Tuesday Deadline Linkdump: Primary Day and 9/11 edition

It's Primary Day here in Vermont. Today's when you vote for the candidates you'd like to see on the ballot this November. I'll be heading to the Winooski Senior Center with my son Graham (right) this afternoon to cast my vote. Perhaps the democratic spirit will rub off on him. Better that than the inky black markers.

Browsing through the Vermont blogs, I saw many 9/11 recollections — maybe becaue it was the 5th anniversary. I couldn't resist linking to them and sharing some excerpts. I don't mean to be morbid, but I find it fascinating, how we use this technology to share our collective stories about that day.

Maybe I'm more interested in it now that I've got a kid who was born in its aftermath. How will I tell him about it? I don't even know where to start.

9/11 reflections:

• In a mirror dimly: "I was sitting in my first theology class at seminary when someone popped in to tell us that the World Trade Center had been attacked. We gathered in a central meeting area to watch events unfold. For a while I was just numb and unable to process what was happening. What did this mean? Why did this happen? To this day I think we're still trying to figure this out."

• Candleblog: "My cousin Jessica and her husband were due to fly into Burlington from Chicago on the afternoon of September 11th. I had taken the day off from work to hang out with them and was sleeping in. I was awakened by a phone call from them. I missed the call and it went to voicemail so I hit redial. The circuits were all busy so I tried a second time and got through. It was a little before 9am. I asked what was up and Mike replied "just watching the news" like I was a little weird for asking..."

• Outrageouschaos: "The morning of the 11th, I was working at one of my three jobs, teaching preschool. I had the two year-old classroom, and was in charge of making sure five tiny humans did minimal damage to their persons, while trying to teach them numbers and colors and that hitting our friends isn't a nice thing to do. I got into work at 7:00, as usual..."

• The Cool Blue Blog: "On September 11th, 2001 my son was at Fort Sam Houston, Texas in Advanced Infantry Training (AIT) for his specialty as a Combat Medic. A month later, he was heading home for leave prior to his first duty assignment with the 1st Cavalry Division. We made arrangements to meet in NYC where we would spend the night before taking a plane home the next morning. I told him that he would soon be going to war and I wanted him to see what it was he would be fighting for. We would visit "Ground Zero", the site of the World Trade Center attack. We ate in Times Square and when we were done, we headed for the subway station to take the train downtown. On the way, we found a statue that was to be delivered to a fire station, abandoned for the time being in the street. It had been turned into a shrine; the first of many we would encounter on our trip into the heart of darkness..."

• What's the Point? "Cesar lived on my floor during my first year of college. And though I wasn’t close to Cesar and didn’t stay in contact with him after school, he was the only victim of 9/11 that I knew personally. His death was so tragic and pointless, but it helped to personalize my grief."

• Hemmings Auto Blogs: "What is left of Engine #6 from the World Trade Center disaster is on permanent display at the New York State Museum in Albany. The state museum is one of the largest repositories of September 11 artifacts in the U.S. with many items on display including a portion of the steel skeleton of the World Center and the fire engine, both of which came from the Fresh Kills land fill, where all WTC debris was taken to be processed. A section of the fence from around ground zero is also displayed with some of the missing persons posters and the flowers and gifts that were left attached to it. The exhibit has been open since 2002 and has attracted as many as 70,000 visitors per month. The display is well thought out and tasteful representation of that day and a very sobering place to visit as well."

• Beauty is in the eye of the storm: "With all the shit everywhere I decided that I'd go back in my journal and find my entry from that date (because I've had my journal that long) and post it...but I didn't write anything. There are no entries from the evening of September 10th until the evening of September 14th...and the entry of the 14th is a copy/paste of the article that talks about Fallwell blaming 9/11 on the glbt community and pagans for making God mad. Then my journal goes right back to your regularly scheduled programming. Knowing the amount that I post, I find it so incredible that there was that sustained a silence. I feel like I've told the story a million times, but I guess I never wrote it down. Maybe I'll write it later...just to have it...before I forget any more details."