It’s that time of the year again. Night is falling, and the vigil I have sat with you all day has come to an end. If you are Catholic, you can put down your rosary. If you are Jewish, it’s time to uncover the mirrors. Shiva is over for another 364 days.

My soul is stripped for another year, and it’s time to put myself back together so I can continue to fight the scourge that caused the deaths of so many people that sunny summer day.

Some final links.

Sirius. A police dog, Port Authority bomb sniffer and faithful partner of Officer David Lim. Sirius had no way of sniffing out the fact that the bombs would actually be planes filled with innocent passengers, carrying the deadly bacteria of Jihad. Lim managed to get out of the World Trade Center in time. Sirius did not. Read about him and other selfless people who didn’t have to make the rescue attempt, but did so anyway. Hat tip to Cassie.

The Mayor of Mitchiville remembers.

Hijackers hijack the hijack museum.

Previous attempts to put into context the motivation of the men who used hijacked passenger planes to attack the United States on September 11, 2001, have been met with emotional public opposition, with politicians canceling plans for an “International Freedom Center” in 2005.

But the president of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum said photographs of the 19 hijackers would be displayed along with the quotes as part of the “witness testimony” in the museum.

State Department officials prayed with Muslims today. How do you like them apples, America?

“To accommodate posts in countries where Muslims may be observing Ramadan until/about September 19, posts are requested to plan an Interfaith Day of Service between September 11 and October 18, 2009.”

Although it refers to other “faith communities,” Islam is the focus of the entire initiative. The action request asks State personnel to support mosques: “Organize a food-drive for the end of Ramadan with religious leaders and citizens in Muslim communities to donate to a local mosque or community…” And it directs State personnel to a handy “list of Ramadan 2009 outreach materials for Muslim communities.”

Regardless of what happens in life…it is up to each of us to assign “meaning.”  That can be either positive or negative, empowering or debilitating.  Neither is more “right,” but some paths allows us to be of greater service to the world (and to ourselves).

And…what’s most important is the actions we take as a result of the “meaning” we give something.

And on that note, I shall bring down my own big black curtain for 2009. Your visits today have sustained me, and I hope I could help you put into words any feeling you may have struggled with: Anger, fear, sadness, resolve.

Life continues apace, does it not? Tomorrow is a new day, and a day of new beginnings - Wonder Woman and Mikey are marrying. Our best to them.

We’ll be back next year to hold vigil once more. I’m never going to forget, I’m never going to surrender, and I hope you never do either.

This time eight years ago, we were still holding vigil on Shawn’s living room floor. It occurred to us, at the end of the day, that none of us had eaten breakfast. Well, except for the baby, who was still being bottle-fed.

Brian and I nipped across the street to the chicken joint to pick up an order of barbecue and fries for everyone. I remember standing in line with him, waiting for the food. I remember the TV above the counter being on, tuned to the same terrible images we had been absorbing all day. I was a little tipsy; we’d been drinking Bloody Marys since noon. The towers fell again on the screen bolted to the wall. Again and again they fell; it never varied. There was no happy ending.

It didn’t sink in that day. It actually took till the first anniversary to really hit me. I was working in my office in Glasgow, and the big screen in the office lobby was showing the memorials from the crash sites. Names were called. Ring the bell. Another name. A voice came over our intercom system, advising a moment of silence marking the fall of the first tower. Ring the bell. On and on it went… so many names. Because of the 5 hour time difference, I left the office for the day before the bell stopped ringing. I was spent. I was gutted. I finally understood what had happened that day in 2001.

And still the bell rang.

My thoughts from 2006, the 5th anniversary:

I have cut ties to those who parrot the they deserved it nonsense. The girl I spent September 11th with, my very best friend on the whole planet (and probably other planets, though I haven’t checked) - we don’t talk anymore. We’re too different. She hates America. Hates Bush. And I guess she must hate me, too, because of the turns my own emotions and life have taken since the fall of the Towers. I have chosen to face the demons sent by the desert devil, and use my loud voice to decry their presence among us. She has chosen to take her news from Jon Stewart and bury her head from that which is real and frightening.

Today I understand how she feels.

Last night I sat riveted to Twitter (of all things), watching Allahpundit recount his memories of September 11th, 140 characters at a time. Andy Levy compiled these tweets and they are now up at Hot Air.

Eight years ago, I remember opening my eyes at 8:46 a.m. in my downtown Manhattan apartment because…

…I thought a truck had crashed in the street outside

I remember pacing my apartment for the next 15 minutes thinking, stupidly, that a gas line might have been hit in the North Tower…

…and then I heard another explosion. I hope no one ever hears anything like it.

All I can say to describe it is: Imagine the sound of thousands of Americans screaming on a city street

Peggy Noonan talks to those who have come of age in a post-9/11 world. Her annual post is something I look forward to.

It was a life-splitting event. Before it they were carefree, after they were careful. A 20-year-old junior told me that after 9/11, “a backpack on a subway was no longer a backpack,” and a crowded theater was “a source for concern.” Every one of them used the word “bubble”: the protected bubble of their childhood “popped.” And all of them said they spent 9/11 and the days after glued to the television, watching over and over again the footage—the north tower being hit by the plane, the fireball. The video of 9/11 has firmly and ineradicably entered their brains. Which is to say their first visual memory of America, or their first media memory, was of its towers falling down.

Gates of Vienna has the best post I’ve read all day. Everything Changed:

After eight years that hole in ground in Lower Manhattan is still there. That’s more than twice as long as it took America to mobilize, rearm, go to war, and defeat Nazi Germany and Japan in World War Two.

In the eight years following John F. Kennedy’s call to put a man on the moon, the United States went from having no manned space program, though designing and testing the Mercury and Apollo spacecrafts, to a successful landing on the moon.

The original Word Trade Center took six years to complete, from the ground-breaking to the ribbon-cutting.

In the past eight years we have seen plenty of candlelight vigils with teddy bears and flowers and tearful remembrances by the relatives of the slain.

But there’s still a hole in the ground where the Twin Towers used to be.

His post is long, but very well worth the time it will take to read it.

Debbie has a 2996 post at Right Truth:

But perhaps today is not the time to get into these matters.  Today is a time to simply remember…

So we remember Lee Adler and all 2,996 whose lives were taken from them and their families on September 11, 2001.

It’s Time to Sing Some Praises:

When was the last time you thought about a fireman? A policeman? An EMT? Why not take a moment today to do that?

Eight years ago today terror came to our doorstep, and a certain breed of men and women raced toward it to help their fellow man.  In the weeks and months following 9/11, people embraced emergency workers all across the country, even if they were near Ground Zero, they were all brothers and sisters, and people remembered these people that work tirelessly in the backgrounds of our lives.

Ephemeral Isle will Never Forget:

Eight years ago, a group of murderers bent on destroying our civilisation ploughed two planes full of passengers into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon, and a third crashed in a field in New England thanks to the heroic efforts of the passengers who saved the Capitol or the White House from a similar fate. In all, some 3000 people were murdered. It wasn’t the first shot in this war. That happened with the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979, but it is the first where we recognised that we were at war.

United 93 Tribute, Shanksville PA

A long, long time ago…
I can still remember

EM Zanotti, the American Princess, has A Solemn Remembrance:

In our hearts and minds, we will never forget.

So here’s my simple, simple message: 9/11 may become more about making a stand against the practice, I guess, of forgetting. But hopefully it never, ever becomes less about remembering.

I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.

Natasha at Moose & Squirrel says Remember:

The talk radio show I listened to was discussing this plane. And I just assumed it was likely a small aircraft, thinking perhaps the pilot had a heart attack or some other medical or technical emergency, and I was hoping not too many people were hurt.

Helter skelter in a summer swelter.
The birds flew off to the fallout shelter,
Eight miles high and falling fast.

Tommy Christopher has a Dose of 9/11:

The mind plays strange tricks on even the most rational people, and for me, I felt a weird guilt at having observed the beauty of the day that morning.  I’m not the kind of guy who routinely waxes poetic about the weather, and I almost felt like I had jinxed the whole thing.  You know, like when the Jets are up by 12 late in the game, and you say, “This one’s in the bag!”

Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage.
No angel born in hell
Could break that satan’s spell.
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite,
I saw satan laughing with delight

Michael Harris, the NY Government Examiner, was at the WTC site today:

Those who mourned the loss of loved ones said that while eight years has gone by, the time has not healed all their wounds.

“People ask me ‘It’s been eight years, isn’t it time to move on?’, but I just can’t,” said Deborah Barton, tears rolling down her face.  “To lose somebody like that…. I just can’t let go, you know.  Time has passed but the wound is still very raw and to know that his service is going on and to not be here, I, I just couldn’t do that.”

I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news,
But she just smiled and turned away.

Big Hollywood has been holding vigil like Girl on the Right. They Want Us To Forget:

Americans can commit themselves to public service any or every other day of the year; 9/11 should be reserved for solemn remembrance and renewed commitment to preserving American security, values and sovereignty. A day of greening your neighborhood? I’m all for planting trees, but what does “green” have to do with 9/11?  Only that it’s the color of Islam.

And in the streets: the children screamed,
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed.
But not a word was spoken;
The church bells all were broken.
And the three men I admire most:
The father, son, and the holy ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.

Paula has her own 2996 post up:

Elaine Cillo.

On September 11, 2001, Elaine Cillo was a Vice President at Marsh Technology and Information Service, working on the 97th floor of the North Tower at the World Trade Center. I’ve read that she loved taking  photographs, but not being photographed; she had a twin sister, Lynne, with whom she’d recently traveled to Greece; and liked to play the guitar as a teenager.

Moonbattery has a stunning photo collection, from the moment of attack to the time of cleanup at the World Trace Center site in New York. Remember not to feed the Truther troll in the comment section.

Mark Steyn has a collection of posts about the day, including today’s feature post, Primal.

The full story of what happened on three of those four terrible flights will never be known. But we do know something about the final moments of United Airlines Flight 93, the decisive event of the day. Thomas Burnett, Jeremy Glick, Mark Bingham and others phoned their families to tell them they loved them and to say goodbye. Denied even that consolation, Todd Beamer couldn’t get through to anyone except a telephone company operator, Lisa Jefferson. He explained three men were on board and one seemed to have a bomb tied around his waist. She told him about the planes that had smashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Mr Beamer said they had a plan to jump the guy with the bomb. He asked her if she would pray with him, so they recited the 23rd Psalm:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me…

Then they rushed the hijackers.

Stormbringer brings a first-hand account of the terrible events that unfolded at the World Trade Center:

I heard a muffled sound like distant thunder but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I leaned close to the window to look down to the street, but didn’t see anything. From above, office paper came floating down like a ticker tape parade. “What the hell” I thought and wondered if someone had pitched out a basket of paper from an open window. That couldn’t be because all the windows design not to open. When I saw the burning stuffing like material falling pass the window I knew something was seriously wrong.

Classical Liberalism is posting a chronological account of the day, as if it were today. Very disquieting.

Alison Jerabek has her 2996 post up:

LTCDR Eric Cranford.

On September 11, 2001, LCDR Cranford was struck down in his prime, 32 years old young. He is remembered as a talented aviator, as a dedicated Navy officer with a distinguished career and a keen mind, but he is also remembered as a husband and a friend. Born in the small town of Drexel, North Carolina, his childhood passion for school, church, country, and flying compelled him to choose to pursue his dreams via military service in the U.S. Navy. No slacker, he chose a double major (political science and economics) and the ROTC program at North Carolina State University as his route to getting a pilot’s wings. As a helicopter pilot, he spent two overseas tours flying missions in the Persian Gulf. After being assigned to the Pentagon, he continued to work towards a master’s degree. In light of his many years of service, he received several awards posthumously, both civilian and military honors, including the Order of the Long Leaf Pine (the highest service award given to civilians from his home state) and an MBA degree from the university he was attending.

Patriot Room reminds us why we fight:

Barack Obama can call today a day of national service if he wants to. The rest of us will always remember 9/11 as the day when more than 3,000 innocent men, women, and children were murdered in cold blood by Islamic fanatics. It will always be a day to remember our horrific, collective loss. It will always be a day to remember the heroes who plunged into the war zone, many in the face of near certain death, to rescue complete strangers. You see, years from now when Obama’s silly day of service is long forgotten and Obama himself is relegated to the history books, we will still remember 9/11 as if it were yesterday. And we will know why we fight.

On this, the 8th anniversary of September 11, 2001, the perpetrators of the massacre are whining about this mysterious “backlash” that never seems to materialize.

“I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach every year,” said Nancy Rokayak, 45, of Charlotte, N.C., who covers her hair in public. “I feel on 9/11 others look at me and blame me for the events that took place.”

Rokayak, a U.S.-born convert, has four children with her husband, who is from Egypt, and works as an ultrasound technologist. She makes sure she is wearing a red, white and blue flag pin every Sept. 11 and feels safer staying close to home.

Sarah Sayeed, 41, who lives in the Bronx, said that for a long time, she hesitated before going out on the anniversary. The morning the World Trade Center crumbled, she rushed to her son’s Islamic day school so they could both return home. The other women there warned that she should take off her headscarf, or hijab, for her own safety. She now attends an interfaith prayer event each Sept. 11, keeping her hair covered as always.

Listen, Islam, this day is not about your fears and needs. It is about the loss of life of those who were murdered in the name of your moongod and his pedophile prophet. You brought this thunder down upon yourselves, and if America were a less civilized society (say, like the countries you all sprang from) then you would have reason to fear walking down the street each day.

September 11th was perpetrated by Muslims, for Muslims, in the name of Allah (pigs be upon him). You have no right to be whinging about your own discomfort on this day. No right. If you had any decency at all, you would have walked away from your cult of sex and death, and embraced America. Instead you hide behind your hijabs and pretend that it’s all about you. It isn’t.

We don’t care that you are uncomfortable. We hope you are miserable and repentant for the actions of your coreligionists, so easily explained away by the radical imams who taught them. We hope you are reminded every day, not just September 11th, of the celebrations of your brethren over the murder of innocent people. These are your brothers. This is your faith.

Paradise for the followers of Allah will be a jet-fuelled hellfire. Then you will have something worth complaining about, you selfish, disgusting abominations.

This is the bed you made. Sleep comfortably, you bastards.

Every year Girl on the Right shuts down to all other news and events to do an all-day September 11th memorial. Why?

Regular readers know that I pull no punches the other 364 days of the year when it comes to Islam and their war against decent people. But day after day throughout the year, I write without feeling it. September 11th is always with me, always on my mind, but boxed up nice and small so I can manage it. I don’t feel it.

All year long I read accounts of terrorist atrocities around the world, but they don’t get in. And then for just one day, I open the box.

For just one day every year I allow myself to feel what I couldn’t that day eight years ago. I allow myself to grieve for the loss of life, as well as for the loss of a way of life. I grieve for the loss of a mindless innocence I once had to those I share a planet, a country, a city with. I grieve for friendships lost when people said things like “They deserved it” or “Bush did it.” I grieve for a Wendy that didn’t pay attention to the news, but slept more soundly. I grieve for September 10th.

Some asinine British politicrat said that September 11th was “a good day to bury bad news.” On Girl on the Right every year, I focus only on the bad news of that day, and no other day. For the 2996 lives lost in the attacks, as well as the countless who have been destroyed since, they deserve no less than my undivided attention.

A lovely song, and whenever I hear it I think of this video.

I took this picture last month, from the Staten Island Ferry as we returned to Manhattan. To me it seemed so poignant. The gaping hole where normal life used to be. This picture isn’t significant for what’s in it, but for what’s missing.

In the eight years since the devastation of September 11, 2001, many of us have told our stories. Some of us were directly effected - lost a loved one, watched the chaos firsthand, lost our businesses - others, like me, sat riveted to the television, not willing to believe.

As you have seen, I am involved in the 2996 Project - a commemoration of those 2996 innocent souls who were lost that day. I strongly urge you to take a moment to visit the blogs taking part. Take several moments, in fact, because 2996 people take some time to appreciate. The scale of carnage that day had never before been seen on North American soil, and I pray it never is again.

Here are some examples of those bloggers who have committed to writing a 2996 tribute:

Jimmie Bise, from The Sundries Shack:

Kui Fai Kwok.

Raymond was, by every piece of information on him I could find, a perfectly ordinary American success story. He was the son of immigrants who went to college and landed a good job at a good company. He had a loving wife, a new daughter, was taking care of his parents, and was living the American dream. His biggest wish, his wife said, was to have more children.

That all ended, though when the Islamists brutally and happily murdered him. Kui Fai “Raymond” Kwok was not a soldier and he had nothing to do with the complaints of Osama bin Laden and his bloodthirsty comrades. He was just an ordinary American, but that was more than enough to earn the Islamists’ undying hatred.

Melissa Clouthier:

Angela Susan Perez.

Time goes by, memories, especially bad memories, get shelved and put away. But for some people, they cannot forget their loss. Nor do they want to. For families and friends of those lost on 9/11, forgetting is more awful than remembering. And so they look at the picture, they see the holes where the buildings were and they remember. They get married and their mother cannot see the day of joy. They have children who have no grandma. They need a shoulder to cry on, but mom is gone.

Patrick, of Political Byline

Melissa C. Doi.

Thousands of New Yorkers yesterday retreated to the privacy of their offices, studies, or bedrooms to click onto the Internet and listen to the last words of a woman they never met. They were the words of Melissa Doi, who was trapped on the 83rd floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center when, at 9:17 a.m. on September 11, 2001, she reached a 911 emergency operator. Doi’s was the only civilian voice heard in the batch of 911 tapes released yesterday. Her pleas were made public because her voice had already been introduced as evidence in the trial earlier this year of Zacarias Moussaoui. Yesterday, her voice testified to something else — to the way in which the unique spirit of New Yorkers allowed glimmers of light to shine through even on that darkest of sunny summer days.

Vets on the Watch

Louis J. Nacke II. ~ one of the heroes of Flight 93

Louis was aboard United Flight 93, which went down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It went down there, and not it’s potential target (Washington, DC) because men like him tried to take back the aircraft. I would like to introduce you to a man of great strength and character, who most of us will never know, but none of us will ever forget. Rest in peace, Lou. We have the watch.

Alexa Shrugged

Mildred Rose Naiman.

While she needed the help of a wheelchair at the airport, she still managed to visit her family twice a year. The Sunday before her fatal flight, a family member had asked if she was afraid of flying; her granddaughter, Hope, remembers her reply: “No, I’ve gone everywhere already–to Germany, the Bahamas. I’m not afraid to fly.”

Incredibly, on July 24, 2004, the New York Post reported that the medical examiner’s office had identified her remains. Many 9-11 victims are still unaccounted for. I hope her family gained some sense of closure with this discovery and was able to finally put her body to rest.

Tom Lewis

Charles Burlingame III ~ Pilot of Flight 77

Friends and family remembered him as a man who was unabashedly patriotic, who embraced military life even after he retired from active and reserve duty. He remained active in the reserve, working until 1996 as a liaison in the Pentagon (where he had worked for most of his 17 years as a Naval Reserve officer).  When his plane went down Tuesday, it ripped through a section of the building that includes the Navy Reserve offices.

Mark Burlingame said his brother was in the Navy Reserve and had worked in the same area of the Pentagon where the airliner crashed.

On a sunny Tuesday morning, one month before his 33rd birthday, Edward Maloney III - known to all as Teddy - left for a typical day at the office. The TradeSpark offices of Cantor Fitzgerald were located on the 104th floor of One World Trade Center, NY, NY.

At 9:03am on that sunny morning, September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the building, approximately 5 floors below where Teddy worked.

Teddy Maloney died that day, along with 684 other Cantor Fitzgerald employees located on the 101st-105th floors.

Born in Berlin, Germany to Sally and Edward, Teddy, his brother Mark and his sister Sally were raised in Andover Ct. While attending Proctor Academy, Teddy played Varsity hockey. In November 2002, Proctor dedicated the Maloney Memorial Ice Rink to his memory.

Though he worked in the city, Teddy and his wife lived in Darien, CT. Cantor Fitzgerald had promised Maloney a move to the Darien office, to become effective the end of 2001 or early 2002. The Rye Rangers of Rye, NY played just up I-95 from Darien, CT. Teddy played with them. He was one of three Rye Rangers who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald who were killed that day. Just before Christmas, 2001, the Rye Rangers played a fundraiser game for the families of the 3 victims. The hope was to raise a little money to give the surviving children a good Christmas, while the widows awaited the Cantor payouts.

When Teddy died on September 11, 2001, his daughter Mason was 14 months old. After he disappeared - presumed, as so many were, to be alive and missing - Mason refused to let go of her father’s photograph. She slept in his room, in his bed. She waited for Daddy to return.

Church of the Resurrection, Rye, NY

His beloved wife Brinley, 29, who he had spoken to just moments before the attack, was 7 months pregnant with their second daughter. Teddy Bray Maloney was one of the precious babies born in the aftermath of the tragedy - a final memorial to the lost fathers.

On September 28, 2001, a memorial was held in Rye, NY at The Church of the Resurrection. The memory of Edward Francis “Teddy” Maloney III was laid to rest, surrounded by friends and family, including his father, Edward Francis Maloney II.

A memorial page (one of many) for Teddy Maloney can be found at this link.

For as long as Girl on the Right exists, this tribute to Teddy Maloney will be posted every September 11. I hope one day it will serve as a record of Teddy to his little girls.

This is a re-post of my contribution to the 2996 project for 2006, the 5th anniversary of September 11, 2001. As always, I welcome the visits from family and friends of Ken Basnicki. You are always welcome here at Girl on the Right.

Ken Basnicki was a Toronto man, a husband, and a father of two. He was Financial Marketing Director for BEA Systems. In New York for a business meeting, he was last seen on the 106th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Some remains have been recovered. There is a grave in Collingwood, Ontario, at St. Mary’s Cemetery. He was one of 24 Canadians killed on September 11, 2001, by Al Qaeda terrorists.

Those are the facts. But they don’t really tell us much about the man, do they? The facts don’t tell us that he loved his Harley. They don’t tell us that the reason his memorial is in Collingwood is because that’s where he built his dream home for he and his wife Maureen. They don’t tell us that, even though he was 48 years old, he was a fanatical snowborder! He also golfed and skied.

The facts tell us that he had a son, Brennan, and a daughter, Erica. They don’t tell us how much he cared about them, and how they felt in the wake of his death. The facts don’t tell us of his dreams cut short, or of their nightmares.

Maureen and Erica are currently petitioning the Canadian government to pass legislation allowing victims of terrorism to sue the countries and organizations involved in terror, in order to financially cripple them. I wish these brave ladies well.

Ken’s last contact with this world was in a cellphone call to his mother at 8:55 am, just 9 minutes after the plane struck the tower, to tell her that the place was full of smoke and he didn’t think he’d find a way out.

Update - 10:04am, September 11th, 2006: Erica Basnicki’s tribute to her father in Today’s Sun.

It was there that I realized that I can’t explain the significance of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, because the anniversary itself isn’t significant. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the fifth, 12th or 402nd anniversary - five is just a number.

If you want significant numbers, here are just a few: 2,996 people were killed on 9/11, and only 174 bodies were found intact. Most of the people who died were young, between 35 and 39 years old. There are 193 countries in the world and 115 of them lost citizens that day, and the fires at Ground Zero burned for 99 days after the attacks.

Most significant of all, Canada lost 24 citizens that day.

One of them was my dad.

From Culture11 - A Blessing and a Curse

One evening there was a young man there with white gauze over his left eye, holding a pan of baked ziti in one hand, and his wife’s arm with the other. He told me he was temporarily blinded by the first tower collapse when powdered glass abraded his eyes. A stranger led him across the Brooklyn Bridge, back to his building, up his stairs and into his apartment before telling him goodbye. And he never found out the stranger’s name. Cooking food for the surviving firefighters down the street – that was his way of saying thanks.

Webloggin has their annual bevy of posts. Wonderful stuff.

Captain Capitalism has an Old School 9-11 Tribute

What amazes me is that the death tolls of Americans/Allies versus how many of these terrorist scumbags we killed is rarely posted. You don’t see it on the news, there’s no running tally, it’s nowhere near as watched as say the score of a football game, yet it’s immensely important, if not the most important thing or measure for the whole war. Because the goal is to kill as many terrorist scumbags as possible.

Richard at No Libs has his annual remembrance of those who fought and died on United 93

Cassandra fights a War of Words at her keyboard.

We were supposed to retire.

That was the way life was supposed to unfold: a little house in the woods just big enough for the two of us, the chance to finally control our own lives. No more 12-15 hour work days and year long separations. Grad school for me and probably for him. We’d talked and dreamed about it for years. So many things came crashing down to earth along with those planes. Dreams. Plans. Sometimes a family’s entire life savings. We were the lucky ones, in so many ways. I didn’t lose a loved one that day, though I came close. Too close. Close enough to appreciate how bad it could have been. Perhaps that why I never understood the bitterness, the anger I read later in newspapers, heard on the evening news, mostly from those who didn’t seem to have suffered any direct loss at all. I suppose I never saw the point.

John of Argghhh! asks Where Were You? and his Denizens add their stories.

DaGoddess remembers the United part of the United States.

Seven years ago, I remember, amongst the horrifying images and all the uncertainty, a sense of community that bloomed quickly, reaching far and wide. It didn’t matter if you knew the name of the person standing closest to you, you instinctively looked to them for confirmation that you were still here, suddenly brothers/sisters/family, drawn together by the need to be near someone — anyone — who could hold your hand, hug you, or just stand close by and tremble with you.

Ann Althouse reminds us that we’ve been safe since that day, but may not be forever.

Michele Easterday writes magnificently over at LadyBlog.

I was wrong about distance.

Before that day, I thought the terrorists were over there and that was actually fine with me. Bad things happened Over There, because life Over There was harsh and people more prone to violent acts, and The Middle East had been like that forever.

I was wrong about my subject.

I was a cultural relativist. Once upon a time, those humans over there were smaller than me. They were the subjects of frightening documentaries. I wondered how they managed to live in their culture. I was glad it was not mine. I was allowing what I saw of Islam and the Middle East to be clouded by what I had been taught about tolerance, and how I must lie to myself and avoid the ethnocentrism of calling much of the things I saw coming out of the Middle East “ugly”. At the same time I was being told to treat the violent dictators and perpetrators of violence as babies incapable of self-control due to their circumstances.

What do I see now? Well, I lost my “nuance”.

…why do you do it every year? What is the point of putting yourself through the anguish of forcing yourself to face those images one more time?

To remember. Not just to remember the obvious - that we were attacked that day - but to remember every nuance. The color of the sky. The slant of the sun behind the buildings. It was a bit cloudier in Virginia at the Pentagon, but very bright in Shanksville Pennsylvania. The bakery at the end of my street had just taken something with cinnamon out of the oven as I ran by on the way to Heather’s. The general hysteria at the network newsrooms as they struggled to get information. Peter Jennings. Dan Rather. The smell of the barbecue chicken we picked up at the place across the street from Shawn’s. The falling bodies. The cloud of dust. The plaintive calls to TV stations, people wanting to report their loved ones missing. The taste of the Bloody Marys we drank that afternoon. The tea.

To remember the anger and eventual resolve. The pre-9/11 friends who said that America brought it on herself. The crying baby who kept breaking into the solemnity (and the inevitable black comedy) of the evening. That baby won’t remember what happened - but he will have grown up in a post-9/11 world. The dancing Palestinians. The Khadr family. Ken Basnicki and his family, who fight so hard against terror in Canada. Todd Beamer. Let’s Roll.

I want to remember all these things. I torture myself for one day every year, and I keep the burning flame of it with me for the other 364 days. It gives me the strength I need to keep publicizing the issues surrounding this war against Islam. It keeps me from giving up and switching off the TV/computer/radio. It gives me hope that we can win.

The rest of the year, I avoid the images of 9/11. I look away. I cannot bear them. But for one day of the year, I swallow them en masse to steel my resolve. And to soften my heart. People died. Human beings were murdered. I - like many others - often lose sight of that. This one day resets my internal equilibrium and allows me to carry on. This is Patriots Day.

I nearly slept through it this year. I had my earplugs in, and didn’t sleep well over night, so I was very tardy getting up. Just like that day. In 2001 I didn’t hear the phone ring. Mr. Right did, and came into the bedroom to report the news he had been told over the phone. In 2008, I missed John calling to remind us to lower the flags outside on the lawn.

It’s cloudy today, though. It is not that bright, heartbreaking blue that makes my throat catch no matter when I see it.

Today I have time to sit on the couch and sip my coffee. That day, we dressed and ran to Heather’s, the streets eerily quiet on the way.

There will be more thoughts throughout the day… today belongs to the thoughts and feelings of those of us who watched. Of those of us who lost. Today does not belong to Islam - it belongs to the USA.

Seven years ago today was our last day of normal. Too bad we didn’t appreciate it.

The Americans have finally figured out that while not all Muslims are terrorists, all terrorist are Muslims. It only took seven years.

The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.

Law enforcement officials say the proposed policy would help them do exactly what Congress demanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: root out terrorists before they strike.

Although President Bush has disavowed targeting suspects based on their race or ethnicity, the new rules would allow the FBI to consider those factors among a number of traits that could trigger a national security investigation.

Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons - like evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated - to investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents. The new policy, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious.

Among the factors that could make someone subject of an investigation is travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person’s race or ethnicity.

Somebody give these guys a smiley-face scratch’n’sniff sticker on their paper, and move them to the front of the class.

They’ve come up with a 9/11-style monster movie. Because I guess the reality - that a group of people living among us wants to kill us in the name of Allah - was too much to bear. Easier to blame it on Godzilla, I suppose.

For those of you who still have the nightmares (you know who you are, and you know what I’m talking about), don’t bother clicking the link. The flashbacks are a bitch.

I couldn’t watch the whole thing.

Except today it’s raining. I’m glad. I always flinch when the sky is that particular shade of blue, as if it is a personal affront. I’m glad it’s raining today.

Instead of wasting our time thinking about Osama’s fake beard and Democratic talking points, let’s remember a Canadian who lost his life that day: Ken Basnicki.

The Toronto International Film Fest has descended on the city once more, bringing with it pet causes, star fuckers, and sycophants of all sorts. It also brings with it the inevitable press conferences. After all, why travel to this backwater if not to do lots of press and promote your latest (most likely anti-American) film?

Mr. Right and I made the mistake of going downtown last night, rather desperate to eat at our favorite Indian restaurant, and not caring about the throngs. At least, not till we were in them. Mr. Right’s mood started to go downhill as we pushed through the Yorkville crowds (mostly Japanese tourists with Prada shoes and top-of-the-line digital cameras, crowded around the doors of the hotels, waiting for someone of interest to pop their heads out like cuckoo clocks), and he began to notice the stickers on the newspaper boxes, “9/11 was an inside job!” My own mood hit the dumpster when I saw the stage set up outside the ROM, all set for some type of glitzy SAVE DARFUR tragi-comedy. I knew that could only mean the George Clooney hadn’t flown out immediately after his premiere on Friday night. Dammit, why will that man not just go to Darfur and stay there??

We took a hard right down Bay Street, hoping to get out of the madding crowd. Instead we were treated to a veritable swarm of media types, all headed from a press conference, I can only assume at the Sutton Place where Sean Penn made the grave mistake of smoking a butt last year - that devil. Of all the things to malign Sean Penn for, I can’t believe the media focused on his smoking. Ugh. So there they all were, overdressed women and badly dressed men, with their press passes hanging around their necks on Starbucks lanyards. And then I was attacked. She came through the crowd, in an obvious hurry, tripod slung over her shoulder in its sheath. WHAM. The tripod nailing me hard in the wrist, my cry of pain, and she didn’t even stop. The mainstream media, folks. The media that cares about the pot-bellied war child of Darfur, but attacks the people of their own city. Suffice it to say I wasn’t surprised.

After a couple of cocktails in a very busy restaurant on the strip, and a lovely hot curry meal, we were a lot calmer and ready to head back out in search of dessert. Only to come face to face with a Truther. Up at the corner of Yonge and Dundas (I suppose we could count ourselves lucky that it was only a Truther, and not some homey with a gun), he stood there in his 9/11 truth.org t-shirt, handing out his pamphets of hate. I had to be restrained by Mr. Right and two tourists who happened to be walking by.

What has this city come to? Have we fallen through the looking glass? People come from all over the world to suck the collective dick of American filmmakers who loathe their own country, and find kinship in the loonies who believe the president of the free world murdered 3000 of his own countrymen on their way to work one morning and destroyed his own economy, just so he had an excuse to do what? Go to Iraq? Give Halliburton a war contract? What? Somebody tell me why?