In Tribute: 13 Years Of My Reflections About September 11, 2001
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Somber Reflections
I’ve returned from my very difficult, six month sabbatical just in time for September 11, 2014. September 11, 2001 was one of the most challenging days of my life.
I was living in a fabulous loft in Jersey City on that day, and was stunned to learn that Three of the terrorists lived about four blocks away. After the second tower was hit, I made my way to the Hudson River area, standing at the Motor Vehicle Building with hundreds of Americans and nonAmericans — many of them Muslims — at a time when it was feared that as many as 30,000 peopte could be in the buildings.
When the first tower fell, there was a cheer in my crowd, leaving me horrified at what I was experiencing. This cheer didn’t breed hate in my heart, but rather a determination to deal ruthlessly with terrorists and those who harm my country.
Simultaneously, a larger awareness of the need for understanding the reasons for this savage terrorist attack became a driving force in my life. September 11 did not breed hatred in my heart but a determination to engage fully with the world. That determination remains with me today.
I’ve written extensively over the years about 9/11 and went to live at the site in 2007, wanting to be part of its rebirth. Today I will pull together all my writing on this topic into this single article. We will update it all morning and my apologies for not preparing better yesterday.
With love, Anne
2013
Models Wearing Fur Is Bad Compared To What? 9/11 Reflections AOC Anne’s Blog
Anne of Carversville tells women’s stories “from fashion to flogging”. Indeed, I do see connections between the two, through a patriarchal lens of recent human history.
Male-dominated cultures and religious dogma seek to condemn women’s sensuality and sexuality. When a series of exquisite, technically superb images like these by jd Forte celebrates female beauty, confrontation (or is it a vacuous stare?) and sensuality, I must feature them.
Those who would judge me, and flog me or strangle me on the spot in Sudan for my work to stop the brutal whipping of 40,000 women a year for inappropriate dress and behavior will not silence me, because I’ve never been politically correct and won’t bow down at this age.
In an imperfect world, we seek imperfect examples of our philosophical life view where we find them. These gorgeous images inspire me to speak my mind this morning, on September 11. I have noted on many occasions that Controlling Women’s Bodies Is A Fight To the Finish.
In 2009, I ended this article with a confrontational meditation— and my words still stand today, more than ever. On behalf of the women of Sudan and raped, murdered, burned-alive, acid-attacked women everywhere in the world:
I have no delusions that this is a fight, perhaps to the finish, but you can count me in, come hell or high water. I have found my Inner Artist, my inner Anne vision. I will never again let the woman who is me, be chopped into little pieces, for the sake of cultural propriety.
I’m dallying over the keyboard here. Write, erase. Write, erase. I will pause before writing the words in my mouth. Y-W-H-T-K-M-F.
A Smart Sensuality woman thinks carefully about what she writes in cyberspace. In our sick world, my thought might be taken as an invitation.
Peace out, as I turn my thoughts to a stunned New York on September 11, 2001, where fundamentalism and secularism joined in a mighty big clash of 21st century beliefs. ~ Anne
2011
On 9/11, We Honor 90 West Street @ World Trade Center in New York AOC Human Values
National 9/11 Memorial Opens At NYC Ground Zero | Heath Salow’s 9/11 Memorial AOC Human Values
2010
While the World Debates Burqas, Fashion Designers Show Beautiful Abayas At Paris's George V Hotel AOC Anne’s Blog
In supporting women’s rights to wear the burqa if they choose (and not prohibited by law), how does one support the women who don’t want to wear the burqa?
How does one actually know that the woman photographed above actually enjoys her life under that tent? How do we determine who has chosen willingly and who hasn’t to don her burqa?
In his Cairo speech to the Muslim world earlier this month, Mr. Obama called on Western countries “to avoid dictating what clothes a Muslim women should wear,” saying such action constituted “hostility” towards religion clothed in “the pretense of liberalism.”
My soul searching on this topic is not complete, because I am uneducated about the benefits of wearing burqas. I react to women wearing burqas from my own frame of feminist reference. I’m now following the discussion on the IntLawGrrls website, supported by many international, high-caliber Muslim women lawyers.
Here’s a Feb. 2008 web essay, written by Beth Van Schaak. The same blog entry references The Politics of the Veil by Joan Wallach Scott.
2009
A Muslim Woman Shares Her Soul on September 11, 2009 AOC Human Values
Removed at her request for fear of ISIS
2008
Stephen Siller Memorial ‘Tunnel to Towers’ Run MarathonAOC Anne’s Blog
Please Stay ‘Tribute in Light’ You 9/11/2008AOC Anne’s Blog
I’ve taken way too long to arrive at the topic for today: “Tribute in Light”. Once I form the words in my mouth, writing them down on paper, then my adored changes his essence.
Sorry for being coy. I write about the Sept. 11 memorial “Tribute in Light”, my neighborhood’s piercingly glorious Icarus, drawing me tonight into the heavens with false hopes of redemption. He intends to leave at dawn, his visits shorter still with every year.
Yes, my friends, he has become a one-night stand Romeo. They are reading the names outside my window.
2007
‘Never Again’ Honors Heroes Who ‘Imagine’ AOC Anne's Blog
Deutsche Bank Fire At Ground Zero Claims Robert Beddia & Joseph Graffagino AOC Anne’s Blog
Anne As Dagny Is Rescued By Ground Zero Construction Workers AOC Anne’s Blog
Extraordinary Disturbance
I stood mesmerized by this scalding hot hive of human and machine activity. Spiritual leaders say that we find our hearts and souls in quiet places. But I could not turn away from this aggressive vision, an ordered cacophony of girders and hammers, welders and hardhats, big-wheel trucks and caterpillars, several now rolling ferociously up out of the pit.
Profoundly punched by this sacred moment, I felt these big machines were coming to get me, sharing our mutual need to rebuild what is lost, outmoded or unrealized in life. The constant and familiar vision of firefighters running fearlessly into the smoking, blazing buildings that dirty, black-cloud day, also stood with me on the sidewalk, celebrating this dirty, oppressive, jubilant moment.
I’ve always wondered if I have their kind of spunk in me — the blood and guts courage to walk straight-forward into my death rescuing people. Being a roses-lovin’, not gun-totin’ kind of woman, I still stand mighty firm in a good fight.
For a moment, I forgot that we don’t manufacture anything more in America, that we’re outsourced all our jobs because we’re now the leisure-economy society. Was that a bunch of horsey hullabaloo or what! I forgot that afternoon that Ground Zero has taken forever to rebuild, and the arguing about its final determination never stops.
Watching that scene as the pearly gates of Ground Zero opened for the first time before my eyes, I thought of Hank Rearden and his steel mills. I saw Dagny riding her train — the John Galt Line — across the bridge made of Rearden’s new metal.
