Musings on the Ugly Beauty of the World Trade Center
Let’s face it, the World Trade Center, actually a complex of seven buildings with the centerpieces the towers which once stood majestically in Lower Manhattan, wasn’t exactly an architectural beauty.
They were even called ugly.
The two primary towers, one rising to 1,368 feet, the other to 1,362feet, dominated the landscape and were a source of boundless pride and tributes to the supremacy of American commerce for politicians and builders even as most New Yorkers regarded them as impressive but essentially unattractive oblong boxes reaching into the skies.
My family and I visited the World Trade Center in 1988 along with an aged uncle from Ireland. My uncle, terrified of heights, stood petrified against the back wall of the Top of the World observatory and understatedly remarked that the view was “very nice.”
Soaring a full hundred feet above the Empire State Building, the WTC did indeed provide a “very nice” panorama, remarkable, breathtaking views for miles in every direction, in fact, even if the design of the towers was less than pleasing. Those vistas and the pride New Yorkers and all Americans felt for the World Trade Center fully compensated for the towers’ stark severity, described by one architect as “glass-and-metal filing cabinets.”
Despite all their architectural and aesthetic flaws, I still miss the strange, symmetrical elegance of those “filing cabinets” and, despite the passage of ten years, I freely admit that I still weep over the events of September 11th, 2001.
None of us could have anticipated the devastation wreaked on America by Islamic terrorists on that brilliantly-bright morning.
What happened that day didn’t simply involve the destruction of of human life and of buildings. It didn’t merely represent a shocking, unprovoked attack on our homeland. It involved much more than the resultant phenomenal costs, disruptions, and upheavals.
Obviously, the greatest loss was the 2,753 lives snuffed out but not to be forgotten either was the loss of Americans’ illusory senses of invulnerability and indestructibility, the loss of our collective national innocence.
Those attributes were barely shaken by the failed Muslim attempt to knock down the towers in 1993 primarily because they failed. Eight years later they succeeded. What could never happen, happened.
The incomprehensibility of 9/11 was perhaps best illustrated in the reaction of a WTC survivor. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5387.)
Showing posts with label new york city. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new york city. Show all posts
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
New York City's Last Best Hope, Alec Baldwin
New York City's Last Best Hope, Alec Baldwin
The good news for Big Appleites is that Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner seems to be breathing his last as a New York congressman, unless that’s just his heavy breathing we’re hearing.
The whining wiener man is on the ropes but sticking to “principles” and his resolve, and to anything else available, and refusing to quit and turn in all his congressional perks and vain ambitions to succeed NYC Mayor Michael Boomboom Bloomberg.
Surely much to his egotistical, arrogant dismay, Weiner’s Dem close buddies have shown they are very ready, willing, and able to take his much-publicicized underpants and wrap them around his scrawny neck.
Liberal Noo Yawkers, as if there were any other kind, should not despair, though. Panting in the wings for his chance to ride into town is a new Democrat savior, none other than extreme Hollywood leftist, the totally unqualified, former Long Islander, part-time resident of NYC, Alec Rae Baldwin III.
Obviously discontented with the acting life and searching for a new gig, frustrated in his desire to become governor of New York State, Baldwin is now considering settling for mayor of New York City. If nothing else, Baldwin once had far better abs than Bloomberg and, in NYC, he could win the mayoralty on that basis alone.
Remember Jesse Ventura and Ahnold?
However, with that bod long gone, Alec has another significant plus going for him: He’s a star of stage. screen, and television and New York just loves stars, especially stars with his resume’ which includes two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and six Screen Actors Guild Awards. Most of his accolades came as a result of his starring role on the NBC sitcom, “30 Rock.”
Not known for being temperate, Baldwin has called former Vice President Dick Cheney a terrorist and has characterized conservative commentator Sean Hannity as ”a no-talent, ignorant fool,” . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4769)
The good news for Big Appleites is that Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner seems to be breathing his last as a New York congressman, unless that’s just his heavy breathing we’re hearing.
The whining wiener man is on the ropes but sticking to “principles” and his resolve, and to anything else available, and refusing to quit and turn in all his congressional perks and vain ambitions to succeed NYC Mayor Michael Boomboom Bloomberg.
Surely much to his egotistical, arrogant dismay, Weiner’s Dem close buddies have shown they are very ready, willing, and able to take his much-publicicized underpants and wrap them around his scrawny neck.
Liberal Noo Yawkers, as if there were any other kind, should not despair, though. Panting in the wings for his chance to ride into town is a new Democrat savior, none other than extreme Hollywood leftist, the totally unqualified, former Long Islander, part-time resident of NYC, Alec Rae Baldwin III.
Obviously discontented with the acting life and searching for a new gig, frustrated in his desire to become governor of New York State, Baldwin is now considering settling for mayor of New York City. If nothing else, Baldwin once had far better abs than Bloomberg and, in NYC, he could win the mayoralty on that basis alone.
Remember Jesse Ventura and Ahnold?
However, with that bod long gone, Alec has another significant plus going for him: He’s a star of stage. screen, and television and New York just loves stars, especially stars with his resume’ which includes two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and six Screen Actors Guild Awards. Most of his accolades came as a result of his starring role on the NBC sitcom, “30 Rock.”
Not known for being temperate, Baldwin has called former Vice President Dick Cheney a terrorist and has characterized conservative commentator Sean Hannity as ”a no-talent, ignorant fool,” . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4769)
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Taxes, Taxes, Taxes!
Taxes, Taxes, Taxes!
For those residing under rocks or in Neverland, on or about April 15th, you will be expected to pony up an excessively high percentage of your hard-earned income to Uncle Sam or to his state and municipal imitators.
Of course, if you’re among the 35% or so of Americans who are living scotfree of income taxes, you’re “in like Flynn” on April 15th, exempt from what Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. called, “the price we pay for civilization,” what 21st century taxpayers would call an inordinate charge, which taxpayers would call the people who don’t pay any income taxes leeches.
What better word describes people who suck at the public teat and who contribute nothing toward the the sustenance of that teat?
Still, there’s even more bad news for us honest taxpayers: For those who haven’t noticed, income taxes are just the beginining. In governmental sleights of hand designed to make us schlups think the IRS and its state counterparts are the only governmental pocket-pickers and to convince us that taxes are really in the public’s best interests, the feds, states, and localities have cooked up all kinds of thievery.
Ken and Daria Dolan outline just some of those tricks of the governmental trade: http://aol.it/hWuFJt
Take, for instance, what are termed “sin taxes,” financial penalties for what bureaucrats deem activities detrimental to our health and moral well being. Testimony to political hypocrisy, the imposition of such behavioral taxes presupposes the moral superiority of the imposers who, all too often, are imposters.
The Dolans cite levies on liquor, gambling, and smoking but include in other categories taxes on equally “sinful” pursuits such as strip shows and the like as well as taxes on those who indulge in a friendly game of poker with playing cards. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3901)
For those residing under rocks or in Neverland, on or about April 15th, you will be expected to pony up an excessively high percentage of your hard-earned income to Uncle Sam or to his state and municipal imitators.
Of course, if you’re among the 35% or so of Americans who are living scotfree of income taxes, you’re “in like Flynn” on April 15th, exempt from what Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. called, “the price we pay for civilization,” what 21st century taxpayers would call an inordinate charge, which taxpayers would call the people who don’t pay any income taxes leeches.
What better word describes people who suck at the public teat and who contribute nothing toward the the sustenance of that teat?
Still, there’s even more bad news for us honest taxpayers: For those who haven’t noticed, income taxes are just the beginining. In governmental sleights of hand designed to make us schlups think the IRS and its state counterparts are the only governmental pocket-pickers and to convince us that taxes are really in the public’s best interests, the feds, states, and localities have cooked up all kinds of thievery.
Ken and Daria Dolan outline just some of those tricks of the governmental trade: http://aol.it/hWuFJt
Take, for instance, what are termed “sin taxes,” financial penalties for what bureaucrats deem activities detrimental to our health and moral well being. Testimony to political hypocrisy, the imposition of such behavioral taxes presupposes the moral superiority of the imposers who, all too often, are imposters.
The Dolans cite levies on liquor, gambling, and smoking but include in other categories taxes on equally “sinful” pursuits such as strip shows and the like as well as taxes on those who indulge in a friendly game of poker with playing cards. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3901)
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Borat Vs. Baron, Crossing the Long Gay Line
Borat Versus Baron or, Crossing the Long Gay Line
(Second in a series in recognition of New York City’s “Gay Pride Week”)
You really shouldn’t upset homosexuals. They tend to cry and try to hit their upsetters with their beaded purses stuffed with their sex toys or strangle them with their feather boas or slash them with their bangles, and that can sting!
Sacha Baron Cohen has their panties all in a twist with his new flick, Bruno, which incidentally is the name of my daughter’s dog.
Borat, Cohen’s previous entry into the world of grossly offensive movie comedy, was just fine and dandy with the gay community and met with their approval with its overt anti-American depictions of blue- and white-collar people, as well as virtually every other entity on the planet.
The outrageousness of the sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, anti-American, anti-Islamic Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan lay in its all-encompassing satirical abuse. Although almost all Arab countries banned it, no single group carried on and protested with anywhere near the vehemence of homosexuals protesting Baron.
But, dare to satirize gay boys and their nails come out, their hypocrisy is exposed, and they begin wielding their chains and those deadly purses. Not that they would ever succeed in utilizing them as weapons. A simple, “BOO!” would send them scattering back into their closets or back to the arms of their boyfriends who would console them with sweet nothings.
However, like MacArthur, they would soon return with blazing purses, chains, and boas after their initial perturbations and soothing and after gathering the protection of their pink armies. We are the future, they believe, and Bruno’s audacity in ridiculing them and their “lifestyle” will not be tolerated. Everyone else may be abused but not us!
There was Something About Mary and there is something about Bruno and they’re way different somethings, especially to swishers. (With apologies to Nick Swisher of the New York Yankees who seems anything but a gay swisher.)
The essential problem with the yet-to-be released Bruno is that it’s “a mockery” of homosexuals and that it’s “problematic” to gays, according to a Fox News Report.
That report goes on to say, “The only ‘ethnic’ group safe to poke fun at seeming to be straight, white, 30-something males. . . [White males] are the target where no one will ever cry foul if you laugh at them. It’s only when we get into other minority groups that there’s a line there.”
“I can call my sister a tramp — but you can’t,” says one gay,. . .
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com)
(Second in a series in recognition of New York City’s “Gay Pride Week”)
You really shouldn’t upset homosexuals. They tend to cry and try to hit their upsetters with their beaded purses stuffed with their sex toys or strangle them with their feather boas or slash them with their bangles, and that can sting!
Sacha Baron Cohen has their panties all in a twist with his new flick, Bruno, which incidentally is the name of my daughter’s dog.
Borat, Cohen’s previous entry into the world of grossly offensive movie comedy, was just fine and dandy with the gay community and met with their approval with its overt anti-American depictions of blue- and white-collar people, as well as virtually every other entity on the planet.
The outrageousness of the sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, anti-American, anti-Islamic Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan lay in its all-encompassing satirical abuse. Although almost all Arab countries banned it, no single group carried on and protested with anywhere near the vehemence of homosexuals protesting Baron.
But, dare to satirize gay boys and their nails come out, their hypocrisy is exposed, and they begin wielding their chains and those deadly purses. Not that they would ever succeed in utilizing them as weapons. A simple, “BOO!” would send them scattering back into their closets or back to the arms of their boyfriends who would console them with sweet nothings.
However, like MacArthur, they would soon return with blazing purses, chains, and boas after their initial perturbations and soothing and after gathering the protection of their pink armies. We are the future, they believe, and Bruno’s audacity in ridiculing them and their “lifestyle” will not be tolerated. Everyone else may be abused but not us!
There was Something About Mary and there is something about Bruno and they’re way different somethings, especially to swishers. (With apologies to Nick Swisher of the New York Yankees who seems anything but a gay swisher.)
The essential problem with the yet-to-be released Bruno is that it’s “a mockery” of homosexuals and that it’s “problematic” to gays, according to a Fox News Report.
That report goes on to say, “The only ‘ethnic’ group safe to poke fun at seeming to be straight, white, 30-something males. . . [White males] are the target where no one will ever cry foul if you laugh at them. It’s only when we get into other minority groups that there’s a line there.”
“I can call my sister a tramp — but you can’t,” says one gay,. . .
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com)
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