Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Drenched in My Pain Again, Becoming Who We Are

by Ken Houghton

In early 2003, memory serving, I had an interview with a fairly high middle-manager at a well-known firm with offices about two blocks from the World Trade Center.

In the midst of the interview, discussing working so near Ground Zero, he said, "in ten years, I expect my d*** to fall off."

He may not have been wrong.

The legacy of Christie Whitman in New Jersey is to shift taxes regressively and leave a successor who was even more corrupt. The legacy of EPA director Christie Whitman—and her superiors, who ordered reality ignored—is that they've shortened the lives and the health of many of my friends and former co-workers.

Ultimately—and I say this knowing it would be misrepresented by some idiot in the middle of Colorado, were this a more prominent blog—Whitman and the White House are likely to kill more people early than the attack itself did, with much more suffering.

Digby posted a few months ago (link tk) about how the 30-50-year-olds have been radicalized recently. If anyone has any doubt about my own predisposition, they can watch the next several years as friends and family meet early, untimely deaths.

But there won't be any stingrays, so Kyra Phillips won't Have a Clue. (amended as per discussion in comments)

UPDATE: A day later, a touch calmer, I discover that the redoubtable Digby (whose archives for March-August are nowhere to be found—at least for my limited skills) was on the case yesterday, including this link (also added above) which immediately raised my blood pressure back to the 120/80 range.
The Environmental Protection Agency's internal watchdog says White House officials pressured the agency to prematurely assure the public that the air was safe to breathe a week after the World Trade Center collapse.

"Competing considerations, such as national security concerns and the desire to reopen Wall Street, also played a role in EPA's air quality statements," the report said.

The Bush Administration: restoring integrity to the White House, one premature death at a time.
Comments:
Since we have our own toehold on the Irwin frenzy, I don't think it's fair to mention Waveflux and Kyra Phillips in the same breath. The latter has a clear responsibility to put the When Critters Attack stories in proper perspective.
 
You're correct; I will amend appropriately.
 
Thanks, Ken.
 
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