Rant 2: The Best Tribute Isn't Even Being Considered

I absolutely DETEST the memorials considered finalists for the World Trade Center site. Has it been forgotten what the Twin Towers were?

They were selected by the terrorists for being symbols of capitalism. The Twin Towers were the defining skyscrapers in the defining skyline of the world's definitive financial center. To stand today at the Statue of Liberty and look across the River is to feel the void like a lost love as much to see the void.

There was a lot of talk in the days following the attacks that the American people must not allow the terrorists win, that we must proceed in the spirit of that hated capitalist mantra, 'business as usual'. How right that common wisdom was.

Well, THE TERRORISTS HAVE WON. It isn't that they ended business as usual. Thankfully, that has resumed. But the symbol of capitalism is gone and won't be replaced.

If I was in charge of the process, I would give the greatest tribute to those firefighters who ran up the stairs and to the people who perished while conducting business as usual. I would rebuild the Twin Towers IN EXACTLY THE SAME PLACES UPON WHICH THEY ONCE STOOD, with all dimensions exactly as before save one: the buildings would finish one story higher.

To let the terrorists know that they will not win, they must be given the symbolic 'fuck you' that they gave to the American Spirit. Raising the Twin Towers for all to see is the greatest pair of raised middle fingers the haters of America would ever see.

THAT would be the greatest tribute to those who died in the World Trade Center attacks. No candles or mirrors or list of names will EVER come close to honoring them as new Towers would.