Louder than words

A friend whose family took refuge in our city home on September 11, 2001, was sitting on our stoop as I went out to walk the dog, on the fifth anniversary of that day. She had been walking by our building and could not pass without thinking of us. As she dialed our phone number, I stepped out onto the street. This day was much like that one—with blue skies and a clarity of air that speaks of autumn.

It was my first day in the city since June and I didn’t much want to be there. I would have rather been in Narrowsburg, planting daffodils or painting the flood-ravaged basement walls.

Anything but facing the relative calm of this unofficial day of mourning in the same neighborhood where steel office buildings had turned into a smoldering ruin of ash and death within hours.

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Demonization

By SKIP MENDLER

“The devil came here yesterday. Right here... it smells of sulfur still today... “

That was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, talking recently about George W. Bush’s appearance at the United Nations. The “devil” comment is, of course, what made all the headlines.

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