8:46 am on a tuesday

mickeyrat

cincybearcat said:

I'm beginning to think 846 is a cursed number....

Awful Awful day...seems like only a few years ago.

perhaps it should signify a fundamental shift is overdue in this country instead

Bentleyspop

I won't  go into the details but I was a defense contractor working less than a mile from the Pentagon. Felt and heard the plane hit the building. There's more to tell but don't  want to type it all.

I can remember every detail of that day plus September 10th and 12th.

#NeverForget911

HughFreakingDillon

just read a story on instagram of a man caught in one of the towers, no way to get out....calls his wife....she rushes to their kids' high school so they could talk to their dad before he ultimately dies. 

heartbreaking to say the fucking least. my god i can't imagine that phone call. 

GlowGirl

HughFreakingDillon said:

just read a story on instagram of a man caught in one of the towers, no way to get out....calls his wife....she rushes to their kids' high school so they could talk to their dad before he ultimately dies. 

heartbreaking to say the fucking least. my god i can't imagine that phone call. 

When I went to visit the 9/11 Museum it was all heartbreaking. But what got me crying was that they have this room that you can sit in and listen to the answering machine messages left by people on the planes to their families after they were hijacked. You can tell that these people knew they were not going to make it. Those last goodbyes brought me to tears. I always recommend this museum to people visiting NYC. It is a truly remarkable experience. But I will never go back again. Once was enough.

mcgruff10

Been teaching this for many years and it never gets easier.   

brianlux

I watched a compilation video of the crashes last night.  That was a bad idea.  There's so much going on here already.  The depression deepens.  Just seems like a horrid world and sometimes I wonder...

HughFreakingDillon

cincybearcat said:

I'm beginning to think 846 is a cursed number....

Awful Awful day...seems like only a few years ago.

what's the other significance of 846?

Bentleyspop

HughFreakingDillon said:

cincybearcat said:

I'm beginning to think 846 is a cursed number....

Awful Awful day...seems like only a few years ago.

what's the other significance of 846?

George Floyd

https://youtu.be/3tR6mKcBbT4

pjhawks

19 years and it still brings me to tears. WMMR did a minute moment of silence and 8:46 this morning and later played New York New York and I teared up during both.  Hell I'm tearing up just typing this.  That day and the days and weeks after will never leave me.  RIP to all those who lost their lives that day.

HughFreakingDillon

Bentleyspop said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

cincybearcat said:

I'm beginning to think 846 is a cursed number....

Awful Awful day...seems like only a few years ago.

what's the other significance of 846?

George Floyd

https://youtu.be/3tR6mKcBbT4

right

HughFreakingDillon

danny clinch posted a photo of radiohead on a boat in NYC with the towers in the background. 

date of photo?

aug 16, 2001. 

eerie. 

GlowGirl

I worked on the 16th floor of the South Tower of the WTC in the late 1990s. While I didn't still work there, the company I worked for was still there when 9/11 happened. I did find out that everyone got out ok, but of course they lost all of their paper files. I can't remember if they had an off site server for their computer files.

Gern Blansten

GlowGirl said:

I worked on the 16th floor of the South Tower of the WTC in the late 1990s. While I didn't still work there, the company I worked for was still there when 9/11 happened. I did find out that everyone got out ok, but of course they lost all of their paper files. I can't remember if they had an off site server for their computer files.

wow....glad they all got out.  

OnWis97

mace1229 said:

The Juggler said:

HesCalledDyer said:

tempo_n_groove said:

HesCalledDyer said:

pjhawks said:

mcgruff10 said:

Just taught 9/11 to my first period class and even though it has been 18 years it doesn't get any easier.   I can not watch the towers coming down, I have to look away.

there is no way I could teach about that day. just don't think i could get the words out right or keep from crying if i tried.  it's so strange to me that it's already been 18 years.  freshmen in college are the last ones born before this happened. it is kind of crazy that there are kids in high school who weren't even born when this happened.  time has gone by so damn fast

Last year at this time, I asked the girl who buses tables at wing night if she knew anything about 9/11.  She said "Not really, they taught us a little bit about it in school every year on the day, but that was it."  It's crazy knowing there are functioning high school & college kids who have little to no clue about this day, let alone it's significance.

Rest in Peace to all those fallen.  A big thank you to Jon Stewart for his emotional speech regarding the Victim's Compensation Fund.  Thank you to Congress for listening and extending the program. We still need to do better.

Not to sound crass but did you have any emotional attachment to Iwo Jima?  D-Day? The Enola Gay?

It's the same for these kids now as they have no emotional attachment.  

I never thought that our generation would have a moment like that.  I'm hoping future generations don't have to have one either.

Oh I know.  Mine would have been the Vietman War, I guess (born in '77).  I was just thinking it's crazy that it's already been that long ago that we've gotten to grown kids/young adults not knowing about it.  It just doesn't seem that long ago.

This puts the whole "I can't believe how long ago it's been" thing in perspective for me. I was born in 78. So, yeah, 9/11 now is kind of like what Vietnam was to us when we were in high school give or take a few years, I guess. Vietnam always seemed like something from a million years ago so I guess I can understand how kids don't have a connection or know much about 9/11 nowadays. The difference is, obviously, that 9/11 happened here and stuff but still...

I always like to think of things in terms of this for other things too. Like tv shows. Seinfeld is over 30 years old at this point. So a high school kid watching a Seinfeld rerun today would be the same thing as me watching an I Love Lucy rerun in the mid 90's. That shit blows my mind for some reason.

Fuck. Getting old sucks. 

Anyway---RIP to all those who died on 9/11. Again......I still cannot believe it's been this long. Crazy. 

The stat that was weirdest to me  like that is when the first Star Wars came out, D-Day was newer then that Star Was is now. That's actually been true for about 10 years or so.

I know I risk continuing down a tangent but...if Back to the Future (which I saw the theater) came out today, Marty would go back to 1990.

"Hey Ed...it's your cousin Marvin; Marvin VEDDER. You know that new sound you're looking for? Well listen to THIS!"

It really is amazing that my memories in the 1980s of hearing my parents talk about JFK or MLK being killed seemed soooooooo long ago and now 9/11 is about that long and I feel like we're still kind of early in post-9/11.  Someone in high school today wasn't born and it must seem like the old days to them.

mickeyrat

another beautiful morning.....

lastexitlondon

My thoughts are with the lost souls and the  beautiful  families robbed of their loved ones

nicknyr15

Terrible. I hate this day. 

The Juggler

It's always creepy to me when the weather is identical to this day 20 years ago

mickeyrat

 

... 20 Years...

Dan Rather , Elliot Kirschner , and Steady Team 1 hr ago

30

17

… 20 years…

The cursor blinks. And blinks. What do I write next?

… 20 years…

You will have so much to read about this anniversary, what unique can I offer...

There is a flood of thoughts, of that bright fall day and of all that transpired afterwards, of lives lost, on that morning and in the ensuing years. Flashes in the mind of all of the world events spawned by that horrific attack, of battlefields distant and close to home. I grasp at them, try to order them, but they defy my attempts. There is a scar that I will forever feel. There are emotions so powerful that tears are never far behind when thoughts turn to 9/11.

… 20 years…

I will leave it to others to pick apart all the meaning of this anniversary, to draw lines of connectivity, from personal memorials at Ground Zero, to the pain of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, to the rise of xenophobia and Islamophobia, to the erosion of our Constitutional rights, to what we’ve witnessed on the political scene the last few years. How was our current age shaped by the events of that day? We know things would have been completely different, but how? We cannot ever answer the question, even though it haunts us. 

… 20 years…

I look back at some of my reflections for previous anniversaries. This was from 2018:

In these days, when a turbulent and uncertain history is being written in real time, September 11 can feel of another age, and indeed it is. It is a day that history will mark, but the sands of time tend to eat away at the immediacy of our memories as we become more preoccupied with the challenges of the present. We never forget, but we tend to remember less often as well.

A whole generation has been born and raised since that fateful moment 17 years ago. They are now confronting their own landscapes of challenge. This is how life works, and this is how time works. We need to teach our history, but not be imprisoned by it.

I have so many dates seared in my mind... December 7 (1941)... June 6 (1944)... November 22 (1963)... April 4 (1968)... August 9 (1974) - just to name a few. They were and are the real backdrop for my time, and those who were on life's journey with me. I want to tell my grandchildren about what they meant. But like me reading about July 4 (1776) or April 15 (1865), they will note them and maybe remember them, but not feel them as I do.

We are on this earth but a short time. Our lives are marked with memories, happy and sad, personal, communal, national, and global. Time strides on. The Earth spins. We pause, to think about the past... and the future.

… 20 years…

Have my views changed of that day with the hindsight of time? I wonder that often. The death then was so immediate, so harsh, so unsparing, so random, so tragic. But as I noted above, 9/11 has receded and now we are confronting a different type of mass death, at a scale that is unimaginable. Except we don’t have to imagine it. We are living it. 

Where will we be as a nation, as a planet, 20 years from now? I know it is unlikely I will be here to see it. And then 20 years hence, and 20 years after that? All of it is unknowable. But what the last 20 years has also taught us is that the choices we make matter, and no single outcome should be considered inevitable. 

… 20 years…

Yes, it is a long time, but also an instant in the history of our species. Our duty, when we have life, is to remember the past, learn from it, honor it, but use it to reimagine the future. Steady.

GlowGirl

This day always gets to me. I live in downtown Manhattan. I heard the first plane crash from my apartment as I was getting ready to go to work. I thought it was thunder but saw it was a bright sunny day. Then I turned on the news and everything changed. I worked at the Woolworth building at the time which was just around the corner from the WTC. I hadn’t left for work yet, and was told not to come in. We were not allowed back into our building for over 3 weeks. When we finally returned our office windows had a straight view of the rubble. It was surreal and so awful. The one thing that sticks with me was how sunny our offices were after that. I realized that part of the sun had been blocked by the towers when they were standing. I also remember how quiet my neighborhood was since vehicles were not allowed below 14th street unless they were emergency vehicles. Those of us who lived below 14th street had to show ID to get into our neighborhoods for a while. All the flyers of missing persons were hung everywhere. I can’t even put the heartbreak into words.