9/11. 24 years later, I can't, don't, and won't forget.

I also find it difficult to keep talking about. Partly because of the subject matter. Partly because of the way some people politicise it. And partly because I did a lengthy post about it once:

The 9-11 jumpers; they didn't "jump"

This is an issue that isn't talked about a lot, because it's so unpleasant, and extremely emotional. It's about the people who supposedly "jumped" from the WTC towers before they collapsed.

So many in the media seemed to claim at the time that they were jumping out of "despair"; as if it were just an emotional response, a suicide choice; an act of will, that they could simply choose to do or not do.

That just seems like such an unfair judgment to me. I don't believe that most, if any, of those people "chose" to jump. I think SMOKE, HEAT and FLAMES simply FORCED them to their deaths by falling.

You can't "choose" whether or not you want to stand close to burning jet fuel; you simply can't. If there is nowhere safe to move away to, you move anyway. Just the smoke alone, making it impossible for you to even breath... if you were suffocating, what would you do for air?:

To call it jumping, like it was a choice, just seems wrong. When people went to work at the WTC that morning, they were not expecting to have to jump to their deaths. These poor souls did NOT choose this... [...]

If you follow the link to the rest of that post, it's filled with pictures of people jumping. I don't want to re-post them here. Some things get easier to deal with over time... for me, this is not one of them. That post also includes commentary about jumping, falling and suicide, and how those terms do and don't relate to what actually happened.

I don't post about it much anymore, because I eventually said all I had to say about it. Some people left some very thoughtful comments on that post; they understood what I was getting at. Many others left some really shitty, ugly, horrible comments that were sickening to read. I deleted all of those. And will continue to do so.

I used to have Site Meter on this blog, and for a long time it said that that particular post was more popular than any other blog post I've done. I've gotten rid of site meter since then, so I don't know if any or many see it anymore. I don't particularly care about being popular or having huge amounts of traffic to this blog.

I post what I care about, and things I've been reading about, and if it resonates with someone, fine. If it doesn't, fine, no one has to read it or like it. But I also am not obligated to post other peoples drek; they can make their own place to post that, I'm not interested in hosting it here.

But I still remember. The people who faced impossible choices. It can still make me cry. May they Rest In Peace. Condolences to their families.