I hadn't heard about this, though in the midst of it my wife and I wondered whether we'd have to try and find a boat to get us back to Brooklyn where out daughter was. In the end the trains started up again, but in those early hours this was a very important action taken by regular folks while Dick Cheney hid in an undisclosed location and George Bush dithered.

Looking back, I think 9/11 was the day I became a New Yorker. To this day I am a Californian who happened to move to New York because of a job offer, met a woman, and stayed. But after 9/11, without even thinking about it, I started to call myself a New Yorker.

I remember the day very vividly even 10 years later. But there is a huge difference this year. This is the first year since I heard the planes hit and smelled the ashes of the burning World Trade Center that I can feel some satisfaction. This year, finally, after 10 long years, Osama bin Laden has been hunted down and killed. Along with him, under Obama, more top al-Qaeda leaders have been killed or captured than during the entire Bush administration. For the first time since I heard those planes hit I feel like we are on top of the war against al-Qaeda.

Ten years.

 read more »

This one:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Or this one?

Send A Message from Bob Turner for Congress on Vimeo.

"It's been ten short years. Everyone remembers," the ad says, with dreary music playing over images of smoke billowing from the World Trade Center. "Some, though, want to commemorate the tragedy by building a mosque on Ground Zero."

This is not just a partisan thing, though I'm obviously a Democrat. It's a question of values. And my values tell me that trying to skate into Congress in a low-turnout special election based on (deceptively) bashing a vulnerable minority, in this case Muslims, is reprehensible. New Yorkers deserve better than this.

David Weprin for Congress

Go vote on 9/13.  read more »

This comes from my Democratic district leader, Chris Owens:

Hey, northwest Brooklyn, wake up! We're getting screwed again! It's time to take action -- and you can do it from your home and your computer.

The Zadroga 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund was established by Congress and signed into law by President Obama to provide resources to individuals who were injured or killed between September 11th, 2001 and May 30th, 2002 and who resided, worked, attended school or assisted with clean-up or rescue activities within the "crash sites" as defined in the legislation.

The Zadroga legislation itself provides two types of support: (i) funds for free medical monitoring of victims, and (ii) the Victim Compensation Fund referred to above (the "VCF"). A Special Master, Sheila Birnbaum, Esq., has been appointed to oversee the administration of the VCF. Under the Zadroga legislation, the Special Master has the power to make many decisions per her discretion.  read more »

The Times has an outraged - for the Times - op-ed today about the folly of trying alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Guantanamo.

Last year, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. described a federal court trial for the self-professed mastermind of Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, as “the defining event of my time as attorney general.” On Monday, Mr. Holder’s dream for demonstrating the power of the American court system crumbled when he announced that the trial would take place not in New York City or anywhere in the United States but before a military commission at the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prison camp.

Not only is this decision by the administration a less than sterling moment for our vaunted system of justice, it overlooks one stark issue:the need for New Yorkers to have closure and a measure of retribution.

Nobody who witnessed the attacks will ever forget them. What gets overlooked is that a large number of New Yorkers suffered from PTSD in direct consequence of the attack.

If you get mugged on the street, odds are, you'll get to face your attacker in court. But if some savages fly civilian planes into civilian buildings in your home town, apparently, a different standard applies.

Where's the justice in that?