Surely everyone knows what happened this day, two years past. The networks showed the horrendous footage of the devastation, which I thought unnecessary, but my wife reminded me that, unfortunately, many people seem to have forgotten over time.
It occurred to me that today we should take a cue from the Irish, who have a wake for their deceased, celebrating their life. If you feel so inclined, please consider playing “Amazing Grace”, to honor all those who persihed in NYC, Shanksville, PA, and DC, and then perhaps your favorite jig or reel to celebrate their lives.
“I will fight for my right to live in freedom.”
Paul McCartney
~Larry
Larry, I think it’s a fine idea.
I will certainly do just that.
I don’t think you need fear this thread going political. No matter what a person’s views on everything that’s happened since (and before), I don’t think anyone has lost sight of the fact that thousands of people died that day who didn’t deserve to.
It does them, and also us, great honor to remember them.
–James
Just so done and done 
Thank you, Stacey!
~Larry
Thank you for your insight, James. It wasn’t only Americans who lost their lives that day, so I thought this international message board might respond like you and Stacey have.
~Larry
Yes, a sad thing. The prelude to a lot of other sad things. And the saddest of all, if you believe what you see on TV and in boards like this, is that the vast majority of the Americans completely failed to make the connection between the innocent people who were killed 2 years ago and the innocent people (a much larger number) that are still being killed during the cycle of revenge. There is no memorial service for them, and nobody will read their names on TV. In other words, the people who hijacked planes and crashed them into buildings are cowardly thugs, but the people who got sore thumbs from pressing the “fire” button so many times in the cruise missile ships are heroes. Go figure…
Thanks for turning this thread into something it wasn’t meant to be. 
~Larry
not meaning to step on anyones toes on this day, but if you didnt want it to get political this line was unneccessary.
It’s not a time to point fingers at each other, just a time to remember in our own way.
Mark
So you’re saying you feel sorry for the shmucks who hijacked the planes? That’s sickening if you ask me, they chose to end their lives, the other people did not. 
You’re right, Mark.
~Larry
The WTC, and America in general, were chosen as targets by the perpetrators of the unprovoked attacks of September 11, 2001 because they were symbols of the evils of the world to those perpetrators.
Now that we’re all admitting that there was no connection between Sadam and Osama, and that the threat of WMD’s was a farce, we justify our unprovoked attack on Iraq by making Sadam a symbol of the evils of the world.
Remembrance, once tainted by the blood of vengeance, is no noble thing. I’ll do my remembrance on election day (and especially on election day 2004), when I do my part to retake our hijacked government from the evil greedheads who currently (mis)lead us.
Wrong, Jim. The “wing” of Islam that those “people” represented believe that the entire world should be Islamic. They view everyone else in the world as infidels, and therefore believe we should all die.
Think about all those who perished unneccessarily, please.
~Larry
Other people believe that to fight terror everything is allowed, and whoever thinks different is a traitor.
For what it’s worth, what I feared most when the towers collapsed was not islamic world rule, but World War III because the american government would go nuts.
Sonja
This was a call to remember the fallen.
No matter your political beliefs, nationality, views on war, or anything else, if you can’t simply stop and remember the dead, then I pity you more than them.
Only their bodies have died.
–James
You’re right, James. I apologize. I get blinded sometimes by my frustration at the unending violence in this world.
Amazing Grace? Good idea in memoriam and a good theme, as I guess we all know it.
I’ll play it to-day–as I already played an Andean tune for the 30th Anniversary of the Sept. 11, 1973 coup in Chile, and the death of Salvador Allende. As to the exact number of victims, we’ll never know, but figure it’s in the five digits.
I guess the CIA should make 9/11 its yearly anniversary, since it’s both the date of one of its dubious “triumphs” and ultimate failures.
Death is universal, and the experience of it connects us, world over and regardless of our beliefs and goals. I appreciate the rememberance of tragic death as a call to all of us to stop killing and to reason against the lies that may lead one person to kill another. The horror of 9/11 and the human tragedy of that day and the subsequent retribution for it should make us all pause and think on the fundamental human aspects that connect us all. It should not be the rallying cry for the next round of killing, no matter of whom by whom. And that’s how I understand your original request, madguy, as a call to rememberance, which I honor and respect.
I cannot tell you how much this scares me: those “people”. The de-humanization of the opponent, the exclusion of the perceived foe from the fundamental human community and the ranking of the foe with the animals or something less-than-human, has occured many, many times in history. And it always as a prelude to slaughter, murder, and horror. (I don’t want to list the historic precedents, not today.)
No problem, Jim. You’re a good guy…
We may not always agree, but I do always respect the depth of thought and conviction you display. In a world grown cold, where so many people Simply Don’t Care, it is welcome to encounter someone who has at least paid their dues and knows–as much as anyone can–why they believe and think as they do.
–James
well it’s pretty much a given that the US gov’t would go bonkers after that attack. Seriously, just look what happened after Pearl Harbor. Which Japanese military officer was it who said “we have awoken a sleeping giant” or something of that nature? And look what they got: two bombs. What exactly did bin Ladin et al. expect anyhow? Anyone who acts even slightly surprised or appaled by the reaction of the U.S. gov’t to this is just naive and I guarantee you that those terrorists knew for a fact that they were dooming the middle east to open warfar with the U.S. for years when they did that.
Larry, thanks for raising a topic for rememberance,
Reflections, Two Years Passed.
Paused
to remember
this morn
2 years ago,
innocents lost.
Contributions to life’s abundance,
cut short.
Father, son,
Mother, daughter,
Brother, sister,
Grand-parent, grandchild,
Niece, Nephew,
Aunt, uncle,
Christian, Jew, Moslem, Hindu,
Conservative, liberal,
Hawk, dove,
Friend, Neighbor,
Acquantance, stranger seen only in passing.
Today, remembering
the loss.
Life surely grows, continues,
and, just as surely,
has no guarantee.
Today commit
to live and let live.
To press into today
a full measure
of life,
To fill the cup
that emptied
two years ago.
In rememberance,
finding heart,
to build,
all those things
that might make
such losses
into stories found
only in antiquity.
Heartsong of hope that let all …