on 9/17/01 4:40 PM, Larry at Halpert@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> NYC doesn't build skyscrapers just for the heck of it, and to "show" how much
> power we have. NYC is the central financial center of the country, and it was
> logistical planning with the WTC to have many interacting agencies within
> walking distance of eachother. The only way to accomplish that efficiently is
> to build up. These particular buildings were not overbuilt with unused space.
> As we all know now, up to 50,000 people a day needed to be there.
>
> Hopefully the winning plan will be to build them visually exactly as they
> were.
>
> Larry
>
I was kind of holding the idea that maybe you don't rebuild... that you put
in a park instead... maybe a World United Against Terrorism park, with a
billion dollars worth of NY land set aside so we never forget that whatever
political differences we may pretend are important we are ALL still human
beings first, and should behave as if each of us was a life to be cherished.
There's a lot to be said for thinking about the notion of global
responsibilities a little deeper. Humankind is slowly evolving in the
direction of transcending the nation-state/capitalist "I/Me/Mine" but
particularly in the US we still value people by possessions and earnings
instead of social contributions and quality of humanistic behavior.
I don't have a solution because its 'human nature', reinforced by a globally
distributed culture. Rich people want to keep their lifestyle, sharing it
only if it won't mean a reduction in their standard of living (as measured
by *things*, not quality of *character*) and poor people for the most part
aspire to reach and imitate the rich lifestyle by having more things, first
simple things but increasingly "two TV's and a car and a bigger house"... We
need to create a global culture that doesn't measure the quality of one's
life by the size of the SUV and house you have... We are a long ways from
that.
I don't have any solution, I just don't see the dichotomy of rich nations to
poor nations yielding any solution that looks like the rich nations
lifestyle for everyone. The earth's resource base won't support an SUV (with
a tank of gas) in every third-world person's two-car garage. All of which is
pretty standard for the USA... As long as there is the huge disparity, there
will be tension that some will exploit for power.
--
Jim Brokaw
OM-1's, -2's, -4's, (no -3's yet) and no OM-oney...
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