By Lauren Dzura

When Eric Brown went into the Lower Manhattan restaurant, Coast, for a job interview he left with much more than just a position as a waiter or bartender. He ended up as the head of entertainment with hopes of helping revitalize Lower Manhattan. While he obviously cannot resurrect the Twin Towers or do anything to cover the gaping hole that still serves as a hollow reminder of 9/11, he is simply trying to breathe life back into the area around the World Trade Center by putting on the Lower Manhattan Arts Festival and Variety Show.

“The revitalization of Lower Manhattan should be close to every New Yorker’s heart,” Brown said.

The variety show has a number of different acts lined up to perform. Art exhibits and live jazz music have been put on since the first show in April. Brown has been in touch with comedians, burlesque dancers and a sword-swallower, but the restaurant space is not conducive for those acts, he said.

“Coast is a great space, but it doesn’t lend itself to other acts. I want a more loungey atmosphere,” he said.

Crowd size fluctuated over the total of five shows Brown has presented. Weather seemed to be the main factor influencing audience numbers. In the beginning, Brown did not think he could afford to keep the show running after the first couple of performances because he kept losing money.

“The turnout has been up and down,” he said. “It’s been more up when there is nice weather.”

Brown has $250 a week to book and pay the acts, a paltry sum when put up against his venerable aspiration of bringing nightlife to the W.T.C. This amount also prevents him from moving his other acts, such as the burlesque show, to different venues. He is in the process of trying to secure loans to help, however he has not received a definite answer from the local business organizations he has contacted, such as the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the River to River Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival.

“Doing this alone is hard,” he said. “No one’s gotten back to me, maybe I’m not making enough noise.”

All of his performers were either found on Craigslist.org, an online bulletin board, or through word of mouth. Besides bringing art and entertainment back to the heart of Downtown, Brown also wants to give unknown artists a space to perform and network.

“I want this to be a place where artists of any genre can come showcase their talent,” he said.

A former promoter, Brown is also an actor but works as a waiter to pay the bills. He also co-hosts a radio show for Brooklyn College.

“I’m trying to get people more qualified than me,” said Brown of his search for a staff of volunteers and friends sharing his vision. Even though the festival is entirely his own creation, he is not below making requests for help or criticism.

Brown formed strong ties with Lower Manhattan during his younger years, making frequent trips to the area and taking advantage of its offerings. Now he feels he needs to give something back to the neighborhood that played such an important part in his life, he said.

He hopes the show will grow and be appreciated by New Yorkers so that every year it can culminate into one big outdoor spring concert, possibly on the steps of the Brooks Brothers store Liberty Plaza. For now, though, Brown is still working on getting the performance space at Coast up and running. His goal is to possibly have fashion shows and one-act plays as well in the restaurant. Brown said he wants to include numerous events because people need a specific reason to visit Downtown and he wants to turn the arts festival and variety show into a destination spot.

However, the response has not been as strong as expected and getting people to the Downtown area has been a challenge. The unstable audience size is proving to be a costly investment for the restaurant.

“It’s been basically a mediocre response to say the least,” said Carl Bester, general manager of Coast. “So far we haven’t found the right market and people do not want to come down here.”

A recent show on May 28 brought in about 30-40 people, which is not enough to keep it alive. Bester says he will give the show a few more weeks to see if it will be able to sustain itself, but it is becoming too expensive.

Although budgetary constraints and the lack of activities going on around the W.T.C. work against him, Brown is remaining optimistic and grateful.

“Its just getting off the ground, it will gain steam and speed and hopefully everyone will be happy,” he said.

The Lower Manhattan Arts Festival and Variety Show is performed at the Coast restaurant at 110 Liberty St. on Saturdays at 7 p.m. The evening includes an optional $35 prefixe dinner with one free drink and two choices of appetizers with soup or a salad. Patrons should call the restaurant for information on the art exhibits and bands scheduled to play.

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_109/strugglingtoput.html

Years later, relatives can give Sept. 11 firefighter a proper burial

BY AUSTIN FENNER

New York Daily News


NEW YORK - (KRT) - Nearly four years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the loved ones of fallen firefighter Keithroy Maynard will bid their final farewell to him Saturday after an unexpected discovery.

Maynard's remains were among the last to be identified by the New York City medical examiner's office before the painstaking effort was suspended recently.

"I'm overwhelmed," said his brother Vernon Maynard, 38, who works for the city sanitation department. "I feel in a certain form we are blessed - that we have something of Keith's. But at the same time, it takes us back to four years ago."

Maynard was one of seven firefighters with Manhattan's Engine 33 who perished in the collapse of the World Trade Center.

The 30-year-old immigrant from Montserrat treasured his adopted U.S. citizenship so much that he voted early in the primaries on Sept. 11, 2001, then rushed to join his comrades when hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers.

"He was a can-do guy. He proved his bravery time and time again," said Lt. Bob LaRocca, who was at the same Greenwich Village firehouse with Maynard for about a year. A memorial with photos of Maynard and his fallen comrades now adorns the wall of the firehouse.

Maynard's nephew, Malik Maynard, 11, also remembered him as a larger-than-life hero with a big heart.

"He was my role model," said Malik, who keeps a picture of his uncle in his wallet and still thinks of him daily.

"I want to be like my uncle and finish off his work," he said.

Maynard's remains were identified shortly before the city exhausted its attempts on April 22 to identify those killed at Ground Zero, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office.

But 1,161 victims - almost half of those killed - are still unidentified. Their remains will be preserved in case future advances in forensic science allow the city to resume identifications.

"It's a journey you have to travel," Vernon Maynard said of the emotional roller coaster his family endured while anxiously waiting for an identification.

The funeral service for Maynard will be held at a church in Manhattan.

http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/nation/11860736.htm

W secures $44M
of 9/11 cash
 
By KENNETH R. BAZINET
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
 
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration backed New York's bid yesterday to keep $44 million of misspent 9/11 funds, virtually assuring the city it will get to keep the cash.
But lawmakers still slashed an additional $125 million in aid for World Trade Center victims because the city hadn't spent it in time. Lawmakers from both parties vowed to restore the funds.

"The selfless men and women who rushed to Ground Zero and aided the recovery effort are still suffering from illnesses and injuries," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan).

The administration had demanded that New York repay $44million that was supposed to have been spent on processing benefit claims by 9/11 victims. Much of the money was spent instead to compensate victims, and the by-the-book Government Accountability Office this week said the money should be returned.

The Bush administration, however, cleared the way for new legislation to allow New York to keep money that's been spent.

"The Department of Labor supports the state keeping the $44million," said Labor spokesman David James.

With the White House and New York delegation unified, keeping the $44 million is a slam dunk.

"Who's going to tell a victim of Sept. 11 they have to give the money back?" said a congressional source.

Others on Capitol Hill welcomed the support but want Bush to get behind preserving the other $125 million for additional 9/11-related costs. "If he wants to fix this, he will fix this. It's about the President's promise," said a top House source.

The White House insisted Bush's $20 billion promise to New York had been kept.

"The President kept his word. Even with the rescission, the money was above $20 billion," said budget spokesman Scott Milburn.
 
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/317575p-271624c.html

WTC Memorial Should Only Be About 9/11
On Wednesday, Debra Burlingame, board member at the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, alerted readers of The Wall Street Journal to disturbing plans for the World Trade Center site.

The World Trade Center Memorial Cultural Complex will be an imposing edifice wedged in the place where the Twin Towers once stood. It will serve as the primary "gateway" to the underground area where the names of the lost are chiseled into concrete. The organizers of its principal tenant, the International Freedom Center (IFC), have stated that they intend to take us on "a journey through the history of freedom”…not only history's triumphs but also its failures. The public will have come to see 9/11 but will be given a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man's inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich's Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond.

There’s noting wrong with a museum dedicated to the history of freedom and oppression. But there is something terribly wrong with putting it on the World Trade Center site.

Any memorial, any museum that is erected on that ground should be about nothing more and nothing less than that day. Don’t try to make it symbolic, don’t try to put it into context, don’t try to do anything more than honor the dead, honor the heroes and remember a day that changed everyone.

There are enough books, movies, writers and historians trying to contextualize 9/11, creating meaning out of the raw chaos of that day. That’s fine. Let history do its work. Someday our children will study it, discuss it, ask us about it. But there absolutely must be one place where they can feel it.

At Ground Zero, in that one place of all places, let’s remember September 11, 2001 as it was. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to those who come after.

http://theyellowline.blogspot.com/2005/06/...y-be-about-911.html

Key Congressman angered by broad-based Ground Zero plans
 
BY WILLIAM MURPHY
STAFF WRITER

June 10, 2005


Reported plans for the Freedom Center at the Ground Zero memorial site have divided the families of 9/11 victims and angered one key congressman who attacks it for failing to focus on those who died in the terror attacks.

Plans for a broad-based center that would deal with freedom on an international level, including the Soviet gulag and the Holocaust, are inappropriate, U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) said in an interview.

"Gettysburg should be about Gettysburg, and a 9/11 memorial should be about 9/11," King said after reading in a newspaper about plans for the site.

A controversy about the site began to build Tuesday, when the Wall Street Journal printed an op-ed piece critical of the International Freedom Center's plan for exhibits on American Indian genocide, Jim Crow lynchings in the South, the dissident movement in China and Chilean refugees, among others.

The article was written by Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Thomas Burlingame, was the pilot of the American Airlines Flight 11 that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.

"Ground Zero has been stolen, right from under our noses," she wrote. "How do we get it back?"

King, who is angling to become chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, pledged to get center officials to change their plans.

However, center officials said that they have made no decisions on specific exhibits and that it was a topic still under discussion.

"The content is not final. We are 41/2 years away from opening," Richard Tofel, the president of the center, said in an interview Thursday.

The center, privately financed and run, will serve as a gateway to the memorial area of Ground Zero and will be next to Reflecting Absence, the memorial dedicated specifically to those who died on 9/11.

Lee Ielpi, a city firefighter whose firefighter son, Jonathan, was killed on 9/11, said he felt the center should focus more on firefighters and others who died that day.

"This should be sacred ground," said Ielpi of Great Neck.

Tofel said that the international focus of the center has been discussed publicly for a long time and that the Holocaust and the gulag have a place in the discussion of freedom and in the center exhibits.

"We will tell the story of the Nazi Holocaust but will also be telling the story of the greatest generation that defeated the Nazis," he said.

Tom Roger of Longmeadow, Mass., whose daughter, Jean, was a flight attendant aboard Flight 11 and who favors the proposed exhibits, said the center had to be seen in conjunction with Reflecting Absence and the memorial museum that would tell the story of what happened on 9/11.

Roger and Ielpi are both members of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which will raise money to build and operate the center but which has limited control over the facility.

King said he got sharp comments from other members of Congress after the piece ran in the Journal. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) said one of his staffers who had a relative die on 9/11 brought the article to his attention.

McCotter said proposed exhibits in the center would politicize 9/11 when it should bring people together.

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhat...headlines-manhattan

House panel votes to take back unspent 9/11 aid

WASHINGTON A House panel voted today to take back some 125 (m) million dollars in unspent September 11th aid to New York.

The plan has lawmakers from the state scrambling to hold onto those funds and another 44 (m) million dollars suddenly at risk.

A House Appropriations subcommittee approved a spending bill that retrieves 125 (m) million dollars originally destined to handle post-September 11th workers compensation claims.

Representative James Walsh says he's preparing to add an amendment to the bill next week that would allow New York to keep all the workers comp money in question.

Representative Nita Lowey told the House panel that even though New York has yet to spend the money, ground zero workers are likely to suffer ill effects for years to come from working on the toxic pile of rubble at the World Trade Center site.

New York lawmakers argue their state should hold onto the money, either to spend on health care for ground zero workers or to keep for any future nine-eleven claims.

http://www.wstm.com/Global/story.asp?S=3455146

The Big Apple thrives in its cultural diversity

Commercially, the city of New York symbolises the beat of America. On the social and musical side, it sets the tone for the rest of the world

Story and photos by YVONNE BOHWONGPRASERT

 
Both tourists and local visitors can't get enough of visiting the Statue of Liberty.
 
A hotdog vendor near Winter Garden Theatre in Broadway.
 
This cute little girl and her mother joined us on the evening cruise on the Hudson River.
The sights and sounds of New York attracts millions of tourists from around the globe. But among the numerous activities you can indulge in, besides shopping, is watching passers-by.

I found Central Park in Manhattan a great place to relax, sip freshly brewed coffee, and watch New Yorkers go about their daily chores. New York City is a fusion of cultures and traditions, and the best place to experience that diversity is its most frequented park.

Central Park boasts several lakes, theatres, ice rinks, fountains, tennis courts, baseball fields and other playgrounds and facilities. Birds and squirrel are a common sight there. It's also home to the Central Park Zoo and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"Central Park is a welcome oasis in this hectic city," said a local lady, who had brought her dog for a walk this afternoon.

Coming from Bangkok, I felt at home in down town New York. During day and at night, I found the fast-paced lifestyle of this vibrant city intoxicating. People of all creed and colour could be seen rubbing shoulders in shopping districts, bars and museums.

However, the morning rush hours were typical of any cosmopolitan city around the world, while by night, the mood relaxed and assumed a more festive tone. And through all that chaos you could see some sense, and that's what I found charming about New York City.

New Yorkers also have a high sense of style, not surprising, judging from the numerous designer boutiques lining the streets. While it was difficult to tell if the clothes were brandnames, the important thing was they made a fashion statement.

First time visitors to the "Big Apple" are awestruck by the magnificent skyscrapers such as 102-storey Empire State Building, 70-storey G. E. Building and the Citicorp Center, which is 59-storey tall.

 
At night New York is colourfully lit up and abuzz with life as revellers hit bars and discos that remain open well into the wee hours of the morning.
 
A cruise assistant greets guests onboard.
 
`Mamma Mia' is among the top ten shows on Broadway's all-time list.
 
The Manhattan Island Cruise offers great view of New York's top historical and architectural wonders.
The best way to experience its sights and sounds is to take the New York City tour. It was a cold rainy morning, when Marion, our tour guide, bundled us on to double decker bus for a trip down memory lane.

Sixty years old, and a grandmother, she gave us a running commentary of attractions such as the Rockefeller Center, Wall Street, Lincoln Center and many more. Asked how she had become so good at her profession, Marion said she just loves to repeat things over and over.

I tried to test her by asking something not related to the city tour. "Why is New York called 'The Big Apple'," I enquired.

Without a blink Marion explained that a Morning Telegraph reporter, John J. Fitz Gerald, first made use of the term during the 1920s in reference to the city's racetracks. He apparently first heard it used by African-American stable hands in New Orleans in 1921. The term gained more popularity in the 1930s, courtesy musicians of the Negro race, who regarded New York, and particularly Harlem, as the capital of jazz.

While the tourist attractions turned out to be highly educational, it was an emotionally-charging experience visiting Ground Zero (the World Trade Center Memorial) and the tiny St. Paul's Chapel located directly across from where the twin World Trade Towers once stood.

Marion explained that St. Paul's Chapel was home to a phenomenal eight-month-long volunteer relief effort in the aftermath of terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. It's a monument to their unwavering spirit, and their legacy of love and compassion.

Over two million people have visited St. Paul since 9/11. On display are a number of items picked up rescue teams from the debris of collapsed buildings. What stood out for me was the red, patch-covered chasuble representing the solidarity between the chapel and Ground Zero workers.

The visit gave me an opportunity to contemplate the meaning of life and death. The experience of taking a walk around Ground Zero was thought-provoking. For one thing, I told myself that from now I wouldn't take people near and dear to me for granted. Life is just too unpredictable.

Emotionally drained after this encounter, we looked forward to the Manhattan Island Cruise on the Hudson River the following day to help us unwind.

Manhattan is an island and I felt a boat ride would be a great way to see New York's famed Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

It was a pleasant afternoon when we boarded the cruise. The festive mood on board helped us relax as everyone basked in the glow of the setting sun. I was glad I had taken along a jacket and scarf with me to brace myself against strong chilly winds.

Sailing down the Hudson gave me an opportunity to better understand a part of American history. In particular, I found the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty truly exhilarating. Cruising around the Battery, up the East River, and under the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges all the way to the United Nations building and back was a day well spent.

 
Aspiring entertainers, such as this saxophone player, are a common sight in Times Square, New York's world-famous intersection.
We then decided to cap our New York tour with the Broadway performance "Mama Mia". Jostling our way through heavy traffic, we managed to reach the venue early enough for me to sample restaurants located around Broadway. One common feature at most of these outlets was the staff taking turns crooning popular numbers. And mind you, they were good. What a great way to get recognition and breaking into Broadway, I told myself, as we entered the Winter Garden Theatre.

A landmark in itself, the exterior of the original theatre, designed by W. Albert Swasey, is moderately Greco-Roman but undistinguished. In 1922-1923, the interior was revamped and revitalised by Herbert J. Krapp. Apart from enjoying theatre in one of New York's most distinguished landmarks, I found the city tailor-made for people who enjoy life in the fast lane.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/en/Horizons/09Jun2005_hori61.php

Our view: Heed the advice of former 9/11 commission members

How prepared are we to fight terrorism at home? Is the government organized in the best way to deal with threats and potential threats?

Former members of the 9/11 Commission, who spent nearly two years studying the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, produced a 567-page final report and made dozens of recommendations about how government can best address terrorism issues.

Now the five Republicans and five Democrats who served on the committee have organized a private group called the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, which seeks to evaluate the government's response and make recommendations about how to improve it.

We should all pay close attention to what they say — but, most importantly, leaders in the Bush administration and in Congress need to consider very carefully whatever recommendations emerge from this new effort.

Initially, the Bush administration resisted the idea of having a commission to study the situation and make recommendations. After reluctantly agreeing to set up the commission, the administration wanted to keep top officials from testifying before it.

Fortunately, the administration changed its mind, in part because of pressure from some 9/11 survivors.

But nearly four years after the terrorist attacks, are we safer? Were the changes that the government made enough?

The record is mixed. Although there is a director of national intelligence now, with the authority to force rival intelligence and law enforcement agencies to work together, the system is by no means seamless.

In addition, Congress has stopped short of the overhaul of its intelligence committee structure that 9/11 commission members recommended.

Thomas Kean, a Republican and former New Jersey governor, said, "We're going to ask a lot of questions. There are a lot of our recommendations that have not been implemented. We don't have a lot of time left to act."

This is a bipartisan group, that had a chance to develop a considerable amount of knowledge and expertise about our intelligence and law enforcement establishment's ability to prevent and fight terrorism.

We should listen to what these 10 people have to say.

http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/20...pinion/00edit09.txt

Looking for strength in antiterrorism fight



9/11 widows warn against abandoning Afghan people

By Stephanie V. Siek, Globe Staff  |  June 9, 2005


Susan Retik of Needham and Patti Quigley of Wellesley have a plea for Washington: Please finish what you started.


The two women, who founded Beyond the 11th after their husbands were killed in the attack on the World Trade Center, are expanding their mission from helping Afghan widows to sounding the alarm that their country is at risk of falling back into the hands of terrorists.

''I think that we're at a very critical point right now," said Retik of US policy in Afghanistan. ''If we just pull out now, and say, 'OK, we were in there for a couple of years,' and then wash our hands of it, the same cycle is going to continue."

Quigley and Retik will speak tonight at the annual meeting of the Weston-Wayland Interfaith Action Group. Last week, they chatted with a reporter at the Weston home of Retik's mother-in-law, Lynn, who as a member of the interfaith group has been active in bringing together Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

''Oftentimes when you hear about money going to Afghanistan, it's lumped into 'Afghanistan and Iraq,' " Susan Retik continued. ''There's so much money that's continuing to be spent on the military actions in Iraq that there's still very few roads in Afghanistan."

''I think the United States owes it to Afghanistan to continue," added her mother-in-law.

''And to us! We don't want another terrorist attack like September 11th," Susan Retik said. ''Poverty breeds terrorism."

''I think all the countries that have the ability to help other countries need to do that," Quigley said. ''And our responsibility as citizens is that we need to push that."

David Retik was on American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center. Patrick Quigley was on United Airlines Flight 175, which struck the towers an hour later.

Their wives were drawn together and strengthened by their shared experiences as ''9/11 widows." Both were pregnant with their daughters, now 3 years old, at the time of the attacks. In 2003, they founded Beyond the 11th to help Afghan women widowed during decades of war.

Retik and Quigley have sought not only to provide for material needs but to foster among their counterparts half a world away the same sense of camaraderie that has helped them in the aftermath of the attacks.

The importance of such bonds will be part of their message when they speak tonight before the interfaith group. The pair are fitting speakers: Retik is Jewish, Quigley is Catholic, and the women served by Beyond the 11th are Muslim.

Lynn Retik, who has been involved with the group for more than a decade, converted to Judaism from Christianity as a young woman, and raised her children as Jews. She says that she has always had an interest in ways to bring people of different religions together, and she didn't give up on that goal after Sept. 11. She recalls a moment after her son's memorial service when she suddenly noticed several of the Muslim members of the interfaith group standing in the parking lot.

More ------}

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/...ntiterrorism_fight/

Sharpton Wants Minority Jobs At Ground Zero
Promising To Hold Demonstrations At Ground Zero


Jun 9, 2005 6:00 pm US/Eastern
NEW YORK (CBS) Reverend Al Sharpton is threatening to gather picketers at Ground Zero to get minority jobs and send a message to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Once a symbol of unity, Ground Zero has become a battlefield for warring interests. Today the Reverend Al Sharpton told CBS2 News he will hold pickets and demonstrations at the site if black New Yorkers aren’t guaranteed construction jobs there.

Reverend Sharpton is threatening to cause trouble at Ground Zero.

“If it has to be continual picketing, stopping job sites, or whatever is necessary to say we’re not going to sit in a city where we can suffer together but we can’t rebuild together,” says Sharpton.

His move was sparked by the defeat of the West Side Stadium project Monday. The New York Jets had secured the support of Sharpton and other black leaders by guaranteeing vast numbers of construction jobs for African Americans.

But Assembly Chief Sheldon Silver helped kill the deal by complaining that the stadium development would divert attention away from Ground Zero.

“We can not let people just dismiss this stadium and then dismiss the interests of the Black and Latino community that had pain-staking negotiations to make sure we were finally included in a major project and now its been stopped by people who never included us,” says Sharpton.

The specter of labor trouble at what many consider hallowed ground is another problem among many downtown.

A spokeswoman for Governor Pataki said Sharpton should be pleased by Pataki’s plans for minority employment at the site.

Silver’s office did not respond at all.

Sharpton denied his threats were disrespectful to the memory of those who died there.

“We all suffered, cried and went to the funerals, now only some of us are going to be involved in redevelopment?” says Sharpton.

Mayor Bloomberg did not address the stadium issue today. But asked about his week of setbacks, he said things are going well.

Its hard to know whether Sharpton will follow through on his threats. sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't.
But the reverend has a long history of using these ultimatums to get what he wants.

Also today, MTA chairman Peter Kalikow said he'd be happy to go ahead with the sale of the West Side rail yards to the Jets if the team pursues a stadium project there.

But that's still a big if.

http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstorie...tory_160164616.html

Controversy Over Museum At Ground Zero
Will New Site Center Slight Those Hit By Tragedy?


Jun 9, 2005 6:53 pm US/Eastern
NEW YORK (CBS) There is a new controversy surrounding a museum planned for Ground Zero. One woman says the International Freedom Center will slight those who died on 9-11.

Debra Burlingame is not only a foundation director but is the sister of the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on 9-11. She says the Freedom Museum at Ground Zero will have a blame America political bent that doesn’t belong at a site where thousands of Americans lost their lives.

“It is deeply hurtful and disrespectful not only to those who we lost but to all the rest of us who are still grieving for them,” says Debra Burlingame, foundation member.

When she walks in her Westchester garden memories of her brother, American airlines pilot Charles Burlingame III, are never far from her thoughts. His plane was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon on 9-11.

Now she charges that the International Freedom Museum at Ground Zero is being hijacked by people who want to fill it with exhibits that have nothing to with the tragedy and discussions with a blame America political bent.

“We’re going to have a mud fight over what freedom means, where we would have politicized by activists who want to come down there and spew their views about what caused 9-11,” says Burlingame.

Among the exhibits reportedly planned are those dealing with abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq, the Nazi holocaust, and the Jim Crow lynchings in the south. Burlingame says that are fine things to teach people about just not at Ground Zero, which is where so many people died and is regarded as a burial ground.

“Imagine if you will, the U.S. holocaust museum inviting someone to that site to give their views about why killing them was justifiable, understandable or even excusable,” says Burlingame

However, the president of the Freedom Center Board says yes the center will deal with subjects other than 9-11, but it will be to teach about freedom to future generations.

“If I were to think that the international freedom center would in any way dishonor those lost I would not be in any way part of it,” says Paula Berry, a Freedom center board member who lost husband on 911.

Memorial foundation president Gretchen Dykstra said in a stament that she is confident the Freedom Center will remain neutral and impartial. Burlingame says that's all she wants, too.

http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstorie...tory_160171829.html

How the Left Hijacked the September 11th Memorial
By Jacob Laksin
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 9, 2005

Imagine the following scenario. A gaggle of leftist ideologues, most of them vocally hostile to the U.S.-led War on Terror and some of them inclined to believe that the U.S. itself poses the greatest threat to world peace, is tasked with creating a memorial to the victims of 9-11 terrorism and a tribute to freedom. This, in essence, is what has happened with International Freedom Center in New York.

Created specifically for the World Trade Center Site, the new center is being billed as an “educational complement” to the World Trade Center Memorial, slated for completion in 2009. But a curious thing about the center is how little attention it devotes to the tragedy that birthed it. Rather than focusing on America’s response to the terrorist attacks—whether in the form of the firefighter in Lower Manhattan or the Marine in Northern Iraq—the center has taken upon itself the mission of showcasing “humanity’s response to September 11.”

 

To this end, the four-story center, which will be housed in the World Trade Center Memorial Cultural Complex erected on the site of the former Twin Towers, will feature museum-like galleries furnished with multimedia exhibits cataloguing the abuses of freedom throughout history. Photographs of everyone from the fabled leftwinger and union organizer Mother Jones to a voter in Ukraine are being considered for the ceiling. As well, the center, which is expected to host up to 2 million visitors annually, will reportedly include presentations on everything from the depredations visited upon Native Americans to the struggles of dissidents in Soviet gulags, all giving a faddishly universal gloss to a uniquely American tragedy. There will even be an “engagement” program, which will encourage visitors to take up activism “on behalf of freedom” but not necessarily freedom as America has defined and developed it and been attacked for advancing it.

 

All of this comes into sharper focus when one considers that the “creative team” charged with designing the memorial center is led by Peter W. Kunhardt, who founded the center with Tom Bernstein, president of New York’s Chelsea Piers sports complex. He is also the president of Kunhardt Productions, a film company that specializes in historical documentaries. Among its recent productions is a 2003 series of half-hour programs for PBS called “Freedom: A History of US.” Although it featured a host of Hollywood celebrity narrators, the series, breaking with standard PBS procedure of using a panel of experts, relied on a single historian to supply the relevant historical background. That historian was anti-war activist and veteran leftwinger Eric Foner, professor of history at Columbia University.

 

When it comes to the International Freedom Center’s memorial project, however, Kunhardt has been quick to waive aside suggestions that he might have a political agenda. As he recently told the New York Times, he wants only to “explore freedom in accurate and meaningful and exciting ways.” Moreover, he insisted, "We tried to be above politics as we did our research.”


 

They didn’t try very hard. For ideas about the direction and content of the planned memorial, the International Freedom Center has, in its own words, “reached out to an extraordinary roster of scholars,” with the intention of fostering “conversations on freedom.” But a survey of the scholars solicited by the center beginning with Foner suggests that the more likely result will be a leftist propaganda assault on the United States and its foreign policy.



 

Making Foner’s association with a September 11 memorial project all the more strange is the fact the professor evinced little sympathy for his country in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Writing just days after the attacks in the London Review of Books, Foner opined: “I’m not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the [Bush] White House.” Foner further urged “[American] allies to impose some restraint on the White House.” That the root cause of the terrorist attacks was American foreign policy toward the Middle East Foner had no doubt: In a September 2004 article for the History News Network, Foner explained, “It is based primarily on American policies -- toward Israel, the Palestinians, oil supplies, the region’s corrupt and authoritarian regimes, and, most recently, Iraq.”

 

In remarks posted on the International Freedom Center’s website, Foner explains that the memorial will require a “critical eye,” and stresses that, “There have been many points in our history where freedom has been restricted, and has gone backwards.” What relevance this has to a September 11 memorial is unclear, but it does suggest that leftists like Foner intend to use the memorial to project their view of American history as an unabated stretch of oppression and intolerance.

 

That concern is only strengthened by the presence of Michael Posner among the center’s advisors. Posner is another odd choice for a memorial honoring freedom. In his capacity as the executive director of the leftist group Human Rights First, Posner has been among the more vocal members in the chorus of activists noisily insisting that the United States, in its War on Terror, poses the greatest threat to freedom. Contending that the United States has engaged in widespread torture, Posner charges the U.S. government with crimes “against mankind, against humanity.” This March, his Human Rights First, working in tandem with the ACLU, filed a lawsuit against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, citing alleged reports of torture in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Posner is just as aggressive on the domestic front. His group has filed amicus curiae briefs on behalf of suspected “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla. It has also waged a fierce propaganda war. Among other outrageous claims, Posner likens the U.S. treatment of Middle Easterners since 9-11 to the internment of Americans of Japanese origin during World War II, contending that “a number of actions taken over the past three and a half years, and directed against people from South Asia and the Middle East, fall into this pattern.” Of counterterrorism legislation like the PATRIOT Act, Posner has claimed that it is “draconian.” In a reference to the Bush administration, meanwhile, Posner has said that “it is incumbent on all of us to respond in whatever ways we can to fend off the darkness.” (It is worth noting that Tom Bernstein, the co-founder of the International Freedom Center, is a lifetime member of Human Rights First and the longtime president of its board of directors, although, in addition to contributions to liberal Democratic Senators like Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama, Bernstein has also made several high-profile donations to President Bush’s re-election campaign.)

 

Still another representative of the “legal left” who serves as an advisor to the memorial is ACLU executive director Anthony Romero. Romero, who has mounted media and legal campaigns against the PATRIOT Act, has garnered headlines for throwing the ACLU’s clout behind Sami Al-Arian, the University of South Florida professor charged with organizing on behalf of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. Ever ready to assail the U.S. government, Romero is far more circumspect on the subject of terrorism. For instance, he recently told the New York Observer that, “No one fully knows why the attacks came on the U.S.” With respect to the center’s memorial, Romero has expressed his hope that, to the extent that it celebrates the values of freedom, it will incorporate the ACLU’s activist rallying cry that they have been neglected by the American government. As Romero told the Observer, “What is clear is that the center stands for our core principles and values, and that, in the aftermath of 9/11—unfortunately—our government has forgotten those very same values. And so, in a very interesting way, the center may provide a place where you remind the American people, and maybe even the government, of the importance of freedom, liberty and equality.”

 

To be sure, not all of the center’s advisors can be lumped into the category of left-wing activists. Historians like David Hackett Fischer, Pauline Maier, and Walter Isaacson have all made valuable contributions to the study of American history, and the center should be commended for inviting their contributions to the memorial. But incomparably better represented are left-wing academics like Anthony Appiah, the professor of philosophy at Princeton University who has assailed the U.S.-led liberation of Iraq as a war whose aim is “extremely obscure,” whose “human costs to both Americans and Iraqis have been appalling,” and in which “victory correspondingly elusive.” (Such comments notwithstanding, the center’s website carries the following inspirational quote by Appiah: “I think a Museum like this could actually make people see why it matters to be involved and care about freedom everywhere.” Everywhere, apparently, except Iraq.)

 

More recent additions to the center’s list of advisors do nothing to dispel its image as a brain trust of the activist left. Although it passed largely under the radar of the media, the center’s Board of Advisors, announced this April, comprised some telling choices. In addition to Democratic stalwarts like Harris Wofford, the former Democratic U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, the board includes Joe Trippi. Trippi, who spearheaded the grassroots anti-war presidential campaign of Howard Dean, will now help devise the center’s activist “engagement” programs.

 

The tone for the center's work was actually set last June, when, in a dedication ceremony for the center, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu referred to the terrorism attacks as “acts of desperation.” In the same speech, Tutu suggested that terrorists where driven by “abject poverty,” and, in a backhanded dig at the War on Terrorism, added that in “our common passion for freedom that we can't go it alone.”

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this message, coupled with the center’s less than diverse assemblage of advisors, has enticed the moneyed left to bankroll the center’s memorial. Sponsors include the Open Society Institute, the grant-making arm of leftist financier George Soros. Another sponsor is the left-wing Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The fund’s interest in the memorial is easily deciphered: its administrators have long maintained that the greatest threat to the post-911 world comes from the United States. As the fund’s Peace and Security Program has understatedly put it, “At the start of the 21st century and in the wake of September 11, 2001, there exists a pressing need to examine the content, style, and tone of U.S. global engagement and to ensure that they reflect an understanding of the reality and implications of increasing global interdependence.”

 

The final design of the center’s memorial will not be finalized until the end of 2005, but unless an aroused American public speaks up, all signs suggest that the finished product will be little more than a propaganda vehicle for the blame America left. Discussing the still-developing plans, Tom Bernstein recently told the New York Times, “We're not trying to be comprehensive.” To judge by the ideological groupthink obtaining among the center’s advisors, this is a resounding understatement of what amounts to a monumental betrayal of those who died in the 9/11 attack.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18360

Stealing Ground Zero
Tuesday Debra Burlingame noted in the Wall Street Journal, "Ground Zero has been stolen, right from under our noses. How do we get it back?"

Today the president of the International Freedom Center, Richard Tofel, responds.

A year ago tomorrow, a new institution called the International Freedom Center was formally designated by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. as one of the four cultural institutions for the World Trade Center site, all to be operated under the aegis of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.

But some ask why such an institution -- including museum exhibition spaces, an educational and cultural center already boasting commitments from nine of New York City's, the nation's and the world's leading universities, and a robust service and civic engagement program all devoted to advancing the cause of freedom -- should be placed at Ground Zero. It is a serious question, and it deserves a thoughtful response.

Unfortunately for us the thoughtful response amounts to little more than, "trust us." There's lots of quotations, but very little on specifics. Surely the vagueness with which he describes the IFC content is by design, as reactions to the revelations provided by Burlingame were nearly instantaneous and vociferous.

Tofel is at least transparent enough to note that the site will be an equal opportunity offender.

To be sure, the International Freedom Center will host debates and note points of view with which you -- and I -- will disagree. But that is the point, the proof of our society's enduring self-confidence and humanity. Moreover, the International Freedom Center will rise above the politics of the moment. It will not exist to precisely define "freedom" or to tell people what to think, but to get them to think -- and to act in the service of freedom as they see it. And it will always do so in a manner respectful of the victims of September 11.

...Ground Zero is precisely the right place to make this stand and leave a legacy for our children and generations to come.

As many have noted the ultimate respectful gesture to the victims of 9/11 is keep the focus on that day, that place, and those people.

http://wizbangblog.com/archives/006145.php

SARASOTA

Architect reception

A reception for Michael Arad, winning designer of the World Trade Center Memorial, sponsored by the Sarasota/Manatee Chapter of American Friends of the Hebrew University is 5:30-7:30 p.m. June 22 at G.WIZ The Hands On Science Museum, 1001 Boulevard of the Arts, Sarasota. Tickets are $36. Reservations and information by June 16:

(800) 899-2348 or southeast@afhu.org .

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/11841641.htm