"I've had the following dream at least twice involving an airliner:Note the date: 17:25:30 PDT, 10 March 2001.I dreamed I was in downtown Boston and a Boeing 747 flew into the John Hancock tower. For those unfamiliar with Boston, the John Hancock tower is a 60 story glass building - the tallest skyscraper in Boston at 790 feet.
Anyway, in the dream, I'm walking past the Boston Public Library towards Copley Place and I look up in the sky and see this 747 coming in low to the ground. It crashes into the building up near the top so that the nose section is sticking out one end and the tail section is jutting out of the other. The wings shear off and fall to the ground.
Strangely enough, nobody around me seems to react to this seemingly catastrophic event. People just go on walking as usual. However, several fire trucks and police cars nonchalantly approach the building and begin to commence rescue operations. None of the rescue personnel appear to be in much of a hurry. It's almost like they are carrying out a tired, routine drill.
However, I can hear distant screams from the airplane above as I approach the building. Sort of like the screams you hear from a distant roller coaster. People up there are screaming but nobody down below seems to be paying very much attention.
After waking from this dream (I've had it at least twice), I can't seem to get myself together right away. The eerie feeling persists for an hour or two and I can't get the sound of the distant screams out of my head nor the vision of the airliner pierced like an arrow through the John Hancock building in Boston."
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the happening world / read it and weep
FreeRepublic.com, 09/11/2001 8:46 AM CDT: "Explosion confirmed... the Pentagon is on fire"
FreeRepublic.com, 09/11/2001 9:04 AM CDT: "Tower 1 is gone....."
FreeRepublic.com, 09/11/2001 9:48 AM CDT: "...another hijacked plane is being tracked..."
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tracking with closeups / haiku
September 11, 2001
see her empty shoes
smell him on his empty suits
never coming home
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the bitpig rant / September 11: The Quiet Holocaust
Of the mountains of memories of 911 that have been recorded since that terrible day, most are based on things seen. In a visual culture such as ours, the sight of two man-made mountains crumbling to dust before our eyes hit like a hammer blow. Strangely, however, I find that my own most intense memories of the attack and its aftermath are not visual, but involve the other senses -- smell and hearing. I'll try to explain.
I've told my September 11 story before, so I'll spare you all the details. Suffice it to say that here in Texas the biggest impact felt by any of us was the funereal calm, the result of having our busy airport shut down. Suddenly the constant, subliminal roar of airplanes in our broad Texas sky was gone. It was like something out of an old sci-fi TV show, a deathly quiet, a world gone silent. It struck me then how much we Americans associate airplanes with liberty; I remember back when I was a kid the U.S. Air National Guard used to run commercials on TV featuring people hearing the then-frequent sound of sonic booms. One character would say to the other, "That's the sound of freedom"; and then the ANG logo would come up on the screen. As we found out, that chirpy '60s catchphrase turned out to be true: a sky empty of airplanes and the noise they make proved to be frightening indeed.
For me, the real impact of 911 came at Christmastime in 2001. I was in New York on business for the first time since the attack. Although I was staying with a friend up in Westchester for the night, we had made plans to meet another friend at La Petite Auberge at 28th and Lex for supper, so we caught a train down to Grand Central and then went by subway to midtown. As we climbed up to street level from the subway, I noticed a strange smell, a sort of combination of rotting meat and burnt wiring, that seemed to permeate the air. I looked around for a smoldering dumpster or something similar, but saw nothing, so we continued on down 28th to the restaurant and had a wonderful meal.
It wan't until later, as I was sitting in a wine bar over by Tompkins Square Park having a champagne cocktail, that the true source of the odor suddenly hit me, hard. The smell was the smell of death. I was experiencing the remains of three thousand of my fellow Americans, taking theim physically into my body with every breath.
I haven't been to Ground Zero, and I'm not sure I'll ever go there. I don't need to; I'll carry the memory that that silent, empty Texas sky with me forever; I'll retain the dust and ash of that holocaust around inside my lungs for the rest of my life. If it takes the establishment of a global Pax Americana to prevent another 911, so be it. No matter what happens, though, I'll never be able to escape my memories of 911: the echoing emptiess, the strange, pungent aroma of mass murder, will remain in me forever.
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afterword: "this... will long endure"
January 30, 2003: Decision in re United States vs. Reid, Judge William Young, presiding, to the Richard Reid, the "Shoe Bomber" upon sentencing:
"We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here. And I say that to everyone with the utmost respect.
Here in this court , where we deal with individuals as individuals, and care for individuals as individuals, as human beings we reach out for justice, you are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist.
And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.
So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders.
In a very real sense Trooper Santigo had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were and he said you're no big deal. You're no big deal.
What your counsel, what your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today? I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing. And I have an answer! for you. It may not satisfy you. But as I search this entire record it comes as close to understanding as I know.
It seems to me you hate the one thing that is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose.
Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely.
It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their, their representation of you before other judges. We are about it. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden, pay any price, to preserve our freedoms.
Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be forgotten. But this, however, will long endure. Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice,individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done.
The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged, and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.
See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. You know it always will.
Custody Mr. Officer. Stand him down. "
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tracking with closeups / goodbye
