Back in the Day

The other day while looking at a Facebook site devoted to Chicago, I came across a post accompanied by this picture. The post's author asked if anyone recognized the building on the left of the frame. "Ooh, ooh..." I said to myself "...I do I do". I scrolled down the responses to see if anyone else recognized the building with the distinctive tower. One person suggested it was the iconic Wrigley Building on the north bank of the Chicago River at Michigan Avenue. Another suggested the London Guarantee Building directly across the river. Still another thought it was the Jewelers Building one block to the west. The wisenheimer in me was ecstatic as I would get to tell everyone they were wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I don't always take delight in correcting people, but truth be told, sometimes I do. However many years ago I learned from a close associate that that behavior is unbecoming, especially when it is accompanied by smug overconfidence, which apparently I exhibited when I corrected him one too many times. These days whenever I'm with friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues or perfect strangers, I usually keep my cards close to the vest, not interrupting all but the most egregious factual errors, and sometimes I even let those go. But online is different. While I appreciate my friend's advice, there is still satisfaction every once in a while to come out and say that someone is, pardon the expression, full of shit. That's probably why social media has become so damn popular, the anonymity it provides gives us the opportunity to act like a jackass without being publicly outed as such. If you don't believe me, just check out the comment section of any YouTube post.

Anyway, the confusion about the building is understandable, given that it, like the three Facebook suggestions was built in the Beaux Arts style which was popular in the first decades of the 20th Century when these buildings were created. What threw everybody off no doubt was the assumption that the building is in Chicago. It is not. It is the Municipal Building in Lower Manhattan. I know that to be true because I know the building well, as it was from the cupola at the pimmacle of the Municipal Building where I made the original cover photogaph for the book, The Architectural Guidebook to New York City, written by Francis Morrone.

Here is the picture I made from the top of the Municipal Building, you can see the shadow of the cupola where I was standing at the lower right of the frame:

You don't have to know anything about New York City architecture to realize this picture was made before September 11, 2001. It was in fact made in September, 1992, one year before the first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center via a bomb placed in a rented truck parked underneath the North Tower (in this picture, the tower on the right) in 1993. That attack took the lives of six people. Engineers at the time speculated that had the truck been parked in a more strategic spot when the bomb was detonated, there was a chance the blast might have weakened the structure to the point where it could have brought the building down. My photograph took on a new meaning after that. The truth is, before that first bombing, I never much cared for the World Trade Center; in fact for the sake of the picture at the time I shot it, I would have preferred if the two towers had not been there at all, leaving the frame dominated by that great work of early 20th Century architecture, the Woothworth Building, and New York's glorious City Hall, built in the first half of the 19th Century, seen at the bottom of the frame.

But the thought that one of the towers could have collapsed, taking with it the lives of tens of thousands of people, rocked me to the core and I never looked at that complex the same way again. I'll never forget the last time I laid eyes on the WTC. I was in a taxi en route to Newark Airport. We had just emerged from the New Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel, the sun was setting and its bright rays reflected off the towers making them glow like two enormous golden beacons. For the first time I saw those buildings as beautiful and I resolved to photograph them from across the Hudson in exactly the same light when I returned to New York. Needless to say, that never happened.

Life for everyone, everywhere changed in both enormous, and infinitisimally small ways after that dreadful late summer day in 2001. I was reminded of one of the small ways when I decided to respond to that Facebook thread.

I didn't have a readily available picture of my own of the Municipal Building to provethat I had the right building, so I asked Google to come up with one for me. It brought up a site that not only showed the building, but described the remarkable privilege of being able to set foot in the "off limits" Municipal Building cupola and view what is certainly one of the most spectacular vistas in the city.

Here is a link to that site.

I did feel incredibly privileged to experience that amazing view, but it certainly was not off limits 28 years ago. In fact I was flabbergasted at how easy it was to get up there. Here's how I did it: I walked into the building, hopped aboard an elevator and took it as far as it would go. I got off and found another elevator that said, "tower elevator" and rode to its  top floor. Then I walked up a few flights of stairs, saw a door, opened it and there I was. There were plenty of people around, but no one said boo to me. Once outside, making sure I had something in place to prop the door open, (as didn't want to be trapped out there),  I had Manhattan, Jersey City, and part of Brooklyn all to myself, or so it seemed. It was one of the most exhilerating experiences of my life.

I knew immediately that I wanted a photograph of the view toward the the WTC and Woolworth Building, just one of many amazing views from that spot, to be the cover of our book. So I returned on a subsequent trip with a large format camera and holders filled with color film. The rig necessary for the cover photograph included a tripod, a camera bag, and a large box containing the camera. This I was sure would draw stares but once again I walked into the building and boarded the elevator with no one paying the least attention to me. Like most photographers in the days before 9/11, I felt that in order to get the picture, it was usually better to ask forgiveness rather than permission. Today that cavalier attitude can get you into serious trouble. But even then, the ease with which I was able to access this amazing place, left me feeling a little uneasy. So I told a building engineer what I planned to do and asked if was OK. He couldn't have been nicer and told me that workers in the building go out there for lunch all the time, just make sure the door didn't lock behind me. I didn't let on that I already knew that, and went about my business.

I don't know exactly when the cupola of the Municiapl Building became "off limits" to regular folks. I'm guessing that after the first WTC attack just a half mile away, at the very least my closed bag and big box would have drawn the attention of security.

After the 9/11 attacks all bets were off, everywhere. Here in Chicago, buildings that had always opened their doors to the public, ceased to do so. Even the magnificent lobbies of architectural gems such as the Rookery Building, hands down the highlight of any tour of Chicago's Loop, were inaccessible to all but officially sanctioned tour groups.

Things have loosened up a bit 18 years since the attacks, but I'm guessing we'll never have the same access to buildings, even ones considered public, that we once did.

I'm not going to trivialize the memory of the lives of people lost to terrorist attacks by complaining about not being able to wander around buildings the way we used to back in the day. It is a small price to pay to help keep people and our cities safe. But along with the hightened security, something significant has been lost. I'll give one specific example.

The US Capitol Building in Washington DC is probably the most important physical symbol of American Democracy. It's no coincidence that Pierre L'Infant placed this house of the people, not the house of the Chief Executive, precisely at the center of his design for the nation's capital city. Thomas Walter's magnificent dome was constructed during the Civil War as a symbol of the continuity of the republic, despite the great cost and grave situation that was taking place at the time. And despite a number of violent incidents that took place in and about the building over the years, from its original construction in the late eighteenth century until quite recently, this people's house used to be open to the general public to wander about for the most part, as they pleased.

I have fond memories of visiting the Capitol, walking up the same steps where presidents traditionally were sworn into office*. Once at the top of those stairs the public could walk through the doors of the East Front (in later years through metal detectors) directly into the Great Rotunda where the bodies of presidents from Abraham Lincoln to George H.W. Bush have lain in state, as well as a very small handful of significant Americans such as Rosa Parks who have lain there in honor. From the Rotunda you could wander into National Statuary Hall where each state contributed two likenesses of its favorite sons or daughters. There you could stand upon a marker on the floor and if you listened closely, hear conversations taking place on the opposite side of the great hall. That unintentional echo chamber was an architectural feature that early 19th Century congressmen took advantage of, listening in to the private conversations of their unsuspecting rivals on the other side of the hall, back when the room severed as the chamber for the House of Representatives.  

If you kept moving south, you could enter the current House Chamber even when that legislative body was in session. That chamber is one of the most recognizable interiors in the United States as it is the setting for all joint sessions of Congress including the president's annual State of the Union address. 

When I first visited the Capitol over thirty years ago, it was a little more complicated to get into the Senate Chamber on the other side of the building as you needed to obtain a pass from one of your senators. But that was hardly a problem as you could descend into the basement and hop aboard the Capitol subway which would shuttle you to and from the Senate office Building a few blocks away.

Granted it is still possible for the general public to visit the US Capitol Building, but access is greatly limited. Not only can you no longer enter the building from the East Front, but if you so much as attempt to climb the stairs leading up to it, you will be stopped by security personnel. To gain access to the building, ordinary folks have to enter the US Capitol Visitors Center a half block away. 

Here is a link to a video produced by the CVC as an orientation to what you can expect, and what you cannot expect when you visit the Capitol Building. 

As you can see, the CVC is a user friendly place that educates as well as serves as an entrance portal to the House of the People. Today, it is much like a museum with a plethora of exhibits, a cafeteria, and of course a gift shop. Naturally you can also visit the Capitol Building, but only under the watchful eye of a tour guide, no more wandering about on your own.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that access to the Capitol has been restricted, albeit in a palatable, even enjoyable fashion. After all, the building was likely the target of hijackers who commandeered the fourth airliner during the September 11th attacks, and was spared only by the quick thinking, selfless and heroic actions of the passengers of United Flight 93 who took out the hijackers, crashing the plane in the process just outside of Shanksburg, PA.  One shudders to think of the profound psychological damage the loss of that building would have been to the American psyche, especially on top of the carnage that already took place in New York, and just across the Potomac in Arlington, VA. No greater monument to the victim/heroes of Flight 93 could possibly exist than the Capitol Building itself. 

But constructon of the CVC (which had been on the drawing board for years) was put into action in response to another attack, one that took place at the Capitol in 1998, when a gunman stormed through the metal detectors and shot and killed two Capitol police officers. The bodies of the two men, Officer Jacob Chestnut and Detective John Gibson were themselves laid in honor inside the Capitol Rotunda.

Clearly the creation of the CVC was a prudent move to control crowds and provide security to the Capitol Building and the people inside it. From all appearances (I have never set foot inside), the Visitor Center seems to be a tremendous success from a design standpoint, as well as a crowd pleasing tourist attraction.

However I wonder how well it truly serves the Capitol and its role as the symbolic house of the people. My most memorable visit was in the mid-nineties when I had the opportunity to show a friend from Germany around. As I had already taken the official tour, I played guide and showed him the Rotunda, the hall of statues with its echo chamber, and the House Chamber which he recognized from internationally televised speeches. What truly impressed him was that despite this building being the center of government of a great nation, anyone, young or old, rich or poor, black or white, powerful or meek, could walk right in and make themselves at home, and if they so chose, rub elbows with a law maker and offer him or her a piece of their mind. 

Which come to think about it, is what participatory government is all about and what made our Capitol unique.

That part has been lost.

It's true that the CVC provides convenience, creature comforts and a meaningful visitor experience. As the orientation video points out, visitors to the Capitol no longer have to wait in long lines braving the elements just to get in, and have plenty of ammeneties to entertain themselves while they wait to get inside the Capitol. When they finallly make to the great building, they don't have to worry about figuring where to go, their guide will take care of all that for them.

As as attraction, the US Capitol has become another item on the bucket list of Washington attractions to check off.

What we no longer experience there, is the feeling of ownership. While the building belongs to the people of the United States, limiting its access to officially sanctioned tours means the public has been relegated to the role of casual observer, rather than active participant. In that sense, the US Capitol might just as well be another museum, the Kremlin, or a brewery,

More concerning is that limited access means legislators get to do their work in more seclusion than than ever before. It's no secret that our particpatory government has always been subverted by money, special interests, and less than scrupulous politicians. But by constantly bumping into everyday Americans at their place of business, be it in the hallways, eating places or the Capitol subway, lawmakers at least would be reminded to whom they ultimately have to answer. Well, not so much today.

They say that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. There are always tradeoffs, and in our world we are faced with the constant choice between freedom and safety, two ideals which are mutually exclusive. We can have a perfectly safe world but not without giving up our liberty. Likewise a perfectly free world would be impossible without unacceptable risks. Therefore a balance must be struck.

As I said, the growth of terrorism, both foreign and home grown, has affected us in big and small ways. Limiting access to our government by restricting public access to the Capitol may seem like a small price to pay for helping keep us safe. On the other hand, if we keep whittling away our liberties in small inperceptable pieces, bit by bit, everntually there will be none left.

Just something to think about.

*Presidential inaugurations (not including intra-term ceremonies following the death or resignation of a president)  took place on the East Steps of the Capitol Building from the swearing-in of Andrew Jackson in 1829 until the 1980 inauguration of Ronald Reagan when they were moved to the West Front which faces the National Mall. 

Some memories and a prayer for peace

This summer, my son and I visited the National September 11 Memorial, the magnificent tribute to the victims of the terror attacks built on the site of Ground Zero, where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center once stood in lower Manhattan. In case you missed it, here is my post about that visit.

Exactly ten years ago, New York Times Op Ed columnist Frank Rich wrote an article describing what in his opinion was America "letting go" of the events of September 11, 2001. To illustrate his point, he used a photograph made by Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker of five young adults sitting on the banks of the East River, engaged in what appeared to be casual conversation while behind them, smoke billowed from the site where the World Trade Center stood just hours before. Rich's point was that not only had the country moved on from the tragedy after five years, but the folks in the photograph had already moved on that very day. Here's his assessment of the American character based upon that one photograph:

Traumatic as the attack on America was, 9/11 would recede quickly for many. This is a country that likes to move on, and fast. The young people in Mr. Hoepker’s photo aren’t necessarily callous. They’re just American.

Rich turned out to be dead wrong about the picture. Ten years after his article, one would be hard pressed to support his assumption that this country as a whole has gotten over 9/11. Yes there are exceptions, you can read about some of them in my post written five years ago on the tenth anniversary. 

Hard to believe, but today is the fifteenth anniversary of that terrible day. We continue to remember the victims, the places where they perished, Shanksville, PA., Washington D.C. and New York City, their loved ones, and the people who suffered and died in the wars that followed. In doing so we pray for peace in the world, an end to suffering and violence, and a time of understanding between nations and peoples. We most certainly will not see this come to pass in our lifetime, most likely not in our children's lifetimes, and possibly not ever, but it is our duty as citizens of the world to try.

How can we not?

In memory of that day, please indulge my quoting words that come from faith, but words I believe speak to all men and women of good will, regardless of their creed or lack of one, words that define what it means to be a human being.

The prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

Peace.

Fifteen years

New York City- I can't tell you how many times I've been to New York, but I can say the last time was ten years ago. The time before that was the year 2000, one year before the terrorist attacks that shook the world and took down one of the city's most distinctive landmarks, the World Trade Center. I distinctly remember the end of that trip. I was waiting for the bus in the lobby of the North Tower of the WTC to take me to Newark Airport, but one never came. Time was getting short so I decided to spring for the cab ride rather than missing my plane. When the taxi emerged from the Holland Tunnel on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, I looked back and the Twin Towers were bathed in the most beautiful late afternoon, or as photographers call it, "golden hour" sunlight. I resolved that on my next trip, I would photograph the buildings from that vantage at that particular time of day and year. Alas, there would be no next time, it was the last time I laid eyes on the towers in person.

It would take five years after their destruction for me to return. Even though I watched both towers collapse on September 11, 2001 live on TV, a part of me refused to accept they were gone. As I flew into La Guardia in 2006 and my plane made the left turn over Brooklyn to approach the airport, I caught my first glimpse of the site where the familiar landmark once stood, and it took my breath away.

The first thing I did upon arriving in New York in 2006 was visit the site which by that time was cleared of rubble but was still a hole in the ground that resembled an enormous construction site. That is with the exception of the cross shaped beams from the destroyed building that were left on the site as a memorial and reminder of that terrible day, and the many monuments, both public and private that were displayed on the wall that was the barrier between the tremendous void of Ground Zero and the outside world.

It is almost inconceivable to me that my last visit was ten years ago. This time, accompanied by my fifteen year old son, we caught our first glimpse of One World Trade Center, completed twelve years after the destruction of its predecessor, also from the air, this time flying into JFK.

It was a bright and beautiful, but nippy September Tuesday morning almost fifteen years ago. We had tickets to the Cubs game for that evening. It would have been my then eight month old son's first baseball game. I'd been dying to take him to a game but the chill in the air combined with his tender age made me less than thrilled about going. Sitting down to breakfast, the first news report came on the radio, a plane had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. I immediately recalled a similar event that took place during World War II when a military plane accidentally crashed into the Empire State Building, causing serious damage and loss of life. As I am wont to do during breaking news stories, I turned on the TV.

It quickly became apparent that what hit the North Tower was no small plane and no accident. The network anchor guy (no point using his name) was interviewing a witness who said the plane that hit the building was a commercial jet that appeared to be headed directly, and purposefully toward the North Tower. Incredulous, the anchor guy pressed the woman if she was absolutely sure of what she saw. Just as the words were coming out of his mouth, the shaken woman standing practically at ground zero reported exactly what she and everybody including me who had the TV on that dreadful morning saw, a second commercial jet slamming into the South Tower. "The pilot just flew that plane into the building" she screamed. Now on any given day it's unusual for one, let alone two planes fly into the same complex of buildings, so it seemed rather strange to me that the news guy continued to press the woman about how she at that point knew the crashes were deliberate.

About an hour later I was on the phone with my mother in Arizona when the South Tower collapsed. "Ten thousand people just died before my eyes" I said to her as I hung up the phone, unable to continue the conversation. It seems strange to use the word "fortunately" in the context of this event, but I overestimated that number by about a factor of ten. Fortunately many, but not everyone evacuated the South Tower when the North Tower was hit. However most of the police and firefighters who perished that day died in the South Tower as they rushed up the stairs in vain to save lives. Again fortunately, the North Tower rescuers were evacuated after the South Tower collapsed.

All through the terrible day I tried with no luck to reach two of my friends who live in New York, one of whom could very well have been at or near the World Trade Center that morning.

So began the string of events that changed the world forever. How much everything had changed that day after the optimism of the new millennium, at least once we realized that the world wasn't going to end on January 1, 2000. Instead, a little bit of it died on September 11, 2001.

Watching the horror along with my wife and me was our little boy, completely oblivious to the situation. One of my most distinct memories of that day was the innocent little smile on his face as the most unimaginable horrors played out on the TV in our living room. It would be several years before we talked about 9/11 with him. We didn't know how the thought of people hijacking airplanes and flying them into buildings would affect him, this after all is a boy who still covers his eyes when commercials for scary  movies appear on the tube.

It turned out that real horror of history didn't effect him as much as graphic, fictional horror; he was fascinated with the story. Flash forward fifteen years and for the first time, son, born the same year as the terrorist attack, and father just stood together at the National September 11 Memorial at Ground Zero. It took ten years and one day before the Memorial officially opened to the public. It was worth it.

Reflecting pool and waterfall on the former site of the North Tower
of the World Trade Center

As we've seen with the memorials in Washington DC, people come out of the woodwork when it comes time to express an opinion over the slightest commemorative work. Multiply that by 2,977, the number of innocent people who died on that day in New York City, Arlington, VA, and Shanksville, PA., and further still with all people they left behind, and you get an idea of what it had to be like to come up with the design for the memorial to one of the most gut wrenching moments in American history.

As the remains of many of the victims were never recovered, it was  appropriate not to build above the site of the Twin Towers, despite the tremendous value of the property. As a consequence, the single tower that replaced the twin towers is squeezed rather awkwardly between the monument and the Art Deco AT&T Building to the north. So be it.

On the actual site of the Twin Towers sit two reflecting pools, one for each building, sunken a couple dozen feet below grade level. The pools are fed by water cascading from the parapets that line the pools. The names of the victims are inscribed into the parapets. The names are arranged, not alphabetically, but according to the relationship between the victims; people who worked and died together are found side by side in the monument. The names of the.victims who died at the Pentagon and aboard all four hijacked aircraft are also found at the monument. The unborn children of several of the victims were also noted. On the rest of the site of what was once the enormous wind-swept plaza that connected the towers, today stand hundreds of white oak and sweet gum trees.

It is almost impossible to imagine anything built on this patch of land not being tremendously powerful and moving, and the monument as it exists today, certainly will disappoint no one. The designers, Michael Arad, Peter Walker and the partnerships of  Davis Brody Bond and Snøhetta, beyond creating an original work, have borrowed the best concepts from the two Washington memorials, those dedicated to the Korean and Vietnam Wars, fitting them brilliantly into this very specific site. Over the years as the trees begin to mature, the monument will only become more beautiful. Despite its success as a piece of design, the true power of the monument comes from the people who visit it. Obviously the sons, daughters, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, lovers and friends of the victims bring to the site a power and purpose that the best design in the world could not come close to matching. The real quality of the design will begin to take effect, only after all those people are gone. Unfortunately I won't be around to make a critical assessment when that happens.

However I was able to bring my own sense of memory and loss to our visit. Along with my son, I visited the site with two of my oldest and dearest friends, the people I desperately tried to reach on the morning of September 11. Brooklynites, my friends lost eight members of their local fire department when the South Tower collapsed.

Along with three of the closest people in my life, all paying a large role in my memories of 9/11 (my wife unfortunately couldn't make the trip to New York), visiting the memorial brought the event around full circle, after nearly fifteen years.

Fourteen years

A litte over fifteen years ago, we went through a minor trauma referred to as Y2K, the coming of the year 2000, when the clock turned into a new millennium. Some folks thought it would mark the beginning of the end, the dawn of the apocalypse, the day of reckoning, you name it. Even rational people had some legitimate concerns as it didn't occur to computer programmers around the world to accommodate their data bases with the extra two digits to differentiate the year 2000 from all the previous years that began with the digits 1 and 9. By late 1999, just about everything was run by computers and no one knew exactly what havok would be wreaked when the clock struck 12 on New Years Day 2000, as millions of computers around the world would think it was January 1, 1900.

I remember it well. On December 31st, 1999, I paid close attention and breathed a sigh of relief as Australia and all the time zones ahead of us brought in the new year with little incident. We celebrated that evening with a big party at our home, secure in the fact we passed through the eye of the storm and there would be nothing but blue skies ahead.  

Little did we realize at the time that the real day of reckoning was still at hand.

It would come precisely 21 months and 11 days later. Fourteen years have past since that dreadful morning, and superficially one might think not much has changed. People still go on with their lives, they go to work, eat sleep and drink, sometimes too much. People still die, the lucky ones only after living a productive life, experiencing the number of years normally allotted to members of the species Homo sapiens. People still make love and produce offspring that continue the cycle.

Yet I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the world has inexorably changed since September 11, 2001, and little of it for the better. That dawned on me most recently yesterday while filling out forms and signing documents which was required as I am occasionally responsible for the packing of art objects for shipment. Among the information I was asked to digest, was the rule that all printed matter containing any information regarding issues of transportation, must be securely stored in locked boxes while not in the possession  of anyone who is not on a "need to know" basis with the information they contain. When not of further use those same documents were to be destroyed by a paper shredder whose specs were explicitly described in the document. This brought to mind images of the old Mission Impossible TV show which began with Mr. Phelps receiving his marching orders via a hidden tape recorder (I'm really dating myself here), which like clockwork at 9:03 every Saturday night, self-destructed five seconds after the message was delivered. The officiousness of these forms as you can imagine, produced chuckles at the proverbial office water cooler. You can bet the words: "thank you Mr. bin Laden" were uttered at some point in the conversation.

I mention this only to illustrate how pervasive the threat of terrorism has become in our lives. It would be impossible to imagine making light of something like this before the attacks, but such is life post 9/11. Dealing with the rigmarol of paperwork and strict rules of course is trivial stuff, a small price to pay when you consider how easy it would be for someone with the motivation and the will to sabotage an aircraft and with it, the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands of innocent people. This awareness also comes courtesy of Osama bin Laden and his al Queda charges who planned and committed an act so dastardly brilliant, that few people could have conceived, let alone carried it out.

The handful of people involved in the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington DC were able to accomplish something that legions of armies, their generals and national leaders could only dream of, bring a superpower to its knees. As a result of those attacks and our country's reaction, going to war explicitly against several nations, and implicitly against Islam, much of the fragile "New World Order" stability we briefly enjoyed after the fall of the Soviet Union at the tail end of the twentieth century, came to a screeching halt. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never in human history has so much misery been brought upon so many, by so few.

The misery inflicted on the victims of the September 11 attacks was merely the tip of the iceberg. Our incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq brought with them death and destruction in numbers far exceeding those we experienced in this country. Al Qaeda's actions combined with ours helped inspire and embolden a new generation of jihadists who were greatly assisted by the power vacuum we created especially in Iraq. Foolishly we expected the death of Osama bin Laden would end the threat of terror coming from that part of the world. Unfortunately bin Laden was practically irrelevant at the time of his death, and a new group would emerge that was so extreme even al Qaeda kept them at arm's length. We continue to believe we can defeat ISIS and similar groups of religious zealots by using our superior technology to bomb them into submission. We have yet to learn from our experience in Vietnam and the Soviet Union's in Afghanistan that superior weapons are no match for people devoted to a cause for which they are gladly willing to die.

Things on the home front are not much better as this country is more divided now than it has been at least during any time in my life, and that includes the War in Vietnam, and the contentious battles for civil rights in the sixties and seventies. We can't give al Qaeda all the credit for that, but their handiwork on 9/11 and the subsequent events set in motion an unprecedented period of fear, loathing and distrust in this nation. 

So have the terrorists won? Well they certainly succeeded in tearing us apart more than we had been before. That manifests itself everywhere we look in our distrust and hatred of immigrants, of minorities, of the police, and of anyone who has a different opinion from ourselves. The good will that most of the world felt toward us following the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, evaporated quickly after the wars we started in Afghanistan and  Iraq. I'm afraid to say that justified or not, (I'm of the opinion that one war was justified and the other was most definitely not), more harm than good came from our involvement in Iraq, and perhaps to but a lesser degree, Afghanistan. It has been repeated enough to have become a cliche but it is still very true that we may have managed to win the war, but have failed to win the peace. The shooting. at least as far as our military is concerned may be over, but the battle continues, led by an adversary who would like to turn the clock back not to 1900, but more like 900, The cycle continues with no end in sight. I'm afraid it will take a few generations to see any true resolution to the battles we had a large part in exacerbating in the Middle East and Central Asia; I certainly don't expect to see one in my lifetime.

As we observe this solemn anniversary, we remember and mourn the lives that were lost on September 11, 2001, as well as those who perished in all the acts of violence committed as a direct result of the attacks. I would add that we should also grieve for our world and the opportunity and potential lost to the fear and hatred that continues to tear us apart.

One man's lunatic...

Colin Friedersdorf wrote this article with the provocative title "Why the Reaction Is Different When the Terrorist Is White" which appeared in the Atlantic a couple of weeks ago. It was inspired by news media's response, or lack of one, after the tragedy that occurred in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. It was there a white supremacist entered a Sikh house of worship, murdered six people, and injured several more before he took his own life. Since he's dead we'll never know exactly why he committed the atrocious crime; did he have a bone to pick with Sikhs, did he confuse Sikh people with Muslims, or was he simply an equal opportunity hater of everyone who was not like him?

Friedersdorf begins his article by comparing the crime to one that happened just weeks earlier in Aurora, Colorado, where a man shot and killed twelve people and injured nearly one hundred more in a theater showing the new Batman movie. The author claims the Colorado tragedy received far more coverage than the Wisconsin one, and speculates with the help of another Atlantic journalist, that the reason is more Americans can relate to the victims in the movie theater than those in the Sikh temple.

Here is another article from the New Yorker, written by Professor Naunihal Singh, himself a member of the Sikh community, who also feels the Oak Creek tragedy got the short shrift.

I'm not much of a follower of TV news. I get most of my news from other people, from the radio, newspapers and select internet sources. Consequently I'm spared the 24 hour cycle of TV news babble with their constant "breaking news" headlines and hyperventilating, live, on the scene reporters. Since I don't have cable, unlike many of my peers I get zero news from the late night comedy/news shows. So I can't honestly say which story got more press. My own experience of those two events was of the airwaves being filled with incessant information, much of it unnecessary, about both tragedies. Many times during the past month I found myself turning off the radio or TV to spare my children the grizzly details. Personally, the Oak Creek tragedy affected me more as A) It took place closer to where I live, B) the victims were targeted for their ethnicity and religion and C) you'd be way more likely to find me attending a Sikh religious ceremony than a midnight screening of Batman.

I recall another article from right after the Colorado shooting, but not the source, that asked the question: why in the media, when a Muslim commits a crime he is labelled terrorist, when a black man commits a crime he's labelled a thug, and when a white man commits a crime he's labelled sick.

Granted I'm not a psychologist, but the Colorado killer who is white, armed with an arsenal of assault weapons, shot dozens of random strangers in a dark theater while dressed up as the Joker, is clearly a lunatic. Of that I have no doubt. A terrorist by contrast is not insane; a terrorist, whatever the color of his skin, does harm to innocent people in the name of a cause. As has been said countless times before, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, it all depends which side you're on. While he may or not have been insane or acted on his own, given his background of racial and ethnic hatred, the Oak Creek murderer targeted a specific community and consequently was a terrorist. And he was white. So much for that theory. As screwed up as the news media is, to the best of my knowledge, no reasonable journalist has attempted to portray him in a sympathetic light or tried to find excuses for his actions based on his mental health.

Timothy McVeigh who destroyed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and with it the lives of 168 people and their families was a white terrorist, as was his accomplice,Terry Nichols. At the time, that bombing was the worst act of terrorism in the United States and the Feds went after extremist groups such as Nichols's and McVeigh's with a vengeance. The indelible image of a dying child in the arms of a rescuer galvanized the public's opinion of those two men and their despicable act. For their part, McVeigh was executed and Nichols got life behind bars without a hint of regret or sorrow from the press or the general public.

Appalling as the loss of life in Oklahoma City was, it paled in comparison to the horrific events of September 11, 2001. Beyond that, the methods, organization, determination, self sacrifice, and resourcefulness of the al-Queda terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks, made McVeigh and Nichols in comparison look like a pair of ten year old delinquents. The loss of life during the September 11 attacks was comparable to the number of American deaths resulting from the Japanese attacks on December 7th, 1941. Like those attacks, the al-Queda attacks plunged the United States into multi-front wars, one of which continues to this day with no end in sight. It must be remembered that unlike the Japanese attacks which concentrated on strategic military targets, al-Queda targeted innocent civilians. And while the September 11 attacks were by far their most audacious and deadly, al-Queda carried out many other sucessful attacks all over the world for the past twenty years.

Draconian tactics were employed by this country and others in an attempt to stem the tide of international terrorism. Innocent people suffered. That was a shame. Unfortunately during times of war there are always innocent victims. Americans of Japanese descent know this all too well. Fortunately the atrocities committed by the US government against Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, were not repeated after 9/11.

That's not to trivialize the suffering of Muslim people after 9/11 one bit. Civil liberties were suspended in some cases. There are still prisoners in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp who have yet to receive due process. What's more, in this country and for that matter much of the world, a whole shroud of suspicion over Islam has arisen. Muslims, and others confused for Muslims, have been victims of hate crimes and unjust persecution. That is a tragedy.

After 9/11 many Muslims, men especially, were singled out or "profiled" as suspicious individuals, simply because of their appearance, especially when they were trying to board airliners. The response by civil libertarians in this country was swift and effective. I used to fly a lot more back then and I distinctly remember the folks I saw singled out for extra security screening were more often than not old, female, and often in wheelchairs. In other words precisely the opposite of what any known terrorist looked like. One could argue this case of reverse profiling was just as immoral and illegal as the profiling it was intended to counteract.

Here is Professor Singh from his New Yorker piece:

... it is hard to escape the conclusion that Oak Creek would have similarly dominated the news cycle (as the Colorado shooting did) if the shooter had been Muslim and the victims had been white churchgoers.

Singh is correct about the theoretical reaction to such an attack, but he is doing a disservice to his readers by singling out "white churchgoers." The September 11th attacks were not an attack on white America. The victims of that day faithfully represented this country and its diversity. They came from all colors and creeds, including many devoted followers of Islam.

You bet a Muslim attack on a house of worship filled with Americans of any race or creed would cause a stir.

The incontrovertible fact is that al-Queda is an organization made up of Muslim men. So too is the Taliban who were in control of Afghanistan in 2001, provided a safe haven for al-Queda to do their evil work, AND to this day are waiting in the wings to take over control of Afghanistan if given half the chance. All of the 9/11 terrorists were Muslim, as were the four men who blew themselves up along with fifty two innocent people riding London's public transportation system on July 7, 2005 As were the people who carried out well over thirty al-Queda operations throughout the world over the past twenty years.

What's more, al-Queda and the Taliban used their faith to justify their crimes against humanity. If the bigots of the world ever needed fodder to justify their hatred of the Muslim people, al-Queda served it up to them on a silver platter. No one group of people suffered more at the hands of al-Queda than the Muslim people. Not only did they see their faith perverted by a band of murderous zealots, not only have they been the targets of suspicion, hatred, and worse, but not counting the September 11 attacks, most of the VICTIMS of al-Queda attacks were Muslim.

As an international terrorist organization, there is no comparison between the threat al-Queda presents to the civilized world, and the threat white extremists present, no matter how appalling the latter's ideology, motives or tactics may be. That doesn't of course provide an ounce of comfort to the people who lost loved ones to those yahoos.

Whether it be in a movie theater outside of Denver, a house of worship in a Milwaukee suburb, or in the streets of Chicago, every life lost to senseless, unprovoked violence is an unspeakable tragedy. Each victim was some poor mother's child, someone's sister or brother, perhaps a husband or wife, father, mother or dear friend. Unrestrained news coverage brought to us by the blathering talking heads at FOX, MSNBC or even Comedy Central cannot bring their loved ones back. Nor can it prevent the killing, in fact quite the opposite seems to be the case.

The one thing we keep learning in our culture of hatred, violence, and ready access to weapons of death is this: given the will, it's extremely easy to kill another human being. We don't need to be bombarded over and over again with that message, it's pretty obvious. I simply don't believe it makes much sense to take the pulse of the country by counting the number of words devoted to one tragedy versus another.

As for the survivors (that includes all of us), the sensible ones try to carry on living the best lives they can, try to be fair minded, understanding that an entire group of people cannot be held responsible for the actions of a few, and try their best to keep themselves and their families reasonably healthy and alive.

That seems to be getting more and more difficult on all counts.