Our New Pearl Harbor

Weehauken, N.J. -- It's almost impossible to reconcile the cool, clear, cloudless day with the scene across the water. There are no World Trade Centers, and up above the giant white clouds steaming from the spot where they used to be, pairs of F-15's circle over Manhattan, around and around the encircled island. Along the closed entrances and highways into the city, ambulances, fire engines and police cars line up for miles waiting to take the thousands of casualties out of New York City and all over the Northeast. At the blood bank in Paramus where I tried to give blood, there were five-hour lines, and the police turned us away.Reporters break down on the air and sob. At the closed-down bridges and tunnels, people stand alongside their cars by the score, staring and crying. I keep calling the cell of one of my closest friends, who went to work inside the Towers at 8:30, and kept getting his voice-mail, until 11:00 a.m., when a recording said his phone was no longer in service. All around New York City, psychologists are showing up at school bus stops to deal with kids whose parents aren't coming home. It's impossible to stare at the TV and not think of the horrific convergence between technology, politics, and information.

Eerily, the scene invokes disaster movies -- a number of which have actually shown the World Trade Center towers being blown up. Staring across the harbor on this gorgeous day, it takes a few seconds to realize that this isn't the evocation of something new and horrible, but the real thing, our own Pearl Harbor, perhaps even worse, since it struck us closer to home and reminded us all how technology can bring us all nose-to-nose with war in seconds, and there are no real barriers between people willing to use it in evil ways and us. Technology allows us to see the building collapse before the reporters even know what has happened. We have to try and make sense of it ourselves.

The silence is stunning, unprecedented for mid-morning, mid-week anywhere near Manhattan island. Everyone is in shock. Stories, malls, business are closing, their workers crying, distracted, unsure of how to behave.

Technology turns planes into weapons. It tracks aircraft hundreds of miles away. It brings us instant and horrific images. It sends us to e-mail, telephones and cell phones to spread news, facts, rumors and stories.

We are both shocked and oddly prepared. Sci-fi and other forms of popular culture have been preparing us for this kind of Techno-Armageddon for years. Technology can do all sorts of amazing things, but it can't protect us from a handful of determined people. We've never seen anything like it, yet in a strange way we have thought of it for years.

Standing over the harbor, I did something I haven't done in 20 years. I dropped to my knees -- following the lead of a bunch of strangers -- and prayed. I have a bunch of friends in somewhere in that Techno-Armageddon, and just wanted to post these thoughts. If anybody wants to post their own, hopefully here's a good place.

Comments

Try this again, less troll-full, this time.

[TheKodiak]

This is tasteless. JonKatz, the facts stand on their own face. Every one of us is capable of reacting to this without your help. Every one of us is capable of drawing conclusions without you leading us to them.

We all saw the videos, we all saw the photographs, we all felt, in some way, the explosions. If all you have to say is the same thing EVERYONE else has been saying, make your comment in the threads just like the rest of us. You should not be entitled to your own story on this. The story that contains the facts should still be on the top of the page.

Our New Pearl Harbor (-1, Troll)

Jesus Christ

[Catullus]

Well done, Jon, this is the first time any of your articles have made me nauseated enough to block you from appearing on my front page. You've truly excelled yourself.

Stuff the drama, Katz.

[JimTheta]

Step off the drama, Katz. You haven't said anything particularly important or notable here; it's just the same "Pearl Harbor" hype that the established news outlets are pushing. That might work for the TV masses, but it's not appropriate here.

If you can't post substance, then please don't post. I just get the impression that you only posted because you've got this delusion of yourself as an insightful person who has insightful things to say, and you thought there would be a hole here if your name could not be found.

This article was not insightful. It was a rehash of every other "insightful" thing that has already been on the news today.

-Grant/"JimTheta"

(I know I'm gonna get troll-modded for this, but I need to say it. At least I used my real name, instead of AC'ing it, like so many others.)

Re:rebuilding the towers...

[baptiste]

the towers should be re-built

Absolutely! The Democrat in me says we take all teh $$ Bush wants for missle defense and rebuild the towers since now its OBVIOUS missle defense is a folly. They will find a way to attack America. Sure a nuke would have flattened NY, not just the World Trade Center. But those billions could be spent on much better things, even just in a security arena.

But the American in me says -> raise taxes, SS surplus, bonds, even a short term defecit. We need to show the world we will rebuild. We will NOT be cowed. And hte idea of a third tower in teh middle giving the bird to the terrorists - I love it :) It was one of the few times I smiled on this tagic day. And if we find the bastards that did this, let jail them and then toss them off the new WTC buildings into the rubble below :)

I really hope we rebuild the buildings - bigger and better than ever. Tempting fate? Maybe - but its not like fanatics lack targets!

May we find the bastards and wipe them out. God Bless America.

Just what we need...

[cluening]

Nothing like Sensationalist JonKatz to put things into perspective...

Sure, I plan to lose karma on this post. But it really bugs me when people use tradegies to write something that makes them sound compassionate to the rest of the world. It is like running out and bragging about yourself with a loudspeaker, and I think it shows a lack of good character...

Next step for US government

[Anonymous Coward]

Without single doubt, Bush will pass laws that will guarantee Sklyarov will NEVER be released, and outlaw opensource programming completely, and mandate Big Brother access control, now that the country is set to fight terrorism.

You PRAY?!?!?

[JSR $FDED]

To whom? Whose god?

Ours, who allowed that to happen?

Or theirs, who inspires them to commit these atrocities?

There is no god.

There's only room for mourning, but none for praying.

The root of the Muslim faith

[wytcld]

In a museum in Istanbul is displayed a letter from the Prophet to the head of the Egyptian Coptics saying in so many words that he can convert or be killed. The very source of the Muslim faith explicitly favored killing. We do not serve truth or tolerance by pretending that Mohammed was a good man, or that anyone who truly follows him was good. We will be accosted by more 'martyrs' as long as that Faith persists in its fundamentalist form, because the Prophet was in many dimensions truly evil.

This is not to say that Muslims are evil - most are not fundamentalists, and are no better or worse than the rest of the run of humanity. But there's a very good reason why Turkey outlaws Muslim fundamentalism, even though their culture remains of the Faith - they know that the core is dangerously laced. We must not fall into the error that Muslim fundamentalists are no worse than, say, Christian fundamentalists (who after all only shoot physicians who provide abortions). There is no difference in kind between fundamentalist Muslim and fundamentalist Nazi belief, and neither should be tolerated when it is armed, anywhere on the face of this Earth.

Excuse me, I watch the towers fall this morning from my window.