Sometimes We Forget That Manhattan Is An Island

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about some of the unsung heroes of September 11, 2001.

The article reports:

On this year’s anniversary, one relatively unsung 9/11 story deserves retelling. It is the story of ordinary citizens who risked their lives to save more than a half-million people trapped at the southern tip of lower Manhattan — a rescue effort that would become the largest water evacuation in recorded history.

After the first of the Twin Towers collapsed, there was widespread confusion and panic. We were suddenly at war. We didn’t know what was coming next. Tunnels, bridges and highways leading out of the island of Manhattan were shut down.

There had never been a plan for how to conduct a mass evacuation from the most populous city in America — that was unthinkable. For the first time in more than 100 years, the only way on or off the island was by boat.

And then unexpected saviors came to the rescue: American mariners.

It started slowly as random boats and ferries already in the water voluntarily turned around and started loading people, as many as possible. It was instinct at work — patriotic Americans not wanting to leave each other stranded and vulnerable to whatever was coming next.

But the initial fleet of boats could fit only so many. The US Coast Guard, our nation’s maritime first responders, knew it had to organize. Officers got on the radio and called out to all nearby mariners: “Come help!”

And come they did. Tugs, party boats, water taxis — if it could float, it was steaming toward lower Manhattan, despite the risk of additional terror attacks and exposure to smoke and debris.

These mariners simply were not going to leave anyone behind. They loaded up as many individuals as could fit, dropped them off and sailed right back to the island, over and over again, all day and into the night.

In all, nearly 500,000 people were evacuated that day, more than the 339,000 rescued at Dunkirk. Some 150 different vessels, crewed by more than 800 American mariners, improvised and successfully executed this extraordinary feat of bravery.

Long-standing maritime traditions — safety, commitment, courage — guided these heroes.

Long-standing maritime traditions — safety, commitment, courage — guided these heroes.

Men like Vincent Ardolino of Brooklyn, captain of the Amberjack V, who passed away last year but whose stirring words can still be heard in the 2011 Tom Hanks-narrated documentary “Boatlift: An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience” as he recalls what could’ve been his final farewell to his wife: “I’ve got to go do something … I’m going to take the Amberjack up into the city and help … I have to do what I have to do … Even if I rescue one person, that’s one person less that will suffer or die.”

America’s maritime industry is accustomed to working in quiet anonymity to protect the nation and keep the economy moving. Yet, to those familiar with us, the actions of men like Vincent Ardolino on Sept. 11, 2011, come as no surprise.

In times of war and in times of peace, the American mariner will step up to serve without thinking twice.

And on that awful day, their aid — like that of so many brave first-responders — proved indispensable.

Fact is, this nation is blessed with many heroes willing to rush to help their neighbor, even at risk to themselves and without any desire to be singled out for their heroism.
Our mariners demonstrated that with crystal clarity on 9/11. As a maritime nation, we should count ourselves fortunate.

We are grateful to have such people as our fellow Americans.

More Questions Than Answers

On Saturday, Jeffrey Epstein, an inmate at Metropolitan Correction Center in lower Manhattan, was found unresponsive in his cell. He was taken to the hospital where he was declared dead. There are a lot of questions surrounding these events. There are very few answers available.

The New York Post reported yesterday:

The following account is from a former inmate of the Metropolitan Correction Center in lower Manhattan, where Jeffrey Epstein was found unresponsive Saturday, and declared dead at a hospital of an apparent suicide. The ex-convict, who spoke to The Post’s Brad Hamilton and Bruce Golding on the condition of anonymity, spent several months in the 9 South special housing unit for high-profile prisoners awaiting trial — like Epstein.

There’s no way that man could have killed himself. I’ve done too much time in those units. It’s an impossibility.

Between the floor and the ceiling is like eight or nine feet. There’s no way for you to connect to anything.

You have sheets, but they’re paper level, not strong enough. He was 200 pounds — it would never happen.

When you’re on suicide watch, they put you in this white smock, a straight jacket. They know a person cannot be injurious to themselves.

…But it’s my firm belief that Jeffrey Epstein did not commit suicide. It just didn’t happen.

Breitbart reported yesterday:

Rudy Giuliani reacted to Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged suicide Saturday morning, asking a series of questions about his death and stating, “Committing suicide on suicide watch doesn’t happen.”

Authorities found the convicted pedophile dead in his cell early Saturday morning, according to several reports.

Epstein committed suicide via hanging, according to reports from the New York Times and ABC News. The Associated Press reported that the “medical examiner’s office in Manhattan confirmed Epstein’s death.”

Many, including Giuliani, have questions.

“What does the word suicide mean in the phrase suicide WATCH? Who was watching? Did they fall asleep? Did the camera malfunction? Was there camera surveillance? Who was he about to implicate?” Giuliani tweeted Saturday.

Yesterday Bernie Kerik, former first deputy and commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections and former commissioner of the New York (City) Police Department, posted an article at The Hill about the death of Jeffrey Epstein.

Commissioner Kerik notes:

The crime here — in my mind, with what is known at this point — is that Epstein was placed in solitary confinement at all. The government often uses every tool in its power to ensure you never have a fair day’s fight in court, including the use of psychological tools to force you to plead guilty or to force you to cooperate with the government.

Solitary confinement is one of those tools. It is a mechanism to demean, degrade and demoralize a prisoner. The mind-altering seclusion of “solitary” will force a prisoner into a deep depression from which, for some, there is no return.

Only time will tell if that’s what happened with Epstein or if something more sinister occurred.

But one thing already is crystal clear: There are flaws and failures in the U.S. criminal justice system that should disturb all of us. And in Jeffrey Epstein’s case, none of it makes any sense.

Right now we have questions, not answers. Hopefully in the future we will get some answers.

The Wall Street Journal’s View Of The Wall Street Protesters

Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an article on the ongoing Wall Street protests. There were some interesting points:

In the matter of Occupy Wall Street, the allegedly anticapitalist movement that’s been camped out in lower Manhattan for the past few weeks and has inspired copycat protests from Boston to Los Angeles, we have some sympathy. Really? Well, yeah.

OK, not for the half-naked demonstrators, the ranting anti-Semites, Kanye West or anyone else who has helped make Occupy Wall Street a target for easy ridicule. But to the extent that the mainly young demonstrators have a valid complaint, it’s that they are trying to bust their way into an economy where there is one job for every five job-seekers, and where youth unemployment runs north of 18%. That is a cause for frustration, if not outrage.

That’s editorial speak for “I feel their pain.” I think everyone can identify with the struggles of young people trying to get jobs in a miserable economy, but the protesters need to rethink some of their protest targets. On Wednesday, they marched on J.P. Morgan Chase’s headquarters. J.P. Chase did not take excessive mortgage risk and did not need or receive TARP money. So why are they being protested?

Something else the protesters might consider when complaining that they cannot find jobs:

Now move from words to actions. Want a shovel-ready job? The Administration has spent three years sitting on the Keystone XL pipeline project that promises to create 13,000 union jobs and 118,000 “spin-off” jobs. A State Department environmental review says the project poses no threat to the environment, but the Administration’s eco-friends are screaming lest it go ahead. 

The article concludes:

This probably won’t do much to persuade the Occupiers of Wall Street that their cause would be better served in Washington, D.C., where a sister sit-in this week seems to have fizzled. Then again, most of America’s jobless also won’t recognize their values or interests in the warmed-over anticapitalism being served up in lower Manhattan. Three years into the current Administration, most Americans are getting wise to the source of their economic woes. It’s a couple hundred miles south of Wall Street. 

The easiest way to revive the stalled economy is the develop America’s fossil fuel energy sources. Unfortunately, under this administration, that will not happen.

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