The Freedom Tower

From: Jeanne ( JeanneIris@earthlink.net )Ms. Marion Eggleton (posted from the Camden Courier Post) states the fearful message with vigor. Common? Yes. Sensible? I wonder.

Does she realize that her words support the very fear tactics of the generals whom she fervently admonishes, who are sworn to uphold the decisions made by their Commander in Chief?

The United States has intelligence operations in place at this very moment. It was our intelligence that assisted the capture of those involved with the recent terrorist activity in Europe. We should all pray that young women and men with high ingenuity and resourcefulness will continue to choose to enter the professions dedicated to preserving our peace. They work with intensity and intention 24/7, 365.

Our country is strong. We have intelligent, creative leaders who are ‘chafing at the bit’ to receive the winning number of votes of educated citizenry in the next election. Right now, the duty of every U.S. citizen is to analyze the evidence before us. Read, listen and, most of all, question those who wish to be the leaders in the upcoming years. Accept only logical answers. Encourage discussion.

Inventing fearful scenarios will only perpetuate ignorance. We have had enough ignorance!

We attract into our lives those conditions, which dominate our consciousness. I don’t know about you, but I intend to live a fulfilled, productive life, and I wish the same for my children along with those of my relatives and friends.

As long as there is breath in me, I will be the United States citizen who concentrates on and contributes to the advancement of this nation, illustrating to the world its strength of character, altruism, creativity, intelligence and stewardship. That is the only way to maintain a secure future for our loved ones.

In a pro-active move, Al-Qaeda or a wanna be released a taped message last week just ahead of 9/11 commemorations that mocks the United States. Lets not be fooled by the timing or content of this message.

The tape, allegedly made by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, threatens to escalate the war in Iraq. Bin Laden doesn’t have to do a thing to make the US look bad in Iraq. The administration is able to do this all by themselves.
Tape or no tape, the jig is up in Iraq and no amount of political rhetoric will patch up this blunder. Terrorists proved six years ago they are capable of delivering a blistering inside our borders and no amount of nonsense about how tough we are will cover up the effectiveness of those attacks.
Americans are worthy opponents even if our leaders are not. Too many good soldiers have died defending lies with political motivations. One good way to commemorate 9/11 is for the American people in San Francisco, Iowa, New Hampshire, Detroit and everywhere to join civic organizations opposed to the war. Soldiers are dying for no good reason, Homeland Security is deporting foreigners whose only crime is slipping across the Mexican border by the tens of thousands, political leaders are flip flopping on the effectiveness of the so-called surge and bin Laden may be gearing up to take out another 3,000 Americans.
Construction of the Freedom Tower and other buildings at Ground Zero are symbolic of our ability to recover. Lets not compound the mistakes of the past by ignoring the obvious – the people in charge are not capable of defending our borders. Mission not accomplished. Liars! Remember whose watch it was when the terrorists delivered a one-two-three punch in the first place. We are still trying to recover and the Administration is refusing to take care of wounded troops, First Responders now getting sick from the dust from the collapsing Twin Towers … and the fools in charge are now covering up their incompetence by claiming we have not been attacked since 2001. That is like the loser of a boxing match claiming the winner can’t do it again. Doesn’t matter if you got knocked the hell out in the first place.
Lets commemorate 9/11 by never forgetting who blew it in the first place. Democrats should be raising hell if they expect to win the White House. They need to get their game together too.

Do yourself a favor. Read Maureen Dowd’s column in the Times today. It injects much needed clarity about the war and those bunglers who started it.
There has been much ballyhooing today in the so-called news from the Pentagon about new planes costing $110 million each, bigger, better and personnel carriers. The networks once again can’t tell the difference between a press release and the public’s right to know. We know better than the news editors who have no sense of story, never mind news sense. They get played everytime into running nonsense like those pieces about how much hareware the Pentagon is going to throw at the war — again. Its called spin folks and it came pouring out like lava today. It was the bungler’s way of trying to counter the sad facts about terrorism released yesterday that tell us just how far we’ve gone — backwards in our so called war on terror.
One of the battle wagons that is particularly good spin material in situations come from stories like this one that was reported months ago but has made its way to the top of search engines again today:
USS New York

It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center.

It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, LA to cast the ship’s bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, “those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,” recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. “It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.”

Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the “hair on my neck stood up.” “It had a big meaning to it for all of us,” he said. “They knocked us down. They can’t keep us down. We’re going to be back.”

The ship’s motto? “Never Forget”

We won’t forget because our enemies are still coming after us and no amount of spin is going to stop them.

The largest firefighter’s union in America will launch a video tomorrow attacking former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s reputation as a strong leader before and after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Television and print reports covering this 13-minute video – say it is set for distribution to firefighters and the general public by the International Association of Fire Fighters. It uses interviews with New York City firefighters and families of 9/11 victims to argue that Giuliani has exaggerated his record as mayor.
“He’s running on his 9/11 leadership and it was lacking — and there was none,” Jim Riches, a deputy chief in the New York Fire Department and a father of one of the 9/11 victims, says on the video, according to a transcript obtained by ABC News. “I blame Giuliani. He was the leader that day. And he was the leader for the eight years leading up to that.”Newsweek recently reported, “As Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign rolls along, there are more and more voices protesting that he’s not the 9/11 hero America considers him to be. First among them: some firefighters.”
That’s an understatement, say writers of a blog called The Carpetbagger Report. “First, it’s not just “some”; it’s the nation’s largest firefighters’ union. Second, they’re doing more than just protesting.
The documentary-style video — titled “Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend” — specifically criticizes Giuliani for failing to ensure “interoperability” of communications devices; placing the city emergency command center in the World Trade Center even after the 1993 terrorist attack at the Twin Towers; and Giuliani’s decision to abandon efforts to recover remains of dead firefighters as he sought a quick clean-up of Ground Zero.

Another Sept. 11 victim has been identified.
The newest victim has been identified after remains from Ground Zero wsere retested with new DNA technology.
The victims name was not released.
The remains of nine victims after the 9/11 attacks have been identified from thousands of recovered remains in the last two months. The city medical examiner’s office says the city has recently identified a firefighter, an Australian passenger on the plane that crashed into the north tower and woman who worked in the north tower.
The city uses new technology that creates stronger DNA profiles from bone fragments. Hundreds of bone fragments have been recovered in and around Ground Zero.

Workers have again found remains at Ground Zero.

News agencies are reporting that the remains of six World Trade Center victims were found last week by workers at the site. They recovered four body parts under a service road and two other parts were found on the roof of a Cedar Street building near Ground Zero. Since the effort to search the World Trade Center for human remains was renewed in October, more then 600 bones and fragments have been found in and around the site, yet nearly 1,100 victims of the terror attack have yet to be identified.
What is tasteless, criminal in fact, about this is the fact Ground Zero is still a crime scene that has not been thoroughly investigated. When I covered alley shootings in Brooklyn or the Bronx, you didn’t let fools go mucking around inside or around the perimiter of a crime scene. It was just bad police work. There is something terribly out of place here and it is that 800 pound guerilla no one in charge seems willing to talk about – not halting construction until a substantial number of the 9/11 victims have been identified is insane.
The decision to go forward with construction without finishing the job is the greater crime of fools. They are we!

I’m not all that interested in celebrating the decisions fools have made …

One of the snags hiding just beneath the surface of  reconstructing  the World Trade Center surrounds whether or not the many projects going up at the site will be able to be insured.
A hearing last week was held to determine whether the federal government would extend its terrorism property insurance program. That program expires at the end of the year.
It is called the federal Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. It was enacted 14 months after the Sept. 11 attacks. It reimburses insurers up to $100 million if foreign terrorists attack again. The government is considering extending the insurance for 15 years. So, the government is in the insurance business, the real estate business, the public relation business, just to name a few ventures. They’re not good at any of this, so stay tuned.

I first saw what has come to be modern architecture way back in 1976 when the Renaissance Center was put up on the riverfront downtown in Detroit. The hotel complex was surrounded by high concrete walls – massive bunkers really. It was a message to the city — keep out. This complex is for the safety and comfort of our visitors, not the host city that was then called the Murder Capitol of America.
Little did we know then that this kind of construction was a wave of the future.
“After 9/11, a craving for the solidity of walls reasserted itself. And the wars on terror, and fractious peaces, enforced it,” the Times said today. “The Green Zone in Baghdad, Jerusalem’s separation barrier, the concrete bollards that line corporate headquarters on Park Avenue — all are emblems of an unintended new mentality.
“The most chilling example of the new medievalism is New York’s Freedom Tower, which was once touted as a symbol of enlightenment. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, it rests on a 20-story, windowless fortified concrete base decorated in prismatic glass panels in a grotesque attempt to disguise its underlying paranoia. And the brooding, obelisk-like form above is more of an expression of American hubris than of freedom.”

The Daily News, one off New York’s finest tabloids, gave the city a Christmas present last year. On Christmas Day, the News published a study on how survivors fled the twin towers on 9/11.
The conclusion: In case of emergency: leave your purse, don’t ask your boss for permission and don’t waste one second getting out.
“Researchers who interviewed nearly 2,000 people who were in the World Trade Center say many people misspent precious minutes after the first plane hit. “They’re gathering things - purses and cell phones and car keys and house keys and ID badges,” Columbia University researcher Robyn Gershon said. “They’re seeking out friends.” As many as 3% stopped to change their shoes, Gershon said. “Some survivors who took part in the World Trade Center Evacuation Study “literally got out as the buildings were collapsing and climbed out of the rubble,” Gershon said.
“So we know from speaking to those people that people behind them didn’t make it out,” she added. “Those four or five minutes [of delay] were meaningful minutes.”
The research also uncovered a woeful ignorance about the layout of the towers, even among those who worked in them 10 years or more.”
Team players won’t survive. Whole teams were entombed on 911. Whole teams did not get out.

From Project Rebirth.com
“Ambitious plans are in the making. As the most visible structure to rise from the redeveloped World Trade Center site, the Freedom Tower has been hailed by its creators as a new civic icon, an immensely visible example of the landmark architecture that will ultimately dominate the site. The design of the tower – which was unveiled to the public last winter at Federal Hall, only blocks from its future site – reveals an elegant and radiant structure, both torqued and tapering as it rises toward its apex, 1,776 feet above the streets below.

While desire for architectural innovation appears palpable, it is equally matched by the demand – from project critics and proponents alike – for safety. The structural integrity of the tower must ultimately serve to reassure not only its designers, but the thousands of visitors, employees and tenants who will find themselves inside. If the tower is to both satisfy the demand and quell the concerns of the public, it must at once be a vivid example of contemporary architecture and a benchmark of safety and security.