~ it annoys us that image searches for ‘world trade center’ result in pictures of nicolas cage and tearful eagles sharpening their talons. so we’ll put the following images out there, hopefully to infiltrate the top results with something celebratory of the buildings’ magnificence:

world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center
world trade center

~ next, we can googlebomb connecticut for lieberman

~ we will be out of town for the anniversary that occurs tomorrow. though it is still not time to see it pass without acknowledgment, we find that the prospects for our country’s political future are too dire to allow for detached melancholy at this time. so instead we will share with you a figurative image which for us has been a warm memory for the past three years, one of the few we can still remember as an unqualified pride in america:

you are in an impromptu blood donor line on the plaza before new york’s city hall, waiting with the only other b-pos blood donors, a black man and an indian woman. the man asks asks, “where are the cameras now?” as you gaze across the plaza and see helmeted construction workers helping doctors and nurses climb into the back of a scorched dump truck, preparing to drive back to the world trade center. silently, you are pleased that there are no cameras.

~ tonight in new york city, there is a town hall meeting concerning what should be done with the site where the world trade center once stood. the meeting is from 6pm-9pm at stuyvesant high school [w] at the corner of west and chambers. you can go there to tell them that you find it offensive to consider the placement of office or commercial tenancy space upon the land where so many lives were ended and where bodies still rest, just so a few businessmen get their investments returned. else, if you can accept the idea of working on a spreadsheet and shopping for shoes on a site where thousands of people were killed, then at least you can let them know that the form the structure takes should not be decided by a corporation of businesses who will profit from them, but instead by the people of the city who will pay for them, share them, and use them.

~ the new viewing platform is open for pissants who need to gawk at the wreckage of the world trade center; it is doubtlessly wide enough to enable all of them to pose for photographs in front of the wreckage, and certainly there is a booth for “my parents went to the smoldering ruins of the world trade center and all i got was this lousy t-shirt” t-shirts. we wish that all of the people coming here to enjoy the ruins – who will go back to their offices and garages and lounges and regale their coworkers with the highlight of their trip having been seeing a corpse pulled from the debris – would stay home and entertain themselves by looking at train wrecks and freeway pile-ups and rotten.com; actually, we wish they would all be involved in train wrecks and freeway pile-ups…and be featured on rotten.

~ we know that it is hip for americans of all political persuasions to reduce their vocabulary to the tiniest sound bites when discussing current topics: wto, g8, 6+1, r2k, or fcb. not only does it sadden us to see all the opportunities offered by our language limited to virtual icons; thin descriptions are bound to lead only to thin investigations. while we would not be the ones to argue that these short terms do not meet the requirements of making much better logos for websites and magazine covers, seeing the attacks made at new york’s world trade center – ‘wtc’, kids – attacks reduced to 9-11 or 911 still makes those of us at the angry red planet sick. wtf.

~ looking for the world trade center photos?

~ open letter to georgia tech faculty and alumni:

September 19 World Trade Center forum in poor taste.

  As a Georgia Tech alumnus and a New Yorker, I feel compelled to express my feelings concerning your ‘forum on the World Trade Center’, to be held on September 19. While I agree that the Twin Towers are magnificent creations, definitely worthy of formal and structural celebration and study, I question the appropriateness of your timing. At this very moment, there remains the possibility that there are people still trapped in the rubble. There exists the uncertainty of loved ones as to the fate of their friends and family members who worked in or near the center. Dust still fills the eyes of every one of us who walk through the streets of New York, gaping at the holes in the sky, earth, and our city. While the towers’ power and legacy should not be forgotten or ignored in the wake of the tragedy on September 11, as their past images and studies may still provide us solace and learning, perhaps it is more suitable for a few moments of silence to be given before taking advantage of the developments concerning them. Otherwise, the forum may be seen as sensationalist and exploitive, rather than informative and respectful. I do agree that a forum on this masterpiece is warranted, but a move this quick seems to have the manipulative trappings of a daily talk show or scandal sheet, not the profound substance of academia.
Respectfully,

-a

~ after two days, we still have nothing to say.

the dandy little coxcombs who are saying ‘the u.s. deserved this’ are hardly addressing the fact that the comfort in which they live – that enables them to understand this situation so fully – is inseparable from the system that brought this retaliation.

the jingoist warhawks who call for unilateral destruction of various people who are remotely related to the likely perpetrators of this violence are not heeding the certainty of a future retribution and the uncertainty of the u.s. security structure – both defensive and offensive – to handle it.

the likelihood of an american epiphany, in which the cause of this terrorist effect is recognized and addressed, is slim; the damage and violence doubtlessly rules out much sympathy for the perpetrators’ cause. it would not seem out of the question that would encourage more of this activity in the future, when other demands are wished to be met. thus, and this is the greatest fear at the angry red planet, it seems realistic that those at the helm of the u.s. military will take measures to not just retaliate or exact some quick vengeance – they must know what that will inspire – but will make every step to wipe away any technical or economic possibility for any persons or peoples to ever attempt some act similar to last tuesday’s. will other nations step in the way of the u.s. before this level of destruction is reached, thereby raising the scale of warfare beyond imagination? or will they, with their own fears and memories of terrorism – stand by and allow the obliteration of a large part of the world to take place?

we at the angry red planet suppose that, upon a couple of days tired reflection, there is no course but to realize that this is not, as many have declared, the ‘ending of our way of life’ or anyone as much as it is a beginning of an wretched, inhuman way of life for everyone.

~ don’t believe the stories about the blood donation centers being full, go anyway: american red cross

~ if you do believe those stories, then donate something else.

~ today was a surreal day in the city.