Flight 93 Memorial

[BigJon@Work]

I don't think I ever shared this here, but two of my friends died on flight 93. Not close friends, mind you, but friends made through a shared enthusiasm and friends all the same. She was a martial arts expert, he was a humorist and a lover of life. I have no knowledge that they made phone calls that terrible day. In my imagination, she led the charge to kick the hijacker's butt and he hung back and worried about her and everything else. That's just they way they were.

I am worried that the memorial will become a boondoggle. I prefer my memorials simple and stark. I don't have the heart to see the movie right now, but I may rent it for home viewing when it is out. If the movie is true to the limited knowledge we do have of the day and it inspires people to act heroically when facing their own crisis, that's a memorial of infinitely more value than a statue or a garden.

[Shapley]

BigJon,

My condolences on the loss of your friends. I'll probably wait and see the movie at home, too. I don't like to cry in public.

V/R
Shapley

[Haggis@wk]

Mark Steyn

"A true Flight 93 memorial would honor courage, action and improvisation, but reflection, healing and wetlands are the best we can manage. Go to any Civil War memorial on any New England common, and marvel at how they managed to honor their dead without wetlands and wind chimes."

So, when did we become a nation of wimps? Before or after the advent of "grief counselors"?

[jamiebk]

everyone grieves in different ways

[piqaboo]

Not sure of the cause, but it probably correlates to when we started suing cities and people because we tripped on uneven ground, the holes in box tore when we filled the box with rocks, and the silica gel packets started being stamped "do not eat".

We seem to be increasingly concerned with personal safety and decreasingly concerned with personal freedom on a steady basis for the past 20 odd years (maybe longer, but I wasnt paying attention then).

[Shapley]

I think part of the problem is that we've given over the design of these things to large consortiums of diverse interests. Ultimately it seems that the design becomes a collaboration of bad ideas, all put together with the intent of having the possibility of offending no one, to the point that they become meaningless.

We used to design monuments and then solicit the money needed to build it. Nowadays we solicit money to build a monument, then design one. Commitees are formed and ideas are kicked about, and the worst ones often win.

We used to honour courage and duty, now we honour victimization. We took FDR from his pedastal and put him in a wheelchair. We put chairs around the Murrah Building in Oklahoma, honouring not what America stands for but what it sits on.

I could put it a word here about honour and commitment, but that seems to get me in trouble, so I'll refrain...

V/R
Shapley

[Marye]

I don't think I ever shared this here, but two of my friends died on flight 93. Not close friends, mind you, but friends made through a shared enthusiasm and friends all the same. She was a martial arts expert, he was a humorist and a lover of life. I have no knowledge that they made phone calls that terrible day. In my imagination, she led the charge to kick the hijacker's butt and he hung back and worried about her and everything else. That's just they way they were.

I am sorry, BigJon. A horrendous event that must surely haunt you. It would haunt me if my friends knew such terror.

[piqaboo]

We used to honour courage and duty, now we honour victimization. We took FDR from his pedastal and put him in a wheelchair.

Am confused - you think it belittles FDR to show him in his wheelchair? You think it makes him look like a victim, instead of for many years one of the most powerful people in the world? How does showing the wheelchair remove from his standing as multiple-time president of the USA? Why would removing his wheelchair from the statue make him seem more courageous?

[Marye]

Piq has a point ...........

[Shapley]

FDR considered the wheelchair a symbol of weakness, and made every attempt to avoid being seen in it. He hated it. Now we have former immortalized in stone the very image of the man he sought to avoid being seen. It's sort of like carving the nickname 'Old Yellow Stain' on Capt. Queegs tombstone.

Statues of old honoured men by showing them standing tall or seated on a mighty steed, and went to great lengths to avoid showing the imperfections and limitations of the man. Nowadays we honour the imperfections.

Not that I'm a big fan of FDR, quite the contrary. However, I think we should honour the man's wishes regarding the method he wishes to be remembered, and not make a permanent fixture of his handicap.

I won't even mention the trademark cigarette...

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Me, I'd rather have reality than the political spin. My heroes are not nine feet tall and without weaknesses - they're regular folk who managed to do the impossible because it needed to be done. The folk on that airplane were just such: they did what they could and they saved whoever it was that the hijackers had planned to murder at their target.

I'm not too sure about the wetlands and windchimes, though. I think it should be a statue of a regular guy in a rumpled business suit, with a cell phone in one hand and a rolled up magazine in the other.

[BigJon@Work]

I am sorry, BigJon. A horrendous event that must surely haunt you. It would haunt me if my friends knew such terror.

I haven't yet worked up the courage to rent the movie. Maybe soon. I don't think about them nearly as often as I did when I first found out though. The human mind is a strange thing.

[BigJon@Work]

I am sorry, BigJon. A horrendous event that must surely haunt you. It would haunt me if my friends knew such terror.

I haven't yet worked up the courage to rent the movie. Maybe soon. I don't think about them nearly as often as I did when I first found out though. The human mind is a strange thing.

[Marye]

Your response provided me with a smile, Selma However, your image brings to mind returnees from the loo.

Not that I have any right to say since I come from the country that, as Jon Stewart recently called us "Canada: everyone's gay best friend" (lol) but I rather like the idea of a peace garden where one could sit, reflect and pray, if you are so inclined. In Holland the WWII Canadian graves are tended by school children in order to remember the people who died liberating them. It is part of their curriculum and it is why Canadians are so highly thought of there - I understand (not that I've been). I think it would be a fitting tribute and memorial to have school children, as part of their regular schooling, tend to a memorial garden where people died saving others.

BigJon... I am afraid I can't watch that movie, it would break my heart. I can only imagine how it would affect you.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

However, your image brings to mind returnees from the loo.

True enough. I've seen a couple of airborne washrooms that only a hero could face.

[Shapley]

My heroes are not nine feet tall and without weaknesses - they're regular folk who managed to do the impossible because it needed to be done.

Mine, too, but I don't celebrate their weaknesses, I celebrate their strengths. Monuments are supposed to be .... monumental! I want a monument built to Ronaldus Maximus that is worthy of the name - a Mt. Rushmore, a Collosus of Rhodes, not a statue of man riddled with Alzheimers lying in a bed. His achievements were monumental, let his memory be honoured accordingly. A giant bronze statue of a muscular Ronadus chipping away at the Berlin Wall, a bandoleer-clad Ronbo telling the commies to 'make my day', an architect surveying a shining city on the hill, or a King Neptune rising astride the nuclear-equipped USS Iowa.

As Richard Nixon once said: "The greatest work a man can do is to be a part of something bigger than himself." I monument to such a man must also be bigger than his life.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

I'd rather remember President Reagan's personal modesty and humor. Liked to wear Levis and a plaid shirt. Cut his own woodpile.

What maroon would trade that reality for a Stalinesque cartoon figure?

[Shapley]

What maroon would trade that reality for a Stalinesque cartoon figure?

I would. The monument is not for we who have memories of our own, but for the generations to come. What will they think of the maroon who built a monument to a blue-jean clad woodcutter instead of to the statesman who defeated the Evil Empire?

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Sorry, Shapley, the overblown fantasy figure is a pathetically tacky disaster of an idea. Aim for life-size and dignified; it wears better in the long run.

[piqaboo]

When FDR was president, wheelchairs were considered a symbol of weakness. Hello! That's the meaning of the word "handicap" - make things more difficult.
Me, I'm impressed that the guy had the energy and strength to be a "strong man" despite the considerable health challenges he faced. Shows how much larger his strength was, beyond the visible.

Reagan wasnt on a bed, riddled with alzheimers during his time in office (tho he was probably showing early symptoms.). Show him as he was. Build the statue big if you like, put him on a horse if you like. After all, he did ride for run etc.

Putting FDR on his feet or on a horse would be ridiculous. Seat him in a train if you like.

To make Nelson tall, they had to build him a column.