Thang Nguyen 555

You’ll get there, that I am sure. When time runs out.

Others will gladly take your places. Vacancy. space. possession. Life is like a big hotel, where no one can claim monopoly: it’s my domain my throne.

We are around just for the ride yet we think/act as if we were made of teflon: like Cher like Mick. “You can’t always get what you want…” hear that, x President Trump!

America, land of the free, and of the detail-obsessed. Lots of rules, written and unwritten, spoken and unspoken.

Low prices? No problem. Convenience? No problem. Values? No problem. Buy now, spend now, consume now (The future will take care of itself.) No time to die. No time to think. No time to vote. And of course no time for the soul. Just muscles and money. Texas Strong. Money talk.

If you got no money to invest (in some sorts of Ponzi-scheme) then, give me your time; I will monetize for you. Voila! Ghost work! Crowd source. Egyptian King and the Mechanical Turk. Spin that wheel. Machine learning taught by man to replace man.

If asked, you’ll get tons of answers, first Fortune-cookies wisdom, and now online. Lots of wisdom, podcast and broadcast. From choosing your friends to investing wisely … . 7 Billions of self-interest self-indulgence definitely will collide = ending in a lose-lose proposition at scale, like covid and climate change.

Pedagogy of the oppressed. Give me your time, your expertise, your firstborn, your creativity. your content and your contact. While at it, we’ll take your bedrooms and your backseats. Bam, the sharing economy. purportedly seeks to democratize access, yet ends up exploiting the commons (while pocket the profit! Capitalism at its ugliest apex).

Don’t know what to do with your time? No problem. Don’t know where you’re going? No problem. No soul? No problem. The age of muscles over mind, money over morality. No memory? Now, we do have a problem.

On a fly, I just booked it. Screw it, let’s do it.

It’s now or never. It’s autumn. It’s Vermont and New Hampshire. It’s the leaves, the times of our lives.

I know those who sang “forever young” are now dead. Delusion. Self-deception.

We, human, carry a capacity to lie to ourselves. That everything is gonna be OK. That the end comes, certainly, but always for others, not us.

Wait for the booster shot. Wait for better travel condition. Wait for airline promotion. Wait, wait, wait.

It’s now or never. Elvis lives on. Artists live on. But only in our hearts and memories.

New ones come along. New opportunities, but mostly, for others.

I don’t have the luxury. I call a spade a spade. No distortion. No deception.

I have grown older. I have seen people and myself fade. New actors on the scene. Old scripts.

Even the virus got its new variant. Delta variant.

Dressed to kill. And to a wider implication, dressed to scare. The pandemic panic.

We’re all scared: sipping water in between masked/unmasked on airplane.

Air travel has never been like this. But I am grateful that I do it at all since Feb of 2020.

Stuck at home. Inside the four walls. Imagination runs wild. But my body, which houses the brain, where imagination originates, stays in place. Stuck.

Software vs hardware. Brain vs body. Virtual vs real.

Now all I want is to feel the rustling of the wind, the falling of the leaves and myself inside those Vermont pictures, no photoshops.

Instant gratification without instagram.

To reclaim what is ours for ourselves. Not for Mark, for facebook, for others.

Us. Out there. Nature. Where we belong. Where we once were familiar with. Where it stings, it is cold, hot and lukewarm. But it’s real. It’s ours, not copyrighted by youtube, facebook, google and/or Apple.

Between tech and virus. Isn’t it time for us to grab an opportunity to step on the falling leaves, to feel the rustle of the Northeast wind and to see some smiling faces that have since carried worrying wrinkles and saddened eyes. It’s time to feel, once again, like human that we are, or to be more truthful, once were.

Stripped off nobility, You can still have dignity. That’s the difference. You and I have the latter while very few inherited the former. Not even Bezos or Zuckerberg. They might be able to “buy” the title “Sir” (Charlie Chaplin, Elton John and Paul McCartney earned it by their talents and fame). Once again, I scanned a David Brooks’ NYT column. He touched on the price tag of 4T, a not-too-arbitrary number – enough to re-gain respect for the working people of America. Call it a reparation fee, or a fine the top tier for indulging in Capitalism excess at the expenses of common people, whom we live with, who serve us Starbucks and Big Macs and turn around to be consumers of goods we produce. Makes the world go round.

Henry Ford used to pay his workers a wage that , in his opinion, allowed them to afford the very automobiles they were assembling. Today’s inflation and supply chain problems, off shoring and vaccine inequity ; a confluent that put us in an untenable situation: to re-shore some jobs (Intel investment). That is, if our Sinema from AZ would open the gate (all bottle neck through Manchin and her/him).

Meanwhile, here in Austin, people tossed molotov cocktail to the Democratic HQ in the hope of igniting further unrest (Who said President Johnson can R.I.P.). They used to burn themselves at the steps of the Pentagon in his days. At least, the only person harmed was themselves. Today, the unvaccinated and unmasked inadvertently elect to become covid carriers. A Jim-Jones suicide pact, without Jim Jones.. Just like the 9/11 terrorists, only exponentially. Currently we are at 700,000 deaths and counting. By the time we are done with boosters, vaccines for kids and the conversion of the unvaxx, we might be at the 1- million milestone.

Preventable deaths.

Preventable drama and subpoena ( Oath Keepers – whose leader, incidentally, wears an eye patch, a mirror image of the Taliban hardline minister), preventable government shut-down (now pushed to December- kick that can down further down the road) and preventable decline in infrastructure, climate and health care.

We are due for a course correction. Every four decades or so. Gas lines are long in Britain (back in the early 70’s, it’s the US). The top 1 per centers have their tax overdue (un avoidable with re-shoring of jobs and evaded taxes now that Pandora file wide opened). May workers find jobs, good jobs once again. Not gigs. Jobs. With a smile on their faces and paychecks in hand. Not “ghost work” (a merge between pro-sumersim and automation) that might help consumers catch up with inflation, but it eliminates many jobs (self-serve at groceries stores and Walmart).

We don’t wait to be re-born into nobility. We start today. With our own hands and our heads. Just look at the Haitians, the Afghans, the El Salvadorans. Why would they want to come? Hope is stronger than fear. They might come wading through waters but someday, they will be driving. Maybe not as groovy as in Motown days. But they will find a way to re-invent themselves, to prove not to the world, but to themselves, that given an opportunity, they can preserve and protect their dignity. Wait not for funerals or weddings. No Jimmy Hendrix (funeral) nor Romanov (wedding). Just be Happy Today. With their god-given talent, dedication and perseverance. That’s dignity. That’s divinity. To live productive lives and be buried under God’s Earth. Good Earth.

We have put so much emphasis on progress at the expense of tradition. We forget we used to respect the elders, open the door for the handicaps, protect our young and punish the unjust. Now, it seems like we worship a new neon god, the machine, technique – hard and soft wares. We are talking about a bail out. Too big to fail. But not 2008. This bail-out is the Mother of them all: the bail out of man’s dignity, not banking industry. Machines took away jobs (even picking grapes besides corn). Machines will have to pay us some compensation: so we can just sit, consume “misinformation” and other assembly-line products. Will have to teach them to be more “human” and more “socially responsible” (instead of the other way around: Un Temp Moderne, Chaplinesque – who – after punching out – still see work everywhere he went).

Maybe 4 Trillion is still cheap. Heck, Afghanistan will cost us 6.5 Trillion, when all said and done. How about American back to (trade) school, back to work (rural broadband), and putting transparency and democracy back in the Constitution and the voting booth. Give me a “d”. Give me an “i”…..you know the drill. We’re only as good as our next door neighbor. When his house burned, or Northern California forest burned – or oil spill in the Gulf or Huntington Beach (weakest link) we all get burned. Same with young man who tossed the Molotov cocktail, the Oath Keepers, An eye for an eye…Kansas or Kabul?

It’s one thing if we were royalty. But we are not (all got our humble start as Boat People, Mayflower that was). And Dorothy, you are no longer in Kansas. It begins to feel like Kabul. So Goodbye Yellow Brick Road… plenty like me to be found… that spark of divinity deserves more dignity, right now, while living, not when he/she is dead, by covid or what not. Who would be around to hear “don’t speak ill of the dead”, while he/she can appreciate a raise or a paycheck. You should have seen the smile on that homeless lady’s face when she saw it’s a ten (I split, since I had found a twenty). Money talks

“Mongrels who ain’t got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you”

I was conceived and designed to be the tallest. Everyone wanted a piece of me (and my twin): taking pictures, walking a tight wire from one end to the other; reserving tables at Windows on the World (Carpenters’ Top of the world on muzak) then using commercial jet liners to hit me and my twin, to burn and bury us. Inadvertently turning us into a mass-grave complex complete with waterfalls, shaded tree lines and of course, WTC memorial. Even scrap metal (what’s left of us) were salvaged to build the USS New York or sold to BaoSteel.

On our last day, we saw the best and the worst: footsteps going down and footsteps going up (Emergency workers’). People ignored people, people helping people and media people covering people in trouble.

Who would have thought! There will never be a Tuesday in September that comes close. An otherwise crystal clear day, when people was about to take a post-summer vacation (nicer weather), or back from a vacation and people who had their eye glasses upgraded (as in the case of the WoW restaurant owner). People attended seminar (or too lazy to attend it hence survived like the owner). Thousands of little everyday decisions: attending an Elementary reading session (Potus), complying to Oracle’s business trip (Todd Beamer). Travelers crisscrossed the country on thousands of flights. Big country. America the Beautiful.

Meanwhile, there were a total of 19 of them. Laying low. Cell by cell of sleepers. Ordering pizzas and call girls. Attending flight schools, obtaining driving licenses, renting mailboxes and buying first class tickets, all financed from our oil addiction, sitting near the cockpits. Near the flight control gears. Avoid detection, avoid rousing suspicion. Early in the month, they took a surveillance flight, to finalize their fourth target: the Capitol or the White House, with made up minds about me and my twin. After all, we were the tallest, most iconic and visible landmarks hence top-mind.

Passengers were subdued, planes commandeered to become weapons of mass destruction. Imagine just a truck plowing through a crowd, much less a plane – full of jet fuel (intended for an East-West coast route). Sit back, and relax. Right! Attention: you have been hi-jacked. We will deplane you as soon as possible (when and if our ransom demands are met – we would have thought! ( before that, it would have understood just that way).

When shit hit the fan, all hell broke loosed: elevator shafts stuck, people jumped, screamed, hid under desk or ran down the stairs (leaving phones behind). A few stopped to help a lady in the wheel chairs, down 46 flights, to safely be driven away in an emergency vehicle. FD Chaplain ran up, along with NYC fire crew. As portrayed by Nicholas Cage, many of whom were stuck when the towers crumbled, never to be found. Others got recovered and rescued from the rubble. All-hands were on deck. Lives shattered, dreams delayed and loved ones missing.

Have you seen him? Here is her picture. Photos of the most wanted plastered next to photos of the most loved. On fences and posts. Me and my twin, or what were left of us, turned make-shift information centres. Widows of the world, once always looking-at the rest. Now, the rest looking at us.

It’s been twenty years since. On that spot, sprung life, trees and water falls. Tower and tickets (parking). “People bowl and pray, to the neon god they made”.

Me. “my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence”.

I stay in awe at the depth of depravity. Inspired by the height of heroism. How can people who did not look at each other in the eyes (not when you are in a crowded elevator, whose Sliding Door slammed automatic, just like in the movie – at shoulders touching, riding up and down 110 stories with frequent stops), turned in an instant to be so “humanly” with each other. People hurting people. People helping people. Who are we to trust.

Free will is elusive. O’ Neill was with the Bureau, retired and took a job as Towers’ security chief. Only to die on the job at the depth of that destruction. Cause? Our failure of the imagination (besides failure of intelligence). Ten years later, it took an Executive order to take out Bin Laden. The job of the President of the United States, ranging from reading a book to school children in Sarasota, FL to ordering “Take the shot” at the compound in Pakistan (via satellite feed).

After id the body, perhaps taken a photo, the SEAL team bagged their acquired target (Geronimo) and dropped it mid air in remembrance of those WTC falling men. Eye for an eye, as well versed by today’s Taliban hardline leader. After all, many WTC workers jumped heads first – straight down – to escape certain death in 2200 degrees boiler rooms. A high-speed shutter camera captured their free falling, looked as if they were suspended at mid air without a bungee rope.

The emergency stairways that day saw many hurried footprints. Mostly heading down. A few up. Then everything imploded. Incinerated. Burned and buried. As if to archeologically cover our shame and sorrow.

No longer business as usual over a cup of coffee at the Today Show, or on Wall Street with ticker tape running, traders shouting and elevators humming; people hurrying past , divorcing or returning to each other’s arms ( after a long commute.)

Instead, we saw a beginning out of that end, venturing into the Unknown unknown, from us, the known Towers. The famous ones that our French climber walked his tight wire briskly in exhibition and with pride. Human free will. Human free fall. Human most dangerous gift from God: to choose between good or evil. From the Garden (Gethsemane) to Ground Zero; to sell out for 30 pieces of silver or to give one’s life for others.

We’d love to stay around a little bit longer, but time was up. Being the tallest and all, we once were the talk of the town… everyone wanted a piece of us.

In the end, who else can we be, identifiable and predictable, but ourselves: conceived in a womb, at the intersect of two people, who themselves were products of billions of permutations and years of evolution.

David Brooks opined that we – human being – have yet made much progress on self-awareness. We can re-frame our selected narratives. But self-awareness? Illusion!

In short, we are pretty much programmed, like a garage light automatically flipped on as motion is detected.

My brother doesn’t eat beef or fish. It’s not in our family’s menu or to his liking – a chicken & egg riddle i.e. my mom did not cook them knowing his preferences, or because my mom did not offer them, that led to his habitual avoidance. Perhaps it’s his mental imprints during the 1945 famine up North (VN), where cows and fish were rarities.

At age 82, he doesn’t fly and hasn’t been for quite a while.

His limited self-awareness clusters around fear of flying and of eating fish.

By now, we’ve figured out what we don’t like (negative trumps positive). Once burned twice shy, after numerous mistakes in choosing a mate, a major or a mascot (ITT students got some loan cancelled. Lucky for them).

Self-deceit lasts as long as the honey moon with one’s self; after that, it’s we whom we have to live with 24/7 (no one else to blame ). If in retirement, we learn quick about intrinsic values vs individual contributions e.g. babysitting grandchildren, that there is only one “you”. In and of ourselves we remain Numero Uno. So, do the world a favour: be yourself always. This makes it easy to I.D, easy to predict.

Identified victim No 1 of 9/11 was Father Mychal Judge, NYC Fire Department Chaplain. A Franciscan. First to the other side to meet and greet the next 3000, among them falling men and WTC jumpers. Who else? Born to run- as a fire fighters’ chaplain – against the crowd, up the stairs.

With a heightened self-awareness, he was aware of his higher calling, what he was made-of and what his vocation demanded of him. Father Judge was meant to be, for that notable end. It’s us who are unsure, easily swayed: “buy this, buy that…then you’ll become this and that” , easy marks for Con America.

For me, I learned an awful lot at an early age: picking up broken pieces of rice bowls under our dining table (during my parent’s fights). I learned people don’t get along 100% of the time. I learned people were made of different genes, hence different temperament and strength ( weakness not withstanding). I learned conflict is a big part of life (heck, I am a refugee) and it does occasionally erupt, like volcanos. Someone said we’re either in a pre or post-war era.

So I developed humility and compassion, emotional and social intelligence, the hard way; under the shadows of four adults who rushed out every morning in search for food (hunters/gatherers). I saw both their shame and social grace. Who else could they be, besides themselves. Me, who else can I be? Father Judge, who else could he be, what ending was he to have, on that fateful morning. After all, ships aren’t built to dock in a harbor forever and fire fighters are to run toward, not away from burned buildings.

They say “Pick your battle”. As if we had choices. Often times, it’s the battle that comes to us, given who we are, where we were situated and from: born at the intersect of two different people (even in an arranged marriage of two equals as in my parent’s case).

Back to the contrast between my brother and I. I enjoy a hamburger and an occasional glass of wine. He wouldn’t touch either one. And guess how I was able to get back and forth to/from Vietnam? Who else can I be, once under our dinning table in my youth then to be up in the air using those Boeing arm-rests for dinning support!

After a long time away, I was back to watch the same Vung-Tau sky, once dotted with 7th-fleet war ships. In its absence, I ended up projecting out and adopting a 7th-fleet like saviour/guilt complex for coping mechanism.

We, geography seekers (they have just discovered a footprint of 23,000 years in New Mexico), are so outward-focused at the expenses of our interior space; only to come home and discover ourselves (our own worst enemy) for the first time. As David Brooks observed, self-awareness eludes us and our quest for it, an illusion. Good for those who in the end realised who they really were and were made of (intrinsic worth).

Numero Uno victim of 9/11 sermonised and embodied his message til the end, in quite contrast to the 19 , who wanted whatever they had been told (via rote learning) so bad to voluntarily give up their lives for it. Their acts of terror triggered a war of a different dimension (action, reaction and inaction) killing our Fire Department cleric, with face toward the Sun and ending with OBL, their chief strategist, with body disposed of in the thick of the night.

Identifiable with predictable end.

Who else!

Here is Bingham

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/09/11/rugby-star-9-11-hero-mark-bingham-leaves-lasting-legacy-20-years-after-united-flight-93-crash/

Here is Beamer

https://www.wsj.com/articles/flight-93-united-todd-beamer-9-11-september-eleventh-jihadist-terrorist-attack-11631223355?page=1

Local (SF) vs National/International coverage (WSJ).

Although the Twin Towers were built side by side, these two heroes who died of equal deaths and carried equal weights, drew unequal attention.

That’s all I am saying.

And that’s just in a span of twenty years.

Another 40, 50 years on. Perhaps one will be elevated into sainthood, the other remains a sinner (not in SF).

Unless we build in a mechanism, and point out unconscious bias. A recent study, aired on PBS Friday 9/18/21, points out just a 3 percent difference in giving more credits to men than women, resulting in 87 % difference in tilt promotion between the two groups.

The loss and cost of unconscious bias. How many friends we could have had. Great employees and potential managers we could have promoted and fully utilized skill set. Worse off, we have become “biased” ourselves, having enshrined with that unconsciously i.e. how the world operates (the IBM sales cloning).

They even teach The Homogenious Unit (HUP) principle to grow (segregated) churches (might as well saying it out loud: cloning the sheep).

All white-suburban mega churches, complete with sound systems, untuck shirts and Amy Grant projectors. Donate today. Get saved today (or at the least, get your Pastor-signed religious exemption certificate – to avoid vaccination).

Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, the Rugby team, the leadership skill and bravery of Bingham-like.

Ignored, forgotten if not out right edited out – if not for the love of his mother, who became a mother-figure for the LGBT community. Societal unconscious bias. Our own. No one cares. Until it’s the plane you are on. Then you would want both Beamer and Bingham on it. To “appoint” them to rush the cockpit, while you stay in the cabin (at least, the flight attendants helped boil water as weapon).

God bless America, and All those who are in it, gay or straight, men or women, passengers or flight attendants. They voted, they acted, and they died. Bravely. Equal and symmetrical death. No difference, and very very democratizing yay or nay votes. Cream or sugar? Both.

When the (Memorial) park workers laid my father six feet below ground, my sister, on my left, said “The la xong” (C’est fini, It is finished). I was too busy processing the combined visual, auditory and kinetic sensories to figure out what she meant by that.

Maybe she, the oldest person alive to have lived the most years with my Dad, mean “all the struggles and strives are now over”, or “the weight of the world – its expectations and demands – on you, are no longer heavy” i.e. you’re exempted. Like my jury duty tomorrow, excused via a received text from court.

Half a million of us now live past 100. Long life. Long view. Long movie features, each film starring us. Our protagonists, proteges and our sidekicks, might die off, but we – assume we belong to that class of privileged folks – live on, on screen and online. We reflect, connect the dots and see the re-runs (like DJT teetering at running again?!?).

One thing for sure: when we get there, given memory still intact, we won’t be fooled again. Twice? it’s our fault.

Given the moral arc, one hundred years is not a lot. The universe is righting itself by evolving and continuing-education just like AI. Elon Musk will tell us all about it when his all-civilian crew are back safely.

Meanwhile, out in California, our retained-and-not-recalled Governor says “Thanks”, in many languages. He certainly has more lives than one. May he live one at a time, and live it well, real long. California has lots of potential and problem, being new and all to the table (the Founding states, that is, not the Lord’s table).

All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey (hope they quench those wild fires). Old couples, our decent and respectable folks, need clear air to breathe, in times of covid. To sit and stare out to Catalina and Alcatraz Islands… far out enough to project an America – indivisible, under God. The further out the projection, the larger it looms. AUKUS? NATO? UN? Even larger and more if taken the long view and given the dynamics of global politics.

It’s chilling this morning with Nicholas on his way out. I thought of the Afghan new arrival. They must feel the chill, just like the homeless lady at the corner as I made a left to the gym. I thought back to good-hearted folks who chipped in their worn but warm clothes. And how Penn State in the Fall is perfect for home games (a sea of White pull-overs). Then the student section would shout “We are”, which immediately triggers an echo across the field: “Penn State” (opposite the student section is alumni’s). You can very well hear those cheers miles away, since Happy Valley oh well, is located in a valley, quite a sound-studio natural construction.

Why do we need to hang on to life? Why don’t we just hire someone to shoot us for insurance, like a SC lawyer did yesterday. What is it to 24 hours a day that we want to cling to so badly until “it’s finished”. The la het. Chet. Mourir. Death. You don’t have to answer those rhetorical questions. “Death, where is thy sting!”.

I know you (death angel) work on a schedule, just like an unmarked Amazon van which should be delivering Woodward’s latest book to me i.e. expected and imminent. Yet one cannot die, like that lawyer, by pre-arranging it. There is such a thing called destiny/ fate plus sciences (data). Currently, half a million out of Earth’s 7+ Billion are in the centenarian club. Sitting on the bench, feeding the birds, looking out to the far horizon, projecting an America, indivisible, under God (the longer the view the larger the system).

And while at it, since we have just committed to a new acronym, AUKUS, let’s hope in the Pacific, we won’t get another Pearl Harbor. Don’t you hate those, pre-arranged pre-meditated pre-celebrated kamikaze mass funeral, on this side of 9/11 20th anniversary. Don’t get me wrong. The idea of an ideal America will go on; you and me and the dog named Boo won’t.

Many of us were born in one place, only to be buried somewhere else. Like my father. And of course, like father like son, but not so soon… when Saigon birthplace is currently on lockdown. Half of the city has been emptied out, de-urbanized. The die-hard folks (who stay put) barely hang on half-starved for nine long weeks. Like NYC last year, nature can now breathe, and perhaps, its butterflies can dance and sing in the rain – amidst a man-made French-made city without the baguettes.

My Dad used to walk those streets. We both did, sometimes together Easy on Sundays. Then one day my sister said her line from my left – in my Dad’s movie final scene: “C’est fini” on that cold and snowy January, while I was waiting to toss the last lone rose from my hand. R.I.P. Dad, who almost made the club, shy of 7 years.

Long view.

The battle did not start on that day and certainly not ended at 10:06 AM when UA-93 went down on 9/11. A bit more flying, it would have crashed and killed 501 students of Shanksville-Stoney Creek School in Pennsylvania. Left to its intended course (after the U-turn), it was a guided missile locked for the Capitol.

One side, 4 of the 19 who hi-jacked airplanes. On the other, Beamer, Burnett, Bingham (gay & proud) and Jeremy (along with 41 others). Two teams fought tooth and nail, to the death. In the air, in our hearts and minds. Theocratic battle, since the beginning of times. Jihad vs Jesus (in Beamer’s case, for sure), Islamic Fundamentalism vs Convergence (of liberalism and globalism). To those four successful business executives’ credits, who had played sports and happened to board at Newark Airport, New Jersey; they weren’t out for notoriety or trying to claim a seat in Paradise (Bingham, gay proud).

But those activated terrorists definitely signed up for Heavenly rewards (and family pension); a case of religious misuse and abuse. From a 90 per cent approval (President Bush rating) to today’s Biden’s – half of that due given vaccine mandate and Afghan pull-out etc… from world’s pedestal to pandemic bottom-out; the US of A has work to do (soft-powers).

If only the CIA had shared info. If only we had picked up on early signs of sleepers cells, who hid in plain sight (ordering pizza and call girls, rented cars and mail boxes). If only , if only. It happened. All the steel in Pittsburg (200,000 tons of beam) couldn’t hold, couldn’t stand once evil men wanted to pull a “Samson”. We were about to vote out Giuliani and vote for Bloomberg in a Tuesday primary, to finish watching our Today’s show, to enjoy that rare crystal clear morning in September. Back to work, to school and to a late vacation (as in one case, a fireman finishing up his graveyard shift to join his family on a long-awaited trip).

On many levels, we have analysed that event to death, after millions of pages, multi-million dollars spent on recovery efforts and Trillion of dollars borrowed to have justice in the American way (Saudi?).

Yet. We keep squandering our future inheritance, people are dying a 9/11 toll every two days (3000) or a twenty-year Afghan death toll (of 2470 per PBS Newshour charts). UA 93 was on course to deal a second blow to our Nation’s Capital ( fourth and final of 9/11 hi-jacked planes). Before that day, we’d got Oklahoma bombing, World Trade Centre bombing, or pirates for ransom (at seas) and hi-jacking per ideology (Munich 72). Not an outright and frontal attack on civilian with cold-blooded and calculated precision (even surveillance to ascertain line-of-sight as to Capitol vs White House target toss up). More than likely the evil band was financed and abetted by Saudis in San Diego (who rolled out a welcoming mat for at least 2 of the 19).

Can’t wait to see how the court rule on the plotters currently held off shore. Can’t wait to see the de-classified 9/11 “national security” files. Can’t wait for Earth’s 7 Billion to respect each other’s faith and practice. Born a Buddhist, baptised a Christian, only to re-discover my roots, I have seen both sides. Through 9/11 I am exposed to another: the Islamic faith. The most violent act from the Buddhists I personally witnessed, was a monk-burning (self-inflicted) in my youth.

Au contraire, the Christian faith has always coupled itself with the Powers that be (Crusaders or Church of England) to push the Great Commission to its limits (in and of itself, presents a conflict of interests, a threat to peaceful co-existence), or allied itself with Colonialism (Western mercenaries and missionaries), a passe structure in today’s multi-polar society.

No other event has ever made us more on edge than the pandemic, the 9/11 attacks and the J- 6 insurrection. It’s us who are our worst enemies: our “foul-spirited” insurgents succeeded where the UA-93 terrorists had failed i.e. attacking the cradle of Democracy.

Around 10 AM on 9/11, both sides said their prayers equally fervently i.e. “I am with You” “You are with me” (You in capitalised). In Him we trust (as it says in the dollar bill) presided both in the Chamber – the Electoral votes Certification disrupted and delayed- and in the cockpit – commandeered by the terrorists and re-commandeered by the passengers “Let’s roll!” = “Let US, all, roll!”.

It’s US, 20 years on, who are myopic and wilful with blinders on.

These battles for Supremacy did not start on that day, nor does it end today, the 20th anniversary of 9/11. They are to be continued, given the messed-up and mixed-up nature inside the hearts of men.

People were often asked that very same question, as time goes by.

When President Kennedy got shot in Dallas, the US was a nation in shock and with shared grief. Thanks to the medium of Television, CBS News in particular, with Cronkite, barely had the time to put on his sports coat for Breaking News (formal dress was for the Evening News – That’s the way it was).

I remember walking with my classmate Pierre, a Franco-Vietnamese, on our way to class. We’re at the same age, and we found security in numbers. That walk was one of the most memorable ones, since we discussed the event that November 22 day. Wow! They just did the Ngo’s brothers not too long ago (on November 2). Barely three weeks after, it’s the US President (little did we know, 5 years later, it turned so ominous and symmetrical on both sides of the world, both pairs of Presidential brothers : VN-US ended up dead).

Similarly symmetrical 20 years ago was what happened with the Twin Towers. One after the other went down. Deliberate acts of terrorism. Without a doubt (at first, even Katie Couric of NBC thought it was a commuter plane). I remember where I was on that day: Where was I then? I was in Southern California, watching it unfold on TV (analog TV with cable hook-up). My extended family was in N. Virginia, near the Pentagon. We had arrived in the US safely after some haywire experience at seas ( the last day of Saigon). Then to be apart to free each other up for the uphill, upward mobility climb. Only to be worried about each other once again. Their safety, my Mom’s, in particular.

I saw people jumping out of the then-incinerated-chimney-like towers (smokes get in their eyes and by extension mine). I felt like I had experienced a George Floyd’s choke hold. Up until then, I have watched planes bombing the Independent Palace of Saigon, I have watched helicopter’s blades flying uncontrollably toward us on May 30, 1975, and I have watched Nuclear Reactor on the verge of melt-down (Three-Mile Island live coverage as a TV intern on my senior year). But to join millions others with eyes glued to the set, hard to breathe and knowing deep down, our near-term future would forever change, was something hard to describe.

My 9-yr-old daughter at the time did not comprehend the implications. To her, and I suspect, many of her generation, it was something happened somewhere else, on TV, not unlike a Japanese-made King Kong movie. Or worse, Pearl Harbor had been more serious since it involved more suicides and planes. That day, the only plane in the sky was Air Force One, traveling from Florida to Louisiana (per Satellite imagery). The rest was grounded, thousands of them. I dare you to book on line travel this coming Saturday. It’s scary just the thought of it. We also learned 2 F-16’s were off in search of the UA-93 (on course to become guided missile to down the White House/Capitol Hill) to “Take it out” per Bush-Cheney relay order. The conscious decision to match the terrorists’ suicide with one’s own on United Airlines 93 that day thwarted and a-symmetricalized the plotters’ plan.

It’s Tom Wolfe who put it best: “that day, New York’s two front teeth were knocked off”.

As they say, knocked down, but not knocked out. Go ahead, and count. America would rise up again, and again. Like a sequel to Rocky. To Balboa’s line “cut me” (so I can see the left hook). The Eagle’s eyes. See through and see well. If not, it’s the phoenix that shall rise. This is a 400-year old nation that has lured the best to join, or if not, the bravest, the most resilient and tenacious. The most inventive! So one-off that it has become the envy of the entire world, of other religious fanatics and nation-states albeit much older since their foundings. I must admit, out of their genes pool popped up an OBL, a strategist and evil-spirited salesman (who could recruit). But.

America will stand up again and again. It might be a bit naive – listening to the relics and embers of French colonialists (my Dad had friends who were in Emperor Bao Dai entourage in Paris in the hope of some grand return); or sacrificing Mr Powell at the UN per Blair, as he asserted that there sure were WMD – raison d’etre for another jab at Iraq. BUT, make no mistakes. America has been and will be back. Yesterday, I posted Mt Rushmore – in the rough- prior to having US Presidents’ faces emerged out of it.

Give America some time (to carve out and to reveal what’s meant to be: a Republic unlike any other, of-by-and for the People of all castes, races, geo-location of origins, sexual orientations, aspirations and tolerance levels for risks and rewards). It just so happened that while the worst was seen that day in NYC and DC ( including another Wheaton alumnus – House Speaker-turned-singer, who was once a wrestling coach rapist); the best unfolded at the same time in Shanksville, PA. What are we waiting for: “Let’s Roll” (shouted Todd Beamer, of Wheaton, my alma mater). He who is no fool to lose that which he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/flight-93-united-todd-beamer-9-11-september-eleventh-jihadist-terrorist-attack-11631223355?

I remember the history and horror; and I promised myself, I would live on to tell to my kids: ” Do become your best”, and if needed, to sacrifice for the many. Fool is me!