So you know- no one's paying ME.

Note to the Speaker of the House:

Mrs. Pelosi,
I hear that you want to waste time and taxpayer dollars to find out who is "funding" the opposition to the mosque in NYC. Just wanted to assure you, no one is paying me. I am speaking out, free of charge, although if I can get paid for it, fool on me.

Just one question- is opposition against the law? And another question- is this not a free speech issue? You're really strong on that free speech stuff, at least when it comes to the rights of Muslims to practice their religion. Just saying.

Mrs. P, you and your colleagues have successfully abolished any mention of Christianity in public. Christmas has become a winter festival. Easter is a springtime celebration. Jesus' name and countenance have been ripped down or covered up so as to not cause offense. You've taken a line from the Federalist papers about separating church and state and ruthlessly excised Christianity from the public forum. Why are you showing favor to the religion of Islam? What happened to equal treatment under the law? Understand, I'm not asking that Islam be stripped from the public eye. I'd be happy to keep it out there, as long as Christianity is allowed to reappear.

I wonder if there would be howls of opposition from Congress if a Christian group wanted to build a church near Ground Zero. Oh wait- a Greek Orthodox church was destroyed when the twin towers fell on it. They've been seeking funding and aid to rebuild. They're not getting anywhere. Perhaps they should change their name to Cordoba Church.

It's More Than a Story

In November of 2001 I attended the wedding of one of my husband's colleagues. I was reluctant because I wouldn't know very many of the other guests, and because I heard that the people I did know were going to be seated at another table. As we took our seats and looked around at each other, the groom came to our table and introduced a gentleman who sat across the table. He was a thin man, dark haired, with huge dark circle beneath his eyes. He looked...beaten. Worn. He looked as if he hadn't slept in weeks. I could see that it was an effort for him to be around so many people. I'll call him, John, although that's not his real name. The groom said, "Donna, you and John should get along. You're both New Yorkers."

We began to talk about NY and as this was only 2 months after 9/11, the conversation naturally turned in that direction. Just like after Pres. Kennedy's assassination, it was common to ask where people were when they heard about the attacks. When I asked John he looked down, then up, and said, "I was in the first building that was hit." He worked in the WTC and was standing at the copy machine, getting ready to start copying notes for a meeting on the 12th (a meeting that the groom was to have attended). He said that in one second that was both incredibly long and incredibly short, the building leaned to one side and then snapped back, throwing him across the room and into a pile of fallen furniture and books. The noise, he said, was deafening. Destruction. Screams. Fire. Air rushing. Glass breaking. He could hardly breathe because the air was filled with dust and debris. He began helping his fellow office workers, digging them out of piles of rubble, bandaging injuries, finding water, comforting where he could.

Through it all, his boss was in communication with people outside the building. He didn't tell John or anyone else just how grave the situation was, just that an airplane had crashed into the building and that it was time for them to evacuate. The boss supervised as folks began heading for stairwells and exits and he encouraged them all, John included, to get down the stairs and get out of the building. He was going to go up a few floors to see if there was anyone who needed help. John argued with him for a few minutes but finally left, half-carrying a woman with terrible cuts on her legs.

It was a long trek down a stairwell that was dark and filled with choking dust and dirt. People streamed down the stairs; some were quiet, some were sobbing, others appeared calm but with an air of desperation. As they were going down they passed some of NY's finest police officers and fire fighters as they were heading up. John tried to ask them to look for his boss, but he knew even as he asked that the rescuers were looking for everyone, not just one person.

John said that as they approached the last couple of floors, the air pressure suddenly changed and the dust began moving very rapidly. There was an accompanying roar that was deafening. He says he doesn't remember much after that, just picking up his female colleague and running like hell. He barely made it out and away from the buidling as it collapsed behind him. He knew that his boss couldn't possibly be alive.

John spent that night in someone's apartment. After leaving his colleague with EMTs he began to walk, not even knowing why or where he was going. A kind stranger brought him into his apartment, gave him water and tried to convince him to go to a hospital. John was relatively uninjured, just some cuts and bruises from being thrown across the building, but his lungs were filled with dust and he was having trouble breathing. He eventually went to the hospital and spent a couple of days having his lungs treated.

When the politicians and the media moguls start to bloviate about "rights" and reconciliation and moderation, when they say there is nothing wrong with building a mosque so close to Ground Zero, when they say that America brought this on itself, I see John's face. I hear his rasping voice, damaged by all the garbage he breathed in that day. I see the dark circles, a result of not sleeping more than an hour or two at a time because he woke up in terror as he re-lived that day, night after night.

I don't know where John is now. But I will never forget him. Or that day.

Revelations

I've been working full-time for 8 years now- prior to that I was home, raising and home-schooling my kids and working part-time for my church. Before THAT I worked full and then part-time as a nurse at various places in Pittsburgh. In my adult life I have worked as an ICU nurse, a critical care float pool nurse, long-term care charge nurse, long-term care nursing supervisor, long-term care assistant director of nursing, director of wellness at a personal care home, vaccine research nurse, clinical documentation specialist, communications director at church (8 hours a week to do the weekly bulletin and prayer list), and an after-school program teacher.

I now find myself in a completely different industry. Talk about culture shock!!!! With the exception of the church jobs, all of my jobs have been in healthcare. I've worked in hospitals large and small, private nursing homes, county nursing homes, non-profits, for-profits, but always healthcare. I became accustomed to being treated a certain way by both supervisors and institutions and I accepted what some would consider abuse at the hands of co-workers and the afore-mentioned institutions. I have worked around people who use swear words as casually as regular, and people who don't respect you for your talent, experience, and/or education. And that applies to supervisors as well as co-workers.

I now work in a place where in the past two weeks, I have not heard a single swear word. I have not had anyone get in my face and tell me off. No one has threatened me in any way (you think that doesn't happen in the workplace? You'd be surprised. I once had a registered nurse threaten my life and job). I don't have to dodge cigarette smoke all day. The work environment is comfortable- good ambient temperature, nice office, lots of equipment. No one is watching and waiting for me to screw up. My brains and degrees are respected. One of the bosses asked if our operational chart could be made "more fun." No one is breathing down my neck and plotting behind my back. There is no gossip mill.

Is this the norm? I wouldn't know, because this is the first time I've worked in the private sector. My only reference point is my husband's office, which also seems like a pleasant place to work. How sad is it, that I had to move into a completely different field in order to feel appreciated by co-workers and supervisors?

NYers: Have You Lost Your Minds?

I'm writing as a NY native who watched the World Trade Centers being built, and then watched in horror as they fell to a terrorist attack. Losing those buildings meant something different to me- yes, I mourned the loss of the people inside. Yes, I know people who were in the buildings when they were hit. Yes, I was outraged by the entire attack. But there was something more personal to me. When I was a kid, we would take our houseboat up the Hudson River and watch the construction of the towers. Watching those buildings going up defined a part of my childhood. They were a part of my personal history. When they were destroyed, it destroyed a piece of me.

I heard today that Gov. Patterson is joining Mayor Bloomberg in support of building an Islamic mosque and center in a location just 200 yards from the site of ground zero. They blather endlessly about reconciliation and forgiveness, and not to tar all of Islam. Gentlemen- Have You Lost Your Minds? A mosque, a representation of Islam, does not belong anywhere near ground zero. Have you noticed that mosques are always built in areas of conquest? Please don't make ground zero a triumph of Islamic conquest!