Remember 911 Quotes

History dressed up in the glow of love’s kiss turned grief into beauty.

Well I won't back down No I won't back down You can stand me up at the gates of hell But I won't back down

Alright. Have fun. I'm out. Text me if you need me." She leaned to whisper in my ear. "Do you remember the code for a 911 emergency date exit?" She pulled back to look at me seriously. "Uh, 911?" "Good girl." She smiled at me and then at Caleb. Have fun you two!" She waved over her shoulder.

The midwest is full of these types of people. The nice enoughs but with a soul made of plastic. Easy to mold, easy to wipe down. The woman's entire music collection is formed from Pottery Barn compilations. Her books shelves are stocked with coffee table crap The Irish in America, Mizzou Football - A History in Pictures, We Remember 911, something dumb with kittens. I knew I needed a pliant friend for my plan, someone I could load up with awful stories about Nick. Someone who would become overly attached to me. Someone who would be easy to manipulate. Who wouldn't think to hard about anything I said because she felt privileged to hear it.

We can gain a lot more striving for harmonious coexistence than we can by giving in to hate-filled rage and fear-driven ignorance.

We met when we were only 16, at a high school dance. When he died, we were 50. I remember how I didn't want that day to end, terrible as it was. I didn't want to go to sleep because as long as I was awake, it was still a day that I shared with Sean. ~Beverly Eckert

I was right outside the NSA [on 9/11], so I remember the tension on that day. I remember hearing on the radio, 'the plane's hitting,' and I remember thinking my grandfather, who worked for the FBI at the time, was in the Pentagon when the plane hit it...I take the threat of terrorism seriously, and I think we all do. And I think it's really disingenuous for the government to invoke and sort-of scandalize our memories to sort-of exploit the national trauma that we all suffered together and worked so hard to come through -- and to justify programs that have never been shown to keep us safe, but cost us liberties and freedoms that we don't need to give up, and that our Constitution says we should not give up.

He remembers which sister I like least and asks how she is doing. (lines 9-11 of the poem 'Divorce')

Dealing with evil was something only the Lord could do, and in His timing He most certainly would deal with it.

Nothing about tomorrow was promised to them; Jamie understood that. But as long as God gave them the gift of today, she would cherish it with all her heart.

is it treason to remember what we have done to deserve such villainy nothing we reassure ourselves nothing

life was different before 9/11, Waris said, as they left the town behind and walked along a busy main road passing big old houses made of thick slabs of grey stone; she was too young to remember the 'before era', when her mother said people looked at hijabbed women with surprise, curiosity or pity

Remember this: however bad you think things are today, however awful you consider our leaders to be, however stupid you think your fellow Americans are, this country has seen worse times, including - to name a few - the Civil War, 9/11, the Great Depression, and six seasons of Jersey Shore. We muddled through those times. We will muddle through these.

Me, personally. I do not know a soul who perished that day of 9/11. But it did then, does now, and I imagine it always will bring out the Patriot in me.

Shrouded as he was for a decade in an apparent cloak of anonymity and obscurity, Osama bin Laden was by no means an invisible man. He was ubiquitous and palpable, both in a physical and a cyber-spectral form, to the extent that his death took on something of the feel of an exorcism. It is satisfying to know that, before the end came, he had begun at least to guess at the magnitude of his 9/11 mistake. It is essential to remember that his most fanatical and militant deputy, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, did not just leave his corpse in Iraq but was isolated and repudiated even by the minority Sunnis on whose presumed behalf he spilled so much blood and wrought such hectic destruction. It is even more gratifying that bin Laden himself was exposed as an excrescence on the putrid body of a bankrupt and brutish state machine, and that he found himself quite unable to make any coherent comment on the tide—one hopes that it is a tide, rather than a mere wave—of demand for an accountable and secular form of civil society. There could not have been a finer affirmation of the force of life, so warmly and authentically counterposed to the hysterical celebration of death, and of that death-in-life that is experienced in the stultifications of theocracy, where womanhood and music and literature are stifled and young men mutated into robotic slaughterers.

I remember [my first meeting] like it was yesterday. A 24-year-old woman came to see me, sobbing. “Mr. Feinberg, my husband died in the World Trade Center. He was a fireman, and he left me with our two children, six and four. Now, I’ve applied to the Fund, and you have calculated that I’m going to get $2.8 million tax-free. I want it in 30 days.” I said, “Why do you need the money in 30 days?” She said, “Why 30 days? I have terminal cancer. I have 10 weeks to live. My husband was gonna survive me and take care of our two children. Now they’re gonna be orphans. I have got to get this money while I still have my faculties. I’ve gotta set up a trust. I’ve gotta find a guardian. We never anticipated this.” I ran down to the Treasury, we accelerated the processing of her claim, we got her the money, and eight weeks later she died. You think you’re ready for anything and you’re not.

Buddy Nielsen: One reason I think 2000s emo got so big was because it was kind of inappropriate to have party music as the background to two wars and probably the deadliest terrorist attack in American history. The response was music that captured the energy of the youth, which was this fucked-up world we're living in . . . In 2008, there's a generation of kids that may not remember 9/11 in the same way, and it switches to a different style of music that reflects the zeitgeist. It's just what happens with popular music.

Jean Potter, Bank of America, North Tower, 81st floor: "I would leave the house everyday and say to him the last line of this movie, The Story of Christ, "just remember, Jesus said 'I am always with you'. That's how I would leave him in the morning as I would go to work.

Remembering is not what's important. What's important is never forgetting the need to remember.

I was starting to remember the whole problem now: I hate these fucking people [people at Tea Party rallies, ed]. It's never been just political, it's personal. I'm not convinced anyone in this country except the kinds of weenies who thought student council was important really cares about large versus small government or strict constructionalism versus judicial activism. The ostensible issues are just code words in an ugly snarl of class resentment, anti-intellectualism, old-school snobbery, racism, and who knows what else - grudges left over from the Civil War, the sixties, gym class. The Tea Party likes to cite a poll showing that their members are wealthier and better educated than te general populace, but to me they mostly looked like the same people I'd had to listen to in countless dive bars railing against "edjumicated idiots" and explaining exactly how Nostradamus predicted 9/11, the very people I and everyone I know fled our hometowns to get away from. So far all my interactions at the rally were only reinforcing my private theory - I suppose you might call it a prejudice - that liberals are the ones who went to college, moved to the nearest city where no one would call them a fag, and now only go back for holidays; conservatives are the ones who married their high school girlfriends, bought houses in their hometowns, and kept going to church and giving a shit who won the homecoming game. It's the divide between the Got Out and the Stayed Put. This theory also account for the different reactions of these two camps when the opposition party takes power, raising the specter of either fascist or socialist tyranny: the Got Outs always fantasize about fleeing the country for someplace more civilized - Canada, France, New Zealand; the Stayed Put just di further in, hunkering down in compounds, buying up canned goods and ammo.

My dad died in 9/11. They opened up the museum to families today, so I went this morning. My plan was to go to work after, but I just couldn’t do it.”“What happened to him?”“He was a cop. He actually had the day off. But as soon as he heard, he drove into the city and got there just in time for the second tower to fall. A witness said that my dad had started to run when the tower fell, but turned back because a trapped woman was calling to him.”“What do you remember?”“I was in science class. And my teacher told us that there had been a plane crash. That’s all she said. Then I noticed all these kids around me getting phone calls and text messages, and they’d run out of class. So I knew something big was happening. Soon we got let out of school. On the ride home, I remember thinking that my dad was going to be working overtime on this. I imagined he’d be down there everyday, saving people. ‘I bet I won’t see him for weeks,’ I said.

How then should the state deal with terrorism? A successful counter-terrorism struggle should be conducted on three fronts. First, governments should focus on clandestine actions against the terror networks. Second, the media should keep things in perspective and avoid hysteria. The theatre of terror cannot succeed without publicity. Unfortunately, the media all too often provides this publicity for free. It obsessively reports terror attacks and greatly inflates their danger, because reports on terrorism sell newspapers much better than reports on diabetes or air pollution. The third front is the imagination of each and every one of us. Terrorists hold our imagination captive, and use it against us. Again and again we rehearse the terrorist attack on the stage of our mind – remembering 9/11 or the latest suicide bombings. The terrorists kill a hundred people – and cause 100 million to imagine that there is a murderer lurking behind every tree. It is the responsibility of every citizen to liberate his or her imagination from the terrorists, and to remind ourselves of the true dimensions of this threat. It is our own inner terror that prompts the media to obsess about terrorism, and the government to overreact. The success or failure of terrorism thus depends on us. If we allow our imagination to be captured by the terrorists, and then overreact to our own fears – terrorism will succeed. If we free our imagination from the terrorists, and react in a balanced and cool way – terrorism will fail.

I had to hide. I couldn’t let him take me to the police station, but I also couldn’t dial 911 to get them help. Maybe if I waited it out, they’d get better on their own? I dashed toward the storage tubs on the other side of the garage, squeezing past the front of Mom’s car. One, maybe two steps more, and I would have jumped inside the closest tub and buried myself under a pile of blankets. The garage door rolled open first. Not all the way—just enough that I could see the snow on the driveway, and grass, and the bottom half of a dark uniform. I squinted, holding a hand up to the blinding blanket of white light that seemed to settle over my vision. My head started pounding, a thousand times worse than before. The man in the dark uniform knelt down in the snow, his eyes hidden by sunglasses. I hadn’t seen him before, but I certainly hadn’t met all the police officers at my dad’s station. This one looked older. Harder, I remembered thinking. He waved me forward again, saying, “We’re here to help you. Please come outside.” I took a tentative step, then another. This man is a police officer, I told myself. Mom and Dad are sick, and they need help. His navy uniform looked darker the closer I got, like it was drenched straight through with rain. “My parents…” The officer didn’t let me finish. “Come out here, honey. You’re safe now.” It wasn’t until my bare toes brushed up against the snow, and the man had wrapped my long hair around his fist and yanked me through the opening, that I even realized his uniform was black.

Boston. Fucking horrible. I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity." But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths. But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness. But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago. So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will.

Obama occasionally pointed out that the post–Cold War moment was always going to be transitory. The rest of the world will accede to American leadership, but not dominance. I remember a snippet from a column around 9/11: America bestrides the world like a colossus. Did we? It was a story we told ourselves. Shock and awe. Regime change. Freedom on the march. A trillion dollars later, we couldn’t keep the electricity running in Baghdad. The Iraq War disturbed other countries—including U.S. allies—in its illogic and destruction, and accelerated a realignment of power and influence that was further advanced by the global financial crisis. By the time Obama took office, a global correction had already taken place. Russia was resisting American influence. China was throwing its weight around. Europeans were untangling a crisis in the Eurozone. Obama didn’t want to disengage from the world; he wanted to engage more. By limiting our military involvement in the Middle East, we’d be in a better position to husband our own resources and assert ourselves in more places, on more issues. To rebuild our economy at home. To help shape the future of the Asia Pacific and manage China’s rise. To open up places like Cuba and expand American influence in Africa and Latin America. To mobilize the world to deal with truly existential threats such as climate change, which is almost never discussed in debates about American national security.

1:09 A.M.: EACH SEIZURE LASTED about twenty seconds. River’s arms would flail around, while his knuckles and the back of his head kept smacking against the pavement. Davis started hoping for more seizures—they were evidence that River was still alive.   1:10 A.M.: JOAQUIN CALLED 911, frantic but trying to keep it together as his beloved brother passed away before his eyes. “It’s my brother. He’s having seizures at Sunset and Larrabee. Please come here,” Joaquin begged. “Okay, calm down a little bit,” the dispatcher replied. Moments later, Joaquin said, “Now I’m thinking he had Valium or something. I don’t know.” His voice cracked with anguish. “Please come, he’s dying, please.”   1:12 A.M.: AN ACTRESS ON the scene remembered, “Outside there was a crowd of people, and I saw him—lying flat, totally ghostly white.

On September 11th 2001, bin Laden, al Qaeda, and his co-conspirators attacked the United States. During these attacks, suicide bombers struck the famous Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly three thousand people on American soil.1 It was hailed as a second Pearl Harbor, except the kamikaze pilots came at the start of the war rather than the end. America would react much like it did after Pearl Harbor. War hysteria reared its ugly head as freedom vanilla replaced French vanilla in cafeterias in the style of Wilsonesque-nomenclature propaganda.2 Civil rights and natural rights would be openly assaulted by a government sworn to protect them in one of the longest wars in American history. Randolph Bourne’s decried jingoism would return to the sounds of trumpets blaring and the sight of flags waving. The familiar phrase “Remember the Lusitania,” which became “Remember Pearl Harbor,” became “Remember 9/11.” Anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment filled the country as America waxed hysterical, crying for “us” to “get those towelheads.

KNEE SURGERY I’D FIRST HURT MY KNEES IN FALLUJAH WHEN THE WALL FELL on me. Cortisone shots helped for a while, but the pain kept coming back and getting worse. The docs told me I needed to have my legs operated on, but doing that would have meant I would have to take time off and miss the war. So I kept putting it off. I settled into a routine where I’d go to the doc, get a shot, go back to work. The time between shots became shorter and shorter. It got down to every two months, then every month. I made it through Ramadi, but just barely. My knees started locking and it was difficult to get down the stairs. I no longer had a choice, so, soon after I got home in 2007, I went under the knife. The surgeons cut my tendons to relieve pressure so my kneecaps would slide back over. They had to shave down my kneecaps because I had worn grooves in them. They injected synthetic cartilage material and shaved the meniscus. Somewhere along the way they also repaired an ACL. I was like a racing car, being repaired from the ground up. When they were done, they sent me to see Jason, a physical therapist who specializes in working with SEALs. He’d been a trainer for the Pittsburgh Pirates. After 9/11, he decided to devote himself to helping the country. He chose to do that by working with the military. He took a massive pay cut to help put us back together. I DIDN’T KNOW ALL THAT THE FIRST DAY WE MET. ALL I WANTED to hear was how long it was going to take to rehab. He gave me a pensive look. “This surgery—civilians need a year to get back,” he said finally. “Football players, they’re out eight months. SEALs—it’s hard to say. You hate being out of action and will punish yourselves to get back.” He finally predicted six months. I think we did it in five. But I thought I would surely die along the way. JASON PUT ME INTO A MACHINE THAT WOULD STRETCH MY knee. Every day I had to see how much further I could adjust it. I would sweat up a storm as it bent my knee. I finally got it to ninety degrees. “That’s outstanding,” he told me. “Now get more.” “More?” “More!” He also had a machine that sent a shock to my muscle through electrodes. Depending on the muscle, I would have to stretch and point my toes up and down. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is clearly a form of torture that should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention, even for use on SEALs. Naturally, Jason kept upping the voltage. But the worst of all was the simplest: the exercise. I had to do more, more, more. I remember calling Taya many times and telling her I was sure I was going to puke if not die before the day was out. She seemed sympathetic but, come to think of it in retrospect, she and Jason may have been in on it together. There was a stretch where Jason had me doing crazy amounts of ab exercises and other things to my core muscles. “Do you understand it’s my knees that were operated on?” I asked him one day when I thought I’d reached my limit. He just laughed. He had a scientific explanation about how everything in the body depends on strong core muscles, but I think he just liked kicking my ass around the gym. I swear I heard a bullwhip crack over my head any time I started to slack. I always thought the best shape I was ever in was straight out of BUD/S. But I was in far better shape after spending five months with him. Not only were my knees okay, the rest of me was in top condition. When I came back to my platoon, they all asked if I had been taking steroids.

New Rule: If you're going to have a rally where hundreds of thousands of people show up, you may as well go ahead and make it about something. With all due respect to my friends Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, it seems that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you'd side with the sane and the reasonable--and not try to pretend the insanity is equally distributed in both parties. Keith Olbermann is right when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts; the other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance's sake, that the left is just as violent and cruel as the right, that unions are just as powerful as corporations, that reverse racism is just as damaging as racism. There's a difference between a mad man and a madman. Now, getting more than two hundred thousand people to come to a liberal rally is a great achievement that gave me hope, and what I really loved about it was that it was twice the size of the Glenn Beck crowd on the Mall in August--although it weight the same. But the message of the rally as I heard it was that if the media would just top giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan, and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side. Forgetting that Obama tried that, and found our there are no moderates on the other side. When Jon announced his rally, he said that the national conversation is "dominated" by people on the right who believe Obama's a socialist, and by people on the left who believe 9/11 was an inside job. But I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11 was an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama's socialist? All of them. McCain, Boehner, Cantor, Palin...all of them. It's now official Republican dogma, like "Tax cuts pay for themselves" and "Gay men just haven't met the right woman." As another example of both sides using overheated rhetoric, Jon cited the right equating Obama with Hitler, and the left calling Bush a war criminal. Except thinking Obama is like Hitler is utterly unfounded--but thinking Bush is a war criminal? That's the opinion of Major General Anthony Taguba, who headed the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib. Republicans keep staking out a position that is farther and farther right, and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle. Which now is not the middle anymore. That's the reason health-care reform is so watered down--it's Bob Dole's old plan from 1994. Same thing with cap and trade--it was the first President Bush's plan to deal with carbon emissions. Now the Republican plan for climate change is to claim it's a hoax. But it's not--I know because I've lived in L.A. since '83, and there's been a change in the city: I can see it now. All of us who live out here have had that experience: "Oh, look, there's a mountain there." Governments, led my liberal Democrats, passed laws that changed the air I breathe. For the better. I'm for them, and not the party that is plotting to abolish the EPA. I don't need to pretend both sides have a point here, and I don't care what left or right commentators say about it, I can only what climate scientists say about it. Two opposing sides don't necessarily have two compelling arguments. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on that mall in the capital, and he didn't say, "Remember, folks, those southern sheriffs with the fire hoses and the German shepherds, they have a point, too." No, he said, "I have a dream. They have a nightmare. This isn't Team Edward and Team Jacob." Liberals, like the ones on that field, must stand up and be counted, and not pretend we're as mean or greedy or shortsighted or just plain batshit at them. And if that's too polarizing for you, and you still want to reach across the aisle and hold hands and sing with someone on the right, try church.

But as I reflected on what the president could have done or said differently, I also remembered what it felt like in the weeks following 9/11. When, for a few glorious weeks, we were all united as Americans. For a brief time, it didn’t seem to matter if you were black, white, or brown. We were all brothers and sisters because we were Americans. We shared certain values, a certain past, a certain goal. We haven’t really seen that since. Charlottesville, I knew, had the same potential to unite us. But Trump’s response derailed that opportunity. America didn’t need a stock statement. The country was pleading for a serious discussion about race, about our fundamental need to completely stamp out the Klan and neo-Nazis. I couldn’t help but think of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and the Charleston church shooting. Emmett Till and Jimmie Lee Jackson. Black Codes and the Southern Manifesto. Trump, I felt, had betrayed black America. And Jewish America. And American decency.

In one sense we are all unique, absolutely one-of-a-kind individual creations; but in a much more profound way, each of us has come about as the result of a "long choosing." This is a phrase from writer Wendell Berry, whose book Remembering describes the main character, Andy Catlett’s, struggle with a sudden bout of amnesia. To those acquainted with Berry’s stories about Port William, Kentucky, Andy is a familiar figure, having grown up in the town’s rich web of family and neighborhood relationships. His disorientation begins during a cross-country plane trip to a scientific conference, where he is caught up in the security lines and body searches now a familiar part of the post-9/11 reality. In this world every stranger in an airport terminal is a potential enemy, someone to be kept at a safe distance. Somehow Andy makes it back to his home in rural Kentucky, but he is rough shape. He has literally forgotten who he is, and wanders about town looking for clues. His memories—and his sense of self—return only when in a confused dream state he sees his ancestors, walking together in an endless line. To Andy they are a "long dance of men and women behind, most of whom he never knew, . . . who, choosing one another, chose him.” In other words Andy Catlett is not a self-made man living in an isolated blip of a town, but he and his home are the sum of hundreds of courtships and conceptions, choices and chances, errors and hopes. We like to imagine that we are unique, absolutely unprecedented. But here is the truth: not just the tilt of our noses or the color of our bodies, but far more intimate characteristics–the shape of our feet or an inner tendency towards joy or sadness–have belonged to other people before we came along to inherit them. We came about because they decided to marry one person and not the other, to have six children instead of three, to move to a city instead of staying on the farm. It is remarkable to think of someone walking down the streets of sixteenth-century Amsterdam with my fingers and kneecaps, my tendency toward melancholy and my aptitude for music. We live within a web of holy obligation. We are connected to people of the world today, and to other invisible people: the unknown number of generations yet to be born. One of the most important things we can do, in the way we care for the earth and in the way we care for our local church life, is to recognize their potential presence. (pp.117-118)

9/11 and the Ancient Mystery The link between 9/11 and Elul 29 raises an inescapable point: Had the events of 9/11 not happened, there would have been no collapse of the stock market. And if the attack had not happened at the time it happened, then the stock market would not have collapsed at the time it did. And if the stock market hadn’t collapsed at the time it did, there would have been no great financial collapse in the Year of the Shemitah. Nor would there have been any transformation of the financial realm. Nor would there have been a connection between Wall Street and Tishri. Nor would the mass nullification of the nation’s financial accounts have taken place on the exact day appointed from ancient times for the wiping away of a nation’s financial accounts. It could have taken place in a more precise way. Without the calamity of 9/11 happening when it did, the ancient mystery of the Shemitah could not have been fulfilled as it was fulfilled on the exact day at “the end of seven years”—Elul 29. What this means is that even the timing of 9/11 had to be part of the ancient mystery of the Shemitah. If that sounds like a radical proposition, remember 586 BC when the armies of Babylon brought destruction to the land of Israel. And yet the secret of its timing was tied to the mystery of the Shemitah—so too with what took place in September 2001, the timing was tied to the ancient mystery. The Global Mystery What does it reveal? It reveals that the mystery of the Shemitah touches every realm of life, involves the entire world, and alters the course of history. It is not of natural origin or explanation—but supernatural. In view of this, let’s look again at the description of the Shemitah in its greatest and most far-reaching manifestation: •  It operates on an epic and global scale, transcending national borders and involving every realm of life. •  It involves the political realm, the cultural realm, the sociological realm, the military realm, and even

On 9/11 we vowed “Never forget.” But we always somehow do. And because I was there—in the spotlight, in the crosshairs—I realize better than most Americans that we have pretty much forgotten what an amateur-night, three-ring circus the Clinton White House was. But I haven’t forgotten. I remember Monica, sure. But I remember Hillary, too: the shortcuts she took, the methods she employed, the yelling, the screaming, her disdain for “the little people,” Bill’s black eye—the country’s black eye.

We remember the martyrs who died for a cause that we knew about, never those no less effective in their contribution but whose cause we were never aware of—precisely because they were successful. Our ingratitude toward the poètes maudits fades completely in front of this other type of thanklessness. This is a far more vicious kind of ingratitude: the feeling of uselessness on the part of the silent hero. I will illustrate with the following thought experiment. Assume that a legislator with courage, influence, intellect, vision, and perseverance manages to enact a law that goes into universal effect and employment on September 10, 2001; it imposes the continuously locked bulletproof doors in every cockpit (at high costs to the struggling airlines)—just in case terrorists decide to use planes to attack the World Trade Center in New York City. I know this is lunacy, but it is just a thought experiment (I am aware that there may be no such thing as a legislator with intellect, courage, vision, and perseverance; this is the point of the thought experiment). The legislation is not a popular measure among the airline personnel, as it complicates their lives. But it would certainly have prevented 9/11. The person who imposed locks on cockpit doors gets no statues in public squares, not so much as a quick mention of his contribution in his obituary. “Joe Smith, who helped avoid the disaster of 9/11, died of complications of liver disease.” Seeing how superfluous his measure was, and how it squandered resources, the public, with great help from airline pilots, might well boot him out of office. Vox clamantis in deserto. He will retire depressed, with a great sense of failure. He will die with the impression of having done nothing useful.

11 There is no remembrance of former things [nobody remembers the past]; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after [neither will the future be remembered by those who come after it; in other words, nothing changes]. By the way, you can probably see that verses 9–11, above, could also be interpreted as saying, in effect, that nobody ever seems to learn from the past, which in many ways would be true of worldly societies and people.

John Cartier: The sound was so deafening. Michele Cartier, Lehman Brothers, North Tower, 40th floor: This high-pitched sound, and I didn’t know what that was, but it was so eerie, like your fingernails-on-a-chalkboard type of thing. Bruno Dellinger, principal, Quint Amasis North America, North Tower, 47th floor: I heard a sound that today I cannot remember. It was so powerful, such a huge sound that I blocked it. It scared me to death. I blocked it, and I cannot bring it back up to consciousness. Howard Lutnick, CEO, Cantor Fitzgerald, North Tower: The loudest sound I’d ever heard. Gregory Fried, executive chief surgeon, NYPD: I can’t even give you an analogy.

Gordon Johndroe: I don’t really remember eating, but the stewards put out some sandwiches and chips. The air force bills you for your meals aboard Air Force One, through the White House Military Office. I remember a couple days later getting a bill for $9.18. The bill said for meals on September 11th between Sarasota–Barksdale, Barksdale–Offutt, Offutt–Washington.

remember [my first meeting] like it was yesterday. A 24-year-old woman came to see me, sobbing. “Mr. Feinberg, my husband died in the World Trade Center. He was a fireman, and he left me with our two children, six and four. Now, I’ve applied to the Fund, and you have calculated that I’m going to get $2.8 million tax-free. I want it in 30 days.” I said, “Why do you need the money in 30 days?” She said, “Why 30 days? I have terminal cancer. I have 10 weeks to live. My husband was gonna survive me and take care of our two children. Now they’re gonna be orphans. I have got to get this money while I still have my faculties. I’ve gotta set up a trust. I’ve gotta find a guardian. We never anticipated this.” I ran down to the Treasury, we accelerated the processing of her claim, we got her the money, and eight weeks later she died. You think you’re ready for anything and you’re not.

Congressional oversight: When a congressional representative forgets to do something. (Historical note: this phrase once had another meaning, but since 9/11, years in which Congress never heard a wish of the national security state that it didn’t grant, no one can quite remember what it was.)

The Importance of Israel's Past (1–8) I Will Teach You (1–3) Truths in parables (1–2a) Things hidden from old (2–3) You Will Teach Others (4–8) The wonders of God (4) The word of God (5–8) The Insurrection of Israel's Past (9–16) They Rebelled Against God (9–11) They forsook his word (9) They forgot his works (10–11) God Rescued Them (12–16) God did wonderful things (12) God divided the sea (13) God directed them through the sea (14) God divided the rock (15–16) The Ingratitude of Israel's Past(17–31) They Defied God (17–19) They sinned against him (17) They tested him (18) They spoke against him (19) God Delivered Them (20a) He struck the rock (20a) He served them water (20b) They Disbelieved God (20b) They doubted he would give them bread (20b) They doubted he would give them meat (20b) God Disciplined Them (21) He was wrathful toward them (21a) He was angry with them (21b) They Denied God (22) They did not believe him (22a) They did not trust him (22b) God Delighted Them (23–31) God commanded the clouds (23) God rained down manna (24) God fed them abundantly (25–29) God disciplined them (30–31) The Insincerity of Israel's Past (32–39) They Rejected God (32–37) They sinned against God (32–33) They sought God (34) They remembered God (35) They lied to God (36) They left God (37) God Remained Faithful (38–39) He forgave them (38) He remembered them (39) The Insubordination of Israel's Past (40–55) They Rebelled Against God (40–42) They turned from God (40) They tempted God (41) They forgot God (42) God Rescued Them (43–55) He performed signs (43) He sent plagues (44–51) He led them (52–53) He directed them into the land (54) He drove out the nations (55a) He divided up the land (55b) The Idolatry of Israel's Past (56–72) They Rebelled Against God (56–58) They tested him (56) They turned back from him (57) They provoked him (58) God Disciplined Them (59–61) He abhorred them (59) He abandoned them (60–64) God Favored Them (65–72) He fought for them (65–66) He chose Judah (67–68) He constructed the temple (69) He chose David (70–72)

This day I remember well. It is the very first moment in my life when I saw desperation enacted by hate. I watched as the second plane flew into the second tower, the pit in my stomach plummeting to a place I have yet to recover. The devastation of those jumping, the visions of cement and debris falling from the sky like thunder. I remember not being able to reach my friends and coworkers, the fear paralyzing me as I imagined them fighting for their lives and the lives of countless others. I remember my cousin who was in the Pentagon who was narrowly spared that day. That day — like it did for so many — that changed me. Forever. And while we honor those lost and remember those who did such things, remember that it was everyone coming together that saved this nation. It was us standing beside one another regardless of politics or religion, race or gender, and no one cared about wealth or poverty, or anything else for that matter. In that moment America stood tall. Today we are completely undone … unraveled and our excuse is moot. I wish we could, as a nation, realize that 9/11 represented a multitude of things. Our freedom, our fear, our triumphant spirit to overcome tragedy and terrorism—foreign and domestic—and our ability to eliminate prejudice when confronting human decency. Today we remember the many lives lost, those still suffering, and those who bravely and courageously continue to do all they can to protect our freedom to speak out, to challenge oppressors, and to rise above the lunacy. New Yorkers are proof that communities of all colors, beliefs and socio economic statuses can come together in the face of adversity. I hope this country — state by state — can stop acting like children and instead act like human beings. That we can be worthy of the months and weeks and days that followed 9/11 when we rose to the occasion as a collective whole.

I reach down to find an ashen grey stone, it’s surface hot from the sun. I’m holding it in my hand for a moment to remember, to think of a day I’ve been trying to cast away for twenty years.

Jeremy George Lake Charles Sports Car Collector His collection includes several Lamborghinis, including one from the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as a number of other rare models. His collection of 40 cars includes a Porsche 911 GT3 RS, a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and a Ferrari 458 Italia. Jeremy George Lake Charles Other cars in his garage include a Ford Mustang, an Aston Martin Vantage, two Porsche 918 Spyders and two Rolls-Royce Phantom IIs. This extraordinary collection of cars included a 1964 Ferrari 488 GTB with Stirling engine and four-speed manual transmission, an original Lotus Elans and an early Ferrari F40. The Boxster is generally a great sports car, but the 718 badge certainly makes it a classic of the future. This collector's car is always the one I see lined up in front of me, and I have seen the owner pull the car out of the car every weekend with a sense of pride. The Type R will probably be a lethal collector's car that we will see for many years to come. He is a collector of cars, which is something I'm not sure what to do. M is for sure it will be in a few years. Jeremy George Lake Charles Another advantage of owning sports cars is that most eventually become collectibles. For the super-rich, though, there are some amazing car collections on the list of collectibles, but I can't remember all of them for that long. It should come as no surprise, then, that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the owner of the world's largest collection of sports cars, has 7,000 cars, including cars from brands such as Ferrari, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW and Porsche. Sheik Mohammed has taken 19 years to sort through his entire collection because he has to drive different cars every day from now on.

At some point in my high school days, one of my debate colleagues, a kid from a less exalted part of Johnson County, told me he planned to be a Democrat in his upcoming political career (all debaters imagine themselves as future politicians) because that was the party of the working class, and there would always be more workers than there were rich people. After all these years I remember the moment he said this with the perfect, frozen clarity that the brain reserves for great shocks: Pearl Harbor, 9/11. The idea stunned me. Class conflict between workers and businessmen? Could this be true? The thought had simply never occurred to me before.

The greatest loss of 9/11 is that many forgot to remember what really matters- the oneness of humanity.

A Pentagon investigation found that the team of mostly Green Berets was scheduled to meet with local leaders, but had to change their mission after a drone spotted an Islamic State potentate. Their captain, the target of blame from a Pentagon report that the soldiers’ relatives denounced as a whitewash, expressly warned his superior officer that the unit was neither equipped nor informed enough to execute the raid. More than a hundred militants opened fire on Operational Detachment-Alpha Team 3212. Air support and evacuation did not arrive for four hours, by which time Sergeant First Class Jeremiah W. Johnson, Staff Sergeant Bryan C. Black, and Staff Sergeant Dustin M. Wright were dead. Sergeant La David Johnson was missing, and his body would not be recovered for two days. Less than two weeks later Trump called Johnson’s grieving widow. Myeshia Johnson was with her mother and a family friend, Miami congresswoman Frederica Wilson, who paraphrased Trump as saying that Johnson—whose name Trump evidently didn’t remember—must have known what he had signed up for.

One of the most common responses to any insinuation that the US government either abetted the 9/11 attacks or looked the other way and let them happen was that the American government would never kill three thousand of its own people in one day. I remember believing that, until covid came around and we hit the 9/11 death toll on a daily basis while the government lied and denied and profited off our pain. All conspiracy theories are debatable, except one: the American government will absolutely leave its citizens to die.

The greatest enemy of hope is apathy, that numb state of not caring about anything. To track hope, then, it’s important to keep part of your attention on something you’re interested in. Remember Barbara Fredrickson’s research with the post-9/11 college students? If you actively direct your attention toward what you are uniquely interested in, your emotional, cognitive, and social resources can build and broaden. You’ll be able to harness your emotions, capture hopeful insights, and connect with people who genuinely care about you. If you already have a project or endeavor that holds your attention, then find a way that’s right for you to give it space.

When big news happens in other states, people say, 'Oh my goodness!' or 'What the-?" But we Floridians will scan a story or click over to CNN or Fox and mutter to ourselves, 'Okay, where's the Florida connection?' We do this because we know that any big story is likely to have a link to America's strangest state. A guy lands a gyrocopter at the Capitol to protest campaign finance laws? He's a Floridian. A Major League Baseball doping scandal? The clinic was in Florida. The 9/11 hijackers got their flight training here. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, President George W. Bush was reading a story about a heroic goat to Florida schoolchildren. Who gave special prosecutor Ken Starr permission to dig into President Bill Clinton's affair with an intern? Attorney General Janet Reno, a Florida native. Remember the 1972 Watergate break-in that brought down Richard Nixon? Guess where the burglars were from.

For John and me, every detail of that early morning was seared into our minds. But our son had no memory of it. He wanted to understand, to remember something, so he kept asking us to describe it to him: What did we hear? What did we see? What was the inside of the ambulance like? We described the scene as best we could—“you were here on the floor, son; this is where we found you”—leaving out the parts no child wants to hear their parents say: We left our bodies. We bargained with God. I did not say, I knew when I saw your feet that the universe had come to take you from me, and that I had known without really knowing that this was coming. I didn’t mention that the more I remembered, the more I was sure that here on earth my hands may have been dialing 911 and my voice may have been asking for help, but somewhere on another plane I was standing at the mouth of a fiery tunnel, holding my arms out like a shield, pushing back flames with my hands and screaming, NO, STAY BACK, LEAVE HIM HERE. I didn’t explain that I went to war with the universe then, that I squared off against Life, which is also Death, that I threw my body between them and him. I remember these scenes like I remember running down the hall, as if they all happened, equally real. All that is hard to explain to someone so young.

Lucy picked up the point. “I remember this one time when I was in the third grade? And Jesse Cantu decided that he liked me? But I didn’t like him? So he decided that I would fall in love with him if he rescued me from some kind of danger, because that’s what always happens in the movies? So one day he told me that there was a surprise waiting for me in the cupboard at the back of the classroom and all I had to do was go in at recess and open the cupboard door—” “And you believed him?” Benno interrupted, aghast. “Of course!” Lucy said indignantly. “Because I’m from Mississippi! Where we believe people! So anyway, when I opened the cupboard there was a whole mess of spiders in there and I know people say that spiders scuttle away when they see you coming, but these spiders jumped out at me like they were rabid or something and Jesse ran into the room to save me but I was screaming so much that the principal called 911!” She paused for breath. “And the only good thing that happened was that we all got out of school for the rest of the day.” There was a brief silence as everyone absorbed this. Finally Silvia muttered, “Men are pigs.” Giacomo sighed. “How old was this boy with the spiders?” he asked Lucy in a patient voice, as if they had all gone off the rails but were fortunate that he was there to put them right. She frowned, as if suspecting a trick, but finally answered, “Eight.” “As I thought! Far too young to realize what a mistake he was making,” he said triumphantly. “But I’m sure he learned from this sad experience, yes? He didn’t keep trying to attract women with spiders?” “Well, no, of course not,” Lucy said. “Jesse’s still real immature, but he’s not an idiot.” “There you are, then.” Giacomo leaned his chair back, teetering on the back two legs, looking pleased with himself. “Everyone makes mistakes in love. The point is to learn from them. For example, Jesse learned—” “What?” Kate scoffed. “That attacking a girl with spiders isn’t a good way to say ‘I love you’? That should have been obvious from the start.” “Well, yes.” He nodded, as if conceding the point, but then added. “Of course, all knowledge is useful.” “But not all knowledge is worth the cost.” “And what cost is that?” Giacomo’s deep brown eyes were alight with enjoyment. “Looking like a fool.” “Oh, that.” He folded his arms across his chest with the air of one who is about to win an argument. “That’s nothing to concern yourself with. After all, love makes fools of everyone, don’t you agree?” “No, I don’t.” Kate bit off each word. “I don’t agree at all.” “How astonishing,” he muttered. “In fact,” she said meaningfully, “I would say that love only makes fools of those who were fools to begin with.” She smiled at him, clearly pleased with her riposte. Giacomo let his chair fall back to the floor with a thump. “If the world was left to people like you,” he said in an accusing tone, “we’d all be computing love’s logic on computers and dissecting our hearts in a biology lab.” “If the world were left to people like me,” Kate said with conviction, “it would be a much better place to live.” “Oh, yes,” he said sarcastically. “Because it would be orderly. Sensible. And dull.” “Love doesn’t have to end in riots and disaster and, and, and . . . spider attacks!” she said hotly.

In one sense we are all unique, absolutely one-of-a-kind individual creations; but in a much more profound way, each of us has come about as the result of a "long choosing." This is a phrase from writer Wendell Berry, whose book Remembering describes the main character, Andy Catlett’s, struggle with a sudden bout of amnesia. To those acquainted with Berry’s stories about Port William, Kentucky, Andy is a familiar figure, having grown up in the town’s rich web of family and neighborhood relationships. His disorientation begins during a cross-country plane trip to a scientific conference, where he is caught up in the security lines and body searches now a familiar part of the post-9/11 reality. In this world every stranger in an airport terminal is a potential enemy, someone to be kept at a safe distance. Somehow Andy makes it back to his home in rural Kentucky, but he is rough shape. He has literally forgotten who he is, and wanders about town looking for clues. His memories—and his sense of self—return only when in a confused dream state he sees his ancestors, walking together in an endless line. To Andy they are a "long dance of men and women behind, most of whom he never knew, . . . who, choosing one another, chose him.” In other words Andy Catlett is not a self-made man living in an isolated blip of a town, but he and his home are the sum of hundreds of courtships and conceptions, choices and chances, errors and hopes. We like to imagine that we are unique, absolutely unprecedented. But here is the truth: not just the tilt of our noses or the color of our bodies, but far more intimate characteristics–the shape of our feet or an inner tendency towards joy or sadness–have belonged to other people before we came along to inherit them. We came about because they decided to marry one person and not the other, to have six children instead of three, to move to a city instead of staying on the farm. It is remarkable to think of someone walking down the streets of sixteenth-century Amsterdam with my fingers and kneecaps, my tendency toward melancholy and my aptitude for music. We live within a web of holy obligation. We are connected to people of the world today, and to other invisible people: the unknown number of generations yet to be born. One of the most important things we can do, in the way we care for the earth and in the way we care for our local church life, is to recognize their potential presence. (pp.117-118)

Beverly Eckert, wife of Sean Rooney, VP of risk management, Aon Corporation, South Tower, 98th floor: We met when we were only 16, at a high school dance. When he died, we were 50. I remember how I didn’t want that day to end, terrible as it was. I didn’t want to go to sleep because as long as I was awake, it was still a day that I shared with Sean. He kissed me goodbye before leaving for work. I could still say that was just a little while ago. That was only this morning.

I remember just after 9/11/2001 people were putting up American flags-- stand with America against its enemies was the prevailing feeling-- and all I could think was "that's the feeling that got us here." It seemed to me that empathy for our ostensible enemies was the only way we could move forward to something better. I know that's true now.

We must remember that attacks from without will always pale in comparison to those from within. And as we reflect on 911, we would be wise to consider the fact that the largest threat to our nation today is less the former and more the latter.

I remember being at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii and watching the 9-11 attacks on TV. It happened in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep and I only found out about it when I arrived at work. By that time the two towers had collapsed hours earlier.

A cheerful and helpful nurse followed them into the cubicle, once Aggie became fully alert. “Well, hon, what happened to you?” Without the sincere expression on the nurse’s face, her syrupy tone would have sounded contrived. “I was walking past my brother, and he swung his bat and hit my head.” The nurse looked concerned, and Aggie realized that she didn’t know what happened. “So, your brother hit you with his baseball bat? Was he mad at you?” The woman shot a disapproving look at Aggie. “Oh, no! They were playing softball, and I was walking to the swing out back and didn’t see them. Laird’s probably pretty mad at himself.” Embarrassment in Tavish’s face and manner made him look dishonest. “Didn’t you see them playing? How could you just walk into the middle of a ball game?” Doubt and suspicion laced the nurse’s words, and she surreptitiously pressed a buzzer on the wall. Aggie sighed. She knew they were in trouble now. Tavish, unaware of the tension growing in the room, answered automatically. “Well, I wasn’t watching where I was going. I was reading and looked up just in time to see the bat coming at me. I ducked, but I think that just kept me from getting it in the neck.” Aggie laughed. She couldn’t help it. This was the boy’s third accident stemming from walking while reading. “Tavish, I have to make it a rule now. You may not open your book if you are standing on your feet. Do you understand?” Tavish sheepishly nodded. The nurse watched the exchange and then smiled. “Well, hon, I used to be real klutzy when I was your age, but it wasn’t because I was reading. I didn’t have a good excuse like that.” She gave Aggie a knowing look. “I have to go stop the nurse from calling someone about the accident. You understand.” Relief washed Aggie’s face, and she smiled. “I appreciate it. Sorry to be a bother.” “I’ll be right back. Happy to stop this one!” The nurse walked out of the room, and Aggie overheard her telling the receptionist to cancel the Social Services call. “I was premature— I remembered hearing about the house with all the kids and the 9-1-1 calls and jumped the gun. Tell Linda I am sorry for bothering her.

It was my first time back in Pakistan since 9/11, and I found a country very different from the one I remembered. Any love or admiration for America was gone. In its place was an irrational paranoia that passed for savvy political consciousness. Looking back at that trip, I see now the broad outlines of the same dilemmas that would lead America into the era of Trump: seething anger; open hostility to strangers and those with views opposing one’s own; a contempt for news delivered by allegedly reputable sources; an embrace of reactionary moral posturing; civic and governmental corruption that no longer needed hiding; and married to all this, the ever-hastening redistribution of wealth to those who had it at the continued expense of those who didn’t.

Always remember the heroes, who did ordinary things, at extraordinary times, so others may live.

One day, after yet another failed running attempt, I confessed to a good friend how frustrated I was about my sorry running chops. “Tyler, you’ve got it all wrong,” he said. “It’s not about the speed or the distance. It’s about the endurance.” I rolled his words around my mind and remembered Ecclesiastes 9:11 (KJV):

Guide Dog Wisdom What I Learned from Roselle on 9/11 1. There’s a time to work and a time to play. Know the difference. When the harness goes on, it’s time to work. Work hard; others are depending on you. 2. Focus in and use all of your senses. Learn to tell the difference between a harmless thunderstorm and a true emergency. Don’t let your sight get in the way of your vision. 3. Sometimes the way is hard, but if you work together, someone will pass along a water bottle just when you need it. 4. Always, but always, kiss firefighters. 5. Ignore distractions. There’s more to life than playing fetch or chasing tennis balls. 6. Listen carefully to those who are wiser and more experienced than you. They’ll help you find the way. 7. Don’t stop until work is over. Sometimes being a hero is just doing your job. 8. The dust cloud won’t last forever. Keep going and look for the way out. It will come. 9. Shake off the dust and move on. Remember the first guide dog command? “Forward.” 10. When work is over, play hard with your friends. And don’t forget to share your Booda Bone.

Well, the homes directly across the street are empty because of foreclosures. And it’s a working-class neighborhood. There might not have been many people at the other homes at that time of the morning. And the school is set far enough back that the sounds might not have carried.” “But presumably you had traffic along the street. And kids and teachers at the windows probably screaming their heads off. Cell phones hitting 911. Cruisers rolling. I was at Precinct Two when the guys started pouring out of the place. What is the time to the school from there by car? Fifteen minutes?” “About that, yeah.” “And even if nobody on the outside saw him leave, there had to be eyeballs at the school windows. Kids using phones as cameras. From what I remember, there’s not an exit in this building that’s not visible from some classroom window.” “And you knew this because you, what, snuck out a lot?” “All the time.” “Well, you got me there. I went to high school in the next county. This is your turf, not mine.” “And that still doesn’t cover his ingress. How did he walk in here and no one see him? Even if it was in the rear. There are windows overlooking it.” “Yeah, but the second and third floors are unused.” “But the first floor has windows

Do you remember the days that followed 9/11?” he asked. “Of course,” I answered. “No one had to say it. It was as if almost everyone had some sort of sense about it, even if they couldn’t put it into words. It was as if the nation had unconsciously heard a silent voice calling it to be still and to return to the foundation.” “The voice of God?” “Yes, and for a moment, America appeared to be responding. The rush and clamor of its culture were stilled. Wall Street came to a standstill. Hollywood grew silent. Throughout the nation there was a noticeable and massive turning away from the superficial and to the spiritual. Even the name of God was taken out of the closet and publicly proclaimed from Capitol Hill to New York City. Multitudes sang “God Bless America” and gathered for prayer. America’s houses of worship overflowed with throngs of people seeking to find solace. In those first few days and weeks after 9/11, it seemed as if there might be a true national turning, a changing of course, an awakening—even a spiritual revival.” “But then America was turning back to God?” “No. America was not turning back to God. It was a spiritual revival that never came. And even the appearance of turning back was short-lived. It had no real root. There was no real change of heart or course, no searching of ways, no questioning if something could be wrong, no repentance. So it couldn’t last. And it wasn’t long before the moment was lost and things began to return to a form of normalcy. The calls for prayer would fade away, the rush and clamor of daily life would resume, the spiritual searching would be abandoned, and the superficial again embraced. The name of God would again be withdrawn from the public square, and most of those who had suddenly flocked to houses of worship would cease their flocking. The nation would resume its departure from God and its rejection of His ways, only now with increased speed.

For almost three decades, September 11 marked a day of infamy for Chileans, Latin Americans, and the world community—a day when Chilean air force jets attacked La Moneda palace in Santiago as the prelude to the vicious coup that brought Pinochet to power. In the aftermath of “9/11,” 2001, it is more likely to be remembered for the shocking terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. With that horror, the United States and Chile now share “that dreadful date,” as writer Ariel Dorfman has eloquently described it, “again a Tuesday, once again an 11th of September filled with death.

So down with religion and culture,” Abe asked. “Quite the opposite,” she answered. “People here are proud of where they come from, free to practice their religion, and open to share their cultures with one another. That is because they don’t have ignorant greedy men whispering in their ear that the reason they’re poor is because of ‘those people,’ or ‘remember 9/11.’ When you treat good people equally and give them the basic rights of a decent shelter, good food, clothing, and the safety of not having a suicide bomber or drone dead leveling their home or killing their loved ones. They have more time to learn and realize that the person sitting across from them who maybe a different skin color, or maybe worship the same God just a bit differently or call Him a different name is not that different. In the end, good people want the same thing all over the world for themselves and their children. Greedy people with power and a sense of entitlement are the ones that make this world a darker place. They use their influence to turn innocent people against one another by exploiting their weaknesses and misfortune in order to fuel their own agenda. Racism, corrupted use of religion, and fear are age-old business ploys men of power use to line their pockets.

We had a class called Theory of Knowledge, taught by a Catholic family man we later found out was strongly attracted to little boys… so I guess the point of the class was you don’t know shit. The past few years, I found out that there’s Neurogenesis, which means we *do* make new brain cells. And I found out about Epigenetics, which basically means Lamarck was more right than Darwin… so that does away with a lot of shit I still remember from science classes from not too long ago. I read books that show the Jews did 911 (not Osama) and a guy named McPherson keeps telling us that we’re all gonna die in a few years anyway. Make each day count…

We pass through a membrane when we turn pro. It hurts. It’s messy and it’s scary. We tread in blood when we turn pro. Turning pro is not for everyone. We have to be a little crazy to do it, or even to want to. In many ways the passage chooses us. We don’t choose it. We simply have no alternative. What we get when we turn pro, is we find our power. Our will. We become who we always were. Do you remember where you were on during 9/11? You’ll remember where you were, or, when you turned pro.