(2001 Thread) Plane just crashed into the world trade center

[catspride]

Dear Mr. Cat, I am grateful for your comments. We were not on a college campus, but in a town of about 40,000 of basically middle-class, middle-of-the-road people. And my experience with the rejection of the service men and women returning from the war related to their reactions. No one wanted to talk to the returning GIs about the war, and, surprisingly, it was a lot of the very staid and pro-war families who turned so very sour and unsupportive when soldiers returned to their wives or parents. I was pushing past my mid-30s, so that was my milieu. I totally agree with your last two points. No one could have fought even a guerilla war without the wherewithall to hold off the US Army (and its allies) for such a long time. I did not know that about the aftermath of the Tet offensive. That was really an interesting piece of history.

But this evening my mind is, of course, on the latest terrorist attack just down the road (5 minutes by hellicopter and 20 by the more round-about road) still unfolding in a moshav stuck just inside the Gaza territory. Two dead, already, several critical, an unreported number wounded, but they are using 2 hospitals -- Beer-Sheva's Soroka (where I was yesterday morning where there was a bomb scare in the shopping center,) Ashkelon's Barzelai teaching hospital, which is the nearest to the attack site. I am watching the TV -- hellicopters circling like lazy predatory birds, recognizable only by their big forward lights, and the occasional flare fired to see the ground better. The lights of Gaza all lit up. Islamic Jihad has already claimed "credit" -- The terrorists push the buttons and I suppose the cycle will start again. I hear jets, but no crumping sounds and I hope they are only for general air-safety.

Jerusalem two days ago, a shopping center yesterday (but it was only a scare), a village tonight. Well, you DO know the drill.

But you see, I think that that village should not be where it is, just inside the Gaza Strip on land that surely all international law will demand goes back to the Palestinians when they finally get their state. And the Afghanistan war -- I felt the same way about it as I did Vietnam. I see no reason why more powerful nations shouldn't rush to protect countries from unlawful invasion. But unless there were a declared war, I would not agree that any government should rush in and try to occupy someone's territory just because they didn't like the political constitution of it. Only when a government becomes a danger to all its neighbors... I know there are fine lines and technicalities and the occasional expediency, but exceptions shouldn't become rules.

You sound like you had a rough time in college. Rotten. I am kind of glad I wasn't on a college campus. I probably would have been fighting your battles for you just as hard as ever I fought against the Vietnam war. I really hate injustice...

I see there are a bunch of flashing lights at the foot of our village where the main road passes. So I think I might take my big dog out for a little walk and see what the ruckus is. prob. nothing.

 

[catspride]

Right -- back again. No problems. Just a gaggle of police-type vehicles and their drivers talking to each other. All quiet. The jets were aircover, since they have moved northerly. Hamas has claimed "credit" for the latest attack, too, and this is not uncommon that both Islamic Jihad and Hamas make cross-claims. In fact, their memberships seem to overlap and there is a lot of cooperation on some projects, so perhaps both claims are correct. Whatever.

Back to work. Another complaint about terrorism -- it interrupts one's life. It instills negative thoughts. It brings grief... that's more than one complaint.

Did anyone see Tony Blair's incredibly good speech to the convention of his Labor Party? He said it too -- maybe good can come from the horror of New York. Amen.

Peace,

 

[lotsocats]

Catspride and Mr. Cat,

I have been fascinated and wowed by your notes back and forth. You two are such obviously intelligent people and I thank the two of you for being able to have this discussion in such a civil manner. Bravo! Also, thanks for the education you are both providing. Although I grew up at the tail-end of the war in Viet Nam, my experience was not the same as was the experience of those who were adults at that time.

On another note, I was looking for something I saw in one of the earlier comments on this thread, so I went back to page one. It was so very eery to read the first note saying that the author had just heard about a plane crashing into the WTC. Then the following notes added more and more detail...as I was reading the frenzy of horrific notes describing the events as they unfolded, I re-lived the 11th. Although it was painful to relive that day, it brought me out of my intellectualizing of the event (which is my way of coping) and reminded me of just how very horrific the events were (and still are).

 

[catspride]

Yes, lotsocats, That was what impressed me when I went back and skimmed over it all again yesterday. Intellectualizing, analyzing, picking it all apart and focusing on the nuts and bolts helps to set it at a little distance. This is how we deal with our frequent terrorist encounters here. If you immerse yourself, as we all did on September 11 and for several weeks after, you find yourself depressed and fearful all the time. But it is important for even second-hand spectators to go through a grieving period, or it sits like a cancer at your heart and you don't want to go on with living. Repression is really very unhealthy.

And as Mayor Gulianni (spelling?) said, we have to get on with life -- get out and do everyday things. Not to forget, but to declare that we are not whipped by these events.

This has been some experience! It has put our own experiences in Israel very much in perspective, and has moved me out of a more personal view to a more global one. Therapy comes in many forms.

I find the internet a remarkable and hopeful step toward establishing a truly global community.

peace,

 

[mr. cat]

Catherine, I'm very sorry to learn the awful spectre of terrorism is so near to you! I pray you and yours will be safe. Those sights and sounds you describe remind me, of course, of similar phenomena from my days long ago in a combat zone. I admire the courage you and your countrymen display under these circumstances! Hopefully, the day shall come when such dangers are relegated to stories passed down from one generation to the next. Take care; and thank you for sharing your experiences from long ago as well as from today! Please keep us up-to-date on what's happening where you are. Be safe!

By the way, I've just now recalled something which gives weight to your assertion regarding the treatment of military veterans returning from the Viet Nam War. (Some things eventually float to the top when stirring the muck of hated memories.) Long-established veterans' organizations, such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, did not welcome Viet Nam War veterans into their ranks. The older veterans believed, as did many people, the communication-media "party line" that the U.S.A. had "lost" the war — and, much like the college kids, they held military veterans (rather than meddling politicians) responsible for the conduct of the war. It did no good to point out to them that the U.S.A. never lost so much as a single battle during that war: Unswerving belief in media accounts was par for the course in those days. It's ironic that I subsequently spent so many years working in the very profession which disseminated so much mendacity regarding the Viet Nam War.

Lots O Cats, I too am impressed with this thread as a document of the events of 11 September. Kudos to Butter Cup and those who posted even as the violent events (and their aftermath) were unfolding.

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[catspride]

Dear Mr. Cat, Yes, I remember the vets associations too, although that was from newspapers and documentaries and not from my own direct neighborhood experience But the army rankers did not lose anything. The loss was at the political levels, just as, for whatever reasons, the western allies held back at the end of WW2 and left most of the Eastern European countries to Russian "liberation" because of agreements made at Yalta. Hindsight is always so clear and clever compared to the on-the-ground reasons for things that signal historical perpendicular turns. If Roosevelt had not been so very ill at Yalta, things might have been different for Europe. If Giap's despair had been known and a calmer, more orderly disengagement could have been negotiated. If, for instance, US politicians hadn't lost their nerve, they might have been able to disengage in a less scrambling fashion. I think the crowning blow to the VN war was the sight (on the TV news at dinner time) of a prisoner with his hands bound being shot in the head -- parts of his brain and skull shooting out the other side...or the little girl running away from a village that had just been napalmed. Emotive pictures that send middle-America into their perpendicular turn.

But you know, Mr. Cat, all this is history. Most of the people on this forum only know it as that. I checked out some of the profiles for fun to look at birthdates last night, because I stayed up in a restless state watching pictures of Gaza on TV and looking at the sky to see if Sharon had yet again ordered a missile attack in retaliation for the terrorist incursion into the moshav of Alei Sinai. Our discussion of the VN war is like my father's stories of WW1 and how he was too asthmatic to be accepted, and how he spent the war filling in as a firewatcher for the National Parks in the northern Rockies, and how he nearly died there because, after reporting a fire, there were no men left in the area to fight it or to get up the mountain to rescue him. Suddenly I feel very old, maundering on about memories.

And the memories the people of the world will have of this new perpendicular turn in history will be marked by New York and those twin towers. Those who saw it from their apartment or office windows will be scarred and motivated for life, and unto the third generation, their descendents will repeat the eyewitness stories. Folk lore and myth in the making.

But I am something of a fatalist. I believe that good comes from bad, whatever the intention of perpetrators of wickedness. I believe that good even came from the Nazies and the Holocaust. I believe that mankind will survive and improve, much like the old game we used to play of so many baby or giant steps forward or back until someone reaches the finish line. I believe that this ghastly business will put us a few more baby steps into a better future, no matter how many steps backwards we may slip as each country reassesses its self-interest in the coming months, or finds itself unable to proceed against terrorism because if its own internal political dangers. There is no turning back from the concept of globalization, however long it takes to be achieved in reality, because the world is getting a taste for knowing things in realtime, and entering cooperative ventures and friendshps electronically that could never have been achieved a few short years ago. Global community is becoming almost an article of faith and promise. Unless we blast ourselves back to the stone age, it will come to pass in my lifetime, and if we do destroy our ability to go forward in this vein, the concept will remain in our historical memories and will act as a beckoning light to future generations.

Pessemistic in the short run, often, but incurably optimistic for the future. I am awaiting my rebirth somewhere down the line when I am determined to be a spaceperson -- perhaps to explore the moons of Jupiter or Uranus or to help terraform Mars.

On that note, I will try to refrain from further comparisons with older wars, now thankfully past.

Peace and love,

 

[kittyfoot]

I just got this in my e-mails and thought some of you might like to see it. It came via our own Catarina.

By now everyone has been hearing the death toll rise and reports of the
destruction from the terrorist attacks on the US. These were deplorable
acts that we will never forget. But now is a time to look at the other
side of the numbers coming out of New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
The sad but somewhat uplifting side that the mainstream media has not
reported yet - the SURVIVAL rates and some positive news about the
attacks.


*** The Buildings ***

*The World Trade Center -
The twin towers of the World Trade Center were places of employment for
some 50,000 people. With the missing list of just over 5,000 people,
that means 90% of the people targeted survived the attack. A 90% on a
test is an 'A.'

* The Pentagon -
Some 23,000 people were the target of a third plane aimed at the
Pentagon. The latest count shows that only 123 lost their lives. That is
an amazing 99.5% survival rate. in addition, the plane seems to have
come in too low, too early to affect a large portion of the building. On
top of that, the section that was hit was the first of five sections to
undergo renovations that would help protect the Pentagon from terrorist
attacks. It had recently completed straightening and blastproofing,
saving untold lives. This attack was sad, but a statistical failure.

*** The Planes ***

* American Airlines Flight 77
This Boeing 757 that was flown into the outside of the Pentagon could
have carried up to 289 people, yet only 64 were aboard. Luckily 78% of the
seats were empty.

* American Airlines Flight 11
This Boeing 767 could have had up to 351 people aboard, but only carried
92. Thankfully 74% of the seats were unfilled.

* United Airlines Flight 175
Another Boeing 767 that could have seated 351 people only had 65 people
on board. Fortunately it was 81% empty.

* United Airlines Flight 93
This Boeing 757 was one of the most uplifting stories yet. The smallest
flight to be hijacked with only 45 people aboard out of a possible 289
had 84% of its capacity unused. Yet these people stood up to the
attackers and thwarted a fourth attempted destruction of a national
landmark, saving untold numbers of lives in the process.

*** In Summary ***

Out of potentially 74,280 Americans directly targeted by these inept
cowards, 93% survived or avoided the attacks. That's a higher survival
rate than heart attacks, breast cancer, kidney transplants and liver
transplant - all common, survivable illnesses.

The Hijacked planes were mostly empty, the Pentagon was hit at it's
strongest point, the overwhelming majority of people in the World Trade
Center buildings escaped, and a handful of passengers gave the ultimate
sacrifice to save even more lives.

Pass this information on to those in fear and the media. Don't fear
these terrorists. The odds are against them.

Perhaps this will help ease some of the fear that many are still feeling and plant a tiny seed of hope.

Thanks Cat!!!

 

[mr. cat]

The New York Times on the Web

Rational and Irrational Fears Combine in Terrorism's Wake

October 2, 2001

By ERICA GOODE

The familiar became strange, the ordinary perilous.

On Sept. 11, Americans entered a new and frightening geography, where the continents of safety and danger seemed forever shifted.

Is it safe to fly? Will terrorists wage germ warfare? Where is the line between reasonable precaution and panic?

Jittery, uncertain and assuming the worst, many people have answered these questions by forswearing air travel, purchasing gas masks and radiation detectors, placing frantic calls to pediatricians demanding vaccinations against exotic diseases or rushing out to fill prescriptions for Cipro, an antibiotic most experts consider an unnecessary defense against anthrax.

Psychologists who study how people perceive potential hazards say such responses are not surprising, given the intense emotions inspired by the terrorist attacks.

"People are particularly vulnerable to this sort of thing when they're in a state of high anxiety, fear for their own well-being and have a great deal of uncertainty about the future," said Dr. Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard.

"We don't like that feeling," Dr. Gilbert said. "We want to do something about it. And, at the moment, there isn't anything particular we can do, so we buy a gas mask and put an American decal on our car and take trains instead of airplanes."

But, he added, "I'll be very surprised if five years from now even one life was saved by these efforts."

Still, many psychologists said avoiding flying might be perfectly reasonable if someone is going to spend the entire flight in white-knuckled terror. And though experts say gas masks will offer dubious protection in a chemical attack, if buying them helps calm people down, it can do no harm.

"The feelings may be irrational, but once you have the feelings, the behavior is perfectly rational," said Dr. George Lowenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. "It doesn't make sense to take a risk just because it's rational if it's going to make you miserable. The rational thing is to do what makes you comfortable."

The public's fears may be heightened, he and other experts said, by the sense that the government failed to predict or prevent the Sept. 11 attacks, making people less trusting of the reassurances offered by the authorities, who have said that biological attacks are unlikely and, with vastly heightened security, air travel is safe.

Checkpoints on highways, closed parking structures at airports, flyovers by military aircraft and other security measures, they added, while reassuring many people, may for others increase anxiety by providing a constant reminder of danger.

In fact, the threats now uppermost in many people's minds, Dr. Lowenstein and other psychologists said, are examples of the kinds of risks that people find most frightening.

"All the buttons are being pushed here," said Dr. Paul Slovic, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon and the author of "The Perception of Risk." Threats posed by terrorism, he said, "are horrific to contemplate, seem relatively uncontrollable and are catastrophic."

He and other researchers have found that risks that evoke vivid images, that are seen as involuntary, that are unfamiliar or that kill many people at once are often perceived as more threatening than risks that are voluntary, familiar and less extreme in their effects. For example, in studies, people rank threats like plane crashes and nuclear accidents higher than dangers like smoking or car accidents, which actually cause many more deaths each year.

This fact is a source of endless frustration to some scientists, who cannot understand why people panic over almost undetectable quantities of pesticides on vegetables but happily devour charcoal-broiled hamburgers and steaks, which contain known carcinogens formed in grilling. And, when asked to rank the relative dangers of a variety of potential hazards, scientific experts routinely give lower ratings to things like nuclear power and pesticides than do laypeople, researchers have found.

"Everything in some sense is dangerous, in some concentration and some place, and usually not in others," said Dr. James Collman, a chemistry professor at Stanford and the author of "Naturally Dangerous: Surprising Facts About Food, Health and the Environment."

He said his daughter called him after the terrorist attacks to ask if she should buy a gas mask.

"I told her not to panic," he said. "I thought it was sort of statistically a silly thing to do, and were there ever any toxic gases out there, whatever mask she had might or might not be effective anyway."

Yet psychologists say the average person's responses make sense if one realizes that human beings are not the cool, rational evaluators that economists and other social scientists once assumed them to be.

Rather, the human brain reacts to danger through the activation of two systems, one an instant, emotional response, the other a higher level, more deliberate reaction.

The emotional response to risk, Dr. Lowenstein said, is deeply rooted in evolution and shared with most other animals. But rationality - including the ability to base decisions about risk on statistical likelihood - is unique to humans.

Yet the two responses, he said, often come into conflict, "just as the experts clash with the laypeople."

"People often even within themselves don't believe that a risk is objectively that great, and yet they have feelings that contradict their cognitive evaluations," Dr. Lowenstein said.

For example, he said, "The objective risk of driving for four or five hours at high speeds still has got to be way higher than the risk of flying."

Yet Dr. Lowenstein added that a group of his colleagues, all academic experts on risk assessment, chose to drive rather than fly to a conference after the terrorist attacks.

"If you ask them which is objectively more dangerous, they would probably say that driving is," Dr. Lowenstein said. And though his colleagues cited potential airport delays, he said he suspected fear might also have played into their decision.

President Bush and other policy makers in Washington, Dr. Lowenstein said, must contend with a similar struggle between reason and emotion in shaping their response to the attacks.

"A lot of what's going on is this battle where the emotions are pushing us to respond in a way that would give us quick release but would have all sorts of long-term consequences," Dr. Lowenstein said.

In fact, studies show that once awakened, fear and other emotions heighten people's reactions to other potential hazards. In one study, for example, students shown sad films perceived a variety of risks as more threatening than students who saw emotionally neutral films.

Fear can also spread from person to person, resulting in wild rumors and panic.

One example often cited by sociologists who study collective behavior is the so-called Seattle windshield pitting epidemic, which occurred in 1954, a time when cold war fears ran high and the United States was testing the hydrogen bomb.

That year, tiny holes in car windshields were noticed in Bellingham, Wash., north of Seattle. A week later, similar pitting was seen by residents of towns south of Bellingham. Soon, people in Seattle and all over the state were reporting mysterious damage to their windshields. Many speculated that fallout from the H- bomb tests was the cause. Others blamed cosmic rays from the sun. At the height of the panic, the mayor of Seattle even called President Dwight D. Eisenhower for help.

But eventually, a more mundane explanation revealed itself: In the usual course of events, people did not examine their windshields that closely. The holes, pits and dings turned out to be a result of normal wear and tear, which few had noticed until it was drawn to their attention.

The antidote to such fears, psychologists say, is straightforward information from trustworthy sources.

"Trustworthiness has two elements," said Dr. Baruch Fischhoff, a psychologist in Carnegie Mellon's department of social and decision sciences. "One is honesty and the other is competence."

Attempts by the authorities to use persuasion often fall flat, Dr. Fischhoff said, because "if people feel they have to peel away the agenda of the communicator in order to understand the content of the message, that's debilitating."

"Give me the facts in a comprehensible way, and leave it to me to decide what's right for me," he said.

Yet what psychologists can say with some certainty is that, if no further attacks occur in the near future, people's fears are likely to fade quickly - even faster than the fearful themselves would predict.

Studies suggest, Dr. Gilbert said, that "people underestimate their resilience and adaptiveness."

"We have remarkable both psychological and physiological mechanisms to adapt to change," he said. "I guarantee you that in six months whatever New Yorkers are feeling will seem pretty normal to them, even if it is not exactly what they were feeling before."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/02/he...4f28363360ed5e

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

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[catspride]

In the Bible (the Old Testament) there is the psalm that reads "Yea, though I walk in the valley of death, I shall fear no evil . . ." In the end that is the only way one gets over debilitating fear and gets on with the daily business of living. One becomes a fatalist -- adhering to the often heard, but seldom practiced, proverb to live each day as if it were the last.

I know that I used to think this was a terrible expression -- it seemed so morbid. Was one to think about death just around the corner all the time? That certainly would make life pretty miserable.

I began to understand the proverb only after I had been meditating for a while, and now it is a friendly, rather than a morbid, thought.

The idea of getting total mental and emotional pleasure -- as well as value -- out of every minute is, in fact, not only sensible, but results in heightened senses and the ability to accept everything, both good and bad.

I studied with a rabbi once who told me that one should strive to live in the here and now -- in doing one's duty in life without expecting or even dwelling on the possibility of a heaven or a hell. "You live the best life you know how," he would say, "and leave all the unknowable things to God. Afterlives, a heavenly reward or a hellish punishment fall in the realm of God's responsibilities. 7 of the 10 commandments relate to man's relationship to man in this life on this earth. Anything else is not our concern."

A good addition to the growing volume of excellent articles, Mr. Cat. Thanks...

Peace and love,

 

[mr. cat]

Finally, the journalistic media are allowing public discussion regarding the efficacy of skyscrapers — at least in the United Kingdom. It seems money talks louder than public safety, as the inherent perils of skyscrapers (and all "tall" buildings) have been well known for decades.

New Yorkers, especially, should reflect upon the year 1911: Please see Triangle Fire and determine whether or not lessons have been learned.

The BBC Online

Thursday, 4 October, 2001, 17:37 GMT 18:37 UK

WTC collapse forces skyscraper rethink

By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse

The rapid collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) will force major building design changes to be adopted in the US, and may reduce the number of new high-rise buildings being constructed, according to experts.

“There is going to be a debate about whether or not the World Trade Center Towers should have collapsed in the way that they did.†— Bob Halvorson, architect

The shocking events of 11 September have prompted a major reassessment of the accepted practices employed in erecting skyscrapers.

British and European architects have criticised the current US regulations for ignoring the valuable information that came out of the 1968 Ronan Point tower block disaster in London.

A detailed analysis of WTC collapse suggests that the failure of fire protection systems used in the towers' central columns contributed to their rapid demise.

'Piledriver' effect

In the days following the New York atrocity, engineers were quoted as saying that the towers behaved as they would have expected given the extraordinary circumstances.

The buildings stood for about an hour after being struck

The towers' central steel spines were weakened by the intense heat from the burning aviation fuel, and eventually gave way when they could no longer support the weight of the floors above the crash zones - that is the accepted analysis. When those upper floors began to fall, they forced everything below them to collapse in a "piledriver" effect.

But should the twin towers have collapsed so quickly? Architects and engineers have been looking at the events in more detail, asking what actually happened and what lessons could be learned.

According to some experts, US engineers have never really taken seriously the idea that buildings can collapse in this way. Khalid Dinno, of the Canadian consulting firm Walters Forensic, said that the US waited for 25 years before introducing regulations that had been adopted in Europe.

After the 1968 Ronan Point tower block partial collapse in London, in which four people died, new British Standard Structural Design Codes for concrete were introduced to prevent it happening again. According to Dinno, these codes were ignored in America.

Lack of oxygen

Professor Wilem Frischmann, of the Pell Frischmann Group and the City University, London, was part of the inquiry into the Ronan Point disaster. He said the twin towers should not have collapsed so quickly. "Prior to 11 September, I scarcely believed that this icon was vulnerable," he said.

He added that the impact of the Boeings, puncturing the outer steel shell of the towers would not in itself have caused the towers to fall. "My current analysis of the collapse sequence [suggests that] damage caused to the outside would not have triggered collapse."

“Many high-rise buildings in the USA and Britain will need to be re-evaluated because this flimsy dry-lining type of protection has become commonplace.†— Professor Wilem Frischmann, City University

Although the explosion caused by the fuel-laden aircraft would have been intense, the lack of available oxygen inside the towers would, according to Professor Frischmann, have limited the fireball's temperature to less than 1,000 Celsius. This was within the design limits that the towers were supposed to withstand.

In an analysis of the events that led to their collapse called Obituary For The Two Tall Towers, a report replete with unanswered questions, Professor Frischmann said that sprayed-water fire protection should have maintained the buildings internal strength for several hours, allowing a more complete evacuation.

But the steel supports in the central cores supporting the towers were protected from fire by plaster that had been sprayed on to them. This plaster could have been cracked by the impact, exposing the structural steel to the fire at an early stage.

"Many high-rise buildings in the USA and Britain will need to be re-evaluated because this flimsy dry-lining type of protection has become commonplace," said Professor Frischmann.

Point of impact

According to some experts, the suicide pilots hit the buildings in just the right place to bring about their collapse.

The north tower was struck at the 80th floor; the south tower at the 60th. Had the aircraft crashed lower down, around the 30th floor, it is possible that the stronger steel shell at those levels may have prevented collapse.

The lessons from the collapse will affect future construction

The regulations concerning the construction of future high-rise buildings are likely to be reviewed. According to Tod Rittenhouse, of Weidlinger Associates, who has written a report called Designing Terrorist Resistant Buildings, the design against progressive collapse must be "top of the agenda".

But Bob Halvorson, of architects Halvorson and Kaye, thinks it may prove too expensive to modify existing buildings.

He said: "There is going to be a debate about whether or not the World Trade Center Towers should have collapsed in the way that they did."

The post-mortem on the twin towers will not be swift and will rely on the plans of the buildings, records of its construction, the testimonies of survivors, video of the collapse and forensic examination of the wreckage.

"We are operating well beyond realistic experience," said Halvorson.

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[mr. cat]

[Somebody needs to give the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service a reality check.]

Ananova

A British woman being threatened with deportation after losing her husband in the attack on the World Trade Centre has begged Tony Blair to help her.

Mother-of-two Deena Gilbey, 37, has been told she must leave the United States because her residency status was dependent on her husband Paul's work visa.

Just days after his death the US immigration service sent her a letter informing her that she no longer had a right to live in the country.

The couple, from Southend-on-Sea, Essex, moved to the US eight years ago when London stockbroker Mr Gilbey was transferred to Wall Street.

Their children Maxwell, seven, and Mason, three, were born in the US so are American citizens and have a right to stay, but Mrs Gilbey has none.

She told GMTV: "It was mine and Paul's dream to come here. We bought a home for us and our children.

"We feel he is still here with us and to leave that now would be a final blow."

Mr Gilbey, 39, was working on the 84th floor of the World Trade Centre's south tower, the second to be hit.

After witnessing the first attack on the north tower he telephoned his wife and told her that he was safe.

Mrs Gilbey said her husband died a hero, helping women and the disabled to get out instead of saving himself.

See this story on the web at http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_417848.html

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[kittyfoot]

Leave it to the bureaucrats...THIS is exactly why the terrorists come and go at will;stupidity. These dummies had better clean up their own act before they start complaining about Canada.

 

[mr. cat]

Amen!

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[catspride]

Hi, y'all. I agree about the naturalization service. They've always been the albatross around the neck of the image of the US government. I don't say to abolish them, but they sure need supervision! I think all the American citizens on this list should write letters to their congressmen about this one. Total nonsense.

In case you missed it, in addition to the attacks on Afghanistan, we had a milestone of sorts here in Israel yesterday. There was a Hamas demonstration and march in the Palestinian Authority after Arafat had told them the march was forbidden. When things got a little wild, the Palestinian police shot at the demonstrators -- not rubber bullets, but real ones! There were wounded and at least one dead. I say a milestone, because it is a declaration that the Palestinian Authority has finally grown disenchanted with Hamas and doesn't want to be seen to condone their terrorism anymore.

I really do believe good will come out of all this bad. Now, if only Pakistan's government can hold up in the face of their fundamentalists --

bin Laden said in his taped speech to the outside world last night that all of America was afraid now and he ended with "and thank God for it." I yelled at the TV, "YOU WISH!!"

A free people can learn to cope with almost anything. bin Laden doesn't understand people like those of us who live in democratic countries.

I really do appreciate the good news clips. No one of us has unlimited time to browse the news services, and it is really a nice thing to have them all gathered here together on one spot.

Peace and love,

 

[mr. cat]

Ananova

Widow allowed to stay in US

A British widow threatened with deportation from the US after her husband died in the World Trade Centre attacks will be allowed to stay after all.

Deena Gilbey heard live on GMTV that US immigration authorities would now permit her and her two sons to remain in the country she has called home for eight years.

"That is fantastic, I can't believe it," Mrs Gilbey said after hearing the news.

She had been told initially by officials days after the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York that her visa would not be valid after her husband Paul's death.

Story filed: 09:01 Wednesday 10th October 2001

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[mr. cat]

Ananova

Trapped window cleaner used mop to escape WTC

A window cleaner escaped from a World Trade Centre lift by cutting through its wall with a mop.

Jan Demczur used the metal edges of his squeegee to cut through a synthetic partition when the lift stopped after the terror attacks.

Mr Demczur and four other occupants then punched and kicked the wall, gouging a hole which they crawled through. They then joined a queue of people on the fire escape of the North Tower.

When the five reached the 15th floor, they heard the South Tower collapsing, The New York Times reports.

Mr Demczur said: "We heard a thunderous metallic roar. I thought our lives had surely ended."

They escaped from the tower five minutes before it collapsed.

Fellow survivor Shivam Iyer said: "That man with the squeegee - he was like our guardian angel."

Story filed: 07:56 Wednesday 10th October 2001

=^..^=

 

[mr. cat]

Ananova

Website to document world reaction to September 11

An internet project will document in minute detail how the world reacted to the September 11 attacks.

Researchers from several US universities are building a database of cached web pages from around the world.

They hope the Attack Archive initiative will stand as a historical record of the atrocities, shedding light on the true scale of the event.

"It's a valuable resource that will allow us to go back and analyse in much greater detail what this really was about," Professor Kirsten Foot, from the University of Washington, told BBC Online.

"The upsurge of civic engagement we see evidenced on the web is quite significant."

Millions of people logged on to the web for breaking news as events were unfolding in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Many more used email and instant messaging to trace relatives as US telephone systems broke down.

The Attack Archive, which is being created in collaboration with the Library of Congress, is due to be published on Wednesday - exactly a month after the attacks.

More information is available from the Web Archivist website.

Story filed: 10:56 Wednesday 10th October 2001

=^..^=

 

[tigger]

I received this in an email from someone else..... not sure this is a hoax or a chainletter, sorry if it long! I just get tired of getting these in my email, but this is kinda interesting I think!

"Hi All -
I think you all know that I don't send out hoaxes and don't
>>do the reactionary thing and send out anything that crosses my
>>path. This one, however, is a friend of a friend and I've given it enough credibility in my mind that I'm writing it up and sending it out to all of you. My friend's friend was dating a guy from Afghanistan up until a month ago. She had a date with him around 9/6 and was stood up. She was understandably upset and went to his home to find it completely emptied. On 9/10, she received a letter from her boyfriend explaining that he wished he could tell her why he had left and that he was sorry it had to be like that. The part worth mentioning is that he BEGGED her not to get on any commercial airlines on 9/11 and to not to go any malls on Halloween. As soon as everything happened on the 11th, she called the FBI and has since turned over the letter. This is not an email that I've received and decided to pass on. This came from a phone conversation with a long-time friend of mine ast night. I may be wrong, and I hope I am. However, with one of his warnings being correct and devastating, I'm not willing to take the chance on the second and wanted to make sure that people I cared about had the same information that I did."

 

[catspride]

Dear Tigger, anything is possible. But I think maybe this note should be passed along to the FBI again, in case the first author actually neglected to do so. It may, of course, have just been a way to dump a girlfriend by attaching the desertion to a dramatic tale.

The FBI is generally a reliably "cool" group of professionals who won't panic and won't put thumbscrews on people.

I am presently trying to finish some things to a deadline, but will be back on more frequently when they are finished.

Thanks, Mr. Cat, for your recent postings.

Love and Peace,

 

[Anne]

Tigger, I think you were the one to post about the message on the Nortradamus forums in Google, right? Well, I sent an email to the FBI about that and they were very efficient. Agent Bob called me back the next day and together we tracked the message and decided there wasn't anything real about it. However, he was very polite and thankful. They are following up all the leads.

I too think you should contact your local FBI office and let them know. If it's a general internet hoax they'd probably know about it anyway. Doesn't hurt to let them know though.