It was easier then. I didn’t have to think about all the real people that had been affected by this.
Then I read details like this.
And this.
And manhattan’s thread.
And the interviews I hear on NPR.
And the people I see on the news.
I’d like it all to stop, please, and just go away. Cos then it didn’t happen, you know?
That’s why they say ignorance is bliss. (Not slamming you for it, I understand where you’re coming from.)
[nitpick]
The phrase is “Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise.”
[/nitpick]
I never thought I’d see a day where I would have preferred ignorance.
Eccl 1:17-18
17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.
(NIV)
I have found this out with my recent psoting, and the ridcule I get for being a Christian.
In all cases do not choose ignorence over wisdom!
Eccl 2:12-13
12 Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly. What more can the king’s successor do than what has already been done?
13 I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.
(NIV)
C&P’ed from a comment I made in someone’s Live Journal.
I wish I was a kid again.
slvrfire
2001-09-12 12:26 (link)
My nephew (who is four years old) is completely oblivious to all this. When I woke up this morning, the television was tuned to CNN and he was watching footage of the attacks and live updates. He didn’t even ask what it means, just watched. He hasn’t said a word about it. He runs around, happy, playing like the child that he is.
I happen to believe that, in times like this, ignorance is bliss. I wish I didn’t have to know. I wish I could just ignore it and go about my daily life as if none of it had ever happened. But I know what those images mean, and I’m aware of what COULD happen next.
All that was written before I learned that I had been directly affected by these atrocities, through the death of a loved one. Now I’m just pissed off.
Ted Koppel flew home from London. There were four people on the flight who lost people in the attack.
Then he talked to the captain, for a while. The captain was a Navy vet and a graduate of the USNA. He’s returning to Annapolis next Saturday for his 30th class reunion. At least one member of his class won’t be able to make it.
He was the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
Daniel, one of the set builders for the Backstreet Boys (I hope I remembered that right) was on his way to LA to be with his wife for the birth of their second child.
His plane was one that hit the WTC.
They spoke to his wife in the hospital. Their daughter, named Danielle after her father, was delivered by C-Section on the 14th.
I keep hearing voice messages left by people stuck in the Towers right after the planes crash into them. These are what get to me. One brother calls his sister and tells her that he is about to die, and he wants her to forgive him for everything he ever did. And for her to take care of their mom. A wife calls her husband to tell him she loves him. And the son on the PA flight, Mark Bingham, calling his mother. It’s hard enough to hear their loved ones recount the conversations, but when they play the tape of the loved one’s voice I lose it.
The personal angle is just too much for me.
The thing that got me going was when I heard people trapped in the rubble were calling on cell phones.
This morning I heard the phone calls had stopped.
How fucking horrible.
Rose
The story about the 20 kids in daycare near the WTC that hadn’t been picked up did me in.
Oh, Holy Mother…
I hadn’t heard those last two.
And there’s just so many more that are going to come out as this goes on.
Yesterday I heard a news report on the radio that those calls were a hoax and never happened. The woman from Seattle, claiming her husband had called her from below the WTC, turned out not to have even been married. I’ve tried to find a web article about this, but haven’t come up with anything. Now I’m wondering which is true; were the calls a hoax or were they real and have now stopped? (And if they were real and have stopped, it may simply be because the person’s cell phone battery has died, as opposed to the person themself. If they’re real, let’s hope that’s the case and not the alternative.)
Can anyone find anything on this?
Someone from the NYFD said at a press conference I was watching on NBC that it did happen and it was a hoax.
A sick, sick, cry for attention if ever there was one.
The only other thing I’ve heard about phone calls has been here on the boards or the news reports of calls that came in before the towers collapsed
You know what these horrible details do for me? They make me feel guilty about all the other tragedies (most of them in other parts of the world) where I let the numbers just be numbers. Armenian earthquakes, Honduran landslides from hurricane Mitch, embassy bombings… Just numbers. Vague senses of sadness, but nothing I really thought about a lot about.
Now, these “details” are making me increasingly ambivalent about American retaliation. When this first happened, I would have begged you to let me fly along on the first bombing mission. Now, I just keep thinking that every person we kill will have these same details. These same stories. These same grieving family members. I’m all for eliminating individuals we know are guilty of terrorism, but my tolerance for collateral damage is getting lower and lower as each personal story comes to light.
I talked to a friend in New Jersey last night and she said that there are appeals from the Humane Society for people to check on the pets of friends and family and neighbors who are missing.
I fully realize that the plight of animals trapped alone in apartments without food or water is a tiny thing next to that of the people trapped (or killed) in the rubble of the buildings, but somehow that’s one more of the details that bring me to tears.
Damnit! Haven’t you been told enough – this IS NOT the forum for witnessing – CUT IT OUT! :mad:
Sorry, chique
I do know what you mean, I find myself crying at least once or twice a day. And it’s those “human interest” stories that are getting to me. I just want to gather up everyone I know and love and hold them to me and never let them go.
As for that “person” who is responsible for that hoax. The woman. They are throwing the book at her, charging her for anything and everything they can come up with. What she did is the lowest of the low and I hope she gets a nice fat prison term.