NEW YORK, NEW YORK, NEW YORK SONGS

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THE PLACE SO NYCE THEY NAMED IT THRICE

NOT TALKIN' BOUT F**KIN' BROOKLYN, QUEENS, STATEN ISLAND OR THE BRONX, HERE, YO

Just Manhattan, The Center Of The Known Universe

From Spuyten Duyvil to Battery Park, from Loisaida to Hell's Kitchen, the 12-mile-long 2.5-mile-wide island of Mannahata is the container of the hopes, the dreams, the failures and the disappointments of the whole history of the entire human race. In Yonah Schimmel's spinach knishes, you can taste ancient Galilee on a hot summer day. From the cafe con leche at La Taza de Oro, you may inhale the bitter defeat of the Arawaks. "The Persistence of Memory" remains a moment frozen in time at MoMA, and that last note from "Figaro" will echo forever at the Met. The Yankees will often disappoint you, and the Mets will sometimes amaze you. The kindness you witness only once in a lifetime at three A.M. on a subway platform deep beneath Columbus Circle will almost negate the inhumanity you imagine of Wall Street at three every afternoon at the Stock Exchange. P.T. Barnum and Teddy Roosevelt battle every night on Broadway, the boulevard of broken dreams, and in the General Assembly of the United Nations, even the most cynical people in the world sometimes experience a fleeting moment of hope. But that's why God created Brioschi.

IDENTIFY THESE NY QUOTES (no googling!):

"What are YOU lookin' at?"

"Does Macy's tell Gimbel's?"

"I'm the luckiest man on the face of the Earth." [a New Yorker facing certain, horrible death]

"There's a sucker born every minute."

"It ain't over till the fat lady sings."

"The faces in New York remind me of people who played a game and lost."

"A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times : It is a beautiful catastrophe."

"In New York I feel plugged into a strong alternating current of hope and despair."

"New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village - the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying the way is up!"

"Skyscraper national park."

"It'll be a great place if they ever finish it."

"Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons."

"I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member. "

"Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before."

"Speak softly and carry a big stick. "

"We need a president who's fluent in at least one language. "

"All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy. "

"An industry that cannot pay its workers a decent living wage has no right to exist. "

"Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair. "

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."


YOUTUBE: PALOMA FAITH
"Paloma Faith - New York - Live At The ICA"
Girl BELTS it out!



YOUTUBE: LEONARD COHEN
"Leonard Cohen - First We Take Manhattan (Alternate Version)"
Another Canadian terrorist.



YOUTUBE: GEORGE BENSON
"George Benson - On Broadway"
"They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway, They say there's always magic in the air..."



YOUTUBE: MANHATTAN TRANSFER
"Manhattan Transfer Boy From New York City"
Kewl, kewl kitty!



YOUTUBE: WHITEY
"Whitey's Lindy Hoppers performing the Big Apple (1939)"
So, now you know where Rock'N'Roll came from.



YOUTUBE: THE NEW YORK DOLLS
"New York Dolls - Babylon"
David is actually Scarlett's father.



YOUTUBE: THE RAMONES
"The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop Live at CBGB 1977"
Back in the day at the Country Blue Grass Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers Emporium on the Bowery at Bleeker Street.



YOUTUBE: VELVET UNDERGROUND
"The Velvet Underground - Sweet Jane Live 1970"
Live at Max's Kansas City



YOUTUBE: KING KONG
"Hinder - Better Then Me - King Kong"
It was Beauty killed the Beast.



YOUTUBE: LUX AETERNA
"World Trade Center Tribute 1966-2001"
It was just there a minute ago.



YOUTUBE: ANONYMOUS VIOLINIST
"New York Underground - Violin player and a dancer"
The pathos beneath E.51st Street.

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THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

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ARCHITECTURAL WHITE ELEPHANT, DESTROYER OF NEIGHBORHOODS, CORPORATIST GOVERNMENT BOONDOOGLE

HISTORIC DISASTER SITE, METAPHOR FOR TERROR, SHOPPING MALL



That's How We Remember It, As Our Naybahood Shops

Much has been written about 9/11. Nothing much is said about the people who lived and worked in and around the site of America's worst terror attack, the beginning of Dubya's New World Disorder, the second day in our own lifetime that the planet jumped off its' track and never got back to it's original route, the first time being 11/22/63. (Gotta watch those elevenses.)



We used to live on Maiden Lane, a block from the NY Federal Reserve Bank & Fortress of Gold, and two blocks from the WTC. We rarely shopped at the Fed; our credit was too good, and we were mere taxpayers, depositors, not withdrawers. It's only four blocks from the NY Stock Exchange, and probably connected underground; certainly by birth, marriage and Old School Ties. There was also a connection to the Trade Center, where all the gold was moved and then removed after the first attack almost melted it down.



The first attack killed six people, a small enough number, unless you loved one of them. Lots of people got badly smoked in the unlit chimneys known as fire exits. But nearly all of them survived. We were having lunch at home at the time, and didn't even hear of that first bombing until several hours later. We subsequently walked the perimeter of the Complex, some 14 acres, but saw little damage except smoke near the old Millenium Hotel on the Southwest corner of One WTC. All ten floors of the hotel were wiped out by the explosion of a van full of fuel oil and fertilizer deliberately set off by Arab terrorists in the basement parking garage directly beneath the hotel, but there was no major structural damage to the Tower.



The NYPD and the NYC office of the FBI did a great job of rounding up the bombers here in the US. They were all captured, arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prisons where they still rot, sixteen years later. High-ranking members of New York's Finest and the Feebs resigned in protest to being officially prevented from following their leads to the higher-ups in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, where masterminds like Osama Bin Laden were already planning another bombing at the World Trade Center. They vowed to come back to finish the job, which they did, eight years later, eight years ago.



So life went on as usual for most of us, after that first bombing failed to destroy the Twin Towers. 50,000 people entered and left the Trade Center every weekday. It was mostly City, State and Federal offices in those days, though financial industry offices were already moving in there. The Twin Towers had never been commercially successful. Without the backing of Governor Rockefeller and his slews of State offices, there would never have been enough tenants to build the place at all. Many New Yorkers would have preferred it that way. The monoliths wiped out much of what was left of the old merchants and residences of the Washington Market area. There was little in the Complex that was of any interest to most Manhattanites. The World Trade Center helped to kill all local life below Canal Street, until TriBeCa rose in the ashes. But that was mostly for rich assholes who forced the artists out of their converted industrial lofts, as they had in SoHo and NoHo.



We were some of the few who braved the disaster-movie desolation of the Wall Street area on weekends and holidays, when only a few tourists prowled the deserted streets, and all the bankers, brokers and bureaucrats were safely home in their suburbs. There were a lot of cheap fly-by-night discount stores selling unclaimed freight and other stores' overstocked goods for quarters on the dollar. There were lousy, over-priced all-night deli's and great, cheap Irish bars, but little else except for the turista trap at South Street.



We had worked behind the stick in one of those Irish bars on Nassau Street, four blocks North of the Stock Exchange, briefly, back in the 70's. It was an L-shaped building that had a second entrance on Maiden Lane between Nassau and Broadway. In the 80's, it became a deli. In the early 90's, we moved into a loft building next door. We usually went right downstairs to the Fulton Street Station to catch the subway uptown to the East or West Village, Midtown or the Upper West Side. If we had to go under the Hudson River to New Jersey for business or to visit friends in Hoboken or Jersey City, we would catch the PATH train beneath the World Trade Center. On the way back, we might stop at the newsstand for magazines and cigars, or at Duane Reade for aspirin or toilet paper, or at Woolworths for sox and underwear. The failed shopping mall in the basement of the World Trade Center was bereft of an anchor after Alexanders went bankrupt, but it was of some service to those of us who lived in the area. There was bad food aplenty at the Food Court, and one could sit and stare at the suburbanites for hours, if one had a mind to.



We were in love with one of the out-of-towners, a Puerto Rican girl named Esmeralda who clerked at the Duane Reade discount drugstore. She was tiny and beautiful, and we loved seeing her climb a ladder to put things on a high shelf, or to get them down again at our request. Esme, as her name tag read, was married, with a ring to prove it. She even had a locket around her neck with a picture of her baby. She was so sweet and pretty, so kind and helpful, so full of life that it was impossible not to love her. Sometimes we would see her coming up out of the Tubes on her way to work, or headed back down on her way back to Jersey. We thought of following her once, to see where and how and with whom she lived, but we didn't. If we had, we might know how to get in touch with her today, to see if she was all right, to find out whether she had made it out of the Trade Center on 9/11/01.



They say that most of the people in the Mall made it out. But Esme was little, maybe they missed her. Sometimes we have a dream about the shopping mall underneath the Twin towers. It's all dark and smokey, and we can hear people crying out. We can't see anyone, but we can hear them. We can't move, paralyzed by fear or maybe disabled by the explosions. But we have this overriding desire to find Esme, and carry her out to safety. Out to New Jersey where there are no gigantic towers, no terrorist targets, no planes crashing into buildings. We hear a voice, it might be hers. And then the dream ends.



We were born in Manhattan, but we grew up in New Jersey. Maybe it seems like a safer place to us because we were children there. Maybe it really is a safer place, as the past so often is, in our memories. Maybe Esmeralda is safe out there now. Maybe she wasn't even working that day in 2001. Maybe she found another job out in Jersey. Maybe she is living in the unbroken past, and there never was a 9/11 where she is. Maybe we are still sitting in Sbarro's at the Food Court in the shopping mall underneath the Twin Towers, drinking cappuccino, smoking a cigar, reading the Voice and, just occasionally, looking up at a pretty young girl passing by, to see if it is Esme. Maybe it's a better world.
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WHEN CHENEY WAS PRESIDENT

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DICK CHENEY NOMINATED HIMSELF FOR VP,
THEN TOOK COMMAND ON 9/11

YOUTUBE: MICHAEL MOORE
"'Fahrenheit 9/11' - My Pet Goat"
The Commander-In-Chief at the time of the worst attack on American soil in U.S. history.


DID CHENEY EVER LET GO OF POWER?

YOUTUBE: THE CORBETT REPORT
"Where was Cheney on 9/11?"
His alibi don't check out, chief.


Did Dubya Ever Retake Control?

Geezer Power of the GeezerPower blog has an interesting post about a recent study of the studies of the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. It seeks to prove, like many studies of the studies, that the collapse of the Twin Towers could not have happened as officially described, in purely engineering terms. I don't know. I'm not a structural or mechanical engineer, architect, steelworker or demolitions expert. I wasn't there on 9/11, though I was there for the first bombing of the WTC. I used to live two blocks away. They caught those guys. Those guys said their buddies were coming back, to finish the job. It was known that planes could be used as bombs, and that the WTC was a target. So, nu?

They can do all the engineering studies in the world, but what it comes down to for me is "My Pet Goat."

Dubya's alibi still places him within the continental United States, and on camera, conveniently. He is, apparently, as conscious as ever, and no more incapacitated than usual. He is in constant contact with the world outside the Florida grammar school, as evidenced by a message he receives while reading the children's book aloud.

The message was about a plane hitting the World Trade Center, just a few minutes earlier, on 9-11-01. Dubya appears dumbstruck, but goes back to reading to the little kiddies as if nothing had happened. Finally, seven minutes later, mission accomplished, alibi in place, Dumbya THEN reluctantly gets up off his little chair and heads for the door, apologizing to the kids.

All that is on film, which we all saw in "Fahrenheit 911." Niggle the details but the facts are indisputable: On 9/11, The President was conscious, able-bodied, in the US, in communication with his staff in Washington DC, and aware of the attacks in NYC & Washington, DC.

What the film does not show is that, during the attacks, our air defense personnel did not contact the President. Messages went up the chain of command from Air Force and Air National Guard pilots and military and civilian air traffic controllers, all the way up to the top of the chain of command: Dick Cheney. Cheney then authorized the use of force against civilian or military aircraft, and ordered all air traffic grounded.

One problem: The Vice President of the United States is not in the military chain of command, ever, as long as the President is conscious or wake-up-able, and in contact with the military. Constitutionally, the VPOTUS has no job at all, except to wait for the POTUS to die or become incapacitated. Which Dubya had not, on 9/11.

Ask any green recruit, after he or she has been indoctrinated and drilled on his or her chain of command in boot camp or basic training: The chain of command is very important in the military. You do not break or bypass your chain of command, ever. Lots of people could die. Generals or Admirals could get pissed off at you. You could be shot. You most certainly do not bypass or short-circuit your military chain of commend in a national defense emergency, when decisions are required at the highest level.

The chain of command goes from the lowliest Private, Seaman, Airman, Coastguardsman or -woman up through his or her Non-Commissioned Officers to the Second Lieutenants and Ensigns, Lieutenants and Captains, squad, platoon, company, battalion, regiment, brigade, division, corp and army commanders, all the way up to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and the Secretary of Defense. The exact route depends on the armed service involved, the force configuration and the mission at hand.

But this much is absolutely clear and unchangeable: The chain of command of the United States military goes directly upwards from the SecDef to the President. There is nobody in between Gates and Obama, or Rumsfeld and Bush. The Vice-President of the United States of America is NEVER in the chain of command, unless and until he becomes the President. That has only happened a few times in our history, fortunately. The last time was when LBJ had to be sworn in on Air Force One on the way back to DC from Dallas, Texas, with the body of JFK hardly cold yet, on the same plane. When Reagan was shot and underwent surgery under general anaesthesia, Bush's Daddy, the VP, did not take over as President. Secretary of State Alexander Haig claimed to have assumed command, but there was no official transfer of power. At no other time in the last forty-five years has the Vice President ever stepped into the President's shoes and assumed command of the armed forces, not even for a moment.

You'd think that would have been an historic moment. You'd think there would be a record of it: A photo of Cheney being sworn in, like that famous one of LBJ. Or some embarrassing squabble among those in the order of succession, as with Reagan's Secretary of State, who tried to leapfrog the VP, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, and the President Pro Tempore of the US Senate. Nope. No fotos. No big news stories. Never a word about Cheney assuming command without statutory authority or command authorization from the President. If Dubya did authorize Cheney to take command, where is the written order? And why was it issued, if Dubya was intact & in contact?

And never a word about the Air Force bypassing the President and seeking orders from someone not in the chain of command. There was no attack on the White House. The command center was intact and functioning in the War Room in the basement at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Still is. The plane that was supposed to hit the capitol, somewhere, was brought down heroically by its' passengers, we are told. Or maybe it was shot down by an Air Force or Air National Guard pilot who didn't get the word, loved his country, and upheld his oath to the Constitution. No word on whether that pilot got direct orders from Cheney, or whether the orders said "shoot it down," or "let it go." That might have depended upon whether Cheney was in the White House or not at the time.

Anyway, the point is, with no fanfare whatsoever, the military broke chain of command, and Dick Cheney unlawfully usurped the powers of the Commander in Chief. I have never heard anyone say a word about this one most glaring fact in all the hearings and "investigations" that government has carried out upon itself. I have never seen or heard of a full investigation carried out independently of the government, or based on facts not obtained from the government, by any individual or agency, journalists or media outlets.

No one in the media and no one in power has ever publicly asked the most obvious question in any investigation of a crime or a military attack: Where was Dubya, the man responsible for our national security, the man in charge, the chief suspect? Why was he not in the loop before, during or after the 9/11 attacks? He disappeared for a day or two after 9/11, perhaps on an alcoholic bender, wracked with guilt or fear. He certainly did not come forward like Lincoln or Wilson or Roosevelt and reassure the nation immediately, much though we needed reassuring at the time. So, how long was Cheney POTUS, anyway? Did he ever relinquish command? (EPA chief Christie Whitman says Cheney was still personally giving her orders in his own name to soft-pedal anti-pollution regulation, years after 9/11.)

And why did the Air Force ever refer to Cheney in the first place, if the President was available? Or breathing? I'd like to see the written order authorizing that. I'd especially like to see the time & date on that order. Was all this prearranged? Is that why, in the midst of an attack on US soil, our air defense command was able to violate chain of command so readily? And who in the Air Force authorized THAT?

The command-bypass certainly was not effective: The attacks were carried out succesfully, except for the one on the White House. Or was the DC attack to have been on the Capitol Building, effecting a decapitation of the US Government and necessitating a declaration of martial law? Is that what went wrong on 9/11? Or is that what went right? Were the attacks on a brand-new and largely unoccupied portion of the Pentagon and a spectacular but largely irrelevant government-owned commercial building in the Financial District of New York City all just a distraction and a set-up for the last plane's attack on the heads of government?

Imagine, if you will, what would have happened if that last plane had taken out Congress or the White House. In one fell swoop, our democratic government would have been swept away, by person or persons unknown. Martial law would have to have been declared, and extended until the "state of emergency" was over. Weeks, months, years; certainly long enough to effect major changes in domestic and foreign policy, with no niggling Congress to say otherwise. And with Dick Cheney in charge, officially or otherwise.

Did the crash or shoot-down of that United Airlines plane in Pennsylvania save us all from a Cheney dictatorship? Partially, at best. Because the Congress became a virtual rubber-stamp after 9/11, failed though the attack may have been. Cheney got his oil war, and his "Patriot" Acts. He got eight years of unopposed raping, looting and pillaging of the Middle East and the U.S. national treasury, from which we are suffering today. And he got the US military permanently installed as rentacops, guarding his good buddies' oil bidness in the Middle East, and a right-wing Israel. The military-industrial-energy complex now has a new boogeyman to justify the continuation of the national security State, and the ongoing drain on the Treasury for private profit. So, "Mission Accomplished"?

Who bypassed the President, and why? When was that authorized, and by whom? I'll never believe a word the government says about 9/11 until I see that order, and hear the explanation for it.
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SUPPORT OUR TROOPS: BRING THEM ALL HOME ALIVE, NOW!

DUBYA ON 911: "I DID IT. I'M SORRY"

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COMMANDER IN CHIEF APOLOGIZES TO AMERICA

PRESIDENT BUSH LET 9/11 HAPPEN

Either That, Or He Made It Happen

Finally, after seven whole years, United States faux President George Walker Bush has admitted responsibility for the attacks of 11.9.2001, which took place on his watch.

Throwing out all his previous denials, excuses, buck-passing, and attempts to blame political opponents, Bush II said that he and he alone was completely, finally and inexcusably responsible for the worst attacks in American history, which killed 2,998 people. He apologized to the victims and their families, offering no excuses.

"At last," said one victim's widow, "Closure!"

(NOT! If only this had really happened. But, it's an election year, and Bush has no conscience, no honor, no sense of responsibility. He'll never admit to any errors or culpability of any kind.)



(LIHOP OR MIHOP?)

[crossposted on Democracy For California]
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TO POST A COMMENT: CLICK ON "COMMENTS," "Post a Comment" or "# of COMMENTS" just below the SOCIAL BOOKMARKING LINKS (Digg, Delicious, etc), about three inches down from here. Please do comment. Thank you.

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Suggestion Box & Tip Jar We would like to make over this blog to make it easier to access, to read and to comment on. We would also like to serve our readers better by providing more of what you need and want to see. All serious suggestions will be considered. We hope to move to our own domain in the near future, and we would like to ask for your financial assistance in doing that, and in upgrading our hardware & software. Small one-time donations and larger long-term subscriptions are welcome. Exclusive advertising is also available. If you think we are wasting our time in doing all this, please let us know. If you wish to help us, now is the time. As always, negative bullsh*t from right-wing trolls will be sh*tcanned. Thank you to everyone else. Please send feedback & PayPal contributions to cosanostradamusATexciteDOTcom. Thanks.

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