The 9th Anniversary of 9/11: a million reasons to be hopeful
By: Tom Deignan | Published Thursday, September 9, 2010, 1:25 PM | Updated Friday, September 9, 2011, 9:49 PM
With the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks upon us, it’s hard to avoid the sense that there is an angry edge to what had, in the past, been a somber, solemn occasion.
Yes, a big part of this is the roiling debate over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero. This debate shows no signs of going away any time soon.
Whatever you happen to believe about the mosque proposal, most decent folks agree that September 11 is a day to set aside such differences and remember the sacrifices made in lower
Manhattan on that sad day.
Trouble is, it’s getting harder and harder to focus only on the acts of bravery and valiance.
You’ve got hate preachers such as Bill Keller traveling to Ground Zero to put on an ugly show.
You’ve got ailing first responders still suffering from the effects of the work they did at the pile.
And you’ve got all manner of conspiracy theorists still trying to figure out whether it was
President Bush or the
United Nations or some other evil genius who actually toppled the buildings that day, rather than
al-Qaeda.
In short, it’s increasingly difficult to follow the noble example of service and sacrifice set on that terrible day nine years ago.
Thankfully, we have the
Lynch family to remind us.
“We always knew we wanted to make something good out of evil,” Jack Lynch said in an interview this past weekend.
Lynch, a Kerry native, is the father of Michael Francis Lynch, a
Bronx-born firefighter who had been assigned to a firehouse in his native borough. On September 11, 2001, however, Michael had been rotated to a Manhattan house. He was one of a dozen firefighters to die from that house when the towers fell.
“Even before we found Michael,” Jack Lynch added, “we knew we wanted to do something positive.”
It was not until March 2002 that Michael’s remains were identified, in part because of the green Celtic Cross on his shoulder. It was said that Michael’s remains were intertwined with that of another person, indicating he’d been assisting this person at the time of the collapse.
In the weeks and months which followed 9/11, the Lynch family -- Jack and his Sligo-born wife, Kathleen, raised 10 children -- decided to start a college scholarship fund in Michael’s name. To date, the Michael Lynch Memorial has granted well over $1 million in scholarship money to children of
FDNY families, as well as victims of 9/11, or other fires or disasters.
“It’s actually closer to a million and a half now,” Lynch notes with understandable pride.
Kaitlyn Hurley, one of the recipients of a grant from the Michael Lynch Foundation, recently said, “My family and I are extremely grateful to receive this award. This grant will aid in the pursuit of my nursing education. I only hope that I can make a difference by helping others like Michael Lynch and the FDNY have.”
In this sense, despite the terrible loss they have endured, the Lynches have done something so many of us have been unable to do. They have risen above the day-to-day squabbles which inevitably distract us in this post-9/11 world and continued to set an example of service and dedication and sacrifice.
Indeed, the Michael Lynch Foundation (www.mlynch.org) is very much a family affair, with each of Mike’s brothers and sisters playing integral roles.
For example, the ninth annual Lynch Foundation golf outing will be held on September 17 at Pelham Bay Golf Course in the Bronx. That event, along with many others throughout the year, is organized by Michael’s brother Thomas.
Other family members handle the scholarship application process, the foundation’s legal business, its website and more.
All of this volunteer work is crucial, Jack Lynch notes, because running the memorial “is a lot work.”
But he also notes, “The other thing that I think is really important is that 98% of the money we receive goes directly to the students. I think that’s appealing to a lot of people.”
This September 11, we should not only remember the valiant sacrifices of Michael Lynch and his fallen comrades.
We should also strive to emulate the Lynch family, who remind us that the most noble thing we can do is simply try to make the world a better place.
(Contact at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or
facebook.com/tomdeignan)
With the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks upon us, it’s hard to avoid the sense that there is an angry edge to what had, in the past, been a somber, solemn occasion.
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.maloney | Sep 19, 2010, 09:46 AM EDT
Finally everyone agrees. Onward & upward.
DennisQ | Sep 18, 2010, 06:03 PM EDT
Popularity has nothing to do with the application of the laws of physics, maloney. If that were the case, we wouldn't have to clear the sidewalk of snow in the winter. We'd just take a vote, and the snow would melt by itself!
I can think of all kinds of applications. You wouldn't need to demolish buildings, you'd just set them on fire. Down they go, neat as a pin, seven hours later. That would definitely get my vote.
maloney | Sep 17, 2010, 04:31 PM EDT
dennis ...9/11 truther, look it up. Not a popular perch.
DennisQ | Sep 16, 2010, 10:25 PM EDT
The point here is not to replace an absurd hypothesis with an equally absurd hypothesis, maloney. It's to continue the investigation until you get believable answers. We're not there yet.
Building Seven, a 47-storey steel framed skyscraper, did not simply catch fire and burn to the ground like an old barn. If that's your belief, good luck to you, but there's no reason for anyone to share that belief. Personally, it seems too improbable to me.
The support columns had to fail in a particular sequence and tempo in order for the building to collapse as neatly and quickly as it did. Each of those failures is a separate and non-trivial event. The fact that they failed as if on cue suggests that some intelligence was directing them. When you reject the "on cue" hypothesis, you're saying that this sequence happened at random. That's very anomalous.
maloney | Sep 16, 2010, 09:27 PM EDT
Bush blew up all three of the towers. Are you happy now?
DennisQ | Sep 16, 2010, 06:38 PM EDT
The support columns conveniently failed in the correct sequence - one right after the other in an apparently orchestrated tempo - so that the roof maintained its integrity as it fell to the ground at accelerating speed. These are wildly improbable outcomes of a random process such as a building fire. You're interpreting the events as inevitable simply because that's what happened, but not giving sufficient thought to the randomness of the combination of these events.
You're using the million monkeys argument here, hancock. You're saying that because a combination of unlikely events happened, then the probability couldn't have been as low as it appears. After all, it did happen! However, that's your argument, not mine.
I'll go with the choreography argument that the skeptics are raising. Random processes don't produce non-random results - not just not very often, but never.
hancock | Sep 16, 2010, 12:59 AM EDT
BLDG 7 WENT DOWN BECAUSE ITS STEEL SKELETON, AND LIGHTWEIGHT STEEL CONTRUCTION THAT SUPPORTED THE FLS WERE WEAKENED BY 40 FLS OF FIRE FOR 7 HOURS.
maloney | Sep 15, 2010, 09:15 PM EDT
dennisq... I suppose this evidence also makes obama a christian. Building 7 it has been found out went down because of illegal mexicans tunneling under the building. It is said they were loking for muslim IED's.
DennisQ | Sep 15, 2010, 08:35 PM EDT
Call it the "anomaly of the accelerating roof" if you like. It doesn't go away simply because you can't find a satisfactory explanation. The accelerating roof is like a 50º ice cube - there's no reason it should exist, but there it is.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) hasn't done a good job explaining the anomaly of the accelerating roof. Instead of answering questions, they raise more questions by declaring their calculations a national secret. In one sense it's not anomalous for a government agency to withhold information from the people - but in this case it's easy to see that the roof is accelerating. Photographs taken at equal intervals clearly show that the rate of collapse is increasing not remaining constant.
You don't need alternative explanations to see that questions about the September 11th attacks have not been answered. That's an unfair burden. So long as the anomaly of the accelerating roof remains an anomaly, we still don't know what happened that day. And we shouldn't be told that these matters are settled.
By the way, maloney, Building Seven - the one with the anomalous roof - was not hit by a plane.
hancock | Sep 15, 2010, 11:31 AM EDT
Dennis answer the question. What about the forty fls of fire that burned for 7 hrs ?
manhattan | Sep 15, 2010, 10:00 AM EDT
OK, I have decided to come clean on what I saw that day. I saw Bush and Chaney push the buildings over. You see things were getting boring in Washington so, they decided to attack. They hired 19 arabs, brought them to CIA headquarters where they told the 19 that if they didn't fly into the Towers,The Pentagon and Oh Shucks, they missed the Capitol where all those annoying Democrats are. We told them if they didn't do this that there would not be 70 virgins waiting for them when they die. I will call Washington today to admit what I saw.....
maloney | Sep 14, 2010, 03:06 PM EDT
dennisq...back your tape up a little more & watch the planes fry into the buildings. I suppose Bush & Chaney were the pilots.
maloney | Sep 14, 2010, 03:00 PM EDT
dennisq...had I known you would go back to the conspiracy crap, if building A trips over the moon then Bush sank the Titanic crap I wouldn't have posted. Everyone in the world knows muslim terrorists did it, including the muslims, yet you rattle on. Turn the record over, PLEASE.
DennisQ | Sep 13, 2010, 10:51 PM EDT
Have you looked at the video of Building Seven collapsing, maloney? It appears to be picking up speed as it falls. In fact, scientists who have actually measured the collapse report that it does indeed pick up speed.
Are you going to be among those who refuse to accept the evidence of their own eyes simply because of that this acceleration might signify? If you are, it explains the other bizarre beliefs you've posted here.
maloney | Sep 13, 2010, 08:32 PM EDT
dennisq...the tooth fairy is gay, santa is a terrorist & obama likes white people.
DennisQ | Sep 13, 2010, 07:35 PM EDT
How is it possible for a steel-framed building to collapse at free-fall speed, hancock? When you look at the video of Building Seven, it's clear that something moved the contents of the building out of the way. Maybe the Hand of God did it!
God's pretty powerful. Jesus walked on water; betcha you couldn't do that. And there weren't any conspiracy theorists around to say he didn't do it. And when God parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could flee the Pharaoh's army, they didn't need any Commission to explain what happened.
hancock | Sep 13, 2010, 02:58 PM EDT
What about the forty fls of fire that burned for 7 hrs?
DennisQ | Sep 13, 2010, 03:26 AM EDT
Something radically discontinuous happened on September 11th, and there's been a heroic effort to push away the evidence. People who are asked to do nothing more stressful than look at the Building Seven collapse video refuse to do so because its apparent freefall acceleration implies something very frightening. It's much easier to believe that the laws of physics took the day off that day.
A golf outing is staid, bourgeois and reassuring, especially a charity golf outing with proceeds that go for scholarships. It re-establishes continuities, suggesting that our lives aren't really changed by September 11th. That's why we hear it described in glowing terms like healing . . . . positive . . . . honored . . . . cherished . . . . . There's no "turning and turning in the widening gyre" here, thank you.
ForensicOne2be | Sep 12, 2010, 07:34 AM EDT
I think the Lynch family is wonderful. Bravo to them for doing something positive. Their awards have reached deserving people, I'm sure. But. Sometimes healing begins sooner for some than for others. Meanwhile, those who sacrificed their lives on 9/11, whether willing or not, deserve to be cherished, honored and remembered with respect. Peace.
DennisQ | Sep 12, 2010, 04:04 AM EDT
You don't have to believe in a government conspiracy to find mistakes in the 9/11 Commission report, Ajreaper. Don't take my word for it - Check for yourself that the report claims the South Tower collapsed in 10 seconds - a physical impossibility. It would take 10 seconds for a hammer to land from that height, much less a building that is collapsing into its own lower floors.
Unfortunately, the government won't change a word of the 9/11 report. In fact, they've decided to make their calculations top secret. So here's a question for you. Would you rather stay loyal to the government and take these impossible claims at face value . . . or would you rather admit they made a mistake?
There aren't a lot of options here. When the government makes statements that defy the laws of physics, they can't possibly be correct.
Go to the report, you'll see this statement at the bottom of page 305:
"At 9:58:59, the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds, killing all civilians and emergency personnel inside, as well a number of individuals-both first responders and civilians-in the concourse, in the Marriott, and on neighboring streets. The building collapsed into itself, causing a ferocious windstorm and creating a massive debris cloud. . . . "
Ajreaper | Sep 11, 2010, 11:00 PM EDT
Dennis anyone who believes 9/11 was a government conspiracy is a nutt job, period.
DennisQ | Sep 11, 2010, 07:06 PM EDT
Ajreaper, we were attacked by Shinto's on December 7, 1941, a day that is said to live in infamy. However, we don't look back on Pearl Harbor Day for its religious significance, because we understand that the attack was political.
September 11th marks the anniversary of a similarly political event. However, people are placing lighted candles in front of firehouses as if the significance of the day were entirely religious. I don't agree with that interpretation, but I wouldn't go as far as you do in characterizing people who see things differently.
DennisQ | Sep 11, 2010, 06:22 PM EDT
Actually, manhattan, there's very little "proof" as such of what we're supposed to believe happened on September 11th. None of these cases have gone to court except for the hapless Zararias Moussaoui, who appears to have been railroaded.
I haven't endorsed any particular theory of the events of September 11th. However, given the choice between an unlikely theory and an impossible one, the unlikely theory has the advantage at least that it can happen. The so-called "official" theory of September 11th requires believers to accept the notion that buildings can fall down into themselves at the speed of gravity. That is simply a physical impossibility. There will never be a time when an event like that will happen or can happen. Take your pick, faith or science. For explanation of physical efvents, I'll go with science. Good luck to you with faith on your next construction job.
Ajreaper | Sep 11, 2010, 06:18 PM EDT
Geez why can't the nutt jobs online take a day off sometime?
manhattan | Sep 11, 2010, 11:14 AM EDT
Dennis Q, I would love to take that nail and hammer it into your sick brain. There is so much proof of who committed the atrocities of 9/11 that you and your fellow cool aid drinkers will not accept because it wasn't the work of our Goverment, and that you hope will be the case. Guess what? IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.
DennisQ | Sep 11, 2010, 03:58 AM EDT
I don't know who was behind the attacks, manhattan - and neither do you. We were told in the morning of September 11th who did it and why. The story was all ready to go, and the government was so pleased with it that nine years have gone by with no change at all to the story.
I'm not sure what to make of that, but it doesn't inspire confidence. However, it's not true that the government didn't change anything about the story - they did! They started out with the notion that the floors fell down one at a time on top of each other, but they realized that this would have taken at least four times longer than the actual time it took. Now that they've got new data and new theories, they're not sharing that information with the scientific community. You can't FOIA it; it's a state secret.
The secrecy does not inspire confidence any more than the stubborn refusal to update the extremely early information. So we're left with what we can surmise based on information that the government can't hide - the videos and pictures of the buildings themselves. And they lead to still more loss of confidence.
Perhaps the tenth anniversary will see the beginnings of a broad-based demand to finally get the truth from the government. All we've seen so far this year is shameless demagoguery on the part of Newt Gingrich and the pastor in Florida who wants to burn the Koran.
DennisQ | Sep 11, 2010, 02:53 AM EDT
Here's something we know about the law of conservation of momentum - it does not go AWOL at any time. If there appears to be a contradiction between reported data and the known laws of physics, there's something wrong with the data.
The people who have died are not going to be resurrected by believing in the truth of something that is false on the face of it. The dead are where they are for good or for ill. There's nothing we can do to honor or dishonor them.
Here's an experiment you can do yourself with a hammer, a nail and a board. Tap the nail in a small distance, then give it a whack with the hammer. The resistance of that board wasn't enough to keep the nail from moving, but it was enough to stop the hammer. That's the principle of the conservation of momentum.
The hammer does not keep moving until it hits wood; it stops when the amount of momentum in a single swing is expended.
If you believe that buildings can fall into themselves at the speed of gravity, this means that you do not believe in the law of the conservation of momentum. But don't take my word for it! Go ahead and try out your theory on a construction site.
hancock | Sep 11, 2010, 12:54 AM EDT
COO-KOO.
Andrew.W | Sep 10, 2010, 10:13 PM EDT
9/11 was a false flag operation carried out by mossad and the cia, those towers didn't disintegrate unaided, they were blown to smitherines. There is also a third highrise that fell that day, building 7. Apart from being an obvious implosion, it fell at freefall for over 2 seconds which is undeniable proof that the columns were removed, and the only known mechanism for achieving this is with cutter charges. I urge all readers to go to youtube and have another look at the collapse of those towers and, importantly, building 7.
Padraig | Sep 10, 2010, 04:18 PM EDT
DennisQ. You shame people who have already died. There is no definition in the language of man that would define your type. i quake for mankind when a man like you has power.
manhattan | Sep 10, 2010, 03:29 PM EDT
Dennis Q, First I wonder do you live in America? All your nasty comments no matter what the subject, if it is about my country you have nothing good or positive to say. Now why am I not surprised that you believe my Goverment was behind 9/11. People like you should really crawl into your cave on a day when we mourn and honor all that died that day.
signwoman | Sep 10, 2010, 10:42 AM EDT
The Lynch Family should be commended for their work and dedication to do something positive in the memory of their son! To help us remember those who gave their lives and those who sacrificed to save others.
Monsoonman | Sep 10, 2010, 10:06 AM EDT
You should join Doctor Rosie O'Donnel and Dr. Charles Sheen (after he is released from jail) and start a brain trust. Can't wait to see what your findings will be......BUSH!!!!!!!!!!
DennisQ | Sep 10, 2010, 01:58 AM EDT
The law of the conservation of momentum seems to have gone AWOL on September 11th. The fact that this anomaly is pushed out of the problem space raises questions about what else is Something We're Not Supposed to Ask About.
The firefighters did not expect the buildings to collapse. We've been told that they were, unfortunately, wrong about that. But what if they weren't wrong? We owe it to their memories to find out.
Let's put an end to the politicization of this tragedy. That will give us moral standing to reject bigots' exploiting these events for their own purposes. After all, if we do it ourselves we can't get all high and mighty that others also politicize 9-11.