And never go soft on the ones who did it and all of their partners in heinous murder.

RIP, Mr. Kelley, your coworkers, airline pilots and passengers, firefighters and police.

I have one of those “amazed at obvious, mundane stuff” moments when I consider how many children have been born since 9/11 who have no clue yet and who won’t have to for some years to come, when they’re learning about the attack as history. My father was born seven years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I wonder how old he was before he learned about it? My own child was born two years after 9/11, and I feel a sense of relief for his kindergarten teacher that she won’t have to be the one to try to tell her classes about it.

Never forget, for sometime you will need to talk about it with your children and help them understand sufficiently but not excessively. There is not much call for making them feel the shock and the tears I felt as I watched a tower burn and crumble on TV, but they will need to understand what some people are capable of. Eventually. But thank God, not today, for them. Only for those of us who were alive and aware–who remember, as they never will. Never forget, because as a limited number of people who remember, we’re called upon to do so.

But that fact notwithstanding, it’s shameful that eight years after the fact, we still have only lights. It is dishonorable to those who were killed and to the governing bodies involved that they have not yet been able to agree on an appropriate plan and build it. On the other hand, I’d rather we have lights forever than have anything that smacks of either submission, guilt, or shame-facedness. I still have a soft spot for the new WTC 7:

I’ll never forget.

Worrying about “the Americans” more than “the importance of avoiding a Muslim backlash” in the wake of 9/11 is taken as evidence of “Tony Blair’s Corrosive Allegiance to George Bush Laid Bare for the First Time.” If the authors of the book being excerpted don’t have any stronger tea up their sleeves than that … zzz. The cognitive dissonance is pretty stunning, as well:

Blair followed the call by sending Bush a five-page memo, outlining his thoughts. (“His memo is a lot better than yours,” Bush would tease his staff. “That’s why I listen to him.”)

Blair argued the Taliban regime should be given an ultimatum: hand over Bin Laden or face attack.

He also argued that restarting the Middle East peace process should be a priority.

Finally, he stressed the cancer was not confined to Afghanistan, nor indeed Al Qaeda.

They would have to act against all who financed or supported terrorism.

Blair thought those things himself? Wrote a memo to Bush on the subject? Instead of allowing Bush to lead him around by the ring in his nose? Huh. I could’ve sworn the headline said …

The “sense being communicated by the US”, Campbell wrote later, was “that they were constantly trying to link Iraq into the equation. TB was keen to pull it back”.

Tony Blair was not all that gung-ho to get into Iraq? I don’t know, man … the headline sure said …

It is to laugh. Really.

Got it from Allah’s headlines. Of course.

James Brolin blithely put his foot all the way into it and seemed in no hurry to try to retract it when he wished radio hosts “Happy 9/11″ on Tuesday. As AP says, he does indeed exhibit stunning stupidity, along with gracelessness, tactlessness, and uselessness, but I think he was also getting a lot of pleasure out of yanking chains. Over 9/11. Prig Prick.

Never forget.

I will be going about my usual life, with some thoughts of those who were killed in the horrendous attack and some thoughts for those who are working to dispel lies.

What I will not be doing is going over to Bilal Mosque, the same folks who sent their friendly neighborhood outreach representative to my church, for an “open house” that my church invites us to attend in our latest newsletter.

On Behalf of Bilal Mosque, we would like to invite you all to our sixth annual 9/11 commemoration and open house at Bilal Mosque. We started this open house right after 9-11 mostly to answer questions on Islam and related issues.

Since then it has become a yearly ritual. We hope our friends, neighbors, any one who is interested — will drop by, share some food, ask questions, have a dialogue, pray for peace and justice and generally get to know one another.

I get the feeling it’s time to start church shopping. Or maybe just become one of those “spiritual, but not religious” people I keep reading about.

Karol is organizing people to counteract the treacherous lies of the Truther crowd, who actually have the gall to go down to Ground Zero on 9/11 to try to tell the families of victims, or anybody who will give them two seconds to start their spiel, their trashcan 9/11 religious beliefs. I wish I were in New York to participate in this.

I was preparing to link back to several of AllahP’s old posts when the Truthers first began to rear their ugly, malevolent heads when I realized the videos in all three of them, YouTube all, are “no longer available.”

I really wonder why.

Why the devil have we been taking our shoes off all these years, then?

Update: And then there are the days when I wonder why terrorists haven’t simply started buying up flight attendants by the dozen. It seems to be a fertile field:

LEXINGTON, Ky. – A flight attendant appeared in court Monday to answer charges she was drinking alcohol on the job and told a captain “You’re dead” as she was removed from the plane.

All things considered I’d rather have them threatening the captain and getting themselves tossed off the plane rather than throwing their weight around to toss off the passengers.

H/t: “Unsupported Content Type” Ace.

“Exit question: How much of [$750 million in U.S. aid to Pakistan] is going to end up buying weapons for Osama?”

I heart Purdue University.

Via Fark.

Day two was the day of the subway system. I dived down into the station two blocks from my hotel, snaked my MetroCard out of the machine, and proceeded to slide it through the slot to the left of my turnstile rather than the right. When I realized my error and slid it through the correct slot, the computer naturally thought I was trying to game it (at $7.00 for an all-day pass, it doesn’t account for individual rides but for more than one use of the same card within 18 minutes) and refused me entry. I pleaded my case to the attendant, who let me through the gate. Down the island, first stop Trinity Church as aforementioned, then onto the ferry for Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. I didn’t get off at Liberty Island; only took some pictures from the boat. Exhibits at Ellis Island were quite moving. My feelings on the current immigration hoo-ha can be summed up in a few sentences: I am in favor of allowing in almost any sound, sane, upstanding, law-abiding person who wants a) to become a U.S. citizen or b) to be educated at one of our universities. But the fact that our immigration policies in the past have stilted this ideal is no excuse for circumventing them. Secure the border first. Decide what to do about illegals afterward. Make the whole process more streamlined for future applicants. And screen the immigration status of all those who are arrested for any reason and deport immediately all such who are here illegally. But Ellis was a grand sight and quite moving in its depiction of those who came here seeking both to stay and make a better life.

After a brief stop at the Fraunces Tavern Museum, also as aforementioned, where you can see the Long Room where Washington said goodbye to his officers, I visited St. Paul’s Chapel. Impressive, but its native architectural beauty is marred by the ugly pink and powder blue interior decorating scheme.

St. Paul’s served as a rally point and aid-and-comfort zone during the atrocity of 9/11, located as it is adjacent to Ground Zero, my next focus. Ladder/Engine Company No. 10, also adjacent to the WTC, which took multiple hits in personnel and building that day:

My favorite sight at Ground Zero is the new WTC 7, rising serenely over the rather tortured landscape of whatever construction is evidently taking place, though not very quickly, on the site of the Twin Towers:

Finally, my last church of the day: over the threshold into St. Patrick’s Cathedral:

While I was inside this awe-inspiring structure, the sun came out:

The day ended with a trip up the Empire State Building at about 11 p.m., after I’d found my Italian restaurant from the previous night and, if you can believe it, was let through the gate again by a subway attendant after scurrying into the station, swiping my card, and realizing I’d left my cell phone back at the hotel. Back to the hotel, back to the station, where again the computer thought I was trying to cheat the subway out of $7. The attendant wasn’t as forgiving as the morning one, but he let me through eventually, thinking: Rube.

Allah got a Christmas wish answered when The View re-aired James Brolin coming thiiis close to espousing truthernut conspiracies. To me, the link is less important for that than for this quote of Brolin’s:

We were Americans. Now we’re split and arguing. So whose fault is that, and what’s going wrong, and think about the issues.

The main trouble with people like Brolin, and it gives rise to their willingness to swallow crap like 9/11 truthernut salad, is that they know absolutely no history and nothing whatsoever about human nature. Splits and arguments among Americans, nasty ones about heavy, anguishing issues, date right back to 1776 and the argument over whether we should even become Americans or not.

This is not new. It is not new to our era. There is vicious infighting over every major issue that comes our way, and we are pushed to the point of being “all Americans” only when the evil of the day and its danger to us are so clearly delineated that even the doviest among us can clearly see the choice between fighting and being subjugated, as in WWII, presumably the start date of that elusive “we were Americans” period Brolin burbled about. It’s all well and good to say now that Britain had no right to rule us and the Revolution was correct even at the price, but it wasn’t so clear at the time. Ditto the preservation of the Union, 1861-1865, ditto the 1930s run-up to WWII. Evils are frequently not so clearly delineated as Hitler was eventually revealed to be. People of Brolin’s ilk would apparently prefer that nothing controversial were done until a few millions had been shoveled into furnaces so that they would not have to whine about splits and arguments at home. Or they would rather find the evil at home, spreading the monstrous idea that the freely elected president of a modern republic killed 3K of his own citizens, than believe that either saving or stopping anybody outside our borders could be worth those 3K lives twice over.

It’s your fault, Brolin. It’s your fault for lacking even basic realism, any common decency, or a smidge more than the “little learning” that we’ve always been warned is so dangerous. Pick up a book like Modern Times or John Adams and then tell me whose fault it is. You prig.

Cross-posted at Electric Venom.