Down to Zero

I woke yesterday expecting some kind of politically nauseating shroud for the day, bringing stillness and fear to the city.

The city, however, had other plans.

The sky still held a summer blue with playful clouds and a warm encouraging sun.

Streets were blocked off for neighborhood festivals and the general bitchiness of NYC, so curt and abrasive it's almost endearing, was in full embracable force.

There was little indication, even in the city's newspapers, even from most politicians, of the somber anniversary.

As night came on the day became more clear and the signature blue lights erected in memorium at ground zero shone again into the NYC sky.

I was drawn to the lights, apparitions of the fallen towers and the people who were killed, and had to make my way to them.

I don't want to minimize the suffering many I'm sure still deal with, but I question the sincerity of some of those people dramatically poised by the fenced barrier separating here and then.

Some in particular held large placards declaring a need for salvation through Jesus. Proselytizing in general is disgusting, but at the site of such a catastrophe? Remarkably ignorant.
















I'm running into more and more proselytizing people here. On the street, on the subway, at the WTC, and a majority of them, especially those of rabid conviction, are minorities.

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu had a memorable quote that makes me question the mental aptitude of these people.

He said: "When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

Most of the people there were foreigners with large cameras and a large portion of people there in general sat at an adjacent Burger King or stood in line for the Mister Frosty truck.

Although not thoroughly apparent last night, there obviously had been such a problem with people trying to sell goods at the WTC site that professional signs were constructed and placed along the fence discouraging people from purchasing things from these salesmen.

A third disheartening image was the enormity of the American flags. There were two perhaps three small posters listing the names of the fallen victims along with several informational placards about the site.

In contrast there were at least three enormous American flags ranging in size up to one pasted to a bordering building that must have been no less than ten-stories tall.
I went to ground zero expecting to be overwhelmed with emotion, but when I arrived I felt more disgust for the hollow-core of most America.

When the subway attacks ocurred in Spain two years ago, less than 300 people died. While a tragedy nonetheless, the atacks there were much less significant than the inconceivable site of people holding hands as they jumped from the falling towers and the last words many must have spoken to each other as they knew their last moments were coming.















Yet, the immediate response in both situations was significantly different.

In America, we hid, and declared war.

In Spain, one million people took to the streets to signify their soldairty as a people to overcome. One million people marched through the streets of Madrid.

I was always attracted to the blue lights as a similar unifying symbol. I could see them stretching vastly into the sky even from Brooklyn and wanted to get as close as possible, as if their source might offer some return.

When I arrived though, I discovered that these two beams punctuating the sky were just smaller lights placed in a large circle.

I questioned the metaphor.

Was it the energy of smaller forces working together to create a larger projection; or was it the cracks being shown, the gaps in the unity that seemed so uniform from a distance?

I think I know.