The LA Times is running this photo I shot outside a West Hollywood antiques store. The owners display collectibles and old movie props but weeks have passed without a buyer for the 8' statue.
Just before the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, Lady Liberty reminded me...
As journalists, we make a living reporting other peoples' tragedies. Lost lives usually mean bigger ratings; 9/11 was no exception. Except it was our tragedy, too. There's a saying, "History always leaves a witness." We were all witnesses.
I lived near the Golden Gate Bridge at the time. The area around the monument went into lockdown. The F-14 military fighter jets flying overhead made a threat to our lives seem imminent.
As journalists, we make a living reporting other peoples' tragedies. Lost lives usually mean bigger ratings; 9/11 was no exception. Except it was our tragedy, too. There's a saying, "History always leaves a witness." We were all witnesses.
I lived near the Golden Gate Bridge at the time. The area around the monument went into lockdown. The F-14 military fighter jets flying overhead made a threat to our lives seem imminent.
Tears are of no use in the newsroom; mine would not stop. Only one other story had hit me so hard: the crash of TWA Flight 800.
I'd instantly felt the explosion that killed 380 people was not an accident...even before I learned that my friend, detective Sue Hill, was on board; we'd met years earlier working the same crime scenes.
No tributes mark the crash site of Flight 800. No monuments honor the victims. No one can prove whether a missile or mechanical failure brought down Sue's plane but I'm convinced these tragedies five years apart - on 7/17 and 9/11 - were somehow linked.
These lost lives remind us of the price we pay to live in a free country - by no means perfect, her leaders are often wrongly motivated; her people often selfish and arrogant. Yet, despite terrorism, catastrophe and war, her Light still shines. She still stands.
*"The Mysterious Death of Detective Sue Hill," The Rap Sheet, Nov 2005
http://www.portlandpoliceassociation.com/rsissues/Nov05Rap.pdf
No tributes mark the crash site of Flight 800. No monuments honor the victims. No one can prove whether a missile or mechanical failure brought down Sue's plane but I'm convinced these tragedies five years apart - on 7/17 and 9/11 - were somehow linked.
These lost lives remind us of the price we pay to live in a free country - by no means perfect, her leaders are often wrongly motivated; her people often selfish and arrogant. Yet, despite terrorism, catastrophe and war, her Light still shines. She still stands.
*"The Mysterious Death of Detective Sue Hill," The Rap Sheet, Nov 2005
http://www.portlandpoliceassociation.com/rsissues/Nov05Rap.pdf
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