world trade center/pentagon/pennsylvania events - september 11, 2001 - ?

the following are the things i posted on my weblog the day of, and the time following the terrorist attacks on the US, sept 11, 2001. while i realize the same things are posted on the weblog archives, i realize that no one goes and reads the archives, and i thought my opinions should have a more permanent page on my site. so here goes...

september 11, 2001

what is there to say? where do i even begin? i can't organize my thoughts into a complete sentence. i'm going to talk in numbered items. it seems to work better that way.
1. i was sitting in my 8:30am class trying not to fall asleep. suddenly i started thinking about airplanes, and how there seems to have been an increase in the number of crashes lately...aaliyah, other small air craft crashing into farms...and i was thinking that airlines really need to start doing something to make people confident to fly, or they're going to lose alot of business...
2. i'm being totally serious about point #1. that was my thought process around quarter after 9.
3. after class i went to the health center, and one of the nurses said that two planes crashed at the World Trade Center. I thought, oh into each other near the towers...then she said, an act of terrorism and I realized she meant they hit the towers. they had the news on, so while i waited i sat there. i got called into a room, and sat there while the towers collapsed. i left around 10:30 headed back to my house where they told me the tower had collapsed. i was in complete disbelief.
4. when i saw the footage of the 2nd plane hitting the tower it was totally surreal. the impact, the explosion was right out of a movie. and i also thought ok, this is really terrible but they can repair the buildings. the fires will get put out and they'll have to rebuild the tops of the towers.
5. if the situation seemed like a movie with the plane hitting it, the collapse was even more movie like. i spent about 10 hours watching tv, and the continuous footage from amateur cameras coming in was unbelievable. shots from different angles of the collapse, as if an arial view wasn't unbelieveable enough. the ground views of chunks of wall falling down...people running from the dust cloud. it looked like hollywood. it's still hard for me to comprehend that two huge towers can just collapse like they did. 12 hours ago there were two beautiful structures standing in manhattan, and now there is nothing there. i just can't understand it. i mean i can, it's just....really hard to imagine. i don't know. i'm not making sense.
6. i wrote before in a different entry about how i look back at history and wanted to live in that time, and experience those things. i said that i was bored with the era of history i live in, that nothing happens. well i'm wrong. my kids are going to look at this, and i'll be able to tell them i remember. they're going to feel the same way i did until now, that the past was for more interesting than the present.
7. i just now realized my cousin elizabeth and her husband live in the city. he works in finance...
8. a bunch of my friends were in the city this weekend for the michael jackson concerts, and no word yet on if they are all ok.

current mood: confused
listening to: nothing
posted by me 10:14 PM

september 12, 2001

i still don't know what to say. i had thought of some things before, but they have since escaped me.
anthony, sandy and laura are ok, thank god. anthony emailed us late last night, and he called Sandy who was back in PA. laura emailed us this morning as well.
anthony came out of the subway 4 blocks away after the planes hit, saw 1 of them collapse.
email from laura: "hi guys.. im okay.. i live like 3 blocks from the towers and was practically knocked out of my bed when the impact occured. one of the windows in my apartment blew out and we had to lay face down on the floor with wet t-shirts over our faces because the dust and smoke was so thick. when we could, we ran like 6 blocks to the south street seaport and got on a ferry to staten island. im at my parents house in staten island now with all of my roomates.

my father, who works for the mayors office of emergency management in the world trade center was trapped for a while. many of his friends, parteners and co workers are dead. but he is okay and is back in manhattan digging through the rubble. over 200 fire fighters are dead and thousands of civilians. my friend jeff is a marine and he has been activated for duty. we are deffintely headed for war. the entire downtown area is covered with about 5 inches of dust. there are shoes, briefcases, pocketbooks, ties, etc strewn around abandoned by people running for their lives. it looks like pictures i have seen of war torn bosnia.

please tell those who you love that you love them. never until yesterday have i feared for my life. it has changed me forever and made me realize that all that matters is life and the people whom you love.

god bless
Laura"

everything/one on campus has been really supportive it seems. alot of activities have been planned, ex) blood drive. i had 3 classes today. class#1 proff was very upset, almost started to cry. spent about 20 min discussing concerns/feelings. then we continued class in her act of defiance, that we're not going to put our lives on hold. class#2 proff discussed how he was having a problem going on, when compared to what happened, what his lecture was supposed to be, and what he has to say is trivial. took about 15 minutes to decide what we were going to do, and stuff. class#3 proff said if anyone is having issues, to go talk to a counselor the school has provided. that was all he said. that reminds me that i was approached by a counselor yesterday in the union when we went to find out about giving blood. they were walking around and talked to people. the red cross was set up at a table, and had forms to fill out if you were looking for someone who is missing. the response, and everything, on campus was so quick i was really surprised.

i still don't know what i feel or how to feel. me, the least patriotic person around is having issues dealing with this. well i don't know if i'd use the term issues. it's still so unreal. i could blab on about how the essential foundations of america have been shaken/shattered with the attack on the towers...that the towers were symbols for america. but i'm not sure i feel that way. every politician is going to say that, because it sounds good.

we can't, as a nation, and i can't as an individual become paranoid because of what has happened. i'm not going to stop flying, i'm not going to be scared to enter a building. we can't start living our lives in a perpetual state of paranoia. yes this was absolutely horrifying, beyond belief, but we cannot become paralyzed by fear.

i don't know what to say. i need to go look at my old airplane crash dreams. one of them, the airplane crashed into a sky scraper.

current mood: still confused
listening to: nothing
posted by me 5:54 PM

september 13, 2001

i had this thought that so many other people have had i'm sure. our country is partially paralyzed by the attacks on tuesday...what better time to hit us again than now? i'm not being paranoid, really. it was just a thought. a thought that i wouldnt be surprised if it happened.

i had a dream last night about trains. it was on the train track on river road, lots of people were standing around. a train went by slowly, and then from down the street, a train with 2 cars went and got onto the tracks. there was no device to get on the tracks like you need for trains, it just went on, and got the wheels lined up and went. the other train came by a few times, one time going off the tracks.

why am i mentioning this here and not on my dream site...this morning cnn reported that 2 trains crashed and derailed in Utah. I AM NOT SAYING IM PSYCHIC....it's just weird. and with the random thoughts about airplanes in the middle of my morning class tuesday around the time of the attacks....just, very bizzare.

current mood: getting better
listening to: "we're not going to take it" - quiet riot right? i forget. noo twisted sister....
posted by me 12:03 PM

i don't know what my point is.

current mood: upset
listening to: nothing
posted by me 2:58 PM

danielle's mom said Buffalo News is running a photo of the towers billowing smoke upon manhattan and you can, apparantly, clearly see the traditional image of satan in the smoke. haven't seen it yet, can't find it on buffalonews.com. if true, very creepy. could be more of a roreshak test type of thing, *wiggles fingers mysteriously* what do you see in the ink blot...going home tomorrow, and while we don't get the news paper, neighbors do. will see what i can find.

i'm so completely drained and exhausted

current mood: see above
listening to: vincent price laff at the end of Michael Jackson's "thriller"... on the radio!
posted by me 11:19 PM

september 16, 2001

i think my secondary reaction to what happened tuesday has come and gone. thursday was, by far, the worst day for me. everyone said it would start to sink in to people at different times, and it was going to get harder before it got easier. they were all right. but i'm ok now. aside from the feeling of impending doom i have every now and then, i've pretty much gotten a handle on everything, and i can now start to catch up on all the work i didn't do this week. this feeling of impending doom is weird, cuz it tends to only happen in the dark. and i don't know why, because while the future of the US, and the world, is at stake depending on what Dubya does with his "war", i'm not that scared. if i really, really think about it, i realize what a full scale war could do to the US (since afterall this "war" started in a rather bizarre way, what's to guarantee that more of these kamikaze type bombings wouldn't occur). it is a scary thought to think that the only way a war could be waged on the US by a terrorist group would be the continuous slamming of airplanes into important buildings. but ANYWAY, back to my original train of thought, i'm not scared. i'm not scared of going on an airplane or any of that stuff. so this impending doom...don't quite understand it. i've been ok today so far tho.

went home yesterday, watched 2 bizarre movies with my parents, and of course, discussed what happened. my dad said that for a minute wednesday morning, when he woke up, he thought it had all been a dream. then he remembered that it hadn't been. when i was driving home an airplane had just taken off from the Buffalo airport as i drove by. it was very strange. it's hard to look at an airplane in the sky and not see it smashing into the tower. my dad said the same thing. since i have reoccuring dreams about plane crashes to begin with, i tend to stare at airplanes, especially low flying ones, to see if they're going to crash. i'm weird, i know.

anyway, i got a hold of the article with "satan" in the smoke. I scanned it, 3 times. it's hard to scan news print. will post them tomorrow, i'm tired now. and i don't feel like typing in the html code. and i also have to resize them lol. so tomorrow. i showed it to some people already, it is kinda creepy whether or not you think its god or satan or just a face. it's still creepy.

current mood: tired, bedtime
listening to: nothing, although my stereo is fixed now! vcr is completely dead tho...new one for xmas.
word of the day: bizarre
posted by me 12:51 AM

ok, here are the face in the smoke pictures from the buffalo news that i scanned. remember its newsprint scans so they suck...and thats why there are 3 of them.

current mood: shoulder hurts
listening to: "wig in a box" - hedwig soundtrack

september 17, 2001

everything around here is pretty much back to normal. classes were normal, only 1 mention of the attacks a week ago by my neuropsych proff. it's hard to believe it happened a week ago already...

couple things i have forgotten to mention lately. 1) on tuesday when I got home from class and ran to my room to turn on the tv, i had an ICQ msg from someone in england, which said "I'm in the UK. I work for a news paper. What is going on in the city? We will pay." sick bastard.

But anyway, things are back to normal. My thoughts are back to normal, and I can concentrate now. So that's good.

songs of the day: "the unforgettable fire" - u2, "gyroscope" - the tea party
current mood: tired, stupid 830 am meeting
listening to: "i still haven't found what i'm looking for" - u2
posted by me 6:17 PM

september 18, 2001

What is Jihad? The term is familar to me, we spoke about it breifly in Global Studies in 10th grade. Needless to say I don't know much about it. I think it was something to do with Iran... I mean I know it's an Islam thing, but we discussed it in relavence to Iran.

Yahoo news today had an article about the Taliban declaring Jihad on the US. That it is an Islamic holy war. Ok, if so, what exactly does that mean for those of us in the US. Does that mean more airliners crashing into various buildings?...is that foot soldiers invading towns and making you pledge allegiance to Allah?...While this is probably being discussed in history classrooms, there is no place for me to go to find out what exactly Jihad is.

And then there is another problem of our Western thought, and biases painting a picture of Jihad as being a really bad thing. Just like Islam has been painted as being a really bad religion. I am smart enough to think for myself and draw my own conclusions. I realize that the terrorists who attacked the US last week claim to be Islamic but that does not mean their actions were condoned by the rest of the Islamic world. Just like all Christians wouldn't condone Crusades.

So I traveled to a few websites about Jihad. The contradictions in the various sites blew my mind. Of course I realize interpretations of scripture in any religion can vary and be seen as completely contradictory. But for example, one site said that Jihad is a holy war, and it took the stand that Jihad is used to force complete submission to Allah on unbelievers or infidels, and that those who do not submit have a choice to either pay taxes or be killed. Another site said that Jihad is not a holy war, but a war against an unjust regime. It said that in peace and war that Islam prohibits terrorism, kidnapping, hijacking when it involves civilians, and that it prohibits the destruction of civilian constructions. Anyone who kills civilians are murderers and should be punished. The killing of civilian women, children, elderly and religious men is prohibited. So right there, the terrorists broke every Islam belief about Jihad, if that site is true.

I did find a site that provided, what I thought to be, a more logical and uncontradictory view. It was at submission.org. While I still don't understand what Jihad is or what it would entail the site provided more light on the concept.

I still need someone to explain to me Jihad, what it is, what would happen if there is a Jihad...etc. Maybe a history major who has some knowledge of previous Jihads. So if this is you, if you can help me at all EMAIL ME!

Now...a week has gone by. This time last week I was sitting on Katie's bed with Leah and her friend staring at the clips of the plane hitting the tower and the towers collapsing, over and over again. A few things have cemented in my mind regarding the whole thing.
1) While I was unsure of my feelings on the outpouring of patriotism the past week, I am sure now that it disturbs me greatly. For one, most of the people who are claiming total support of Bush, and total faith in our government have absolutely no idea about anything to do with our government or our history. Many of these same people are spouting on about how it was an attack on democracy, and it was because we are a free and open society (hmm...yes I hear Dubya coming out of your mouth..."the brightest beacon of freedom..." gag me) when this has NOTHING to do with it. Logical thought processes will lead you away from that idea at the speed of light. I realize there are alot of people in the US who are patriotic to begin with, and I realize there are people who are patriotic and may not show it, but this sudden patriotism from almost everybody around....i don't want to say it annoys me, or irritates me...it just doesn't sit right with me.
2) I definitely don't like the use of the word "evil" in describing the attacks. There was nothing evil about it. Sure it was absolutely horrifying and terrible and should never happen again. But evil is not the word to describe that. The attack was pure genius, you have to give them that, whether or not you think it was justified, or whatever. Very few people could have conceptualized it not to mention pulled it off.
3) I think we're headed for a really bad place in the future. If we go into war, this new war as they call it, whatever that means...I'm not sure it's one we can win. For one thing, bombing Afghanistan is not going to make a difference, since the country looks like the surface of the moon to begin with. No one is explaining what this "new war" is...just that we have to find the people responsible and see that justice is served...spectacular. Of course something needs to be done in response to what happened, but nothing we can do short of exterminate every human on earth, will prevent something like this from happening again. Anyone who honestly believes that extra security on airplanes, and not letting any kind of knife, even plastic, on an airplane is going to prevent this kind of attack is wrong. Sure there might never be another hijacking of an airplane again, and maybe there will never be another crash of an airplane into a building...but they'll just find some other way. Killing the leaders of terrorists groups will do nothing, because there will always be a new leader, there will always be new groups who dislike other groups. So what the hell is the point of even trying?

I have no idea where I'm going with this. I'm going to stop now. Well one more thing, I'm slightly disturbed by the fact that life, around here at least, has gone back to complete normalcy. While I don't expect the world to mourn forever, and I recognize the benefits of returning to normalcy as soon as possible, without prompting on my part, no one has spoken a word about what happened since Saturday night when I got back from home. While I am slightly tired of talking about the attack itself, there are so many other implications that can be and should be discussed. My emotional reaction to what happened is gone, and I'm glad, because I need to have my mental state back to normal for me to function....but there are so many new issues that have come up that should be discussed, the fact that they're not is disturbing. The fact that people are still so completely uninformed that they go around with their flags, yay USA, we are the best, is terribly irritating. I want to smack them and say WHY DONT YOU USE YOUR OWN MIND!

current mood: hahah i don't know
listening to: "stripped" -depeche mode

september 20, 2001

i find it extremely irritating and unnecessary that all these people are being so incredibly cautious regarding what happened last week....bands are changing videos, song lyrics, album art because of things that slightly maybe resemble a small piece of something that might have happened during the attacks. radio stations are editing playlists to omit songs that may be offensive because of one word that implies terrorism....or an airplane!!....ooooh cant play "leaving on a jet plane" anymore... that's bad. we gotta go and change entire scenes in movies cuz in the background of a shot there is a picture of the towers....

thats fucking ridiculous. you can't go tip toeing around about all this. ITS BEING SHOVED IN OUR FACES EVERY TIME WE TURN ON THE TV. You can't watch tv for 5 minutes without seeing the plane smash into tower 2...i think that images has been imprinted on every person in the world with a TV's brain. So what the hell does it matter if a song by the band Bush has 2 words in some song on their new album that says "terrorist within" or whatever...

retards...everyone.

current mood: extremely irritated
listening to: uh... "when love came to town" - u2.. i dont think that's the name of the song...

an email i wrote to some of my friends, in response to something else..thats why it might not make sense...

i was waiting for a bit before i responded to Pat's original email.
still don't quite know what to say, but i havent had a clear thought
since monday. so here goes. bear with me. please, whether you agree with
me or not, read all i have to say. i'm sorry if it ends up incredibly
long.

there are parts i agree with and parts i do not. what has happened to
the US tuesday we have done to so many other countries so many times,
with no media attention at all. does this even the score? i tend to
think it does not. after bin laden bombed US embassies what did we do?
we bombed a pharmeceutical factory in Sudan that was very flimslily
believed to have been making biological weapons. turns out they were
making vaccines. the only place making vaccines for 1000s of miles in
africa. what did we do? we said "oops". is that the right thing to do?
of course not. does even half of Americans know that happened? no. there
are so very many things that the US has done that the majority of the
population doesn't know about.

there is an extent to which i agree with Pat, in that we tend to have
our hands in alot of pots, perhaps "meddling" in other's affairs. is
that a bad thing? not sure. it could be a bad thing in the way that we
want results our way. we tried to get peace in isreal/palestine on our
terms, not theirs, which is why it has failed. of course we are trying
to further/secure our interests. every country in the world does the
same thing. there is no other way. how could we be as "powerful" as we
are by not doing it. "interfering" if you want to call it that, is an
essential part of any country's survival.

hindsight is 20/20. assuming the prompting of the attack was based on
our involvement, or lack of in the middle east, the antecendents of the
attack stem many many years ago. you can go back to the creation of
isreal as a jewish state for displaced victims of ww2. at the time, it
seemed like the right thing to do. our actions in the past were the best
actions to take AT THAT TIME, without knowing what any of the
consequences would be. Yes, some of our actions, even then, were
undesirable. Without having to look back I realize that. But there were
things that have been done to remedy past "mistakes" or actions that
ended up with undesireable consequences. Some of these haven't been
helpful as well, I realize. You look at Camp David Accords where were
seen to be a great thing, and I believe they were (because imagine how
much worse the mid east conflict would be with Egypt still against
Isreal). but to Islamics Camp David Accords are evil.

The perception of things by Islamics or Mideasterns, and westerns is
completely different due to culture. So no matter what we do, with the
best intentions or the worst, is going to be interpreted differently.
The fact that American "ideology" is seen as immoral and evil by these
traditional people of Islamic nations is reason enough, for them, to
justify something like what happened. They destroyed the biggest symbols
of capitalism, all that is evil in western society. while i realize that
most islamics have expressed sadness and have condemmed what has
happened, it doesnt change the fact that they believe we're evil.
currently we view them as evil.

as an aside, because i'm not finished, i really don't like or agree with
the constant use of the word "evil" in all of the commentary and
discussions of what has happened. havent quite figured out why i feel
this way.

now i will be the first to admit, i am not as knowlegeable about what
has been going on in the rest of the world, especially since i came back
to school, as other people. i dont watch tv at school, so the only news
i get is from other people, or breifly reading headlines on yahoo news.
however i was under the impression that bush (who has alienated every
country on earth practically) has been quite isolationist as of late, in
regards to what has been going on in the mid east. after the peace talks
fell apart, I thought the US had basically pulled out of major
involvement in the conflict. I realize even for people up to date on the
events, there are so many things being left out of media reports, and we
probably ARE still active in the conflict. i'm not that naive. But, my
point is

i will get back to my point, but i just realized i had a dream about
trains, and trains getting onto and off the tracks. this morning i saw a
report that a train derailed and crashed in Utah. tuesday during class i
suddenly thought about airplanes, and how the recent crashes of alyiah
and other planes has created the perception that it's not as safe to fly
anymore...this was before i knew anything had happened....i'm not by any
means saying that i am psychic, i'm not retarded, but isn't it weird.
years ago i had a dream of a plane crashing into a sky scraper. i have
reoccuring plane crash dreams so thast not incredibly unusual...

my point....i am under the impression that palestinian leaders have been
complaining that the US has "ended" their involvement in the peace
process. so many people have continued to be killed because of no peace
agreement and they WANT the US to help in some way. So when we're
invovled they complain, when we're not involved they complain. So what
are we supposed to do? Pat calls for the "need to take a serious step
back from using our power in international affair" but at the beginnings
of both world wars we took an isolationist approach to the conflict. it
was only when major events such as pearl harbor did we get involved. So
what are we supposed to do? sit back, watch all these things happen, and
say, hey not our problem and then watch it escalate to something huge
that could have been avoided. or do we get involved early, and DO OUR
BEST to stop things before they get out of hand? nothing is perfect,
nothing is ever going to have the most perfect outcome. it's a tough
question, what we should do in international affairs. i guess why none
of us are president. of course, we're all smarter than our president
(sorry, i had to get that in there).

while my reaction to Pat's email isn't as extreme as Ty's in regards to
the concert comment, i was slightly taken aback by it. while i agree
life must go on, no reason to stop talking about our lives, doesn't it
seem a bit trivial? in the grand scheme of themes it's quite
meaningless.

to go as far as Pat placing blame on the US for what happened, I think
that is wrong. As I stated at the beginning of this extremely long
email, I realize the US does MANY things that I, and many other people,
disagree with. But to place blame on the US for what happened, as if we
asked for it by our foreign policy is absurd. There are many things that
have happened to have provoked this, and I realize fingers are going to
be pointed. Sure our policy is one of MANY reasons for this. I also
disagree with Pat's statement that the event was 100% preventable. That
is blatantly wrong, because as I said, no one is ever happy with what we
do. You can't please everyone, the best you can do is try. Pat said
"There are psychos out there that have had enough of our policies, and
are going to keep sending the message that they will do whatever it
takes to stop us"....a point was brought up in a class yesterday that
nothing was accomplished by what happened except for the destruction of
people and property. That if this attack was supposed to send a message
it has been lost. If it was an act in support of the cause, it failed,
because no one knows what the cause was. No one is taking responsibility
for it, so there is no association with what happened to a cause. We are
all speculating that is in regards to foreign policy, the middle east,
bin lauden etc...but we don't know anything right now. We don't know the
reasons behind any of it. So maybe what happened has nothing to do with
people "having enough of our policy"....Maybe it was a religious event.
I know NOTHING about islamic religion. All I know is what we've
discussed in class about the cultural differences, which lead to their
belief of our lives as immoral and evil. While I realize the targets
were completely planned out, and seem to be very political and millitary
based (as opposed to crashing into the Vatican, if it was a religious
reason for the attack) there are still so many other reasons this could
have happened than based on disagreement, and "fed up-ness" with US
foreign policy, i think its a little premature to be placing blame soley
on the US as Pat has.

I'd be incredibly interested to get the opinion on all of this from
people in other countries, specifically Robin. I realize he's probably
in the states still, so it'll be a while, and I don't think Kevin is on
the list anymore. Already, my friend in Toronto has an incredibly
different perception of the events. Not even in a "blame" placing sense,
but just in the perception of what has happened. She finds it very
strange too, that if she had been born 2 hrs south of where she is now
she'd have a completely different feeling. Basically she is unaffected,
while i sit here crying, and unable to think. She said no one was
discussing it in school...where as here, every class starts with some
kind of comment, if not complete discussion of what happened. it's very
strange.

Em fears the event being forgotten like OK City was....I'm going to make
a stretch and say that it wont be. Things come and go from the
collective consciousness of society, like OK city maybe, but I don't
think anyone will be able to walk on a plane the same way ever again.
I'm not going to be paranoid, or live in fear, but I know that everytime
I walk on a plane i'm going to think of the plane smashing into the WTC
and what it must have been like to 1) have been in the plane, the
thoughts in their minds, even the minds of the terrorist who quite
possibly could have chickened out before impact 2) the people in the
towers possibily looking out the window to see an airliner about to
hit....the images of what happened are permanently burned into my
memory.

i think i'm done. my mom said that she thinks my cousin Liz and her
husband lived in the area, and that he probably worked in the area but
isnt sure. so we dont know what has happened to them. Lau, if it means
anything, my mom was worried about you.

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