Random Thoughts on the Seventh 9/11

Frank Silecchia, a Ground Zero worker, talking about the filthy, chemical filled aired he breathed for ten months. The man who found the famous iron cross that became "a symbol of hope, of healing, of comfort" in the words of Father Brian Jordan. No one-- not Silecchia's government, his union, his city, are helping him with his health problems since.

Alive Day Memories, the HBO special, produced by James Gandolfini. [Tony Soprano is a real teddy bear.] Stories from men and women who have had their bodies blown apart for the war in Iraq. Gruesome images of dead and mangled bodies, and mangled living bodies. How the fires of 9/11 are linked to the fires that are engulfing Iraq and the Americans there.

Hamilton and Kean still crying in the wind that we have a long way to go to make our nation safe from another, even more catastrophic disaster. The images of 9/11 could be quaint compared to what a nuclear weapon might do, to what a chemical plant explosion could do to a community or valley or state.

My assistant teaching me curses in Urdu that his Pakistani grandmother mutters when she hears terrorists and wannabes invoking the name of Allah when they murder.

More Americans have died in Iraq than died on 9/11. What are we doing to make this country safer? How is America leading the world in fighting the bastardization of Islam? How are we defending the world against the terrorist war on us? What are we doing?