attacks in two cities where the participants can be seen engaged in some highly focused task. Since the blue-collar, working-class and union representatives in the 9/11 drama were induced to participate by being giving---what is to them---coveted, insider "no-show" jobs, they always look it, as they lallygag about with stone-face expressions in an air of surreality.
But these men in white seem to be addressing some kind of rectangular black device. I originally wondered if a hatch door had been photoshopped in, but as I stated, if it had been doctored, that would only add to a meaning we are meant to derive, whatever that might be.
I disagree with the building consensus over at 911movement.org. If they were as familiar with the Pentagon image record as I am, they would never have claimed, for instance, that burnt tree branches had been clumsily painted onto the building facade. The real question that should be asked---is what happened to its burnt sister, a Dexter twin that flanked the doorway.
A think a simple Disneyesque codachrome-type application has been introduced overall to provide a candy, or toy quality, similar to the color theory work utilized in many scenes of medical triage.
A military photographer, Marc Hodgden, synthetically provided shots showing several of these black objects backed up near the Port-o-Lets. Here, it's clear, I should think, that they mean to indicate as being electrical generators servicing two high-powered swivel lights atop them, but the style seems archaic and anachronistic in a Home Depot age, like the great wooden wire spools, and the diesel generator adorning the strike zone.
But then a low-case poster to the board named brianv, (and that better not be a sock puppet of yours, Miranda Priestley! I'll spit!) drew our attention to a "personal fave. A 'Bob the Builder' Model Studio of the Pentagon!! See the guys in the top right hand corner!!" http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm..._crach_site.jpg
But I wouldn't treat those figures so lightly, dear. I know them better from a reverse view, and I think they are doing something highly significant.
But I am extremely grateful to v. for causing this fresh look at these shots, where a previously unseen feature of utmost importance suddenly revealed itself to me in a schizophrenic surge of dopamine, proving John Gartner of Psychology Today more right than not.
These would be the clear fire-breaks which exist in both the pitched and flat roofs of the Pentagon at every single expansion joint, (but obscured with a painterly brush in many places.) The presence of this rhythmic feature makes a total mockery out of fires which swept through roofed areas and down passageways condemning two million square feet to reconstruction. Look in the top right-hand corner of my posted reverse roof view to see the point at which fires should have been impeded in the E-ring.
Also fraudulent is the engineering study which followed, which proposed introducing additional fire breaks. It is a complete and total lie! Bad consultants!
So here is another slam-dunk eyeopener exposing common insurance fraud, in the old-fashioned "Jewish lightning" style. We need the damn prosecutors to get in on this! We are wasting our time from here on out otherwise. Shit or get off the pot dudes. (Terrorist fist bump!)
I fancied that these aforementioned black devices were being used to remove and dispose of highly classified records from within the Navy Command Center, and the Pentagon accounting offices. I could see them being dropped overboard into the briny deep somewhere far off in the ocean.
And I was at a party in Sag Harbor, New York---itself once a vibrant whaling center---over this past summer, where I overheard a bit of 9/11 small talk, which I took to be the ectoplasmic validation that proved my theory was right.
Somebody said tipsily, " You know why they destroyed Building Seven, don't you? It was to do away with all the records from when the United States stole the Hawaiian islands!"
Eureka, I thought! Having heard that the Navy Intelligence wielded the most power amongst the various intelligence branches, that would be exactly the sort of documentation I might imagine to be in their hands and still actionable as leverage. This is not to be confused with the S.E.C. records in Building 7, although, Christopher Cox, then a southern California congressman, was having breakfast with Donald Rumsfeld in the Pentagon on the morning of the attack.
Such a small world! It's all going to have to come out in the wash sooner or later. Just take it a piece at a time. AND REMEMBER TO BREATHE!
formerly the Army chief of engineers, and president of the Officers' Christian Fellowship, LTC Brian Birdwell's "big boss," who was absent his targeted office on September 11th, 2001. These militant secretive Christians do not see themselves as subversives, but as spiritual warriors—“ambassadors for Christ in uniform,” in Officers’ Christian Fellowship terms, and “government paid missionaries,” as Campus Crusade’s Military Ministry puts it.
Van Antwerp, "lost nearly all his staff when the Pentagon was attacked Sept. 11. His executive officer LTC Brian Birdwell was badly burned and in the hospital when President Bush visited him. Our President spent time and prayed with Brian. As he was getting ready to leave, he went to the foot of Brian's bed and saluted. He held his salute until Brian was able to raise his burned and bandaged arm, ever so slowly, in return. The Commander-in-Chief never initiates a salute, except in the case of a Congressional Medal of Honor winner. The injured soldier did not have to return the salute. But he did, out of respect to his President - a Soldier's President."
However, Birdwell, in Refined by Fire, states there were only two deaths in the office,
"Fortunately, not all my coworkers were in the office that day. Major General Robert L. Van Antwerp and my boss, Jan Menig---a member of the Senior Executive Services (SES) the civilian equivalent to a general---had been in the office earlier but left around 7:45 for a garrison commanders conference across the street at the Doubletree Hotel. Another coworker, Clara Toland, Ms. Menig's secretary, usually arrived around ten o'clock. However, that day she was on leave because she was caring for her ill aunt. Colonel Williams was in the office for a period of time, then stepped out to run errands.It can't be a coincidence that so many of the dead and wounded at the Pentagon that day came from the leadership ranks of organizations like OCF and CCMM.
The only other coworkers in were TW Williams, my counterpart, who was General Van Antwerp's military aide, Cheryle Sincock, General Van Antwerp's secretary, and Sandi Taylor, Staff Actions Control Officer for ACSIM."
I think the game has been given away at an entirely deeper level. It is truly awesome in its awfulness what these men of spirit enslaved to religion have done. It still boggles the mind, but I think the average person is going to be able to get it now. Ultimately, this is manageable.
The propagandistic "big lie" of the official story of the attacks of September 11th, 2001, is made up of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of individual, smaller lies. In their collective variety and audacity, and in their routine shamelessness, they once could apparently carry the day. But by some stroke of fate or divine justice we are now able to see the galling quality of these small lies as manageable narrative elements, bits which can add up to awaken an arrested and somnambulate American populace loath to see the horror and admit the truth. We did not dream our government and the hidden powers-that-be could stoop so low on a scale so vast, but now, all together, we must.
A good place to start is with Brian Birdwell, one of the six "serious" burn victims to come out of the Pentagon following the attack. His story is so full of holes it resembles Swiss cheese, but at least he wears his motivation on his sleeve---a slavish devotion to a fundamentalist God, his Lord and savior, the risen Jesus Christ, who simply must be believed in, if his teachings not obeyed. It is in that specific context that our present day reality is made into such an absurdity---the first shall be last, indeed.
It's been staring us straight in the face. Here, for instance, is a relatively up-to-date photograph of Brian Birdwell:
In the 2004 book by Brian and Mel Birdwell, Refined by Fire, ghostwritten by Ginger Kolbaba, the voice of Mel tells us:
"Soon after Brian received the cadaver skin graft on his forehead, he told me, 'Enough is enough.'"In The 'Other' Tragedy - US News and World Report, published December 2, 2001,
"Cadaver skin. You can see that in Brian Birdwell, who mouthed the words "I love you" to his wife, Mel, when he opened his eyes for the first time September 13. That same day, President Bush visited the Fort Worth native. "Colonel Birdwell," the commander in chief said as he strode into the hospital room. With tears in his eyes, the president saluted the bandaged soldier, holding it until Birdwell slowly raised his burned arm as high as he could to return the salute. Birdwell, burned over 40 percent of his body, saw himself in the mirror recently--his forehead plastered with cadaver skin, the tips of his ears singed off, the delicate skin around his eyes stretched out. His sense of humor was intact. "I think I look pretty good for a guy who just got run over by a plane," he said, grinning."And in the Washington Post article, Hope Breathes Beneath Wounds: Bodies Ravaged by Terrorism, Survivors Savor the Small Steps, by Donna St. George, published on the front page, also on December 2, 2001;
"By the grace of God, I'm still here," he said, sitting stiffly in a chair, his bandaged arms propped on pillows and his forehead a band of scab-pocked temporary skin.Six months after the Pentagon attack, Birdwell wears his uniform with a headband and compression gloves---as in this Mark Wilson photo of the White House memorial taken March 11, 2002, for Getty Images:
"His wife does not mind saying that this skin came from a cadaver. It protects him from infection until his own skin can be grafted there. Amid the horrors Birdwell has endured, cadaver skin is nothing to wince at – a medical necessity, a wound dressing."
He still does, four months after that, at a luncheon with Mel on July 18th, at the Ft Myer Officer’s Club. Birdwell seems to have taken to this sartorial style the way General Peter Pace took to wearing a flattering diagonal sash on formal occasions. What function did the headband perform beyond obfuscation?
I recall asking myself at the time as I read about the cadaver skin, WWMPSD? What would my plastic surgeon do? If I only had a small amount of tender buttocks flesh for instance, with which to effect skin grafts, wouldn't I want that transplanted to my face first?"More than 30 surgeries later, Birdwell has regained some of his former appearance, including a full head of brown hair. Still, his wife, Mel, notices how people sometimes stare. His ears, about half their normal size, appear almost melted. His face and neck are ridged with scar tissue. His arms do not bend normally. Neither do his hands." http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/964915.asp?0sl=-42
A Democratic Underground thread from August 2003 by the diligent DulceDecorum, addressed this hair issue with acute passion, but regardless of how clear the implications were back then, they were unspeakable until recently."Inside the emergency room at Georgetown University Hospital, it was like a battle drill, lots of activity, voice commands, energy and intensity, but no chaos. Dr Williams told me that he would shortly put me under general anesthesia, so I knew in my heart I was speaking my last words. I told Dr Williams I wished to do two things. I asked MAJ John Collison, who had ridden with me to the hospital to take the wedding ring off my finger and give it to Mel and tell her that I loved her. Jewelry is normally cut off burn survivors since gold melts near 800 degrees, but I didn't want the ring destroyed. When the nurse removed it to give it to John, it was like running an overdone hot dog through something of a smaller diameter except the hot dog was my blackened fingers. Since most of the skin was already gone, when the ring was pulled off, it showed exposed bone and blood was streaming everywhere. I don't recall it hurting; not because of the morphine shot I was given at the Pentagon, but because I was concentrating on the dignity of what I knew was my immanent death. I then asked for the hospital chaplain to say a final prayer acknowledging God's sovereignty in my life and accepting his will for me should I awake or not from the anesthesia. After Chaplain Cirrilo lead that prayer I then told Dr Williams, not from the strength of a soldier, but with faith in my Savior, "lets get on with it," resting in the comfort of Christ's command of my life."National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Public Hearing Monday, March 31, 2003
"Inside Georgetown University, I had yet another seminal moment. Major John Collison had accompanied me to Georgetown. I knew that when Dr. Williams, the attending physician there, told me they were soon to place me under general anesthesia and intubate me that he was going to do the best he could to save my life. But I also knew that I was facing, in being under anesthesia, that my last words were maybe those that I now speak.CNN.com - Transcripts Aired May 4, 2006
"I asked John to take the wedding ring off my finger. It removed skin, it removed muscle, it removed other tissue, but I don't recall it hurting. I don't know if that was because of the morphine that I received from Dr. Baxter or because I was more concerned with the manner of my death and how my life or my death was going to give witness to those on the medical staff.
"John took the ring off. I looked at the hospital chaplain and asked to say a prayer, a prayer of salvation, actually, rather, sovereignty of God in my life, not of salvation. We said that prayer. And after that prayer I had the peace of God's concern in my life and his sovereignty in my life to look at Dr. Williams and say, let's get on with it, resting in his sovereignty."
KYRA PHILLIPS: Brian, let's start with you. And what do you think is probably your most vivid memory from 9/11?Refined by Fire - Google Books Result, page 93
BIRDWELL: Being at the Georgetown University Hospital just prior to being anesthetized and knowing in my heart that I was dying and that I was saying my final words, having a friend of mine take my wedding ring off of my burned hands. Didn't have the chance to talk to my wife, but was making final peace with my creator and with the lord. And that's probably the most seminal of the moments that I experienced of many that day.
"Before we entered Brian's room, [Col.] TW [Williams] pulled me aside and handed me something. I looked down at his hand. It was Brian's wedding ring. As soon as TW handed it to me, I put it on and wore it next to my wedding ring. I decided I would return it to Brian after he was discharged from the hospital.In a Publisher's Weekly review of the Birdwell book:
"I wasn't aware of the exchange Brian and John Collison had with the ring or the significance of the way it was removed because John had never mentioned it. His visit had been too emotional. But I knew that John had received Brian's ring at some point I just wasn't sure when."
"The Birdwells relate Brian's horrific injuries and treatments in a way that might turn some stomachs (skin coming off with his wedding ring..."But in Refined by Fire, Birdwell's version seems to meld the inconsistencies of the storyline he told the 9/11 Commission:
"Then I could see John Collison standing behind Dr. Williams, so I called for him to come to me. I asked him to take off my wedding ring. Because my skin was burned so badly, a nurse, Judith Rogers, had to do it. Some of the skin came off with the ring. Then Judith handed the ring to John.
"John," I said, "you make sure my wife gets this ring."
"Yes Sir, I will" he said.
"I knew there wasn't much time. While I wanted to talk with Mel, to hear her voice one last time, I knew calling her would have prolonged the trauma, and we were out of time. So I made my peace with her when I gave John the wedding ring to pass to her."
"My hands were badly burned," he said. "My arms were very badly burned. I knew I needed help."
A nurse assessed his condition in the emergency room. At some point she may have said Shaeffer was burned about 50 percent, but what he heard was that his chances were 50 percent.
"I grabbed that nurse by the shirt. I pulled her close. I told her, 'You don't understand. I'm alive. I'm alive. I made it. I'm going to live.' She said, 'Yes, Kevin. You are. You are.
"After that I remember them working quite hard on my hands. I had my wedding ring on my left and my academy ring on my right. The doctor called out for a ring cutter. I made them stop, the entire team. … I managed to pull my wedding band off. I eventually pulled my class ring off. I handed them … to the doctor. I laid back. I said, 'Now you can go ahead - do what you've got to do. Save my life."
http://www.militarycity.com/sept11/shaeffer.html
This barely touches upon the list of anomalous and irreconcilable details in the collective narratives. For instance, both these men were first transported under mysterious circumstances to out-of-the-way hospitals before being transferred to the Burn Unit at Washington Hospital. Schaeffer went to Walter Read, while Birdwell left Georgetown Hospital by helicopter less than six hours after he arrived---despite all airspace being shut down."Moments later the police car pulled up to the Georgetown emergency room entrance and dropped me off. I quickly wiped my eyes and face with my hands, thanked the officers, then stumbled out of the car. There at the door stood a physician and Judith Rogers, the nurse who had called me more than two hours earlier.Further proof is provided by an extremely odd public relations stunt two days before they launched their book, when Brian and Mel went back to Georgetown Hospital "to thank nurse Debi Trichel," and others, for the six hours of care they provided Brian. The giveaway making the agenda clear was captured in a Washington Times story by Frank Petrignani, from July 2, 2004, about the reunion, in 9/11 victim thanks hospital workers; Ex-officer treated at Georgetown,
"Judith was waiting for me. "Okay,"she said gently, putting her arm around me, "let's go." As we walked she explained that a burn/trauma specialist resident and a burn staff nurse, who both had recently transferred from the Burn Unit at Washington Hospital, were working on Brian. The nurse, Debi Trichel, was washing him down to remove the remaining traces of jet fuel that were on him, as well as making sure his head was propped up to reduce the swelling since that would further challenge his airway. She had also finished removing the dead skin, with scissors, and was redressing him with new bandages."
"What I will remember vividly for the rest of my life is the smell of jet fuel embedded into him and his clothes," said Dr. Michael Williams, then director of trauma and critical care at Georgetown University Hospital in Northwest."I should think Birdwell would feel more gratitude for the many months of care he received at Washington Hospital. So it's likely these Georgetown players---Dr. Williams, "another attending physician," Dr. Clark, as well as Judith Rogers and Debi Trichel, were all key co-conspirators before the fact. Intimately involved in massaging the narrative, rather than dressing a patient's nonexistent wounds
(Perhaps Antoinette Sherman, the only victim said to have died outside of the Pentagon, could serve as a backup---but it's an open question if her death might still have been faked---given the ability of various authorities to collude with the federal government. But she succumbed to smoke inhalation, in any event.)
Standing room only crowd hears Birdwell speak on the 2007 anniversary. Although I am not an authority on the subject of men's hands, I would rank Brian's as really quite beautiful.
Sept. 11, 2007
Brian sums up his religious feelings at the end of the five-minute video posted above:So, is it worth it? Absolutely. To have one more soul in heaven because of what I've gone through---absolutely. But let me tell you why I say that with such strength. It's because, for at least, I would guess, 45 seconds, to a minute, to two minutes, I was in an earthly hell, burning. I know what it is like to be burning. And it is not something I would want to live through eternally. You cannot imagine the torment of being in a fire, living through it. Not knowing if you're going to get out, and not appreciate what it means to save one soul.And elsewhere:
"Birdwell described how his Christian faith carried him through the attacks and his recovery. He then demonstrated his belief that Christian moral values are what led America to greatness, beginning with the creation of the Declaration of Independence and leading up to current President Bush, who he praised for his determination and moral character. He also spoke on the moral uprightness of the American military and denounced detractors of the war in Iraq." Sept. 11 survivor tells how faith helped recovery | The Post-Tribune, Indiana, Nov. 15, 2004
"Days after the attack, President Bush and the first lady visited the couple in the hospital. Mrs. Birdwell recalled how Mr. Bush saluted the colonel and asked if he could pray for his family. "The leader of the free world had made time in his busy schedule to comfort us," she wrote in the book. "He and the first lady were so real, their compassion so genuine, and he was a man of God.""Col. Birdwell said he fully agrees with Mr. Bush's actions following the terrorist attacks that nearly took his life. He believes the country must go on the offensive to prevent the loss of American lives.
"This isn't about American soil," he added. "It's about American blood." Survivor looks to heal others; 9/11 victim puts his story in book | The Washington Times July 4, 2004
"With new resolve, Brian managed to find help and make it to the triage area. There a woman read the Psalms to comfort him. Brian’s face was so badly burned a co-worker knew him only by his ID badge. His friend commandeered a SUV and drove Brian to Georgetown University Hospital." The 700 Club by Tim Branson, March 15, 2002
"Fires were burning and debris was scattered everywhere. Smoke was pouring down the hallway. Birdwell's access badge and name tag were melted, he was covered in blood, and his clothes were literally burned from his back." 9/11 Survivor Returns to Tell Story of Hope | US Fed News Service, Sept. 11, 2007
"While he deems it his responsibility as a Christian to "forgive those that perpetrated what they did to me," Mr. Birdwell said, "I can't sit here and tell you that I've forgiven them." The former artillery officer and logistician backs President Bush's war on terrorism. "My duty as a citizen is to support my government in defeating the culture that bred, recruited, trained, deployed and financed people that ... believe it rational to fly planes into buildings," he said. Hope springs from fires of 9/11: Pentagon burn victim focuses on blessings, helping others recover, September 7, 2006, by Richard Whittle/ The Dallas Morning News
To this I would like to counter with some words of Henry David Thoreau:"Action from principle -- the perception and the performance of right -- changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine."
"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."
"Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.""John Yates, a civilian Pentagon employee, has a new daily ritual."Every morning when I wake up I just look up and I say thank you," said Yates, a security manager in the Army personnel office.
"Yates, who was in his second-floor office, had just talked to his wife and was watching TV coverage of the World Trade Center attack when he heard an explosion and saw flames. Knocked to the ground, he crawled first toward voices, then eventually to safety.
"But the five-month anniversary of the event that severely burned a third of his body, from his head down to his legs, almost slipped by without his noticing." Pentagon Burn Victims Healing Wounds, Article from AP Online | Feb. 19, 2002
makes some important and privileged videotape of the destruction at ground zero following the attacks of September 11th, 2001. His is the first view of the carnage on the ground at the World Trade Center site that viewers of the ABC network will see, at 4:09 in the afternoon---taped, Sutavee says, "not even" one hour before.
Sutavee narrates for the 3:10 minutes of tape, explaining what is being seen to viewers and the ABC anchor, Peter Jennings, who thanks him, saying, "we're grateful as a news organization, that you decided to bring that video in here." Sutavee's camerawork is jerky, as he pans up, down and across a depopulated landscape of smoke and steel. We see only two figures---one, he tells us, is a friend he ran into there, also taking pictures. Another is a Russian-speaking rescue worker looking for friends.
As Sutavee's 9/11 footage ends, the ABC control room fails to edit out a brief glimpse of a party scene, which apparently Sutavee taped previously and was copying over on 9/11. This light-hearted moment---thank goodness it wasn't homemade pornography being overwritten---causes Jennings to go off-topic, asking him about when and where the party took place.
Jennings then interviews Sutavee in the studio for a period longer than the just-concluded 3:10 minutes of trade center videotape, finally asking him, "Can I just get one other thing clear? You managed to get right onto the site itself, right onto the top of one of the two towers. But I couldn't see any police, I couldn't see any fire department."
Sutavee answers the question clumsily, waving his arm nonsensically to indicate where fire, police and rescue workers were relative to his position, while repeating how still and silent the atmosphere was there.
Jennings then cuts to the talking head of George Stephanopoulos, asking him archly, "weren't you a bit surprised George, to see nobody in there besides young Mr. Sutavee?" Stephanopoulos is forced to agree, but he reaches for a likely excuse for the lack of activity, such as fear of asbestos contamination---a concern, which if true, unfortunately evaporated by the end of the day.
But suddenly, as Stephanopoulos is speaking, ABC begins televising additional footage attributed to Sutavee of an entirely different nature. These scenes are heavily populated with myriad rescue workers heartily, if not purposefully, moving about. Sutavee even amends his description of the ambient decibel level---where before he said he could only hear "crackling and pops and stuff," or "glass breaking," now he says, "ambulances are crushed, lights are still going, horns are, you know, still blowing."
Sutavee doesn't seem nearly as comfortable narrating this footage. When Jennings' quickly asks him, "Kevin, just tell us, where this is, what is this?" Sutavee responds, "It's on the West End Highway, and, um, I can't remember the other street. You can't tell, you really can't tell, but it's right there, where the South Tower was, where the Marriott was."
Why does Sutavee speak more precisely this second go around, saying it was 200 firemen deaths he was told about by a fireman on the scene? How could such a count be generated five hours after the attacks and why would a department member share the fact with an outsider at this stage? Did that number arise because the strategic plan had 200 firemen undergoing mock martyrdom? Where did they actually go? Rendition under the Denver Airport?
Why does Stephanopoulos throw out a canard, reporting that the first "temporary hospital and morgue," "several blocks long" was being established at Chelsea Piers, when doctors and nurses at the close-by St. Vincent's Hospital were standing around twiddling their thumbs, waiting for patients, like in these two images from 9/11?
Was it for the same reason of escalating our national fear and terror that led ABC's John Miller to say earlier in the day that there were so many serious burn victims that they were being sent off to hospitals in Canada?
Perhaps Sutavee's story of accessing the Trade Center site would have been credible in the confusion of the first hour after the attacks---but is it believable five hours later? Wasn't Manhattan below Canal Street shut down, with a secure perimeter established around the disaster zone well before then?
Also, why does Sutavee twice mention possible editing to his video tape, saying of a friend, "they probably edited him out," and in different instance, "I don't know if they edited it out yet?" If ABC editors were making cuts, wouldn't Sutavee have said "you," or "your," in reference to edits?
The extended Sutavee interview and tape replay was nicely punctuated when Jennings follows it up with a report that "a Korean Airlines plane was forced down by U.S. and Canadian forces over White Horse Bay in Canada earlier today; that Canadian television reports that Canadian forces on the ground stormed the plane." If this report was untrue, and I believe it to be false, where did rumor mongering like this get its start? The 9/11 record is replete with further examples of such media manipulation.
A total of 18 recognizable bodies were retrieved from Ground Zero after the attacks of 9/11.Peter Jennings: This is, this is...
Kevin Sutavee:...a lot of footage.
PJ: Ooh, my goodness me.
KS: That's the, that's the, all that's standing of the twin towers right now in the background. That's all that's standing. That's it, that's all that's left.
PJ: So, you're literally right inside, um... [pause] What time did you actually photograph these
KS: I don't even know. That was, actually, I rode my motorcycle right up from it. That was about, about an hour ago, not even.
PJ: And this is right at the center, of where the trade tower stood?
KS: Right at the...when you see the firemen they just, there's nothing they can do.
PJ: You must have been frightened at the very least to be there.
KS: I was just, I was just thinking to myself how, what a powerful act of ignorance it was really. It's amazing.
PJ: And this is the building adjacent to...
KS: That's the twin towers, that was the twin tower...then we went up...more into there.
PJ: I just thought to myself, I can smell it, but I can smell your shirt. You've brought the smell of the disaster back with you in your tee-shirt. Were there other people in there? I don't see any, any, anybody sort of, doing...
KS: I was with one other person, who I ran into. Actually somebody I know. And he was actually photographing as well. And it was just us two and the firemen. It's funny, I ran into my friend, right there, who was also taking pictures. He should be somewhere---they probably edited him out.
PJ: It's absolutely...
KS: Look at that! That's all that's left!
PJ: Do you know whether that is the South Tower or the North Tower?
KS: That's the South Tower.
PJ: And you saw no sign of life in here whatsoever?
KS: No, I went all the way right there, I don't know if they edited it out yet, but there is a big hole going down into the ground...there can be nobody. And we ran into somebody else who was there, but we didn't see anybody. Nobody. But the fireman said there's been a lot of people dead, a lot of fireman.
PJ: Because there were firemen in the building at the time, trying to help people evacuate from the building.
KS: Yeah, they said 200 people died, I thought, the fireman I saw said 200 people died already.
PJ: And this, this wall here, this is from part of the tower itself?
KS: Yeah, it's the South Tower there, the lobby. And I saw the smoke, and there's still fire going on in there right now.
PJ: Are you walking across...you're walking across the...
KS: Yeah, that's the...
PJ: And that's your friend also with the photograph...and the building on the right that occasionally appears in, is a building adjacent?
KS: It was on fire. Yeah, and it's just gouged, the parts of the, the twin tower just gouged out the building. See that's the concourse below. That's going down like twenty feet or so. That's, that's the part that's crazy....is that's all that's left.
PJ: Did you hear anything while you were in there?
KS: Just like crackling and pops and stuff. See, that's the guy that's been looking for his friends, and he didn't find anybody either.
PJ: Do we know who this person is?
KS: No, he, he was speaking Russian
PJ: Really...looking through the devastation, [4:12pm] and this now is what?
KS: This is a party actually, so.
PJ: Last night?
KS: No, it was a while ago, but.
PJ: Hmm. Where was the party...and?
KS: It was in PS 1.
PJ: [Back on point] Oh, so, you just simply decided to go in there and see what you could photograph?
KS: Yeah, it was because, it's funny, because the name of my magazine is Prophecy and we had just shot the twin towers last night. My photographer, Amy, had just been shooting it, with the four by five format last night, and I hadn't spoken to her yet, and when my friend called me this morning and said, did you hear what happened, and I said no, and then, so, I, like I said, I went to the city to see Amy because I couldn't reach her, all the phones were down. And so I went to, ah, I went right to ah, the site.
PJ: Were you doing a feature on the twin towers were you?
KS: Well, basically I was photographing the twin towers for the power of the twin towers, architecturally, and like metaphorically, what they stood for, And then you know, these people, you know, wanted to destroy them. I was kind of, you know, I was observing them. We had been shooting it for over a week.
PJ: Really, and it's ended in this vulnerable place.
KS: Yeah.
PJ: Can I just get one other thing clear? You managed to get right onto the site itself, right onto the top of one of the two towers. But I couldn't see any police, I couldn't see any fire department...
KS: Well, they were all back there [motions with his arm] I went right into it. They were all, like, just around it.
PJ: Did you have any sense when you were walking out onto it that it was too dangerous to be on?
KS: Nah, well, you know, they were, when we first started walking in the fire people were like, 'no, don't go.' But we just went in. We wanted to see.
PJ: And you never heard a sound except the sound of...firecrackers.
KS: Yeah, there was no people, there was no nothing, there was just glass breaking and stuff like that.
PJ: Well, Kevin, thank you for this, Kevin Sutavee, he's a publisher of a magazine called Prophecy, and he, thanks very much Kevin for coming. Anything else you can think of just...
KS: Well, I just wanted to say that I think it is a powerful act of ignorance at the end of the day, because this country is so full of so many different types of people, and I can understand, um, you know, people, and their frustrations with capitalism and other...just capitalism, I can understand people's frustration, but to do that type of destruction, to people they don't even know, it's just...like I said, it's powerful, I understand, they're trying to make, get a message across, but it's so powerfully ignorant, in my opinion, that's all I can say.
PJ: I think it's a thing, I think it's the thing that many people in the country agree with today, that it was an act of terror and an act of ignorance and which the government has said repeatedly today it would try and get to the bottom of, but nobody is very hopeful about that.
KS: I mean, it's obvious that, that there needs to be a better dialogue between, you know, these people, and what they need done, and what we're doing, and ah, they're bringing the field to a whole nother level, but, um, like I say, I understand, to an extent, but it needs to go further, I think, then what they're doing.
PJ: Well, we're grateful as a news organization, that you decided to bring that video in here. Thanks very much Kevin Sutavee, because it gives us the closest, the intimate sense, we have seen, yet, of what it is like at ground zero, in terms of the building collapsing in on itself. And I think George Stephanopoulos can add to the status of the building, and also George, the current police activity. I must---weren't you a bit surprised George, to see nobody in there besides young Mr. Sutavee? [4:15pm]
George Stephanopoulos: Nobody at all, it really was surprising, although it did accord with what we heard earlier Peter, and now we just heard from one of our reporters, Lucy Carrigan, who's gotten quite close, that the police are actually pulling back from the scene right now. The police and other rescue personnel are pulling back from the scene right now, because they're concerned about two things: number one, all of the asbestos in the air coming up from that smoke, from the collapsing building, and secondly, the possibility of other buildings collapsing in the area. So they've actually pulled away now, um, from ground zero, if you will. Secondly Peter, and another grim note, we have now heard that Chelsea Piers, which is a large, several-block-long athletic complex over here on the West Side, at 17th Street and 11th Avenue, has now been turned into a temporary hospital and morgue here in Manhattan. It's the first temporary hospital and morgue that's been set up. There now 30 ambulances operating out of there. [4:16pm] And that will be one of the major sites here on the lower west side.
Peter Jennings: Thanks very much George, actually we're now looking at some more footage that Kevin Sutavee has taken. Kevin, just tell us, where this is, what is this?
Kevin Sutavee: It's on the West End Highway, and, um, I can't remember the other street. You can't tell, you really can't tell, but it's right there, where the South Tower was, where the Marriott was.
PJ: The Marriott Hotel, the Marriott Hotel headquarters there, and, and you're, you're still focused very much on the Trade Towers themselves.
KS: And on the rubble---it's just amazing. The cars, the ambulances are all crushed. Lights are still going, horns are, you know, still blowing.
PJ: Is there, is there, did you pick up on some sense of activity, that there was some sense of purpose, or just people overwhelmed by what happened?
KS: You mean the fire department?
PJ: The fire department, the police...
KS: There's nothing they could do. They said that there were already 200 fireman dead, there was, you know, it was futile, it's bigger than there, there's not enough people. There's just a handful of people there.
PJ: Because so many firemen were working to get other people out when this..
KS: I mean...you need an army of people there...to..
PJ: And of course the city will have an army of people before long, because the National Guard is coming in. It's very interesting what the mayor said some time ago, he said, people need relief, desperately want relief, at the same time they don't want relief because they don't want to leave the job they are doing, because in many cases they are looking for, and/or supporting their friends and colleagues. That's a bit of a review there of some of the material that Kevin Sutavee shot earlier, of which we're very glad to have.
Umm, I'm just looking at one more report from our foreign desk here this morning that a KAL plane, Chuck Leslie, a KAL plane, KAL, you mean the Korean, Korean Airlines plane? Thanks very much, a Korean Airlines plane was forced down by U.S. and Canadian forces over White Horse Bay in Canada earlier today that Canadian television reports that Canadian forces on the ground stormed the plane, and we have no other details at this time, there is another aberrant incident
Chief Nigger would be a better name with a clearer meaning---take it from a cracker honkie. The word just needs to be applied to the dagos and the wops in the New York City Fire Department.
Unfuckingbelievable, the suppressed articles that are resurfacing. This September 1, 2002 article from Fire Engineering magazine , about New York City Fire Department Chief Daniel Nigro, contains so many incredible and anomalous fac-toids---starting with the remarkable statement that there were no jumpers from the South Tower---that it is sure to stir the pot.
(To every African-American, and all oppressed third-world peoples, I apologize for the emotional pain caused by my unavoidable use of the "N" word. These are extraordinary times and they call for extraordinary measures. May justice rule supreme.)
BY DANIEL NIGRO
We heard and felt the plane hit the Trade Center from our headquarters in Brooklyn. There was a huge column of smoke. Chief of Department Peter Ganci and I drove to the site together to start formulating plans. As we responded over the Manhattan Bridge, we could see the tremendous smoke. I said to Chief Ganci, "This is going to be the worst day of our lives."
Battalion Chief Joseph Pfeifer had transmitted a third alarm, and Chief Ganci upgraded that to a fifth-alarm response before we even arrived on scene.
We arrived on West Street, stopping at the field communications unit parked in the middle of the street. There was so much debris raining down, and there were the jumpers. So we moved the command post to the west side of the street. We were at this position when the second plane hit. Chief Ganci transmitted a second fifth-alarm assignment immediately. We were certain at this time that this was a terrorist attack. We knew they were large commercial planes and that this was no accident.
Assistant Chief Joseph Callan was assigned to command North Tower operations. Deputy Chief Peter Hayden was assigned as his assistant.
Assistant Chiefs Donald Burns and Jerry Barbara were designated as operations commanders for the South Tower.
Those commands were set up in the lobbies of both towers.
Numerous companies had begun to stage near the command post. Deputy Chief Ray Downey took most of the units we had there—about six or eight companies—to the South Tower.
Other companies and individual firefighters, who formed companies, staged in front of the South Tower.
That was a secure spot because there were no jumpers in the South Tower.
These firefighters reported directly to operations command for assignment.
Seeing the people jumping from the North Tower was terrible. If the day would have ended right there, it still would have been our worst day ever.
Faux Mayhem by Abraham Schwimmer---and the Jew Nigger
And Willie Cirone---the Wop Nigger.
In the midst of all this, we set up command. Chief Ganci was in command. There were sufficient chiefs in both towers to manage both five-alarm assignments. Chief Ganci had called a third fifth-alarm assignment before the initial collapse for additional personnel to be held in staging should they be needed.
We were getting numerous calls from people below the impact floors who were trapped and in need of help. Calls were coming in rapidly from Dispatch. Occupants were trapped in elevators in both buildings. The strategy was primarily to evacuate, remove, and rescue. But some units were attempting to move up with handlines in anticipation of rescuing victims trapped by fire.
I don't think any of us on the scene had any intention of putting out 10 floors of fire. In my high-rise experience, we've had success putting out partially involved floors, not 10 floors. But you take your tools. There might have been a need to use hoselines if the standpipe had survived and if the building had survived.
Our view of the towers was somewhat limited. They were both quite high, and we were fairly close to them from our position on West Street. Our view was limited mostly to the west walls of both towers. I suggested to Chief Ganci that I walk around the buildings—actually, walk around the 16-acre site—to assess the damage we couldn't see. He agreed. I went across Vesey Street and was halfway down Church Street toward Liberty. The damage on the north and east sides of the buildings was much greater than what we could see from the command post.
I reached Dey and Liberty streets when I heard that unmistakable sound. I did not hear any sound prior to it that made me think of collapse, but the damage to the buildings was so severe I knew we'd have a real collapse problem at some point—just not 10 minutes from now. But there was no mistaking the noise. Some people said later they thought it was an explosion or another plane, but I knew what it was. I looked up and saw the façade of the South Tower coming down.
I moved for a doorway on Dey Street, grabbing my aide in the process. Instinct moves you to an area that may protect you, and that area protected me. It took me a while to regain my composure. That terrible rush of dust! I thought, "This is how it must be for victims of volcano eruptions."
I had a radio. I don't recall radio traffic. I don't recall hearing anything for a while. The first thing I heard was Captain Al Fuentes' "Mayday." He was trapped. I remember people calling the command post and not getting an answer.
We couldn't see upward to tell if the building in which we were standing was damaged. I left it and made a loop around Liberty Street to get back to West Street and find the command post.
On our way, we heard the second collapse. The second dust cloud came. We waited it out.
Finally, I found the mobile command vehicle at the foot of West Street. A few fire department personnel were there, including people from communications. They told me the command post was at Park Row now. It turns out that that was the site where Deputy Chief Tom Haring had set up operations. He was commanding a lot of units at the east section of the collapse. Numerous companies called in for the third fifth-alarm assignment had come into Manhattan from the north and east and immediately began working with Chief Haring.
I eventually made my way to West and Vesey streets, where Assistant Chief Frank Fellini had established an operations command post and was directing the post-collapse rescue efforts. Further up West Street, at Chambers Street, Chief Frank Cruthers had set up incident command. I assumed command of the incident at that location.
The rescue effort was sectored naturally, based on the collapse geography. Units were operating in each quadrant; an experienced operations officer headed each sector. Numerous fires were burning—some so big that any one of them could have been the fire of the year. Our strategy was to keep the fires as controlled as we could to facilitate the search for live victims. We had no idea of how many people we had lost at that point.
The biggest decision we had to make on the first day was to clear the area and create a collapse zone around the severely damaged 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story building heavily involved in fire. A number of fire officers and companies assessed the damage to the building. The appraisals indicated that the building's integrity was in serious doubt.
I issued the orders to pull back the firefighters and define the collapse zone. It was a critical decision; we could not lose any more firefighters. It took a lot of time to pull everyone out, given the emotionalism of the day, communications difficulties, and the collapse terrain.
A water supply was established, and firefighters began trying to contain or extinguish fire in 4, 5, and 6 WTC, 90 West Street, and many other areas.
The search for Chief Ganci, Commissioner Bill Feehan, and others was ongoing.
Later in the evening, we had a few meetings with representatives of the various agencies that were setting up at the Office of Emergency Management command post at Stuyvesant Street.
I believe there have been some misconceptions surrounding the recall of FDNY off-duty personnel and mutual aid. There has been a lot of talk about chaos and about people operating in an undisciplined fashion. Well, if you take a five-firefighter truck company, and that truck responded with eight, you would say three are off duty. However, you could say that the truck responded with an officer and a chief. Usually, I would not want 10 members of a rescue company to respond. September 11, however, was not an ordinary day.
At the end of the firefighters' tours, there was a job to do. These firefighters did the right thing: Those coming off their tours and those coming on the job responded. We're the first line of defense in a war. Given the size and height of those towers, it would have taken many hours, without a collapse, to get up there and get perhaps hundreds of injured people down and out.
Although we want to limit our exposure in extreme circumstances such as those of 9-11, I would not consider the response undisciplined. Everyone knew who was in charge: They knew who was in charge of the towers; the battalion chiefs operated as a group with their companies, just as they do in a second alarm at a fire. That's why so many chiefs died—because they operated as a group.
We did not have much experience recalling personnel, even on a limited basis. A recall made a lot of sense. It was the right decision at the time. Knowing what we do now, we probably wouldn't call all our people back, because we would have to think about what we are going to do 12 hours from now, 24 hours for now, and so on.
I think it's critical that we implement a formal, structured system that will tell firefighters at the time they are recalled to work how and where to report. We need to make sure they know what they are to do. The objective is to change the mindset to ensure that the number of people who are riding are the number of people we expect.
Some off-duty firefighters had self-deployed to the scene. At any type of big incident, firefighters want to help—that's why they joined the fire department. It's against policy, but it's going to happen. I think the key is for us to ensure that these members are properly supervised.
Some accounts give the impression that people in deck shoes and flip-flops were responding up the stair towers. That wasn't the case.
We already changed our policy on how we operate as staff chiefs. Chief Sal Cassano and I are not rushing to the scene. Staff chiefs have been told to call here for their assignments. They will be told who should respond and who should not. The number of staff chiefs has been increased through the mayor's office.
Some of these changes will be structural and issued as written orders. Some of them will be done through instruction. Right now, the staff knows how to limit their exposure; the battalion chiefs will have to enforce the policies. The Navy doesn't put two pilots in a plane that needs only one.
Building codes can make the response safer. Codes have always been challenges to fire departments. I can't see why anyone should be beyond the reach of a code set by the municipality. In our city, I think people expect a uniform degree of safety in the buildings in which we live and work. The WTC had all the systems in place. When the building code was changed in the late 1960s, it became a different building code. The height of the building alone presents problems; there's always been a problem when the height of the building is taller than the ladder.
In retrospect, units called to and staged at the North Tower may not have made it past the South Tower collapse. For the future, staging areas should be established in locations appropriate for the nature of the incident.
I believe our people realized the situation that day. It's very rare that you go to a fire and think that you may not come back from this one. We're pretty confident in our abilities to do things. At this scene, many of our people felt they might be killed there, but they did their job anyway because there were people in such desperate need.
Afterwards, those who survived were just amazing in the way they worked that first night—the number of fires they extinguished, the searches (the recovery work went on until June 2002, until the last bit of concrete was removed). They were tireless. They tried to bring everybody home, and they brought everyone home they could. (Editor's note: At the time of this interview, the 200th member of FDNY was identified.) Our people showed what they are made of. It's been a difficult thing to deal with, and people continue to go into work facing these stories of continued terrorism, even in those cases when the locker they dress at formerly belonged to one of their brothers killed at the WTC.
"Some days, I still think this is Pete's office," Daniel Nigro says. "I turn the wrong way." Then he remembers that he's replaced Pete Ganci, the chief of department, who was killed on September 11.
At about 9:15 that morning, the two men stood at the command post on West Street. Nigro went to quickly circle 1 World Trade Center to assess the damage. Nigro and his aide were in the middle of Church Street when the South Tower started to come down. They took cover in the doorway of a Starbucks, on Dey Street. Nigro never saw Ganci again.—"The Smoldering Fires of 9/11," Chris Smith, New York Magazine, March 18, 2002
DANIEL NIGRO is a 33-year veteran of the Fire Department of New York. He was named chief of the department after it was confirmed that Chief of Department Peter Ganci had been killed at the World Trade Center. At the time of the World Trade Center incident, Nigro was chief of operations. He has worked in every field or administrative capacity and was involved in the FDNY-EMS merger.
"One thing that signaled to me that the department was going to be okay is that the next day, September 12, there was a fire on the West Side. Usually that's covered by 54 Engine, Ladder 4. But they'd lost 12 people. And I heard them come on the radio and say, 'We're available' instead of sitting in the kitchen thinking, 'Please don't call me.' Our firefighters, they're the best."—FDNY Chief of Department Dan Nigro, in "The Smoldering Fires of 9/11," Chris Smith, New York Magazine, March 18, 2002
Referencing this tiny little image I posted:
images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_j1WCY4T_2yI/RwQ_KcyCXBI/AAAAAAAAB-E/7Txpw64HEPo/s400/jpeg%2Bimage002.jpg%2Benlarged.jpg&imgrefurl=http://stevenwarran.blogspot.com/2007/10/ongoing-pentagon-insurance-scam-exposed.html&usg=__
on a blog here:
stevenwarran.blogspot.com/2007/10/ongoing-pentagon-insurance-scam-exposed.html
Now, I'm just a little war ran from Ransyvania, and I have no power against them from [stentoriously] MOUNTAIN VIEW CALIFORNIA... but, I'd just like to draw a little non-corporate attention to my little blog about corporate malfeasance
**
Give this video a click and listen to "the greatest Jewish entertainer after Billy Joel," to quote a recent comment posted there. The music will provide a soothing background to this blog, and I think you're going to need it. What---you want Barbra?
If Cantor Fitzgerald's CEO, Howard Lutnick, was tasked with the synthetic simulation cover role of "taking his child to his first day of kindergarten"---conceived as a sort of symmetrical mini-me moment to George Bush's My Pet Goat---then he was underrehearsed or the script got rewritten. Either that or the state of American journalism is so poor it is difficult to reconcile the intention behind the "truth" anymore.
Some bits of information are single-source, and found only in the foreign media. An article in The Spectator, Mar 15, 2003, by Inigo Thomas, for instance, provides the satisfying knowledge of a scheduled start time for school, when the locked gates are opened
"Howard Lutnick, like 11 employees who were sacked by Cantor the previous day, was lucky. On the morning of the 11th, he took his son Kyle to school; it was the first day of the fall term, and the gates of Horace Mann on the Upper East Side Manhattan's `Gold Coast' - didn't open until 8.45. There's a photograph in this book of father and son just before Kyle goes to class: the caption beneath it begins, `The last good day of my life.'"This lucky fact saved Lutnick's life, and Meryl Gordon, writing in New York Magazine, expands upon this luck factor in Howard Lutnick's Second Life,
"The luckiest people in New York? The twenty Cantor Fitzgerald staff members let go on Monday, September 10, most of whom have loyally returned to the firm."Luck has now been combined with loyalty, whatever the count. Is Thomas trying to pin things down here? Out of scores of media articles, nobody has clarified the usual start time to the work day at Cantor Fitzgerald. Was it 7:00am or 7:30am? Are the principles exempt? Why does Gordon report that 75 Cantor Fitzgerald technical-support-staff members were "alive only by luck; their workday at 1 World Trade Center started at 9 a.m." That wouldn't be luck at all, which implies divine chance, but rather, a schedule or routine implies fate at man's hands.
KING: ...Howard Lutnick. We began by asking Howard how many people he lost.I can see how saying 700 could be misheard for 1,700, but 17 thousand must be a transcription error. I can't check it since the actual interview tape can't be found anywhere on the web, which is odd in the age of YouTube.
HOWARD LUTNICK, CHAIRMAN & CEO, CANTOR FITZGERALD: It's over 17,000. I just can't -- actually can't look at the number. I can't get an exact number because I don't want to.
KING: Now, tell us, you were supposed to be at work, but what happened?
LUTNICK: It was my -- my 5-year-old had his first day of kindergarten, so I had dropped him off at (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Kindergarten, and it was his first day of big-boy school. And then I went -- so I was a little late getting down to the office.
KING: Where were you when all this hit?
LUTNICK: Just leaving the -- just leaving the school. And...
KING: How did you hear about it?
LUTNICK: Just my phone rang, and they said, you know, the building was hit by a plane, and I was thinking it was sort of like a -- a small, like a Piper Cub or something like that. So I got in the car and started driving down the left side trying to get there as fast as I could. And I could see the smoke from downtown, and I was --I just had to get there. CNN.com - Transcripts
"First, for just a little recap, Howard, where were you that morning?His third appearance on Larry King, exactly one year later to the day, was a book tour interview of Lutnick and his hired hagiographer, his college tennis teammate, Tom Barbash. Larry King stays on message, repeating three times in one question. "first day of school."
HOWARD LUTNICK, CEO, CANTOR FITZGERALD: I took my son to his first day of kindergarten. It was his first day of school, so I took him up to school and dropped him off, and then was heading down to the office.
KING: How did you hear about it?
LUTNICK: Well, I had a call in the school that someone was looking for me, and then I -- and then someone said a plane had hit the Trade Center, so I went running downstairs and jumped in the car and started going downtown to the Trade Center.
And then when I was in the car I could see the smoke coming out of the building on the way down. CNN.com - Transcripts
KING: There is an incredible photo in the book, taken at 8:45 a.m. 9/11. Howard has just taken his son, Kyle, to his first day at kindergarten at Horace Mann. The first day of school. At 8:46, American Flight 11 bound for L.A. from Boston tore into the north side of the WTC Tower. The picture was just a memento of his first day, Howard?With Lutnick a trustee, or on the board of directors of the Horace Mann school, these private conversations with higher level administrators sound entre nous and sotto voci---and really suspicious. From one news article, I had pictured him with a Miss Beasley-type, well-born and earnest, a Princess Di from Armonk perhaps, with all the parents sitting around a circle clapping hands, trying not to get sticky.
LUTNICK: Sure. The classic first-day photo, my son with his, you know, wet hair around his ears, standing on his backpack right in front of the school. And I kneeled down next to him to take that picture, and basically that was the moment that saved my life, and my boys know that they saved my life by taking them to school.
KING: And refresh our memory. How did you learn of the tragedy?
LUTNICK: Well, as I walked him upstairs to his first day of kindergarten, my phone beeped, and you know, I couldn't get a signal. And then, the school administrator said, "Mr. Lutnick, there's a call for you." And I picked up the phone, and it was Jimmy Mayo, my driver who features in the book quite a bit. And he said, "A plane has hit the building." And I'm thinking Piper Cub.
And so, I run down the stairs and get in the car, and we drive right to the building. And I get to stand in the door [???] of the building, grabbing people as they come out, and of course, then Tower Two falls. If Tower One falls, I'm not on this program, but because Tower Two fell, and I ran from that tornado of smoke and I was maybe 20 yards from it, and it engulfed me. And then, you know, all of this is in the book, but also everybody else's views of exactly what happened are in the book as well. CNN.com - Transcripts
"Howard and Allison were perched on child-size chairs in their son's classroom when both their cell phones rang and then died. Howard was summoned by a school staff member to the lobby, where he learned from his driver, Maio, that a plane had hit the Trade Center. "I ran upstairs to Allison -- 'I got to go, I got to go.' " She ran with him to the car, saying, "Should I go with you?" "No," he insisted. "You stay."Stay? How about "go home?" But I can't tell what's propelling this sequence forward. Is he afraid his cell-phone bill might be subpoenaed? It never bothered Ted Olsen!
"This Sept. 11 happened to be the first day of kindergarten for his daughter, Casey."Has Horace Mann made September 11th into a national holiday for launching the educations of scions and heirs? Well then---how appropriate. September 11 fell on a Monday in 2006, and on a Friday this year. Is there a standard start to the school year? Could somebody do an analysis, going back at least two decades, to see if the start dates and times haven't been altered or manipulated for some---unknown---reason. September 11 always falls after the Labor Day at least---anywhere from four to ten days afterward, if that spread is relevant.
A very relevant fact is that Cantor Fitzgerald was in the process of downsizing its bond trading staff by 800 before 9-11 hit, as its proprietary digital technology was advanced. 500 bond traders had already been let go, with another 300 or so to go after the switchover to fully electronic trading took place, which happened on September 13, 2001. Coincidentally, the 800 figure was almost exactly the number who "died" on 9-11."Although much is made of the family-like nature of Cantor Fitzgerald, it was, and still is, a hard-nosed business. Nearly 500 people had lost their jobs before Sept. 11, and 300 more were about to be axed, made obsolete by the success of their electronic bond-trading network, said Peter DaPuzzo, co-president of equities."But were they laying off just bond traders in the restructuring before 9-11?
Knight Ridder
Heidi Olson, now chief administrative officer for equities, had left Cantor when the firm downsized just before the attacks; she came back to work the next day. BarbashAlthough Tom Barbash doesn't specify, I believe the high-level Olson was let go on the Monday, and rehired on the Wednesday. Business Wire reported on Nov. 6, 2001, that 'Cantor Continues to Appoint New Senior Management,' naming Stephen M. Bliss as a co-head of the NASDAQ/ OTC stock trading business. Informing readers, without apparent self-consciousness, that
"Mr. Bliss rejoins Cantor's equities business after leaving in May 2001...Steve's rejoining the firm gave the team a sense of continuity in Cantor's relationships and way of doing business," said Philip Marber, head of Cantor's U.S. equities business.Did he quit in May, or was he laid off? What did Bliss do for those three summer months between May and September? In a November 12, 2001 USAToday article, Cantor battles back from tragedy, by Noelle Knox, Lutnick plays his new hand, telling us God dealt it to him
"Bond trading had been shifting to electronic trading even before the attacks, and Lutnick says it is "unlikely" he will replace his bond brokers. "We are not going to try to get back to who we were," he says. "We are going to take the cards that have been dealt to us. Take the assets we still have, which are incredible, and just play a different way."It was fortuitous that since the future pointed to eSpeed, Cantor's electronic trading program, the right people were spared
"Six of eSpeed's top technology executives, including [Matthew] Claus, [chief technology officer] had planned to go on an annual, 1-day fishing trip that day. The trip was canceled because of bad conditions on the Atlantic — but not until 8 a.m. All six were on their way to the office when the planes hit the towers, killing President Frederick Varacchi and 125 other eSpeed employees.It was also lucky that Richard Breeden, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, served on the board of eSpeed, lest the government bond market, vital to national security, be disrupted.
"The six executives headed straight to the firm's New Jersey location and started rerouting the trading network. They worked around the clock, napping on the floor. One slept with his head propped on an upside-down coffee cup. When the bond markets reopened Sept. 13, eSpeed was up and running."
"To the awe of Wall Street and government regulators, Cantor was able to get the company's U.S. eSpeed operations -- a crucial link in the Treasury markets -- up and running two days after the attack.Writing on September 30, 2001, less than a month after the attacks, Maureen Fan of the Knight Ridder Tribune chain, proves she has a good ear for business dynamics
"eSpeed -- the publicly traded division of the privately held Cantor -- is actually expected to be profitable in the fourth quarter. [of 2001] That day, eSpeed stock soars more than 20 percent, almost reaching its pre-September 11 level." Gordon
"It's a funny group of people in the sense that they're hardened," said Peter Ryan, a managing director at Credit Lyonnais Securities. "It's a tough business and you have to have a thick veneer to survive in that environment."
"The company's backup system in Rochelle Park, N.J., kicked in almost immediately after the attack and would have continued to hum if bond trading had not been suspended. Two days later, Cantor's electronic-broker system was up and running an hour before the bond market cranked up again, thanks to the all-night efforts of the company's surviving technology whizzes."
"Cantor Fitzgerald was not the only hard-hit firm, but few were as tightly knit. A private partnership, the firm often hired the friends and family of existing employees. "This is such a close-knit firm, the salesmen usually knew the color of their client's houses," DaPuzzo said. "We have many sons of standing members of the Security Traders Association working for us," he added. "Nepotism makes our industry work because we know that if the father or mother is good, you know the son or daughter is good in this business." "Former employees have returned to help out." Victimized company tries to get on with businessTo give other names to this power phenomena: mafia family [the Department of Defense comes to mind,] band of brothers, [firemen,] closed-shop construction companies [Pentagon contractors, Tully et al,] secret societies [Skull and Bones, Trogdor] affinity groups [BCO, VLV, Williamsboard] fraternal initiation orders, [Freemasonry, spoonies,] Clansmen, Amalgamated or Benefit Association, Oddfellows, [politicians] or Order of Mutual Protection League [I'll dump federal workers in here.] All of these centers of power are based on the keeping of the immoral immortal secrets, thus are diametrically at odds with the general application of the Golden Rule. I'd like to see them deconstructed since they corrupt and spoil our society's future. [I haven't yet mentioned "the Jews," who also have tribal loyalties down to a art form.]
"Two things allow me to communicate with my employees," he says. "I was there, and I lost my brother."But there is no proof Lutnick was where he says he was, covered in white dust after the first tower's collapse. The two talking points that are repeated in every interview---"I lost my brother," and, "I was taking my son to his first day of school," are here joined by a third credential---"I was there."
"I crawl under a truck -- no, it's smaller than a truck -- it's like an S.U.V. I don't crawl all the way underneath because I'm afraid that something will fall and crush me under the truck. Of course, I don't think that if something falls and I'm not under the truck I'll get crushed anyway. This is not like a clever thing. So I'm halfway under the S.U.V."This is poor story telling and bad lying and it's not off-the-cuff at that. In a Feb. 2, 2003, review by Rob Walker in the New York Times of the Lutnick/Barbash Cantor history, On Top Of the World, this all seems anticipated, as we are told Lutnick walks uptown to the Upper West Side apartment of the newly widowed wife of his best friend Doug---Jennifer Gardner
Lutnick understood, Tom Barbash writes in ''On Top of the World,'' ''that the fact that he wasn't in the building, even if it was to bring his son to his first day of kindergarten, will be a complicated thing for some people to accept." Lutnick is still covered with dust, and "he needs for her [Jennifer Gardner] to see him this way---not when he's cleaned up, and not when his mind is occupied with saving the company."Walker points out the oddity of this attitude
It's worth pausing, then, over the presence of mind that Barbash attributes to his college friend -- just hours after the disaster, Lutnick is thinking about how he "needs" people to see him, and about the business"Presence of mind" is a fair euphemism for foreknowledge. But in any case, this narrative is in conflict with the story Lutnick told in different New York Times article on September 15, 2001, Flinty Bond Trader Leads His Firm Out of the Rubble, by Diana B. Henriques, and Jennifer 8. Lee
"Armed with that news, Mr. Lutnick walked on -- 44 blocks in all -- to Mr. Merkel's home on Jane Street, a quiet old lane just south of 14th Street near the Hudson River. Another survivor was found, David Kravette, 40, who had gone to the lobby just before the attack to escort a visitor. Together, they walked more than two miles to Mr. Lutnick's apartment on the Upper East Side and immediately began making and receiving calls to try to trace missing workers."There isn't much room for plausible deniability when you're yoked to your fellow Musketeers. For the official history to have failed to reconcile the plot with this early, primary-source story telling is a gaff of gargantuan proportion.
"I needed my bankers to know that I was in control," Lutnick says. "That I wasn't sentimental and that I was no less motivated or driven to make my business survive."It was a shock-and-awe war plan, but Lutnick got sentimental real quick when the negative publicity threatened to sink his, and his banker's, newly restructured enterprise. But even in advance of December, 2001, one banker seem happy
"He schmoozes on the phone with a pleased major investor, then takes a call from an Orthodox Jewish family distraught over their son's missing remains. "I know, I know, I'm just like you," he says, his voice cracking. He is still waiting for DNA tests to tell him that his brother, Gary, is really gone."An article titled '47 Hours,' in Baseline Magazine December 2001, tells an in-depth story of Cantor's rush to return their online business to service within two days, working out of their Rochelle Park, New Jersey backup facility. A problem presents itself here however, inasmuch as one of the authors of the piece is Edward Cone, who was one of the Four Musketeers from Lutnick's Haverford College days, the other two being the recently deceased Cantor colleagues Calvin Gooding and Douglas Gardner, and so Cone was an even closer friend of Lutnick's than Tom Barbash.
But Howard Lutnick, Cantor's chairman and chief executive, was alive. He had taken his son to kindergarten and was running behind his usual schedule. Being a good dad saved his life on a morning when 658 of his employees died, including his brother, Gary, and his close friends Calvin and Doug. Calvin and Doug and Howard and I went to Haverford College. Doug became a vice-chair, Calvin a partner.
A former colleague of mine at Forbes, who wrote a scathing article about Cantor a few years ago, appeared on "20/20" this fall to question Howard's integrity. Before he went on the air he called me to ask if I thought Howard was faking his tears.It's funny to read that you don't read about something as you're reading about it. It would be easier to trust Cone's veracity if he didn't work so hard at defending Lutnick--especially when the facts are difficult to digest. Like the jaw-dropping altruism on display by eSpeed's competitors, in the Baseline Magazine article:
This about a man fresh from his brother's funeral, who stood up to eulogize his best friend, Doug, just five days after the attack. I shared the lectern with him in front of 1,100 mourners at Calvin's funeral, and I felt the genuine emotion in his words. People don't read about the time he spends with Doug's 5-year-old son, and the comfort he and his family provide for Calvin's widow. It seems absurd to have to defend the notion that this man who had lost his partners and his staff and the fairy-tale life he had willed into being is sincere in his grief.
"The second problem, of fulfilling trades, was more difficult to resolve. Although Noviello's team was able to restore some of the applications that handle the financial back-office functions of the trading system, it was unable to reproduce the settlement system for all of eSpeed’s products at the Rochelle Park site. Without being able to clear or settle transactions, eSpeed would be unable to open for business.I think this scenario is illogical in the extreme, not only in that ADP would do it, but that they could effect such a maneuver without advanced knowledge and planning. From the Gordon New York magazine article:
"Here, help arrived in the form of one of eSpeed's competitors, ICI/ADP, [Automatic Data Processing, Inc./Information Catalysts Incorporated,] another electronic trading company, offered to take care of eSpeed’s clearing and settling of transactions through its own connection to banks. By Wednesday night, the eSpeed team had mapped its financial back-office system to ADP’s system, and had successfully sent test transactions to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and other banks.
"ADP got the back-office component hooked up overnight, Compaq delivered 100 desktop computers at 2 a.m. on Wednesday and Verizon expedited the installation of voice lines and the transfer of some of eSpeed’s digital circuits."
"They are furiously fighting off competitors who would feed on the firm's misfortune."The reference above to Forbes Magazine may refer to an article by Paul Maidment, 'Electronic Future Of Cantor Fitzgerald' from October 5, 2001, which has a few scathing things to say about Lutnick:
"The business of bond traders is people fighting for one hundredth of a penny," Breeden says."
"Howard Lutnick, who is eSpeed's chief executive officer and Cantor Fitzgerald's chairman, confirmed to analysts on Oct. 4 that the group's electronic technology platform was "completely intact," but that most of its telephone brokers did not survive the devastation.The truth scathes if you let it. Like when you have an over-abundancy of redundancy with three data centers. Then when one is lost, and you still stick with just the two, to me, by not replacing the third center, it implies foreknowledge of the upcoming loss of one of them.
As a result, Cantor Fitzgerald, which operates the leading interbroker-dealer exchange for U.S. Treasuries, has halted its traditional voice trading of bonds and is conducting its business for now through its electronic arms: eSpeed for fixed income products and TradeSpark, which deals in energy products.
"While the Cantor Fitzgerald voice brokerage operation has ceased, eSpeed's fully electronic market for U.S. Treasuries has been virtually unimpaired," Lutnick
said.
ESpeed, which was spun off from Cantor Fitzgerald in December 1999--six months after being set up--and lost $3.3 million in revenue of $66 million in the six months to June 30, will also not replace its lost World Trade Center data center, but operate instead from its other existing centers in London and Rochelle Park, New Jersey."
"Lutnick and Barbash spoke at Cantor's temporary headquarters in midtown, where Lutnick's office decor includes fragments of Rodin sculptures salvaged from the trade center ruins, relics of the collection amassed by the firm's founder, Bernie Cantor."In a disaster leaving no bodies, or body parts even, where not a single file cabinet was to be found afterward, collectible fragments of bronze art works could be salvaged and put on display. Even more incredible, the New York Times tells us a nearly complete work of art was located. In Born of Hell, Lost After Inferno; Rodin Work From Trade Center, a 28"cast of Rodin's "Dante's: The Thinker,'' was found '
There's extraordinary symbolism, isn't there,'' said John L. Tancock, a vice president at Sotheby's auction house and the former curator of the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia. ''They have survived in this state, and it can be viewed as an inspirational story.''But the Times' reports that city investigators believe the sculpture may have been stolen, after having been recovered by a firefighter at the disaster site late last year. But since
"the Cantor Fitzgerald bond trading firm and its chairman, Howard W. Lutnick, have refused to discuss in any depth the loss of its art collection."it is difficult to pin down whether this is a case of a firemen looting, or of art collectors indulging in insurance fraud (and double-dipping in the bargain, if the art had been rescued in advance of September 11th, which would be my theory.)
"Practically twice a day for weeks, the building has been evacuated because of bomb scares phoned in by some apparent wacko targeting Warburg. It's not helping Cantor's traumatized employees, though it has produced some darkly funny moments."Somebody's got a hard on for Howard. If you think my analysis is too far out to be true, let me say---you haven't seen anything yet. Be prepared for when the face of evil shows itself. It is far worse than anything you can imagine. That's why we were willing to sleepwalk for so long, and like little children, pull the covers over our heads and cry.
Poor little Howard Lutnick. Such a heavy PR load he has to carry. I thought I'd Google his brother Gary's name in parentheses to see if he was picking up any of the slack.
Howard couldn't give an interview for months without mentioning at least two talking points: 1) he took his son to his first day of school, and 2) he lost his brother Gary in the Towers that morning. If there was time he would mention Cuba, pardon me, Calvin Gooding, and his "best friend," Doug Gardner. The basketball court and the Integrated Athletic Center.
We hear the name Gary Lutnick mentioned hundreds of times, but we never learn anything about the young martyr. Other than a brief New York Times profile of Gary, which isn't developed much beyond toys, video games and jet skis, it's almost as if Gary Lutnick didn't really exist---as though he were a phantom.
But look---he had a girlfriend. On October 29, 2001, she's interviewed on Larry King Live, where she plays his last telephone message to her, left as he's supposedly roasting to death on the 105th floor of the North tower. She's the last of eleven guests on that evening's show. Oh my. She does have a haughty tone. Works for the Duchess of York's personal charity, we are told. Would that be Weight Watchers by any chance dear?
One blind date, "and it was, I think, fate, because there was a horrible snowstorm and Gary got snowed in for three days. So we had a long first date, and it got very serious very quickly. .." Nice. Very nice.
Snow storm in New England. But then Larry King goes and spoils the archetype with a non sequitur
KING: "So serious that you were converting to Judaism, right?"What, Larry! Was Gary whacked with a shofar?
But you lying, thieving lizard-livered, malicious misfits: Ann de Sollar has only six Google Entries! NOTHING BEYOND THE LARRY KING INTERVIEW! SHE IS A MADE_UP CODE: ANN OF THE DOLLARS!
And we can know where the Duchess of York connection comes from. Did Sarah provide the bona fides to pass muster with the CNN producers? Larry King was obviously briefed. So who's going to take the fall for this one? The Media or the Duchess, I wonder?Was it a narrative dud? Do bears shit in the woods?
Its caption reads:
"A firefighter places an American flag on his firetruck. The flag was found undamaged inside the Pentagon after a hijacked airliner crashed into the building, Sept. 11, 2001. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Jason Ingersoll" LinkUm, excuse me, but why is this fireman stealing government property? Next thing you know it'll be stacks of Levi's jeans. And who is Rudi Williams?
["Defend America: U.S. Department of Defense News About the War on Terrorism Photo Essays Remembering 9/11]
"A National Guard military policeman stands guard in a Pentagon hallway to prevent people from entering the darkened area behind him that leads to the site where a hijacked airliner crashed into the building, Sept. 11, 2001. Defense Dept. photo by Rudi Williams" LinkThe Esquire Magazine article from September 2003, by Tom Junod that was the basis of this 2006 documentary video of the same name, is further evidence that all who participated in the narrative of 9/11 are co-conspirators to the central crime of the Big Lie. Tasked with the production, simulation, and dissemination of a fearful product, upon which their lizard masters sup and feast, it is now coming into focus that there are no elements outside the paradigm---no light for any contrast or highlighting. It is time we form ranks in opposition to this inhuman agenda of ritualistic and sacrificial murder, and shine the light of truth on these abysmal scenes.
*
*
No other rational begins to make sense of the depravity afoot in the 9/11 drama, and in its aftermath--with a million dead in the illegal and immoral wars that stemmed from it, when two of the western world's religions ganged up on an innocent third shoot of Abraham. Fear and torture are now leading us into the threat of famine and pestilence---all of it in the name of a politics not of this planet.
There are many names associated with this film, a list ripe for the tumbrels, for the dockets, and for the tribunals---so let them be warned. Are they NSA or CIA, FEMA, or maybe Mossad? We know them as merely good enough for government work; soft in the belly. It is a center that will not hold.
Unbelievable for me personally is Eric Lipton from the New York Times revealing his shadow government allegiances, and his bias for the official story, a version which any third-grader could easily debunk at this stage. He attempts to lend his company's stature to the story, much like Popular Mechanics did some time ago. He and the Times can expect to be brought down low by this. Is Lipton Jewish? Is his heart really in Zion? Listen to the tone of his voice as he explicates some of "the physics" from that day
"The plane hit the North tower in a very central way, resulting in the fuel from the wings pouring into the building itself. The fuel, and the fire that was created in the instant that it hit, spread so far that the people standing in the lobby were burned from the fireball that came out of the elevator shaft. And you can see the smoke coming out from all the way up above Windows on the World within minutes of the impact."Every bit of it is synthetic nonsense: the magical properties of fuel-filled jet wings slicing like a hot knife through the butter of the trade tower's heavy structural steel exterior facades, then pouring down non-continuous shafts, to puddle explosively at the base.
"The fire continued to spread, burning up the furniture, and office papers and the combustible materials throughout the buildings and, and, the tower itself became like a chimney, sending the smoke up towards the top of the tower. And as time passed the, the situation became desperate."
"There was a long period of time when people were, you know, just hanging out by the windows, waving things. You saw one man just, you know, waving a long white---is it a tablecloth?---it's not clear."
I tried to keep an open, if skeptical, mind as I watched the video, but late in the show I felt an epiphany--- as the manipulation of watching the entire descent of the Falling Man---27 seconds worth of twisting and turning, from the 1:06:58 mark, where we first see him make his appearance somewhere from within the level of charred floors, to the 1:07:25 mark, when his landing is hidden behind the screen that dissolves into white light. What the good-looking researcher, Andrew Chaikivsky, has are contacts in high places with their hands on the film. The necrophiliacs will have their prurient interests indulged with this one."It had to be so intense up there and there was no other way out, that it was either burn alive, or go quickly. I envisioned that it had to be The Towering Inferno, and from the photos I saw, it obviously was. Who knows how much smoke was in there---do you suffocate to death, or do you jump? I think it was brave to do that. When the media started posting photographs then I started searching to see if Karen was one of those jumpers. After awhile it just became an obsession with me. I was so intense on just finding something. I found some photos in my search that I think was Karen jumping. I know it's her because of the clothes, the shape---I would know her from her shadow. She had a blue sweater-top on, sleeveless, and cream-colored pants. If you look at the pictures that I have, I mean, that's what I see. It wasn't painful for some reason. It really wasn't. I finally have, you know, something to hold to you. This is where she was and this is how she died---she jumped. She didn't burn up, she didn't become dust. Nothing is more painful than losing her, but not knowing how I lost her was even more painful. So now, that I believe, that's what took place, it's not painful for me to talk about it. And if she jumped, she jumped.""Karen Pecorella" is not listed in any of the many list's of victims of that day, so if she went by a different last name, Richard is being remiss, if not outright deceitful here. But my real problem with Pecorella's story is that the woman he identifies as his wife, is a central figure, whom we see in the most common photographs showing workers gathered in the windows in the north face of the north tower. A large woman standing fully in and partly outside of a window, wearing white pants and a dark blue sleeveless top, she occupies the fourth position from the right in the top row. It would not take an obsessive search to find her in the public record by any stretch of the imagination, Details like this matter a great deal in my book.
Another protagonist in the film is Jack Gentul, whose wife was found in the street outside of the south tower. If that is a trustworthy statement (and the forensic evidence, on average, is NOT to be trusted,) it may mean the Gentul's are legitimate victims of that day. Everyone seems so "media ready," and "on" that it's hard to take them seriously. It doesn't help to determine what the status is of Richard and Karen Pecorella, we can just know that his story is not the truth.The phone rang and it was my friend Bill, and he said, um, do you know what's going on at the World Trade Center, and I said no. He knew that Elaine worked there---we'd been friends for many years. He said, well, a plane hit the north tower, and I knew Elaine worked in the south tower, so I said, well, you know, that's horrible, but let me see what I can find out. My secretary came in and told me that Elaine was on the phone. The first thing I said was, "well, thank God you're OK," and she said, "well, not really." And she told me that smoke was coming into the room, it was coming through the vents, and that, um, there had been an explosion beneath them---she didn't know a plane had hit.The main body of the video consists of identifying the Falling Man from within the crew of restaurant workers working that morning at Windows on the World. We are told that 170 people died there on 9/11---79 of those were employees.
I know that Elaine was found on the street. in front of the building across from hers. So, whether she jumped or fell, I don't know. I believe she was alive when it happened because of that phone call. I hoped that she had succumbed to the smoke but it doesn't seem likely. It's something I can't know. In some ways it might just be the last element of control that you have. Everything around you is happening and you can't stop it. But this is something that you can do. And to be out of the smoke and the heat, and to be out in the air---it must have felt like, fine.
The thought that her father could have jumped had a profound [negative] psychological effect on Norberto's youngest daughter, Tatiana, 13 years old at the time.Norborto's widow doesn't bother with logic
"We were together for nearly 30 years and I can put myself in his situation. There's a fire. I'm on the 107 floor. I'm not going to jump through the window, because I'm thinking, and I know what he was thinking. He was thinking of me, his daughters, his grandchildren, and his mother. I'm not going to jump. I'm going to try to escape anyway possible. Down the staircase---anyway. But the last thing I would do is jump out of the window."While his daughter, Catherine's position is equally script written rather than heartfelt,
"He would never put us aside for anybody, I mean, he was, he was our main guy---my father."This is all for naught as, as soon as the family agrees to actually look at the images they determine categorically that the man depicted falling in them could not be Norberto. So much for plot development.
"I'll say it like this: once a person has committed suicide their soul automatically goes to hell, no questioning. We weren't the most religious family, but we had our beliefs and we went to church, and so, by your calling him the jumper, you're kind of saying his soul is damned. You're telling me he's in hell. I think that's mostly what got to my mom. That's what got to me too."
"Many of them had worked there for years, which created an unusual camaraderie. That family had been devastated on September 11th when 79 of its members had perished."The narrator, Steven Mackintosh, heightens the drama, telling us that after five years of refusing to participate, the executive chef relents.
"Then---a breakthrough. The chef, Michael Lomonaco agreed to look at the photos. A few days later, over lunch, he met with the researcher who had with him the pictures, and the names that refused to go away."The researcher, Andrew Chaikivsky, is CIA handsome, and he doesn't take Lomonaco to a dump for lunch. Lomonaco looks at the pictures, with Chaikivsky saying
"No, it can't be Charlie Moore; it can't be Wilber; ah, what about junior---no, it can't be junior; um, what about Jonathan? And he stopped. Michael took a real close look---it took awhile for him to be ready for him to speak with me about that."Jonathan Briley, was a sound engineer who looked after conferences and functions at the restaurant. Lomonaco, the chef says
"Jonathan fit the body type, the size, coloration, of the person in that photograph, and it left the door open for me that there was a possibility that it really was Jonathan. Which having known Jonathan, and really admired and liked him, and I just thought he was a terrific person---a good, a good guy. A hardworking, dedicated, good guy, with a great sense of humor and a person who embodied...an individual that I, I could call a friend and respect---offered me no comfort to think, "oh, that's Jonathan.Lomonaco's sentiments sound disembodied. He can sound even more like a fraudster
"If it is Jonathan, I can only feel so bad, for him having to have suffered the way he did, and um, you know, I...I miss him. He, he was somebody that I would have liked to have known forever."Well, you can feel bad if he suffered, but you would know if he suffered or not.
"When I first looked at it, [the photographs] it was almost like touching a hot stove...you just...your mind just co..ah...I looked at the figure, and I saw that it was a man, tall, slim. Wow. I looked at it and said, if I didn't know any better---that could be Jonathan."We never learn Gwendolyn's last name in the film, but the Internet Movie Database helpfully tells us she is Gwendolyn Briley-Strand, and she can be subconsciously in very poor taste
"Jonathan---Jonathan Eric Briley was this person that just loved life, and it was contagious, so that when you were around him you couldn't help but smilingIs this another freakish religious cult-family who ritualistically handled a family member. Was Jonathan wayward I wonder?
and laughing. Every time that Jonathan comes to mind, he's walking and he's talking, and he's smiling, and he had this bounce in his step. He was one of these special people who could spread himself around the whole family, and we all got, our piece of Jonathan.
"In the days after the attack, the Briley's waited for his return. A phone call, anything. As the days past, their hopes of finding him alive faded. Reverend Briley gathered the family together in prayer."Gwendolyn Briley-Strand, talking about her father, the reverend
"He talked to God like someone who absolutely knew that he existed, he said, I believe you can create a miracle. I want my miracle. I have loved you, I do love you, I believe you, I have served you, I want to know where my son is. The next day we got a phone call from the coroner, said to come down---they found Jonathan. We knew where he was. That was a gift. That was a gift from God.But then the narrator spoils everything with an errant detail:
"The coroner's office identified Jonathan through DNA and dental analysis. Jonathan's younger brother Timothy had the painful experience of confirming the identification."How any visual identification could be made of the remains is a gross misreading of evnts. Gwendolyn Briley-Strand elaborates
"Timothy recognized his shoes and his hands, he said, he said, 'I would know my brothers hands and his feet.' He took one of his shoes and he kept it. They were black tennis shoes, lace up and then they had that Velcro thing around the ankle. I didn't remember anything about an orange tee-shirt, but when I talked with Timothy, he did. He talked about how Jonathan had this orange tee-shirt and they would tease him because he wore it all the time."But again, a major detail is at odds in the narrative. In Tom Junod's September 2003, Esquire article, "Falling Man," we are told it was the FBI who called with news--not the coroner's office. Put yourself in their shoes---wouldn't you remember it was the FBI who called?
"Jonathan Briley's father is a preacher, a man who has devoted his whole life to serving the Lord. After September 11, he gathered his family together to ask God to tell him where his son was. No: He demanded it. He used these words: "Lord, I demand to know where my son is." For three hours straight, he prayed in his deep voice, until he spent the grace he had accumulated over a lifetime in the insistence of his appeal.It is highly doubtful that Jonathan's body would survive intact an 100-story fall. Nor could it, I should think, be identified by DNA testing in so short a time frame. Maybe Timothy can make an identification based a snickers, if he stays current with his married brother's footwear, but it seems odd for him to be so assured.
"The next day, the FBI called. They'd found his son's body. It was, miraculously, intact.
"The preacher's youngest son, Timothy, went to identify his brother. He recognized him by his shoes: He was wearing black high-tops. Timothy removed one of them and took it home and put it in his garage, as a kind of memorial."
"I never thought of the Falling Man as Jonathan. I thought of him as a man who just took his life in his hands for just that second. Did that person have so much faith that he knew that God would catch him, or was he so afraid to experience the end up there? That's something I'll never know because that happened to him. I hope we're not trying to figure out who he is, and figure out more who we are through watching that."The narrator's summation is about knowing what you don't know
"Tom Junod could never be certain that Jonathan Briley was the Falling Man, but he'd learned something far more important from Gwendolyn. The man's identity didn't matter. The power of the image came not because the man could be identified, but because he couldn't."This is a terrible thing to say about "the most photographed and videotaped day in history." An event with an almost complete dearth of captions identifying victims and rescuers, which is the normal job of action photo-journalism. So wwhy wasn't 9/11 normal?
Soon to be out of a job. Technology doing you in. Another job isn't going to be easy to find when you're an anachronism in a corrupt field---especially one as corrupted as government bonds. You're 37---not young, but not old enough to die yet either.
How many of these victims went to conservative Catholic colleges? 'College of the Holy Cross' in this case. It can't be an accident of geography---or upper-middle-class Long Island/New Jersey ethnic striving---so if it's a nexus it must be the Jesuits. I guess then, it goes without saying that the 'abbey' part of Portsmouth Abbey School is not vestigial.
And how many of these nearing-middle-aged men appear to have never wed or fathered children? In those cases, they also seem often to be fit and trim too. [And I know a beard when I see one. Look at the interesting sentence construction behind, "tradition of life at his family home in Sea Girt," Did somebody say "traditional family values?"]
I just remembered! I have a first cousin from the Chicago area who I wasn't very close to growing up, who, as a paper boy for the Tribune, won a scholarship to go to prep school in Connecticut (Pomfret, I think,) and then went to work for Cantor in the 80's, but left before 2001. His was a very Catholic background.
I invited him to my 25th birthday party in 1982 when he first started living in Brooklyn, which was his first exposure to my "life style," and he avoided me like the plague ever afterward. His father subsequently didn't snub me so much as run away terrified whenever he saw me. Cousin, interestingly, never married, got fat, and joined AA---but at least he had the moral guts to quit Cantor, if not live out any of his other truths.
None of this feels organic any longer. (Contest?! Prep school?! Chicago Tribune?!) If you succeeded at a place like Cantor, you did so at the expense of your soul, be it Jewish or Catholic. Case closed. The exciting ferment in the environment that everybody stresses as I read the obituary pages is the tumult of evil. Not necessarily apparent when first starting out in a career, but universally the whole point of the exercise by their end: it is a test. Will we corrupt or not, and to what degree,
I had my test at age 22, and for all these years I thought I'd failed it. I can see now that I passed with flying colors. My mom passed hers too, around 1982.
Ed Brennan
Date of Birth: April 28, 1964
Department: Government Bonds
Position: Vice President
Edward A. "Ted" Brennan, III was born on April 28, 1964 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The oldest of four children, he grew up in Sea Girt, New Jersey at the Jersey Shore, a place Ted loved, was so proud of, and where his parents still reside.
Ted graduated from Portsmouth Abbey School in 1982 and the College of the Holy Cross in 1986. Following graduation he began his career on Wall Street at Drexel Burnham Lambert, and for the last eleven years was a Vice President, Institutional Broker and Salesman at Cantor Fitzgerald. Like so many others at Cantor, Ted survived the 1993 WTC bombing by running down 105 floors to safety. He formed very close bonds with his co-workers, and thoroughly enjoyed life in New York City where he kept an apartment on the East Side. Almost every day after work he and John Farrell were off to the gym to work out.
What he cherished most though was the comfort and tradition of life at his family home in Sea Girt, New Jersey. Ted took great joy in the things that filled his days - time spent with his family, friends, and his fiancee Meghan Daly, several rounds on the golf course, and working out at the gym. Ted was fully committed to all of it, from the countless hours spent perfecting his golf game to his unwavering devotion to those he loved.
Ted embraced life and people recognized that. His sharp mind and quick wit made him magnetic, people just liked being around Ted. We will remember and love him forever.
Is not the message---if even spelled properly. The real message is behind the scrim message. Look behind to see it.
Action from principle -- the perception and the performance of right -- changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.
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If Cantor Fitzgerald's CEO, Howard Lutnick, was tasked with the synthetic simulation cover role of "taking his child to his first day of kindergarten"---conceived as a sort of symmetrical mini-me moment to George Bush's My Pet Goat---then he was underrehearsed or the script got rewritten. Either that or the state of American journalism is so poor it is difficult to reconcile the intention behind the "truth" anymore.
Some bits of information are single-source, and found only in the foreign media. An article in The Spectator, Mar 15, 2003, by Inigo Thomas, for instance, provides the satisfying knowledge of a scheduled start time for school, when the locked gates are opened
"Howard Lutnick, like 11 employees who were sacked by Cantor the previous day, was lucky. On the morning of the 11th, he took his son Kyle to school; it was the first day of the fall term, and the gates of Horace Mann on the Upper East Side Manhattan's `Gold Coast' - didn't open until 8.45. There's a photograph in this book of father and son just before Kyle goes to class: the caption beneath it begins, `The last good day of my life.'"This lucky fact saved Lutnick's life, and Meryl Gordon, writing in New York Magazine, expands upon this luck factor in Howard Lutnick's Second Life,
"The luckiest people in New York? The twenty Cantor Fitzgerald staff members let go on Monday, September 10, most of whom have loyally returned to the firm."Luck has now been combined with loyalty, whatever the count. Is Thomas trying to pin things down here? Out of scores of media articles, nobody has clarified the usual start time to the work day at Cantor Fitzgerald. Was it 7:00am or 7:30am? Are the principles exempt? Why does Gordon report that 75 Cantor Fitzgerald technical-support-staff members were "alive only by luck; their workday at 1 World Trade Center started at 9 a.m." That wouldn't be luck at all, which implies divine chance, but rather, a schedule or routine implies fate at man's hands.
KING: ...Howard Lutnick. We began by asking Howard how many people he lost.I can see how saying 700 could be misheard for 1,700, but 17 thousand must be a transcription error. I can't check it since the actual interview tape can't be found anywhere on the web, which is odd in the age of YouTube.
HOWARD LUTNICK, CHAIRMAN & CEO, CANTOR FITZGERALD: It's over 17,000. I just can't -- actually can't look at the number. I can't get an exact number because I don't want to.
KING: Now, tell us, you were supposed to be at work, but what happened?
LUTNICK: It was my -- my 5-year-old had his first day of kindergarten, so I had dropped him off at (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Kindergarten, and it was his first day of big-boy school. And then I went -- so I was a little late getting down to the office.
KING: Where were you when all this hit?
LUTNICK: Just leaving the -- just leaving the school. And...
KING: How did you hear about it?
LUTNICK: Just my phone rang, and they said, you know, the building was hit by a plane, and I was thinking it was sort of like a -- a small, like a Piper Cub or something like that. So I got in the car and started driving down the left side trying to get there as fast as I could. And I could see the smoke from downtown, and I was --I just had to get there. CNN.com - Transcripts
"First, for just a little recap, Howard, where were you that morning?His third appearance on Larry King, exactly one year later to the day, was a book tour interview of Lutnick and his hired hagiographer, his college tennis teammate, Tom Barbash. Larry King stays on message, repeating three times in one question. "first day of school."
HOWARD LUTNICK, CEO, CANTOR FITZGERALD: I took my son to his first day of kindergarten. It was his first day of school, so I took him up to school and dropped him off, and then was heading down to the office.
KING: How did you hear about it?
LUTNICK: Well, I had a call in the school that someone was looking for me, and then I -- and then someone said a plane had hit the Trade Center, so I went running downstairs and jumped in the car and started going downtown to the Trade Center.
And then when I was in the car I could see the smoke coming out of the building on the way down. CNN.com - Transcripts
KING: There is an incredible photo in the book, taken at 8:45 a.m. 9/11. Howard has just taken his son, Kyle, to his first day at kindergarten at Horace Mann. The first day of school. At 8:46, American Flight 11 bound for L.A. from Boston tore into the north side of the WTC Tower. The picture was just a memento of his first day, Howard?With Lutnick a trustee, or on the board of directors of the Horace Mann school, these private conversations with higher level administrators sound entre nous and sotto voci---and really suspicious. From one news article, I had pictured him with a Miss Beasley-type, well-born and earnest, a Princess Di from Armonk perhaps, with all the parents sitting around a circle clapping hands, trying not to get sticky.
LUTNICK: Sure. The classic first-day photo, my son with his, you know, wet hair around his ears, standing on his backpack right in front of the school. And I kneeled down next to him to take that picture, and basically that was the moment that saved my life, and my boys know that they saved my life by taking them to school.
KING: And refresh our memory. How did you learn of the tragedy?
LUTNICK: Well, as I walked him upstairs to his first day of kindergarten, my phone beeped, and you know, I couldn't get a signal. And then, the school administrator said, "Mr. Lutnick, there's a call for you." And I picked up the phone, and it was Jimmy Mayo, my driver who features in the book quite a bit. And he said, "A plane has hit the building." And I'm thinking Piper Cub.
And so, I run down the stairs and get in the car, and we drive right to the building. And I get to stand in the door [???] of the building, grabbing people as they come out, and of course, then Tower Two falls. If Tower One falls, I'm not on this program, but because Tower Two fell, and I ran from that tornado of smoke and I was maybe 20 yards from it, and it engulfed me. And then, you know, all of this is in the book, but also everybody else's views of exactly what happened are in the book as well. CNN.com - Transcripts
"Howard and Allison were perched on child-size chairs in their son's classroom when both their cell phones rang and then died. Howard was summoned by a school staff member to the lobby, where he learned from his driver, Maio, that a plane had hit the Trade Center. "I ran upstairs to Allison -- 'I got to go, I got to go.' " She ran with him to the car, saying, "Should I go with you?" "No," he insisted. "You stay."Stay? How about "go home?" But I can't tell what's propelling this sequence forward. Is he afraid his cell-phone bill might be subpoenaed? It never bothered Ted Olsen!
"This Sept. 11 happened to be the first day of kindergarten for his daughter, Casey."Has Horace Mann made September 11th into a national holiday for launching the educations of scions and heirs? Well then---how appropriate. September 11 fell on a Monday in 2006, and on a Friday this year. Is there a standard start to the school year? Could somebody do an analysis, going back at least two decades, to see if the start dates and times haven't been altered or manipulated for some---unknown---reason. September 11 always falls after the Labor Day at least---anywhere from four to ten days afterward, if that spread is relevant.
A very relevant fact is that Cantor Fitzgerald was in the process of downsizing its bond trading staff by 800 before 9-11 hit, as its proprietorial digital technology was advanced. 500 bond traders had already been let go, with another 300 or so to go after the switchover to fully electronic trading took place, which happened on September 13, 2001. Coincidentally, the 800 figure was almost exactly the number who "died" on 9-11."Although much is made of the family-like nature of Cantor Fitzgerald, it was, and still is, a hard-nosed business. Nearly 500 people had lost their jobs before Sept. 11, and 300 more were about to be axed, made obsolete by the success of their electronic bond-trading network, said Peter DaPuzzo, co-president of equities."But were they laying off just bond traders in the restructuring before 9-11?
Knight Ridder
Heidi Olson, now chief administrative officer for equities, had left Cantor when the firm downsized just before the attacks; she came back to work the next day. BarbashAlthough Tom Barbash doesn't specify, I believe the high-level Olson was let go on the Monday, and rehired on the Wednesday. Business Wire reported on Nov. 6, 2001, that 'Cantor Continues to Appoint New Senior Management,' naming Stephen M. Bliss as a co-head of the NASDAQ/ OTC stock trading business. Informing readers, without apparent self-consciousness, that
"Mr. Bliss rejoins Cantor's equities business after leaving in May 2001...Steve's rejoining the firm gave the team a sense of continuity in Cantor's relationships and way of doing business," said Philip Marber, head of Cantor's U.S. equities business.Did he quit in May, or was he laid off? What did Bliss do for those three summer months between May and September? In a November 12, 2001 USAToday article, Cantor battles back from tragedy, by Noelle Knox, Lutnick plays his new hand, telling us God dealt it to him
"Bond trading had been shifting to electronic trading even before the attacks, and Lutnick says it is "unlikely" he will replace his bond brokers. "We are not going to try to get back to who we were," he says. "We are going to take the cards that have been dealt to us. Take the assets we still have, which are incredible, and just play a different way."It was fortuitous that since the future pointed to eSpeed, Cantor's electronic trading program, the right people were spared
"Six of eSpeed's top technology executives, including [Matthew] Claus, [chief technology officer] had planned to go on an annual, 1-day fishing trip that day. The trip was canceled because of bad conditions on the Atlantic — but not until 8 a.m. All six were on their way to the office when the planes hit the towers, killing President Frederick Varacchi and 125 other eSpeed employees.It was also lucky that Richard Breeden, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, served on the board of eSpeed, lest the government bond market, vital to national security, be disrupted.
"The six executives headed straight to the firm's New Jersey location and started rerouting the trading network. They worked around the clock, napping on the floor. One slept with his head propped on an upside-down coffee cup. When the bond markets reopened Sept. 13, eSpeed was up and running."
"To the awe of Wall Street and government regulators, Cantor was able to get the company's U.S. eSpeed operations -- a crucial link in the Treasury markets -- up and running two days after the attack.Writing on September 30, 2001, less than a month after the attacks, Maureen Fan of the Knight Ridder Tribune chain, proves she has a good ear for business dynamics
"eSpeed -- the publicly traded division of the privately held Cantor -- is actually expected to be profitable in the fourth quarter. [of 2001] That day, eSpeed stock soars more than 20 percent, almost reaching its pre-September 11 level." Gordon
"It's a funny group of people in the sense that they're hardened," said Peter Ryan, a managing director at Credit Lyonnais Securities. "It's a tough business and you have to have a thick veneer to survive in that environment."
"The company's backup system in Rochelle Park, N.J., kicked in almost immediately after the attack and would have continued to hum if bond trading had not been suspended. Two days later, Cantor's electronic-broker system was up and running an hour before the bond market cranked up again, thanks to the all-night efforts of the company's surviving technology whizzes."
"Cantor Fitzgerald was not the only hard-hit firm, but few were as tightly knit. A private partnership, the firm often hired the friends and family of existing employees. "This is such a close-knit firm, the salesmen usually knew the color of their client's houses," DaPuzzo said. "We have many sons of standing members of the Security Traders Association working for us," he added. "Nepotism makes our industry work because we know that if the father or mother is good, you know the son or daughter is good in this business." "Former employees have returned to help out." Victimized company tries to get on with businessTo give other names to this power phenomena: mafia family [the Department of Defense comes to mind,] band of brothers, [firemen,] closed-shop construction companies [Pentagon contractors, Tully et al,] secret societies [Skull and Bones, Trogdor] affinity groups [BCO, VLV, Williamsboard] fraternal initiation orders, [Freemasonry, spoonies,] Clansmen, Amalgamated or Benefit Association, Oddfellows, [politicians] or Order of Mutual Protection League [I'll dump federal workers in here.] All of these centers of power are based on the keeping of the immoral immortal secrets, thus are diametrically at odds with the general application of the Golden Rule. I'd like to see them deconstructed since they corrupt and spoil our society's future. [I haven't yet mentioned "the Jews," who also have tribal loyalties down to a art form.]
"Two things allow me to communicate with my employees," he says. "I was there, and I lost my brother."But there is no proof Lutnick was where he says he was, covered in white dust after the first tower's collapse. The two talking points that are repeated in every interview---"I lost my brother," and, "I was taking my son to his first day of school," are here joined by a third credential---"I was there."
"I crawl under a truck -- no, it's smaller than a truck -- it's like an S.U.V. I don't crawl all the way underneath because I'm afraid that something will fall and crush me under the truck. Of course, I don't think that if something falls and I'm not under the truck I'll get crushed anyway. This is not like a clever thing. So I'm halfway under the S.U.V."This is poor story telling and bad lying and it's not off-the-cuff at that. In a Feb. 2, 2003, review by Rob Walker in the New York Times of the Lutnick/Barbash Cantor history, On Top Of the World, this all seems anticipated, as we are told Lutnick walks uptown to the Upper West Side apartment of the newly widowed wife of his best friend Doug---Jennifer Gardner
Lutnick understood, Tom Barbash writes in ''On Top of the World,'' ''that the fact that he wasn't in the building, even if it was to bring his son to his first day of kindergarten, will be a complicated thing for some people to accept." Lutnick is still covered with dust, and "he needs for her [Jennifer Gardner] to see him this way---not when he's cleaned up, and not when his mind is occupied with saving the company."Walker points out the oddity of this attitude
It's worth pausing, then, over the presence of mind that Barbash attributes to his college friend -- just hours after the disaster, Lutnick is thinking about how he "needs" people to see him, and about the business"Presence of mind" is a fair euphemism for foreknowledge. But in any case, this narrative is in conflict with the story Lutnick told in different New York Times article on September 15, 2001, Flinty Bond Trader Leads His Firm Out of the Rubble, by Diana B. Henriques, and Jennifer 8. Lee
"Armed with that news, Mr. Lutnick walked on -- 44 blocks in all -- to Mr. Merkel's home on Jane Street, a quiet old lane just south of 14th Street near the Hudson River. Another survivor was found, David Kravette, 40, who had gone to the lobby just before the attack to escort a visitor. Together, they walked more than two miles to Mr. Lutnick's apartment on the Upper East Side and immediately began making and receiving calls to try to trace missing workers."There isn't much room for plausible deniability when you're yoked to your fellow Musketeers. For the official history to have failed to reconcile the plot with this early, primary-source story telling is a gaff of gargantuan proportion.
"I needed my bankers to know that I was in control," Lutnick says. "That I wasn't sentimental and that I was no less motivated or driven to make my business survive."It was a shock-and-awe war plan, but Lutnick got sentimental real quick when the negative publicity threatened to sink his, and his banker's, newly restructured enterprise. But even in advance of December, 2001, one banker seem happy
"He schmoozes on the phone with a pleased major investor, then takes a call from an Orthodox Jewish family distraught over their son's missing remains. "I know, I know, I'm just like you," he says, his voice cracking. He is still waiting for DNA tests to tell him that his brother, Gary, is really gone."An article titled '47 Hours,' in Baseline Magazine December 2001, tells an in-depth story of Cantor's rush to return their online business to service within two days, working out of their Rochelle Park, New Jersey backup facility. A problem presents itself here however, inasmuch as one of the authors of the piece is Edward Cone, who was one of the Four Musketeers from Lutnick's Haverford College days, the other two being the recently deceased Cantor colleagues Calvin Gooding and Douglas Gardner, and so Cone was an even closer friend of Lutnick's than Tom Barbash.
But Howard Lutnick, Cantor's chairman and chief executive, was alive. He had taken his son to kindergarten and was running behind his usual schedule. Being a good dad saved his life on a morning when 658 of his employees died, including his brother, Gary, and his close friends Calvin and Doug. Calvin and Doug and Howard and I went to Haverford College. Doug became a vice-chair, Calvin a partner.
A former colleague of mine at Forbes, who wrote a scathing article about Cantor a few years ago, appeared on "20/20" this fall to question Howard's integrity. Before he went on the air he called me to ask if I thought Howard was faking his tears.It's funny to read that you don't read about something as you're reading about it. It would be easier to trust Cone's veracity if he didn't work so hard at defending Lutnick--especially when the facts are difficult to digest. Like the jaw-dropping altruism on display by eSpeed's competitors, in the Baseline Magazine article:
This about a man fresh from his brother's funeral, who stood up to eulogize his best friend, Doug, just five days after the attack. I shared the lectern with him in front of 1,100 mourners at Calvin's funeral, and I felt the genuine emotion in his words. People don't read about the time he spends with Doug's 5-year-old son, and the comfort he and his family provide for Calvin's widow. It seems absurd to have to defend the notion that this man who had lost his partners and his staff and the fairy-tale life he had willed into being is sincere in his grief.
"The second problem, of fulfilling trades, was more difficult to resolve. Although Noviello's team was able to restore some of the applications that handle the financial back-office functions of the trading system, it was unable to reproduce the settlement system for all of eSpeed’s products at the Rochelle Park site. Without being able to clear or settle transactions, eSpeed would be unable to open for business.I think this scenario is illogical in the extreme, not only in that ADP would do it, but that they could effect such a maneuver without advanced knowledge and planning. From the Gordon New York magazine article:
"Here, help arrived in the form of one of eSpeed's competitors, ICI/ADP, [Automatic Data Processing, Inc./Information Catalysts Incorporated,] another electronic trading company, offered to take care of eSpeed’s clearing and settling of transactions through its own connection to banks. By Wednesday night, the eSpeed team had mapped its financial back-office system to ADP’s system, and had successfully sent test transactions to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and other banks.
"ADP got the back-office component hooked up overnight, Compaq delivered 100 desktop computers at 2 a.m. on Wednesday and Verizon expedited the installation of voice lines and the transfer of some of eSpeed’s digital circuits."
"They are furiously fighting off competitors who would feed on the firm's misfortune."The reference above to Forbes Magazine may refer to an article by Paul Maidment, 'Electronic Future Of Cantor Fitzgerald' from October 5, 2001, which has a few scathing things to say about Lutnick:
"The business of bond traders is people fighting for one hundredth of a penny," Breeden says."
"Howard Lutnick, who is eSpeed's chief executive officer and Cantor Fitzgerald's chairman, confirmed to analysts on Oct. 4 that the group's electronic technology platform was "completely intact," but that most of its telephone brokers did not survive the devastation.The truth scathes if you let it. Like when you have an over-abundancy of redundancy with three data centers. Then when one is lost, and you still stick with just the two, to me, by not replacing the third center, it implies foreknowledge of the upcoming loss of one of them.
As a result, Cantor Fitzgerald, which operates the leading interbroker-dealer exchange for U.S. Treasuries, has halted its traditional voice trading of bonds and is conducting its business for now through its electronic arms: eSpeed for fixed income products and TradeSpark, which deals in energy products.
"While the Cantor Fitzgerald voice brokerage operation has ceased, eSpeed's fully electronic market for U.S. Treasuries has been virtually unimpaired," Lutnick
said.
ESpeed, which was spun off from Cantor Fitzgerald in December 1999--six months after being set up--and lost $3.3 million in revenue of $66 million in the six months to June 30, will also not replace its lost World Trade Center data center, but operate instead from its other existing centers in London and Rochelle Park, New Jersey."
"Lutnick and Barbash spoke at Cantor's temporary headquarters in midtown, where Lutnick's office decor includes fragments of Rodin sculptures salvaged from the trade center ruins, relics of the collection amassed by the firm's founder, Bernie Cantor."In a disaster leaving no bodies, or body parts even, where not a single file cabinet was to be found afterward, collectible fragments of bronze art works could be salvaged and put on display. Even more incredible, the New York Times tells us a nearly complete work of art was located. In Born of Hell, Lost After Inferno; Rodin Work From Trade Center, a 28"cast of Rodin's "Dante's: The Thinker,'' was found '
There's extraordinary symbolism, isn't there,'' said John L. Tancock, a vice president at Sotheby's auction house and the former curator of the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia. ''They have survived in this state, and it can be viewed as an inspirational story.''But the Times' reports that city investigators believe the sculpture may have been stolen, after having been recovered by a firefighter at the disaster site late last year. But since
"the Cantor Fitzgerald bond trading firm and its chairman, Howard W. Lutnick, have refused to discuss in any depth the loss of its art collection."it is difficult to pin down whether this is a case of a firemen looting, or of art collectors indulging in insurance fraud (and double-dipping in the bargain, if the art had been rescued in advance of September 11th, which would be my theory.)
"Practically twice a day for weeks, the building has been evacuated because of bomb scares phoned in by some apparent wacko targeting Warburg. It's not helping Cantor's traumatized employees, though it has produced some darkly funny moments."Somebody's got a hard on for Howard. If you think my analysis is too far out to be true, let me say---you haven't seen anything yet. Be prepared for when the face of evil shows itself. It is far worse than anything you can imagine. That's why we were willing to sleepwalk for so long, and like little children, pull the covers over our heads and cry.
Twelve minutes and eight seconds into the Real News Network's interview with Eugene Jareki about his documentary "Why We Fight," and its accompanying book, The American Way of War, comes the pitch. It will last for three minutes and eight seconds and constitute one of the strangest appeals I've ever heard.
Strange and smooth at the same time, I might say---like a Rockefeller asking for spare change to get a cup of coffee, which, I submit, is exactly what is happening below the surface. For a news network claiming to be "truly independent [...] of corporations, governments, and political parties," "with ordinary people's interests in mind," to step out of the blue in 2007 and host such a slickly done interview with Jareki, whose seamless film explores issues aiming at the epicenter of American deep power and politics, is to invite curious examination just to see whether or not Jareki hits the bull's eye.
For me, this became the entire point of watching his film. Then for Mr. Karl Marx to hit us up in a PBS-pledge-styled drive looks simply like a transparent cover. Real News Network obviously has all the heroin-and-cocaine trading money, or arms sales receipts, the covert world could come up with, given its slick style and production values---its the human values that don't come through quite as well.
Jareki styles himself as an expert and hero worshiper of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and his film opens with the common and famous black-and-white television broadcast of Eisenhower's January 17, 1961 farewell address to the nation, with its warning against the undue influence of the "military-industrial complex," treating it as some sort of revelation. This makes me feel I am being talked down to. Eisenhower's offspring tell us that before delivering the speech, the President edited out the word "congressional" from the now lesser-complexed complex, but this news is delivered without any irony whatsoever. Why did Eisenhower do that, we wonder? Was it because he now thought differently, or because the politics had changed and he was delivering a feint? That's called lying in my book.
More startling to me however, is why Eisenhower didn't warn us about the undue influence of the rising media-whore complex, as his big face was being beamed throughout American living rooms on the three licensed network channels that the federal government gave away the airways too. Do you think that process wasn't thought through?
We won't even talk about the undue influence of big oil---then in its approximate 70th year---now more like its 120th, undue, year.
It's Eisenhower's post-war experience which I think history will judge him badly by. Wikipedia puts it this way
Upon full discovery of the death camps that were part of the Final Solution (Holocaust), he ordered camera crews to comprehensively document evidence of the atrocity for use in the war crimes tribunals. He made the decision to reclassify German prisoners of war (POWs) in U.S. custody as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEFs), thus depriving them of the protection of the Geneva convention. As DEFs, their food rations could be lowered and they could be compelled to serve as unfree labor (see Rheinwiesenlager). Eisenhower was an early supporter of the Morgenthau Plan to permanently remove Germany's industrial capacity to wage future wars.I read something extremely odd in the phrase "upon full discovery" of the hidden "death camps," as if Dresden wasn't also a "death city" that needed burying and forgetting. I read an obvious abandonment of the "quaint" Geneva convention in regards to slave labor and starvation diets; like George W. Bush, Eisenhower simply changed the nomenclature to "Disarmed Enemy Forces," the precursor to Guantanamo circa 2003. It likely was as abusive of human rights then as now.
The camera crews spoken of, were not trained military documentarians, but Hollywood directors of fantasy, like Billy Wilder, who entered Buchenwald, and accidentally stepped into his own film at one point, for proof.
What effort goes in to Real News.com, goes in to make up fake left-wing credentials, but the only real binary isn't a left/right one, it's the insider/outsider model, and with a film top heavy in insider Washington and Pentagon talking heads, each one more oleaginous with the greasy patina of the secrets, I'd say Mr. Jay and Mr. Jareki could use some outsider lessons. Jay now says"There are times when reality just asserts itself. Despite the haze created by television news and entertainment, sometimes crisis rips a tear in the fabric of myth and propaganda.It damns him that he even has to ask the questions rhetorically, like "why are wages so low? Why is the society so laden with debt? Is it in ordinary American's interest to have a trillion dollar military budget to project power across the globe?"
Now a profound economic crisis has ripped asunder the American dream itself, with millions of people losing jobs and homes. They lack proper health care and any real sense of security. Since 2001, worker's wages have fallen and remained stagnant, even though worker productivity has risen almost 33 percent. By 2006, the top one percent of households were receiving 23 percent of all pre-tax income---more than double what it was in the 1970's.
It's the greatest concentration of income since 1928 (little shimmy to the neck and head.) As unemployment rises, we need to know why this crisis is happening and what we can do to defend ourselves. Why are wages so low? Why is the society so laden with debt? Is it in ordinary American's interest to have a trillion dollar military budget to project power across the globe?
Corporate television news won't ask these questions let alone try to find answers. Only a truly independent news network can tackle these questions with courage and with ordinary people's interests in mind. We need a news network that's independent of corporations, governments, and political parties. We need the Real News.
But there won't be a Real News network unless we raise substantial funds right away. The current financial crisis has hit our funding hard. Together, we do have the power to turn it around. There are already hundreds of thousands of people watching the Real News every month. If everyone pitches in we can build an internet and cable television network that will change the face of media forever. You can organize house parties, talk to friends at school and at work. Send email blasts and spread the word. Distribute this video to everyone you know. Pick up the phone and call a few friends and suggest they visit the Real News.com. Invest just ten minutes a day to ask friends and colleagues to join the campaign to create a truly independent source of internet and television and news. Together we can build this network. Just 50,000 people at ten dollars a month, gets us to our first level of sustainability. You can help us reach this goal, and when we do, we'll move to television and millions of homes across North America. Help us reach an audience in the millions, Please contribute generously. Spread the word. Let's make the Real News television network a reality.
The answers are: because jobs were shipped overseas to the places with the lowest possible labor costs; unrestrained illegal immigration flooded American communities with an oversupply of labor, which drove down wages; advances in automation, like that seen here at Kawasaki Robotics (USA), Inc. only benefited capitalists; predatory lending tricked families into insurmountable indebtedness; and, no, it's not in ordinary American's interest to have a trillion dollar military budget to project power across the globe. Any other questions?"When I was in Vietnam, I remember, we used to get requests, can you put my father's, my son's name on the side of the helicopter, can you put it on a rocket.
"You know what, that's a good idea. I'm going to do that. I'm going to try and do that. So I sent out emails to the secretaries of all the armed forces. 'I am a retired New York City Police Department Sargent, and proud Vietnam veteran. I lost my son on 9/11. I can't tell you in words what his loss means to me. I would respectfully request, if you could put his name on some piece of armament in the Iraq war.'
"You know, we haven't caught bin Laden, but let's do something. Who is responsible---come on, let's hit him! Iraq was responsible? OK, good, let's go. You say Iraq? Good, let's go get in there, let's kick hell out of em.
"Bush: No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September 11th. Now, what the Vice-President said was...
"What did he just say? I mean, I almost jumped out of the chair. 'I don't know where people got the idea that I connected Iraq to 9-11?' What is he nuts? What the hell did we go in there for? We're getting back for 9-11 We'll if he didn't have anything to do with 9-11, why are we going in there? I was mad. I was mad. My first thought is: you are a liar.
"I am from the old school. Certain people walk on water. The President of the United States is one of them. If I can't trust the President of the United States...I don't know...it's a terrible thing, when American citizens can't trust their President. You begin to wonder---what the hell is with the whole system. There is something wrong with the entire system
"The government exploited my feelings of patriotism. Of a deep desire for revenge, for what happened to my son. But I was so insane with wanting to get even, I was willing to believe anything.
"Undoubtedly, there are people who may listen to my statements and think that I'm no good, that I'm a SOB, and a war monger, and this and that and whatever, and I should have never put my son's name on it, I should be ashamed that I put my son's name on it.
"Am I sorry I asked my son's name to be put on the bomb? No, because I acted under the conditions of that time. Was it wrong? Yeah, it was wrong, but I didn't know that, so. Is it regrettable? ....?
There was no damage in the A and B rings---none at all! No fire, no smoke, no rescue, no drama---nada. Why would somebody need to escape out this window in any case? This is the fourth floor, so it's not likely you're going up or down from here. Or will the claim be someone needed in? At base, can't they see the real message this photograph delivers? "Oh look Martha, damage! Let's take a close-up!"
You stupid, stupid simulators! Give us back our money! Go back to your bunkers and play your video games, with your pumped-up techno-music death feeds blasting into your helmet's speakers, and take your amphetamines and your anti-psychotics, and don't forget to wear your Pampers, because when you satiate your blood lust and squirt out watery projectile diarrhea in your cock pit, it can get messy.
All of you are losers at the game of real life. We're tired of your movie. Get out of our cave now.
That should read: Why We Conspire.
Well, Amy Goodman's in on the plot too. Fetch me my shotgun, ma. It ain't never going to end!
Can't you just remember her in Minneapolis? The wounded outrage!
You have to read this interview just once over lightly to see what's going on here. Not only is Amy Goodman rehabilitating Eugene Jareki, whose rehabilitating Wilton Sekzer---together they are rehabilitating Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who to the liberal Goodman, even "sounds very radical, very revolutionary today."
Try Thomas Jefferson woman.
Where was she when Eisenhower was giving it to the defeated Germans "good and hard," by starving nine million of them after they'd surrendered, to pasturalize their synthetic paranoia, through a thorough "stewing in their own juices?"
Oh daddy, beat me with your rhythm stick, ten to the bar."And on 9/11, he turned a corner on an elevated train in New York City, looking across the river to the city, and he saw that the tower of the World Trade Center was on fire. To those in the train, it was a horror. To Wilton, it was an unimaginable horror, because his son, Jason, worked in the building, and he knew at that moment, I think, that it wasn't good, and when he lost Jason, Wilton, like many people, dealt with that kind of strange mix of anguish and the impulse toward revenge. The impulse toward revenge was there in some people, not all people, but certainly in Wilton, and I think he felt particularly helpless that morning, because he was a cop. I think, you know, imagine if you're someone who is used to thinking that your job is to get people's cat out of the tree and help somebody on their way to school, and you watch something unfold in your own city about which you're completely helpless, and it affects you so directly."Anybody out there, liberal or conservative, think a policeman in 2001 considered his or her job was "to get people's cats out of the tree and help somebody on their way to school?" Shor nuf, boss.
"Well, the Educational Video Center is an incredible group here in New York City, run by Steve Goodman, who invented this wonderful apparatus for teaching young people how to document their lives with cameras, and for professionals like myself, it’s a wonderful opportunity to do something very hands-on and not just sit in a dark room somewhere contemplating the fate of mankind. You can actually become directly involved in it. And movies can get pretty tiresome, and you can spend years not knowing if you’ll ever come out with your movie. So I was teaching these kids in this inner city youth program how to document things around them.This is prime evidence why the whole foundation world needs to be completely dismantled. Teaching young people video arts would be a wonderful and meaningful experience, if the true agenda weren't legitimizing false synthetic realities. These people can't think in any way that isn't self-serving. We don't believe your anecdote Mr. Goodman. Jarecki does volunteer work with young people in NYC? Like bringing arts into the public schools? And the kids wanted to put on a show? So the blacks and Latinos put forward a white or Jewish kid to be of merit as star? You lumpen chunk of dark matter, you are poison to youth---everything you touch will turn to shit before your eyes."And they knew I was making a movie about war. The kids were cool, and they were smart, and they figured if they made a movie that was also sort of tangentially related to war, it would have a sporting chance of ending up in my movie, and they played their cards right, because they decided to start filming the story of the recruitment of one of their friends, because people are being recruited on all sides of them right now, because we do have, as so many of us recognize, a kind of poverty back-door draft in America that is forcing young people by economics to put themselves in harm’s way at a time of war and join the military. And so they said, “We’re going to go off and film the story of one of our recruits.”
"Now, a lot of the kids are black and Latino, so out of probably my own just presumptuous, you know, impulse, I thought they would come back with a black or Latino kid and the story of some kid who was in their ethnic groups. And they didn’t. They came back with a white kid. And what was fascinating about that was that they were—the kids were race-blind and very class-aware. They knew that this is a class issue, that ultimately, if you’re poor in America right now, there’s a draft."
"Eugene Jarecki, your film is going nationwide today, but the politics of how a film makes it in this country is not very well-known, because the very corporations that control the message on television -- How does something like this get out there amidst all the Hollywood hype?"JEWS, MY DEAR NAIF! JEWS!
"Another piece is the strategic planning that has imbued American foreign policy, at least since World War II, if not before---that the United States should have a dominant global position in the world, and should have a military to back up this dominant position. In fact, to the point that this should be a single, super-power world, if that's achievable."As though such a policy had to be a given, to which Jareki replies, Yes, Yes, and Yes, in all the right places.
He says, from the "pit"---or was that a "pile?"---or maybe it was from the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, all that was left after the World Trade Center towers were demolished on 9-11, and too quickly cleaned up. This is all the forensic evidence he has to indicate his son Jason really died that day.
But I'll have to ask the cop---show me the bone please. What if instead of being killed, his son had been "disappeared"---or would that be called "rendered," as in extreme rendition, something I'd never conceptualized prior to 9-11, although running away and joining the circus is a close second, but for that daddy has to stay in the dark until the prodigal son returns home. How about "hondled" to indicate a transaction took place? Is that fair?
On September 19, Cantor Fitzgerald made a pledge to distribute 25 percent of the firm's profits for the next five years, and committed to paying for ten years of health care, for the benefit of the families of its 658 former Cantor Fitzgerald, eSpeed, and TradeSpark employees (profits which would otherwise have been distributed to the Cantor Fitzgerald partners).[citation needed] In 2006 the company completed its promise, having paid a total of $180 million (and an additional $17 million from a relief fund run by Lutnick's sister, Edie).Blood money---who pays? Unique unto himself is the Cantor employee whose father was a Jewish New York City cop. A distraught father who said, "[a]fter 9/11, I couldn’t work. But I thought, I gotta do something. Somebody has to pay for 9/11. I want the enemy dead. I want to see their bodies stacked up for taking my son." So he started a campaign to get his son's name written as an honorific on 2000-pound bombs dropped in Iraq, and accompanied by a publicity campaign to let Americans know of it. Jed Babbin on National Review Online
Even more unique would be the father whose son's story would be made into an award winning documentary by Eugene Jarecki, "Why We Fight," winner of best documentary at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Newsday
Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Fall of the Rebel Angels
Isn't this sad? Who thinks stuff like this up? At first, I laughingly thought this image could serve to illustrate the "manufactured" 9-11 truth community as we have known it. What would Carl Jung say was the shadow here? Angelology, or ponerology? But we're moving so rapidly now this symbol already feels passe. I wonder what imagery will come up next?
A few days ago I bought this sconce at auction, and I definitely feel it has a connection with Bruegel's imaginary world. Late 19th-century English brass, it obviously stylistically devolves from the classical dolphin motif revived in the regency period in tribute to Nelson and Poseidon. But it has become something quite different, more akin to a Transylvania bat than a flying fish with fingernails. Then again, I also see a pineapple design at center, which makes for a, perhaps inadvertent, international symbol of welcome. Oh well, the price of empire I say!
One other thing---even though it's only a single, two-armed wall light, which wishes it were one of a pair---in my experience, being able to acquire it for only $120, is such an absurdly cheap bargain that even in a declining market I can truly know, we must be in last days and not in end times. Why couldn't this have happened back when shopping was fun and had a future?
In any event, when it arrives, I'm going to hang it over my bed and burn white candles in it and see what happens. Jay Rockefeller wants to shut down the internet and that deserves some scrutiny:
...along with a full transcript.
"...tomorrow, a full committee hearing on cyber security, and um, this comes under our purview on this committee, and it, I mean not trying to be dramatic about it, but when we, when the internet was invented, everybody fell flat on their face, they were so thrilled. And the world began to do business in a different way.It is patently obvious that Senator Rockefeller isn't talking about the technical or mechanical aspects of computer security---either on the level of securing my bank account, or of securing America's nuclear activation codes. What the "any kid in Latvia" can only do, is harass, or test, and compete against and tighten the tier of necessary security, which becomes increasing high the more you want to keep something a secret, and in that way a young Latvian would provide a service and not a threat.
"Now both the, President Bush's Director of national Intelligence, Mike McConnell, who I greatly respect, and President Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Blair, who I greatly respect, have labeled cyber security, perpetrated through the internet, as the number one national hazard, of attack, on the homeland in West Virginia, on, ah, West Virginia and America---or anywhere else.
"So, I mean, it really, it really, almost makes you ask the question, would it have been better if we hadn't invented the internet, and had to use paper and pencil or whatever---and that's a stupid thing to say, but it's, it has genuine consequence, because it's on the internet that these acts of shutting down...you know, they have the television saying, that ah, ads every day saying that the, the Department of Defense is, is, um, attacked three million times a day, and it's true. Um, that everybody is attacked, anybody can do it---people say, well, it's China and Russia, but there could be, you know, some kid in Latvia, ah, doing the same thing. I mean, it's an individual act---it doesn't require a sleeper cell, it doesn't require any, aah, you know, ammonia, or explosives, it's just an act. And, um, it's an act which can shut this country down, shut down it's electricity system, it's banking system, shut down really anything that we have to offer.
"It is an awesome problem. On the intelligence committee, we were taken for a full day, to discuss, to a, to a...an undisclosed place in Virginia to discuss this. Um, it is a fearsome, awesome problem...[edit]... to speak, I mean, obviously it's broader than that too.
"I wonder where this stands with you where your thoughts are, and what you think we ought to be doing about it.
"Senator, ah, cyber security is obviously of utmost importance..."
Or back again.
It is a little Aztec, art deco warrior bird
Quite powerful indeed. Who do you serve little warrior bird?
Tis better to light two candles than to curse Howard Lutnick.
Yes, that one. Nathaniel Philip Victor James to be precise. I know I alluded to this once, in my masterpiece Critical Thrash thread, when that knucklehead from Blackwater was being seriously threatening, leaving me no recourse but to pull international oligarchic food-chain rank on him. However, since I meant it as a discrete code, I couched the reference within a food metaphor---and if there is any topic on the planet less suitable for English language tropes, it would have to be hallucinating with a Rothschild!
That Tamsin Greenhill woman was there, sharing the experience of an off-schedule weekend trip. I was called at the last minute to come out and bring my inimitable hospitality services to that aptly tear-drop shaped isle with the rare riparian rights---the island that dare not speak it's name. Shush! I don't know what it was about her, but anyone who by way of contrast can make a Rothschild look like a naif, is much too sophisticated for my tastes.
All I did was serve dinner in the kitchen Friday evening, as they were already beginning to peak, when he kindly offered for me to join in with them. I weighed my usual commitment to ordinary reality, along with the possibility I might have to answer the telephone, but gave in to the once-in-a-lifetime chance I was being presented with.
I must say, the two of them both ate like horses, which surprised me. We of the middle class will fast, will flush our intestines even, before starting such a heavy psychic experience---scrubbing diligently under our fingernails so that we may achieve liftoff. Aristocrats must need more of a tether, or anchoring, lest they slip the surly bonds of Earth and go out into the stratosphere and not come home. In any event, they know how to stay thin, so I shouldn't talk.
When I met Nat Rothschild in 1998, he was already at age 27 a chronic alcoholic, who often appeared stumblingly drunk in public. To me he was the spitting image of the Dudley Moore character from the movie Arthur---except Nat was quite tall, so he was constantly banging his head on things. But his behavior changed suddenly, when on April 29, 2000, his French cousin Raphael de Rothschild overdosed on heroin at a party in Chelsea, with his fellow guests carting him downstairs to lay him in a New York City curbside gutter, where he was found dead at the age of 23.
Reminds me of Father Mychal Judge.
Nat had a psychic personality conversion of the immediate kind in consequence. I can still picture him with the New York City tabloids carrying this senseless news tucked under his arm, as he gravely began to talk of the Earl of this or the Duke of that---people who were absolutely out of control, and in need of fast intervention---as if he and Betty Ford were the closest of friends!
A New York Times profile in March 9, 2007, said he was still "serv[ing] his guests the best wines from the Rothschild vineyards, which he himself will not drink."
Good word has it that several other of the younger party lions in that circle also got and stayed sober, seemingly as a millennial resolution.
It's not like this story has a trick ending or anything---far be it from me to distinguish my own reptilian brain from its later mammalian neo-cortexualizing layers, let alone cast stones---especially if all we're doing is sitting around caves and watching movies anyway. But I can state for the record that Nat lacks even one iota of le goût anglais for what that's worth.
It would serve my fancy to image all these sober people as being as deeply concerned about the state of the world as I am, but I really don't. Synthetic events like the 1rst Gulf war were enormously profitable to a rapacious few on the inside. But it does give me comfort to imagine men such as this with clear heads as they turn the screws. And I know the truly operative level is higher than even these machinations.
When I came to New York in 1977, the holy grail within the wholesale European antiques business that I joined downtown was the catalog of the just-concluded sale of the Rothschild country house Mentmore, which I relentlessly devoured. I still own multiple copies of the five hardbound volumes, from an uncracked set in crisp onion skin to the scribbled and notated copies.
I can even trace my fascination with French furniture to a Rothschild origin. It came out of reading a book on the holocaust published in the 1960's when I was about ten years old. To my memory, the head of the Viennese branch of the Rothschild bank was taken away and placed in local custody. Given his stature, arraignments were made to have some furniture sent over from his house to make his jail cell more comfortable, but he was appalled when the authorities placed a Louis XV clock on top of a Louis XVI pedestal. I thought to myself, "Gosh, you have to learn 16 different styles!" I was delighted to discover that essentially we only have to deal with three---the baroque, the rococo, and the neo-classical, and that the challenge was met.
In what I can only describe as an act of God, my relationship with Nat and everyone else on the island came to an abrupt end shortly after this conversion experience. I mourned my banishment from Elba for a long time afterward, but hush money succored me. Now I only mourn that I was never able to take up Nat's kind, if vague, offer of a housekeeper's tour of his father's house, Waddesdon Manor, which can be seen as part of the British National Trust, but only in groups, and only downstairs. I do have multiple copies of the multi-volume catalog of the house's contents, published over a period of a decade---all except for the volume on the Savonnerie, and that's very hard to find. Oh well, perchance to dream!
P.S. You should have seen all the spinning, twinkling and winking Stars of David at the televised Michael Jackson memorial recently. The I's were dotted---even LOVE was spelled L۞VE. You know that means Jackson really didn't die, don't you? He just made a Cabala career change?
In honor to his Lordship:
I Got That Peanut Butter Pussy
Or is it Samovar? Are we really in the Russian Tea Room?
Someone reached StevenWarRan on an image search for "bin Laden in cave," but when I tried the same search, I couldn't find hide nor hair of this uncropped image well unto a dozen pages of hit returns. What I did find were lots of low-resolution versions of Osama talking into a microphone, sometimes with al-Zawahiri, but even if the hooka/slash/Samovar isn't cropped out, it is obscured by a logo or chyron---like "BBC," or some such.
This is unacceptable. If there is one thing we must rely on---it is the primacy of War Ran's Googelability.
More importantly, does the average Joe see the absurdity of this set dressing? My eyes have been open for so long now they're starting to dilate.
Compare it with this image. Is this the real Osama bin Laden?
As-Sahab- Wikipedia, or, Adam Gadahn, the "Azzam the American" story.In a narrative element that raises coincidence and irony to the level of perversion and farce, on the day of the antisemitic gunman's attack on the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., which took the life of an African-American security guard, a premier was scheduled to open there later that evening of Janet Langhart Cohen's one-act, two-character drama, Anne and Emmett, whose
But there are unforeseen consequences rippling out from the parable, and the moral remains up for grabs. It would be ironic indeed, if the boy whose mother demanded an open casket, saying "Let the people see what I have seen. I think everybody needs to know what had happened to Emmett Till," were to meet the black man in the closed casket, who had learned the secret Obama way to get ahead.
And the closed casket is the perfect symbol for all the missing millions of dead, like Irit Shitrit, or the Auschwitz millions, revised downward not by deniers, but by the Jewish custodians of "memory."
Counting the not-dead even has its own parallel in the not-counting of the actually dead, like the hundreds from the 3/7 Cavalry, the Ghost Troops lost in the 2003 Battle for Baghdad.
Of course it doesn't help that here is a short play written for minors by a non-playwright, to be performed in a non-theater, or that it first appeared in a book co-written by a half-black and a half-Jew
"Originally published in the book “Love in Black and White: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Romance,” written by Langhart Cohen and her husband, former U.S. Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, “Anne and Emmett” tells the story of a beyond-the-grave meeting of its two titular characters: Anne Frank, a 13-year-old German Jewish girl who hid from Nazis until she was sent to a concentration camp and died at age 15, and Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American from Chicago who was kidnapped, beaten and murdered on a trip to Mississippi in 1955." The Bay State Banner April 17, 2008 — Vol. 43, No. 36
Or how about a Secretary of "Defense," who can see the gunman get out of his car and then hear the gunfire, but without witnessing the event? Then he is suddenly inside the building escaping up stairs, while helping others to escape?"Secretary Cohen, did you know immediately that they were gunshots?"
"I did. I'd arrived much earlier and had come up to try and make contact with Janet, who was scheduled to arrive momentarily, so I was on the phone to get a radio signal on the phone, to touch base with her in the car. At that point I noticed that there was a car parked---it seemed to be out in the middle of the street and an older man getting out of the car but I didn't pay much attention to him because I was on the phone. And then a few seconds later I heard the gunshots, it was pretty clear that they were gunshots. So, Arthur Berger, one of the chief executives at the museum, he and I were together, about five feet apart, and we were about 30 or 40 feet away from where the shots were ringing out. And we just ducked as low as we could and went up a set of stairs to get up to the second level."
"Describe the scene around you."
"Well, it was fairly chaotic as we went up the stairs, we didn't know if people were going to be following us up, or if there were more than one gunman. And as we approached the stairs. there was a group of people who had just completed their tour of the museum, so they were on their way out, and they wanted to go down those stairs, and to leave the building, but we were able to stop them, saying, "don't go there, it's too dangerous."
CBS Early Show June 11, 2009 VideoWhat a horrible idea for a play! Anne Frank died in a concentration camp of typhoid, more a victim of Allied bombing and systemic deprivation than of antisemitism. A better parallel to Emmett Till would be any of the nine million Germans who died of enforced starvation as the war ended.
Former Defense Secretary William Cohen and his wife describe the scene at the Holocaust Museum as the shooting happened and it became a crime scene.
In this much-distributed one-minute, three-second news clip (safely maintained, I should hope, here at the BBC,) Sergeant David Schlosser, with the federal Washington D.C. Park Police, holds a news conference about an attack on the U.S. Holocaust Museum. Because he's in possession of such a remarkably abbreviated amount of information (the gunman is a "male;" he carried a "long gun;" two injured have been transferred to hospital, but "no information" on their conditions,) he overcompensates in his mustered sternness, to the point he comes across as Barney Fife.
As the clip begins, we see Schlosser standing before a blank stretch of asphalt. At the nine-second mark, a male with distinctive red hair and beard sidles in from the right. He is wearing payot, or payoss, the uncut locks of hair worn on the sides of the head by Orthodox male Jews. At the 17-second mark, a similar red-haired male Hasidim who could be his twin, moves to occupy the space on the officer's right, followed almost immediately afterward by a woman who appears to be dressed in a similarly colored wig, and who is smiling demonically, or perhaps pathologically. She holds the insane grin for as long as we catch sight of her---at least until the 34-second mark. At the 30-second mark, a crowd of reporters, camera people and onlookers flood the background as though released through a stanchion.
I haven't found a time stamp for this clip, but it would appear to be the earliest official report released during the day, with the least amount of information, given by the law-enforcement department with the least standing to be working the case---the others being the District of Columbia Metropolitan police department and the FBI, who had lead-agency status and control.
A logical interpretation of the clip would have us witnessing the police officer starting a news conference at a chaotic moment, without a proper head's-up announcement to the assembled beforehand, and with the late arrivals scurrying to take positions as close as possible.
But with men wearing bullet-proof vests, and what looks like FBI windbreakers joining in, it looks more like a director yelled, "Extras!" and used whoever was about to fill in.
The appearance of these Jews in this fashion is meant as a non-verbal communication claiming false-flag responsibility for the shooting, to a world-wide audience who were in on the code---in my humble, gentile opinion---and in on the joke. Nothing else explains the dance of choreography and the Cheshire-cat grin on the inappropriately emoting female.
The following AP news video is of a later portion of the interview, with the same Park Police officer,and one of the Hasidic men is still seen in the background, although it has even less of a grasp on the facts then before.
Although having to stop and correct himself, this scene is a repetition of the limited facts available, and it came after the first clip with the empty background.
This AP News video has most of the operative portion of the BBC:
FOX News has a 4:30 minute extension of the interview, where Sergeant Schlosser takes questions.
If you put ["Erik von Brunn" statement to abc] into Google, you'll find "it" on top of a good list---but what "it" is, is strange in every way.
Alleged Museum Shooter's Son Slams Dad's 'Cowardice' - ABC News
Perfectly straightforward on the surface, ABC News hosts what it calls, "Statement by Erik von Brunn, Son of Accused Holocaust Museum Shooter Issues Statement Concerning His Father June 12, 2009," without telling us how the news organization happened upon it.
The Associated Press reported the younger Mr. Brunn was interviewed for a Washington Post article from his mother's house in Homosassa, Fla.---going on to quote her, Pat Sadowski, as saying, "her son was not home and was unavailable for further comment."
Since the AP article also said that Erik was "an aspiring teacher and fiction writer who recently graduated from the University of Maryland," he sounds young enough to still be living in her home. When she actually spoke for him, saying he would have no further comment, I also wondered if maybe she wasn't responsible for routing the document.
Since the only editorial comment ABC appended to the communication reads,
"Following is a statement by Erik von Brunn, a son of James von Brunn, the 88-year-old man accused of a shooting attack at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.:"I wondered if by its arms-length distancing, and lack of context, who ABC was intending to benefit journalism, or the family?
"A well written piece. However considering the topic was basically his Nazi father, and with a name like "Erik von Brunn" perhaps using the word "blitzkrieg" may not have been very appropriate. However other than that tiny lapse in judgment it sounds like he said the right thing."Touché DV---but since Brunn also used the word "appeasement" in the piece, I think the lapse in judgment may be yours, and it isn't tiny!
This posting has expired. (The title on the listings page will be removed in just a few minutes.)So I took the page's IP address and put it through archive.org, and got back the dreaded
We're sorry, access to http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=5&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewyork.craigslist.org%2Fmnh%2Fpol%2F1219835667.html&ei=2Og9SpyfEdyLtgflxMQB&usg=AFQjCNE1GfnNknFxRe7bRcU7IrOgzN_6GA&sig2=PMwrhvbnHAH9fUdk68uacA has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt.Now, even I know this isn't kosher. craiglist could clean up its server (leaving only eight days archived?) and this could lead me to a dead link---but shadow copies and caches are a different thing entirely. A robots.txt query exclusion means a site- or page owner is taking a deliberate step to hide something that normally should be there. It looks guilty, I think. The Washington Post does it all the time. Well, they all do.
In the United States government-sponsored psychological operation designed to simulate an antisemitic terrorist attack by a lone-wolf gunman on the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., a mistake in the narrative planning was made so fundamental and basic that no amount of amending or eliding to the record will correct it.
The only visual proof of the attack publically released to date are several images of a bullet-scared glass entrance door, the location where a gunman who was approaching the museum building, met a security guard stationed inside, who held the door open for him in welcome. At this close range, the gunman fatally shot the guard, and he fell just inside the door. The gunman was then himself shot by other armed security guards who were present, and the gunman fell wounded just outside the door.
This encounter is said to have bought enough time to mount a response, which prevented the intruder from accomplishing his apparent terroristic goal of causing maximum causalities. By taking a bullet in this fashion, the African-American guard has been lionized a hero, especially by the Jewish custodians of a holocaust memory housed there.
It is up to police and law enforcement professionals to determine the proofs of forensic evidence---establishing the trajectory of a bullet, for instance---and then release it to a supposedly skeptical media, where it filters into the court of public opinion. Ultimately, a court of law makes a decree---and afterward, everybody in a nation of laws accepts it.
It is not up to me to question this visual evidence---noting its contradictions and implausibilities. The ground beneath the record can shift---first reports indicated five shots were fired, later dispatches report eleven shots. Were I to make a legitimate point, I only do the work of those people tasked with manipulating the public record, which is actually quite a malleable thing---the "public" part being only a matter of perception. Operators can suppress and alter "published" sources to a degree honest people find hard to imagine---despite having read George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984. Who "wants" to believe in dystopia?
If a man holds a door open for another man, and is shot at the threshold in the process, he could fall wounded inside. Then while the door is still open, the attacker could get shot, and fall backwards outside. Then the door could close, and be pierced by five subsequent bullet shots, but that would take at least seven shots.
Some of the five bullet holes in the glass may have come from the same shot which wounded the assailant, but only if he was hit first while inside, with the bullet continuing on through a closed door, but he would have to open it and stagger outside first to fall---and no report states anything like that. A report could suddenly appear though, which is why the plausible deniability of a compliant bureaucracy in cahoots with amoral media leaves us shaking our heads.
If the multiple reports of five shots being fired were to hold up, then it wouldn't fit the evidence we have of five bullet holes in glass doors separating two men with bullet holes.
One thing I can state with complete assurance: A security guard who holds a door open to allow someone carrying a rifle to enter is never a hero, even if he takes a bullet that buys enough time to save lives. That would be called two things: a bored, distracted, menial worker of a type we all know, combined with an accident of fate.
It is also less than a substitute for what could have been an heroic scenario completely in sync with the established visual evidence:
Imagine a gunman on a mission, walking up to the entrance of a fraught facility. An alert security guard inside the door sees him coming, and has time to draw his handgun, but it doesn't stop the assailant, who is on a mission. As he pulls on the door to open it, the guard refuses to yield. He yanks on the door and a struggle ensues. Either of them could be the one to shoot first ---either in assault or defense---but the image of the guard physically holding the doors shut, as the frustrated gunman fires through the glass and kills him, is the more heroic.
When I was 15 and 16 years old, I was a dishwasher and busboy at Nero's Cactus Canyon and Silver Slipper, a restaurant and nightclub in suburban Nashville, Tennessee that had a one-man band and a postage-stamp dance floor. Despite the sound of that, it was the top place in the city of its kind, with cocktail waitresses dressed in long gowns, and an annual blow-out night after the Tennessee-Vanderbilt football game. One Halloween, everyone who worked there got dressed up in costume for the evening. Although a work shift, given all the festivities, the staff was allowed to join in and start drinking. Two old-school African-Americans---a grillman, and a waiter, got into a fight in the kitchen over a woman, and a disturbance ensued.
I was standing near the bar when the waiter tore past me, stalked by the man marching in deliberate rage and carrying a big knife. The waiter dashed through the front door of the dining room and out into the parking lot, with his assailant right behind. But then, just as quickly, the waiter popped back in an adjoining door to the Silver Slipper bar. A pretty little blond secretary who worked in the office was sitting in a booth up front. Sensing a call to action I was oblivious too, she popped up just in time to grab the door from the inside and hold it, even against the man's far superior strength.
Dressed up as Scarlet O'Hara in a real hoop skirt, the memory of the sight of her, with the skirt's hoops bouncing up in the back from the force of her exertions, is so crystal clear in my memory that I know I was given a gift of something real back then, with which to compare something unreal now. Nearly 40 years later, seeing images of white people, and black people, and Jewish people acting in ways that are so patently unreal, fills me with eternal anguish.
This is not about making Jews the fall guys in some battle between good and evil. We are only proxies here anyway. But this sad rerun of a failed Shakespearean sit-com known as 9/11---staged assaults against police, abortion providers, and a Jew's internal sense of safety---isn't working and has to stop. As a life-long liberal, I am angered to see the right-wing set up this way. If an ideology is to fail it should do so on its own demerits, not because somebody turned a dial up somewhere. And if the right-wing could be made to take a fall, it could be the Jews who were getting set up here too---just at a higher level."At 9 a.m. mourners were allowed in to view the body, walking up to two security guards posted on both sides of the open casket. Leading the mourners were Johns's fellow security officers from Wackenhut security firm. Several officers saluted the casket as they walked by.But an accompanying video by Anna Uhls of WaPo, Slain Holocaust Museum Guard Mourned in Md, reports matters slightly differently. The journalist giving the on-camera report was unnamed, but he was a young African-American with a disarming speech impediment that could sometimes get in the way of his report. He said that
Johns was dressed in a cream linen suit, a toy butterfly on the pillow next to him. A recording of local recording artist Jeff Majors's "Psalm 23" was played as mourners streamed in to view the body."
"people gathered here as early as seven-thirty this morning to pay tribute to Officer Johns', who lost his life at the Holocaust Museum, when a White Supremacist [oops] walked in and shot him in the stomach---after Officer Johns' opened the door for him.He says this while the camera pans a shot of crowds of well-dressed professional white people who are seen disembarking off tour buses, which helped to fill the 3000-seat church auditorium.
"Johns' casket was brought in by National Guard, and put at the alter of the church, um, and the first few persons who were able to see him---obviously besides his family---were his co-workers at the Holocaust Museum.
"A lot of the people I talked with, strangely enough, didn't even know officer Johns. They came out to show their support for him and his family."
"Mr. Alexander - don't quit your writing job. TV is not for you."So it seems Mr. LiveontheHill may actually be DeadBetweentheEars, as he completely misses the subtle distinctions between Mr. Alexander's written reporting and that which he lisps. I didn't miss it. The truth in what Mr. Alexander says is quite clear, and I commend him on his efforts. Revealed are some of the parameters of how things work in the real world. Now: we shall return to our regularly scheduled programing...
I knew this would be the result as I live blogged it but still it came as a surprise. I thought briefly about finding a less transparent style of working but there isn't one. I've found one piece of evidence that Johns' was not an open-casket funeral. A report at WTOP Federal News Radio saidShortly before the funeral, mourners filed past Johns' body in a large wooden casket topped with an enormous bouquet of cream and blue roses. The casket was flanked on either side by a security guard from Wackenhut Services Inc., the contractor Johns worked for during his six years as a security guard at the museum. Several family members sobbed loudly as they walked past to pay their final respects.
Thomas Jefferson's famous quote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants---it is it's natural manure," is from a letter he wrote to William Smith, dated, Paris Nov. 13. 1787. A more extended version of Jefferson's quote reads"...the British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honorably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The past which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure."So, the buying off of the press by politicians was old news already in 1787, was it? Well, somebody should have told me. The record of a record has now been cracked open sufficiently enough that there is no way they can stuff the entrails back into that rotting corpse.
