I thought there would be a lot more flags flying from homes and poles and mailboxes in the hugely Republican towns where I live. Without provocation many of these folks fly flags all year from their trucks, often forgetting to replace them when they become tattered and torn. They line their driveways with small flags on major holidays. They talk constantly about who is – and isn’t – a “real” American. Patriotism, seemingly, oozes from their pores.
So where were the flags today, the tenth anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks?
We don’t fly a flag on a regular basis. But this is the tenth anniversary of a day none of us who lived through it will ever forget. So my husband and I were determined to pay our respects. To the people who lost their lives and their families. To the heroes who searched for the dead and missing, some sacrificing their own lives after inhaling the toxic dust on “the pile” for months. To this country we call the United States of America.
We finally found our little flags, late last evening, at the one store that sells flags in the entire region. At 9:30 last night we drilled holes for them to stand tall -- in the structure which holds the rural mailboxes on our road. It was the very least we could do.
Today I walked and ran and drove through our town and several close-by towns. Expecting to see every house with some kind of a flag as a memorial, as a statement of solidarity, of nationhood. But where were the flags on this tenth anniversary of 9/11? Where were the flags as the commemorative ceremony was unfolding at the Twin Towers site?
Oh there were some. A house here and there. A Wendy’s on the highway where workers had climbed on the roof to make the flags visible to all. But in front of the grandest, most expensive homes I saw – there were no flags. Nothing. Just perfectly manicured lawns and bushes and flowers. All the more startling in a town where large sections had been devastated by both Hurricane Irene and the rainy remnants of Tropical Storm Lee. Perfection for your lawn, big house. But nothing for the worst terror attack in U.S. history.
Among the homes actually flying flags from formal flagpoles, a surprising number flew them from the top of the pole, as on a normal day. Perhaps not realizing that on a day where we remember the dead, the flag should be flying at half mast.
But then I saw the house that has now been seared into my memory. It was just a little, unadorned house. On a small piece of land. It had been severely flooded by Irene; its insides were already gutted and a For Sale sign was prominently displayed in the front yard. And yet its owners – who had already lost everything else – had found a flag. A good sized flag. Which was tacked up carefully across the siding for all the world to see.
That flag says so much. It says we who live here have lost a lot –but not so much that we can’t remember those who lost so much more. And it says something else that is perhaps purely American. It says we are down but we are not out. We will move on and rebuild our lives. As the 9/11 families have done. As Americans always do.
How much more does this flag say about the America we hope we live in than those grand homes with the perfect lawns I saw today?
It says everything.
Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Remembering 9/11
We went to find a flag today – my husband and I. A small flag or maybe two to fly from the rural mailboxes on the county road where we live.
Not that we don’t HAVE a flag. We have two. But they are oversized flagpole flags. We can’t even hang them from the straight-out short pole attached to our house. That’s made to push through the spine of today’s smallish decorative house flags – not for a FLAG-flag with grommets for ropes to raise and lower it. Although far too many people who profess to revere the flag of our country insult it every day by leaving it tattered, waving forlornly in the wind and rain. Or leave it flying at night, unlit and unremarked.
We wanted the small flags because tomorrow is September 11th, the tenth anniversary of the terror attack on New York’s Twin Towers, the Pentagon and Flight 93’s heroic demise in a Shanksville PA field. We want to fly the flag of our country once again as we did after that terrible day. Fly it to remind ourselves and everyone else that despite the political paralysis these days in Washington, we ARE one nation and we DO stand for the most important principles on earth. Fly it because the nearly 3000 people who died after the attacks, and the heroes who tried to save them, were and are unique and special. Fly it because they- and we - belong to a nation which can’t be so easily vanquished.
Of course every human being is unique and special. But the United States of America is also unique as nations go –a nation built on diversity and determination, our people springing from almost every other nation on earth. In an eerie echo, people from many countries who just happened to be at the World Trade Center were killed on September 11th, not just Americans.
Well, back to the small flags. We didn’t find them at any of the chain stores on our local highway which have put smaller, perhaps more patriotic stores, out of businesses. We will have to find the one store, miles away, which sells only flags and related merchandise – the one I did a story on along with a local, New Jersey flag factory after that first September 11th. And it seems to me that if for no other purpose than to sell merchandise – and why else do these big box stores exist anyhow – the management of these stores missed a major marketing opportunity in a down economy.
Until today – and our unsuccessful effort to find the flag of our country – I was trying to avoid this tenth commemoration of September 11th. I didn’t WANT to remember. I wanted to pull the covers over my head and just stay in bed all day – hiding from those terrible memories. But of course you can never hide from memories.
As reporters we have to separate our personal emotions from what we are covering. Otherwise it would be impossible to do the job; one would spend one’s professional life dissolved in tears. But that takes its toll in other ways; you spend a lot of time later remembering. The images and voices play over and over again in your mind, coming out of the little closet you try to lock them into when you least expect them.
Not that it would be really possible for ANYONE who lived through it to forget September 11th. Or for that matter, its precursor and warning – the initial attack on the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993. Which I also recall vividly, having arrived on scene with my cameraman soon after the truck bomb exploded. Had someone somewhere simply paid attention to convicted conspirator Ramzi Yousef’s own words – the second attempt to take down the twin towers might never have succeeded.
So now it’s the eve of September 11th, ten years later. I am determined to find that flag and show anyone who passes by that with all our divisions – the flag is still there. Along with our country. Our grit. Our derring-do.
We need to remember. And remember how we came together as a people, as a country, political and religious differences forgotten. To fly the flag of the United States of America from virtually every home – ten years ago tomorrow.
Not that we don’t HAVE a flag. We have two. But they are oversized flagpole flags. We can’t even hang them from the straight-out short pole attached to our house. That’s made to push through the spine of today’s smallish decorative house flags – not for a FLAG-flag with grommets for ropes to raise and lower it. Although far too many people who profess to revere the flag of our country insult it every day by leaving it tattered, waving forlornly in the wind and rain. Or leave it flying at night, unlit and unremarked.
We wanted the small flags because tomorrow is September 11th, the tenth anniversary of the terror attack on New York’s Twin Towers, the Pentagon and Flight 93’s heroic demise in a Shanksville PA field. We want to fly the flag of our country once again as we did after that terrible day. Fly it to remind ourselves and everyone else that despite the political paralysis these days in Washington, we ARE one nation and we DO stand for the most important principles on earth. Fly it because the nearly 3000 people who died after the attacks, and the heroes who tried to save them, were and are unique and special. Fly it because they- and we - belong to a nation which can’t be so easily vanquished.
Of course every human being is unique and special. But the United States of America is also unique as nations go –a nation built on diversity and determination, our people springing from almost every other nation on earth. In an eerie echo, people from many countries who just happened to be at the World Trade Center were killed on September 11th, not just Americans.
Well, back to the small flags. We didn’t find them at any of the chain stores on our local highway which have put smaller, perhaps more patriotic stores, out of businesses. We will have to find the one store, miles away, which sells only flags and related merchandise – the one I did a story on along with a local, New Jersey flag factory after that first September 11th. And it seems to me that if for no other purpose than to sell merchandise – and why else do these big box stores exist anyhow – the management of these stores missed a major marketing opportunity in a down economy.
Until today – and our unsuccessful effort to find the flag of our country – I was trying to avoid this tenth commemoration of September 11th. I didn’t WANT to remember. I wanted to pull the covers over my head and just stay in bed all day – hiding from those terrible memories. But of course you can never hide from memories.
As reporters we have to separate our personal emotions from what we are covering. Otherwise it would be impossible to do the job; one would spend one’s professional life dissolved in tears. But that takes its toll in other ways; you spend a lot of time later remembering. The images and voices play over and over again in your mind, coming out of the little closet you try to lock them into when you least expect them.
Not that it would be really possible for ANYONE who lived through it to forget September 11th. Or for that matter, its precursor and warning – the initial attack on the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993. Which I also recall vividly, having arrived on scene with my cameraman soon after the truck bomb exploded. Had someone somewhere simply paid attention to convicted conspirator Ramzi Yousef’s own words – the second attempt to take down the twin towers might never have succeeded.
So now it’s the eve of September 11th, ten years later. I am determined to find that flag and show anyone who passes by that with all our divisions – the flag is still there. Along with our country. Our grit. Our derring-do.
We need to remember. And remember how we came together as a people, as a country, political and religious differences forgotten. To fly the flag of the United States of America from virtually every home – ten years ago tomorrow.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Getting Real: Wisconsin, Washington and Fixing America
It’s very hard to sit here outside the closed circle of America’s political posturers – elected, appointed and self-appointed – and not go ballistic.
We need to stop being Republicans and Democrats and Tea Partiers and Liberals -- and start rethinking everything. We need to look at what works in other countries and in some of our states. And just as important – what DOESN’T work. We have to change. Fast.
And ideologues need not apply.
The total US debt is moving toward 15 and a half TRILLION dollars. PIMCO’s Bill Gross has dumped all the treasuries he held in his benchmark Total Return Fund
So yes – the GOP is right. We DO have to pull back. But cutting all the funding for public broadcasting won’t help.
On the state level, according to State Budget Solutions, unfunded pension obligations now exceed 1 trillion dollars. The Congressional Budget Office projects Social Security will run dry by 2037. Medicare costs for everyone – recipients and taxpayers - are out of control.
I pay taxes just like most everyone else. So here’s what I think.
On the state level, I agree there need to be changes to public union medical and pension plans. But we don’t have to let Republicans destroy public unions (and the few private ones that are left). We all know the real reason for the Wisconsin collective bargaining farce.
That said -- remember most federal government workers don’t have collective bargaining – but most of us would be thrilled with their benefits. The benefit packages for public employees were originally created to make up for lower than private sector salaries. Well that’s long gone
So it’s time for states and union leaders to sit down and reason together. Look at salaries in both private and public sectors. Look at benefits. Average it all out. Relatively few taxpayers who aren’t working for government still have traditional pensions. And we pay a huge part of our own health insurance and medical costs. It may not be particularly civilized. But it’s reality.
It would be very, very unfair to cut pensions and raise medical costs unduly for workers who have already retired or who are within 5 years of retiring. They can’t recoup.
So let’s start with a cutoff age. Say 50. Everyone younger – including state and federal workers – should have to wait until at least 68 before collecting pensions, Social Security and Medicare. Maybe even 70 since we’re all, supposedly, living so much longer. Unless you’re medically unable to work. Now this doesn’t mean you’d HAVE to work until you hit 68. It just means you couldn’t collect any public retirement money till then. If you’ve saved enough to tide you over --- well just as always, you can “retire” whenever you can afford to. We also, however, need to strengthen our age discrimination laws and enforcement if we want people to work longer. Age discrimination is very hard to prove now and in the name of saving money companies routinely lay off the highest paid people. Who are often the oldest people.
We need to change completely how we pay for medical procedures and drugs under Medicare. Right now the government pays per item. Which encourages doctors who don’t think Medicare pays them enough to do every unnecessary test and procedure they can think of. Even during routine physicals. And patients are often prescribed expensive drugs because it’s quicker and easier than counseling them to change the behavior or lifestyle that’s causing the problem. Moreover we must, must, MUST get all medical records into digital form. Online so any doctor can see any patient’s total history. Because Medicare allows patients to choose their doctors and see as many as they wish, costs are often ratcheted up when someone goes from doctor to doctor until she gets the drug or procedure she wants. Regardless of necessity.
I’m no economist but logic suggests that just raising the age to get pensions and Medicare coverage - as well as reforming the way Medicare is structured - would probably keep the system solvent through at least another generation’s retirement. If not beyond.
If we’re going to ask or require Americans to finance more of their own retirement -- we also need to change the way money flows through the stock, options, and bond markets. High frequency and general electronic trading in huge blocks has made it very difficult for the small, retail investor - no matter how smart -- to do well in the market. You have to be on it every minute and still the block traders will set up their servers right next to those of the NYSE (for example) where their computer-programmed flash trades will overwhelm any individual trade you might try to make. Which leaves average Americans with just one choice beyond low-paying CD’s: put all your money in the hands of big fund managers. Many of them the same people who bought into the derivatives bubble which caused the financial crisis. Thank you – but no.
So if this crop of legislators and leaders and government agency managers won’t drop the posturing -- let’s have a giant recall election (kind of like a country-wide tag sale) and replace them all with pragmatists. Who will look at what DOES work and what CAN work and forget about which party comes up with the idea.
In other words – they’ll get real.
We need to stop being Republicans and Democrats and Tea Partiers and Liberals -- and start rethinking everything. We need to look at what works in other countries and in some of our states. And just as important – what DOESN’T work. We have to change. Fast.
And ideologues need not apply.
The total US debt is moving toward 15 and a half TRILLION dollars. PIMCO’s Bill Gross has dumped all the treasuries he held in his benchmark Total Return Fund
So yes – the GOP is right. We DO have to pull back. But cutting all the funding for public broadcasting won’t help.
On the state level, according to State Budget Solutions, unfunded pension obligations now exceed 1 trillion dollars. The Congressional Budget Office projects Social Security will run dry by 2037. Medicare costs for everyone – recipients and taxpayers - are out of control.
I pay taxes just like most everyone else. So here’s what I think.
On the state level, I agree there need to be changes to public union medical and pension plans. But we don’t have to let Republicans destroy public unions (and the few private ones that are left). We all know the real reason for the Wisconsin collective bargaining farce.
That said -- remember most federal government workers don’t have collective bargaining – but most of us would be thrilled with their benefits. The benefit packages for public employees were originally created to make up for lower than private sector salaries. Well that’s long gone
So it’s time for states and union leaders to sit down and reason together. Look at salaries in both private and public sectors. Look at benefits. Average it all out. Relatively few taxpayers who aren’t working for government still have traditional pensions. And we pay a huge part of our own health insurance and medical costs. It may not be particularly civilized. But it’s reality.
It would be very, very unfair to cut pensions and raise medical costs unduly for workers who have already retired or who are within 5 years of retiring. They can’t recoup.
So let’s start with a cutoff age. Say 50. Everyone younger – including state and federal workers – should have to wait until at least 68 before collecting pensions, Social Security and Medicare. Maybe even 70 since we’re all, supposedly, living so much longer. Unless you’re medically unable to work. Now this doesn’t mean you’d HAVE to work until you hit 68. It just means you couldn’t collect any public retirement money till then. If you’ve saved enough to tide you over --- well just as always, you can “retire” whenever you can afford to. We also, however, need to strengthen our age discrimination laws and enforcement if we want people to work longer. Age discrimination is very hard to prove now and in the name of saving money companies routinely lay off the highest paid people. Who are often the oldest people.
We need to change completely how we pay for medical procedures and drugs under Medicare. Right now the government pays per item. Which encourages doctors who don’t think Medicare pays them enough to do every unnecessary test and procedure they can think of. Even during routine physicals. And patients are often prescribed expensive drugs because it’s quicker and easier than counseling them to change the behavior or lifestyle that’s causing the problem. Moreover we must, must, MUST get all medical records into digital form. Online so any doctor can see any patient’s total history. Because Medicare allows patients to choose their doctors and see as many as they wish, costs are often ratcheted up when someone goes from doctor to doctor until she gets the drug or procedure she wants. Regardless of necessity.
I’m no economist but logic suggests that just raising the age to get pensions and Medicare coverage - as well as reforming the way Medicare is structured - would probably keep the system solvent through at least another generation’s retirement. If not beyond.
If we’re going to ask or require Americans to finance more of their own retirement -- we also need to change the way money flows through the stock, options, and bond markets. High frequency and general electronic trading in huge blocks has made it very difficult for the small, retail investor - no matter how smart -- to do well in the market. You have to be on it every minute and still the block traders will set up their servers right next to those of the NYSE (for example) where their computer-programmed flash trades will overwhelm any individual trade you might try to make. Which leaves average Americans with just one choice beyond low-paying CD’s: put all your money in the hands of big fund managers. Many of them the same people who bought into the derivatives bubble which caused the financial crisis. Thank you – but no.
So if this crop of legislators and leaders and government agency managers won’t drop the posturing -- let’s have a giant recall election (kind of like a country-wide tag sale) and replace them all with pragmatists. Who will look at what DOES work and what CAN work and forget about which party comes up with the idea.
In other words – they’ll get real.
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