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April 02, 2008
The Shame of Ground Zero
In the summer of 2002, I visited New York City. During a tour of the city, the group I was with stopped at the site of the former World Trade Center towers. The tour guide, a native New Yorker, never used the term "Ground Zero" to describe the site. He said it would always be the World Trade Center to him.
Before visiting in 2002, I had only seen the WTC a few times, from a distance. Once when flying into Newark, and a couple times while driving past the city. Honestly, I didn't take much notice of the towers then, so I was surprised by my reaction to the spot where they once stood. As I looked through the chain-link fence into the massive hole in the ground, the magnitude of the attack and what we'd lost hit me and I cried. It was like visiting the Arizona Memorial - a place where the sense of history is overwhelming. Both places almost demand silence and reflection.
We're a few months away from the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. So what's made me think of this now? Two guys - Penn and Teller. My Netflix account gives me access to online video. One of the available choices is Penn and Teller's Showtime program, titled "Bullsh*t." The show is basically libertarian evangelism - the hosts debunk popular misconceptions, promote free-market ideals and vent about things that make them angry. This evening, I watched an episode from season four entitled "Ground Zero" and it really ticked me off.
When I visited Ground Zero in 2002, it was a giant hole in the ground. That was almost six years ago.
As you can see, it's still a giant hole in the ground, with minor signs of construction. In the episode, Penn and Teller outlined the abject failure of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and former governor George Pataki to actually do anything to turn that hole into usable space and a memorial.
If you get a chance, I recommend watching the "Ground Zero" episode of Penn and Teller's program. It shows how government bureaucracy stands in the way of progress, and outlines just how impotent Pataki really was when it came to getting things done. The episode aired in 2006, but not all that much has changed since then.
Pathetic.
Posted by slublog at April 2, 2008 10:30 PM
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