The Freedom Tower

It takes the pomp and circumstances of a Pope to wrangle an invitation to tour Ground Zero.
In recent months luminaries like the president of Iran and former US President Jimmy Carter were turned away when they requested the opportunity to visit Ground Zero.
Pope Benedict XVI is coming to New York … just the fourth papal visit to New York. The Pope is coming in April,  according to an announcement made by the U.S. Conference of Bishops and it will include a visit to Ground Zero.
The pope will visit Ground Zero on the final day of his trip, Archbishop Pietro Sambi told the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Monday, and say a public Mass at Yankee Stadium on April 20.

Psychologists estimate that hundreds, even thousands, of people directly affected by the events of Sept. 11, 2001, are still crippled by post-traumatic stress disorder.
This news comes from HealthDay on MedicineNet.com. Reporter E.J. Mundell wonders if a virtual-reality “revisiting” of that horrific day actually help them?

‘“New York City psychiatrist Judith Cukor believes that it can.
We are getting tons of calls for 9/11-related post-traumatic stress disorder — it’s five years out, and we are still seeing people who have never had treatment,” said Cukor, an instructor in the department of psychiatry at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. “A lot of people have had traditional treatment, too, but it’s not helping.”

Cukor is supervising a clinical trial already reported on this blog that uses high-tech virtual reality to help fight the more stubborn cases of 9/11-linked post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. “We’re seeing very positive results here, in terms of people finally getting better,” she said.

For people who suffer from the emotional numbness, terrifying flashbacks, nightmares and avoidance behaviors of PTSD, “exposure therapy” remains the gold-standard treatment. The therapy involves patients being asked to imagine in detail the past event that caused them such pain.

It sounds counterintuitive, but this type of controlled re-exposure “allows your brain to metabolize it, break it down and deal with it,” Cukor explained. “At the end of the treatment, people’s memories are still sad and difficult, but they are not taking over their lives.”

In many cases, however, simply imagining the scene isn’t enough.

“Sometimes people aren’t able to engage when they close their eyes — they are still avoiding,” explained Cukor, an instructor in the department of psychiatry at Weill Cornell. “That’s where virtual reality comes in.”

The new project at Weill Cornell uses state-of-the-art, multi-sensory technology to create a “virtual reality 9/11″ that helps PTSD patients break through that avoidance “wall” and find the path to healing. During a typical session, patients stand in place, wearing the type of video-equipped helmet usually associated with high-end video games.

Except this is no game. Instead, the programmers who designed this “virtual 9/11″ listened carefully to eyewitness accounts and recreated that day onscreen in fine detail. Patients see and hear the first notes of alarm from inside the offices of the Twin Towers. They frantically search for an exit. They make the nerve-wracking descent down long, claustrophobic stairwells and finally emerge into the ensuing chaos on the ground.”’

The Canadian premier of “Loose Change Final Cut” by richard Harris was released this weekend over the internet. The film is that latest edition of a series of films purported to expose the truth about 9/11. This edition follows the earlier releasee of Loose Change and Loose Change 2nd Edition.
The earlier editions of this documentary “have been viewed at least 50 million times over the internet, making it one of the most watched movies in history, but the Final Cut goes above and beyond, making it not simply the third in a trilogy but a completely new film with oddles of unseen footage, commentary, interviewes and eyewitness testimony,” according to Canadawantsthetruth911.blogspot.com.
This posting is not an endorsement of this or any other conspiracy theory.
To find a link, go to infowars-shop.stores.yahoo.net/lochficut.html

Researchers at the Medical College at Cornell University say they have used a new technique to successfully treat survivors of the World Trade Center attacks who suffer from Post -traumatic Stress Disorder.
Researchers at the Weill Medical College in Manhattan say use of re-exposure therapy can successfully be used in reducing the symptoms in patents properly treated by experienced therapists. These findings came from a case study using survivors of the WTC attacks.
“Done properly by experienced therapists, re-exposure to memories of traumatic events via imaginal exposure therapy can lead to a reduction of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms,” the study says  “Exposure helps the patient process and habituate to memories and strong emotions associated with the traumatic event: memories and emotions they have been carefully avoiding.
“But many patients are unwilling or unable to self-generate and re-experience painful emotional images. The present case study describes the treatment of a survivor of the World Trade Center (WTC) attack of 9-11-01 who had developed acute PTSD. After she failed to improve with traditional imaginal exposure therapy, we sought to increase emotional engagement and treatment success using virtual reality (VR) exposure therapy,” the researchers said. “Over the course of six 1-h VR exposure therapy sessions, we gradually and systematically exposed the PTSD patient to virtual planes flying over the World Trade Center, jets crashing into the World Trade Center with animated explosions and sound effects, virtual people jumping to their deaths from the burning buildings, towers collapsing, and dust clouds. VR graded exposure therapy was successful for reducing acute PTSD symptoms.”

Contractors hired to remove toxic debris from a skyscraper where firefighters died in a fire last summer near Ground Zero can resume their demolition work.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. has approved $10 million in new expenses to continue taking down the former Deutsche Bank tower. The demolition stopped after the fatal fire last summer.
The fire broke out last August. Two firefighters called to the building where workmen had been taking the building down died fighting the suspicious fire.
The LMD approved the money, including $1 million to fight complications related to a criminal investigation related to the fire. Firefighters Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia died while battling the fire at 130 Liberty St., the site of the former Deutsche Bank building near Ground Zero.

Firefighters in Little Rock, Ark. stood in line today to sign a steel beam that will go up at the World Trade Center memorial at Ground Zero.
The ceremony was held during a traveling exhibit of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum. The beam was signed by by firefighters, school children and others with permanent markers who attended the even. They signed their names to the beam that will go up on the site at Ground Zero where construction began. The memorial is expected to be completed 2009 and the museum one year later. The exhibit travels next to memphis, Tenn. on Saturday.

As spectacular as the views from Windows on the World at the World Trade Center were when I went there many times for dinner or Sunday brunches, what trivial pursuits these were when compared to what you see and think after seeing the view from the top of one of the towers that were photographed on June 17th, 2000 by 360 Cities. It was a random Saturday morning and now, it records a reality about America I will never forget. it records the view that many of the victims of 911 had on the last day of their lives. It is something none of us have to imagine now. This is reality therapy.

To see it, go to http://nyc.360cities.net/fs.html?loc=World_Trade_Center_Twin_Towers.p36

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has apologized for saying  a fallen police officer  was no hero despite the fact that he had worked at ground zero for an extended time during the clean up at the World Trade Center.
The mayor extended his apology to the father of Jame Zadrogain a meeting at city hall. The city medical examiner Charles Hirsch said Zadroga’s death was not caused by toxic fumes at Ground Zero. The mayor said he was going to try to find a way for Sept. 11 victims memorial to include those who have been sickened by the toxic zero dust and debris.
“We wanted to have a hero,” Bloomberg said Oct. 29. “There are plenty of heroes. It’s just that in this case, the science says this was not a hero”” he told the Associated Press.
“The family of James Zadroga, a retired police detective, rejects allegations that the 34-year-old took any medications improperly. At least two other medical experts have concluded that the material found in his respiratory system included microscopic shards of debris from the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
The mayor backpedaled after saying Zadroga was not a hero, calling him “a great NYPD officer” who had repeatedly risked his life for the city and had gotten sick from breathing contaminated air at ground zero. He said, however, that it would be up to the public to decide whether Zadroga was a hero.”

This news comes from the Radiological Society of North America:

“Radiologists are one step closer to solving a mysterious condition affecting World Trade Center (WTC) rescue and recovery workers.
Air trapping, a manifestation of obstructed lung airways often seen in smokers and the elderly, was identified in 25 of 29 rescue and recovery workers suffering from “WTC cough,” according to early research results presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
“Our research further corroborates that people at the World Trade Center site on Sept. 11, 2001, and the days after were exposed to environmental toxins that initiated airway problems,” said lead author David S. Mendelson, M.D., associate professor of radiology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.
The diagnosis was made using end-expiratory high-resolution CT, a rarely used test that is performed after patients have expelled their breath. In a typical chest CT, the scan is performed during a deep breath hold.
Twenty-nine rescue and recovery workers whose respiratory complaints could not be clearly characterized by routine pulmonary function tests were evaluated with standard CT and end-expiratory CT. The end-expiratory CT revealed abnormalities not detected on the standard CT.
These patients had been referred by the WTC Health Effects Treatment Program, a dedicated clinical effort for World Trade Center rescue and cleanup workers that has evaluated about 900 patients since January 2003. Approximately 40 percent of these patients have been identified as having new or exacerbated respiratory problems since their work at Ground Zero. Researchers speculate that small-airway disease has resulted from exposure to large amounts of toxic dust particles found at the WTC site.
Many of the impairments are clearly obstructive, but there also appears to be a patient subgroup with definite symptoms in whom conventional tests fail to show the nature and extent of the obstruction. The term “WTC cough” was coined to describe ailments that could not be clearly characterized in this group, but the addition of end-expiratory CT revealed abnormalities beyond the mild changes that can be seen in smokers and the elderly.
Although thought to be benign, air trapping is symptomatic - causing shortness of breath, dry cough or wheezing - and is treated as a variant of asthma, with inhaled steroids and bronchodilators.
“We remain attentive to the possibility of other adverse health effects that still may occur,” said co-author Rafael de la Hoz, M.D. “We have seen evidence of improvement in some patients, but certainly not in all. We are hoping to secure enough funding to systematically continue the characterization and treatment of these effects.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 10,000 Fire Department of New York personnel and 30,000 other workers and volunteers were exposed to environmental stress, toxins and other physical hazards during rescue and recovery efforts.
Co-authors of the paper being presented by Dr. Mendelson are Dr. de la Hoz, Mark Roggeveen, M.D., Stephen Levin, M.D., and Robin Herbert, M.D.”
http://www.rsna.org/

A “rare surving relic” of a 19th Century World Trade Center in New York is facing demolition.
A story in the International Herald Tribune says historians are fighting to save the Manhattan building, built as a warehouse in the style of Greek Revival architecture that is slated to be torn down to create space for a new Sheraton hotel in lower Manhattan.
“The warehouse was erected in 1831 — one of the earliest examples of the Greek Revival style of a cluster of buildings that made up the original world trade center in lower Manhattan, long before the 110-story twin towers that opened in 1970. The Pearl Street wholesalers specialized in dry goods they shipped to storekeepers all over the country.

New York “became like a funnel through which the wealth of the Western world would now have to pass,” according to a television documentary by Ric Burns called “The Town and The City.” Narrow lanes like Pearl Street “were transformed into the first district in the world devoted exclusively to commerce.”

On either side of the warehouse on 213 Pearl Street were two similar 19th-century buildings on a block now mostly owned by Rockrose Development, which has built a luxury high-rise there and is erecting a second tower.

All that remains of the building at 211 Pearl is its facade, and 215 already has been demolished, leaving 213 as “a rare surviving relic of the process that made New York into America’s great city,” said local historian Paul E. Johnson.