OUR SACRED GROUND
OK, I've got to vent a bit about 1 WTC again, which is nearing
completion in the Big Apple. But someone has to point out a few absurdities of
the entire fiasco, might as well be me.
First I want to state I always thought it kind of crazy to hurry up and
rebuild the tallest building in town, just because some bloody furriners finally
got through our defenses to do some major damage. Can you imagine? A whole
building of non-combatants killed in order to get our attention. Kind of
reminded us of the dastardly Pearl Harbor attack 60 years ago. Although the
body count was about the same, (3,000) our frustration was really a problem as
we couldn't blame any one country for it. However, our dear president Bush II
and his cronies were able to invade a couple of countries to tighten up our oil
supply, with hardly any resistance from our representatives in Congress. Ten
years later we're trying extricate ourselves from it, while the rag-heads can
start killing each other again. They even have the same religion, for Allah's
sake!
But I digress. Where to begin? As an architect/engineer the
whole thing is fraught with so many over the top ideas it brings me to
tears. Let's begin with the height. Some
idiot picked the number 1776 to be the height of the replacement. But that's
not really the height. It is the height of a 400 foot (40 stories) mast. the
height of the roof is the same as the height of the twin towers that collapsed
(1368 ft). It appears this building is
designed to be "sustainable after being hit by a 747 aircraft. This is crazy! Why not sell it to Target and paint a huge
bullseye on each side?
Let's look at some
stats. This is the most expensive
building ever built. Originally estimated to be $1.5 billion, it has gone up to
about $3.9 billion! Wait, there's more.
The first 186 ft is a windowless base of steel and concrete, 5 ft thick. 24 steel columns, so huge, they had to be
made in Luxembourg (do you know how teenie a country that is?), as they were
the heaviest in the world & we couldn't do it here. These, with the added
concrete form a 5 ft protective barrier from a truck bomb on the nearby street.
Just as well, there was no room there for office space, anyway, as the core
& elevators, stairs took up all the room.
Anyway, the tall building
folks were not fair in voting it to be the tallest in US. Just because they
added a giant mast to it. But some criteria for tall building require the
highest usable space to be the top. Not even close here. It appears that the
top couple of hundred feet are mechanical floors. I maintain the Chicago tower
is still the highest. You don't see the
citizens of Dresden, Germany, and Tokyo, Japan running to build on what is now
called "Sacred Pit" and we killed 100,000 in each hell Fire.
I'm only upset by our knee jerk over reaction quasi
religious hullaballoo and massive
squandering of money on a project that could have been completed
with with some real thought going in to
such a huge project and maybe save a few billion along the way.
It has been said that
citizens should be familiar with three foundations of our Republic; The Bill of
Rights, The Constitution and the Federalist Papers. The papers were essays written weekly before
the constitution was ratified. I always
wonder how many of our legislators have even heard of them.
One of Madison's
observations was that the problem would get out of hand as states were added.
This is a tremendous view, as maybe part of our problem is the hundreds of
politicians, who are wrangling at this time, from the addition of nearly forty
more states since that time. . Also,
remember the alternate to a Federal government that was being considered at the
time was to divide the 13 states into three small nations, probably to fight
each other forever, or maybe that would have avoided the civil war?
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Things are heating up
around my house again as Joy and I are preparing for another trip to Europe
in the Spring. Not so simple this time as we are traveling with a couple of
friends as well as a couple of my kids. Fortunately, Joy has become a real tour
guide from our experiences on about ten trips before. She can transform an
economy seat on the plane into a First Class (Use of Admirals Club!) by
throwing our 'miles' at them. Now we
couldn't possibly be seen in the 'cattle car' section of the aircraft. That's
not as easy as they make it sound, even though we charge nearly everything on
our 'miles' card, even our property taxes. since 1988, we have spent about
twenty weeks in Paris alone, Mostly on the Left Bank (Rive Gauche) among the
art galleries. Our favorite sidewalk Cafe ,Le Frigate, is in an unlikely spot,
right across the Seine overlooking the Pont Royal 
A couple of years ago
(Seems like yesterday) I left off describing my various incarnations on the way
to here & now. Let's see, I left off
when I was a sperm whale (love the term!) I had a real need to be out of water
as I already breath the air, so it wasn't long before I was buzzing around in a
mosquito body, sucking blood from beings like me now. I wonder, if time doesn't
really exist, if it is possible to run into yourself in a different body. Let's
let that one go, and set me up in a nice humming bird , flying from Argentina
to California every year, fighting off all my friends in order not to share any
of he meager food these flowers provide.
I especially liked my time as a ladder back wood pecker, banging my
brains out on telephone poles and trees.
I might mention one of my stints in the aviary kingdom was the time I
spent as a small dinosaur, feathers and all, except I couldn't even get off the
ground to fly, but I could really speed around on my two hind legs. Wasn't much
different from my chicken life, laying eggs around in a nice barnyard somewhere
in Persia. Finally got into four legs as
a cheetah, really had a ball running around the Serengeti. Fell into a really
boring life as a house cat for some folks in Boston, man, did I ever have it
easy there, eat, drink & sleep all the time, but didn't live very long, I
was glad to be a bull elephant for a hundred years or more before i finally
fell into a humanoid form. This form really was a drag as it lasted for
thousands of years, although there were some highlights, like the times I was a
geisha in Japan, a lot better than the damn Zen monk later on. Anyway, I
finally got into Lamonts body and here I am, describing my long and interesting
ride thru all the species. I remember them well, We'll see how long this one lasts, maybe a
few short years more in human form, then I''ll be one with god. You know what? i wouldn't have missed the
trip for anything, as if i could. I hope
I didn't miss anything, I did start out this excursion in the plant kingdom, didn't
I? You know, you can get some idea of
your past times by noting the books, objects that interest you (or repel). I
can't get enough of sailing ships of the line and their crews, also wars with
Wellington, Napoleon as well as Alexander the Great. What grater thrill than
reading about his shenanigans when i was getting married in Greece. Walking the
ancient stones of Athens, Rome, as I felt such a kinship with the city planners
of 500 BC around the Aegean Sea.
