Joe Maller: Site Notes Archive - September 2001

September 26, 2001

My favorite part of this story about the stealing of the Enigma encoding machine is that the suspect lived on a street called No Man's Lane.

September 25, 2001

I think Thomas Friedman is my favorite New York Times columnist. Today's column, Terrorism Game Theory should be read by everyone thinking about fleeing American cities or canceling travel plans.

I highly recommend reading his past columns as well. Having won two Pulitzer prizes for Middle East journalism and having headed the New York Times offices in Beirut and Jerusalem, he possesses a unique understanding of the region and it's effect on the world.

He even looks like a good old-fashioned newspaper reporter, or at least what they used to look like in seventies movies.

Another excellent editorial is Bush vs. Powell in today's Washington Post.

September 22, 2001

September 21, 2001

September 12, the day after the attacks, I found this article on WorldTribune.com Israeli intelligence: Iraq financed attacks. I'd never heard of WorldTribune.com before and since the site looked kind of sketchy I spent the next three hours trying unsuccessfully to find a second source for the story or anything to validate it.

Last night I saw a much more detailed account in the British military journal Janes. Salon lead with a story titled A Saddam connection? Yesterday night, Stratfor published U.S. May Be Refocusing on Iraq. (On the 13th Stratfor published the only article I know of pointing out that the clues found in rental cars might have been decoys, Hijacking Clues May Be Red Herrings) WorldTribune also published another story reaffirming their initial report about the Iraq conneciton, CIA now focusing on Iraq connection. To me, the Iraq connection makes sense. Both of Saddam's sons are now in power in Iraq and it wouldn't be a huge stretch to imagine a bloodfued between the Bush and Hussein families.

It has been my fear that too quick a focus on Bin Laden could overshadow another threat which could be much more dangerous. The Janes article describes Bin Laden as a "schoolboy in comparison with Mughiyeh", so why is this the first we've heard of him?

Keeping track of what is going on is difficult enough, but spelling seems to be a regional decision as well. The New York Times uses Mujahadeen and Taliban, the Times of London and the BBC use Taleban and Mujahedin. The AP combined those into Mujahedeen while Reuters came up with Mujahadin, both use the spelling Taliban. I'm not sure what I've been using, but I'll try to follow the NY Times spellings from now on.

The mainstream American press isn't painting a very complete picture Afghanistan. I imagine this is partly because of information overload, and dealing with the events of last week is difficult enough without the convoluted mess that is Afghanistan.

Still, we need to know what we're getting into. Stratfor's country profile starts with the line "Afghanistan is a tragic mess." The Sydney Morning Herald published this map of active factions which illustrates how many groups are active and where their support is coming from. This Times of London article, Where war is a way of life, was written by a journalist who has traveled through the country and interviewed the mountain fighters. The article I linked to yesterday was also published by Salon, Welcome to the death zone. MSNBC posted the last interrview with Ahmed Shah Massoud, who lead the strongest resistance to the Taliban and was assassinated two days before the US attacks.

September 20, 2001

Why hasn't Radio Free Afghanistan been discussed before now? Military action breaks bodies but hardens minds, there needs to be a psychological assault as well. The mountains called Hindu Kush literally translate as "Slaughter of the Hindus" and The Khyber Pass is bloodstained throughout history, the first recorded passage was in 326 B.C. by Alexander the Great.

The guardian UK published a vivid description of what a western military force would be facing in these mountains. Their first supposition that Afghanistan had not been conquered since Alexander the Great is an unfortunate falsehood in an otherwise excellent article.

September 19, 2001

September 17, 2001

For anyone bothered by the Nostradamus hoax that's been floating around the internet since the World Trade Center attack, I suggest reading this article.

The much-forwarded quatrain is completely bogus. It originated as a fictional example in a Canadian college student's essay A Critical Analysis of Nostradomus, [sic] the author created the quatrain to illustrate how easy it is to fake prophesy through vague terms. I'd love to hear what he thinks about his theories and fake prophesy being proved completely effective.

Whoever started emailing this didn't even get the dates right. The quatrain has been credited to Nostradamus in the year 1654. Nostradamus died in 1566. I suppose that could have been a typo, but I prefer to consider it stupidity.

"This prophecy is truly the Mr. Potato Head of predictions."

The Webdings/Wingdings "NYC" correlation is troubling, but just an unfortunate coincidence.

Among the other troubling but basically absurd things people are freaking out about, two images of smoke which look like a bad cartoon version of the devil. I don't think people spend enough time looking at clouds anymore. (I'm not linking to any images because I think this is ridiculous.)

Who ya gonna call?

September 16, 2001

After dinner Horacio took this photo:

click to enlarge

Of all the horror I saw this past week, this is the image which finally got to me. These people, my friends, this family. Breaking bread and sharing wine. Life is beautiful, life goes on.

September 15, 2001

I went to the Javits Center today to see about volunteering. The first image I had of the Javits Center was of a sea of hard hats. Construction workers from everywhere have arrived to help. There were also rescue workers from all over, one group had uniforms labeled in French, my guess is they came down from Montreal. Even though there were at least a half dozen camera crews there, I haven't seen anything reported about this turnout. There were mountains of food and water with a dozens of people offering snacks to those waiting in line. I overheard one worker say he'd been waiting four hours.

While I'm thankful and encouraged by this astounding show of unity and support, I regret that I have some feelings of resentment. These guys are stronger than I am, and able to do physical work longer and better than I could. But I live here. I want to help. And I can't. I need to get over that quick.

A state marshal said they had all the volunteers they needed before 11:00, the news is reporting that no additional volunteers are needed at all. So I guess I won't be helping for a little while but I will try again sometime next week. The cleanup will be going on for a long time, so maybe there will be an opportunity for me to help in the future. I saw many streets near the WTC site have been cleared already. In 1992, I regretted not helping sweep up after the LA riots. Now I'm trying to figure out other ways to help.

September 13, 2001

I just posted this comment in this MetaFilter thread and for the first time in days I felt an emotion besides numbness and exhaustion. I'm pissed. This city doesn't need a useless memorial. We need a living, working memorial. New York City is about work 100% of the time. Leisure is crammed into the other 10%.

To rebuild them as they were seems perverse. Maybe if one building had survived we could justify fixing the pair, but that didn't happen. They knocked them down, we need to build them back better than they were. The best possible memorial to the lives lost is the biggest pair of buildings on the planet. These should dwarf the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

The sky over downtown seems like a disfigurement. Everytime anyone looks across the skyline it will remind them that we lost something. To not rebuild those buildings, to not fill that void would be to wallow in defeat.

Fear of another attack can not dissuade us. Everything that can be done to prevent terrorism should be done, but we can not live in fear.

Civilians shouldn't be in allowed into the dangerous areas (exception being those with specific, needed skills). Let people trained and experienced at following orders work there, they won't endanger themselves or others through lack of experience. Still, those clouds of building didn't stay close by. The satellite photos show most of downtown covered in dust.

This is my city. I want to sweep up, I want to clean. Let me help clear Nassau St, Battery Place, Broad Street. Let me clear papers and ash from the steps where George Washington was inaugurated. The buildings on those streets are not in danger of collapsing. I need to help. I need to sweat. I need to do whatever small bit I can to put my city back together.

Today I was determined to stay busy. Doing something, anything. So far I haven't done much besides watch the news.

Last night I noticed a bunch of links from a homework assignment from the Internet Communications Certificate Design 1: Site Analysis and Design course at the University of Utah. I'm pretty sure I'm only a few clicks away from several links on instructor Judy Kiel's (nice photos) class resources list. The homework assignment included me in the list of "good sites" which made me happy. I guess they didn't notice all the pages I never updated to the current look, or the half-finished pages and projects. Interestingly, I know the owner of Tile Nut which was hosted on the same server as my site for a while. Both of us are friends of Lynda Weinman.

Hello to any of those students. You cheered me up.

We sent half of our tax prebate to Amazon's Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. When I started this posting, there was $2.4 million, there is now over $3 million. Reloading this page and watching the numbers climb makes me feel better. It's been rising by $10,000 every five minutes. Knowing $300 of that was ours makes me feel a little bit less useless. Still, $3 million is nothing.

Mayor Giuliani deserves a new degree of respect. I have generally disagreed with him on most policy issues but always respected his conviction. Even more so now. He has demonstrated historic leadership, humanity, humility and grace. Salon has a moving article which mirrors my views pretty well.

I pointed my webcam towards where the World Trade Center was. The cloud of smoke has been visible since, it's about 2.5km (2 miles) behind the large bulding in the foreground. Last night the wind shifted and we were woken by the smell of acrid smoke. A haze of smoke is filling our neighborhood and many people are walking around with dust masks and handkerchiefs on their faces.

I seem to have developed something of a stock response when asked about all of this. It's something like, "we're fine. Our apartment is about two miles north, I heard the second plane hit. I could see the flames. I can't believe it either." It's personally disappointing to repeat myself so much, but wordless is the best word I've come up with to describe how I feel.

I've read stories about the bombing of London or Hiroshima and the siege of Berlin. I thought I had some sense of sympathy or could imagine how it might have felt to survive those events. Now I know I had no idea, I still have no idea.

Little things mean a lot right now. Church bells ringing at 7:00, people gathering in restaurants. Yesterday mail was delivered even though our neighborhood was closed. Nothing important, a catalog from Pottery Barn and some subscription thing from MacAddict, opening that box, as I do everyday, and finding anything was surprisingly moving.

Thanks and gratitude for the Fire and Police departments can not be adequately conveyed. There are plenty of other ordinary people also helping life go on. The mailmen and women, waiters, waitresses and cooks, checkers and stockers at the markets, delivery men keeping the food in the stores, the phone company for doing their best to re-route the system, the technicians at Time Warner for keeping the cable system running, the Department of Sanitation and all the volunteers from fire and police departments who drove here from other parts of the country.

My brother Ben Maller posted his thoughts. He works at Fox Sports Radio in LA and spent the 11th reading news updates about the World Trade Center attack.

September 11, 2001

I'm filled with an incredible sense of sadness. Tonight I walked around the neighborhood listening to people. There is nothing else to talk about. It felt kind of like what I imagine an Irish wake would be like. People were drinking in bars and telling stories about the buildings.

It is likely that I will have known someone who died. There have been no meaningful figures or statistics yet, but the number of lives lost will be ghastly. Too many people worked down there and New York City is too small a town not to know a victim.

A few weeks ago my brothers and I visited the towers. I've spent a lot of time wandering around down there and recognize every location on the news. It will be unnerving to walk around down there in a few weeks when downtown opens again.

Walking around, there were two moments where I almost lost it. My overall numbness has been baffling. I've never teared up, never cried, just floated between numb and sad. If or when I do finally break down it will be a relief. Today has been inconceivably horrible. I can turn off the TV but the real thing is happening just down the street. Sirens go by a couple times an hour breaking the unnatural quiet which has settled over our neighborhood.

I'm going to bed early though I doubt I'll sleep through the night.

The phones are still iffy, if anyone needs to reach us, use AOL IM.

I had my mother call the Red Cross in California and she found out that I can't give blood. There doesn't seem to be much to do besides that. It's best to just stay out of the way.

I'm still struck by the quiet in the city. Everyone is speaking in hushed voices and staring at the cloud of smoke in disbelief. The sky where the buildings were seems like a disfigurement.

The phones are out, if anyone needs to reach us, use AOL IM.

We're looking into giving blood. I can't get through to the American Red Cross at 1-800-GIVE-LIFE (1-800-448-3543). If anyone can find out anything, please let me know. I've been to Morocco in the past year and took anti-malaria medication for a trip to Thailand in 1998. I almost feel like lying to them but I know that would be worse.

The phones are out, if anyone needs to reach us, use AOL IM.

We're about 2 miles (2.5 Km) from where the towers were. It's would be a beautiful day otherwise. The sun is out and there are no clouds in the sky.

My friend Dave Park just came over. We saw a city bus coming up Avenue A covered in soot. The cloud of dust is starting to reach us, there is a dusty taste in the air, most of the soot looks like powedered accoustic tile.

The flow of people on Avenue A has reversed, now people are walking downtown presumably to look.

I've been watching the news about the World Trade Center attacks all morning. I'm completely in shock, alternating between shaking and numbness. Both buildings are gone. It feels like an amputation.

The city is incredibly quiet. Occasionally sirens will go by or be heard in the distance. Crowds of people are walking up my street away from where the towers were. Some are listening to radios, other are stopping and hugging others. Faces are calm, some people are hurrying, others are biting their nails or hunching their shoulders.

The phones are out, if anyone needs to reach us, use AOL IM.

September 5, 2001

Notes and Archive thanks to Blogger Someday I'll build my own.