The Brilliance of ... "Mary Poppins"

THE BRILLIANCE OF ...

Yes. You heard me right. Mary Poppins is brilliant. And right now, you can definitely tell I'm a father. But I must confess that I've loved this Disney musical since before I had a kids! Based on the 1934 book series written by P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins tells the story of a magical nanny (Julie Andrews) who comes to watch over two nice, sweet children -- sister Jane (Karen Dotrice) and brother Michael (Matthew Garber) Banks -- who also happen to be somewhat emotionally ignored by their parents, George (David Tomlinson, one of my favorite underrated actors) and Winifred (Glynis Johns). Everyone who knows even slightly about the movie knows that songs are sung and wackiness ensues. But what most viewers are missing is a deep, underlying message in the story. 

1.) Saving Mr. Banks

At the end of the film, it is not so much the children Jane and Michael who are "saved" as it is their father George.

With the upcoming release of the Tom Hanks/Emma Thompson film about the making of Mary Poppins and the rift between Walt Disney (Hanks) and Travers (Thompson), it is great in knowing that Travers' true story of Poppins will come to the forefront in pop culture knowledge. Travers' (whose real name was Helen Lyndon Goff) father, Travers, was a bank manager (eventually demoted to bank clerk), much like the George Banks character in the book/film. Unfortunately, he died young in 1907 at age 43. And it is, what many Travers biographers say, her father who inspired the George Banks character in her book. 

Throughout the film, Banks is always "on schedule," thinks "children should be seen and not heard," does not believe in make-believe, and is only concerned about living a comfortable life with money and the perfect image (as evidenced in the songs "The Life I Lead," "A British Bank (The Life I Lead)" and "Fidelity Fiduciary Bank"). Even though all of the adults around him are welcoming to Poppins' magic and ways, it is Banks who consistently puts down her tactics and beliefs in raising children. It is not until the end of the film when he opens up about his dreams and fears to Bert (Dick Van Dyke), and then realizes, thanks to Burt, that -- despite his blaming Poppins -- his children will grow up one day -- it happens fast -- and not only will he not have the same time he has with them now, but they also  may "not have time for him" just like he never did with them. The movie reminds us, through the George character, that life doesn't have to be taken so seriously ... especially if you have kids, because time flies fast and our own mortality is just around the corner. This storyline reminds us of the truly important things in life.

As seen in the scene above, Banks says Poppins "tricked" him into spending time with kids. It is then that Bert delicately lays down the law.

It can be said that -- like that cheesy reality show Nanny 9-1-1 -- Poppins was there to save Mr. Banks ... and ultimately his entire family. One cannot think of the "happy ending" in Poppins and not think about how Travers herself most likely yearned for her father while she was growing up (he died when she was only 7). The origin for Poppins came to Travers when she was a little girl, writing stories for her little sisters, and at a time when her father was being demoted, was an alcoholic, died and left her family destitute; her mother became hysterically overcome with grief, leaving her emotionally unbalanced (Picardie 2008). 

As shown in the 2013 movie, Saving Mr. Banks (to be released December 20, 2013), Travers was extremely annoyed with Walt Disney when she read what screenwriters Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi had come up with. The songs plus the inclusion of the cartoon world (i.e., penguins, race horses, etc.) especially irritated her. It is legend that after viewing the movie at its premiere (to which the author was not invited), Travers cried ... out of disappointment!

2.) The Music

Written by brothers Richard and Robert Sherman, the music for Mary Poppins follows a certain leitmotif. This theme is introduced in the song "The Life I Lead" and is appropriately heard throughout most of George Banks' songs -- even more proof that the story is just as much about him as it is about the children. For those who don't know the brilliant Sherman brothers' work, you do; you just don't know it. They've written songs for classic animated movies The Jungle Book, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The AristoCats, The Sword in the Stone, Charlotte's Web, as well as live-action movies Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Parent Trap, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the Disney park staple song "It's a Small  World (After All)" and the 1960 Johnny Burnette hit song "You're Sixteen." Their legacy was covered in the 2009 documentary The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, and I consider them two of the most prolific songwriters in music history.

Recently, The Hollywood Reporter attended a special sing-along with Richard Sherman (sadly, his brother Robert passed away last year), and asked him about he and his brother's first introduction to Mary Poppins. According to the Reporter article, "Sherman remembered that he and his brother had been called in for a 10-minute meeting with Walt Disney to discuss the project, but the meeting ended up running for two hours because they discussed in great detail the chapters of the Poppins novel. At one point they played some notes from a song that would become 'Feed the Birds' -- which, in turn, would become Disney's personal favorite song -- 'and he gave us our job,' Sherman said."

The Sherman brothers also convinced Disney to change the setting from the depression of the 1930s (which is what is in the book) to the Edwardian rule of 1910 England. This caused more of a rift with author Travers as she then only wanted classic music pieces that were popular during that time period. Luckily, the Sherman brothers stuck to their guns and what is delivered are some of the most popular, recognizable music of our time! The Sherman brothers used the music to their advantage when it came to advancing the women's civil rights movement -- through Mrs. Banks' song "Sister Suffragette," which puts her at odds with her husband (who does not believe in the women's right to vote), although she never voices her opposition and tries to go along with his "merry life" he leads. All of the songs -- especially "The Life I Lead," "A Spoonful of Sugar," "Jolly Holiday," "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," "I Love to Laugh," "Feed the Birds," "Chim Chim Cher-ee," "Step in Time," and "Let's Go Fly a Kite" -- are catchy, superb songs that capture every young person's ear and stays with them through the years.

To this day, the Mary Poppins soundtrack remains one of my most favorites! I sing "Feed the Birds" to my young daughters right before bedtime. In fact, "Feed the Birds" -- like Mr. Disney -- is one of my favorite songs of all time. Disguised as a mere ballad or lullaby about a bag-lady who sells bird feed, the song is about so much more. The song is not just about feeding birds. The birds represent mankind -- particularly the poor and meek -- and the message is that no matter what amount, whether monetary or material, we can all give of ourselves to help our fellow man. It is a God-like thing we can all do, and is represented in the lyric: "All around the cathedral the saints and apostles/Look down as she sells her wares/Although you can't see it,/You know they are smiling/Each time someone shows that he cares." Take that element, along with Julie Andrews' beautiful voice, and it is no wonder the film won an Academy Award/Oscar for best music!

 3.) A Trailblazing Author

Before there was J.K. Rowling, Harper Lee, or Flannery O'Connor, there was Helen Lyndon Goff, who would change her name to P.L. Travers. Some of her detractors thought of her as a "cold" woman, but she had quite the career. In the early 1920s, Travers was an actress, touring throughout Australia and New Zealand with a Shakespearean company, while also writing and publishing poems. In the early 1930s, she moved into a cottage in Sussex, England, and began writing Mary Poppins, which was eventually published in 1934. Even though the first story was officially published in 1934, Travers had early composition books from her childhood which held Mary Poppins stories she had written for her younger sisters.

During World War II, Travers lived in Manhattan, where she worked for the British Ministry of Information (England's publicity and propaganda machine), and was approached by Walt Disney's older brother and business partner Roy Disney about selling Poppins to Disney Studios in order to make a film. Whereas most authors would jump at the chance, Travers was hesitant. For more than 20 years, Walt Disney periodically made efforts to convince Travers to allow him to make a Poppins film. He finally succeeded in 1961, although Travers demanded and got script approval rights. Planning the film and composing the songs took about two years. Travers objected to a number of elements that actually made it into the film. Somehow, Disney was able to attain the rights and the relationship between he and Travers was "icy." Later, in 1993, when Broadway producer Cameron Mackintosh met with Travers -- who was in her 90s -- to acquire rights to make a Broadway musical adaptation of Mary Poppins, Travers said he could do it on one condition: only English-born writers and no one from the Disney film production were to be directly involved with the creative process of the stage musical. Thus, Downton Abbey creator/writer Julian Fellowes wrote the adaptation.

In her personal life, Travers was known to have romantic relationships with both men and women, and, at the age of 40, she adopted an Irish boy named Camillus Hone. She never married and, in a time when being a single parent was unheard of, she did just that. Her character Mary Poppins is a testament to a strong female character and paved the way for many other such characters -- in both realism and fantasy.

4.) Groundbreaking Technology

Before Mary Poppins came on the scene in 1964, only two prior films had mixed live-action actors with animated characters: first, in 1945, with Anchors Aweigh, which featured Gene Kelly dancing with Jerry the mouse (from Tom and Jerry); and, second, in 1946, with Disney's Song of the South, which featured actor James Baskett interacting with an entire animated world. While the former found Jerry being drawn onto the live-action film, the latter was not very popular and did not really get much notice from audiences. But when Poppins came along, critics, audiences and filmmakers alike all noticed the mixed cartoon/live stage world that Poppins, Bert, and the children stepped into.

The technology used in Poppins and its predecessors would be used to make films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and would go on to inspire special FX artists -- and even computer graphic artists -- around the world. If it weren't for Poppins, it's safe to say that this technology may have taken even longer to get off the ground. 

What's more important than technological advance, though, is how it sparked every viewer's imagination. Watching the actors interact with cartoon characters made the viewer believe these characters were in an animated world and it helped the film all the more for it.

Just a few years ago, I was eager to show my daughters Mary Poppins and continue the tradition started when I was a kid. For its great music, animation, lively story and spark of imagination, Mary Poppins is a brilliant film!

"Full-time Dads: Economics, Joy, Personal Development and Dealing with Naysayers"

The attached article is by Stephanie Hepburn, entitled "Full-time Dads: Economics, Joy, Personal Development and Dealing with Naysayers." I was interviewed this past May/June and am happy to see this article printed for other stay-at-home dads. To view the story, click on the picture below.

Stay-at-home dad Nate Walker and his son

Let Us Truly Not Forget

Dedicated to all of the lives lost on September 11, 2001. 

 

On the 12-year anniversary of the most influential days in American history -- September 11, 2001 -- let us Americans truly not forget what was lost that day. The first thought that comes to mind are, of course, the 2,977 innocent civilians killed that day in airplanes, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center Twin Towers. Anyone who has read this blog knows that each year I post my story about how 9/11 specifically touched my life on its one-year anniversary. It's a story of hope. And I love that story. However, I wanted to do something different this year.

I've always had an inquisitive mind. When I tell stories, much to my wife's disliking, I tell as much detail as possible. If anything, my wanting to get all the facts has only intensified as I've grown older. I've also learned to question things even more. Sadly, there is not enough of this nowadays. If anything, people mostly believe what some talking head tells them on a cable television news show and if it lines up with their beliefs, then they accept it and move on. But I'm not built that way.

Now I know what most of you reading this are thinking! Whoa, whoa, whoa! He mentions 9/11 and questioning things!? Oh no! He's not one of those stupid conspiracy theorists, is he!? The short answer is ... no. Others may be saying/asking 9/11!? We already know what happened. Can't you just let it go and move on? Well, with that attitude, maybe we should never investigate anything when new information is discovered and facts are unearthed and/or found to have been ignored. This is when I can't help but think of a routine by one of my favorite comedians -- and people -- of all time, Bill Hicks (I call him Professor Hicks) regarding the President Kennedy assassination (start at the 3:52 time mark):

"I deal only in facts. That's why I'm a cocky bastard."

As seen in the routine above, I feel as if forgetting just one death let alone the deaths of approximately 3,000 innocent civilians is unimaginable. This goes for any country -- not just the U.S. But that's not the only reason why I'm writing this. I'm writing this because I feel there is not much truly known about 9/11. The public doesn't know half of the facts. And I believe some truth is in order. As Prof. Hicks would say, "I'm going to share something with you, because I love you. And you feel it."  

Now. For those who want to just carry on with the knowledge provided thus far by the admittedly (by 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton) set-up-to-fail 9/11 Commission -- the story being that 9/11 was orchestrated by Al-Qaeda, and the U.S. government was completely in the dark about the entire thing -- then you might want to stop reading. Don't get me wrong. I believe Al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks. Let me reiterate: THIS IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY ARTICLE. I am not accusing the government of perpetrating or going along with the attack. However, I know there are truly a lot of odd facts that have been discovered and have gone -- and continue to go -- unanswered, uninvestigated and/or unreported. I want to present those facts to you. You make your own decisions.

It seems this method of thinking is the preferred, dominant attitude amongst U.S. citizens when it comes to people's reactions to those who question the government's story.

Just remember:

So, to truly honor those we lost on 9/11/2001, I am going to present to you facts that are not fabricated nor fiction.

#1) The investigation: 
A majority of 9/11 families and friends (those who lost loved ones on 9/11) know these same new-found facts and want another investigation. Why should we deny them that? Because it cost too much money? First of all, remember that if it were not for a small, dedicated group of widows who lost their husbands on 9/11, there would have been no first investigation at all! Bush and Cheney did not want an investigation. Big deal -- we all know what happened! Well, even though the government knew what happened with other disastrous events throughout history, that did not stop them from setting up investigations. Secondly, remember that the U.S. government spent $100 million on the President Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal (which basically involved whether the President was having an extramarital affair or not with Lewinsky and Paula Jones, and whether or not he lied about saying he didn't; certainly this did not involve 3,000 deaths), as opposed to the ultimate $15 million for the creation and funding of the 9/11 Commission (which only initially began with $3 million). It took the U.S. government six (6) days before they decided to investigate the sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912; seven (7) days for both the President Kennedy assassination and Space Shuttle Challenger disaster; and nine (9) days before investigating the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (yes, there was an investigation; more on that later). However, one of the worst attacks ever on American soil, and Bush was not intending to investigate ... at all!

When the 9/11 Commission and investigation were finally approved, it was decided by Bush that former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger would be appointed to head the Commission. Kissinger is a man known for his secrecy and an unwavering friendship with disgraced President Richard Nixon. When the 9/11 Family Steering Committee (made up of the 9/11 victims' families who pushed for the investigation) found out Kissinger's role and did a little investigating of their own, they found something quite interesting:      

Because of this shocking conflict of interest, former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean was selected -- along with Lee Hamilton -- to replace Kissinger as co-chair of the 9/11 Commission. However, the conflict-of-interest did not stop with Kissinger by the Bush White House. At the recommendation of Hamilton, Philip Zelikow was chosen to be the executive director of the 9/11 Commission -- a position which would have Zelikow ultimately decide what is investigated and what is not, what goes into the report and what does not. This caused the 9/11 Family Steering Committee just as much anger as the attempt of Kissinger's appointment. Why? Well, Zelikow had ties to the Bush White House. Why is this important? Well, why is it important to see if our government responded the best they could to a strategic act of war? You might as well ask why it's important to even hold our politicians accountable for failure. And if somebody who has ties to the administration which is under investigation is the person in charge of investigating that same administration's actions, then there's obviously a conflict-of-interest problem. Zelikow had helped manage Bush's National Security Council (NSC) transition team, along with his co-writer buddy Condoleezza Rice, and had direct contact with the U.S. "terrorism czar" Richard Clarke, who it's been proven had time and time again made it a mission to notify Bush's NSC of the imminent threat of Al-Qaeda attacking the U.S.  However, Clarke was shooed away by Zelikow and the NSC, and the warnings were buried.
   

Zelikow did agree to recuse himself from any part of the 9/11 investigation involving the NSC's transition. However, in Philip Shenon's book The Commission: What We Didn't Know About 9/11, it is reported that, during the investigation, Zelikow kept in constant contact with Rice (who had been requested many times by the 9/11 Commission to testify and denied each request), and Bush's Senior Adviser Karl Rove.     

Rice eventually agreed to publicly testify under oath:   

Even though there was documented history of Al-Qaeda being violent toward the U.S. -- the 1997 Peter Arnett interview in which he stated jihad against the U.S. (and notice bin Laden does not say they waged jihad on the U.S. because of its freedoms), the CIA creation of the bin Laden Unit in 1996, acts against the U.S. (the first WTC bombing in February 1993, the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, the attempted New Year's Eve 1999/2000 LAX bombing, the 2000 USS Cole bombing), Clarke stressing time and time again the importance of dealing with Al-Qaeda/bin Laden to NSA Rice, and the final 8/6/2001 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) -- Rice, believing someone had to still tell Bush and his administration to do something about Al-Qaeda, said this in front of the 9/11 Commission and the 9/11 families:

Dr. Rice: "I remember very well that the President was aware that there were issues inside the United States. He talked to people about this. But I don't remember the Al-Qaeda cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about."

Mr. Ben-Veniste: "Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6 PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB."

Dr. Rice: "I believe the title was 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'"

According to then-National Security Advisor Rice, the decision to not respond militarily to the USS Cole bombing (in Yemen in 2000) was Bush's; President Clinton had responded to the August 7, 1998, U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya with a missile attack on August 20, 1998, but failed to kill or injure Bin Laden or Al-Qaeda forces. Rice said he (Bush) "made clear to us that he did not want to respond to Al-Qaeda one attack at a time. He told me he was 'tired of swatting flies.'" 

However, as 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey pointed out to Rice:

"Dr. Rice, we only swatted a fly once on the 20th of August, 1998. We didn't swat any flies afterward. How the hell can he [Bush] be tired?"

Most people may think the single August 6, 2001, PDB was not enough to justify Bush taking action against Al-Qaeda. Well, how about 5 PDBs? How about 15? How about 20? Well, how about 40? According to many reports, including Condi Rice (although she denies it had any dangerous warnings about Al-Qaeda, but, from what I've shown above, her idea of "dangerous warnings" is truly suspect), stretching back as far as May 2001, Bush received approximately 40 PDBs pertaining to Al-Qaeda's presence in and/or threat to America. 

When Colin Powell was asked by Bush's chief of staff Andrew Card to resign as U.S. Secretary of State in November 2004 (a dark period which I cannot fully describe the shockwaves this news sent throughout the halls of the State Department at the time), the Bush administration found someone who could be undoubtedly reliable when it came to blind loyalty (and proved that loyalty with her ridiculous 9/11 Commission testimony): Dr. Condoleezza Rice. Rice had proven time and again that she fully supported the Bush administration's immediate declaration of war on Iraq after 9/11 -- unlike Powell, who at first had wanted to only go after the true culprits of 9/11 after it first happened and was investigated: Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and not Iraq/Saddam Hussein (it wasn't until Powell had received reports of so-called weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and chemical weapons owned by Iraq that he agreed to support the war in Iraq and made his eventual testimony -- which he would admit in 2005 to be a "blot" on his career -- before the United Nations Security Council in February 2003). 

When the 9/11 Commission presented its findings to the Bush administration and the world in late July 2004,  Kean said this:   

"On that fateful September day, ... this was a failure of policy, management, capability, and, above all, a failure of imagination" (emphasis added).

Seems to me that if someone -- whose job it is to protect this country and its citizens -- drops the ball numerous times -- so much so that approximately 3,000 people are killed -- and the lead commissioner investigating the attacks finds there was a "failure of ... management, capability," then, on the grounds of incompetence, the job should be given to someone else. In the aftermath of the December 7, 1941, Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor (which left 2,402 Americans dead), the government held nine (9) investigations in all and ultimately found the Fleet commander, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, and the Army commander, Lt. General Walter Short, guilty of "dereliction of duty," for not making reasonable defensive preparations. The two men were relieved of their commands, which is a nice way to say they were fired.
    

And yet, incompetent government officials and military commanders (as I will further show) were not even so much as demoted after their extreme failure; if anything, they were given promotions. "So what does that matter, man? It's done. There's nothing to do now. Let it go." Well, in the contemporary White House administration, the public is seeing why it is so important to hold responsible parties' feet to the fire. If the public does not force the government to be held accountable for their actions, government incompetence, lying and trampling on the U.S. Constitution will happen again and again and again. Case in point: Benghazi, Syria, wiretapping, supporting terrorists, a President alone being able to abusively declare a preemptive war, etc. Our current President is not the first to do this and, thanks to the precedence set as a result of the handling of 9/11, he certainly will not be the last.

#2) WTC-7:

Building 7 (seen here in the middle) of the WTC complex was a 47-floor, steel-framed building which collapsed at 5:20 p.m on 9/11/2001.

Let me guess. You haven't heard of World Trade Center (WTC) Building 7. And there's a good chance you haven't because the 9/11 Commission did not investigate nor mention it in their report. WTC 7 housed offices for the New York City's Office of Emergency Management (OEM), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Secret Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the CIA, and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, among others. On the slight chance that you have heard of WTC-7, you probably immediately go back to the entire "conspiracy theory" thing. Ask the 9/11 family members if they think this is some "conspiracy theory." I find it interesting that a nation of people who are so quick to evoke images of that horrific event every year on its anniversary suddenly get so closed-minded and/or stand-offish when questions are brought up ... even by 9/11 family members!

Well, I guess Helen Keller was right:
   

The facts. WTC buildings 1 (North) and 2 (South) were each respectively hit by a 757 passenger jet at 8:46 a.m. and a 767 passenger jet at 9:03 a.m. The North Tower (Tower 1) collapsed at 10:28 a.m., 102 minutes after the impact. The South Tower (Tower 2) collapsed at 9:59 a.m., 56 minutes after the impact. What a lot of people do not know is that a building 100 yards away from the WTC towers, known as Building 7 of the WTC, sustained minimal fire damage, and it collapsed evenly with freefall speed at 5:20 p.m.

I have extensively studied this building and its destruction. I'm no physicist, that's for sure. However, fortunately, the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (over 1,700 members strong) -- along with the support of thousands of family and friends of 9/11 victims -- have stepped in to help prove that the official National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) explanation for Building 7's collapse is nonsense.

The official story goes that after the North Tower (Tower 1) collapsed, debris from that building ejected into Building 7. The worst damage (seen below) was a gash in the southwest lower corner of the building.
     

Aside from that, there were fires reported on floors 6-10, 13-14, 19-22, and 29-30. Some of the pics here show that although fires did burn long, the only fuel they had were paper and office furniture.
            

At 5:20 p.m. on 9/11/01, Building 7 collapsed into its own footprint -- like Towers 1 and 2.

Most say there were no explosions; however, there are plenty of eyewitness accounts of just such a thing -- as well as some audio-visual proof in the following video:



These explosions (as given on the actual day per the numerous spontaneous TV news interviews of cops, firemen and eyewitnesses, some of them with wartime/military experience) could easily be car(s) exploding or some kind of random large equipment, but whether it was that or something else, the public will never know for sure as there was no investigation into these reported explosions ... even though there were traces of explosive residue found in the rubble at Ground Zero. Reported by NIST, the sole cause for the collapse of the entire building were the fires. This is the first and last steel building to ever collapse from fire alone. NIST states:

"The collapse of WTC 7 was caused by a single initiating event: the failure of a northeast building column brought on by fire-induced damage to the adjacent flooring system and connections."

To give you a better understanding of what NIST is stating, imagine a Jenga tower. You take out a few chunks of just one corner of the tower. It would eventually fall, but it would fall toward the side where there is the most structural weakness. Not all evenly at once.

Look familiar to WTC Building 7? This is One Meridian Plaza, a 38-floor skyscraper in Philadelphia, PA, that suffered a severe fire on February 23, 1991. The fire started on the 22nd floor and raged for 18 hours, gutting eight floors and causing an estimated $100 million in direct property loss. The fire caused window breakage, cracking of granite, and failures of spandrel panel connections. Despite the severity and duration of the fire, as evidenced by the damage the building sustained, no part of the building collapsed.   

This is the First Interstate Bank Building, a 62-story skyscraper in Los Angeles, CA. From the late evening of May 4, 1988, through the early morning of the next day, 64 fire companies battled the blaze, which lasted for three-and-a-half hours. The fire caused extensive window breakage, which complicated firefighting efforts. Large flames jutted out of the building during the blaze. The fire caused an estimated $200 million in direct property loss. In spite of the total burnout of four-and-a-half floors, there was no damage to the main structural members and only minor damage to one secondary beam and a small number of floor pans. The building did not collapse.

One New York Plaza is a 50-story office tower less than a mile from the WTC site. It suffered a severe fire and explosion on August 5, 1970. The fire started around 6 p.m., and burned for more than 6 hours. Notice the blaze is on two floors, taking up all sides of the building. The building did not collapse.

These examples were taken into account by NIST. They stated the difference between these buildings and WTC 7 were:

"1) Fires in high rise buildings typically have a single point of origin on a single floor, whereas the fires in WTC 7 likely had a single point of origin on multiple (10) floors; 2) fires in other high-rise buildings were due to isolated events, whereas the fires in WTC 7 followed the collapse of WTC 1; 3) water was available to fight fires in the other high-rise buildings, but the water supply to fight fires in WTC 7 was impaired; and 4) while the fires in the other buildings were actively fought by firefighters to the extent possible, in WTC 7, no efforts were made to fight the fires."

However, unfortunately for NIST, the three examples below occurred and negated their last two reasons (although the first 2 reasons are irrelevant: fires starting on 10 floors is the same as a fire starting on one or two floors and spreading while burning for hours; and a fire starting because of an isolated event rather than following the collapse of WTC 1 is a moot excuse because NIST had already stated that WTC 7 collapsed due to a "single initiating event" which is the same as an "isolated event" -- a fire is a fire):

The tallest skyscraper in Caracas, Venezuela, experienced a severe fire on October 17, 2004. The blaze began before midnight on the 34th floor, spread to more than 26 floors, and burned for more than 17 hours. Heat from the fires prevented firefighters from reaching the upper floors, and smoke injured 40 firefighters. The building did not collapse.

On February 9, 2009, the Hotel Mandarin Oriental, a nearly-completed (no working sprinkler system) 520-foot-tall skyscraper in Beijing, caught fire (as a result of illegal fireworks) around 8:27 p.m., was engulfed within 20 minutes, and burned for at least 3 hours until midnight. Despite the fact that the fire extended across all of the floors for a period of time and burned out of control for hours, NO large portion of the structure collapsed, and the structure was still standing by morning light.

On April 3, 2013, a luxury hotel in Chechnya -- its tallest building -- caught fire and burned straight for 29 hours without collapse. Some "debunkers" say that the reason the building still stood is because it caught fire on the building's exterior while WTC 7 caught fire inside. However, as one can see in the other two examples before it, that explanation is in and of itself flawed and ridiculous.

However, WTC 7, a 47-story-tall steel-framed building, which only had fires spread out throughout a few sections of its 10 floors, EVENLY collapses at freefall speed (7 seconds) -- with no obstruction or delay in its collapse -- looking like controlled demolition. Despite what -- according to NIST and those who believe it collapsed purely by office fires -- should be labeled a "scientific miracle" and extensively studied because of its rarity, the building is never mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report and NIST simply writes if off as completely collapsing due to "regular fires from office materials catching fire."

NIST's figures show WTC 7 as looking like this -- with its twisted outer facade -- as it collapsed:

Watch again. Is the diagram above with its twisting facade how the building looked when it collapsed?

Let it also be noted that WTC buildings 3, 4, 5, and 6 all had major debris from buildings 1 and 2 fall on top of them (remember: buildings 3, 4, and 6 were closer to the Twin Towers than building 7), taking out huge chunks of them. However, neither one of these four buildings completely collapsed.

On a final note, WTC owner Larry Silverstein was interviewed by PBS about the day of 9/11/01 and there is a snippet of him that most "conspiracy theorists" love to point out as "pull" is a demolition term, meaning, "professionally bring down by explosives." Regarding WTC 7, Silverstein says (video below): "I remember getting a call from the fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull, and we watched the building collapse." 

Most "conspiracy" debunkers say that when Silverstein said "pull it," the "it" was referring to the group of firemen, as in pull them out of there. However, having spoken English for so long, since when does "it" refer to a group of people? The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) also reported that there were no firefighters in the building at the time of this conversation. Other debunkers state that "pull it" is referring to bringing down the buildings with cables .. but after the building is already in ruins. I never saw any cables or construction trucks/machines near the scene. 

What most have not concluded is that maybe Silverstein did mean "pull it" as in "pull it down ... when construction crews would eventually have time to approach the building." However, the building mysteriously collapses -- evenly and at freefall speed -- before any crews get a chance. The important thing is not what Silverstein said. It's the fact that NIST said regular fires caused a perfect freefall implosion. Nevertheless, this is a small bit of trivia that I wanted to list just to throw it out there. I am not condoning or condemning either side's explanation.

But ... I'll finish this topic with this: NIST said the collapse of WTC7 was from normal office fires.  The technical explanation is that floor beams expanded because of heat and ultimately pushed a single column, column 79 off of its seating.  That, NIST says, caused the entire collapse of the building.  But what NIST told the public in 2008 was the reason these columns were pushed loose is because they were unrestrained.

However, in 2012, after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was granted, it was discovered that that claim was not true, that the columns were not unrestrained. In fact there were 3,896 shear studs holding those columns in place. The beams could not expand far enough and if they could expand enough, those stiffeners (shear studs) would stop that girder from falling off. They were bonded. But none of that mattered to NIST. They continue to roll on with their story.   

#3) Put Options:

On September 19, 2001, CBS News reported:

"An extraordinary number of trades were betting that American Airlines' stock price would fall. The trades are called 'puts' and they involved at least 450,000 shares of American. But what raised the red flag is more than 80 percent of the orders were 'puts,' far outnumbering 'call' options, those betting the stock would rise. Sources say they have never seen that kind of imbalance before, reports CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. Normally the numbers are fairly even. After the terrorist attacks, American Airlines' stock price did fall obviously by 39 percent, and according to sources, that translated into well over $5 million total profit for the person or persons who bet the stock would fall."

The 9/11 Commission briefly mentioned this event in a footnote of chapter five of its report:

"A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to Al-Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the United Airlines (UAL) puts on September 6, 2001, as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American Airlines on September 10, 2001 ... Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American Airlines on September 10 was traced to specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, 2001, which recommended these trades." 

When David Callahan, executive editor of SmartCEO, submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), regarding the pre-9/11 put options, the SEC responded on December 23, 2009:

"This letter is in response to your request seeking access to and copies of the documentary evidence referred to in footnote 130 of Chapter 5 of the September 11 (9/11) Commission Report. ... We have been advised that the potentially responsive records have been destroyed."

Despite an agreement between the SEC and and the U.S. National Archive which states that the SEC would keep all records for at least 25 years, these "responsive records" (documents) were destroyed. Simply because these put options were placed by "U.S.-based institutions" (and because "U.S.-based institutions" apparently never steal or lie), there was no further investigating. As far as the Commission was concerned, it was merely coincidence that the two airlines used to facilitate one of the deadliest attacks on our country had put options (betting that stock would fall) placed on them mere days before said attacks. Sadly, the put options were not the only "coincidences" that day.

#4) "Coincidences":

When football player/actor O.J. Simpson was put on trial for the murder of his estranged wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, DNA evidence was produced which linked Simpson to the murders, but when he was asked to try on in court a pair of gloves found at the scene of the crime, Simpson made a show of struggling to try and fit his hands into the gloves. This lead to Simpson's defense attorney Johnny Cochran's (in)famous catchphrase, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." And the jury did just that. Simpson was found not guilty of the two murders -- although two years later, he would go on to be found "liable of the wrongful deaths" in a civil trial.

When Florida mother Casey Anthony went on trial for the death of her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Caylee Anthony, there was all kinds of evidence against Casey: Caylee had been missing for 30 days before Casey was prompted by her mother (Caylee's grandmother) to call 9-1-1 and report the little girl missing; Casey repeatedly lied about her employment, whereabouts, and a supposed nanny who took Caylee (coincidentally, there was a woman with the real name of the nanny and she has had to endure death threats even though she had nothing to do with the disappearance or death); and Casey's internet search included "neck breaking" and "how to make chloroform" (which was used in Caylee's death); and Casey's behavior during her daughter's disappearance included many photos of her partying at night clubs. Casey was found not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, and aggravated manslaughter of a child. She was only found guilty of providing false information to police and was immediately released with time served. All of these facts and evidence were merely coincidence. I mean, they must have been. Both Simpson and Anthony were acquitted.

And yet, most people today believe O.J. and Anthony are guilty. The reason a majority of people think this is because those people have common sense. Common sense tells you that when you have so many coincidences, they are no longer coincidences.

Now let's look at 9/11. 9/11 Family Steering Committee member Mindy Kleinberg (who lost her husband Alan in the WTC) says:

"With regard to the 9/11 attacks, it has been said that the intelligence agencies have to be right 100 percent of the time and the terrorists only have to get lucky once. This explanation for the devastating attacks of September 11th, simple on its face, is wrong in its value, because the 9/11 terrorists were not just lucky once. They were lucky over and over again. ... Is it luck that aberrant stock trades were not monitored? Is it luck when 15 visas are awarded based on incomplete forms? Is it luck when airline security screeners allow hijackers to board planes with box cutters and pepper spray? Is it luck when emergency FAA and NORAD protocols are not followed? Is it luck when a national emergency is not reported to top government officials on a timely basis? To me, luck is something that happens once. When you have this repeated pattern of broken protocols, broken laws, broken communication, one cannot still call it luck. If at some point we don't look to hold the individuals accountable for not doing their jobs properly, then how can we ever expect for terrorists to not get lucky again?"

There is one possible (and the most likely) answer to Mrs. Kleinberg's questions. Incompetence. Even though some of the answers to some of these questions go beyond incompetence, most of these questions can be answered with that response. However, incompetence is just as bad as collusion when those who were hired to protect and defend our country (and its citizens) fail so badly that thousands of people are murdered. And what makes it worse is when there is no accountability whatsoever. In an environment like the federal government where "C.Y.A." (Cover Your Ass) is an actual term in the political halls, it is no surprise that those who failed at their jobs did not reveal their failure nor apologize for it. Well, all but one: Richard Clarke, who actually did do his job in reporting the threat of Al-Qaeda to both President Clinton and Bush as much as possible.

You may ask So what's the big deal? So there are a lot of coincidences? People make mistakes. Besides, who would we hold accountable? Well, let me explain. Making mistakes is not wrong. But not being held accountable for them is. Especially when you have a system of government that is supposed to defend and protect our country and all of those lives in it, and they spend billions of taxpayer dollars every year for this defense. Nevertheless, 3,000 civilians are still killed. When that happens, it's safe to say it's time to make some changes ... and it should begin with the administration which was in office at the time it happened. Otherwise, the next administration knows what kind of incompetence they can get away with. So, I ask again, when 3,000 people are killed -- despite multiple warnings, a history of attacks, and an admitted "failure of management" -- shouldn't incompetence of such magnitude be met with termination (of those individuals), demotion, and/or reorganization?

#5) Visas:

Mrs. Kleinberg says it best:

"Prior to 9/11, our U.S. intelligence agencies should have stopped the 19 terrorists from entering this country for intelligence reasons alone. However, their failure to do so in 19 instances does not negate the luck involved for the terrorists when it comes to their visa applications and our Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). With regard to the INS, the terrorists got lucky 15 individual times because 15 of the 19 hijackers' visas should have been unquestionably denied. Most of the 19 hijackers were young, unmarried, unemployed males. They were, in short, the classic overstay candidates. A seasoned former Consular Officer stated in National Review Magazine, 'Single, idle young adults with no specific destination in the U.S. rarely get visas absent compelling circumstances.' Yet these 19 young, single, unemployed, 'classic overstay candidates still received their visas.' All of these [visa application] forms (by the hijackers) are incomplete and incorrect. Some of the terrorists listed their means of support as simply 'student,' failing to then list the name and address of any school or institution. Others, when asked about their means of support for their stay in the United States wrote 'myself' and provided no further documentation. Some of the terrorists listed their destination as simply 'hotel' or 'California' or 'New York.' One even listed his destination as 'no.' Had the INS or the State Department followed the law, at least 15 of the hijackers would have been denied visas and would not have been in the U.S. on September 11, 2001. Help us to understand how something as simple as reviewing forms of completeness could have been missed at least 15 times."

When interviewed by the 9/11 Commission, the INS simply responded they were "following protocol."

Former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from 1987 to 1989, J. Michael Springmann testified that he was "ordered by high-level U.S. State Department officials [Consul General Jay Freres] to issue visas to unqualified applicants," who, Springmann claims, were terrorist recruits of Osama bin Laden. Springmann also claimed these recruits were being sent to the U.S. in order to obtain training from the CIA. When Springmann refused to issue the visas and issued formal complaints to "high authorities" in various government agencies, he was soon fired by the State Department. After 9/11/01, Springmann noticed that 15 of the 19 hijackers obtained their visas from the very same CIA consulate in Jeddah.

#6) NORAD vs. FAA:

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) blamed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as to the reason NORAD was not timely alerted to the hijackings. However, NORAD has changed their timeline of events three different times as to when they were alerted and when jets were scrambled.

1. The first official response was by Gen. Richard Myers, who was testifying at his Senate confirmation hearing for his nomination as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff just two days after the attacks. He swore that no fighter jets were scrambled to intercept any of the hijacked 9/11 flights until after the Pentagon was hit. As the Vice Chairman, and acting Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Myers was in a position to know exactly what happened on 9/11.

2. Less than a week later, NORAD released a conflicting story of the events on Sept. 11. It showed that the US Air Force and NORAD were alerted to multiple hijacked aircraft well before they crashed. The report also says, ‘General Eberhart reiterated this timeline in testimony to the U.S. Senate a few weeks later and for over two years it stood as the official account.’ According to Gen. Eberhart and NORAD’s own timeline, the defense agency was notified about Flight 175 at 8:43 a.m., a full 20 minutes before it impacted the south tower. Investigators detail, ‘F-15 interceptor jets from Otis Air Force Base were said to be airborne by 8:52 a.m., having been scrambled in response to the first hijacking. This allowed twice the time needed for the jets to reach New York City before Flight 175 crashed.’

3. In May 2003, Gen. Eberhart’s subordinates General Arnold and Colonel William Alan Scott contradicted their commander’s testimony. They changed the official timeline to show that NORAD wasn’t alerted to Flight 175 until 3 minutes after it crashed into the south tower. The two commanders also confirmed that NORAD was aware of the final hijacked plane over Pennsylvania a full 47 minutes before it crashed.

Lending credence to the many critics of the official 9/11 Commission Report, the investigation shows how NORAD and the Pentagon were able to slip a fourth and final story into the government’s official version of the events of Sept. 11. The investigators wrote: 

4. "In this explanation, NORAD received 'no advance notice' on any of the last three hijacked airliners. Instead of 20 minutes’ notice on Flight 175, and 14 minutes’ notice on Flight 77, and 47 minutes’ notice on Flight 93, we were told that NORAD was not notified about any of them until it was too late. The military was off the hook entirely." 

  

Kleinberg continues: "... Prior to 9/11, FAA and DoD manuals gave clear comprehensive instructions on how to handle everything from minor emergencies to full-blown hijackings. These protocols were in place and were practiced regularly for a good reason -- with heavily trafficked airspace, airliners without radio and transponder contact, are collisions waiting to happen. These protocols dictate that in the event of an emergency, the FAA is to notify NORAD. Once that notification takes place, it is then the responsibility of NORAD to scramble fighter jets to intercept the errant plane. It is a matter of routine procedure for fighter jets to intercept commercial airliners in order to regain contact with the pilot. In fact, between June 2000 and September 2001, fighter jets were scrambled 67 times. If that weren't enough protection, on September 11th, the Northeast Air Defense System (NEADS) department of NORAD was several days into a semi-annual exercise known as Vigilant Guardian. This meant that our NEADS was fully staffed. In short, key officers were manning the operation battle center, fighter jets were cocked, loaded, and carrying extra gas on board. Lucky for the terrorists none of that mattered on September 11th. Let me use Flight 11 as an example. American Airlines Flight 11 departed Boston Logan Airport at 7:45 a.m. The last routine communication between ground control and the plane occurred at 8:13 a.m. Between 8:13 and 8:20, Flight 11 became unresponsive to ground control. Additionally, radar indicated that the plane had deviated from its assigned path of flight. Soon thereafter, transponder contact was lost. Two Flight 11 airline attendants had separately called American Airlines reporting a hijacking, the presence of weapons and the inflictions of injuries upon passengers and crew. At this point it would seem abundantly clear that Flight 11 was an emergency. And yet, according to NORAD's official timeline, NORAD was not contacted until 20 minutes later at 8:40 a.m. Tragically, the fighter jets were not deployed until 8:52 a.m., a full 32 minutes after loss of contact with Flight 11. Why was there a delay in the FAA notifying NORAD? Why was there a delay in NORAD's scrambling fighter jets? How is this possible when NEADS was fully staffed with planes at the ready, monitoring our airspace? ... Flights 175, 77 and 93 all had this same repeat pattern of delays in notification and delays in scrambling fighter jets, delays that are unimaginable considering a plane had, by this time, already hit the World Trade Center. Even more baffling is the fact that fighter jets were not scrambled from the closest Air Force bases. For example, for the flight that hit the Pentagon, the jets were scrambled from Langley Air Force, in Hampton, Virginia, rather than Andrews Air Force Base right outside D.C. As a result, Washington skies remained wholly unprotected on the morning of September 11th. At 9:41 a.m., one hour and 21 minutes after the first plane was hijack confirmed by NORAD, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The fighter jets were still miles away. Why? So the hijackers' luck had continued. On September 11, both the FAA and NORAD deviated from standard emergency operating procedures. In addition, the interceptor planes or fighter jets did not fly at their maximum speed. Had the belatedly scrambled fighter jets flown at their maximum speed of engagement, they would have reached New York City and the Pentagon within moments of their deployment, intercepted the hijacked airliners before they could have hit their targets, and undoubtedly saved lives.       

       

    "The acting Joint Chief of  Staff on September 11th was General Richard B. Myers. On the morning of September 11th, he was having a routine meeting. The acting Joint Chief of Staff stated that he saw a TV report about a plane hitting the World Trade Center but thought it was a small plane or something like that. So, he went ahead with his meeting. Meanwhile, the second World Trade Center was hit by another jet. 'Nobody informed us of that,' Myers said. By the time he came out of this meeting, the Pentagon had been hit. Whose responsibility was it to relay this emergency to the Joint Chief of Staff? Have they been held accountable for this error? Surely this represents a breakdown in protocol. The Secretary of Defense was at his desk doing paperwork when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. As reported, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld felt the building shake, went outside, saw the damage and started helping the injured onto stretchers. After aiding the victims, the Secretary then went to the War Room. How is it possible that the National Military Command Center, located in the Pentagon and in contact with law enforcement and air-traffic controllers from 8:46 a.m., did not communicate to the Secretary of Defense, also at the Pentagon, about the other hijacked planes, especially the one headed to Washington? How is it that the Secretary of Defense could have remained at his desk until the crash? Whose responsibility is it to relay emergency situations to him?" 

Major General Larry Arnold wrote how NORAD’s 9/11 response was “immediate” and “impressive.” Arnold claimed, “we were able to identify, track and escort suspected hijacked aircraft after the initial attacks,” “our reaction time outpaced the process in some instances,” “our well-practiced rapid response capability may very well have prevented additional surprise attacks on the American homeland, saving countless lives,” and so on. If their response was considered “immediate” and “impressive,” I wonder what they think of as a failure? Maybe this is why there were no firings or demotions but only promotions in NORAD and the DoD.  

The FAA and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) were questioned by the 9/11 Commission regarding terror suspects’ names on a watchlist:   

   

•MR. GORTON (9/11 COMMISSION): “Yeah, that's right, but you only had 20 names that fell into that category and there were thousands of names on a TIPOFF list, all of whom were suspected terrorists. And so I gather the decision at some place or another was that a suspected terrorist who had not specifically been linked to aircraft was okay to fly?”   

•MR. MANNO (TSA): “The names -- including the 20 names were names that were specifically identified to us in intelligence reporting. The process was for the intelligence reporting to indicate to us those that we ought to be concerned about.”  

•MR. GORTON: “And you made no further inquiry beyond that? You didn't ask for a list of suspected terrorists?”  

•MR. MANNO: “You mean through TIPOFF?”

•MR. GORTON: "Yes."   

•MR. MANNO: “No, we did not go to the State Department and ask them to give us all 61,000 names so that they could be put on the watchlist. For one thing, the airlines would not have been able to handle such a list.”  

•MR. GORTON: “Well, they weren't given the opportunity, were they?”   

•MR. MANNO: “Well, we know that today, sir, because today we are managing a similar list which is of about 3,500 names which requires the carriers to check against a reservation system, and they're struggling just even with those.”   

•MR. JOHN F. LEHMAN (9/11 COMMISSION): “But they sure had no trouble handling their frequent flyer lists -- I mean that's ridiculous. Your whole testimony is -- it talks about process. You described to us -- it sounded like an indoctrination course for your new employees describing the process. What about common sense!?” Mr. Manno had no answer to Mr. Lehman's final question. 

Just one last question about NORAD's multiple changes of its story. If you were a police detective and you brought in a suspect to a massive, notorious, heinous crime, and he gave you -- at different times -- three different alibis, wouldn't you begin to doubt his credibility and innocence? 

   

#7) FBI vs. CIA?:

On PBS' NOVA show The Spy Factory, host James Bamford interviewed a FBI agent about the supposed surveillance and knowledge by the CIA of two 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. (Jump to the 5:19 time mark of the video below to find the following exchange):   

"NARRATOR: The CIA does find al-Mihdhar's name in its database. They ask security agents to make a copy of his passport as he passes through a checkpoint in Dubai. When analysts at CIA headquarters see it, they are astonished to find a valid U.S. visa inside. ALEC Station, the CIA's Bin Laden unit [created in 1996], now has two FBI agents detailed to it, Doug Miller and Mark Rossini.

MARK ROSSINI: Once they arrived in Kuala Lumpur, of course, the CIA requested the intelligence service over there in Malaysia to conduct surveillance of these subjects and find out as much as they can. They took photographs, followed them. And you read from that one of the individuals had a visa to come to the U.S.

NARRATOR: Fearing an Al-Qaeda terrorist may be headed to the U.S., the agents are determined to tell the FBI, but a CIA official will not allow it.

MARK ROSSINI: I guess I was the more senior agent. So I went up to the individual that had the ticket on the Yemeni cell, the Yemeni operatives. And I said to her, I said, 'What's going on? You know, we've got to tell the Bureau about this. These guys clearly are bad. One of them, at least, has a multiple-entry visa to the U.S. We've got to tell the FBI.'

And then she said to me, 'No, it's not the FBI's case, not the FBI's jurisdiction.'

So I go tell Doug. And I'm like, 'Doug, what can we do?' If we picked up the phone and called the Bureau, I would have been violating the law. I would have broken the law. I would have been removed from the building that day. I would have had my clearances suspended, and I would be gone.

JAMES BAMFORD: This is one of the most astonishing parts of the story. The CIA had FBI operatives working within their Bin Laden unit, but when the FBI operatives found out that one, and possibly two, of the terrorists had visas to the United States, were headed for the United States, the CIA wouldn't let them tell their headquarters that they were coming. Only the FBI could have put out alerts to stop Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi if they tried to enter the United States."

On January 15, 2000, Hazmi and Mihdhar arrived together at LAX airport from Bangkok, and were admitted for a six-month period. In September 2000, Nawaf and Mihdhar both moved into the house of FBI informant Abdussattar Shaikh, although he did not report the pair as suspicious. Even though the CIA knows the full names and appearances of these terrorists, the men were not placed on a “Terror Watch List” but were allowed entry and residence into the U.S. Their names were listed publicly in the White Pages (phone book) and they had drivers licenses. No one was fired or demoted for not finding the "elusive terrorists." 

So what does it all mean? As I've said before, these issues about our government's competence, accountability (or, I should say, lack thereof), and secrecy that arose throughout the 9/11 investigation and since has continued into the following administration with the 9/11/2012 Benghazi attacks (and how it has been investigated -- or not investigated), Syria (which bears a striking resemblance to the entire 2003 Iraq/WMD debacle), sexual assault in the military with no punishment, and taking away of personal freedoms, most recently with the wiretapping (even though wiretapping really started during the Bush Jr. administration -- 2005/2006 -- and certain citizens didn't mind the wiretapping of phones then, but were later furious when it was revealed President Obama was still utilizing the same wiretapping program), as well as the trampling of the Constitution (even though it was foreign immigrants who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, it is the American people who lose their 4th Amendment rights under the 2001 Patriot Act). Acts like the Patriot Act have made 9/11 a day that marked further loss -- the loss of our 4th Amendment rights. Now, some may say, Freedom is not free, and/or Well, if you're not doing anything wrong, then you shouldn't worry. Yeah, well, recently when there was the slightest mention of regulating guns in this country (not eliminating the right to own guns,  but rather just regulate) because of a string of gun violence in schools (guns killing more people in the U.S. than terrorist attacks, by the way), people sure as shit were not going to have that right compromised; they weren't saying, Well, if you don't do anything wrong, then, sure, gun laws -- and what kind of gun you own -- can be regulated. The thinking of these 2nd Amendment defendants was more like You can have my gun when you pry it from my dead, cold hands. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe the 2nd Amendment should be completely abolished. But a compromise is not so bad. Anyways, to those freedom-is-not-free people who think certain freedoms (except the 2nd Amendment, of course!) should be sacrificed, I quote Mr. Franklin:

#8) Incompetence & Cover-Up:

When the American people (many of them the families of those who died on 9/11) ask valid questions or make valid queries, the media, government and majority of the American public dismiss them as "conspiracy theorists" and either get very pissed off at them or feel extremely sad for them because the families must be "so disillusioned." Let us not forget what President Dwight Eisenhower said: "May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion." There is no subversion when a group of people have factually valid questions and simply want answers. However, there is subversion when those people are illogically shooed away, being asked to believe some explanation with no merit, and are labeled as "unpatriotic."   

People ask where the whistleblowers of 9/11 are. Well, here are some here (there are many others):

 

Sibel Edmonds

J. Michael Springmann & Bill Bergman

Barry Jennings

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer

Coleen Rowley

Robert Wright

Kenneth Williams

William Rodriguez

Then comes the statements made by Bush, Rice and some of his administration about how no one could have imagined a group of terrorists hijacking planes and using them as missiles. Actually, that's exactly what a good amount of government imagined. 

 

 

Finally, when TWA Flight 800 had an explosion and crashed shortly after taking off on July 17, 1996, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the FBI both quickly concluded that there was a malfunction with one of the fuel tanks, which exploded, causing the tragic accident, killing all 230 people on board. However, further evidence has proven that there was a surface-to-air missile attack on the plane from the waters off the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York. (For more on this, watch the EPIX channel 2013 documentary TWA Flight 800 by Kristina Borjesson.) 

Regardless of explosive residue, hundreds of eyewitness accounts of a streak of light -- what appeared to look like a flare/missile -- rising up to the airliner, and the expertise and testimony of hundreds of former pilots and NTSB investigators stating the CIA/NTSB explanation for the explosion and break-up of Flight 800 was ludicrous and impossible, the U.S. government stuck with their story that there was a short circuit which caused a fuel tank to explode. The case of TWA Flight 800 has been closed. Sound familiar? It should. Like TWA 800, despite hundreds of eyewitness accounts of explosions, explosive residue found in rubble and dust at Ground Zero, and the testimony of over 1,700 scientists, architects, engineers and pilots of structural building and aviation impossibility, the U.S. government continues to stick with the 9/11 Commission's story and will not investigate any further questionable facts. This is further proof that history can unfortunately repeat itself in uncanny ways.

#9) 9/11 Rescue Workers with Cancer & Other Various Diseases:

Former Governor of New Jersey and then-Head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Christine Todd Whitman told to a national audience and the press on September 18, 2001: "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C., that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink. ... The concentrations are such that they don't pose a health hazard." Then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani also assured the public of the safety of the air quality. Since those statements, over 50 of the rescue workers who worked at Ground Zero in the following days after 9/11 have died from illnesses -- including cancer, sarcoidosis, heart disease, and respiratory disease -- contracted after that tragic day. Some of the most known cases are of NYPD officer James Zadroga, Sister Cindy Mahoney, and civil rights attorney Felicia Dunn-Jones ... and the recent 2015 passing of Marcy Borders. 

There are thousands who struggle to this day with diseases and ill health due to the toxic air. 

So what? You may ask. It just happened. How was the government supposed to know? The U.S. government is not supposed to know right away if the air was toxic; however, they should have allowed for sufficient days to study the air quality and test it before letting people unknowingly risk their health. And, as we know from Whitman's press conference, no such studies were done. Why? Why did the Bush administration not perform sufficient tests? Was it to get the rubble cleaned up as soon as possible? No. It was to reopen Wall Street, in an effort to show to the world the U.S.'s strength.

According to a 2003 Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. EPA report (page 7), "EPA’s early public statements following the collapse of the WTC towers reassured the public regarding the safety of the air outside the Ground Zero area. However, when EPA made a September 18 announcement that the air was 'safe' to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement. ... Furthermore, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) influenced, through the collaboration process, the information that EPA communicated to the public through its early press releases when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones." (emphasis added.) Right there is evidence that the CEQ deliberately had the EPA "delete cautionary" statements which otherwise might have alerted workers and area residents to air hazards.

Bush, CEQ, Whitman and Giuliani have never been held accountable for their actions of withholding "cautionary" facts from the public which have resulted in death. Giuliani stated that he was only following what Whitman said. As for Whitman, when lower Manhattan and Brooklyn residents brought forward a lawsuit against her and the EPA simply for Whitman saying that the downtown Manhattan air was safe in the aftermath of the attacks, therefore deceiving the public about Ground Zero air and dust, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that Whitman could not be held liable for saying to WTC area residents that the air was safe for breathing. The appeals court said that Whitman had based her information on contradictory information and statements from Bush. The U.S. Department of Justice had argued that holding the agency liable would establish a risky legal precedent because future public officials would be afraid to make public statements. As for Bush and any members of his CEQ, no charges have ever been brought against any of them, the media did not mention it, and any knowledge of it has mysteriously been forgotten. 

The only tiny silver lining to this issue is the passing of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which was passed in Congress on December 22, 2010, and signed into law on January 2, 2011. However, as the White House and several news and political news outlets have credited, the only reason for the bill's passing was mainly due to comedian/Daily Show host Jon Stewart's December 16, 2010 recognition of the bill's prior rejection due to Republican filibuster on December 9, 2010. 

The Daily Show

Daily Show Full Episodes,  More Daily Show Videos,  Comedy Central Full Episodes

#10) Bin Laden Who?:

When the U.S. was attacked on 9/11/01, Bush and his administration's first goal was to find out who was ultimately responsible. Usama (Osama) bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda operatives were discovered as being responsible. No one would know by looking at the FBI's online "Most Wanted" page, because even though Bin Laden was on the page, his list of crimes did not include the plotting, support or execution of the attacks on 9/11/2001 -- in fact, 9/11 is not even mentioned.

Post-Death

Nevertheless, Bin Laden is the one. And I do not doubt that he was a major player in planning, supporting, and executing the events of 9/11. However, Bush and his top cabinet members are not convinced that the pesky Saddam Hussein didn't have some kind of hand in this attack. So Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz ask Richard Clarke and other intelligence agents to gather all of the information they can on trying to connect Saddam to 9/11. The final finding? There was no connection. CIA analyst Nada Bakos admits Cheney and his office asking about a connection, and even though she reported to him that there was no connection, Cheney still admitted on television afterward that there was a link. 

To top off the danger of Saddam, the Bush administration introduced the "facts" that Saddam was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) -- biological and nuclear -- to use against the U.S. Suddenly, the failing mission to find Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan and bring him to justice is aborted (and thusly, a man who is responsible for the death of 3,000 Americans is given a pass and not a major priority of Bush anymore), only to be overshadowed by Saddam and his WMDs. However, there were no WMDs. But the public learned that one a little too late. By then, the war in Iraq was raging and there were already hundreds of U.S. casualties -- not to mention thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens' deaths. (EXTRA NOTE: In October 2014, and -- for some reason -- again in February 2015, the New York Times ran an article by C.J. Chivers alluding to the fact that the C.I.A. did find chemical weapons in Iraq in 2005 and continuing into 2006. Most Republicans, conservatives and war hawks all rejoiced and proceeded to gloat, thinking this was proof that Bush and Cheney were correct in their WMD claim. However, if one fully reads the article, they will find out that these "WMDs" are not the ones the Bush administration was talking about as they had no capability of reaching American soil. Also, these "WMDs" were leftover warheads the U.S. sold to Iraq in the 1980s during the Iraq-Iran War, which was brokered under President Ronald Reagan's administration. This is why there was no mention of the discovery of these weapons back when originally found in 2005/2006; it is considered blowback from the 1980s U.S. aide to Iraq. For a better explanation of the story, watch this and watch Chivers' interview as to why he truly wrote the article here. So, still no WMDs.) 

Conclusion:

The reason I wrote this was to shine some light on actual facts regarding 9/11 that are not widely known. Sadly, not just one person -- or administration -- is to blame. And maybe that is what is so hard to swallow. It's difficult to accept that incompetence, unaccountability and partisan politics are paramount in our government ... even when it comes to the death of 3,000 innocent people. But, then again, given our track record (as seen in the first video below), it shouldn't be so hard to believe, I guess. Next time you think something bad is happening with this country, remember what I've shown here today.

(I don't like the film in which this clip above is from, but the clip is effective)

(Frighteningly, the 1998 Denzel Washington movie The Siege tells it like it is -- pretty much predicting the aftermath of 9/11 -- when it comes to the Patriot Act, torturing, invading countries and bin Laden's endgame plan.)

(Just take out his "What if ..." before every question/statement, and you've got truth!)

9/11 First Responder David Miller (speaking in 2006; he died 4 years later)

Some may think after even just this information has been reported that the U.S. government has taken -- or would take -- steps to improve its methods. Sadly, 12 years later, they have not. On Christmas Day 2009, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan, with explosive material in his underwear, he tried to blow up the plane mid-flight. Like United Flight 93 before them, if it weren't for passengers and crew of the plane (and not politicians or soldiers), the fate of that flight could have been a lot more terrible. What people may not know is that just a month prior to his hijinks, Abdulmutallab was placed on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), the U.S. government's database on known international terrorists, and, even though the name should have been passed on to the "No-Fly List" (which is where names on TIDE eventually go), it was not. Also, his U.S. work visa, which he obtained in June 2008 even though he was reported to the U.S. multiple times as supporting jihad, and British intelligence sent a cable to the U.S. stating he had close ties to Al-Qaeda member Anwar al-Awlaki, nonetheless was not revoked. Finally, in a "post-9/11 world," Abdulmutallab paid for his one-way ticket in cash and had no luggage on his long journey. So, he was still able to obtain a visa, keep it (even though he had ties to Al-Qaeda and this had been reported to the U.S. government multiple times), and board a plane to America. The U.S. intelligence community's response to why they didn't do anything about him? Because it would have "foiled a larger investigation into Al-Qaeda." This begs the question of whether the U.S. government finds an investigation with potential (not definite) arrests of a few men who will soon inevitably be replaced by Al-Qaeda more valuable than all of the civilian lives on that airliner. Aside from an Act that takes away freedoms of Americans, and a doctrine that gives all future presidents the power to wage war by pre-emptively striking any country without approval as long as "the country is at war" (a phrase which has many loopholes now, thanks to 9/11 and Bush), nothing has been done. This has most recently been proven when one of the actual agencies (the Transportation Security Agency) who could've helped at least delay, if not stop, 9/11, miserably failed yet another security test! This is why people and agencies must be held accountability! Otherwise, incompetency increases. The recommendations for bettering our government and making our country -- and its citizens -- safer have not happened.  

If the media, U.S. government, and population are so willing and excited to "shut up the conspiracy theorists," then why won't any of these groups -- especally the government -- approve a new investigation into these matters so they can prove said "theorists" wrong and, in their mind, get it over and done with? Maybe it's because they're afraid of what they -- or, more importantly, the public -- will discover. 

This is what I would like to ask those who so strongly believe in the U.S. government's explanation to 9/11 and its supposed "response" when they blindly judge, call names and criticize those who want a deeper investigation.

Let's take a lesson from Uncle George, shall we?

In order to truly remember 9/11, let's not fall into the idea that voting for one political party or the other will make things better, or that having a holiday with a meaningless name like Patriot Day will help mend what ills this country. Why would today be called Patriot Day? Was it patriotic for people to die? Were those who died patriots? Or were they just going to work, trying to survive that day like anybody in that situation would have? Was it patriotic in the way people did their jobs? Or was it patriotic the way people helped one another? I don't think there's anything patriotic about any of that. Especially that last one; helping one another is not patriotic -- it's simply called just being human! A name that would best commemorate 9/11 would be Remembrance Day. (NOTE: I am well aware there is already a Remembrance Day, but it is for other countries and not the U.S.)

Just remember. Remember. Remember. Remember! It's hard to remember all of the important things. And to inject them into our lives and live them. But that's what 9/11 -- my Remembrance Day -- is all about.      

Remember the lives that were lost. Remember to hug and kiss your loved ones every day. Remember to tell them how much you love them every minute of every day. Remember to question things. Remember to give out patience more than frustration. Remember to look for beauty rather than criticism. And most importantly, remember to live a happy, meaningful and generous life.                                   

Suggested Reading/Viewing

• The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11 -- and America's Response - Paul Thompson (NOTE: to me, this is the official 9/11 Report!)
• 102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers - Jim Dwyer
• 9/11
• Bush's War, Part I and Part II
• Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror - Richard Clarke
• The Commission: The Untold History of the 9/11 Commission - Philip Shenon
• 9/11: Press for Truth (YouTube)
• Inside 9/11
• My Trip to Al-Qaeda (YouTube) -- based on the book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
• Among the Heroes: United 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back - Jere Longman 
• On Native Soil
• Inside the Twin Towers (YouTube)
• Rebirth
• Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Collapse - Juan Gonzalez
• September 11 -- The New Pearl Harbor (YouTube) (NOTE: Even though it is just under 5 hours long, this is the be-all, end-all video you must watch RE: 9/11.)