Zach Oooh!n
i'm a modern girl but I fold in half so easily.
I thought this was an absolute necessity to be reprinted here. This article ("The Dance of the Dinosaurs", part three of American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center) was just published in the October 2002 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. To summarize: it is a detailed description of the unbuilding of the Trade Towers, and the problems that were had along the way not only in terms of safety (there was a day there where they thought an entire part of the ruins would collapse and allow the Hudson River to flood all of Lower Manhattan) but also in terms of egos and attitudes. For all the hubub about the "heroic" firefighters and police officers (the NYPD guy that's on the new season of Survivor got an ovation from his fellow castaways, not knowing if he'd been involved or not), people seem to have completely forgotten that
a. the NYPD and NYFD have hated each other for years.
b. not every member of the force was at Ground Zero.
c. That people are human.
With all the positive press they've been getting, it's easy to see why both the FD and the PD have gotten big heads. There are stories about how some of the guys did ten or twenty interviews a day and would pose for pictures with tourists (mostly young, white, female). There is also this, which I had to type out cos it wasn't available for cut'n'paste, but I think it's so goddamn funny and sad that I had to let you all (*all ten of you*) take a look at it. Basically, the article has been talking about how the firefighters were getting a bit carried away with recovering their own dead, and that the publicity they'd gotten was feeding their egoes until they were about to explode. Here, William Langewiesche explains the incident that burst the bubble, which was lead up to by a construction supervisor who had had just about enough of the way the firefighters were behaving. There was also rampant looting of the Trade Centers (something the Media dare not speak aloud) and many of the FD and PD had received clothing and gear that was mysteriously ending up on the black market (ibid). They found a firetruck that had been partially crushed by rubble from the First Tower:
"...Imagine his delight, then, after the hulk of the fire truck appeared, that rather than containing bodies (which would have required decorum), its crew cab was filled with dozens of new pairs of jeans from the Gap, a Trade Center store. When a grappler pulled off the roof, the jeans were revealed for all to see. It was exactly the sort of evidence the field superintendent had been waiting for. While a crowd of initially bewildered firemen looked on, the construction workers went wild. "Jeans! Look at these...Fucking guys! Jeans!" It was hard to avoid the conclusion that the looting had begun even before the first tower fell, and that while hundreds of doomed firemen had climbed through the wounded buildings, this particular crew had been engaged in something else entirely, without the slightest suspicion that the South Tower was about to hammer down. Of course this was not what the firemen wanted to hear. An angry fire chief tried to shut the construction workers up. He offered an explanation--that the jeans (tagged, folded, stacked by size) had been blown into the crew cab by the force of the collapse *(Zach note: Wha?)*. The field superintendent, seeming not to hear, asked the fire chief to repeat what he had said. When he did, the construction workers only jeered louder. Scattered jeans lay on the pile for several days. The story got around. For Ken Holden and Mike Burton, this and other incidents amounted to important lessons in their war's early months: the site would never stand united, as sloganeers said it should, so some other approach would have to be found."
Amazing. This was one of many stories about the actions of not only the PD and FD, but also of the mayor's office (he who was almost canonized for his "level-headedness" yet treated the workers with the same disrespect he treated the homeless and poor during his reign) during the recovery effort. Truly, an amazing article. It's going to be published as a book, which I would recommend renting or whatev from the library some time. Good shit.
Next five: "pictures of success" by rilo kiley; "don't hold your breath" by calla; "bloomington" by lifter puller; "shit fuck ass cock" by lois lane; and "i will dare" by the replacements.
in the (office) stereo: Rilo Kiley
i'm a modern girl but I fold in half so easily.
I thought this was an absolute necessity to be reprinted here. This article ("The Dance of the Dinosaurs", part three of American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center) was just published in the October 2002 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. To summarize: it is a detailed description of the unbuilding of the Trade Towers, and the problems that were had along the way not only in terms of safety (there was a day there where they thought an entire part of the ruins would collapse and allow the Hudson River to flood all of Lower Manhattan) but also in terms of egos and attitudes. For all the hubub about the "heroic" firefighters and police officers (the NYPD guy that's on the new season of Survivor got an ovation from his fellow castaways, not knowing if he'd been involved or not), people seem to have completely forgotten that
a. the NYPD and NYFD have hated each other for years.
b. not every member of the force was at Ground Zero.
c. That people are human.
With all the positive press they've been getting, it's easy to see why both the FD and the PD have gotten big heads. There are stories about how some of the guys did ten or twenty interviews a day and would pose for pictures with tourists (mostly young, white, female). There is also this, which I had to type out cos it wasn't available for cut'n'paste, but I think it's so goddamn funny and sad that I had to let you all (*all ten of you*) take a look at it. Basically, the article has been talking about how the firefighters were getting a bit carried away with recovering their own dead, and that the publicity they'd gotten was feeding their egoes until they were about to explode. Here, William Langewiesche explains the incident that burst the bubble, which was lead up to by a construction supervisor who had had just about enough of the way the firefighters were behaving. There was also rampant looting of the Trade Centers (something the Media dare not speak aloud) and many of the FD and PD had received clothing and gear that was mysteriously ending up on the black market (ibid). They found a firetruck that had been partially crushed by rubble from the First Tower:
"...Imagine his delight, then, after the hulk of the fire truck appeared, that rather than containing bodies (which would have required decorum), its crew cab was filled with dozens of new pairs of jeans from the Gap, a Trade Center store. When a grappler pulled off the roof, the jeans were revealed for all to see. It was exactly the sort of evidence the field superintendent had been waiting for. While a crowd of initially bewildered firemen looked on, the construction workers went wild. "Jeans! Look at these...Fucking guys! Jeans!" It was hard to avoid the conclusion that the looting had begun even before the first tower fell, and that while hundreds of doomed firemen had climbed through the wounded buildings, this particular crew had been engaged in something else entirely, without the slightest suspicion that the South Tower was about to hammer down. Of course this was not what the firemen wanted to hear. An angry fire chief tried to shut the construction workers up. He offered an explanation--that the jeans (tagged, folded, stacked by size) had been blown into the crew cab by the force of the collapse *(Zach note: Wha?)*. The field superintendent, seeming not to hear, asked the fire chief to repeat what he had said. When he did, the construction workers only jeered louder. Scattered jeans lay on the pile for several days. The story got around. For Ken Holden and Mike Burton, this and other incidents amounted to important lessons in their war's early months: the site would never stand united, as sloganeers said it should, so some other approach would have to be found."
Amazing. This was one of many stories about the actions of not only the PD and FD, but also of the mayor's office (he who was almost canonized for his "level-headedness" yet treated the workers with the same disrespect he treated the homeless and poor during his reign) during the recovery effort. Truly, an amazing article. It's going to be published as a book, which I would recommend renting or whatev from the library some time. Good shit.
Next five: "pictures of success" by rilo kiley; "don't hold your breath" by calla; "bloomington" by lifter puller; "shit fuck ass cock" by lois lane; and "i will dare" by the replacements.
in the (office) stereo: Rilo Kiley
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