9-11: Five Years Later
ON THE COVER
Remembering 9-11
occur to me just yet, like
many others, that this was
not simply a stately piece
of architecture or iconic
symbol we were losing
— I couldn't fathom the
lives inside.
Most of the city started
walking home. Jeff, a
few friends and I did the
same, trekking north
to our Upper East Side
apartment. The city —
which seemed the whole
world — was enveloped
in a quiet calm, not yet
shock.
Late that afternoon, we
walked with friends to
a nearby hospital. After
hours of watching the
images, over and over, on
TV, we started feeling the
need to do something —
an impossible-to-gratify
headphones dangling around his
urge that tugged at New
neck, he strained to look straight
Yorkers, Americans, the world
up into the sky. I giggled, think-
alike for months afterward.
ing that was so Jeff — he was
While waiting amidst a mob of
probably looking at a bird's nest.
others wanting to donate blood,
When I arrived at work, I
I saw a single man come up to
found out what he was looking
the street from the subway. I
for.
saw a glimpse of black skin and
I stepped off the elevator and
a glazed expression on his face;
everyone was rushing toward
other than that, he was com-
the conference room, where we
pletely shrouded in ashy white.
Ly nne
watched the second plane hit.
Very quickly, we were turned
Kons tantin
The Twin Towers had been my
away
from the hospital. It took
Platinu m Editor
guiding point as long as I lived in
me some time to realize what
New York; notorious for my lack
that meant. We went back
of directional sense, I followed my friends'
home to our television. Over the weeks, we
advice when coming out of the subway to
did what we could: We brought Gatorade to
look for them, and that was south.
fire stations; we made sandwiches for volun-
Watching the sleek lines of the Towers on
teer workers; we housed volunteers who took
TV, it was impossible to comprehend that it
a Greyhound bus from Florida to help out
was not just buildings collapsing. It didn't
— one joined us for Rosh Hashanah dinner.
A beautiful day indelibly marked
by tragedy.
0
n that particularly gorgeous
morning, I gave myself a rare
treat: I took a cab to work. I found
that I arrived at my office at Broadway and
57th Street in a much better mood if my
route twisted through Central Park rather
than underground on the rush-hour subway.
I wanted to luxuriate in the uncommonly
clear blue sky and crispness of the air, if only
for a few minutes.
My husband's office was in a building
right next to mine, on 57th Street. He, too,
preferred the Central Park route in the
morning, but was willing to wake up an hour
earlier than I so he could walk to work. As
my cab approached the Bethesda Fountain
in the park, I saw my husband coming up
the terrace steps. My instinctive reaction was
to duck — he'd kill me if he knew I was tak-
ing a cab to work.
I watched him as I rode past. With his
The Lie from page 12
Still, it's impossible to determine
how many viewers have seen the post-
ings before they were removed from the
Wikipedia Web site, which has a daily
viewership of roughly 30 million, accord-
ing to a 'company spokesman.
Searching For Explanation
The 9-11 assaults triggered an almost imme-
diate outpouring of conspiracy conjecture, in
part because of the bizarre, almost implau-
14
September 7.200E
sible nature of the attacks, according to
Michael Barkun, a professor of political sci-
ence at Syracuse University who has'studied
extremist movements and their philosophies.
"These events cried out for some sort
of explanation," Barkun says. "This was a
golden opportunity for conspiracy theorists
to introduce their theories to a broader
audience. The thing to remember about con-
spiracy theories is that they are profoundly
psychologically comforting. They give sense
and meaning to the world. Nothing is arbi-
trary or accidental or coincidental."
Not all of the explanatory hypotheses
stemming from 9-11 implicate Jews. Some
still accuse the United States government,
for example, of being aware of the attacks
and doing nothing to stop them in order to
justify military intervention in the Muslim
world.
But anti-Semitic finger pointing soon
came to dominate the revisionist view of
9-11, according to a report issued in 2003
by the ADL. These accusations brought The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion into the
21st century, updating a familiar theme: that
Soon after it happened, on Wednesday or
Thursday, the New York Times published
a full-page photo of people scrambling out
of the window, and a single man — I could
make out the pattern of his shirt, just as, I'm
sure, could his wife or mother or child —
tumbled through the sky. Layers upon layers
of homemade Xerox photographs covered
every available surface of the city, the streets
and subways — smiling men, women and
children on vacation, at the beach, under the
Christmas tree, with handwritten, detailed
descriptions of their height and weight, what
they were wearing Tuesday morning, which
floor they worked on.
"Looking for my mom.""Have you seen
Bob Smith?" They remained posted for
months, until city workers finally tore them
down.
I knew one person who was killed, and
he was an acquaintance. But everyone knew
someone who knew someone. One friend,
an event planner for Windows on the World,
had the morning off — but her staff didn't.
There are too many stories to tell.
I was lucky, and so was my family. Reading
this account, though, I'm realizing it is just
that, an account. I don't know how to bring it
to life. I don't want to.
9-11 Remembrance
Ceremony
The city of Farmington Hills will
hold a remembrance ceremony
honoring those . who lost their lives
in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11,
2001. Sponsored by the American
Legion, in cooperation with the city,
the event will begin at 6:30 p.m.
Monday, Sept. 11, at Heritage Park,
on Farmington Road between 10 and
11 Mile roads. The event will feature
music, an honor guard, elected
officials, prayers and candle-light-
ing. For information; call (248) 871-
2500.
Jews are inherently evil and have a 'master
plan' to rule the world;' says the report, which
profiles the 9-11 conspiracists' cast of sus-
pected plotters and other scapegoats.
They include:
• The Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency,
which is accused of orchestrating and car-
rying out the attacks to advance the Jewish
state's geopolitical agenda. "This perverse
respect for the Mossad," the ADL report says,
"derives in part from anti-Semitic notions
that only Jews are sufficiently cunning,
resourceful and wicked to have carried out