Adding Insult to Injury

Imagine you're walking down the street and you spot seven dollars on the ground-- a five and two singles. Nobody is around, it's the middle of nowhere. How would you feel? Pretty lucky, I'm guessing. That would put a spring in your step. Now imagine you find 70 dollars! You might want to tell someone about your good fortune, possibly buy a friend dinner or get that new whatever you've been wanting.

So what if you found $700? That would be totally crazy, like, "Oh my God, this is a great day!" What if you won the lottery and got a check for $7,000? Or you won the jackpot and got $700,000? These are huge numbers. Chances are you would want to pay off some bills and then give a lot away to charity.

Now imagine the number $700 MILLION! That's how much was just spent to pay homage to the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center. That money could have fed a lot of people, built a few hospitals, fixed a lot of problems in our crumbling cities. Instead, all that money went into a couple of big holes in lower Manhattan, along with waterfalls and a museum detailing the events of a horrendous moment in history. They must be having quite a laugh over at Al Qaida headquarters about it.

He's Watching So We Don't Have To

My husband is in the next room watching all the 9/11 stuff on TV. There is a choir singing "Amazing Grace" at the Pentagon. Dignitaries have gathered. V.P. Joe Biden is there, looking old but quite trim and with a full head of hair. Wolf Blitzer intones: "184 people died, including 24 victims from the plane that crashed into  the building." Benches have been built, one for each victim. It's hot there, as many spectators are fanning themselves with papers, and it's only early morning.

People at the podium are now talking about what happened to them that day ten years ago. Sacrifices were made. The names of the dead are streaming across the bottom of the screen. A little girl whose mother died that day just said, "Mom, you will always be my hero." Children are crying. There is maudlin violin music playing.

Over in NYC at Ground Zero (which it will forever be called), James Taylor is singing at the site of the downed towers, which is now a big hole in the ground with water flowing into it. Survivors are reading the names of the dead, complete with their middle names so it will take quite a while. "The reading of the names, so simple and so emotional," says the TV reporter helpfully.

Now some ordinary citizen is describing what happened to her that day. I saw her on another TV interview yesterday telling the same story: She says her life was changed forever that day. She refused to get angry and sit around moping and "just take it." Instead she baked cookies with her two daughters and brought them to the local firehouse.  She did something. I think I may have eaten some cookies on 9/11, but I didn't bake any. I basically sat around watching TV all day. Now I feel like a fool.

Wolf Blitzer says: "It was a seminal moment. No one will ever forget." So don't even try.

Happy Nine Eleven

Get ready, it's coming: That giant white cloud of smoke and ash squeezing around the corner between two skyscrapers will be filling your TV screens in just five days. It's that time of year again, when we celebrate a dark moment from the past, in part to make money for the advertisers. And the other part? I'm clueless, so please fill me in.

This year's 9/11 celebration promises to be bigger and better than ever: It's the 10th Anniversary! There's some new footage, the memorial is almost, not quite, close to being finally finished and a battery of survivors have each come out with "my story" in book form. So much to do! So much to see! Anderson Cooper is surely choosing his outfit as I write this.