Posted on 09/10/2017 7:04:18 PM PDT by Auntie Mame
In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears comfortable in the grip of unimaginable motion. He does not appear intimidated by gravity's divine suction or by what awaits him. His arms are by his side, only slightly outriggered. His left leg is bent at the knee, almost casually. His white shirt, or jacket, or frock, is billowing free of his black pants.
~snip~
They began jumping not long after the first plane hit the North Tower, not long after the fire started. They kept jumping until the tower fell. They jumped through windows already broken and then, later, through windows they broke themselves. They jumped to escape the smoke and the fire; they jumped when the ceilings fell and the floors collapsed; they jumped just to breathe once more before they died. They jumped continually, from all four sides of the building, and from all floors above and around the building's fatal wound. They jumped from the offices of Marsh & McLennan, the insurance company; from the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond-trading company; from Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 106th and 107th floors—the top. For more than an hour and a half, they streamed from the building, one after another, consecutively rather than en masse, as if each individual required the sight of another individual jumping before mustering the courage to jump himself or herself.
(Excerpt) Read more at esquire.com ...
“...gravity’s divine suction...”
Reaching, reaching... the purple prose is strong in this one.
Ping.
Thank you.
Crying while reading is appropriate.
I just saw a special about this tonight..
In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001.
It worked, of course, as we gradually replaced flying the American flag from our cars to hanging ubiquitous yellow ribbons, the symbol of grief and longing. I think Trump is the last chance we have to rescue a maudlin, fearful country from surrendering to the forces of shut-up-and-take-it.
Why? Because it might incite hatred of Muslims? Wrong, wrong, wrong! We hate them anyway, even without the pictures. They are blight upon this earth, and should be dealt with accordingly.
“I think Trump is the last chance we have to rescue a maudlin, fearful country from surrendering to the forces of shut-up-and-take-it.”
*BUMP*
P.S. What’s the time and location for the, ‘Million Man Moderate Muslim March,’ tomorrow?
*SPIT*
Here’s another bit from the article:
“More and more, the jumpers—and their images—were relegated to the Internet underbelly, where they became the provenance of the shock sites that also traffic in the autopsy photos of Nicole Brown Simpson and the videotape of Daniel Pearl’s execution, and where it is impossible to look at them without attendant feelings of shame and guilt. In a nation of voyeurs, the desire to face the most disturbing aspects of our most disturbing day was somehow ascribed to voyeurism, as though the jumpers’ experience, instead of being central to the horror, was tangential to it, a sideshow best forgotten.”
You’re welcome, livius.
I remember a thread here on FR some days after 9/11 discussing the jumpers and astonishingly many freepers disparaged the jumpers for committing suicide.
I think the jumpers were doing the opposite of committing suicide, they were choosing life, ten more seconds of life.
Seeing the pictures just makes me angry. We suppressed outrage at the Islamism that produced 9/11 so as not to offend ‘moderate’ Muslims, Muslims who never marched in protest of the killings. They feared a backlash because they knew what THEY would have done in the situation.
It reminds me of funny bit I read once:
“The Dearborn Mosque of Mighty Mohammed wishes to assure non-Muslims that the mosque had no hand in the terror attacks that will take place tomorrow in Flint.”
When it became a question of HOW to die, rather than WHETHER, the calculus changed.
One could wish that tall buildings like this had rappelling ropes and gloves if worse came to worst, but that’s a question for now, not then.
Some people are know speculating that Osama chose 9/11 because he believed that it was the true date of Christ’s birth. Seems more plausible than the meme that it was the American three digit emergency code.
Some people are know speculating that Osama chose 9/11 because he believed that it was the true date of Christ’s birth. Seems more plausible than the meme that it was the American three digit emergency code.
Still that would be quite lost on the Western world. A Christmas attack wouldn’t be, but again who’d be in the building?
Sixteen years on and it has faded for most, or at least seems to have done so. I was lucky enough to have gotten to attend the family-only memorial at ground zero a few years ago.
It seems that the cause of the mass murder is lessened. And here we are, 16 years on still fighting in Afghanistan, for what I do not think we know.
Jesus that was a tough read
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