Memento Mori

It's the day after. Headlines were full of it yesterday. I was at a dinner dance where we stood for a minute of silence to honour the Dead of the Towers.

And I can't help myself. I think of the subsequent murderous revenge that massacred the Innocent of Iraq. The men, women and children who were slaughtered. With so little regard for the genocide that the countries who invaded Iraq without cause did not bother to count the bodies piling up. So concerned agencies did. Some say the death toll breached over a million. With the luckier fleeing to other countries. Countless orphans victimized by pimps and paedophiles. The treasure of their country looted, their landscape devastated.

"Mission Accomplished."

"Collateral Damage."

"Shit Happens".

The contempt behind those words hits me square in the heart.

I grieve the loss of lives and country.

I grieve that the tragedy of 9/11 was perverted into an abomination.

A Positive Facet of 9/11

OR - The Day the World Came to Town





This is a book that would warm the coldest heart. In the aftermath of the day of devastation that was 9/11, the tiny town of Gander in Newfoundland took to its heart 38 airliners and their passengers that were refused entry by the U.S. The stories recounted here restores faith in the very goodness of people, particularly in the innate kindness of Newfoundlanders who took these lost and frightened men, women and children into their homes and bosoms.

"For the better part of a week, nearly every man, woman, and child in Gander and the surrounding smaller towns stopped what they were doing so they could help. They placed their lives on hold for a group of strangers and asked for nothing in return. They affirmed the basic goodness of man at a time when it was easy to doubt such humanity still existed."

When thirty-eight jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland, on September 11, 2001, due to the closing of United States airspace, the citizens of this small community were called upon to come to the aid of more than six thousand displaced travelers.

Roxanne and Clarke Loper were excited to be on their way home from a lengthy and exhausting trip to Kazakhstan, where they had adopted a daughter, when their plane suddenly changed course and they found themselves in Newfoundland. Hannah and Dennis O'Rourke, who had been on vacation in Ireland, were forced to receive updates by telephone on the search for their son Kevin, who was among the firefighters missing at the World Trade Center. George Vitale, a New York state trooper and head of the governor's security detail in New York City who was returning from a trip to Dublin, struggled to locate his sister Patty, who worked in the Twin Towers. A family of Russian immigrants, on their way to the Seattle area to begin a new life, dealt with the uncertainty of conditions in their future home.

The people of Gander were asked to aid and care for these distraught travelers, as well as for thousands more, and their response was truly extraordinary. Oz Fudge, the town constable, searched all over Gander for a flight-crew member so that he could give her a hug as a favor to her sister, a fellow law enforcement officer who managed to reach him by phone. Eithne Smith, an elementary-school teacher, helped the passengers staying at her school put together letters to family members all over the world, which she then faxed.

Bonnie Harris, Vi Tucker, and Linda Humby, members of a local animal protection agency, crawled into the jets' cargo holds to feed and care for all of the animals on the flights. Hundreds of people put their names on a list to take passengers into their homes and give them a chance to get cleaned up and relax.

This book reads like a novel. I couldn’t put it down. A validation of all that is best in the human spirit. A perfect antidote to the horror of 9/11 and the horrors that have been committed in its name ever since.

Highly recommended.

Bullying and the massacre at VT

See link in header above for a terrific post from Nick of the North on bullying.

And it appears that all these massacres are about bullying and the resulting isolation. As a victim myself, I recall feeling those murderous thoughts, feeling the isolation and slashing my own wrist at fourteen as the fear of facing my tormentors would overcome me and my pleading for another sick day at home fell on deaf years.

We need to understand the Chos of the USA to get a handle on how each and every citizen is responsible for this abhorrent and sickening catastrophe, from the happy gun-peddlars to the disdain of his co-students who laughed at his accent and told him to go back to China - a country he had never been to, incidentally. And all this in front of the teacher who condoned the abusive behaviour by not speaking up.

How isolated and lonely was this young man? We cannot even imagine his state of mind.

And here are the words of another troubled young man whose rage also built up into a murderous crescendo.

Luke Woodham, the high school killer in Pearl, Miss., whose murder spree preceded Carneal's by two months, was even more explicit in his rebellion. Minutes before starting his schoolyard rampage, Woodham handed his manifesto to a friend, along with a will. "I am not insane," he wrote. "I am angry. I killed because people like me are mistreated every day. I did this to show society, push us and we will push back. ... All throughout my life, I was ridiculed, always beaten, always hated. Can you, society, truly blame me for what I do? Yes, you will. ... It was not a cry for attention, it was not a cry for help. It was a scream in sheer agony saying that if you can't pry your eyes open, if I can't do it through pacifism, if I can't show you through the displaying of intelligence, then I will do it with a bullet."

But I expect the same lack of self-examination as from 9/11 - a true opportunity is presented to understand and reflect and will be ignored by an increasingly aggressive and isolationist culture.

In the very near future, I can foresee universities being re-invented as armed camps with the only true beneficiary being the giant military industrial complex which includes the Glock/AK 47 et al manufacturers.

We are all barking mad.