Still trying to solve that equation.
Below is what I wrote about 9/11 two years ago. It still rings true today, although I have more vivid memories of my Environmental Systems class at the University of New Mexico on that fateful day, when Mary Frances came in and stood in the back of the room as the class ended. I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea it would involve my younger sister. I thought that either my mother or mother-in-law had taken ill, or perhaps worse.
Again, the following was written two years ago; here is the full story. The picture right below Ann's is of the five Saudi Arabian nationals who murdered those aboard American Airlines Flight 77 (including my sister Ann Campana Judge) and in the Pentagon.
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11 September 2011
I will be avoiding all the 'specials' on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Not interested in all the contrived 'linkages' between 9/11 and the guy in Toledo who saw an image of the burning Pentagon in a dumpster full of trash or the football player who has the Twin Towers tattooed on his biceps. Sorry.
My desk is littered with magazines whose covers shout features like "Where Have We Been?", "What Went Wrong?", "Are We Safer?", "Why Do They Hate Us?", blah, blah, blah, I can't read any of them. I should say I can't finish any of them.
Actually, I did read one excellent article: "What 9/11 Wrought" by Joseph Lelyveld in the current issue of Smithsonian magazine. Read it.
As much as I despise those who rained death upon us, I don't like what we have
become. Xenophobes. Jingoes. Torturers. What moral authority the USA had, it's been greatly diminished.
I'm driving to Seattle today for a meeting tomorrow and Tuesday. When I had planned to drive it did not dawn on me that it would be on 9/11. Flying today wouldn't bother me, but it will be nice to be on the road for about five hours. No media folks trying to get a sound bite.
But let me give a shout-out to the first responders, many of whom made the ultimate sacrifice to save others. And Pat Tillman, too.
So why does this belong on WaterWired? Here's my link to 9/11.
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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -- attributed to Edmund Burke
"A little bit of irreverence is good. A lot is better." -- Ann Campana Judge
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