So we now have a president who says marriage ought to be restricted to being between a man and a woman, and folks like Santorum who compare gay sex to child molestation and "man on dog"... a slap in the face of people like Mark Bingham's mother. Bingham was a hero, but he got overshadowed by his planemate, Todd Beamer, who apparently coined the would-be-patented phrase, "Let's roll" as they tried to take back the doomed plane from the hijackers two years ago tomorrow.
And apparently, there are people all over New York who breathed in poisonous dust in the weeks after the towers collapsed, reasured by the EPA that it was safe. We won't know the true toll of that noble act for years, but we can guess... there was a lot of asbestos in those buildings. That's how the White House treated the victims of terrorism.
And our brave fighting forces? Hopefully they'll do better than Vanessa Turner, who collapsed from the heat while on duty in Iraq, was in a coma and suffered leg damage, and ended up homeless back in Boston with her daughter. (Thanks to media attention, she's finally getting some help...)
Why was she there anyway? She was part of an invasion that seems to have exacerbated a bad situation — if there weren't Al Queda terrorists in Iraq before, there sure are now. (Yes, Saddam was/is a bad man, but that wasn't the point, was it?)
And I haven't even gotten to the Patriot Act, which Congress, thankfully, is trying to tame — and Bush is threatening to veto their attempts. Or the Benladen family members that were escorted out of the country without questioning. Or the 9/11 report with all the information excised.
Meanwhile, another video arrives from Osama...
It should go without saying that the 9/11 plotters and their deeds were horrible beyond belief. They hate us and want to destroy us.
Does this administration have to help them achieve their goals?
--> "Two years later: A steely resolve, borne of anguish; Alice Hoglan, mother of Flight 93 hero, turns focus on airlines, gay acceptance", San Francisco Chronicle, September 10, 2003, www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/ archive/2003/09/10/DD308737.DTL
--> "9.11.01: Two years later: Ground zero air quality was 'brutal' for months; UC Davis scientist concurs that EPA reports misled the public", San Francisco Chronicle, September 10, 2003, www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/c/a/2003/09/10/MN266317.DTL
--> "Congress uses scalpel to cut up Patriot Act; Bills would repeal parts of anti-terror law, but Bush threatens vetoes", San Francisco Chronicle, September 10, 2003, www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/c/a/2003/09/10/MN268312.DTL
--> "The Nation’s First Homeless Veteran of the Invasion of Iraq Speaks Out", Democracy Now, September 2, 2003, www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/02/1416256
--> "A Guide to the Patriot Act", Slate, slate.msn.com/id/2087984/
--> "Iraq-Terrorism Link Continues to Be Problematic", WXXI, September 9, 2003, www.publicbroadcasting.net/wxxi/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=543517
Edited to add: Mark Fiore feels the same way! www.markfiore.com/animation/twoyear.html
