Democracy has been commandeered by a self-interested gang.
About a year after the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building, I visited Oklahoma City and went to the bombsite with a friend who had covered the attack as a television news cameraman. No memorial or museum had yet been built; fencing covered with teddy bears, flags and scrawled messages surrounded an empty, grass-covered lot.
There was a simplicity to that empty lot that appealed, an understated eloquence that, to me at least, said all that needed to be said. Now, despite all the hubbub and hand wringing surrounding its design and construction, in many ways, the new 9/11 Memorial at ground zero in Manhattan captures some of that same, straightforward plainness - the names of the dead punched into bronze, the waterfalls gracing two great voids where the towers used to be, muting the noise of visitors' voices and quieting the surrounding city. No filigree or statues.
We went to the new memorial for the first time last week. It was a perfect, end-of-summer day. Sunlight sparkled in the two pools and you could see in one of them the wavy reflection of an American flag hanging from across the street. When the breeze was just right, a light mist from the waterfalls caressed your face.
I was pleased, too, by the vast plaza, so reminiscent of the one that used to separate the original towers, the wind corkscrewing around their height and sending hats into orbit. In the next few years, when all the construction around the site has ceased and the landscaped trees and other greenery have more fully grown, this will be the place for contemplation that was intended. And perhaps those who come here will reflect not only on the events of 9/11, but their unexpected consequences and whether we as a nation are ever prepared for what comes next.
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