Next year in 2011, a decade will have passed since Islam attacked the United States.

No one quite frames it that way, but I do.

For next year, I want to portray the Real Cost of 9/11.

I want to show what actually occurred.

You know and I know that there are photos of Americans who jumped from the twin WTC towers and then were crushed by gravity by their impact with the concrete.

There is not ONE photo, however, of which I am aware, portraying this.

Again, both you know and I know that those photographs exist. They were never revealed. Precisely because someone, somewhere, decided that it was best not to inflame Americans.

I will pay $500 dollars to the first person that will send to me, digitally, one photograph depicting the reality that occurred, on the ground, around the World Trade Center on 9/11 of 2001. Of the Americans that decided to jump to their deaths instead of facing burning, or worse, in the WTC towers.

I don’t need to know your name, your background, your history. I will credit or not credit you if you wish. I must, however, be able to verify your photograph in some fashion.

I want to see an American’s literal, actual, impact on concrete or steel. It pains me to write this, but the more graphic, the better.

Americans, in my opinion, need desperately to see this.

Nationally, we have a brain-glazingly short memory. Sometimes this is good; most times this is bad.

Please contact me, Bloviating Zeppelin, at: milepost154@yahoo.com.

Let me be blunt: I am soliciting a jpeg image of an American having impacted the ground around the World Trade Centers. It must be in focus. It must be graphic. I must accept it.

If I receive your image, you must understand that my sole and specific point is to publish your image on my blog. I shall give you credit or shield your name, however you wish.

I will respect your determination.

I merely seek to make this point: there was a Cost, on 9/11, that most Americans still do not recognize or understand.

BZ

1. Coke / Diet Coke — or Pepsi / Diet Pepsi?

BZ

Could the pandering of the Demorats for votes get any worse? Could they possibly be any more such abject apologists for Mexicans?

Did you even remotely envision YOUR country like this?

From the Washington Times:

By Jerry Seper and Matthew Cella

The Washington Times

8:58 p.m., Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.

The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.

They warn travelers that they are entering an “active drug and human smuggling area” and they may encounter “armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed.” Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to “use public lands north of Interstate 8” and to call 911 if they “see suspicious activity.”

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, whose county lies at the center of major drug and alien smuggling routes to Phoenix and cities east and west, attests to the violence. He said his deputies are outmanned and outgunned by drug traffickers in the rough-hewn desert stretches of his own county.

“Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona,” he said. “They literally have scouts on the high points in the mountains and in the hills and they literally control movement. They have radios, they have optics, they have night-vision goggles as good as anything law enforcement has.

“This is going on here in Arizona,” he said. “This is 70 to 80 miles from the border – 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in the United States.”

He said he asked the Obama administration for 3,000 National Guard soldiers to patrol the border, but what he got were 15 signs.

Your country is already turning portions of the United States over to Mexico.

This is not because we lack the technology or the personnel or the money.

It is solely because we lack the political DETERMINATION and the political WILL.

Thank you, Mr Obama. YOU are responsible.

BZ

Perhaps I should have made this known some time ago.

But for those who know me, this might explain a number of my quirks and tendencies.

In a nutshell: my senses are predominantly gone. And always have been gone.

1. Sight
I am mostly color blind. I passed various LE tests because I am clever. I am more clever than those who tested me and more devious and ingenious than the tests themselves. I know how to make distinguishing decisions. I know my colors. But I know them differently from you. I passed these tests in a Trifecta: on federal, state and local venues. Because I am that sharp. These tests make me larf to this day.

This tendency translates into color saturation. I don’t like photos they way I may have originally “seen” them — I make them translate into heavy colors. With some exceptions, I take the photos I post here and on my trainblog and then work them over in PhotoShop. I “sharpen” them and then I adjust their “saturation” UP. I like my colors VIVID. Back when I shot 35mm film, that’s why I predominantly shot Fuji Velvia.

2. Hearing
I not only worked in AM and FM radio for years, I also attended concerts from the Big Groups. I’ve seen concerts from Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, Yes, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Primus, Foghat, CCR, AC/DC, and hundreds of others. I wore headphones for many hours in radio and, further, attended these concerts where my ears were completely unprotected. The sharpest damage I believe I suffered was during a Rod Stewart concert at the Fillmore West. Ron Wood’s guitar was piercing because, after all, I was standing below his right side stacks. Tetsu Yamauichi also kicked my aural ass.

Today, I can hear sounds when they are isolated. When people speak in groups, in restaurants, in meetings, with other ambient noises, I am predominantly fucked. When I try to isolate conversations I am stifled. That’s just the way it is, with my history.

3. Taste
I haven’t possessed a sense of taste since 1968. I remember that I had some kind of flu that year. Since then, my “taster” has been flawed. If I want to “taste” something it has to be, literally, “over the top.” I have to experience massive amounts of sugar. I have to experience massive amounts of salt. I like to attend movies because I insist that my popcorn be saturated with “butter” and then I apply huge amounts of seasoning or salt.

I don’t have senses.

I am a living example of “over the top.”

BZ